Flood Tide

He was in a hurry to be on his way. He had a long swim ahead of him and many things to do and see. He sat on the edge of the dock, pulled on his fins, twisted his body to prevent the air tanks on his back from snagging the boards and splashed into the water. Before diving, he vented the air out of the dry suit. He saw not the slightest reason in the world why he should physically extend himself and waste the precious air in his tanks, so he lifted a compact, battery-powered Stingray diver-propulsion vehicle from the dock, extended it out in front of him by the handgrips, pressed the FAST speed switch to its stop and was instantly propelled from under the floats of the boathouse.

Getting his bearings on a moonless night did not present a problem. His destination across the lake was bathed in as much light as a football stadium. The brilliance lit up the surrounding forest. Why such a dazzling display of illumination? Pitt wondered. It seemed too excessive for average security purposes. Only the dock appeared devoid of lighting, but it was hardly needed, considering the radiance from shore. Pitt pushed the face mask to the top of his head and tilted the lens of the dive light backward to prevent any alert guards from spotting a reflection.

If the surveillance cameras didn't pierce the dark with infrared, there would be a guard with night glasses pressed against his eyes, watching for night fishermen, hunters, lost Boy Scout masters or even Bigfoot. It was a sure bet he wasn't peering into the heavens at the rings of Saturn. Pitt was not overly concerned. He made too small a target to be spotted at this distance. A quarter of a mile nearer and it would be a different story.

One of the fallacies of sneaking around in the dead of night is that black makes for the perfect concealment. Supposedly a person wearing black blends into the shadows. To some degree, yes. But because no night is totally black-there is often light from the stars—the perfect shade for near invisibility is dark gray. A black object can be distinguished against a shadowed background on a dark night, whereas gray blends in.

Pitt knew his chances of being detected were remote indeed. Only the white of his wake, as he was pulled along at nearly three knots by the Stingray twin motors, broke the sheer blackness of the water. After less than five minutes, he reached the midway point. He adjusted his face mask, ducked his head under the water and began breathing through the snorkel. Another four minutes put him a hundred yards from the retreat's boat dock. The work boat was still gone, but the yacht still tugged at her mooring lines.

This was as far as he dared go on the surface. He spit out the snorkel and clamped his teeth on the mouthpiece to his breathing regulator. Accompanied by the hiss of his exhaust, he tilted the Stingray downward and dropped into the depths, leveling out about ten feet above the bottom, hovering motionless for a few moments while adding air to his dry suit to achieve neutral buoyancy, then snorting and clearing his ears from the increase of water pressure. The lights of the retreat cast a translucent glow beneath the water. Pitt felt as if the propulsion vehicle was pulling him through liquid glass coated in an eerie green. He averted his eyes from the graveyard below as visibility increased from practically nil to thirty feet the closer Pitt approached the dock. Fortunately, he could not be discerned from above because the reflection on the surface of the water caused a glare that prevented all but a very limited view of the depths.

He decreased the Stingray's speed and moved slowly under the keel of the yacht. The hull was clean and free of any marine growth. Finding nothing of interest except a school of small fish, Pitt cautiously approached the floating log hut from which the guards on their Chinese-built personal watercraft had burst the previous afternoon. His heartbeat increased as he measured his opportunities of escape if he was discovered. They flat didn't exist. A swimmer stood little chance of outru

He had to be very careful. There would be no light reflection on the surface inside the hut. To anyone sitting in a darkened room over calm water it would be like staring into the depths from a glass-bottomed boat. He yearned for a passing school of fish to hide among, but none appeared. This is madness, he thought. If he had an ounce of gray matter he'd make his getaway while he was yet unseen, swim back across the lake to the cabin and call the police. That's what any sane man would have done.

Pitt felt no fear but a degree of trepidation at not knowing whether he would find himself looking up into the muzzle of an automatic rifle. But he was determined to find out why all those people had died, and he had to find out now or mere would never be another chance. He drew the air gun from its holster and held it vertically, barrel and barb pointing upward. Slowly, so no sudden movement would be noticed, he released the speed switch to the Stingray's twin motors and gently kicked his fins until he eased under the floats of the hut. He peered upward through the water inside the boathouse, holding his breath so that his air bubbles would not advertise his arrival. The view looking up from less than two feet underwater was similar to gazing through six inches of gossamer.

Except for the two watercraft, the interior appeared dark and empty. He reset the dive light on his head, surfaced and beamed it around the floating hut. The fiberglass hulls of the watercraft were set snugly between two docks that were open at the front. Once the door of the hut was thrown aside, their riders could speed directly onto the lake. He reached out, rapped the door with his fist and received a hollow sound. The logs were fake, painted on a thin sheet of plywood. With no small amount of effort, Pitt hoisted himself and his equipment onto one of the docks. He removed his air tanks, fins and weight belt, and parked them in a watercraft. The Stingray, because it was slightly buoyant, he allowed to drift beside the dock.

Gripping the air gun, he moved quietly toward a closed door at the rear of the hut. He lightly laid his fingers on the latch, slowly turned it and eased the door open half an inch, just enough to see that it opened onto a passageway that led down a long ramp. Pitt moved like a wraith—at least he wanted to move like a wraith. His every footstep in the rubber dive boots sounded to him like the beat of a bass drum, when actually they touched the concrete floor without so much as a whisper. The ramp dropped into a narrow concrete passageway barely wide enough for Pitt's shoulders. Lit by overhead recessed lights, it appeared to lead under the water toward the shoreline. It was a reasonable assumption that the passageway extended from the boathouse to a basement below the main building. That was why it took so long for the guards who rode the watercraft to respond after the AUV was sighted. Unable to ride even a bicycle through the narrow passageway, they had to sprint nearly two hundred yards.

A quick look to see if his movements were covered by surveillance cameras—he saw none—and Pitt cautiously began to advance along the tightly spaced walls, having to turn slightly sideways to pass through. He cursed the contractor who poured the concrete with the smaller Chinese physique in mind. The passage ended at another ramp that rose and widened through an archway. Beyond, a corridor stretched off into the distance with doors on either side.

He moved to the first door that was slightly ajar. A glance from a wary eye through the crack revealed a low bed occupied by a sleeping man wearing a skullcap. There was a closet with hanging clothes, a dresser with several small drawers, a nightstand and lamp. One rack on a wall held a variety of weapons: a sniper's rifle with a scope, two different automatic rifles and four automatic pistols of different calibers. Pitt quickly realized that he had walked into the lions' den. This was the living quarters for the security guards.