Barracuda (16 page)

Captain Mara had a small mongrel dog that
accompanied him on all his boating trips. One-Eyed Jack was as ugly
as he was blind, and he actually did only have one eye. The poor
animal had been severely injured when Mara took him in a few years
earlier. No one really knew what had happened to him, but he hopped
around on three legs, had a chewed up ear, and was missing an
eye.

One-Eyed Jack introduced himself to Micko by
humping his leg.

“Horny dog you’ve got there, Captain,” Micko
teased.

“He may be horny and ugly, but he’s got a great
sense of smell,” the captain retorted. “That comes in real handy
when a flash storm cuts visibility to zero. Jack here can smell
land and steer me toward a safe harbor, so let him hump you a
little.” Mara smiled, pleased as the cop playfully rubbed Jack’s
muzzle.

Steve set up his own gear and gave Micko the
regular pre-dive speech, including their dive profile. He said,
“After I give the diver down signal, follow me to the flight deck
and then give me the okay sign. Then I want to drop over the port
side and check the hatchway those stupid brothers were trying to
remove. Just follow me and keep an eye on your air supply. If you
run below fifteen hundred pounds, let me know. Otherwise, just
follow me during the dive and to each decompression station.”

“All right, Kemo Sabe,” Micko joked.

“How much lead do you need?” Steve asked.

“Four pounds should do it.”

“Four pounds? Are you sure that’s all you need?”
Steve asked, doubtful.

“That’s all I need, Steve.”

“I don’t want you floating to the surface
because you can’t stay down. You’ll ruin your dive, not to mention
mine.”

“Listen, Steve, this is not my first rodeo. I
dive with a dive skin that has zero floatation, and the tanks are
made out of steel. I normally wear eight pounds with an 80 cu
aluminum tank, so I think a four-pound adjustment is fair,” Micko
returned.

“We’ll see,” Steve proclaimed.

Micko opened his dive bag and removed his weight
belt. He preferred the kind that allowed him to unzip the pouch,
add the lead, and then re-zip the belt. It was much faster than the
traditional belt that forced him to slide the weights on either
side of the belt and then wrestle to fasten them into place. It
took thirty seconds to do. Micko already had his dive suit on, so
he buckled the weight belt around his waist and cinched it. Next he
took out his dive mask and attached it to his BC vest. Finally, he
took out his fins.

Micko loved his force fins. Traditional fins
were long and quite clumsy, and most divers believed that bigger
was better when it came to fins. Micko preferred the ease of
application both putting on and taking off his much shorter fins.
Also, walking was so much easier. Any diver who attempted to walk
on the slippery deck of a cattle boat cluttered with dive gear and
rolling on the high seas knew how clumsy long fins were.

When Steve saw Micko unpack and arrange his gear
and then remove his fins, he finally determined that this cop knew
what he was doing. Steve had the same fins and the same low profile
dive mask. Years of rough diving often led a diver to change gear
from traditional to functional.

Mara had only been driving the boat for ten
minutes when Steve yelled, “Gear up! We’re almost there!”

Micko slipped his arms into his BC vest, spit
into his mask, and rubbed the spittle around the lens to prevent
fogging before rinsing it with his water bottle. He placed the mask
on his face and easily glided his feet into his fins. Steve
observed this quick efficient movement with approval. Too often he
had to help divers gear up in a laborious effort of tedious
maneuvers, so it was a pleasure watching a diver who wasn’t
helpless.

Mara positioned the
Lily II
so that Steve
could attach the boat to the mooring line. Once that was completed,
Mara killed the engine, and they listed slowly and silently on a
lagoon as flat as glass. The sunrise was gorgeous, and the three
speechlessly watched nature’s silent movie.

“Too bad we can’t just sit here all day watching
the sunrise,” Steve joked.

“Let’s get wet,” Micko cried.

Steve pulled on his gear in an effortless manner
and said, “Backward roll.”

Micko placed his regulator into his mouth and
rolled backward off the boat. The
Lily II
was a
smaller boat that the
Lily I
, and it didn’t have
a roll-down hammerhead gate. Divers rolled backward over the sides
to enter the water and climbed up a pair of side ladders.

Micko gave the diver okay signal and floated on
the surface as Steve readied himself for a backward water entry.
Soon the two divers were floating in the water face to face.

Steve slipped under the warm water first and
Micko followed. The pair swam to the mooring line and followed it
down into the light blue water. Micko could see the outline of the
huge aircraft carrier below as he slowly descended into the depths.
The water remained warm and crystal clear as he neared the USS
Saratoga
’s bridge. The huge antennas resembled a massive elk
horn suspended above the gigantic artificial reef. He noticed that
a carpet of netting draped the bridge antennas like and old
discarded rug.

Numerous species of fish darted about the carpet
canopy like children playing a game of tag. Suddenly, a large
school of amber jacks passed the divers like a soundless freight
train. Micko was silently counting the huge fish when they
unexpectedly veered into the canopy protecting the smaller, playful
fish. Micko and Steve were mere feet away from the explosion of
this feeding frenzy. What made this massacre so eerie was the lack
of noise. Big fish ate little fish in a heated rush, and then the
silent freight train continued its voyage into the far ends of the
lagoon.

Both Steve and Micko were excitedly watching the
slaughter, which lasted only a few minutes, as they simultaneously
touched down on the carrier’s enormous eight-hundred-eighty-foot
flight deck. Once the jacks had departed, the divers checked their
gauges and gave each other the diver’s okay sign.

Steve motioned for Micko to follow him over to
the port side of the ship, but Micko waved him off, pointing in the
direction behind Steve, who turned around to see what had concerned
him. The flight deck fifty feet behind them was littered with the
carcasses of gray reef sharks. The pair slowly swam over to the
bodies to investigate. Each shark showed slight signs of decay with
small fish and crabs savoring the free meal. Micko figured that
larger fish were afraid of becoming prey as well, so they were
keeping their distance.

He was poking at one corpse when he heard Steve
yelling through his regulator. Steve looked at Micko and then
pointed to the dead shark’s missing pectoral fin. Micko swam over
to take a closer look, noticing that the fin appeared to have been
cut off clean with a sharp knife. He knew that Japanese fishermen
used long lines and caught thousands of sharks. Then they cut off
the fins and threw the sharks overboard. This conduct was illegal,
but the shark fins brought in a huge profit to the Japanese
fishermen.

Still…
Something’s wrong here
, Micko
thought. Every shark was only missing one or two random fins. The
fishermen would have removed every fin if they were to blame. Micko
and Steve worked their way through the shark battlefield, perplexed
by the scene.

Looking at Steve, Micko shrugged.
What the
hell happened here?

Steve shrugged back.
I don’t know
. He
pointed at his gauges and motioned for Micko to follow him to the
lower level of the ship so they could check on the hatchway that
the Aussie brothers had tried to remove.

Swimming effortlessly to the port side of the
deck, Steve glided over the transom and down, with Micko in close
pursuit. As they dove further into the depths, the light faded and
the colors disappeared with only dark hues of brown, gray, and
black visible. Micko noticed how the ship’s massive hull had
crushed itself, trapping the cargo in a watery grave. Now he knew
why the brothers had wanted to create an entry, but he also knew of
the dangers and why Steve was so concerned.

They were both diving headfirst toward the lower
level when Micko noticed the hatchway door lying in the sand far
below. He grabbed Steve’s fin and pointed to the inanimate object
lying near the keel. Seeing the hatch, Steve swam faster toward the
opening where it belonged. Micko shone the beams of his powerful
flashlight into the orifice, only to see a wall of dangerous
tentacles. Steve tapped him on the shoulder and pointed his light
beam at a white line tied off at one of the portholes, running deep
into the dark room. Instantly, Micko knew what the brothers had
done. They had penetrated the wreck with a wreck reel, but it was
still attached. That meant the odds were that they had never
exited.

Steve motioned to Micko that he was going to
enter the hole, follow the wreck line in, and use it as a guide to
return. Micko shook his head emphatically
no,
but before he could do
anything, Steve slipped through the hatch with his flashlight in
his left hand and the wreck line in his right. Micko watched him go
through and followed two body lengths behind. They both stayed
close to the floor to avoid the dangling fingers of death from
above.

There was always something awe-inspiring about
entering the bowels of a shipwreck. All fear and common sense
dissolved into the water surrounding the diver. The excitement of
penetrating such a famous graveyard was intoxicating. Micko felt
the same adrenaline rush as when he was tracking a murder suspect.
He suddenly felt a wave of self-confidence wash over him.
Physically, he was still inadequate, but emotionally, he was slowly
returning back to his bulldog status.

He quickly gazed at his gauges and was satisfied
that he could stay down at least another five minutes before
beginning the tedious decompression to the surface. He let the beam
of his flashlight play from side to side as he marveled at the huge
room they had entered.

Shortly thereafter, Micko looked behind him to
see if the opening was still visible. Even though they had the
wreck line as a lifeline out, he did not want to lose sight of
their exit. He saw that the low, ambient light was enough to
illuminate the exit doorway, and his anxiety level dropped a
notch.

Suddenly, Steve sprinted past him in a flurry of
wild kicks that swirled sediment like a small, blinding tornado.
Micko froze as he came close to panicking. The brown dust-like
sediment covered the floor, the ceiling, and all the loose hanging
cables. It was snowing sediment, and his visibility dropped to
zero.
Don’t panic!
he kept saying to himself.
You have
time, so just relax. Find the line, turn around, and swim out of
the maze.

Micko stayed still for a few moments until the
silt began to resettle on the floor. He shone his light into the
muck until he located the white line. He was just about to
carefully turn around and swim out of the cargo hold when he
spotted a fin a few feet away. He thought it had to be Steve’s, so
he swam over to retrieve it, figuring Steve had bolted out because
he was either low on air or he was getting narced. That was the
only reason an experienced diver like Steve would race out so fast
and silt out the visibility.

Micko swam over to the fin and grabbed it. Then
he shone his light on his gauges.
Still plenty of time if I exit
now
, he thought. His light beam illuminated the fin and he
noticed that it was lime green. Steve had been wearing black force
fins just like his. With an uneasy feeling, he wondered who
belonged to the green fins. He played his light beam in wide
circles before him and then straight up over his head.

He stared for what seemed like hours, but it
must have only been a few seconds. His brain was saturated with
nitrogen and was working slowly.
What is that thing suspended
from the ceiling?
He held his light beam on the object, but his
brain couldn’t read what his eyes were telling it. Suddenly, his
brain understood as Micko watched a small colorful wrasse swim out
of Bill’s left eye socket and up into his nasal cavity. Like a bolt
of lightning, Micko realized what he was seeing. Directly above
him, Bill was restrained by overhanging debris. His body was
grotesquely bloated, and his half-eaten tongue protruded from his
purple lips. His right eye dangled out of its socket by a tendon,
his right ear was completely eaten away, as were his fingers.
Macabre fascination kept Micko’s eyes riveted to this ghastly scene
until he snapped back to reality, and to his utter amazement, he
calmly swam out of the room and joined Steve at the first
decompression stop.

Mara had the decompression gear in place, and it
was a welcome sight. The
Lily II
was equipped with a
three-stage underwater trapeze of aluminum bars that dangled at
various depths and delivered a seventy-five percent oxygen mixture
for quicker and more reliable decompression.

When Micko paired up with Steve, he gave Steve
the diver okay sign, and Steve returned it. Micko could see that
Steve was a bit shaken, but he was all right.

Micko had plenty of time to think while he did
his decompression hangs. He figured that the two brothers had
probably either gotten lost in the wreck or had gotten tangled and
run out of air. The resort would have to launch a recovery effort
to retrieve the bodies and ship them home to Australia, not very
good publicity just as they were about to have their grand
opening.

***

It was hovering in the shadows close to the
north wall of the passageway. This was where the gray sharks
entered and exited the lagoon from the ocean. It knew It had
delivered a devastating blow to the large family of sharks, and It
was willing to send another message to them to never return to Its
atoll. It became fanatically possessive of everything in Its new
domain, waiting in the shadows until the band of sharks returned.
It was disgusted by the bravado of the inferior creatures and
launched another killer attack. Soon a dozen sharks were spiraling
out of control with damaged or missing fins. The rest retreated in
great haste as It lunched on the maimed sharks that littered the
passage floor. Without their fins, the sharks were helpless to
defend themselves. It ate until It was satiated and left the
remaining sharks to twitch and swim in never-ending circles until
they either drowned or became prey themselves. It had just changed
the hierarchy of the food chain in Bikini Atoll.