Ocean Prey (A Prey Novel #31) - John Sandford Page 0,87
or so.
The computer knew . . .
Something bumped his leg, hard; he tensed. Dolphin? Shark? Ray?
No. The cargo bags, twisting beside him. The lift bags were a problem. The bottom openings were small, but he couldn’t pull them so hard that they flattened and dumped air. If they did that, the cargo bags would be a three-hundred-pound anchor pulling him down.
He experimented, watching them in the wide-beam flashlight, decided he could safely tow them at about fifty feet a minute. At that rate, it would take him almost an hour to get back to the pickup point. He had enough air, and he needed to stay under a little more than fifty minutes to decompress, at a variety of different levels, slowly ascending. Nothing to do but take care, watch the computer, switch every half minute or so between the decompression numbers and the compass . . . slow and easy was the path of righteousness.
* * *
Tethered to the Genesis, he floated at a slow swimming speed through the dark, nothing but himself, the glow of the computer and the hum of the Genesis to prove he was alive.
At the estimated pickup, he checked the computer for his decompression status, was told that he was good to surface. He did, checked the GPS watch, found he was a few hundred feet off. He carefully made his way toward the pickup spot, much slower now, the top of the lift bags just kissing the surface. When he was at the pickup spot, he hung there, watching far-off boat lights, and one fast-moving vessel that passed him well toward the brilliantly lit coast.
He had thirty minutes to wait; he did it on the surface, sitting wrapped in the wing almost like a rocking chair. His body was still cool from the deep dive, but getting warmer. Ten minutes before the pickup, he started looking for lights toward the north. At five minutes, he saw the first of the lights, then picked up another. A bright light winked at him, as agreed.
He took the hooded flashlight from its case and shined it toward the boat. The sailboat made a small correction, until it looked like it would run over him.
Virgil thought: This was too fuckin’ easy. He pulled off his fins and let them dangle from his hand.
The boat slowed until it was barely moving, but Virgil could still hear the prop. Somebody on board shone the light on the boarding ladder and the prop noise stopped and Virgil caught the barely moving ladder with one hand and held up the fins with the other, and yelled, “Fins!”
The fins were taken and he unbuckled from the backplate and he shouted, “Don’t dump the lift bags, don’t dump the bags,” and the vest and tanks were pulled over the rail and on board, Regio, Lange, and Rae all lifting. He started climbing the ladder; both arms were grabbed and he was hauled unceremoniously over the side like a large rubber billfish, and dumped butt-first on the deck.
He could hear Cattaneo chanting, “Get the lines, get the lines,” and then Regio, “I got ’em, I got ’em,” and the two orange lift bags came over the side, and then, with Regio and Lange and Rae all lifting, straining, the cargo bags came over the rail, one at a time, and Cattaneo was calling, “We good? I’m firing it up,” and Regio calling back, “We’re good, let’s move,” and then Lange, “Man! We are way more than good! Way more than good.”
Virgil pulled off his face mask as the engine started, and then Cattaneo was standing over him. “Willy! Willy! You’re a rich man, Willy. You’re a rich man!”
Virgil said, “What?”
Rae squatted next to him and put her arm around his neck and she said, “I knew you were good, but I didn’t think you were this good!”
* * *
Regio and Lange had disassembled the bed in the forward cabin and now they stashed the eleven cans under it, and screwed the mattress support back down. A variety of gear, including a bicycle, went on top of the platform, and then the scuba gear was piled around it, neatly done, as if it had been there for a while.
Virgil went down to a cabin, stripped off the wet suit and bathing suit, dried himself with towels, and his hair with a hair dryer, and dressed in his street clothes. Rae smoothed his hair with her hands so it didn’t have that tangled fresh-out-of-the-ocean look.