Страница 15 из 70
This realization-if it was a realization-created as many behavior patterns as there were divers; from protective zealots like De
The kind who might dress up a ma
“Those Canadians, Jon Diller and Bobo Whatsisname, did they strike you as the type?” Vega’s mind seemed to be following in the same cha
She shook her head. Wrestling a ma
“They seemed fairly legit,” A
“We’ll go back through the permits. Yours, ours, and whatever Windigo’s got. There can’t have been that many divers on that wreck.”
The Kamloops scared off all but the best or the boldest. She was not a casual dive. “Not that kind of girl,” A
“This isn’t my favorite dive,” Lucas said. “Too much can go wrong. You get too stupid at six atmospheres. And you’re in too much of a hurry to get home.”
Every fifty feet down hit the human brain like one dry martini-hence Martini’s Law. It had something to do with nitrogen forced into the bloodstream. No one knew exactly how it worked, just as no one knew why laughing gas made people laugh. But two hundred feet down in frigid waters, the lake usually had the last laugh.
“This’ll be a bounce dive,” Lucas went on. “Ralph and I’ll scoot down, look around. Keep our bottom time to the bare minimum. Keep our decompression time on the ascent as short as we safely can. If it turns out I’m risking the lives of two rangers because somebody played a bad joke, we’ll find our jokers and slap them with everything the law will allow, including Piracy on the High Seas and Not Working and Playing Well with Others.”
A
“What’s that?” Vega asked suddenly. “There.”
A
“Down at waterline, among the rocks,” Vega said.
A
A
“It’s a vessel all right. A little runabout. Maybe sixteen, eighteen feet long. Black fiberglass hull, red upholstery. I can’t see the name, but unless there’s another just like it, that’s the Blackduck.” The Blackduck was the Resource Management Department’s boat. They had lent her to Jo Castle for the duration of her research on the island.
“Tell Ralph to change course.” Lucas never altered the tone of his voice, never raised it, but there was that about the man that when he wished to be obeyed instantly, he was. A
A
The timbre of the inboards changed as Ralph eased the Lorelei gingerly into the shallower water along the base of the cliff. A
Ralph cut power completely and the boat drifted slowly forward. “That’s it,” he shouted. “I’m afraid to take her any further in.”
“Close enough,” Lucas replied.
A few yards off the Lorelei’s bow, moving up and down on the Bertram’s fading wake, the Blackduck sat in the water. Her outboard motor made a delicate scritching sound as it scraped against a rock.
Feet on the gunwale, A
The Blackduck had one full tank of fuel; the other was a quarter full. The engine fired up at a touch of the starter. There was no damage to the hull or the propeller. A complete complement of life jackets was stowed under the pilot’s seat. She appeared simply to have been abandoned, left to drift.
They hooked her to the tow line and Pilcher started back out toward the burial place of the Kamloops. The light-haired ma
Pilcher took the Lorelei to the long-range navigational, or loran, coordinates where the buoy marking the Kamloops‘ location was secured. Once again A
Pocked by fine rain, the water looked to be made of granite. A
With luck, A
Jim Tattinger dropped a two-hundred-foot line marked off at ten-foot intervals with bright blue bands. When the body swam through cold dark waters and the brain swam through six of Neptune’s martinis, getting lost or ascending faster than the prescribed feet per minute were very real dangers. The line helped orientation and timing. On a longer dive it would also hold spare tanks at intervals along the way.
Ralph and Lucas began the cumbersome process of suiting up. Both wore polypropylene long Johns and two pairs of heavy socks. Over these they zipped khaki-colored quilted overalls, then added balaclavas. To A
A
Pilcher rolled off the waterline deck at the Lorelei’s stern and was swallowed by the liquid granite. Seconds later he surfaced and A