One Minute Out Page 28
But it was her call to make.
I hear the tender on the port side motor away, probably back to the rear of the vessel so it can be winched out of the water, and this tells me everyone is on board. I head to the door, now wondering if I can even get myself out of here before getting killed.
* * *
• • •
Jaco Verdoorn climbed up the ladder and stepped onto the deck. Behind him the eight women he and the Greek mafia men picked up on the coast of the Croatian city of Rovinj ascended, one by one, until they all stood there with him, squinting in the bright light.
Though there were eight in this shipment, only seven of them would be generating revenue for the organization. One of them, and Verdoorn eyed her as she climbed aboard, was a special-handling item. A beautiful Hungarian blonde, Cage had seen her at the ballet in Budapest with his wife several months earlier, and he’d demanded she be pulled into the pipeline.
She’d be taken along with Maja to the West Coast, used by Cage and his friends and business partners at Rancho Esmerelda, and then cast away after Cage found a new crop on his future trips abroad.
When all the women stood on the deck, Dr. Riesling gave her little speech to the new arrivals, they were promised food and a shower, and then the guards began leading them into the saloon to go down the stairs to the lower deck.
As they descended, Verdoorn stepped up to Riesling. “Where is Kostopoulos?”
“He had Maja brought up to his room fifteen minutes ago. Honestly, I’m surprised he’s lasted this long. Usually he’s done with them in ten.” Verdoorn’s eyes narrowed, and Riesling added, “Don’t worry. I told him, no permanent marks.”
One of the Greek guards came out of the saloon, looked around, and then spun away as he spoke into his walkie-talkie. Verdoorn noted the mannerisms of this man, and when a second one of Kostas’s force came running up the main deck, himself showing worry and purposefulness, the South African grabbed him by the arm. “What is the problem?”
In English the guard said, “One of our men. We no can find.”
Jaco had his pistol out of his coat an instant later, and he looked to Dr. Riesling. “Get the product below! You stay with them!”
The American woman began ushering the girls into the saloon, but to Verdoorn she said, “What’s the matter?”
Verdoorn was already moving into the saloon, his pistol out in front of him, searching the area as he headed for the circular staircase. But he called back behind him in answer to the doctor’s question. “The Gray Man . . . he’s on board.”
“How do you—”
“Because I can feel him!”
THIRTY
I take stairs up to the open sundeck and then, after checking the area below for armed goons, I kick a leg over the rail and slide down the slick white side of the vessel, landing hard but quietly on the main deck. This portion of the boat is well lit, and I see movement up near the bow, but it’s only a deckhand facing away from me, far enough forward on the one-hundred-fifty-foot vessel that I’m not worried about him.
My goal is the aft deck and the scuba equipment I’ve staged there. Once I get it on, I plan on using the sea stairs to make my way into the water silently.
I begin heading aft in a low crouch along the starboard-side main deck.
I don’t make it far before a voice comes over the loudspeaker. He’s speaking Greek, and he’s agitated, shouting commands. I forgo the crouch and haul ass the last twenty-five feet, pretty certain the reason this guy has his panties in a twist is that he just found out some asshole is killing people on his boat.
Sure enough, the man switches to English and says words to that effect. “Alert! Trespasser on board. He is armed! All security to the main deck.”
I slow and peek around the corner to the aft deck, and here I see a couple of deckhands winching the tender, along with one guy wearing a dark polo and holding a subgun in one hand and a radio up to his ear in the other. He’s facing the saloon, and he’s between me and the diving equipment I need.
I think about just pulling the Glock from the pack hanging from my chest and shooting him, but I need a few seconds to get the tank valve opened and to put the equipment on, and even if I put the suppressor on my weapon first, everybody on the deck is still going to hear the gunshot.
So instead I just start walking towards the armed man purposefully but nonthreateningly.
He’s twenty feet from me when he lowers the walkie-talkie and looks in my direction. But all he sees is a diver in a wetsuit, his face partially hidden by the hood, heading to the scuba rack. My pack probably looks a little weird; not many people dive with luggage, but he’s unsure enough to allow me to close on him.
Another few steps and it won’t matter what he does.
The man on the loudspeaker says something else, and the guard in the polo swings his submachine gun towards me, but I’m two steps away now and I cover them faster than he can fire. I knock the weapon away, spear the man in the throat, and slam my knee into his face as he doubles forward.
The deck crew begins shouting; I reach for the guard’s weapon, but he crumples to the ground before I can wrench it away.
Giving up on both the gun and stealth, giving up on everything but getting my ass in the water, I lunge for the scuba rig I placed in the corner. Hefting the fifty pounds of gear, I spin back towards the stern. The deckhands look like they want to make trouble, and my hands are full so fighting them is not an option, so I juke to the left and run for the starboard side, and they give chase.
A gunshot cracks on my left as I make it to the starboard deck; I shift my body around as I hit the railing and start to go over, hoping to use the tank as a makeshift bulletproof vest.
Another gunshot rocks the night and I feel the impact as the bullet strikes my tank just as I tumble over the side, falling headfirst with all my gear slung over my shoulder.
Splashing into the cold black water, I realize I’m clear from the immediate threat of guns, but I’ve landed into a new threat. I’m heavily laden with equipment and weights, and I’m descending quickly.
I could let go of everything, just allow the tank and equipment to drop, but I won’t do that because I’m wearing a wetsuit that adds buoyancy to my already buoyant body, so I’ll just shoot to the surface.
And the surface is where the jackasses with guns are.
Somehow I have to open the air valve on the tank, get the vest onto my body and buckled in, arrest the descent by adding air to the vest, and then find my regulator and get it into my mouth so I can breathe.
With my eyes closed, because my mask is in the pack on my chest.
All before I drown.
But I’m not thinking about this, I’m doing this. I pull the entire rig off my shoulder and place it in front of me below my pack. Wrapping my legs around the steel tank, I crank open the valve. As my ears scream from my rapid descent, I muscle my way into the BCD, snap one of the three quick-release buckles to keep it on, and whip my hand around wildly for my regulator.
I find the hose and grab the mouthpiece, then pop it into my mouth, inhaling deeply.
Saltwater rushes into my mouth and lungs.
Gagging, I realize the bullet that hit the tank must have ricocheted and damaged the hose to the regulator, so I release it and yank down on the emergency regulator, tucked into my vest, knowing that if the hose on the octopus is also damaged, then I’m a dead man.
The panic welling in my chest now is as painful as the pressure against my eardrums.
I put the octopus in my mouth, push the purge button so I can spit out the seawater, and then I try a shallow breath.
Air has never felt so good going into my body.
Breathing normally now, I continue to sink, so I pump just a little air into my vest to slow my descent, then open my pack to retrieve my mask. I get it over my eyes, and then clear
it of water by lifting the bottom of it off my cheeks and breathing out my nose.
Then I pinch my nose through my mask and simulate several sneezes, and this quickly regulates the pressure in my ears and the pounding pain goes away.
I pull my fins out and slip them over my boots, then more securely tighten my BCD to my body. I tie off the regulator hose to slow the loss of air from the tank. It continues to leak—I can feel bubbles brushing against my face—but it’s better than it was.
Finally convinced I’m not going to die in the next ten seconds, I look at the illuminated depth gauge and find myself nearly seventy feet below the surface. From the deck of the Primarosa it looked like about five hundred yards to the nearest shoreline, and farther to the marina at Rovinj, so with the leak in the hose I don’t have any time to wait around.
I add more air to my vest, finally arresting my descent at eighty feet, then pull the red flashlight and turn it on. With it I see I am ten feet above the sandy and rocky ocean floor. I turn off the light and begin kicking to the east, using the illuminated compass on my BCD to guide me.
That went well, I think with no small amount of sarcasm.
* * *
• • •
Jaco Verdoorn leapt off the back of La Primarosa and into the tender. Already three Greeks armed with submachine guns and powerful flashlights were on board, and the tender captain fired the engine and spun the craft tightly back around to the east.
“Watch for bubbles!” Verdoorn ordered the men. He snatched a light from the hands of one of the gangsters, knowing his handgun was no more useful than the other weapons on board against a man more than a couple feet below the surface.
He was furious now, wild with rage. This was all bad; the death of the Greek, the poor security of the yacht that allowed the assassin to board, the inevitable questions that would come from Cage about Verdoorn’s own actions that did not prevent this . . . but still, Jaco recognized that the prevailing emotion he felt as they shot over the water scanning back and forth with the flashlights was one of incredible excitement. He wondered if he, right now, was closer to killing the infamous Gray Man than any other man had ever been, and he relished this opportunity more than anything he’d ever done in his life.
Jaco was in the zone.
As the Zodiac began weaving left and right, covering virtually the only track the diver below could have reasonably taken to get to land, Verdoorn called into his radio back to La Primarosa. “I want three divers suited up and armed with spear guns. Put them in the reserve tender and send them to our position. I saw him when he went in the water and he did not have a spear gun. We’re going to kill him right here, right now!”
Seconds later one of the Greeks at the bow shouted. “Bubbles! One o’clock! Twenty meters!”
The tender adjusted course and soon Verdoorn could see the bubbles himself. All the men shined their lights on them, till Verdoorn ordered them to shine straight down. The water reflected the light and they couldn’t see any signs of the diver other than the bubbles he made.
Verdoorn, an avid diver himself back in the shark-infested waters of South Africa, regarded the bubbles a moment, and then he smiled. “That’s constant. Not just from breathing. Bladdy bastard’s sprung a leak!”
He knew he’d hit Gentry’s tank as he’d fallen into the water. Apparently, the scuba gear had taken some damage.
Shouting into the radio, he said, “Hurry those divers! He’s four hundred meters from land!”
* * *
• • •
I keep kicking my freediving fins, using the light as sporadically as possible to make certain I don’t slam into a rock wall. I’m fifty feet below the surface now, just a few feet over the bottom as it slowly angles up towards the shoreline.
I check my air and realize the leak in my regulator is worse than I thought. I’ve expelled almost one third already, and I’ve only been in the cold water five minutes or so. Normally I could make a tank this size last an hour at this depth with this level of exertion, but now it looks like I have less than fifteen minutes to get where I’m going or I’ll have to swim it on the surface.
I see the glow of lights shining down, so I know my bubbles have ratted out my position. There’s not much I can do but keep kicking towards the shore, hoping I make it before the tank bleeds dry.
I push this out of my mind as I press on, and I begin thinking about Roxana, about Talyssa, about the younger sister’s drive for the acceptance of her older sister and the older sister’s drive to assuage her guilt and risk her own life to fix her mistake.
I am amazed by the reserves some people have, and I wonder about the drive inside the bellies of the men in the rubber boat above me, what lengths they will go to in order to kill me tonight.
I hear the faint sound of another tender now, and I have an idea that those above, or at least the ones in charge of them, are more than passionate about seeing to my demise.
I suspect there will be divers in the water now, and my shitty situation has only become more so.
I look down to the air pressure indicator, see that half my air is gone, and I wonder if I’m fucked.
No. I’m not. I tell myself that nobody on or in this water tonight has more drive to execute his mission than I do.
It may not happen tonight, and it sure doesn’t look like it right now, but I’m going to find these guys above me, and I’m going to fuck them up.
* * *
• • •
The tender with the three divers turned hard to port fifty meters ahead of the northernmost of the trail of bubbles appearing on the gently undulating waves. They were just one hundred fifty meters from the Rovinj marina, but they estimated they were closer to land than their target below.
Verdoorn used his flashlight to indicate a position in the water, and he called out to them from his craft, just ahead and to the right of the telltale trail.
“Right there! I want you all in the water there. Get down and spear the diver. Bring his body up to me!”
The South African wished he’d had time to throw a tank on himself. If he had a scuba rig with him on board he would have donned it right over his clothing and dived in, ready to wring the Gray Man’s neck if his hands were the only weapons available to him.
Just as the three divers sat on the gunwale of the smaller tender closer to shore, one of the Greeks on Verdoorn’s craft shouted out. “Wait! He’s changing directions!”
Verdoorn looked at the surface of the black water and, sure enough, the bubbles had begun trailing from due east to southeast, towards a tiny spit of land far from the marina and only about one hundred meters distant.
The South African said, “That way! He’s running out of air and going for the nearest land. Get ahead of him and dive!”
The smaller tender raced off, the divers held on tightly to keep from tipping back and in, and soon it had traveled fifty meters to the southeast.
The dinghy turned sharply to slow, and then the divers rolled backwards into the water, grabbed their spear guns from their hips, and turned on their underwater flashlights. The seafloor was only twenty-five feet below the surface here, but there were rocks and valleys and swim-throughs all the way to the shoreline.
One of the three banged his flashlight on his tank to draw the attention of the others, then used his light to indicate a shallow cavern just off to their left behind them, farther from shore than the divers.
Here a steady stream of bubbles rose swiftly towards the surface, moving along towards the shore.
All three men spread out, keeping their lights on the bubbles and the hidden portion of the seafloor below them, and they converged from the east, west, and south, their spear guns loaded and cocked with enough tension to drive the steel shank straight through a diver’s body.
As they arrived above the narrow little chasm, their beams shot back and forth, until t
he origin of the expelling air became apparent.
All three men held their positions above the source, unsure what they were looking at for a moment, but they finally put it together.
It was a scuba tank with its regulator removed, spewing air from its open valve. The spewing gases propelled the device in the water; the attached buoyancy-control device had just enough air to keep it jetting along slowly but steadily, some dozen feet above the ocean floor.
But there was no diver attached to the equipment.
All three men spun around, back to the north, and they began kicking as hard as they could as they ascended, certain now the Gray Man could only be found at the surface, because he only had the air left in his lungs.
* * *
• • •
Two minutes ago I knelt on the ocean floor, thirty-three feet below the gentle waves. Here I took off my BCD vest, turned off the tank, removed the regulator, and then reopened the valve slightly. Sucking in one last mouthful of unpressurized air directly from the tank, I used one hand to reach down to pull two stones from the seafloor, while with the other hand I pointed the bottom of the steel canister towards the south and cranked open the valve the rest of the way.
The entire scuba rig began jetting away like a very slow torpedo, and I turned to the northeast, kicking myself into shallower water while ascending slightly as I swam.
The stones are keeping me from shooting to the surface now, but once I’m halfway up, I drop one of them. I’m not breathing so there are no bubbles; the only trail evident on the water above me should be the air from the tank, now probably fifty yards away or more and heading in the opposite direction.