Bloodline (2 page)

Chapter One

The Present

The fishing boats began arriving in port just before dawn. The night sky was clear, and the fish were running shallow. Most of the small wooden craft were awash in fresh catch. A six-kilo tuna sat next to a dark-skinned, weather-beaten fisherman, and he held it aloft as his partner threw out the anchor. The first tuna of the season. Soon there would be more. The wives and children who waited for the return of the boats cheered when they saw the steel-colored fish. Tuna meant money, and when the big fish were running the nets were full.

Eugene Escobar watched the scene from the deck of his dive boat, a scene that played out every day of the year. He knew many of the fishermen by name. His children had played with their children years ago, before they reached their teens and stopped playing the simple games of young children. Now it was girlfriends and boyfriends. Eugene didn't like them fishing the waters off Los Frailles, it depleted the coves and inlets of the fish his diving clients paid money to see, but without the fish the simple Venezuelan men of Isla de Margarita would have no income. And men without money were dangerous. In South America, if you couldn't buy food and clothes for your family you stole them. Or robbed someone with a fat wallet.

He watched the men anchor the time-worn boats and ferry their catch ashore in ratty wicker baskets. A fuss was made over the tuna, but soon it would be commonplace. The fisherman who had netted the tuna held his prize out for all to see and admire. Eugene wished the fish were still alive and free, cutting through the Caribbean waters between Margarita and the Venezuelan mainland. But it wasn't so. He glanced toward the row of pasty stucco buildings bordering the beach as a red Nissan truck pulled off the road and bounced down the steep incline to the hard sand. Eduardo, the dive company owner, was here with the divers and air tanks. He hoisted himself off the gunwale and jumped overboard, the salt water cool on his legs. The top of the sun crested the eastern horizon as Eduardo stopped the Nissan and stepped onto the beach.

“
Buenos dias,
Eugene,” he said, walking to the box of the truck and lifting out the first of many compressed air tanks.

“Eduardo,” Eugene said, then turned and spoke in rapid Spanish to an overweight man leaning against a post watching the sun rise from the gently rolling water. The man rose, hooked his fingers under the valves atop two of the tanks and headed for the boat. A moment later, a young man of perhaps twenty appeared and asked Eugene if he could help load the boat. “Five hundred bolivars,” Eugene said. “And that includes helping the divers with their gear.”

“
Sí, señor
.” He grabbed two tanks and headed for the boat.

Eduardo returned from dropping the tanks at the water's edge and Eugene asked, “Who am I taking out today?”

“Three Germans,” Eduardo said. “Two dives, then home. You'll be back just after noon.”

“They speak any Spanish?”

Eduardo shook his head. “English.”

“They all certified divers?” Eugene asked and Eduardo nodded.

“Yeah, but double-check their C-cards before you gear up,” the owner of the dive company said. “I had a quick look this morning, but it was dark.”

“Okay.” Eugene smiled at the two men and one woman as they passed him, headed for the boat.

The sun was well above the horizon when Larry, the overweight boat pilot, started the engines and signaled to Eugene to pull up the anchor. They weaved through the fishing boats, now bobbing on their anchors in the harbor, and headed for open water. The ocean was relatively calm, and the sky was still clear. It promised to be a good day. Eugene waited until they were clear of the harbor, then introduced himself to the Germans.

“I'm Eugenio, but everybody calls me Eugene,” he said in English. “Welcome to Venezuela and Isla de Margarita. Your first time to our island?”

He got to know the group a bit as the converted fishing boat rolled up one side of the waves, then slid down into the troughs. Even four-foot seas could be unsettling in a small wooden boat, but the Germans seemed okay with the motion. The trip to Los Frailles, a group of seven uninhabited islands off Margarita's east coast, was about forty-five minutes. Eugene took the time to explain the different sites they would be diving.

“We'll dive Penâ first. It's a deep dive, about a hundred and ten feet. Visibility today should be forty to fifty feet. There's a bit of a drift, so keep with me. Remember, when I knock my index fingers together like this,” he said, holding out his hands with his two index fingers extended and touching them together a few times, “I want you to stay close to your buddy. Visibility and currents can change quite quickly down there. This is a good dive to see big stuff, like groupers, and maybe even barracuda. But keep in mind that barracuda are dangerous. They won't think twice about attacking you if they feel threatened. Don't approach them, let them come to you. If they open their mouths as they swim past, think of that as the same as a rattlesnake shaking its tail. They're warning you. Barracuda are far more dangerous than sharks.”

They neared the dive site and Eugene watched the divers ready themselves and their gear. Two of the three were proficient with their regulators and slid their buoyancy control devices over the air tanks and easily attached their first stages to the tanks. The third diver, a tall blond man named Hans, was all thumbs. He set his tank in the BCD backwards and fit his second stage so it was coming over his left shoulder. Eugene moved up in the swaying boat and stopped the man.

“Scuba is a right-hand sport,” he said, removing the straps on the tank and spinning it around so the mouthpiece was accessible over the right side of the BCD. He checked the pressure on the first stage and opened the valve. The pressure was dead on at 3000 psi. “Okay, guys, I have to check your certification cards before we dive. Standard procedure.”

All three dug out their cards. Eugene glanced at the two belonging to the competent divers, but looked closely at Hans's. The picture matched. He handed it back. “I'll buddy up with you, Hans,” he said, still wary of the man's abilities. Larry had the boat in position, and they finished suiting up. They rolled gently in the protected waters just off Los Frailles, perhaps two hundred yards from shore. One by one they dropped backwards off the edge of the boat into the water, Eugene going in last. Hans was already descending when Eugene entered the water. The German seemed more under control now, equalizing the pressure in his ears every few feet as he floated down through the light green water.
Maybe I was wrong,
Eugene thought.

They reached the bottom and checked their depth gauges. One hundred and twelve feet. Eugene gave the okay sign. All three returned it. He pointed to the north, and they started kicking their fins and moving slowly in that direction. The sea life was abundant even beneath a hundred feet of water. A few grunts swam past, then a couple of creole and some yellowhead snappers. An occasional sea snake slithered across the ocean floor and Eugene caught one, holding it for the other divers to feel. He released it and moved on toward a sheer wall to their left. It rose at least seventy feet from the seabed, the entire wall a living reef of urchins and coral. The colors were slightly muted at this depth; the sunlight had trouble penetrating through a hundred feet of water. Eugene found an eel and all four divers hovered near the tiny hole in the wall staring at the eel's open mouth as it protected its home. When they turned back to the open ocean, they saw the barracuda.

An entire school of the deadly fish was only feet from them, trapping them against the wall. Eugene motioned to the Germans to stay calm, that the fish would swim past and leave them alone if they didn't panic. Too late. Hans was sucking air too fast and that gave him positive buoyancy. He started to rise, then made a crucial mistake. He pumped air into his buoyancy control device. The air entering the bladder made him even more buoyant, and he began to rise quickly. Eugene had a split second to react. He motioned to the other two divers to stay together and to surface. Then he pumped air into his own BCD, and shot up at an alarming pace, passing eighty feet, then seventy, then sixty. Hans was just ahead of him, but Eugene could see no bubbles. The man was holding his breath. Eugene had only a couple more seconds before Hans would be critically injured. Or dead.

Eugene knew that air at one hundred feet is compressed to one quarter its volume at the surface, and that when a diver rises, the air expands. The shallower the diver gets, the faster it expands. The air in Hans's BCD was expanding, and the German was going to the surface fast. Too fast. Without a slow ascent and a safety stop at fifteen feet to release the nitrogen in his body, he would get the bends. And the nearest decompression chamber was in Guatemala. Total disaster. But worse, if the German was holding his breath, the air in his lungs would expand until his lungs burst. Worse than disaster. Death.

Eugene had one shot at the German. If he missed, he'd have to break off and stop his ascent, or pay the price of decompression sickness himself. He grabbed Hans's ankle, his grip a vise on the man's leg. Then he released the air from his own BCD and grabbed a handhold in the wall. It stopped their ascent. But the air in the German's BCD was pulling toward the surface and Eugene was losing his grip on the coral. Hans was no help. He was panicking, thrashing about like a trapped fish. Eugene kicked off his left flipper and rammed his foot in another break in the reef. Then he released his handhold, pulled his knife from its sheath and rammed the blade into the German's BCD. The air poured out and Eugene felt the upward tug subside as their buoyancy returned to neutral. He tried to pull the man down to his level, but a sudden surge of pain shot through his body. He'd felt it before and he knew the cause. Grabbing the diver's leg and stopping their ascent had dislocated his shoulder.

Without releasing the panicked diver, he made a controlled ascent, stopped for the safety break at fifteen feet, then broke the surface. Larry leaned over the gunwale the second they appeared and helped pull them out of the water. They flopped into the boat and Eugene sat gingerly against the gunwale. He spoke to Larry in Spanish, and then the pilot took Eugene's arm and lifted it over top of the motor. Eugene steadied his ribcage against the side of the motor and nodded. Larry gave his arm a sharp tug and the bone popped back into its socket.

“Mother of God,” Eugene screamed as it popped. He slowly rotated his arm, then let it drop to his side. “What the hell were you doing down there?” he said to Hans. The German didn't answer him and Eugene leaned forward. “I've never met a certified diver who would do something that stupid. No one fills their BCD, then holds his breath on the way up. Where did you get that C-card?”

Hans took a couple of deep breaths, then said, “It's not mine. It's my twin brother's.”

“And you've never dived before?” Eugene asked.

“No.”

“Christ Almighty,” Eugene said. He ran his hand across his forehead and pushed his hair back out of his eyes. “Larry, get us back to Margarita. We're finished for today.”

 

Julie Escobar heard the Vespa and glanced out the window of her modest bungalow. Her husband was home. She leaned on the kitchen sink and watched him hoist his scuba gear from the box over the rear tire, the muscles in his arms and chest rippling from the exertion. His shoulders were broad and well defined, his hands calloused and rough. He was brown, but from the sun, not his heritage. She knew his parents well. His father had enjoyed a long and auspicious career as a plastic surgeon in Caracas, and his mother dedicated her life to the children. They were of European descent and tended to fair skin and light-colored hair. Eugene had inherited their genes and was often mistaken for a
gringo
rather than a native Colombian. He had also inherited his father's handsome facial features and curly hair. He finished unloading the gear and entered the house.

“You're home early,” she said, wrapping her slender arms about his waist. Julie Escobar was an attractive woman, with fair skin and brown hair that fell past her slight shoulders. Her nose and cheeks were dotted with a few freckles, and her eyes sparkled with mischief. She was tall for a woman and he only of average height, so they looked eye to eye. He smiled and she saw his even white teeth appear from behind lips dried from salt water.

“Slight problem with one of the divers; he wasn't certified. We headed back for Margarita after the first dive.” He kissed her on the lips, then broke away and pulled open the fridge, removing a bottle of water and spinning off the cap. “Idiot almost got himself killed.” He tipped his head back and drank from the bottle.

“What happened?” she asked. He steered her to the couch and told her the story. She gingerly rubbed his shoulder when he came to the part where Larry had pulled his bone back into the socket. “That must have hurt,” she said.

“Oh, yeah. It hurt like a son-of-a-bitch. But Larry did a good job yanking on it.”

They both glanced up as the door opened and a teenage girl entered. She was dressed in tight jeans and a short top. Her skin was light, like her parents', and her hair between blond and light brunette. She had inherited her dad's blue eyes and warm smile. Her straight, white teeth had never needed braces. She grinned when she saw her parents sitting close to each other on the couch.

“You guys look like a couple of teenagers getting ready to kiss.”

“And how would
you
know about that?” her mother asked.

“Get a grip, Mother,” the daughter said, one hand on her hip. “I'm almost sixteen.”

“How was school, Shiara?” Eugene asked, changing the subject before mother and daughter got going on what was acceptable for a mature fifteen-year-old.

“Good, Dad,” she said, leaning over and giving both her parents a kiss on the cheek. “We're studying American history in social studies class. It's interesting.” She opened the fridge and pulled out a mango. “A lot of people died in their civil war.”