spotted the third light beam trained on Aurora’s motionless figure, which lay in the eerie shadows. His heart raced, and his breath caught at the sight. Aurora’s arms and one leg floated limply in the water, her head at an unnatural angle.
Oh, no. Oh, no...
He followed the light beam back to its owner and saw the diver with the lantern in one hand and a knife in the other swimming straight toward Aurora. Jordan put on a burst of speed, desperate to reach her before the other diver did, knowing he couldn’t, yet trying anyway. He swam past one dead diver, a much larger man.
This swimmer has to be Flores—coming to finish her off....
Just as Flores reached her, Jordan watched Aurora come to life. With her free leg she kicked at Flores’s knife hand, successfully knocking it away.
She’s alive!
That was all he needed to catch up to Flores, drop his lantern and grab the other man’s ankle with both hands. As Flores jerked around, Jordan saw Aurora make the diver’s motion for air, waving her hand toward her lips. He continued to wrestle with Flores as Neil swam past and shoved his octopus, his spare regulator, into her mouth. The two of them could now easily breathe from one set of tanks. Then Jordan saw nothing except the fury of his nemesis.
Doubled up, Flores grabbed at Jordan’s regulator, forcing him to release the ankle and protect his air source. The two men circled each other. Jordan pointed to his gauge, then Flores’s.
If Aurora’s out of air, you jerk, you can’t be far behind. Come on, Flores, give it up. You don’t have a weapon to use against me anymore and you can’t survive without air.
Flores appeared to consider his options—and then they all heard a noise. Even this far below the surface, the sound of a boat’s twin engines coming to life was unmistakable. They started to fade into the distance. Flores hesitated, distracted by the Mako’s cowardly retreat. Jordan didn’t. He kicked hard to get back to Aurora, to cover her with his own body as the faint concussion of the engines in the water finished what the helicopter rotors had begun.
The rest of the San Rafael fell off the tier farthest from the trio of divers and nearest to Flores. The trio was struck by some of the falling wreckage, while the single diver bore the brunt of it. When the water cleared somewhat, there was no sign of Flores. No air bubbles signaled life.
Jordan swam to Aurora. He reached for her hands, unable to speak, overjoyed just to be able to touch her. Neil held up the underwater writing pad with a brief message. “She’s stuck.”
Jordan gave Neil an impatient “Okay” hand-gesture. I’ve got eyes, Neil.
“Check her gauges,” Neil wrote.
Jordan did, gently turning Aurora’s wristwatch and dive gauges toward his mask. His stomach dropped at what he saw. She needs to decompress.
He checked his own gauges and made the calculations. Even before Neil held up the slate again, he knew. We don’t have enough air for her to decompress.
Aurora took the slate and stylus from Neil’s hand and wrote, “Leg broken. Forget bends. GET ME UP.” She held it for Jordan to see.
He nodded. Then he took the slate and scribbled, “Okay. Love you.”
Aurora took the slate and held it tight against her heart, then quickly added her own message for him to read.
“Me, too.”
And Jordan knew it was true. What a time to find out...
He surveyed the wreckage. From the look of things, he and Neil might be able to shift the wooden beam off Aurora’s leg if they lifted the far end of it together. He gestured to Neil, who had grasped the situation, already sliding out of his B.C., leaving his tanks with Aurora. Jordan held out his octopus to Neil, and the two men headed for the end of the old galleon’s beam. Together, they lifted, pivoted, lifted and pivoted again. On the third try they were able to swing the beam free. Aurora pulled out her lower leg, and the men swam back to her in tandem.
Jordan switched Aurora to his spare regulator, while Neil took his set of tanks onto his back. He and Neil checked their air gauges. In pantomime, Jordan signaled that they’d have just enough air for one decompression stop, instead of the required three. The compressed air she’d breathed into her lungs would have only one chance to expand normally. The air bubbles in her blood could