Barracuda Read online

  “Are you O’Shaughnessy?” she almost growled.

  “I’m not sure if I want to be,” he responded, trying to joke with her.

  “Get on the minibus,” she directed. “This will take us to the dock and the boat that will take us to Shark Alley Island. Chuu will put your luggage on board.”

  Two minivans were parked at the curb, one from the Majestic Hotel and one from the Bikini resort. Micko showed his paperwork to the driver of the Majestic van while the others scrambled for seats on the small remaining van. The way it stood, Micko would ride alone in his van while the other divers would have to make two trips to the dock in their van.

  Looking at Tanya Micko asked, “How about transporting some of the Bikini resort people to the dock in this van?”

  “Absolutely not,” she coldly replied.

  Micko sat behind the driver and observed Tanya in the front passenger seat. She was as beautiful as a tropical sunrise but as cold as an ice cube. He noticed her high cheekbones and other obvious Slavic features. When they arrived at the dock Tanya exited the van first and talked into a cell phone, ordering the ferry to leave the Bikini Island dock and come pick them up at the Eneu Island dock, which was only large enough to accommodate one boat at a time, while Bikini’s could hold several in abeyance.

  “Do the others get on this boat, too?” Micko inquired.

  “No, they have their own boat,” she snapped.

  Tanya was a striking-looking woman, but also quite a bitch, Micko thought. When she walked away out of earshot, Micko asked the driver, “Why couldn’t we transport the others so they wouldn’t have to make two trips?”

  “Regulations.” Chuu was a short, older Japanese fellow with quirky eyebrows that made it look like he was perpetually laughing at the world.

  “I don’t understand,” Micko protested.

  “The Majuro Majestic has its own hotel, boats, vans, and workers; and the Bikini resort has theirs. Competition is fierce and unfriendly between the two.” The old man was a walking, talking paradox. He talked with disdain about the rival resort, but his happy eyebrows danced merrily.

  “Never mind then. How long for the boat to arrive?”

  “Very soon. Bikini is just about fifteen kilometers away.”

  Micko’s thoughts drifted back into self doubt about his mental and physical ability. He feared that he might panic while scuba diving, or his injured leg would be too weak to endure the rigors of the sport. The detective silently anguished over these taunting fears.

  6

  James was caught in a terrible current like a riptide that swept him away from the passage and the islands. He knew he was in trouble, and he slowly ascended until he reached the surface. Then he shot a few blasts of air into his BC vest and floated like he was wearing a life jacket. He was still being pulled into the open ocean, but not as fast as he had been when he was submerged.

  The rain was falling heavily, and it severely diminished his visibility. He spun around on the surface until he regained his bearings. He could see Enidrik Island and the gateway back into the lagoon, but he could not see the skiff or the professor. He figured that he was being swept west but had no idea what lay in that direction.

  James was an experienced diver, so he did not panic. Panicking was the kiss of death. Instead, he slowly turned on the surface and searched for land in the direction that he was being veered. The visibility was too poor to see more than a quarter of a mile. He decided that he might as well conserve his energy and just float until Dr. Collins drove the skiff to find him. In the unlikely event that the professor could not locate him, he would just float aimlessly until the doctor returned with a search party. It wouldn’t be hard to locate him. All they had to do was follow the current.

  James remained calm and drank as much of the rain as he could. He knew he would need to keep hydrated, and if he had a long wait and caught a chill, he could always urinate into this dive skin. It wasn’t a pleasant thing to do, but it would warm him.

  Suddenly, Dr. Collins in his scuba gear popped up in front of James and scared ten years off his life. This was the last thing he had expected to happen.

  “Professor, where the hell is our boat?” James shouted over the wind.

  “It’s gone! It’s gone!”

  “How could it be gone? I secured it tightly.”

  “Someone cut the anchor line! Someone cut the anchor line!”

  James took a deep breath. “Relax, Dr. Two-Times, and let’s work this out.”

  He swam close to the professor and secured their two BC vests so they would float securely together. “Now tell me about the anchor line being cut,” he said.

  “When I saw the current pull you from the rocks, I knew that getting to the boat was our only hope. I searched frantically for the line and finally spotted it. It was flapping like a flag in the current just a few inches off the lagoon bottom. I swam to it and saw that it was still connected to the anchor, but the end leading to the skiff was frayed. Nylon rope does not fray or break! It was cut on purpose. I guess we know what kind of people would do such a thing.”

  “Do you think this has anything to do with the ledger?” James asked slowly.

  “Dead men tell no tales, nor do they report money laundering,” the doctor returned.

  “We are not going to be dead men, but we may be out here for a while. Fishermen won’t go out in weather like this, but on the bright side, these tropical storms usually don’t last long,” James wished aloud.

  “I wonder if the fishermen even come out this far,” Dr. Collins pondered. “They really don’t have any reason to because the lagoon is chock full of tasty fish.”

  James was trying not to think of this too much. “Both resorts have sport fishing boats, and they must go out beyond the atoll, but where will they go today? Are they even booked for today?”

  The scientists kept each other calm as the storm intensified and the sea hammered them with massive waves. Soon the professor began to show signs of seasickness from the constant rolling up and down and side to side. James worried that if Dr. Collins upchucked, he could become severely dehydrated. Fish food was the unfortunate result of heaving in the water, and James was afraid of attracting fish to their predicament. Little fish get eaten by bigger fish, and so on.

  ***

  “Is the Bible safe?” Andrej asked.

  “Yes,” Disco answered.

  “Were there any complications?’

  “No, Boss. It was an easy job. They decided to dive in that dangerous section between Enidrik Island and the Aerokoj-Eneman chain. We waited until they dove and left their boat unattended, and then we pulled up next to the skiff and cut the anchor line. Nike drove their boat to the mooring line of the Apogon and sank it. By the time anyone locates the sunken skiff, it will be assumed that the men perished in the storm.”

  “Where are they now?”

  “If the current didn’t bash them to pieces in the passageway rocks, they were pulled out into the ocean. There’s nothing out there for a hundred miles, so they won’t survive. If the sharks don’t get them, the sun will. They won’t last for two days without water, and there is no boat traffic in that direction. They’re done for, Boss.”

  “The Americans have a saying about Murphy’s Law,” Andrej warned. “What if they are found alive?”

  “Then it was merely an unfortunate accident,” Disco answered, “and it cannot be traced back to us. They failed to properly secure their anchor and it pulled free during a terrible storm. The skiff sank, and they drifted out to sea with the tide—nature at its worst.”

  Andrej liked it. It seemed like a win-win situation. He no longer had to worry about his head being on the chopping block for allowing outsiders to see the ledger of illicit activity. But his equanimity didn’t last long as he had a tremulous thought. “Did they make any phone calls last night?” he asked in sudden hysteria. “What if they reported what they had seen?”

  Disco called the receptionist, who brought up the scien
tist’s rooms on her computer. They had made only one call to New York, which lasted one hour and seven minutes, she reported.

  Disco looked at Andrej and shrugged. There was no way of knowing what that conversation had been about.

  This was only the beginning of Andrej’s paranoia.

  ***

  Dr. Collins did get seasick, and the results attracted many fish; but the remains scattered quickly because the seas were so rough. It was a roller coaster ride throughout the night. The men were lifted high into the air before sliding down the trough of the wave. Another wave would crash over their heads, and then they would be lifted again and the roller coaster repeated itself. It was exhausting being continuously battered by the waves. The professor was so ill, and James was unable to talk reassuringly to him without getting a lungful of burning salt water. The situation was grave, but James knew that if they made it through the night, they would be all right.

  The professor was so weak from the reckless waves that he actually fell asleep in the pounding surf. James kept Collins’s head above water as he fought to survive for the two of them, but hunger, thirst, and exhaustion caused him to become delirious. He kept seeing the dorsal fins of man-eating oceanic sharks—but that was impossible. Sharks were not so dumb as to ride such a roller coaster. They were in the calm depths, searching for food. Nevertheless, James’s hallucination made him believe that he was floating with the survivors of the USS Indianapolis. His delusion seemed so real that he actually heard men being attacked by sharks and shrieking in pain while others were wailing in hopelessness.

  He didn’t know how long his dementia had lasted, but it passed with the sounds of waves crashing on land. At first, he thought it was another hallucination, but he finally realized that they were being pushed toward a land mass. He woke the doctor and they swam toward the black silhouette, moving with renewed vigor as they realized that land meant life. The closer they got, however, the more they recognized that this was nothing more than a small outcropping in the middle of the ocean; but it was a dry haven, and they couldn’t afford to be pushed past it.

  “Kick, Professor! You must kick or we will be dragged beyond it!” James commanded.

  “It’s Coney Island! Coney Island!” the delirious scholar proclaimed.

  James kicked as hard as he could and pulled the professor in the direction of the small island. He was nearly spent as he dragged Dr. Collins onto the small sandy shore, unbuckled their BC vests, and let the scuba units fall to the ground. Now that he was more mobile, he pulled the doctor to dry land. Then he fell in a heap onto his back and stared up into the jet-black heavens. “No stars tonight,” he muttered before thanking God for saving them.

  Dr. Collins kept repeating, “Coney Island! Coney Island!”

  Rolling over onto his stomach to look at his deranged friend, James suddenly burst out laughing. This small, low-lying piece of land had one tree on the far end that, when silhouetted against the dark sky, resembled the famous parachute ride at Coney Island Amusement Park.

  James hugged his scientist pal and laughed heartily as the wind and rain buffeted them in the open sand. He looked for some kind of shelter, but there was just the one tree. No boulders, hills, or bushes—just the parachute jump.

  “C’mon, Professor. Let’s walk to the other end of Coney Island,” James said with a laugh as he removed the rest of the doctor’s gear. He dropped his own remaining gear and easily dragged the doctor to what he could now make out as a palm tree. As they got closer, James realized with surprise that there was a small shack directly next to the palm tree. He pushed open the door to the fishmonger hut and breathed a sigh of relief. It was dry and warm inside compared to the beating they were taking outside from the wind and relentless rain that stung their faces. The two fell in a pile and slept like never before. Word War III would not have woken them, as the wind outside howled like a thousand whirling dervishes.

  ***

  A few days had passed since the sinking of the scientists’ skiff, and Andrej was driving everyone nuts with his paranoia. He thought the scholars might have notified the F.B.I. in New York. He speculated whether the new tourists at the Majestic were cops. He feared that the organization was out for his head, and he saw assassins sitting on every barstool.

  The last straw came when the papers arrived for a tourist who was to get VIP treatment. The travel agent had connections, and the VIP tourist was a New York City police detective. Andrej was in a state of hysteria. He was convinced this cop was a spy out to gather the goods on him.

  “Tanya! Tanya, where the hell are you?”

  “I’m right here, Andrej. What’s the matter?”

  “I want you to check out this cop who’s coming tomorrow. Find out if he’s on a missing persons’ case involving the scientists or if he’s investigating me. Then figure out how we can get rid of him.”

  “Andrej, we can’t off a cop without the law breathing down our necks,” she cried.

  “If he finds out about the Bible or any of our illegal activities, we are just as good as dead anyway. The organization will make an example out of us. Besides, scuba diving in these treacherous waters can be quite dangerous,” Andrej insisted.

  “How will I find out why he’s here?”

  “Make some phone calls to our associates in New York, and have all this cop’s telephone calls monitored.”

  ***

  “Okay, Rambo, let’s go,” Bill ordered.

  “First the money,” Rambo answered. He was a resident Bikinian who owned his own twenty-foot skiff and earned money as a fisherman and part-time handyman. His real name was Ramon, but since he fancied wearing bandanas on his forehead, his friends called him Rambo. He was not quite comfortable with the peculiar brothers, but he needed the cash. He was a young man with a wife and two small children, and he recently had to have his boat’s outboard motor overhauled.

  “Here’s the fifty we agreed upon,” Bill returned. He turned to his brother. “Do you have all your gear aboard?”

  “All set, Billy.”

  “All right, Rambo. Take us out to the Saratoga, but come about from the east and let the Lily I pass us from a distance,” Bill directed.

  Bill and Bob had already informed Steve that they were tired and would not dive on their last day at the Majestic. Steve had been silently relieved and took the rest of the divers on a morning dive on the stern section of the USS Saratoga.

  Bill’s plan was to wait until the Lily I brought the divers back from the Saratoga. Then Rambo would motorboat them to the carrier. The brothers would pry open the hatchway cover, hide the bandanas, search for artifacts, and then depart with no one the wiser. Then they would go back, pack their bags, and get transportation to the Bikini resort to meet the Renegade Dive Club the next day. There would be no more Steve to worry about because they would be diving with a completely different resort. The hatch would already be off, and no one could stop them from penetrating the wreck.

  The ride to the Saratoga was quiet. Rambo nervously scanned the horizon for other boats that might become aware of their scheme as he drove the boat to the surface mooring ball and the brothers tied onto it. Bill and Bob were gearing up when Rambo noticed the mesh goody bag filled with Renegade bandanas. They were black and white with a scull and crossbones and the Renegade name printed in red flames. He couldn’t resist slipping one out of the bag and into his pocket.

  “Okay, Bob, you in first,” Bill yelled.

  “Remember to do a no deco dive. I have no oxygen tanks for decompression,” Rambo stated.

  “We know. We will dive a no deco profile by our computers. It’ll probably be only a fifteen-minute dive because of the depth. If we have enough air left over, we will do a long hang at fifteen feet.”

  Bob plopped into the water, gave the diver okay signal, and waited for his brother to hand him the crowbar and the goody bag. Bill was soon bobbing in the water next to his brother. He clipped the mesh goody bag to his weight belt D-ring. Then he took the crowbar
and slipped it between the Velcro of his BC vest waist cinch. The brothers swam on the surface to the mooring ball and held on.

  “Listen to me, Bob. We follow the mooring line down to the bow of the carrier and then continue over to the side of the flight deck and down to the hatch. I’ll place the crowbar at one of the hinges, and we will both try to pry the hatch off. When the hatch falls off, tie your wreck line to an exterior part of the ship, and I will lead the way. I’ll dive deep into the wreck with you following me and letting out line. I’ll hide the bandanas, and then you turn around and reel us out. We swim up to the flight deck and check our computers before we begin our ascent. It’s a no-brainer!”

  Bob nodded in acknowledgment, and Bill gave him the divers down signal. The pair expelled air from their BC vests and slowly descended in a heads-up position until they reached a depth of ten feet. Bill then jackknifed and swam headfirst down the mooring line with Bob following.

  The fish life was abundant and diminished visibility, as schools of fish danced across the deck of the USS Saratoga. Their shiny undersides reflected light like a disco ball and distracted Bill as he fell into the depths. Soon he landed on the 880-foot flight deck and waited for Bob to join him. The fish ballet was mesmerizing, thousands of baitfish moving as one huge creature. The fish ball swam into the shadows, and the light show ended. When it swam back into the sunlight, it resembled a million shooting stars.

  Bill had to close his eyes and shake his head. Am I getting narced? he wondered. When he opened his eyes, Bob was in front of him, giving him the diver okay signal, which Bill returned. Over the side of the ship they went and onward down to the hatch. The fish life there was scarce. Soft coral adorned the carrier at this depth while the fish preferred the dance hall above.

  Bill pulled the tool from his waistband and immediately attacked the hatch cover. Both brothers were astonished at how easily it released its fifty-year death grip on the ship, springing off in a cloud of rust on the first attempt before falling into the depths. The startled brothers were hypnotized as they watched it cartwheel far below, kicking up another cloud of white sand this time.