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  46

  SUMMER COULD NOT REMEMBER WHEN SHE HAD FELT so terrified. Trapped alone in the blackness of the ocean depths, she felt her heart racing. Once the submersible’s interior had flooded, Dirk had opened the hatch and swum away with the waterproof flashlight. She shivered uncontrollably, from the fear and the cold water, as her fingers and ears turned numb.

  But the worst was the near silence. Crouched on the overturned seat, she could hear only the pounding of her heart and the sporadic sucking and gurgling of her breath through the regulator. As her mind began inventorying her fears, the act of breathing rose to the top of the list. Her air consumption at the current depth was much higher than near the surface. The cylinder might provide her only a few minutes of air. But what if it hadn’t been filled to capacity? A devilish voice in her head asked whether each breath from the tank would be her last.

  She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to relax, extending the time between inhalations and forcing a steady breathing rhythm. When she felt her heartbeat slow, she pried open her eyes, but still found herself surrounded by a cloak of blackness. Never prone to claustrophobia, she still couldn’t help feeling like she was locked in a very small, very dark closet.

  She began to wonder if her brother had changed his mind and headed for the surface—then she saw a dull glow outside the canopy. The light grew brighter until she could make out the flashlight’s beam as it drew closer. Though it seemed he had been gone for hours, it had been only a few minutes.

  When Dirk climbed through the hatch a second later, she saw he was wielding a five-foot steel pole with a brass ball affixed to one end: the severed flagpole from the shipwreck. The submersible had struck bottom alongside the wreck, which Dirk had recognized through the bubble.

  Dirk crawled forward and wedged the pole between the seat frame and the housing that clamped against Summer’s foot. Grabbing the opposite end, he pulled like an Olympic oarsman. The metal supporting the seat buckled immediately, allowing Summer to free her foot. She gave Dirk a hug, then signaled “Ascend” with an upraised thumb.

  Dirk shined the light at the open hatch and gave her a shove. They had spent a dangerous amount of time at a depth close to three hundred feet and knew not to linger.

  Summer waited outside the submersible for him, and they linked arms and began their ascent together. They kicked in a slow, measured pace, using their rising exhaust bubbles as a speedometer. Ascending too quickly would be a surefire recipe for the bends, and Dirk made sure they lagged behind the fast-rising bubbles.

  It seemed to take forever. Summer was glad for the exertion, which slightly warmed her frozen bones, but her mind still wanted to play tricks on her, telling her they weren’t actually ascending or that they were actually falling back to the depths. It was the cold, she told herself, making her senses numb along with her extremities. She clung to Dirk, who moved like a robot, seemingly immune to the cold and dark.

  At a depth of one hundred and fifty feet, the waters noticeably lightened as the surface light began to penetrate the deep. At one-twenty, they passed through a thermocline, and the water temperature warmed. And at eighty feet, Dirk ran out of air.

  He wasn’t surprised. Because of his exerted swim to the wreck and back, he knew his air would fail before Summer’s. Drawing his hand across his throat to signal Summer, he jettisoned his tank and regulator. She passed her regulator over, and they began alternating breaths, unconsciously kicking more quickly toward the surface.

  Dirk looked up and saw a faint ripple of silver far above their heads. They were now close enough to reach the surface if Summer’s air failed. But now they had another problem.

  Exposure to the pressurized depths allows tiny nitrogen bubbles to form in the body’s tissue. If not allowed to dissipate via a gentle reduction in pressure, the gas bubbles can lodge in the body, creating the agonizing and sometimes fatal malady of the bends.

  Dirk estimated they had spent close to fifteen minutes on the seafloor. The Navy Dive Tables called for multiple decompression stops, but they had no such luxury. They ascended to what Dirk guessed was about twenty feet and then held their position. Their natural buoyancy and the swift current made it a challenge, but he kept his eye on the surface and fought to keep them in place.

  They milked the tank for another ten minutes before Summer spat the regulator out of her mouth and pointed up. They both shot to the surface, exhaling as they swam.

  Their heads broke the surface amid a choppy sea dotted with whitecaps. The sun had already vanished, leaving the sky a darkening shade of pewter. The combined effects would render them almost invisible to a passing ship, even one that was searching for them. Yet that wasn’t first on Summer’s mind.

  Sucking in a deep breath, Summer turned to her brother. “A flagpole?”

  “Best I could do, under the circumstances. How’s the foot?”

  “The foot’s okay, but I have a painful cramp in my ankle.” She shot him a concerned gaze. “I don’t think we came anywhere close to covering our deco time.”

  Dirk shook his head. “No, we were well short. Do you feel any tingling anywhere?”

  “I’m too numb to feel much of anything.”

  “We might be sleeping in the Alexandria’s decompression chamber tonight.” He scanned the horizon. “Our next problem.”

  They finally spotted the NUMA vessel far to the west. The dark band of the Madagascar shoreline was visible a bit closer, to the north.

  “The Alexandria is up current,” Dirk said. “No way we can swim to her.”

  “They’ve probably swept by already and are backtracking with a sonar survey to locate the submersible. We’ll have drifted to Australia by the time they get back this way.”

  “Then to shore it is,” Dirk said. “Are you up for the swim?”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  She eyed the coastline, put her face in the water, and started swimming. They were both excellent swimmers in fit shape. Under normal circumstances, the open-water swim to shore would have been little more than a tiring challenge. But the mental strain of their escape from the submersible, combined with their cold-water exposure, turned it into a life-or-death task. Fatigue struck both swimmers almost immediately. Summer couldn’t believe how quickly her arms and legs felt like they had turned to lead.

  The turbulent seas didn’t help. The waves frequently tossed them about and filled their mouths with salt water. Swimming toward the coastline meant they were working across the current. Each stroke to shore carried them a nearly equal distance to the east, and that much farther from the Alexandria.

  The pair swam side by side, stopping to rest every ten minutes. While treading water, Dirk would fish the flashlight out of his pocket and waggle its beam at the research ship. On their third rest, the light slipped from his numb fingers, dropping into the depths like a candle down a well. By now, the NUMA ship appeared even farther away, just an occasional dancing light on the horizon.

  Dirk turned toward Summer. “C’mon, less than a mile to go.”

  She willed her limbs forward, but they had a mind of their own. A deep pain began burning in her left leg, then gradually vanished, along with all feeling in the limb. She began resting at shorter and shorter intervals, and Dirk could see she was beginning to fade.

  “Pretend we’re in Hawaii,” he said. “I’ll race you to Waikiki.”

  “Okay,” was all she could manage. Even under the rapidly fading daylight, Dirk could see her eyes turning listless.

  He grabbed her jumpsuit and swam with a sidestroke even as his own strength ebbed. The cold seemed to reach down and chill his bones, and his teeth joined Summer’s in chattering nonstop.

  He felt her body sag, and he realized she could make no more headway. Through his exhausted mind, he realized hypothermia was setting in. They both had to escape the water, and soon.

  Though his breath was nearly spent, he kept a running dialogue with Summer, encouraging her, asking endless questions to which he got no re
ply. When she began to flounder, he turned her on her back and towed her by the collar. There would be no more stopping for him now.

  He pressed on, one painful stroke at a time. He had nothing left in the tank, and his muscles pleaded to cease, but somehow he blocked out the agony and kept clawing through the water. The surf line ahead gradually grew larger until he could hear the waves pounding against the land. The sound inspired him to pull harder, depleting the last of his reserves.

  A wave washed over them, and Dirk came up sputtering. Summer coughed out inhaled water as they were propelled by a succeeding wave that broke on top of them. Dirk kept his grasp on Summer as they tumbled through the water and were slammed against the bottom. At last they had reached shore.

  With the force of succeeding waves at his back, Dirk staggered up the sandy beach, dragging Summer behind him. He pulled her past the tide line, then collapsed to the sand.

  “How are you feeling?” he gasped.

  “C-c-cold,” she whispered.

  It was a positive sign that she could still speak, but he had to get her dry. The night air was still warm, which would make all the difference.

  When he found the strength to stand, Dirk hobbled to his feet and looked around. They had landed on a barren stretch of the southern Madagascan coastline, within the uninhabited parklands of Cape Sainte Marie. The beach and inland area were dark. He had no idea how far the nearest help was, but it didn’t matter. He lacked the energy to search.

  He glanced seaward but found only a black and empty ocean. The coastline curved outward to the west, obscuring the lights of the Alexandria. He turned back inland and hiked up the beach, looking for shelter. The sand underfoot turned to hard scrabble, which led to some rocky hills and mounds. Nowhere was there anything resembling shelter.

  He headed back toward Summer—and tripped over a protruding mound at the edge of the beach. It extended about a dozen feet and had created a burrow on its leeward side. The indentation would provide some protection from the sea breeze, likely the best shelter Dirk could find. Finding a ragged tassel of sea grass, he ripped up as much as he could and spread it about the burrow for insulation. He returned to Summer, carried her up the beach, and placed her in the makeshift bed.

  The sea grass helped dry her skin, and he hiked down the beach to search for more. There was little, but he gathered what he could and returned to the shelter. He sat on the mound and used the grass to dry Summer’s skin before adding it to the bedding. When he stood, he knocked a lump of sand off the edge of the mound, exposing a faded band of material buried within.

  He thought nothing of it as he took off his own jumpsuit and stood in the ocean breeze, shivering until his skin dried. He then lay down beside Summer as an additional wind barrier for her. She was murmuring more, and her body no longer felt icy. With a warm evening at hand, Dirk grew confident that she was going to be all right.

  The exertion caught up with him, and his eyelids began to droop. A crescent moon appeared from behind a cloud and illumined the beach in a silvery glow. Above his head, Dirk could see the buried object protruding from the mound more clearly. It was washed-out yellow in color, marked with a string of faded black letters. His tired mind formed a name, which rang with a strange tone as he drifted to sleep.

  Barbarigo.

  47

  SUMMER AWOKE TO A SCRAPING SOUND NEAR HER ear. Prying open her eyes, she spotted a hulking object moving a few feet from her head.

  “Dirk!” she cried, nudging her sleeping brother beside her.

  He awoke with a start, sat up, and smiled when he saw the object of Summer’s fear. It was a sunbaked radiated tortoise. “You thinking of having turtle soup for breakfast?”

  The ancient reptile looked down his grainy-beaked snout at Dirk as if indicating he wasn’t amused. Turning his head down range, he dug his claws into the sand and continued his lethargic journey across the beach.

  Summer grinned at her own fears as she watched the big tortoise move away. “How could somebody harm such a stately creature?”

  “Depends on how hungry you are.” Dirk stood and viewed their surroundings in daylight. The beach was flat and sandy, surrounded by rocky limestone hills rising inland. Vegetation was sparse, as the region seldom collected more than a few inches of rainfall a year.

  Summer sat upright. “Do you see the Alexandria?”

  As he looked offshore, Dirk saw only an empty blue sea sprinkled with whitecaps. There was no sign of the NUMA ship, or any other vessels. “I guess we drifted farther east than they suspect. If we hike up the coast far enough, maybe we can wave them down.”

  Unknown to them, Jack Dahlgren and two crewmen had scoured the coastline all night in a Zodiac mounted with a searchlight. The searchers had even zipped past the beach twice. But hunkered down behind the mound, Dirk and Summer had slept through their passes, the sound of the ocean drowning out the Zodiac’s motor.

  “Dirk?”

  He could tell by her voice that something was wrong. “What is it?”

  “I can’t move my left leg.”

  Dirk turned pale. He instantly guessed why: she’d gotten the bends after all. The condition usually showed itself by pain in the joints or limbs, but sometimes by paralysis. And paralysis in the legs typically meant that a gas bubble had lodged in the spinal cord.

  He rushed over and knelt beside her. “Are you certain?”

  Summer nodded. “I’ve got absolutely no feeling in my left leg. But the right one feels fine.” She looked at him with dread.

  “How’s the pain?”

  “Pretty light, actually, but I’ll need some help to get back to the ship.”

  They both knew that immediate treatment in a hyperbaric chamber was critical for a successful recovery. Summer was fortunate that the Alexandria carried such a chamber, likely the only one within hundreds of miles. But it might as well be on the moon, Dirk thought, if they couldn’t get to the ship.

  He glanced at a rocky rise that towered over the beach. “I’m going to take a quick hike up that hill. I’d like to see where the ship is and figure out our options.”

  “I’ll wait here,” Summer said, forcing a smile.

  Dirk quickly crossed the beach and scampered up the barren hill. The rocky ground sliced into his stockinged feet, and he regretted having kicked off his shoes when he swam out of the submersible. The hill rose sharply, and he soon obtained a commanding view of the neighboring coastline.

  Looking first to sea, he quickly spotted the Alexandria. She was a small dot in the distance, moored, he guessed, over the site of the sunken submersible. Dirk estimated he would have to hike five miles up the coast to reach a position where the crew might spot him. Gazing inland, he observed a barren range of rolling hills, part of the Cape Sainte Marie Special Reserve. The large national park, created as a wildlife sanctuary, had few resources, save for a handful of hiking trails and campsites.

  He shifted his gaze to the east and was surprised to spot a ship two or three miles distant, rising from a tiny inlet. A handful of buildings stood alongside the ship, while a small dredge was moored nearby. Dirk thought of the patrol boat that had rammed their submersible, but he scanned the inlet and saw no sign of it.

  Spotting no other signs of civilization, he hurried back to the beach.

  “Do you want the good news or the bad news?” he asked Summer, who sat probing the sand mound with a flat piece of driftwood.

  “I’m a sunny optimist. Give me the good.”

  “The Alexandria hasn’t abandoned us. Unfortunately, they still think we’re aboard the submersible. As far as I can figure, they’re moored over the site where we went down. Plan B says that I hike five or six miles down the beach and try to attract their attention from shore.”

  “I missed Plan A.”

  “Less than three miles east of here is an inlet complete with a small dock facility and a freighter.”

  “And a patrol boat with a bent nose?”

  “No patrol boat. I can hike the
re in under an hour and call the Alexandria. We’ll have you napping in the ship’s decompression chamber in no time.”

  “Plan A it is.”

  Dirk placed a hand on her shoulder. “You sure you’ll be okay here?”

  “Yes, as long as he doesn’t get any ideas about sharing burrows.” She pointed to the old tortoise. The big reptile had traveled less than twenty yards since they awoke, lying on the beach, tossing sand with his flippers.

  “He’ll never make it back here in time.”

  Dirk turned and moved off down the beach. The morning sun was already baking the sandy terrain, so he followed the shoreline, where the ocean breeze kept it cooler. The growing heat and a dry throat made him crave a drink of water. He knew he was dehydrated, which only added to his lethargy. But Dirk put the thought out of his mind and focused on walking as quickly as his weak legs and shoeless feet permitted.

  The narrow beach ended abruptly at a steep crag of limestone that jutted into the sea. He had to turn inland until the rock face shrank and he could climb up a short incline. The top of the rock was flat, and it melded into a series of low hills that continued to the inlet two miles beyond. The white superstructure of the docked freighter peeked like a mirage above a distant sandy ridge.

  Summer’s condition gripped Dirk’s mind, compelling him to hike fast. It had been less than twelve hours since they had escaped the submersible, so her chances for a full recovery were still good—if she could make it to the chamber soon. His concern kept him moving until he reached a small rise forty minutes later. Just below was the small lagoon, encircled by low hills that neatly concealed the ship and dock facility.

  As he descended the western hill, he could see it was a bare-bones complex. There were just two permanent structures. A small dorm-like building rose near the inland side, while a warehouse stood at the opposite end of the dock. Between them was a high metal awning that he’d mistaken for a third building. The awning stretched the length of the dock, providing shade to several large mounds of granular sediment. Dirk first thought it was salt from some nearby flats, then noticed it was gray in color.