Chapter 33
With the sun on the other side of the horizon, it would grow dark soon. There was always an inherent danger with diving in caves. Things became exponentially more difficult at night. With a powerful flashlight and two backups, I led the way.
My fins propelled me through the water as I approached the mouth of the cave that was a few feet underwater.
I swam in, the beam of my flashlight slicing through the darkness.
At low tide, you'd be able to see the arch of the cave above the water, but you’d still need to swim down the passage.
You couldn’t get a boat through here, even at low tide.
We surfaced, and I spit out the regulator.
The sharks around here were the least of your worries.
It was the Devil's Pipe that was the real danger. It had already claimed several lives. Diving to the bottom of the sinkhole was pretty straightforward. As long as you had enough oxygen, didn’t stay down too long, and didn't surface too fast, it posed little risk beyond an ordinary dive.
The problem came for those who ventured off into the smaller passageways.
Some were narrow, and the sediment at the bottom was disturbed easily.
Clear, pristine water could become a soupy haze with the stroke of a flipper.
It was easy to get lost in those dark, narrow passageways.
In some parts, you’d have to take off your tank and push it through, disturbing sediment.
That’s where a lot of divers got into trouble.
Heaven forbid the battery died on the flashlight while you were down there and didn’t have a backup.
It could be panic-inducing. Then there was the added danger of narcosis at that depth with an improper mix.
Knowing the depth, I filled the tanks with trimix. We’d have 16 minutes at depth, with a 5-minute safety stop at 20 feet. It wasn’t much time.
The splashes of water echoed off the walls of the cave as we treaded water.
"Is this sparking any memories?" I asked. "Do you think you hid it down there?”
Mickey shrugged. "Honest to God, I don't know.”
It wouldn’t have been hard to weigh down duffel bags full of cash in watertight plastic and drop them to the bottom of the pipe.
That might have worked for a few days or weeks.
But someone would have easily found the loot by now—unless they were stashed somewhere down one of the passageways.
The logistics of that would have proven difficult.
Maybe it was possible to stash $150 million in one of the bigger chambers.
The passageways below forked off into a maze of tendrils.
But that amount of money would have taken multiple dives.
If it was down there, it would be almost impossible to get it to the surface in time without additional help.
"Let's give it a look," I said, lacking much confidence that we’d find anything. I just wanted to scratch this place off the list.
I put the regulator back in my mouth, then plunged below and swam into the pipe. I dove deep into the abyss, the flashlight on my headband leading the way. I pulled hard, bubbles rising to the surface. The water grew darker and colder with each stroke.
I finned farther, descending into the inky void. The pressure in my ears increased.
Mickey was right behind me.
The Devil’s Pipe was about 20 feet wide and plunged straight toward the depths of hell. I encountered a few fish on my descent, but not much else. Still, venturing into a black void was a tad unsettling. You never knew what you might encounter.
I kept watch on the time it took to reach the bottom. Every second became precious at depth.
Mickey and I finally reached the bottom. Our flashlight beams swept across the limestone.
There was nothing down here.
Eons of silt lined the floor of the pipe, but that certainly wasn't something you wanted to stir up. Mickey wouldn’t have just left $150 million at the bottom of the pipe.
That’s where we ran into a slight problem.
Sometime after the most recent death, the entrance to the two passageways was sealed off with metal grates. If Mickey had hidden the money in one of those passageways, there was no way to get it now. Not without cutting through steel.
We examined the grates, tugging on bars. They were solid. There was no getting past them. No way around, no way to squeeze through.
We fumbled around the bottom, stirring up silt and sediment, looking for anything buried under the surface. It clouded the water instantly. It looked like coffee with heavy cream. Visibility dropped to zero.
We didn’t find anything.
After a few minutes at the bottom, we started our ascent, swimming out of the haze. Mickey and I made a safety stop for good measure.
By this time, the small shaft of light that had spilled into the cenote was long gone. The cavern was pitch black. I looked above us to the surface. Nothing but obsidian black. Until something grey with a white belly swam into the beam of my light.
There was no mistaking the bull shark and its razor-sharp teeth.