Red Tide (Siren Publishing Classic) (6 page)

Jack agreed.

They opened a cooler and removed the partially dissolved chum block in its nylon mesh bag. Ron hung it over the gunwale and tied it off to a cleat while Jack made a show of waving his hand in front of his face.

“Boy, that thing stinks.” he said.

Ron laughed. “Hey, if you’re a grouper, it’s Chanel Number Five. Now let’s catch some fish.”

* * * *

Mitch’s promise to Ed rang in her ears when, at forty feet, a dark form took shape beneath her. It came into focus as she continued to descend. She released her grip on the anchor rope and kicked to the bottom. A nice fishing yacht, white with blue trim, and about forty feet long, she guessed, although it was hard to tell with the limited visibility.

Mitch dodged a jellyfish and hovered over the stern. The yacht rested on her bottom, listing to starboard. Painted on the transom in navy blue script was the yacht’s name and home port—the
Emmerand
out of Coral Gables.

Well, that answers
that
question. No wonder they didn’t answer those hails. She’s a long way from home. I wonder if they came around the Keys or through the Okeechobee Waterway?

Mitch moved closer. She removed her right glove and ran her fingers along the gelcoat. She felt no telltale slime, meaning the yacht hadn’t been on the bottom more than a day or two. It was a nice boat and wouldn’t go unreported as missing for long. That brought another question to mind.

Where’s the crew?

Mitch replaced her glove and slowly circled the yacht with growing unease. The wreck’s anchor rope stretched from the windlass on the bow pulpit off into the murky distance.

They were anchored when they sank.

She saw no immediate signs of fire or hull damage, and there had been no storms severe enough to sink a vessel this size in weeks.

What sank her?

She returned to the stern, dropping closer to the bottom. A large teak dive platform hung from the transom, supported by two chains. It bobbed up and down slightly in the weak current. Mitch rested one fin-tip on the bottom to steady herself and lifted the platform, allowing her a closer look at the props. Both looked damaged, one missing nearly half a blade.

Damn, they hit hard!

That answered her question. A hit that serious likely bent the prop shafts. While the boat ran, the bent shafts would vibrate and wallow out the packing around them. Once anchored, the packing would leak. A malfunctioning automatic bilge pump float switch would send the vessel to the bottom. Especially if it happened at night, while everyone on board slept.

Mitch let go of the platform and swam over the stern. A thin, intermittent stream of diesel fuel and bubbles escaped through the fuel tank vent near the cockpit. A vessel of this size could easily hold four hundred gallons of fuel or more. The Coast Guard would have to be notified.

Something brushed against her leg and she jumped, annoyed to find a remora cleaner fish trying to suction itself to her. She smacked it on top of its misshapen head, only to have it circle and try again on her other leg.

All right, fish. You’re pissing me off.
Remoras were notorious for bothering divers. The fish often rode attached to sharks, turtles, large rays, and whales, but were frequently found near reefs.

It swam off. Mitch watched to see if it would return. A movement off to her far right caught her eye. Startled, she brought her spear gun around and spun the powerhead down as a large shark materialized.

Her heart jumped. At first, Mitch thought it was a bull shark until she recognized the familiar whiskers of a better-natured nurse shark, approximately eight feet long. Mitch backed into the cockpit when she noticed the milky cataracts in its eyes. Nurse sharks usually didn’t bother divers unless antagonized. The older, blind ones could be annoying, however, especially if startled.

The shark looked like it was going to turn toward her, but didn’t. Instead, it cruised away and the Gulf swallowed it as it swam out of visual range. She let out a sigh of relief and turned to examine the cabin.

It was about three o’clock and the sun no longer shone directly overhead. Dark shadows filled the wreck’s interior. She fished around in her BC for her flashlight. The batteries were a little weak, but it made a difference as she played the narrow beam around the wheel house.

A closed hatch led below to the main cabin. She remembered to reset the safety on the powerhead before moving into the cramped passageway. The wooden door was swollen from being submerged, but she braced her leg against the top of the hatchway and got enough leverage to pull it open.

An inky hole faced her, the darkness a gaping maw below her. Mitch paused to clear some accumulated water from her mask and, with her speargun before her, she aimed her light ahead and carefully moved into the main salon.

The cabin resembled a NASA space film. Objects hovered, suspended in midair, and gently swaying in the current her presence created. Mitch penetrated further and trained her light on something in the far corner. Tiny fish darted in and out through the open hatch behind her, dodging out of her way while she investigated.

A pale, ghostly shape slowly waved back and forth in the beam of her light. She approached. Startled, she pulled back when she realized what it was.

* * * *

“Oh, hell. What are you doing?” Ed muttered as her bubbles all but ceased. Small ones broke the surface in the same spot, but with no discernible pattern.

“What’s wrong?” Jack called.

“She just went inside.”

“Inside what?” Ron asked.

Ed looked at them. “There’s got to be a boat down there. We can’t see her bubbles anymore because she’s gone inside.” He turned back to the patch of water thirty yards off their starboard bow. “Come on, Mitch, hurry up,” he said.

* * * *

The man was dead. His pale hand, now just another inanimate object subject to the forces of current, drifted in a slow parody of a wave.

Well, he’s not fish food yet, and he’s not floating. He hasn’t been dead more than a day.

Being a professional search and recovery diver imparted her with grisly facts the average person wasn’t usually aware of. It wasn’t the first body she’d recovered, but at least it wasn’t in a nasty mining pit or a mucky sinkhole.

Mitch glanced at her dive computer and pressure gauge. She still had half a tank of air, and plenty of time left to avoid a decompression stop on her way to the surface. The cabin felt eerie with only the dead man for company. He was a large man, and would be difficult for her to manage by herself. She finally decided to leave him and head for the surface. There were two more doors in the main cabin, both closed, one leading forward and another aft. She decided against looking around and risking entanglement.

The Coast Guard will have to search anyway. And I don’t particularly want a body on my boat.

She carefully turned, doing her best not to kick the corpse in the head with her fins, and exited.

The swollen hatch would not close. Mitch braced herself and pushed, but it was too swollen to fit back into the jamb. When she turned to leave the wreck she jumped, a brief scream causing an explosion of bubbles from her regulator.

The nurse shark was back, a giant beige hulk slowly zigzagging back and forth around the wreck. Mitch reset the powerhead.

I don’t want to shoot you, fella.

Not only was it a waste, but the blood would attract other sharks to the area. Near the bow, a small school of barracuda had gathered, about ten in all, the largest no more than two feet in length. They hovered, motionless, like a group of black and silver torpedoes, with only their toothy mouths moving, working to pump water across their gills.

An involuntary shudder went through her. She wasn’t afraid of sharks. Cautious, definitely. Nervous, slightly. Afraid, no. Barracudas, on the other hand, gave her the willies. It wasn’t the mouth full of jagged teeth that unnerved her, because they rarely attacked divers. They just went after fish that’d been shot or strung. It was the way they seemed to materialize out of nowhere, and in the blink of an eye, disappear again. In all the years she’d been diving, Mitch had lost countless fish to barracudas. Some even taken right off her shaft, before she had a chance to retrieve them. Barracudas were the hit-and-run artists of the sea. Ed referred to it as “fish-jacking.”

Mitch took a deep breath and focused on her anchor line. Ed had dropped anchor right over the
Emmerand.
When they backed up to set it, it caught on the railing and shifted the wreck slightly, causing the earlier explosion of bubbles.

The nurse shark dissolved into the distance again. Mitch slowly kicked to her anchor line and freed it, resetting it in the sand and burying the flukes so they wouldn’t drift. With the calm sea, there was little danger of it breaking loose. She began her ascent, constantly turning, keeping a wary eye on the bottom.

She had to stop around twenty feet to clear her ears again. Mitch couldn’t help it, but the theme song to
Jaws
played in her mind.

* * * *

“Here she comes.” Ed returned to the stern while Jack and Ron reeled in their hooks. They watched Mitch’s bubbles grow larger and more concentrated until she finally broke the surface in front of the bow. She looked around and gave them the okay sign. Then she bent forward in the water to activate the safety on the powerhead and uncock the speargun band. Only then did she swim over and hand it up to Ed, butt first.

She fully inflated her BC and spit out her regulator. “We need to call the Coast Guard back. There’s a body down there.” She tossed her weight belt in over the gunwale. Ed had to quickly sidestep to avoid it. Her fins followed her weight belt. She didn’t waste time unsuiting in the water, but scrambled up the ladder, still wearing her BC and tank.

“Hold on. Calm down, hon. A body?” Ed offered her a steadying hand as she sat on the stern and unfastened the straps on her BC.

“A man. The boat’s about forty feet long, a fishing yacht. Maybe a Bertram. Her name’s the
Emmerand,
out of Coral Gables. Now I know why they didn’t answer.”

“What are you talking about?” Ron asked.

Mitch turned to him. “Earlier today, I heard someone hail the
Emmerand,
and they never received a reply.”

Ed helped her shrug out of her BC jacket. “Anyone else on board?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t look.” She finished describing the scene below while stripping off the rest of her gear. Mitch peeled off her tights, but left her sweatshirt on. It clung to her body like a second skin, accentuating all her curves. Ed was glad when she handed him her gear. It gave him something to hide his growing erection behind.

She went into the cockpit to call the Coast Guard. They took the new information and told her to wait there until a vessel arrived to investigate. By the time she finished, Ed was suiting up to go down. She was still wearing the sweatshirt, and Ed forced himself to look away and concentrate on his preparations.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“I’m going down after that body.”

“Why?”

He looked up at her, forcing his gaze to meet hers after an unscheduled pit stop at her chest. “You couldn’t close the hatch, remember?”

Mitch winced. “That’s right.”

He looked grim. “If we don’t bring him up, he’ll be barracuda or shark bait. Besides, the Coast Guard ought to know if there’s any other bodies down there. It’s no biggie. I’ll be right back.”

“Why don’t I go back down, then? I’ll take an airbag to lift him.”

He shook his head. “I already checked your computer. You’re at your limits. I’ve been up long enough I can do a short dive. Besides, you said he was a big guy. It’s better if I go.” Ed closed the subject to discussion despite her protests.

She waited until he rolled off the gunwale, then handed his speargun down to him. They watched him disappear beneath the water and followed his progress by his bubbles.

Ron turned to Mitch. “Gee, if I knew we were going to have
this
much fun, I would’ve brought a video camera.”

“Ron, this kind of fun I
don’t
need.”

* * * *

Ed quickly descended
,
wary, looking for the nurse shark Mitch warned him about. Luckily it was enough to take his mind off of the memory of Mitch’s body accentuated under her wet sweatshirt. The barracuda were still gathered around the bow, only now there were about twenty of them. He turned his dive light on and entered the main cabin and found it exactly as Mitch had described.

The man’s face looked pale and bloated, his sightless eyes open and milky in death. Ed fought the urge to vomit when a small squirrel fish swam in and out between the corpse’s gaping jaws.

Ed turned to face the forward cabin door. It would be a narrow fit, but he decided to try. It pulled open easily, surprising him. He slowly passed through, turning slightly to squeeze in without removing his gear.