The Deep

XI

When he had secured the boat to the dock, Treece shut off the engine. Above the low murmur of wind they could hear the distant bleat of several taxi horns, apparently stationed at intervals around the island. The horns were blown in staccato bursts, with no rhythm or organization. Treece frowned. “What the hell is he up to now?”

“He?” Sanders said. “That’s Cloche? Those taxis?”

“Aye. There are no cabs on St. David’s. He’s making bush again.”

A shiver touched Sanders” spine. “I’ve about had it. I hope he’s not going to try anything more tonight.”

“If he was, you wouldn’t think he’d announce it.

Besides, what’s he think he’ll get from another visit? He doesn’t know anything about the cave, and he’s not fool enough to believe he can make us tell him.”

“Then why…?”

“I don’t know. He’s saying something, that’s for sure. If I had to guess, he’s spooking the Islanders, telling ’em to stay indoors-all bush.

But you’re right: If he’s doing that, it’d seem he’s planning to pay us a visit.”

Treece snapped his fingers at the dog and pointed to the path. “Well, whatever. I’ll go get a couple of Kevin’s cannons and fix him a royal welcome. Too bad we lost that shotgun. It was a fine people-eater.”

There was no rebuke in Treece’s voice, so all Sanders said was “Yeah.”

Treece started up the path after the dog, with the Sanderses following. “Any weapon’s only as good as the man using it,” Treece said, “and a good man can make a good weapon out of most anything. Ever kill a man with a knife?”

“Me?” Sanders said. “No.”

“There’s right ways and wrong ways. Most knives have three elements to ’em: the point, the sharp side, and the dull side. Depending on what you want to do to the fellow…”

Bringing up the rear, Gail tried to block out the conversation ahead of her. It was all becoming unreal, inhuman… terrifying. It seemed that a new Treece was speaking now-not a wounded man or a compassionate man or a sensitive man: a killer. But perhaps this wasn’t new, perhaps it was the boy talking, the boy who played by his own rules, and when the rules called for killing, he killed. What scared her most was that the man Treece was talking to, explaining the rules to, was her husband. She heard Sanders say, “Yeah, but he could still-was

“Not if you go deep enough,” Treece said. “You snip that spinal cord just like a thread, he goes all to jelly.”

“Stop!” Gail’s voice was so loud that it scared her.

“Hush, girl! Christ, you’ll wake the dead.”

The cut on Sanders” arm had stopped bleeding; a caked crusty streak of brownish red showed through his wet suit.

Treece handed him a bottle full of a dark, viscous brown liquid. “Here. Wash your arm off and lard some of this on it. I’m going to bury the jewels in the wall.”

“What is it?”

“My grandmother used to make it; bloody junk defies chemical analysis. There’s some mango derivative in it, and berry juice, and something that might or might not come from spirea bark. Rest of it’s a mystery. But it works.”

When she heard Treece’s feet hit the cellar floor, Gail said to David, “I’m frightened.”

“I don’t blame you.”

“Not for me. For you. Treece thinks this is a war.”

“That was talk.”

“Talk. We killed three people.”

“We didn’t have much choice.” Sanders finished swabbing the medicine on his arm. “They tried to kill us.”

Gail heard the trap door close in the living room, and the sound of the chair scraping across the floor.

“This has gone far enough,” she whispered. “I can’t take much more.”

Treece came into the kitchen. From a cabinet he took what looked like a brick of modeling clay, the bottom half of a champagne bottle, some plastic-coated wire, a small rectangular magnet, an egg timer, and a little cardboard box.

He set the paraphernalia on the table and made himself a drink.

“Looks like shop,” Sanders said.

“What?” Treece sat down at the table.

“Shop class. In grade school. You know: modeling, carving, making things for Mom.”

“Aye.” Treece smiled. “But if you came home from school with this, your mom would run like a rabbit.” Treece pulled chunks of the gray claylike substance off the brick and stuffed them into the bottom of the champagne bottle. “Ever use this stuff?”

“What is it?” asked Gail.

“It’s called C-4. Plastic explosive. Fine stuff.”

“What do you use it for?”

“Normally, salvage work. Clearing harbors, knocking down piers, getting old wrecks out of the way, banging holes in reefs so ships can get through. But this time we’re gonna put what’s left of the drugs away for good.”

“Thank God,” said Gail.

“How? With that?” Sanders said.

“Not alone, no.” Treece had filled the bottle-half to the top. He opened the cardboard box, gingerly removed a blasting cap, and set it in the bed of explosive. Then he began to attach the coated wire to the cap. “But set this C-4 up against a load of other explosives-say a cargo of live ammunition-and you’ve got enough to make Bermuda’s own Grand Canyon. Military term for it’s a shape charge. These champagne bottles are indented on the bottom; a lamp goes up inside ’em. Pack the C-4 around it, and when you set it off, the lump sort of aims the force of the explosion where you want it.” Treece tipped the bottle on its side.

“You lay it up against an artillery shell like this.”

He put his hand against the blasting cap. “All the power’s directed at the shell. Boom!”

“How do you get out of the way?”

Treece held up the egg timer. “That’s what this is for. I’m going to dive down, wire the charge to the timer, and set it for maybe five minutes.

That’ll give me time to scoot to the surface and get the hell out of there. Don’t want to be closer than a few hundred yards when she goes off. The ammunition would turn any ship nearby into an instant wreck.”

Gail said, “When are you going to do this?”

“Tomorrow morning, after we’ve had a last look-around.

Then we’ll come back and smash the ampules we’ve got.” Treece finished wiring the charge and stood up. “I’m going to nip down to Kevin’s and borrow a gun or two. I’ll leave Charlotte here.

She’ll let you know if there are any Peeping Toms about.”

The dog barked twice and jumped onto the window sill.

Treece looked out the window. “Nothing.” He patted the dog’s head. “Getting goosy, just like…” Then he heard something, cocked his head, and listened. “Sonofabitch.”

“What is it?” Sanders asked.

“There’s a boat down there.”

Treece opened a drawer and rummaged through a tangle of kitchen knives. He took out a long, thin-bladed filleting knife and passed it to Sanders. “Remember what I told you; this thing’ll skin an alligator.” He removed a cleaver from a rack on the wall and handed it to Gail.

She recoiled, refusing to take it. “What am I supposed to do with that?”

“Just have it.” He put it in her hand. “Got no esteem for yourself. You showed what you can do.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Come along.” He selected a carving knife for himself—the cutting edge of the blade worn into a crescent by countless honings—and shut the drawer. Then he closed the window. “Stay in the house, Charlotte. Don’t need you raising an untimely ruckus.” On his way to the kitchen door, Treece stopped at a cabinet and found a waterproof flashlight.

They went out into the empty yard. The moonlight shone on the slick leaves of the bushes at the edge of the cliff. Treece motioned for David and Gail to stay low, and they ran, crouching, to the top of the path leading to the dock.

Looking down, they could see a boat at the mouth of the cove, barely moving. They heard a few muted clanks above the far-off drum sounds.

“Is it Cloche?” Gail whispered.

“Must be, but I’m damned if I know how he found out about the cave. You stay up here; keep in the shadows. We’ll go have a look. Could be they’re just snooping.”

Treece tucked the flashlight in the belt of his wet-suit pants and told Sanders to follow. They started down the path.

The high foliage shaded the path into complete darkness. Twice Sanders stumbled into bushes, heard Treece’s warning, “Sssshhhhh!” Then he found he could follow Treece by looking at the tops of the bushes: as Treece passed below and brushed a branch, the upper leaves shimmered in the moonlight.

A few feet from the bottom of the path, Treece stopped and waited for Sanders. The movement on the boat was clearly audible, and fighting that and the sound of the horns above, Treece had to put his lips to Sanders” ear to be heard.

“Stay here. I’m going out along the dock, see what’s up.” He touched the knife in Sanders’ hand.

“Comfortable with that?”

Sanders nodded.

Treece stepped to the end of the path and, with animal stealth, crept along the narrow space between the dock and the bushes.

Sanders rested on one knee, clutching the knife.

He felt all the symptoms of fear, but they were soothed by a sense of confidence in Treece. Like a young child on an expedition with his older brother, he felt excited-scared but comforted by the belief that he could take his cues from Treece.

So he was doubly surprised when he felt a thick, muscular arm slam into his throat, a hand push his head forward, cutting off his breathing, and a great weight knock him to the ground and blanket him with slippery, sweaty flesh.

He tried to scream, but the pressure against his throat reduced the scream to a gurgle. He still held the knife-blade pointing upward, as Treece had shown him-and he jabbed it at the flesh, but a knee jammed his wrist into the ground. His left arm was pinned to his side by the body on top of him.

He was helpless.

He relaxed his body, hoping desperately-through a film of waning consciousness-that he could convince his attacker that he was dead. But when the man felt muscle resistance ease, he tightened his grip.

Then, as suddenly as the weight had fallen on him, it left him. He was free. He drew a painful, rattling breath.

He heard Treece’s voice whisper, with bitterness and feral ferocity unlike anything he had ever heard, the single word “Kevin!”

Sanders raised himself on one elbow and looked.

Kevin lay on his back, Treece kneeling on his chest and pulling his hair so his head tilted at a cockeyed angle. With his other hand, Treece held the carving knife at Kevin’s throat. Kevin’s legs kicked, then fell to the dirt.

“You told him!” Treece whispered. “Why?”

Kevin said nothing.

“Why? For money?” Treece’s voice was no longer angry; it was choked with the sorrow of betrayal. “For money?”

Still Kevin was silent.

In the reflections of moonlight off the water, Sanders could see their eyes: Kevin’s flat and expressionless, looking through Treece with a kind of blank resignation; Treece’s shiny, enraged, unbelieving.

“Oh, you sorry, sorry bugger,” Treece said, and when the last whispered word had faded, he punched the point

of the knife into Kevin’s throat and drew the blade quickly across the neck. There was a black line of blood, a foam of bubbles, and a wet, wheezing sigh. Treece hung his head and closed his eyes.

A beam of light swept across the cove toward them, and Sanders heard Cloche’s voice call, “Kevin?”

Sanders whispered, “Treece?”

Treece did not answer.

“Treece!”

The light moved closer, and Sanders knew that in a few seconds it would illuminate half of Treece’s back. He rose to his knees and lunged at Treece, hitting him with his shoulder and knocking him to the ground. The light swept over them, stopped, and moved back to the water.

“Kevin?” Cloche called again. “Idiot!”

Lying on the ground, with Sanders next to him, Treece gradually shook off his stupor. “All right,” he said. “All right. At least now we know.”

He crawled on his stomach to the end of the path, looked at Cloche’s boat, and returned to Sanders. “Looks like there’s two or three divers, plus a couple fellas they’ll leave on the boat. We’ll wait till the divers are overboard, then try to get to Corsair and throw on tanks and go down.”

“The tanks have bad air.”

“Not all. I only filled two that night. The others were already full. There should be four good ones aboard.”

“Then what?”

“We’ll see how many men there are and how they’re working. If they’re working two at a time in the cave, with hand lights, we’ve a chance to pick ’em off.

Odds are, the divers won’t be armed. They’ll have their hands full with the glass.”

“Pick them off?” Sanders said. “Why?”

“To stop ’em before they get the ampules. We can’t get the glass up with those yahoos around, and I’m damned if I’m about to let Cloche have what’s down there.”

“What do we do? Stab them?”

“Only if you have to. Try to grab the regulator hose and cut it and get the hell out of his way. A man with a sudden-cut air hose is a bloody menace; he’ll grab a baby’s mouthpiece.”

“But if we cut their air hoses, they’ll just come up; they’ll be waiting for us on the surface.”

“It’s my bet these chaps are still a bit wary of the water. Put ’em in a panic, they’re like as not to hold their breath on the way up, or lose their way and drown in the cave. But even suppose they don’t. If we cut all their air hoses, they’ll be spooky as hell about going back down there. And Cloche doesn’t have extra equipment.”

“So they wait for us to come up and then shoot us.”

“We won’t come up. It’s dark. They’d have a hell of a time following a bubble trail. We’ll stay on the bottom, go out of the cove and around the corner. There’s a place about fifty yards down where we can land.”

“He won’t give up-especially when he finds that guy floating off the reef.”

“No, he’ll be back. But all we need is the rest of tonight to get that glass out of there and destroy it.”

Sanders paused briefly, then said, “Okay.”

They heard splashes and fragments of conversation.

Someone said, “Where’s Kevin at?” and Cloche replied, “Drunk, I suppose. He is of no consequence now; he gave us full value.”

A few more splashes, then silence.

Treece waited for ten or fifteen seconds, then crept out into the open. Cloche’s boat floated twenty yards out in the cove, off Corsair’s stern, so Corsair protected them from view as they moved along the dock. They slipped into the cockpit and lay on the deck.

“Fins, mask, and tank,” Treece whispered.

“Don’t fool with weights. They’ll make too much noise.”

The necks of the steel air tanks gleamed in the moonlight, and Sanders saw that it would be impossible to pull the tanks out of the rack without being seen.

“Old Indian trick,” Treece said, removing a two-pound lead weight from a nylon belt. He reached to the transom and uncleated the stern line, letting the stern swing a few feet away from the dock, then recleated the line. “When you hear the splash, grab a tank and go over the side between the boat and the dock. I’ll be right along.” He threw the weight as hard as he could—a straight-arm arc that used the muscles of the shoulder, not the arm—and the weight cleared the bridge of the other boat by several feet and splashed into the water beyond.

Sanders rose, removed a tank from the rack, held it overboard, and slid into the water after it, aware of the sounds of footsteps and voices and the cocking of a rifle. Treece joined him. They checked each other’s tanks, making sure the air valves were turned on, and the air was good. “Hold my hand till we get to the bottom,” Treece said. “We’ll stay there for a minute and have a look-see. Their light’ll tell us where they are.”

Hand in hand, they sank below the surface and kicked to the bottom.

Kneeling in the bushes at the top of the hill, Gail heard the splash and the voices. She got to her feet in a stooped stance, ducked as a beam of light swept toward her, then rose again and looked down, half-expecting, dreading, to hear a gunshot.

But there was nothing, only the incessant taxi horns. Holding the cleaver—scared of it but glad of it, as she had been of the shotgun—she started down the path.

Near the bottom of the path, with her hands in front of her like a blind person in a strange room, she stepped on one of Kevin’s legs. Shocked, she lurched backward and fell into the bushes, cracking branches as she fell.

She heard a voice: “Kevin?”

She held her breath.

“Go over there and look around.”

A splash; sounds of a man swimming.

She exhaled and inhaled, and her nostrils filled with the stench of feces. Terrified, she extricated herself from the bushes and scrambled up the hill.

On the bottom of the cove, Sanders and Treece knelt together, still holding hands. Forty or fifty feet away, the cave was as visible as a proscenium stage in a dark theater, illuminated not by hand-held lights but by huge floodlights. As they watched, a diver swam out of the cave and turned on a flashlight. He carried a mesh bag full of ampules. Two other divers passed him, heading for the cave, switching off their flashlights as they entered the pool of light.

Treece tugged at Sanders” hand, and they kicked toward the cave. When they were within ten feet of the entrance, just outside the range of the floodlights, Treece let go of Sanders’ hand and gently pushed him against the face of the cliff, signaling for him to wait.

Treece dropped to his stomach and pulled himself along the sand until he could look inside the cave.

Then he withdrew from the light. He flicked on his flashlight, located Sanders, and swam to him.

Treece held the flashlight in his left hand and shined it on his right, pointing to Sanders, then to the near side of the cave, then to himself, then-in an arching motion-to the far side of the cave. Then he shined the light on Sanders’ face, to see if he understood.

He did: he was to position himself at one side of the entrance, Treece at the other.

They flattened themselves against the cliff and waited. In the shimmering light, Sanders caught an occasional glimpse of Treece’s face, of the shining knife blade in his hand.

Moving water disturbed sand at the entrance to the cave: something was coming out. Sanders saw Treece’s knife rise and hold steady.

The man on Treece’s side came out first, a few feet ahead of his companion. His head appeared, looking down at the sand, then his shoulders.

Treece jumped him: a flash of red-brown skin, an explosion of bubbles, a fist grabbing the man’s air hose and wrenching the mouthpiece from his mouth, drawing the hose taut, the knife slicing easily through the rubber tube.

The head of the second man emerged from the cave.

Sanders raised his knife.

The man looked up and saw Sanders. His eyes widened, hands flew to his head as Sanders leaped.

The man knocked Sanders’ knife hand away and reached for Sanders’ mask.

Sanders dodged. His shoulder hit the man’s chest, and they tumbled to the bottom, clawing at each other.

They rolled along the bottom, punching and kicking, each trying to keep his head away from the other’s grasp. Sanders breathed in spurts, holding his breath after each inhalation, fearful of having his hose cut when his lungs were empty.

They were several yards inside the cave now, floating and bumping on the sand in a grotesque waltz: the man held Sanders’ right wrist, keeping the knife away from his neck. Sanders’ left arm was wrapped around the man’s side, pinning his right arm.

Sanders could not stab the man, could not cut his air hose; he was waiting for Treece. Frantically, he looked to the mouth of the cave, expecting to see Treece swimming toward him. Instead, Treece was poised in a fighter’s crouch, facing out of the cave, awaiting the two flashlights that moved swiftly toward him.

The man’s right arm wiggled free. His hand inched upward and slammed into Sanders’ groin, fingers clawing at his balls. Sanders kicked upward with his left leg, deflecting the hand. Then he saw the hole in the cave wall, a dark tunnel above a pile of stones.

He touched a foot to the bottom and pushed off, dancing the man toward the wall. The man’s heels hit a rock, and he tripped, but he did not release Sanders’ wrist. Sanders leaned against him, forcing him onto the wall, butting him to make him jerk his head back toward the hole.

The man’s head was a few inches below the hole.

Sanders’ foot found purchase on a rock, and he shoved again, driving the man up, exposing the black flesh and puffed arteries.

The pig eyes-beads in the slimy green head-showed in the hole, the mouth waving hungrily, half open.

The moray struck, needle teeth fastening on the man’s neck, throat convulsing as it pulled back toward the hole. Blood billowed out the sides of the moray’s mouth.

The man’s mouth opened, releasing his mouthpiece, and roared a noisy shriek of panic.

Their arms parted. Sanders wondered if he should stab the man, to make sure, but there was no need: his mouthpiece floated behind his head. Half his throat was engulfed in the moray’s mouth, and already his flails were weaker, his eyes dimmer.

Sanders turned back to the entrance of the cave.

Treece was still crouched, the two flashlights closer to him but not moving. He feinted toward them, and they backed away.

Sanders knew Treece was waiting for him. If Treece had wanted to escape, he could have swum off into the darkness. The lights would soon have lost him, and even if the men could have kept track of him, they could not hope to catch him underwater.

The flashlights flicked off; the figures faded into the darkness. Treece turned on his light and swept the area in front of the cave. Sanders tapped him on the shoulder to let him know he was there. Treece pointed to the surface and turned off his light.

Rising through the glow cast by the floodlights in the cave, Sanders felt naked. He knew Cloche’s men could see him. He kicked hard, reaching for darkness.

Something rammed his back. Legs wrapped around his middle; his head was pulled back. He sucked on the mouthpiece and breathed water: his regulator hose had been cut. The legs released him.

The salt water made him gag. He clamped his teeth together and forced himself to exhale, fighting the physical impulse to gasp for air.

He reached the surface, coughed, and drew a ragged breath. A light shone on his face. He threw his head to the right and dove underwater as a bullet slapped the surface, ricocheted, and struck the stone cliff. Holding his breath a few feet below the surface, he saw the beam of light playing across the water. It moved to the left, so he swam to the right.

His hands touched the cliff face and, slowly, he inched upward.

They had lost him; the light was sweeping the surface several yards to his left. It started back toward him. He ducked until it had passed, then rose again to breathe. He heard Cloche’s voice.

“Treece!” No answer. “We are at an impasse, Treece. You cannot stop us; we are too many. Leave while you can. We will take no more than is in the cave, you have my word. A fair compromise.” No answer.

Sanders felt something touch his foot. He jerked his leg upward and drew a breath, expecting to be dragged beneath the surface, determined to struggle, but fearfully, hopelessly convinced that he lacked the strength to survive.

Treece’s head broke the surface next to his.

“Chuck your tank,” Treece whispered, unsnapping his own harness and letting his tank sink to the bottom.

Cloche called twice more, but Treece didn’t reply. He led Sanders toward shore, swimming a silent breast stroke.

“Die, then!” Cloche said angrily.

They reached the end of the dock, crawled out of the water, and when they heard Cloche order his divers to come aboard, dashed for the path.

Gail was waiting for them at the top of the hill.

“What…”

Treece ran past her toward the house. “Come on!”

In the kitchen, Treece examined the shape charge.

He checked the wires, then taped the magnet to the side of the bottle.

“Did you hear what Cloche said?” Sanders asked.

“About the compromise?”

“Aye. Lying bugger. He’ll go for the lot; bet on it. But if we’re lucky, we’ll beat him to it. There’s the tank and a regulator out by the compressor. Get ’em for me. And one of the hand lights, too, while you’re there.”

Sanders hurried out the kitchen door, and Gail said to Treece, “Where are we going?”

“Orange Grove. We’ll take Kevin’s car.” Treece picked the shape charge off the table and held it in both hands.

“You’re going to plant that thing tonight?”

“No choice, not if we want to get rid of the ampules before Cloche goes for them.” He saw Sanders returning from the compressor shed and said, “Let’s go. If we don’t get there first, it’s all down the drain.”

As they hurried along the path, Sanders said, “What about the rest of the jewels?”

“If there’s anything left down there… well, maybe Philip’s ghost can have a romp with the good duchess. We can’t take a chance on the drugs.”

The dog followed them to the gate, but Treece stopped her there and ordered her to stay.

They heard the engine of Cloche’s boat chug to life and turn southwest toward Orange Grove.

Treece broke into a run.

He drove the Hillman as fast as it would go, leaning his body against the turns in the narrow road, cursing when the small engine faltered on steep hills. Sanders sat beside Treece, Gail in the back seat, steadying the shape charge with her hand.

On a long South Road straightaway the speedometer nudged seventy. Bracing himself against the dashboard, his feet pressed against imaginary brake pedals, Sanders said, “Suppose a cop stops you.”

“Any police who values his life will not stop me tonight.” Treece did not speak again until he had parked the car in the Orange Grove lot and was running toward the stairs that led to the beach.

“You run an outboard?” he said then.

“Sure,” Sanders said.

“Good. I need a chauffeur.”

The moon was high, and as they ran down the stone stairs, they could see the white hulls of the Boston Whalers on their dollies.

Treece looked out to sea, to the left, at the white lines of reef. “Light’s good. We’ll see him coming.” He handed Gail the shape charge, grabbed the painter of the nearest Whaler, spun the dolly around, and, alone, dragged the boat into the water. Then he took the charge from Gail and said, “Stay here.”

“No.”

“Aye, you’ll stay here.”

“I will not!”

Her defiance surprised him. “It’ll be hairy out there, and I don’t want you around.”

“It’s my decision. It’s my life, and I’m going.” She knew she was being unreasonable, but she didn’t care. She could not stay on the beach, a helpless observer.

Treece took her by the arm and looked into her eyes.

“I have killed one woman,” he said flatly.

“I’ll not be responsible for killing another.”

Gail glared back at him and, in anger, without thinking, said, “I am not your wife!”

Treece relaxed his grip. “No, but…”

He seemed embarrassed.

Gail touched his hand. “You said it yourself. I’m here. I’m me. Protecting me won’t do a thing for her.”

Treece said to Sanders, “Get in the boat.” He helped Gail into the boat after Sanders, walked the boat into water deep enough for the propeller shaft, and climbed aboard.

They went over the reefs, to a spot above the remains of Goliath.

There they let the boat wallow.

Treece rigged the scuba tank, put it on his back, and sat on the starboard gunwale, resting the shape charge against his thighs. The hand light hung from a thong on his wrist. “I’ll go rig the charge,” he said. “Be right back. Then, soon’s we see him coming, I’ll nip over again and set the timer.”

“Okay,” said Sanders.

“Now… an order. If anything happens, get the hell out of here in a hurry. Don’t play Boy Scout.”

Sanders had no intention of leaving Treece, but he did not reply.

Treece rolled off the gunwale, turned on the light, and swam for the bottom.

Moments later, Sanders saw the first splash-sparkling white eruptions of water over the bow of a boat that was moving full-speed along the outer reef. “Look!” he said, pointing.

Gail saw the boat, then looked overboard.

Treece’s light was steady on the bottom. “How long will it take him to rig that thing?”

“I don’t know. Too long.”

Sanders heard the high whine of a bullet passing overhead, followed a second later by the crack of a rifle shot. He ducked, and another bullet whirred by.

As Cloche’s boat drew nearer, there were more shots, but the Whaler, riding low in the water, was a bad target. All the shots were high.

Crouching in the bottom of the Whaler, Gail said, “He said to go.”

“The hell with him.”

Treece’s head popped up beside the Whaler. He started to say something, but stopped when he heard a shot.

“Go!” he said.

Sanders said, “No! You…”

“Go, goddammit! I’ll set the timer and follow you in. Get into the shallowest water you can find.”

Treece disappeared below the surface.

For a few seconds, Sanders didn’t move.

“We’ve got to go!” Gail said.

“But he’ll—was—”

“Do you want to die?”

Sanders looked at her. He started the engine and spun the boat toward shore.

Two more bullets chased the Whaler inshore. When he felt that they were out of practical range, Sanders slowed the boat and turned the bow seaward.

“He said to find shallow water,” Gail said.

“This is shallow enough.”

Cloche’s boat was stopped over Goliath.

A light flickered on, then another, and, one by one, figures dropped into the water.

“Divers,” Gail said.

“Don’t pay attention to them!” Sanders snapped.

“Look for Treece. If we don’t get him out of the water before that thing goes off, he’s dead. He must have finished by now.”

But Treece had not finished. A wire had come loose from the timer, and he was resetting it, using his thumbnail as a screw driver. He tightened the screw and turned the timer dial to five minutes. Then the first light found him.

Sanders could not wait any longer. “Screw this!” he said, and he pushed the gear lever forward, heading for the reef.

“What are you doing?” Gail screamed.

“I don’t know! We’ve got to get him out!”

Sanders guessed they were five hundred yards from Cloche’s boat.

There were two lights around Treece now. He was holding his breath, for his air hose had been cut.

He turned in slow circles, trying to keep both divers in sight.

They were quick. One man circled with Treece, keeping always behind him, and when he saw a chance for a move, he darted forward and plunged his knife into Treece’s back.

Treece felt a deep, fiery ache. He held the timer to his chest and turned the dial to zero.

The Whaler was three hundred yards from the reef when the sea exploded.

David and Gail saw the bow of the Whaler rise toward them, and then they were flying away from it. They spun through the air, aware of fragmented images that flashed by their eyes: the sudden mountain of water rising, then rupturing; bits of Cloche’s boat flying in every direction, pieces cast impossibly high; a body, spread-eagle, cartwheeling across the sky.

Sanders hit the water on his back. His eyes were open, but he was not truly conscious. He heard bits of debris falling around him, felt stinging sensations as pieces of rock and coral hit his face. His legs dangled below him, and as he exhaled, he sank a few inches, then rose again as he inhaled. He saw the stars and the shimmering shafts of moonlight, and he thought vaguely: This isn’t what they say death is like.

The gentle swells carried him slowly toward shore.

A voice that sounded faint and far away was calling, “David?”

He rolled onto his stomach and, testing his limbs with the first tentative strokes, swam stiffly toward the voice.

Gail was treading water twenty yards away. She saw him coming and said, “You okay?”

“Yeah. You?”

“I don’t know. I can’t move one of my arms.”

He helped her to shore, and they staggered out of the water. The beach looked like an endless field, the elevator a mile away.

They turned and looked back at the water. There was a new gap in the reef line, and pieces of flotsam were washing up in the waves. Otherwise, the sea was unchanged.

Leaning against each other, they walked toward the base of the cliff, where a crowd was already beginning to gather.