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and he would be crushed beneath it. But the current leading down into the
abyss was sudden death.
He wondered if that was why he had been sent to scout the far side of the hull
rather than merely because of the increased capacity of his tanks.
But Culhane dismissed the idea. Burroughs wouldn't kill because of his wife's
desire to get someone besides her husband into her pants. If Burroughs did, he
would be a mass murderer.
Culhane kept going, continuing his reasoning to avoid thinking about the tons
of wrecked freighter that at any second could crush him downward into a smear
of flesh and wet suit and mangled steel. He kept moving, kept thinking. He was
letting his imagination get away with him; it was a writer's occupational
hazard. If you wrote espionage, you saw intrigue in everything. If you wrote
mysteries, everyone was a potential cold-blooded murderer.
He shook his head and glanced at his pressure gauge. He was fine. He shook his
head again
"Nitrogen narcosis," he murmured into his mouthpiece. But at only one hundred
feet, there had to be a reason for it. He laughed a little but still worked
his way ahead. Fear. Perhaps the fear of the abyss when he had been sucked in
by the current.
He stopped. He held on to the underside of the hull and to the rocks against
which the hull was wedged. There was one sure remedy for it. He tried
remembering what it was. He laughed at himself.
There were ladder rungs ahead and Culhane started for them, finally
remembering. Ascend.
He started up the ladder rungs, the current tugging at his back. He thought
about the current and laughed, saying into his mouthpiece, "Not gonna get me!"
He kept moving. To ascend would reduce the level of nitrogen in his blood and
sober him up.
Culhane made a mental note to quit smoking for a week before his next major
dive. Maybe that would help.
He could see the outline of the ship's rail above him now. He grabbed at it,
half climbing, half swimming over it, then he pushed himself off, swimming
upward. For some reason he checked his time. He still had ten minutes to go
before he had to start up for real.
He kept ascending and could faintly see the shapes of Jake Burroughs and
Melissa Burroughs beside the hole in the hull.
Culhane studied his watch face as he ascended, forcing his brain to work.
E = MC2 but what does it really mean, he wondered. Energy expressed in units
called ergs is equal to the sum of the mass of an object multiplied by the
speed of light squared. Aw, boy.
He stopped his ascent at seventy-five feet or so and realized he'd been
breathing rapidly.
Culhane forced himself to be calm.
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"Calm," he said into his mouthpiece. He found his light on his lanyard and
turned it on, aiming it into the distance. There was something moving. Maybe a
shark. He hoped it wasn't a shark. He'd done a stint in a shark cage once, and
it had been an unnerving experience, especially after the shark had nearly
eaten half the cage and him with it.
Killer whales, he thought, because whatever it was it was a school of them,
and killer whales traveled in packs when they hunted. They rarely if ever
attacked man.
He told himself to relax, the effects of the excess nitrogen clearing now. He
ran the eights through his head. "Eight times nine is seventy-two. Eight times
seven is fifty-six. Eight times "
Men.
They were men moving through the water, and what had not happened when the
current had sucked at him happened now. He could almost physically feel it.
Adrenaline.
It was flowing now, his head clearing almost instantly.
Men maybe a dozen of them. Black wet suits. Spear guns. Some type of
underwater shuttle but really large.
Culhane shook his head one more time.
He started down, slamming his flashlight against his air tank to try and
attract Burroughs's attention.
Melissa Burroughs in her hot-pink wet suit was turning around. Culhane whipped
his light to his left toward the divers, toward the shuttle. She waved back at
him. Culhane tapped at the tank again with his light.
He looked left. The divers were angling down toward the wreck of the
freighter, the diffused light from their shuttle casting a gray wash on the
water ahead.
Culhane exhaled into his mask, evacuating more of the water he had let it
partially fill with earlier. He swam toward Jake and Melissa Burroughs at full
speed.
Russian freighter. Russian divers. "Shit," he snarled into his mouthpiece.
Burroughs was turning around now from the hole in the freighter's hull. He'd
seen the Russian divers, too. Burroughs treaded water as he snatched his
massive diving knife from the sheath on his right leg.
Culhane decided that was a good idea. It wasn't really a good idea, but it was
better than nothing.
Culhane shifted the flashlight's lanyard to his left wrist, snatching his
Tekna knife, the sheath that was integral with his compass, depth gauge,
pressure gauge and digital dive timer.
It was a small knife, about the size of a good boot knife. But it felt right
through the reef glove that covered his right hand.
One of the spear guns fired, just missing Melissa Burroughs. Jake Burroughs
picked up the spear that had bounced off the hull, holding it in his left hand
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and the knife in his right as the divers approached.
Culhane closed with the lead divers at the same time, grabbing at the nearest
Russian's air hose and hacking it with one of the serrated upper edges of the
knife. In a flurry of air bubbles, Culhane's right foot pushed the diver away,
and he slashed his knife across the man's chest, his left hand ripping away
the face mask. Blood filled the water.
A cloud of darker water.
Culhane twisted left, one of the Russian divers coming for him, a spear gun
firing with a whoosh and a trail of bubbles, the spear passing inches from his
head. Culhane threw himself forward against the man, the diving knife in
Culhane's right fist pumping into the diver's abdomen, then back out, then in
again. Culhane pushed the body clear.
Melissa Burroughs's body contorted and slammed against the hull of the
freighter. A spear was protruding from her abdomen now, dark reddish-black
streaks washing across the hot-pink wet suit, the cloud all but obscuring her
as it grew and grew.
Jake Burroughs was using his knife well, one diver then another floating away
from him as he fought his way toward his wife.
Culhane felt something slam against him, and he was pitched forward. His right
shoulder hit the sand at the base of the hull, a cloud of sediment rising
around him.
He looked up. There was a flash of bright light and Culhane's ears suddenly
ached with the sound waves. Something huge and dark was drifting downward.
A shape shot past his face: a shark. Its length was about eight feet, and
suddenly it and Melissa Burroughs seemed one, and then as quickly they were
separated and the bottom half of her body was gone, one leg floating upward, a
cloud of blackness enveloping Culhane and he wanted to retch.
Another of the Russian divers swam toward him, and Culhane stabbed the man in
the left side of the neck, using the diving knife like a rapier. There was
another cloud of blood and Culhane pulled back. The dark shape drifting down
from above was uncomfortably close and he knew what it was.
Seacutter and she was down.
Burroughs was beside him treading water, his face turned toward his dead and
mutilated wife.
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