Surface Tension - Kling Christine - Страница 65
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to be straining, trying to pull something out of the hole he was creating.
The barracuda cruised down for a closer look, attracted by the sudden movement in the water.
Down in the murky water, Neal was slowly surrounded by floating shapes. For a moment, I thought it was a school of fish swimming out the forward hold, like the blue tangs that travel in schools so thick they can cast a single dark shadow on the bottom. But these shadows moved too slowly for fish. And there were hundreds, thousands of them, waving in the current like gentle sea fans. Neal swam out and grabbed one, then another, and another. He stuffed them into his trunks. They were bills.
At that moment, I noticed a string of bubbles rising off the port side of the ship, headed toward the bow. James. His dark head appeared over the bulwark, and he paused to watch for a moment as Neal worked both hands down in the forward hold. Neal was so intent on his work, plucking the bills like fruit from the sea, that he didn’t spot James rising over the ship’s gunwale behind him.
I’d already thought Neal was dead once. I’d loved him, mourned him, and almost been killed by him, but I couldn’t sit back and watch him be murdered.
I started hyperventilating, puffing, blowing, in, out, super-oxygenating my system for a long free dive. Neither man had seen me yet. Divers often don’t look up. I sucked in air until my lungs ached, and I was so dizzy I nearly passed out. Then I dove.
They were below me, moving in slow motion, one man gliding up behind the other with a fluid, graceful movement, wrapping his arms around the other like a ballet dancer hoisting his partner into the air. James held Neal from behind, sliding his arm around Neal’s neck.
Neal’s legs splayed, his fists beating on James’s arm and head and body, but the bicep crushing his air supply held firm. James’s head was cocked to one side, and even though I could not see his face, I knew the smile that danced around his eyes.
Ely. God knew how many others. Not Neal.
The borrowed fins flapped loosely on my feet as I kicked and stroked and pulled deeper, faster. As I approached the two struggling men, I swam through the school of money, surprised at the coolness of the paper as I pushed aside the bills with each stroke. Swimming up behind James, I grabbed his air hose, braced my shoulder against his tank, and yanked with all my strength. The regulator pulled free, waving through the water like a dancing serpent, spewing silvery bubbles. His head jerked around as I kicked to distance myself from him. Neal swam off as James grabbed my leg with one hand and with the other reached around for the life-giving hose. I kicked and struggled, but his grip only tightened around my ankle. I had to get to the surface. James pulled me toward him by the leg, grabbing my knee, then my thigh, reeling me in. He clamped his arm around my waist like a metal bar the strength of his embrace so unyielding that my body went limp with fear. His fingers clamped around my throat.
Neither of us had a regulator; neither would last much longer without one.
This was where I would die, drowning, like my mother, I thought. After all these years of being so angry, angry at her, angry at myself, I now saw it differently. I felt sleepy. It would be nice to sleep for a long time. I even thought for a moment that I saw my mother, a shadowy presence swimming out of the darkness to welcome me. My body relaxed, and James let go of my throat to reach back for the regulator. Let him have it, I thought, let me sleep.
Suddenly James jerked and arched his back, squeezing my abdomen. I tried to hold on to what air I had, but bubbles trickled out of my mouth. The faceplate on my mask seemed to be shrinking, the blackness closing in. The water was growing even more murky, with inky trails of darkness, and his arm still encircled me, squeezing away my life like a giant squid. My own arm reached back, more from reflex than thought, to fight, to deliver one last blow, and my elbow hit cold steel projecting out from James’s left side.
It wasn’t ink. It was blood, and James Long was pulling me down, wouldn’t let go, and I knew for certain then I was going to die there with him in that sea of blood and money.
Out of the darkness a hand grabbed my face, pried open my mouth, and inserted a regulator. From years of dive training, I blew out the salt water before I inhaled the cold, sweet air. Neal’s eyes behind the glass of his faceplate peered into mine, checking to see if I was conscious. I stared back and blinked several times, trying to say thank you with my eyes.
Then I heard the muffled whoof, felt the concussion through the water and saw his face jerk and the light go out in those familiar blue eyes as his body convulsed from the blast of the bang stick. I screamed into the regulator as his face disappeared into the dusky crimson water.
XXIX
Whether I lost consciousness or simply went to some deep, dark place inside me, I don’t know, but eventually, I became aware that the grip around my waist had loosened. I pushed the arm aside and slid out of James’s grasp. Through the cloudy water I could make out the rest of his body, resting on the deck of the Bahama Belle, his arms floating upward, head slumped forward, looking more like a resting marionette than a dead man. He would not have liked this pose. Tiny silvery fish darted in, pecking at the ragged flesh on his side. Blood continued to spiral from the wound. I fought down the urge to vomit. I was still breathing off the regulator attached to the tank on his back, and now that I was loose from his grip, I had to hang on to his backpack to keep from floating to the surface.
I heard the sound of an engine and propellers through the water. Above, the shadow of a larger hull was pulling alongside the Gorda. It had to be the Hard Bottom, with Zeke and Crystal. They would surely have dive gear aboard and be ready to splash over the side at any moment. The currents were carrying off the blood in the water around me, and I could see more clearly. Neal’s body was gone—drifted off or perhaps snagged somewhere on the ship out of sight. Bills continued to waft out of the anchor hold. The water all around me was littered with money.
The early morning rays of sunlight slanted down toward the depths, toward the millions of live creatures, plankton, and single-celled animals that swam in the shafts of sun. It was so peaceful down here beneath the taut dome that separated the worlds of water and air. A part of me still didn’t want to return to the surface.
A shadow rising over the Bahama Belle caught my attention. At first I thought it might be Neal. Then it passed behind the bridge, and when it emerged on the other side, I recognized the thick-bodied profile of a bull shark. This one was an old fish, his body mottled, pockmarked, and scarred from battles, yet swimming effortlessly. A short, stocky shark, his form dense with pure muscle, he seemed to assert his dominance by actually passing through the bridge deck. They were nasty predators—I’d seen what a bull shark had done once to a wounded baby manatee that washed ashore on the beach off Lauderdale. Today there had been enough blood in the water to attract dozens of them. I could tell from the angle of his fins that he was agitated and excited.
I unlatched the bottle of air from James’s backpack, tucked it under my arm, and began swimming across the bottom, in the direction of the tug’s stern, slowly rising toward the surface. I hoped that what was left of James would be enough to keep the shark’s attention focused below.
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