The Black Bullet

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Nick Cronus stood near his boat’s bowsprit as clouds parted and a near full moon rose above the dark ocean. He watched O’Brien in the bridge read the GPS and slowly bring the boat somewhere over the lost submarine. “Drop it!” yelled O’Brien above the throttle of the diesels. Nick pressed a button on the deck, and the anchor slid into the inky water.

O’Brien cut the engines and climbed down to the cockpit. The boat rocked gently on the surface, the slap of waves lapping against the hull, the stars like twinkling ornaments in the sky. O’Brien pulled out the SCUBA tanks, fins, knives, wetsuits, and underwater flashlights.

Nick got a spear gun from the salon. “Might need this down there.”

“What do you think you’re going to shoot?”

“Hope I don’t have to shoot a shark. You can get great whites out here. Tiger sharks. This is the freakin’ Gulf Stream, a flowing smorgasbord for things to eat things.”

“Let’s hope they’ve all eaten and gone to sleep it off?”

“Sharks don’t sleep at night. They eat at night. I’m not gonna be their meal.”

“You don’t have to go down there, you know.”

“If I don’t, who will? Jason? That kid would go just to say he’d gone, but he’d suck up so much air outta the tank seeing those skeletons he’d be no help. If he saw a shark swim through the light beam, bet he’d panic and pop to the top. He’d die from the bends.”

“I’m glad you’re here, Nick. I mean that.”

“I’m not out here ‘cause I’m still payin’ you back for pulling those three bikers off me. But when a man saves another man’s life … well, that kinda friendship is about as deep as you can get. You know?”

“I know. I just don’t want you to think you owe me something. You don’t.”

Nick grinned. “Let’s dive, brother!” He strapped on his tank, braced himself against the transom to slip the fins on his feet and shook his head. “Did I ever tell you what happened to me one night off Cedar Key?”

“No.”

“One time, ‘bout an hour before sunset, I was diving off Cedar Key, more than one hundred feet down. Found a lot of sponges. I stayed down too long. Come up too fast. Got back on my boat. Dropped the anchor and started fixing dinner. Looked at my chest, stomach, and I was getting blue spots all over. Felt weak. Dizzy. I knew I’d got hit, you know, the bends. Couldn’t get to a hospital for decompression. The old Greek way is to go back down, at least thirty-three feet … just hang there on the anchor rope ‘till the nitrogen is outta the system. Maybe an hour. So, that’s what I did.”

“Looks like it worked, you’re here.”

“Yeah man, but as I was floatin’ on my back like an astronaut in space, I see nothing but the lights from my boat above me. Then the lights went dark. Like a blanket was tossed over them. Know why?”

“Generator quit?”

“No. A huge shark was between me and the lights. Then it circled me, round and round. From dark to light to dark. I’ve never been so damn scared in my life.” Nick held up the spear gun. “But I had one of these. When the beast from hell opened his mouth to try and take off my leg, I say a quick prayer, stick this spear down his throat, and pulled the trigger. This saved my life that night, Sean. Could save ours tonight.”

O’Brien tossed a knife in a sheath to Nick. “Wear this on your belt in case you miss with the spear.”

“I won’t miss close. And sharks are only dangerous when they’re close.”

“Where’s your extra rope?”

“Storage bin behind you.” Nick pointed.

O’Brien opened the bin on the cockpit and pulled out rope, arranging it in a neat figure-eight loop that would allow for it to easily slide into the sea without becoming knotted. As he reached in to tie off the remaining few feet, he noticed something about the size of a small hockey puck. Black. Stuck on the side wall of the compartment. “Nick, shine one of the lights over here.”

Nick clicked on one of the flashlights, the beam falling on the object. “What the hell’s that?”

“O’Brien carefully removed the object and studied it in the light. “It’s a GPS transponder, Nick. Somebody knows we’re out here.”

“This is my boat! Not Jupiter. How the hell do they know?”

“Because they’re good, damn good. Turn off the light.”

Nick shut off the light and looked in a 360 circle. Nothing. Miles of dark sea and silence. “Who put that there, Sean?”

“I don’t know.”

“We’re way the hell out in this big ocean, and now I feel like we’re not alone.”

O’Brien scanned the horizon, the reflection of the moon on the water as clouds parted. “I don’t see another boat in site. If they’re coming, they could be running with lights out. Let’s beat the bastards. There may be no time for a two-tank dive. I just hope whoever put this here doesn’t surprise us when we come back to the surface.”