Ocean Prey (A Prey Novel #31) - John Sandford Page 0,103
five is fine,” Cattaneo called down to him.
When the orange lift bag, followed by the cargo bag, were pulled over the side of the boat, Virgil passed up his fins, then hooked his bare feet in the stainless steel boarding ladder, rode up and down a couple of times, then stood up on the bottom rung. Lange and Regio got him under the arms and helped him onto the boat. As soon as he was on, Cattaneo kicked the engine over.
“Get the shit below,” Cattaneo said. “And Willy—five is great. We owe you thirty-seven-five. What’s the problem?”
Virgil shook the water off his back and legs and asked Rae, “How’re we doing, Ally?”
“Two more dives, I’m thinking Porsche, sweet pea,” and she again kissed him on the lips.
Virgil sat in the cockpit and looked up at Cattaneo, brushed his hair back, and said, “The ship that dumped the cans wasn’t running exactly parallel to the outer reefs . . . it was sliding off to the east, into deeper water. The south end of the dump was in a hundred and forty to a hundred and fifty feet. Today I was down at a hundred and sixty-six. By the end of the dump, it could be close to two hundred feet, or two-ten. That’s getting . . . risky. I’ll need more bottom time to collect the cans and I’ll need more decompression time coming back up.”
“But you can do it?”
“I guess. Depending on how deep it gets—it’s impossible to know, depending on where the ship went. I might need to go to Trimix instead of straight air. I don’t know about sources for it here in Lauderdale. I’m sure there must be some.”
Cattaneo said, “Hold on to the wheel for a minute. You don’t have to steer, just hold on.”
Virgil did that and Cattaneo went below and returned with a plastic briefcase and took out an iPad.
“Aqua Map,” he said.
He called up a chart of the ocean north of Port Everglades, touched the screen, said, “Here’s the drop site. Did you check the compass heading for the drops?”
“About five degrees off north. That’s probably not exact, but it’ll be close.”
Cattaneo fiddled with the chart for a moment, then said, “Damn-it. You’re right. The north end of the site will be close to two hundred—a hundred and ninety to two hundred.”
Rae said, “Time to bail?”
Virgil rubbed his eyes and said, “Ah, I can do it. I can’t stay down as long without going to Trimix, though.”
Cattaneo said, “Tell you what. I’ll throw in an extra thousand dollars for the deep dives. Don’t cheat me, I’m going to look at whatever depths you get to, but below a hundred and seventy-five, I’ll throw in the extra grand.”
Virgil nodded: “Okay. What’s the weather tomorrow?”
Cattaneo said, “Gonna be smooth as a baby’s butt.”
* * *
The rest of the run back to the boat slip was routine. On the way, Virgil told them about the dive: “I’m not sure, but I think I might be done with the south end. There was more silt stirring around tonight, I might have missed some stuff, so I’m not positive.”
“Don’t worry about it—we’ll worry after we know what is down there. Go north. You’re the dive boss,” Cattaneo said.
* * *
At the slip, Virgil, now dressed in street clothes, helped pile the scuba gear into Regio’s Lexus, and Regio drove them back to the apartment. “Tomorrow at the same time?” Regio asked, as they carried the gear up to the apartment.
“Yeah. I’ll call around, see what I can find out about Trimix. I don’t really need it at two hundred, unless I need to stay down.”
“You gotta get into the computer age, Willy,” Regio said. “I’ll get back to my place and check dive shops. I can call you tonight with a Trimix shop.”
“That’d be awesome,” Virgil said.
Regio said to Rae, “Don’t talk him out of it. Eight thousand five hundred dollars per can. If he gets eleven cans like he did the first night, that’s a hair less than a hundred grand.”
“It’s ninety-three five, which is a couple of hairs less than a hundred grand,” Rae said. “And we don’t get nothin’ if he’s dead.”
“Neither will we,” Regio said. He turned to Virgil: “You’re doing good, Willy. Gotta keep it up.”
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FIVE
Staten Island:
They’d waited a long time in the FBI suite on Staten Island, but as Cattaneo’s boat was pushing out of the Atlantic through the entrance to Port Everglades, the surveillance guys in the truck called and