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

people differently. Some got paranoid, others panicked, but for Tusker, it caused time to slow down. On some deep dives he’d become obsessed in minutiae, staring at the nibbling of a fish or the seconds hand of his watch in what afterwards felt like a timeless fugue state.

A newly sunken 46-foot wreck is easier to explore than a larger, older one. While Tusker explored the torn rear dive deck and cabin, Ian swam down the length of its white hull and around behind the transom, which had been customized by MOCHA to allow easier entry for divers climbing the ladder. Then he saw the gaping wound in the boat’s port-side hull. The white aluminum was now black and twisted. He could see into the engine compartment through the ragged gash. He banged his tank to get Tusker’s attention.

Tusker swam down to Ian and saw the maw in the hull. He reached into the pocket on his harness belt and took out a measuring tape. He ran it along the hole in the hull and made note of it on a waterproof slate strapped to his wrist. He pulled the knife from its sheath on his lower leg and prised off a small flapping piece of the torn steel hull. He swam a few feet away to take another look. Tusker thought for a moment. This wasn’t the result of any scuba tank exploding. The pattern of damage reminded him of sunken warships he’d surveyed that had been hit by torpedoes or collided with mines.

Ian was below, scouring the sea floor for clues. It occurred to Tusker that Ian was spending longer at greater depth than he was. He can take care of himself.

Tusker swam inside the boat’s cabin and began carefully pulling debris out of the forward hold, looking for anything at all that might provide answers. It was all ropes, cushions, life jackets, and a jumble of tools and equipment. Suresh’s body was still trapped against the window. There was no way to do a body recovery with Roland and that small skiff. They would have to have Captain Gooneratne send out a police boat and then float Suresh’s body, and any others they found, to the surface with lift bags. It was grim business.

Where were the other bodies? Probably thrown overboard by the explosion, Tusker thought. Or maybe they jumped off when the Taprobane started to sink. They’d either be on the seafloor somewhere or would wash up on a beach down south in a few days.

The ROV was lying a few yards off of the wrecked boat, looking ready for action. Could it be salvaged and returned to MOCHA? Tusker made note of that for later. They’d come back tomorrow with Sebastian and do a more thorough survey, raise the ROV and maybe Suresh’s body.

He checked his pressure gauge. He’d breathed close to half his air supply, well over the recommended “rule of thirds” which kept one-third for the ascent, and one-third for a safety reserve. The Aquastar indicated they’d been down for 22 minutes. On his right wrist, Tusker checked his Sherwood dive computer. It was a few years old, and he never wore it for the shallow excavation work, but here in deep water it was valuable for calculating his decompression stops on the way up. It was flashing 41 minutes of deco time. They had to start their ascent now.

Tusker shouted through his mouthpiece to Ian and tapped him on the leg. Ian swiveled around. Tusker tapped his wrist and then made the “thumbs up” sign—time to ascend. Ian nodded and they both gave a few kicks to start their ascent. They rose slowly, careful to vent their buoyancy harnesses to prevent a runaway ascent, following the yellow line of the buoy. At 90 feet, Tusker paused, the Sherwood beeping at him, indicating the first deep stop. The nitrogen narcosis fog lifted.

Tusker looked down. The Taprobane was still clearly visible, almost a hundred feet below. Above him, he could see the outline of the skiff drifting a ways off of the buoy.

The Sherwood beeped again. Up to 80 feet for one minute and 70 for another. Then he crept up the line: 60 feet for two minutes, 50 feet for three minutes, 40 for four. After a few more short stops, Tusker and Ian paused at 15 feet for 20 minutes. The water was warm here and bright. The surface was tantalizingly close, but to cut short decompression now would risk paralysis or even death.

Finally the Sherwood beeped an “All Clear” and Tusker and Ian surfaced. The skiff was 30 feet away. Roland was sunning himself, talking on a cell phone to someone. At Tusker’s shout, Roland quickly put the phone down and pulled the outboard to life. “Sorry, fellas, didn’t see you come up!”

They handed their weight belts and dive gear up to Roland and heaved themselves over the gunwales into the boat. Roland swung the skiff around in a dramatic arc and gunned it. The hull banged across the swells towards the lagoon. “Find anything down there?” he shouted.

Tusker didn’t feel like sharing details. “Well, it was no accident, I can tell that much.” Roland just grinned, his yellow teeth clamped around a cigarette.

Back at the Deep Blue, the other skiff was pulled up on the shore. Sebastian and the Russians were back. Tusker jumped off the bow and turned to help Ian with the dive gear.

“I’m not feeling great, mate,” Ian said weakly. He crouched next to the boat then suddenly lurched forward and fell to the sand. He vomited violently.

“Ian!” Tusker yelled. He knew the signs: the nitrogen Ian had inhaled under pressure had started to expand in his blood vessels and his joints. His crippled posture and extreme pain were what gave decompression sickness its nickname: “the bends.”

Gitche Gumee

Four miles south of Batticaloa, Sri Lanka. Later that night.

It was late when the aptly named Tata Nano taxi buzzed off, leaving Tusker in a cloud of oily two-stroke exhaust back