"Tom… no."
Tom's mouth twisted. "Fine. You want to head home, go to it. But you'll be going without me."
"What?"
"And if you leave me here, I'm stuck here. The only way I'll get back to the States will be in handcuffs. I'd hope you wouldn't do that to me."
"Staying will be your choice."
"And you—how far do you think you can take the
No number of Jacques Cousteau specials or repeat viewings of
"But just say they do a random check. We are, in a very true sense, illegal aliens. I don't want to end up in that prison."
"Will you stop worrying? You sound like a nervous old biddy."
Attention to details, anticipating potential problems before they became real… it had kept Jack alive and on the right side of jail bars. So far.
Tom stepped over to the pump. They'd placed the heavy, steamer-trunk-sized contraption near the transom. The hoses were in the water and ready to go. The short feeder had a weighted end that hung over the port side and drifted a couple of feet below the surface; the coils of the longer one, a fifty footer, floated on the starboard side.
A touch of the starter button brought the pump's diesel engine to sputtering life. The end of the longer hose began bubbling and snaking about as it filled with water drawn through its shorter brother.
Tom fitted his mask over his face. "See you downstairs," he said in a nasal voice.
He stuck the mouthpiece between his lips, waved, then fell backward into the water. He hit with a splash, righted himself, then grabbed the end of the hose. He motioned Jack to follow him, then kicked away toward the bottom.
Jack adjusted his own mask, then took a test breath through the mouthpiece. Everything seemed to be working, but he hesitated. He was about to jump into a hole and couldn't help but remember another hole, the one in the Everglades, the one that had no bottom…
Shaking it off, he seated himself on the gunwale, tank over the water and—here goes—toppled backward.
He hit the water and let himself sink. Immediately the tank and the weight belt became weightless, the clumsy, unwieldy, uncomfortable gear became lithe and supremely functional. He held his nose and popped his ears, then kicked toward the bottom, following the hose down to where Tom hovered and waited forty feet below.
This sand hole was a forty-foot-deep oblong depression in the reef, about half as wide as it was long. They'd anchored near the upstream edge, so as Jack dropped through the crystalline water, popping his ears whenever the pressure became uncomfortable, he checked out the nearby coral wall.
Something strange here.
He drifted over for a closer look. The coral looked bleached and barren—no sea grasses, no algae, no vegetation at all. No sponges or anemones, no starfish or sea urchins. A closer look showed not a single living coral polyp.
The reef was dead.
Jack had heard of coral blights that wiped out entire reefs. Maybe that was the story here. He looked around and could not find a single fish. Even in the shallow water by the dock he'd been accompanied by a wide variety of brightly colored fish. He'd been able to identify a parrotfish and an angelfish, but the rest were strangers.
Here, on this reef, however… no movement, no color.
In a way that made sense. The coral polyps were the bedrock of the reef ecosystem. When they died, the hangers-on went off in search of greener pastures.
But you'd think you'd see at least one fish.
Jack did a full three-sixty. Nope. Not one. Nothing alive in this sand hole except Tom and him.
He shook off the creeps crawling up his back and kicked down toward where Tom was impatiently motioning him to
But before he did…
Instead of hanging on the line with Tom for a decompression stop, he propelled himself to the rim of the sand hole and glided over the crest to see how far beyond the blight had spread.
He stopped and floated, gaping. Color… movement…
He'd persisted in his inchoate ramblings during the trip back to Hamilton and all through dinner. Tom didn't think he'd ever been so happy to close a hotel room door behind him and collapse on a bed. Shutting off Jack's voice had been part of it; the vodka had contributed too. But mostly it had been the crushing fatigue. He led a sedentary life and the day's exertions had exacted their toll.
Were
Jack didn't seem to be bothered at all. They'd traded their empty air tanks for fresh this morning and he'd hefted them in and out of the truck bay as if yesterday had been just another day.
No doubt about it, little brother was strong.
And fast. Tom's belly still hurt from that punch the other night. He hadn't seen it coming, hadn't seen it happen. Once second he was standing there, the next he was doubled over in pain. Even though it had hurt like hell, the scary part was that he sensed Jack had pulled the punch, hitting him just hard enough to make his point. If he'd put everything into it…
Best to forget about it. He'd almost got them both killed. But who'd have believed they'd cross paths with a tanker? The odds were…
Never mind. He'd fucked up and deserved the punch. But admit that to Jack? Never.
Jack continued with his litany of doom this morning—like a woodchuck gnawing at his brainstem.
"I'm telling you, Tom. We need to rethink this whole thing."
"Will you give it a rest? I'm begging you, Jack, give it a rest. You're wearing me out with this shit."
Tom repressed an urge to tell him to talk about something else or not talk at all. He had to be careful. He needed Jack. He couldn't do this alone.
But he needed quiet too, so he could think. He couldn't get the bank out of his mind. Half a million bucks and he couldn't get to it!
Which made finding something in the Sombracrucial.
He clenched his jaw and tried to think as their pickup crawled through Paget with the rest of the traffic on South Road. He hadn't driven a manual shift in ages; what a royal pain in the ass. But at least they had wheels. No such thing as Hertz or Avis here. Bermuda didn't want tourists renting anything larger than a moped. That made the taxi drivers happy.