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

to shed these tanks and weights,” Tusker said. His voice was hoarse and it seemed strange to be speaking after so many hours of anxious, nonverbal communication underwater. His jaw hurt from biting down on the rubber mouthpiece for so long. Both of them were barely staying afloat, weighed down by their four tanks plus weight belts. He was already unclipping his two smaller cylinders from his harness. Sam did the same.

The more difficult task would be to remove the double tanks on their backs while keeping their buoyancy wings for flotation. The tanks were held together by aluminum bands, then secured to their harnesses with long threaded rods and wing nuts. It was finicky work even on the floor of a well-lit workshop, but bobbing on the ocean, at night, with frozen fingers, would be tricky. But the heavy tanks, empty of their helium mix, were simply dead weight. It had to be done.

Tusker switched on his dive torch and tucked it under the shoulder strap of his harness, aiming it at the back of Sam’s tanks. The light was little use. The hardware was under the water surface. He’d have to do it by feel. First he twisted shut the tank valves and disconnected the regulators, letting them hang loose. Then he reached down between the tanks and found the end of the threaded rod. The wing nut was on the inside of the harness, under a pad at Sam’s back.

“You’re going to have to remove your harness for a bit,” he said. “It’ll be easier to disassemble it if it’s floating in front of me.” Sam wriggled out of the shoulder straps and the harness flopped over like a turtle and floated. “Be sure to stay close to me,” Tusker told her. “In the dark especially, we don’t want to get separated.” Her thicker wetsuit’s buoyancy allowed her to float easily, and she held on lightly to Tusker’s own tanks while he worked.

After a few minutes, he had the wing nuts off and the tanks fell immediately away, disappearing quickly into the depths. The buoyancy wing popped up out of the water like a pool toy, unencumbered by the unwieldy cylinders. Sam slipped back into it, then helped Tusker remove his gear. His thinner suit didn’t offer as much buoyancy on its own, and he struggled to keep his face and arms above the surface while he fiddled with his tanks. Finally, his tanks dropped into the abyss and he cinched on his own harness and wing, panting from the exertion of the awkward work.

“Small triumphs,” he said to Sam.

“Thathi won’t be happy we lost his tanks,” she joked. “I think you’ve lost your security deposit.”

“It’s no use tiring ourselves out trying to swim right now,” Tusker said. “We’ve got about eleven hours until any daylight and I’ve no idea where we are in relation to shore.”

Sam switched on her torch and aimed it at her arm. She had an old square wrist compass lashed over her wetsuit sleeve with a long yellow nylon strap.

“Well, due west is…” she pivoted in the water, “that way.” She held her arm out, which Tusker could barely make out. “So assuming the current was roughly to the south while we were decompressing, the coast should be over there.”

“The question is, how far,” Tusker said glumly. “The Vampire was already about eight miles offshore.”

“Our best hope is the fishing fleet, come morning,” she replied. “Let’s save our torch batteries and if we hear a boat, we can raise our marker buoys and shine our lights on them. Hope someone’s paying attention.”

Tusker was lying on his back, as if on a raft. The buoyancy wing was more than enough to keep him afloat, but the wing pushed him face-down unless he kicked. Every once in a while, the clouds parted and he caught sight of a few stars.

“Anything dangerous out here, Miss Marine Biologist?” he called out in the darkness. He thought of the hundreds of fathoms of black water under his dangling feet.

“Not really,” she replied. “We get the occasional Portuguese man o’ war, but the shark fin trade has been merciless on anything big with teeth out here. Well, unless you count the sperm whales.”

“So, what do you think happened to Roland?” Sam asked. “That anchor line looked like it was cut.”

“Could have been any number of things,” Tusker replied. “If the current got strong at the surface, or the swells got big, it could have been tough for him to keep the boat in place. The anchor line could have chafed and finally parted on the gunwale…”

“Or he could have cut it intentionally,” she said coldly.

“What makes you think that?” Tusker asked, surprised at her tone. “Is there something about Roland I don’t know?”

“He showed up a few months back and offered to help Thathi in exchange for free room and board and some occasional diving,” Sam said. “But I think he’s into something else.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. He comes and goes at odd times with some shifty-looking guys. And then there were the girls.” She paused. “I saw him in Batticaloa once handing a wad of cash to one that looked suspiciously young. I’ve also seen him chatting up schoolgirls.”

“Yeah, I gathered he’s a bit of a pig,” Tusker said, remembering how he was leering at Anja, the Swedish girl. “But cutting the anchor line is a bit more serious than being a dirty old man.”

“He also seemed a little too interested in what Upali was doing here. Asked a lot of questions about their plans, what they were looking for.”

“Your father seemed to tolerate him,” Tusker tried to give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe help was on the way. Leaving them adrift on the ocean was tantamount to attempted murder.

“Thathi needed the help and was willing to look the other way,” she said. “I used to be around a lot more to help with the resort and the divers. But with my work and