Barracuda (25 page)

The problem with the siren was that it was so
loud that no one could be heard yelling over it. Micko was unable
to tell Denise about the barracuda danger as he watched her climb
into her dive gear. It was obvious that she was going down after
her fold.

He yelled over to Dr. Collins, “Quick, Doc! Set
the gas mix on your re-breather for 180 fsw!”

The professor was way ahead of him and was
already conjuring up the re-breather for the dive. Micko had help
from James as he put on his weight belt and fins. The professor was
giving Micko a few last-minute instructions as he put on his mask
and quickly submerged. Micko knew that the hatchway was at the 140
fsw level, not 180, but he wanted an extra cushion of safety since
his last dive was on the extreme level.

He quickly acclimated himself to the close
circuit diving system and dove headfirst down the buoy line,
catching Denise at the one-hundred-foot level. He grabbed her by
the fins, and when she looked back at him, he gave the diver danger
sign followed by the diver up sign. She looked at him quizzically
for a second, and then shook her head
no
. She was about to
continue down when a most frightening sight played out before
them.

***

Rat had hit the water first and done a negative
descent. He hadn’t put any air into his BC vest, so he sank like a
stone. Several of the other Renegades did the same, floating down
like parachutists coming in for a landing. There was nothing smooth
or dainty about the descent. It was all about speed. Each Renegade
wanted to be the first into the hole in the carrier so they could
be the winner of the scavenger hunt.

Sheila actually landed on the flight deck first.
She landed hard because she had weighted herself down with extra
lead just so she would sink fastest. Looking up, she saw Bulldog
coming down at a high speed and Rat dropping right into the old
fish netting on the bridge superstructure. She adjusted a loose fin
and dropped over the port side of the
Saratoga
and down
toward the hatchway.

She reached the hatch with Bulldog right behind
her, and raced right through without even attempting to secure a
wreck reel. Bulldog shook his head in disbelief as he unhooked his
own wreck reel from his BC vest. While looking for a place to tie
off the free end, he noticed a line was already attached.
Shit!
he thought.
Somebody beat us to the hole!
Deciding to forego the reel, he too raced into the bowels of the
carrier. He didn’t get far before he saw Sheila struggling with
some steel tentacles dangling from the ceiling. She was blocking
his way, and he could hear the exhaust bubbles of other divers now
converging on the hole. He wondered if he should help her get
untangled or push his way past her so he could seek out the
bandanas. Hearing the recall siren from the dive boat, he decided
this was the only chance they would get. One recovered bandana
could turn out to be enough to win the scavenger hunt if it were
called off.

Bulldog pushed Sheila sideways like a pendulum,
and when she swung far enough out of his way, he rushed past her
into the next corridor.

***

It was startled out of Its slumber, and all of
Its defense mechanisms came alive. It didn’t know what had caused
It to come out of Its trance, but Its instincts told It that danger
was near. It sensed that large prey had entered Its lair. The
lateral lines that ran the length of Its body started picking up
erratic movements and struggling, which sent almost invisible waves
through the water that were picked up on the lateral lines.

It did not recognize the source of the
intrusion. It knew the movements of other fish and was only
concerned about the sharks if they were to corner It. These were
not the sleek, subtle movements of the sharks. Then came the noise
that irritated his auditory canal and raised the danger level to
attack mode. It acted in self-defense and launched through the den
and corridors until It reached Its opponents. It knew that there
were numerous antagonists, so Its senses were on full alert as It
initiated the attack.

***

Micko could see a large number of bubbles coming
from below the flight deck in the area of the hatch opening. He
knew that the rope must have been removed and that divers were
probably inside the wreck. He just hoped that the barracuda was not
at home.

He was about to swim down and grab Denise a
second time when he saw a wide-eyed diver speeding up toward him
like a human cannonball. The diver just flew out of a wall of
bubbles, and Micko had to dodge the man at the last second or else
the diver would have crashed right into him. The look of terror on
the man’s face made Micko grasp the fact that his worst fears had
been realized. The monster was home and defending his castle from
intruders.

Micko knew that a diver rocketing to the surface
like a projectile was going to die a painful death from an air
embolism. The diver had dropped his weight belt, BC vest, and tank.
A diver only does that in a full panic situation.

Suddenly, there were divers everywhere—some
ascending, some descending, and some just floating. The scene was
so surreal. Once again, things appeared to be happening in slow
motion, when in actuality, they were moving at warp speed.

Micko held onto the safety of the buoy line as
three more divers rocketed to the surface. There were fewer bubbles
now, so he could see more clearly. Two of the floating bodies were
streaming clouds of dark liquid from missing limbs. One diver kept
trying to reattach his severed right arm like it would just snap
back into place.

When he saw Micko, he had a look of uncertainty
on his face. He motioned Micko to help him put the arm back on, and
in the next second, his eyes rolled back into his head and he
slowly drifted down toward the ocean floor.

Micko gingerly pulled himself up the line toward
the surface as he watched the carnage below. Denise looked up at
him with a deer-in-the-headlights stare, and Micko motioned sternly
for her to ascend.

She looked back down, fascinated by the diver
who was attempting to reach the mooring line without any legs.
Blood was gushing out at the knees, making the diver look like some
kind of stunt man. The diver managed to get one hand on the line
before he went still and slowly dropped to the ocean’s basement,
one hand still reaching out for the lifeline.

Micko was horrified that he was helpless, but he
knew that he would also become a victim if he didn’t get his sorry
ass out of there. He was only twenty feet from the surface. When he
looked back down, he saw a flash of silver strike Denise, and then
dive back into the depths. Her right leg was amputated mid-thigh
and was now pirouetting downward into the deep water. Denise was
slowly following her missing limb, with her arms outstretched
toward Micko as she descended backward. The look on her face
pleaded with him to somehow help her. She drifted to the bottom,
and the last Micko saw of her was the pale bone sticking out from
her thigh where her shapely leg used to be attached.

***

Before Steve and his rescue team could set up
their dive gear, Carol screamed, “That man needs help!”

Steve looked over the starboard side of the
Happy Monkey
and saw a diver clad only in a dive suit
splashing wildly on the surface. Steve could see the blood spurting
from the man’s nose and mouth, and he immediately knew that the
diver had made an emergency ascent and was suffering from an
embolism. He thrashed about while screaming in agony.

“Everybody, grab your snorkel and fins for
surface recovery!” Steve ordered. “Leave the scuba for later.”

The men and women of the rescue team were
quickly in the water just as several other mortally injured divers
bobbed to the surface. The scene was chaotic. Carol and Steve swam
to attend to the first diver, who splashed savagely as they tried
to help him aboard. Just as quickly as he surfaced, the man went
still.

“Help me get him up the ladder, Carol,” Steve
urged.

The two rescuers had great difficulty dragging
the dead weight aboard. Carol ran for the pure oxygen canister, but
Steve said, “It’s too late, Carol. Let’s save it for someone who
may benefit from it.”

Steve pulled the dead man out of the way as
other rescuers pulled two more injured divers from the water. One
female diver was bleeding from the nose, but she was conscious and
speaking.

“The devil! The devil!” she gasped. “He did
this!”

Carol administered pure oxygen to the woman as
the second diver went into convulsions and flapped around the
Happy Monkey
’s deck like a hooked flounder. This aquatic
dance lasted only a few moments before he exhaled a final loud gasp
and expired.

The rescuers stared at the dead man until Steve
ordered, “Bring him over here and out of the way. I have a feeling
that we will need all the room we can spare.”

The dead man was pulled to the front of the boat
and laid to rest next to the first diver. The woman seemed to be
responding to the oxygen, and she was moved into the galley. Her
eyes were wide, and all the blood vessels in the whites were
broken, making them bloodshot. She kept trying to speak, but Carol
kept the oxygen mask tight on her face, stroked her hair, and said,
“Breathe deep and slow. You’ll be okay. You can talk later. Just
breathe for me.”

“What should we do now, Steve?” one of the
rescuers who was still in the water asked.

“Stay there,” Steve replied. “A dozen divers
went in, and they’ll need our help when they surface.”

***

The men on the
Hummingbird
watched in
horror as divers began popping up out of the water and screaming in
agony. Their thrashing only impeded the rescuers’ efforts to get
them to safety. The men felt helpless, but they knew that Steve and
his crew were doing the best that they could.

“I hope they die quickly,” the professor
murmured.

“What are you talking about?” Regis shrieked,
overcome by the horrific scene playing out below him.

“When a diver who is down that deep makes a
beeline to the surface, the compressed air he’s breathing at depth
suddenly expands, forming large air bubbles in his bloodstream.
These bubbles flow through his bloodstream like marbles until they
reach an artery and cause a stroke-like condition that is very
painful and almost always leads to death,” James answered.

“That’s why we must surface slowly and hang a
various levels while inhaling mixed gases,” the professor added.
“This reduces the air bubbles and removes the excess nitrogen from
out bloodstream. I merely meant that I hope they don’t suffer for
hours in excruciating pain.”

Celestial kept the
Hummingbird
clear from
the rescuers and the surfacing divers. No one needed a boat
knocking into their heads.

Regis was running about the boat nervously
asking, “What’s happening? What in God’s name is going on?”

“Calm down, Regis, please!” James pleaded. “The
barracuda must have frightened these divers into an emergency
ascent.”

***

Micko surfaced into a midst of would-be
rescuers. He was immediately surrounded and asked, “Where’s
Denise?”

Steve waved the swimmers away and swam with
Micko to the
Hummingbird
ladder. Micko squeezed out of the
re-breather and handed it up to James along with his weight belt.
Then he looked solemnly at Steve and said, “I’m sorry. She didn’t
make it.”

The two men climbed on board the
Hummingbird
, and Micko quickly told them all that had
happened.

Steve was in denial. “Denise has swum with
barracuda before. She just hasn’t completed her safety hang
yet.”

Micko brought him up to speed on the giant
barracuda, the attack on the sharks, and the video. Since Steve had
already seen the shark carcasses on the carrier flight deck, he
suddenly understood what was happening. Abruptly, he stated, “It’s
all my fault. If I had gotten out there earlier and secured that
hatch opening, nobody would have died.”

Micko gently responded, “No, Steve. No one could
have prevented this. The Barrett brothers opened Pandora’s box, not
you. We all need to figure out how to destroy this monster.”

Steve’s rescue team floundered about on the
water for another ten minutes when Rat suddenly appeared in his
full dive gear about one hundred feet away. Celestial brought the
Hummingbird
about and drove to the diver, who was waving his
arms extended over his head, the universal diver distress signal.
The captain slowly backed the boat so that the ladder was close to
the diver. Steve jumped in and assisted the excited diver on
board.

“What the fuck was that?” Rat kept
repeating.

“Calm down and tell us what happened,” the
professor instructed. “Almost a dozen divers are still
missing.”

“They ain’t coming back!” Rat exclaimed.

“Get the oxygen, Regis,” Micko ordered.

Regis brought the canister, and James
administered the healing air to Rat for ten minutes while the
professor checked his vital signs. When the scientists were sure
that their patient was all right, they removed the mask.

“Talk,” the professor commanded.

Rat explained how he had convinced the Renegades
to jump off the
Thor
before it was even tied up to the
wreck. He was sure that Denise would try to stop them from going
ahead with the scavenger hunt, so they decided to get her out of
the way.

“We were already suited up,” he said, “and it
was Sheila’s job to knock Denise overboard so we could dive and
scavenge without her stopping us.”

Steve took a step forward with his fist
clenched, but Micko held him back.

“I was the first one overboard,” Rat went on,
“but Sheila blew past me. That threw me off my rhythm and slowed me
down. I got entangled in the fishing rope dangling from the ship’s
superstructure.”