The Hydra Protocol (3 page)

“She’s . . . amazing. Julia.” Chapel found himself smiling without meaning too. “And she is. Very sexy, I mean. More than that, she’s beautiful. And smart. Very sharp. She and I went through some things together, tough things, and it just brought us closer together.”

“The good start is turning into a good thing. But you didn’t come all this way to tell me you think you like somebody. You’ve got a decision to make—I can see it in your face. A
big
decision.”

Chapel was not a man given to giggling or outward signs of joy. But he came pretty close just then. “Yeah.”

Donny nodded. A lot of people assumed when they saw him that he was just some dumb meathead, but Donny had been an Army Ranger, and you didn’t get into Ranger school without something between your ears. “Well, I accept, of course.”

Chapel’s eyes went wide. “You—what?”

“I accept the position as your best man. Because that’s obviously why you’re here. To ask me to be your best man.”

“Best . . . wait a minute,” Shelly said, and put a hand over her mouth.

“Hold on!” Chapel protested. “I haven’t asked her yet—maybe I should before I go looking for someone to—to—”

Donny moved Shelly next to him, then lunged across the lifeboat and grabbed Chapel up into a rib-cage-crushing bear hug. Chapel laughed and slapped his friend’s back until the big ranger released him.

“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God,” Shelly said, tears starting to form in her eyes. Despite the fact she’d never met Julia and had met Chapel only a few hours ago, it seemed she was pretty excited by the prospect of a wedding. Any wedding.

Chapel had to admit he was pretty excited himself. The idea to propose to Julia had come to him in a sudden flash of inspiration a week earlier. The two of them had been going through a rough patch, fighting a lot, and it had taken him a long time to realize why. Julia didn’t think he was serious about her, that he was just stringing her along. She needed to know that he was committed to their relationship. As soon as he’d thought of it, a proposal had seemed like a great idea. There was no hesitation in him, no doubt. He was ready to spend the rest of his life with Julia. Why not formalize it?

“It may be too early for congratulations,” the Asian woman said. Her eyes searched his for a moment though he couldn’t figure out why. “But all the same. How wonderful.”

“Wonderful? It’s awesome! Oh my God, Donny, can I be your date at the wedding?” Shelly asked.

“Hold on,” Chapel said, laughing. “Nothing’s official yet, I still—”

He stopped because he’d seen something out of the corner of his eye. He made a point of not turning to actually look but, yes, it was there. Up in the wheelhouse of the yacht, high over the deck, someone had switched on a blue light.

“I was serious about that best man thing, if you want me,” Donny said. “I know you’ve probably got someone else in mind, but let me just point out—if you go with me, your bachelor party is going to be sick. And I mean epic. I will get every stripper in South Florida together and they will march in a parade in your honor, Jam Master Jim. You know nobody throws a party like me—”

“Uh, sorry,” Chapel said. Up in the wheelhouse the blue light switched off. He heard a chain rattle somewhere up in the bows and knew the yacht had dropped its anchor. “Listen, I—”

“Most guys would go with a limo to take you to and from this bachelor party,” Donny went on. “I’m thinking helicopters. Multiple helos.”

“I, uh,” Chapel said. He hadn’t expected this to come so soon. “Talking about this,” he said. “It’s making me a little queasy.”

“Try this,” the surfer with the guitar said, and he tried to pass Chapel his joint. “It’s good for seasickness.”

“I think what our new friend is trying to say is that he’s getting an attack of cold feet,” the Asian woman said. “Perhaps he should go lie down in his cabin.”

He wanted to thank her for that—it was the perfect out—but he was too busy doing his best impression of someone about to throw up. “I’d better get out of this boat,” he said.

Donny helped him climb back down onto the deck. “You okay?” he asked, suddenly serious.

“Fine,” Chapel told him. “I just need to lie down for a second.” He patted one of Donny’s giant biceps in thanks and then headed forward, making sure to stagger a little. Behind him he heard some of the girls laughing, probably making fun of the poor guy who’d had too much to drink or who maybe was a little too afraid of commitment.

As soon as he was out of their sight, Chapel dropped the act and hurried down a ladder to the cabins in the next deck down. He passed by a few partially opened doors, beyond which revelers had broken down into smaller more private parties, then found his own cabin. The door was still locked. Good—he’d worried that some couple in need of a bed would stumble into his cabin uninvited. That would have been a problem, since all his gear was in there.

His bag was still sitting on his bed where he’d left it. He made sure the door was locked, then took off his clothes. He unzipped the bag and pulled out the drysuit and his other gear.

The blue light had been a signal meant just for him. It was time to get to work.

The first thing Chapel did was put on a hands-free radio headset. He switched it on and whispered, “Angel? Are you receiving me?”

The voice that answered him was sexy and warm, and like every time he heard it he felt his stomach do a little flip. “I’ve got you, sugar. Are you all geared up?”

“Putting on my drysuit now,” he told her. Angel was his operator, his direct connection to his boss and any information he might need to complete his mission. She had saved his life more times than he liked to think about—certainly more times than he could ever thank her for. He had never met her in person, though, only ever heard her voice—which was how it had to be. Angel knew enough secrets that if she ever fell into the wrong hands, she could devastate national security. Chapel didn’t even know where she was calling from, or anything really about her except that she was a civilian and that his boss trusted her completely, just as he did.

As he zipped up the drysuit—a form-fitting neoprene bodysuit designed for technical diving—he listened while she read off the local water temperature, the weather forecast for the next twelve hours, and the names and headings of every seagoing vessel in the local area. He adjusted a strap on his headset to make it secure, then zipped up the coif of the suit, covering most of his head. He would leave the mask and flippers for just before he went in the water. The suit was heavy and he started overheating as soon as it was on, but it was necessary. He couldn’t get his artificial arm wet, which meant he needed a closed suit. Where he was going it was going to be a lot colder, too, and he imagined he would be very glad for the suit’s insulation in a few minutes.

The suit came with a compact rebreather system that was just a little better than anything a civilian could buy. Chapel was an experienced diver, which made it feel just plain weird that there was no air tank hanging off his back. Instead the rebreather had him breathe constantly into a bag across his chest that looked like a collapsed life vest. He checked the system with ten normal breaths, in and out, in and out, just like he’d been trained. Everything about the rebreather was different from the SCUBA gear he was used to, right down to how you breathed through it. The system used a full face mask so he didn’t have to hold a regulator in his mouth. Instead of giving him a steady stream of gas from a tank, the rebreather took in his exhalations and scrubbed out the carbon dioxide, then returned the air to him rich in oxygen. A small tank of helium mounted on his stomach would be mixed in with his own oxygen and nitrogen to prevent some of the nastier physiological effects of a deep dive. The system was finicky and hard to use—you had to constantly monitor the partial pressures of the three gases, while also managing the pressurization of the drysuit—but it definitely had its advantages. Most important, it produced almost no bubbles, which was good for covert work.

He strapped on a buoyancy compensator and a dive computer and he was ready to go. “Angel, do you see anyone up on the deck right now?”

She looked down on the yacht with orbiting satellites good enough to make out what the partyers on board were drinking and told him it looked clear. “You’re good, sweetie. They’re all back around the pool. Don’t forget my transponder.”

“Got it right here.” Chapel grabbed the transponder, his mask, and his flippers and slipped out the door of his cabin. Down a short corridor he opened a door and stepped out onto to a swimming balcony built into the bows of the yacht, riding just above the waterline. He put on his mask and flippers and stepped down into the water, trying not to make too noisy a splash.

Chapel had grown up in Florida, which meant he’d spent what felt like half his youth in these waters. It felt good to be back in the ocean, like he was some kind of amphibian that had spent way too long on dry land.

Well, he thought,
technically
these weren’t Floridian waters.
Technically
they belonged to Cuba, which was why he had to go to such lengths to keep his dive a secret. The captain of the yacht had anchored in a place he wasn’t supposed to.
Technically
what Chapel was about to do was illegal under the law of the sea and two sovereign nations.
Technically
if he was caught doing it, he could be arrested, given a quick trial, and then executed.

Hopefully it wouldn’t come to that.

Before he went under completely, he kicked himself around the side of the swimming balcony and over to where the yacht’s thick anchor cable slanted down into the water. He clipped the transponder unit onto the cable and switched it on. The unit carried Angel’s signal and relayed it through the metal cable. Wires embedded in his gloves could pick up that signal when he touched the cable, allowing him to talk to Angel no matter how far below the water he went.

“How’s it work?” Angel asked.

“Pretty good,” he told her. “Your voice is a little distorted, but I can understand you just fine.”

“Do I still sound all breathless and sultry?” she asked.

“That comes through, no problem,” he told her.

There were benefits to working for the world’s most technologically advanced military.

He tested the mask to make sure it wouldn’t fog up with his breath. Then he ducked his head under the water, bled some air from his buoyancy compensator, and dropped down into the dark ocean like a stone.

For a second he flailed around in the dark, looking for the anchor cable. His good hand grasped it, and he pulled himself over to hug it. He waited a moment for his body to adjust to the weightlessness of the water. Then he started his descent.

There wasn’t much swimming involved. He turned himself upside down and started climbing down the cable, hand over hand. A little moonlight streamed down around him, shafts of it spearing down into the dark and occasionally lighting up the flickering shape of a passing fish. The local wildlife kept its distance, scared of this big weird shape that had invaded their domain. Sharks would be less wary, but probably wouldn’t attack him on principle—or so he hoped.

After a minute or two, the light went away, and he could see nothing through his mask but black water. There was no sound anywhere except for his own breathing and the rhythmic slap of his hands on the cable.

Down. Put one hand forward, grab the cable. Release the other hand. Move that hand down, grab the cable. Down. Nothing to see. Nothing to hear. Nothing to smell but the rubber mask. He could barely feel the cable through the thick gloves. Down.

It was funny—well, not ha-ha funny—how fast the total lack of light affected him.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been in darkness this profound. Where he lived now, in New York, it never really got dark. There were streetlights outside his apartment’s windows, and the city itself gave off so much light it painted the sky no matter how cloudy it got.

This was like being at the bottom of a coal mine. This was like floating, weightless and lost, in the depths of space. This was like being blind.

Down. One hand after another. Down. He kept repeating the word to himself in his head, reminding himself that he was moving in a particular direction. He had no referents other than the cable. His body didn’t feel like it was upside down. If he let go of the cable now, if he swam away, he wouldn’t even know which direction was up, or how to get back to the surface.

Better not let go, then. Down. He checked the luminous readouts on his dive computer, made sure his oxygen mix was at the right partial pressure. If it was off, if the various safeguards and fail-safes built into the rebreather all went off-line at the same time, he could flood his lungs with oxygen and give himself oxygen toxicity. Supposedly that felt like being pleasantly drunk, but it was a great way to die underwater. Especially if you were diving alone. The first symptoms would be disorientation and giddiness.

He definitely felt disoriented. He double-checked the readouts.

His oxygen levels were fine.

Down. Release with one hand, clutch with the other. Down.

When Angel spoke in his ear, he was absurdly grateful. “You’re making good time,” she told him. “It’s going to feel longer than it actually is. Can you still hear me okay?”

“Loud and clear. Everything okay topside?”

“Yeah. So. Now that we can talk in private . . .”

Chapel stopped climbing down the cable for a second. “Yes?” he asked. “Something on your mind?”

“I just wondered—have you got the ring yet?”

Chapel wanted to laugh. Never a great idea on a dive, of course. Laughing used up a lot of air. He forced himself to merely grin through the plastic mask. If any fish were watching with better eyes than he had, maybe they would see the scary monster from above the surface bare its teeth.

“Yeah,” he told her. “It’s waiting for me back in New York. I just have to pick it up.” He pulled himself down another meter. Down.

“Is it nice? Julia deserves something nice.”