Depth Charge by Jason Heaton (carter reed .txt) 📗

dead bugs. At one end, a girl was splayed out on a towel in a bikini, her arm shielding her face from the sun. She was talking to an older man who squatted in the shade, smoking a cigarette. They both looked up at Tusker.

“Hello.” The girl sat up and squinted “You must be Julian.”

“Tusker,” he corrected her. “Have you seen Sebastian?”

She ignored his question. “I’m Anja.” She smiled a brilliant white smile and peered over the top of large dark glasses, assessing him. Her accent was musical, Scandinavian. The Swedish girl Sebastian had told them about, no doubt. She was deeply tanned and beautiful, with the lithe body of an athlete. Cross-country skier, Tusker let himself muse.

The man came out of the shadow of the tree. He was older, maybe 50, with leathery skin and pale blue eyes. He wore surf trunks and a stained t-shirt, faded from red to a sort of pink, with the logo of a Caribbean diving resort on it. He walked over to Tusker and held out his hand. “Roland Van der Schyff. I’m from the Netherlands.” His smile was yellow and his voice had the tortured hoarseness of a regular smoker.

“Nice to meet you both,” Tusker said, finding his manners despite his impatience. “I’m looking for Sebastian. Hoping to get out diving this afternoon.”

“Sebastian is out with the Russkies,” Roland replied. “Diving the Hermes.”

“Is there a second boat?” Tusker asked.

“I could take you out. I’m sort of an unofficial second mate around here. You know, fill tanks, fix boat motors, that sort of thing. Where do you want to dive?”

“Just outside the lagoon. The wreck of the Taprobane.”

“Is that a good idea, Cap’n? I mean, isn’t that a police matter?” Roland fidgeted with a damp cigarette.

“I just spoke with the police and they’re not equipped to investigate the sinking.” Tusker said, matter of factly. It’s not really a lie.

“Well, if you think so, Cap’n, I can run you out there. Drops off deep just there, I think. You’ll want double tanks. Could run into a little decompression time.”

“Great,” Tusker said, already turning to go, “I’ll meet you in the shop for some tanks.”

“See you later, Tusker,” Anja called to him. Tusker pivoted and gave a wave. Another time, he’d have gotten to know her. But he was preoccupied and in no mood for the coy parry and thrust of seduction.

Ian was in their room, making a heap of dive gear on the floor. “Any luck?” he said to Tusker.

“Yeah, the Dutch guy is going to take us out. We’ll dive doubles.”

“I figured this was deco territory. Everything worth diving over here is deep. Sorry, that didn’t come out right.” Ian said, sheepishly.

An hour later, they were motoring out of the lagoon in a small fiberglass skiff loaded with gear. There was no canopy against the sun. The sea was flat calm and shimmered as if covered with a film of oil. They had no trouble spotting the makeshift buoy the police had placed to mark the location where the Taprobane had sunk. It consisted of no more than a cinder block dropped over the side, 200 feet of nylon rope, and a plastic bottle. As Roland slowed the boat, Tusker looked around and felt a spasm of sadness. He thought back to that last text message from Upali. He had been excited about finding a new wreck, the dream of any marine archaeologist. He never could have imagined ending like this, Tusker was sure of it.

“I can’t really tie off to this buoy, but there’s not much current,” Roland said. “I’ll just keep the boat around while you guys are under. Don’t worry, I’ll be here when you come back.” The yellow smile.

Tusker nodded back. The charts showed the depth at around 180 feet, well beyond recreational limits and necessitating some decompression before they could surface. A 20-minute dive would require 50 minutes of decompression: hanging on the buoy line in stages as they slowly ascended, allowing their bodies to respirate the excess nitrogen that had been forced into their blood vessels and tissues. Taking into account time and greater air consumption at depth, Ian and Tusker both wore twin 80-cubic foot cylinders of air, with two regulators for redundancy, just in case.

Lifting that gear up to the tiny boat’s gunwales was clumsy, heavy work. Sitting on opposite sides of the boat, Tusker and Ian made eye contact and Roland gave a countdown. “3, 2, 1, go!” Tusker and Ian backrolled simultaneously over the side into the water and immediately descended into the indigo blue water.

Sunken Crime Scene

Bay of Bengal, one mile offshore of Batticaloa. The same day.

Tusker could see the Taprobane’s white foredeck below as soon as he began descending, as if she was still afloat and he was hang gliding above her. The ship lay upright on the seafloor. At first, she showed no signs of damage, and Tusker found himself thinking that maybe there was no explosion. Could it have just sank, and the crew swam ashore? It wasn’t that far offshore. It was all just a misunderstanding.

Then he saw the body.

It was Suresh, the sonar expert. Tusker had met him back in Galle when they were surveying the harbor. Tusker remembered giving him a hard time for being afraid of the water, threatening to push him overboard if he didn’t behave. His body was pressed up against the inside of the cabin window, pinned by the buoyancy of his orange life jacket, which he always dutifully donned before leaving the dock. Tusker looked at Ian and could tell he’d seen the same thing.

Tusker settled on the sand bottom where the Taprobane rested and checked his depth gauge. 187 feet. He briefly watched the march of the Aquastar’s seconds hand tick tick tick around the dial. Its steady precision calmed him. Ian nudged him with a quizzical look. Snap out of it, man. At this depth, the nitrogen in the air they were breathing had a narcotic effect. It affected