The Danger

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

“Say something, Marina. We know you can hear us!”

The weary voice of Tad Cutter echoed inside the sealed environment of the one-atmosphere suit. Marina continued to ignore him, scanning the darkness for a sign of the missing intern. What was there to talk about, after all?

She wondered how her two partners had learned that she had been behind the sabotage of Deep Scout. It didn’t matter. They had already ratted her out to English’s crew. Which meant that the partnership was at an end.

Unease began to seep into her usual confidence. This was not going the way she’d planned it. She’s lost the gold bar, the proof of their find. The lift basket was out of reach, and English had destroyed Tin Man’s lighting array. Now she was working blind.

“Give it up,” Cutter pleaded. “You’ve already gotten us mixed up in one murder.”

The words were out before she could hold them back. “Do you really believe I thought somebody was going to get killed? All I wanted to do was flub the dive!”

“But why?”

“Because we were losing!” she raged. “We’re still losing! To a bunch of snot-nosed kids!”

“It’s just money, Marina. It isn’t worth people’s lives.”

“It’s a billion dollars!” she shot back. “It’s worth anything!”

Inside the armored suit, she stiffened like a pointer. There in the black void of the deep ocean, a faint light flickered.

The missing intern.

The plan came together in her mind. She would trade this teenager for the bar of gold English had taken from her. It wasn’t too late! She could claim this treasure yet.

As her finger operated the miniature controls for Tin Man’s thrusters, Tad was still raving about how it was all over, and she should give herself up.

She cut the comm. link. He had nothing to say anymore that would interest her.

Kaz came awake, shivering with cold. He remembered the altercation with Marina in Tin Man, recalled clearly the savage blow she had dealt him.

But why am I freezing to death?

He wriggled within his dry suit and felt no warmth from the hot-water tubes that crisscrossed the fabric. The hit he had taken must have damaged the heating hose in his umbilical.

What about communications?

“English?” he ventured. “Guys? Topside?”

No answer. Comms. were out, too.

With awareness, fear also returned. He could see nothing in the inky sea except for the bell, hanging in a corona of light. There was no sign of the others. Were they waiting in the pot or out looking for him? And Marina? Had she gotten away with that gold bar?

He panned the sea with his light, but the small torch barely made a dent in the blackness.

Then the glowing bell disappeared, and the huge dark shape of Tin Man loomed over him, claws reaching.

He fled right out of his weighted boots, leaving them rooted in the mud. As he swam, he realized with a sinking heart that he would never outrun Tin Man’s thrusters. He needed a hiding place. But where?

He was nearing the point where the shelf ended, and the ocean floor sheered up into the slope that marked the edge of the Hidden Shoals. He was just about to douse his torch and try to lose himself in the darkness when he spotted it — a large gash in the joint formed where the ledge met the grade. Switching off his light, he kicked his way inside.

The darkness was total, almost choking him. The terror of the moment was truly paralyzing, for he knew that he would never see Tin Man’s powerful pincers. He would not realize the hunter was near until he was already taken.

There he cowered, hugging the mud bottom for any trace of warmth, listening to the chattering of his teeth and — another sound. Was it the whir of Tin Man’s thrusters? No, it didn’t seem to be mechanical. It was more like a low, steady gurgling.

What could it be? There’s nothing down here!

After what seemed like an eternity, he worked up his courage and switched on his torch.

What he saw turned his limbs to lead and brought him to his knees in the sand. The opening in the sea floor formed a large grotto with a silt bottom and a rocky ceiling. The gurgling turned out to be an underwater vent that sent an explosion of bubbles coursing through the cave. But it was not this natural phenomenon that churned his stomach to Cool Whip.

It was the sharks.