The Presence

CHAPTER 4

Michael glanced surreptitiously at the half-dozen people gathered around the diving instructor and wondered if any of them felt as nervous as he did. Yesterday, even this morning — hell, even half an hour ago! — diving in the ocean had seemed like a cool idea. But this morning he’d been in a swimming pool, where there was no surf, the water was shallow, and all that was in it were three novice divers and Dave, who instructed them while someone else stood on the edge of the pool, watching, just in case something bad happened.

Something bad, like starting to drown.

Now there were six people besides himself, which meant Dave wouldn’t be able to watch everyone, and the Pacific was a lot bigger than a swimming pool. Plus, the wet suit had been pretty hard to pull on, its fit was uncomfortably tight, and it was getting really hot with the sun beating down on the black rubber. He was already starting to sweat and get itchy where the tiny rivulets of perspiration were creeping down his back.

The equipment looked a lot clumsier now than it had this morning, too. The tank was heavier than he remembered it, and once it was strapped onto his back, it seemed to pull him way off balance. Still, he’d come this far, and he wasn’t going to chicken out now. Picking up his fins and mask, he checked the air regulator one more time, then started down to the beach.

The waves, which hadn’t looked like much of anything a few minutes ago when they’d climbed out of the van and started carrying the equipment down to the little park above the beach, seemed suddenly to have swelled into huge crests, even though he was sure they hadn’t.

Pretty sure, anyway.

Behind him, someone spoke: “This is your first dive, isn’t it?”

Michael stiffened as he heard what sounded like a hostile note in the speaker’s voice, and an image of Slotzky’s sneering face rose in his mind. But Slotzky wasn’t here — he was back in New York, where, Michael hoped, he was freezing his ass off. Still, Michael wasn’t about to admit that this was his first dive and that he’d only had his pool training this morning. “I’ve done it a couple of times.”

“I’ve been diving since I was ten,” the voice said, and now Michael heard the lilt that he’d already come to recognize as the local accent. “The first time I was scared shitless, though. I mean, except for when I learned in the pool.”

They were on the beach now, and finally Michael got a good look at the guy. He wasn’t part of their group, and Michael could tell right away he wasn’t a tourist, either. Though the guy was about his age, he was a little shorter and had a body that looked wiry even under the bulky wet suit. His eyes were almost as dark as his black hair, and when the boy grinned at him, his teeth looked almost unnaturally white.

Michael couldn’t tell whether the grin looked friendly or not. “You diving by yourself?” he asked.

“Sure,” the other boy said. “I do it all the time.”

Michael remembered what Dave had said this morning about never diving without a buddy, but the boy didn’t look like the kind who wanted to hear any advice from a beginner. He was pulling his fins on now, and Michael leaned down to follow suit. But even before he’d gotten his foot into the fin, it had filled up with sand, and by the time he struggled both of his feet into them, he’d almost lost his balance twice.

At least he hadn’t collapsed onto the beach like one of the other guys had.

“See you in the water,” the dark-haired guy said. Pulling on his mask and clamping his regulator in his mouth, the boy walked backward down the beach until he was waist-deep in the surf, then lay back in the water, rolled over, and disappeared.

Five minutes later Michael and the rest of the group were finally ready, and Dave led them into the water.

Michael was paired with a man named Les, who was about thirty and barely acknowledged his presence. Turning around to back into the water the same way he’d seen it done only a few minutes earlier, Michael nearly tripped three times before he finally got deep enough to try submerging himself. He put the regulator in his mouth, checked the valves to make certain everything was operating properly, and finally put his face mask in place. Then he took a deep breath, lowered himself, and rolled over.

In an instant the world changed.

The wet suit no longer felt the least bit clumsy — in fact, it felt like a second skin, protecting him from the cold of the water, but hardly restricting his movement at all.

The water was crystal clear. Sand moved and swirled over the bottom, making it look almost as if the ocean floor had turned to liquid.

When he felt a slight pain in his chest, he realized he was still holding his breath. He forced himself to let it out, then slowly breathe in. His lungs filled with fresh air from the tank on his back. Taking a second breath, he looked around and spotted Les about twenty feet ahead of him, already swimming away from the beach. Michael’s first instinct was to yell at him to wait up, but he realized that even if he could have shouted, there was no way the guy was going to hear him.

Better just try to catch up.

Michael swam, kicking hard with his legs, his hands clasped across his stomach just as Dave had taught them in the pool this morning. Aided by the fins, he surged ahead, leaving a small stream of bubbles from the regulator behind him. As he left the surf line, the bottom came into focus, the sand showing a gently rippled surface that sloped slowly deeper as he swam farther from the beach. With each stroke, he felt the tension inside him drain away, and a quiet peacefulness he’d never had began to enfold his spirit. The water around him glowed brightly with diffused sunlight, and suddenly a pair of fish, perhaps eighteen inches long, swam lazily across his path, coming so close that Michael could reach out and touch them. Then they darted away with no more than the slightest twitch of their tails.

He was closing in on Les now. The older man was turning to the right, and when Michael, too, made a turn, he caught his first glimpse of the reef.

From the surface it had looked like a finger of nearly black lava reaching out into the sea, but from below, Michael could see the bright reds and blues of coral heads, with hundreds of fish darting among them, some of them so pale they were nearly translucent, some so brilliantly colored they seemed to be acting as beacons in the sea. As he neared the reef, a group of parrot fish gathered around him, looking for food. When he produced nothing, they quickly swam off, heading off toward a woman who was floating on the surface a few yards away, breathing through a snorkel tube and holding out a handful of frozen peas that the fish snatched right out of her fingers.

Michael watched the feeding fish for several seconds, wishing he’d brought something along to attract them as strongly as the peas obviously did. The fish finished the food, then, as if by magic, disappeared. He had no feeling of having watched them go; it was as if they’d been there one second and vanished the next. He turned, looking for them, but saw only empty water.

Water empty even of Les, the man who was supposed to be his dive buddy.

Michael’s first impulse was to surface and call for help, but then he realized that was exactly the wrong thing to do.

“Never let panic scare you to the surface,” he remembered Dave telling them this morning. “On the first dive this afternoon, you won’t be going deep, so there won’t be any danger of getting the bends. But on a deep dive, a fast rise is the worst thing you can do. Come up too fast, and the best you can expect is pain like you’ve never felt before. The worst is that you could die.” Dave had paused, letting the warning sink in. “But it’s not just that,” he went on. “If you find yourself alone, it could mean that your buddy is in trouble. Don’t go looking for help. Remember, you’re supposed to be the help. Only go to the surface if you have no other choice.”

Throwing off the panic that was starting to coil around him, Michael filled his lungs with air, as much to reassure himself that he could still breathe as to gain the steadying effects of a deep breath.

Calmer, he looked around for Les. There was no trace of his assigned buddy, which could mean either of two things: Les was in trouble, or had simply gone his own way, never bothering even to glance back to see if he was still with him.

Either way, it wasn’t a good situation, for if Michael got in trouble now, there was no one to help him.

Panic, sensing another opportunity, crept closer, but Michael brushed it away more easily this time. He had plenty of air, he wasn’t in deep water, and his fins made him a much stronger swimmer than he normally was.

He turned toward the reef a dozen yards away, an expanse of lava covered with bright orange coral. There were several snorkelers hovering above it, and three divers at its base.

Three? Maybe he’d finally found Les!

He kicked his legs, and the fins sent him smoothly and quickly through the water. A few seconds later he was with the divers and recognized Les through his face mask.

And a second after that, without even acknowledging Michael’s presence, Les moved farther down the reef.

The fear that had reached out to Michael earlier congealed into anger. What was the bastard up to? Whatever it was, it obviously didn’t involve keeping an eye on him. What should he do? Give up the dive and head back to the beach? Or stick with Les, even though it was obvious he couldn’t count on him if he himself got into trouble?

Then he remembered the other guy his own age, who was diving alone. Maybe he could find him, and the two of them could buddy up. He looked around. Les had disappeared.

Should he go look for him again? He told himself he shouldn’t bother, then decided it didn’t matter whether Les was going to watch out for him or not. He’d agreed to accept Les as a buddy — not that he’d been given much choice — and that was that.

Once again he started looking, this time moving higher in the water to swim over the top of the reef. There were fish everywhere now, triggerfish moving in large schools, a few brilliantly colored humahumas searching for food in the coral, and the ever-present parrot fish, nibbling at the coral itself.

But no sign of Les.

He dropped deeper in the water, swimming along the base of the reef, but still found no sign of Les. He was about to turn to search the other side of the reef when he suddenly saw something.

The end of a swim fin. It was just a single flipper, sticking out from the reef, its bright neon-green strip glittering in the sunlight. Had someone lost it?

Then it moved, kicking violently.

What the hell?

And suddenly Michael knew.

Someone was in trouble. It wasn’t Les — his dive buddy had been wearing a pair of black fins identical to his own.

Kicking hard, Michael swam toward the fin, then came around a finger of the reef that jutted out from the main flow and saw what had happened. There was a hole in the reef, and the person whose foot was in the fin must have gone inside to take a look and gotten stuck. Now that he was closer, Michael could make out the person’s legs. The second fin was dug into the sand in what Michael could see was a useless attempt to gain leverage. The sand was only swirling away, leaving a depression where the fin was searching for a toehold. Reaching out, Michael took hold of one of the fins. Sensing that help had arrived, the person caught in the small cave stopped kicking.

Nothing.

Michael moved up and reached into the cave, then knew why the diver couldn’t get free: his tank was wedged in the coral lip at the top of the small cave. Moving cautiously closer, Michael tried to work the tank free, but the cave was so dark that he couldn’t see it at all; indeed, he could barely reach it. Finally he did the only thing he could do: feeling for the buckles on the tank’s straps, he worked them loose, then took a deep breath, braced his feet against the reef on either side of the small opening, grasped both of the diver’s ankles, and pulled.

The person trapped in the cave slid out from under the tanks, and by the time he was out of the cave, Michael was ready. Taking one more deep breath, he pulled the regulator out of his mouth and pushed it toward the other diver’s face.

It was the kid he’d talked to on the beach.

The kid who was diving by himself.

The other boy’s face mask had come off as Michael pulled him out of the cave, but he felt the regulator Michael was offering him, slipped the mouthpiece between his lips, took a deep breath, and returned the regulator to Michael, pointing to the surface as he pulled the emergency cord on his life vest, inflating it. As the Hawaiian boy started to rise through the water, Michael inflated his own vest. Seconds later he was bobbing on the surface, face-to-face with the other boy.

A frightened gasp erupted from the guy’s mouth.

“You okay?” Michael asked. “Can you make it to the beach?”

The boy nodded. “Where’s your buddy?”

“He kept disappearing. I was looking for him when I found you.”

They started swimming, the boy he’d rescued pacing himself in order to allow Michael to stay close to him until they were near the beach. Then the boy ducked his head under the surface. When he reappeared, he was standing in water that was only chest deep, although they were beyond the breaker line.

“Take your fins off,” the boy told him. “Then we’ll get your tank off your back.”

Michael dropped in the water, pulled both his fins off, and stood up. He felt the other boy lift his tank so he could slip out of its straps. “What about yours?” he asked.

The boy shrugged. “I’ll go get it later. At least I know where it is, and it’s sure not going anywhere.” As they plowed through the surf toward the beach, the boy stuck out his hand. “I’m Josh Malani.”

“Michael Sundquist,” Michael replied.

“Mike?”

“Michael,” Michael corrected him. “Nobody ever calls me Mike.”

Josh Malani’s face lit into a wide grin. “Someone calls you Mike now. Get used to it. How long you gonna be on Maui?”

They were on the beach now. Dropping Michael’s tank on the sand, they started peeling out of their wet suits. “I just moved here.”

Josh’s eyes lit up. “You mean you’re not a tourist?”

Michael shook his head. “My mom’s working here. We just got here yesterday.”

“Not too bad, man,” Josh told him. “Only here a day, and you already got a best friend!”

Michael bent down to pick up his tank, but Josh already had it and was starting across the beach toward the small park. Michael stayed where he was. “What if I don’t like you?” he called after Josh. “What if you turn out to be a complete jerk?”

Josh glanced back over his shoulder, his trademark grin even broader. “Lots of people think I’m a jerk. But my grandfather’s Chinese, and in China, if you save someone’s life, you’re responsible for him. You’re stuck with me. Get used to it.”