Chapter 1 #2
Kimo shined the light into the container, trying to make out shapes in the murky water stirred up by the sand. Fish rushed toward her, in a frantic hurry to escape the interior.
When the sand slowly settled, blurred shapes cleared. If she hadn’t had a regulator in her mouth, Kimo would have gasped. Her heart leaped and hammered against her chest.
Inside the box were at least half a dozen semi-decomposed bodies—people whose wrists had been shackled to the sides of the metal container.
Her stomach heaved, and her hand shook so badly she dropped the flashlight.
Alana bent to retrieve it and edged around Kimo to shine the beam into the box.
She stiffened beside Kimo. She dropped the pry bar, and her hand shot out to clutch Kimo’s arm.
Her heart pounding hard against her ribs, Kimo automatically raised the camera perched on the selfie stick, stuck it through the opening, and pressed the button, snapping several photographs before she touched Alana’s hand and pointed upward.
Without hesitation, Alana kicked her flippers, sending herself rising toward the surface.
As Kimo hurried to catch up, the hum of a motor rumbled in her ears.
They hadn’t left the dive boat running, which meant another boat was in the area.
Alana slowed the speed of her ascent as if remembering to rise with the bubbles, not ahead of them. Though they hadn’t been very deep for long, decompression sickness was real and dangerous.
Kimo kept her ascent steady, the rumble of the motor growing increasingly louder as Alana neared the surface.
Kimo was three body lengths behind Alana when the other woman crested.
A spotlight shone from the edge of a boat cut low to the surface, barely visible in the night. The beam found and held Alana as she raised her hand to wave for help.
Instead of slowing, the boat driver increased its speed, aiming straight for Alana, while the spotlight continued to track her in the water.
Alana backpaddled in an attempt to sink below the surface. She barely managed to sink beneath the surface just in time for the boat to race over her exact location.
Kimo couldn’t tell from her position if Alana had gone deep enough to avoid being struck.
Hit or not, the force of the displaced water spun Alana around and back toward the surface, following the trajectory of the motorboat, and taking her further from where Kimo had come up.
The boat made a rapid turn and headed back toward Alana.
Kimo swam toward her friend as fast as she could but was too far to get to her in time.
The spotlight found Alana again. Someone on the craft extended a boat hook, snagged Alana’s gear and dragged her toward the boat.
No.
Kimo’s heart squeezed hard in her chest as she swam toward her friend. Alana’s limp body was dragged aboard the boat.
Dear God. Was she hurt? Was she dead?
The spotlight shifted from Alana to the water surrounding the boat.
“There has to be another diver,” a voice called out over the sound of the engine. “Find him. We can’t afford loose ends.”
When Kimo heard the words, she stopped swimming toward the boat.
The spotlight’s beam swept over the smooth surface of the ocean, moving ever closer to her position.
As if mesmerized by the beam, Kimo froze until the light struck her eyes, blinding her.
“There!” a man shouted.
“Get him!” another voice echoed across the water.
The boat’s engine revved. The bow spun around as the man holding the spotlight shifted to keep the beam on her.
Her pulse spiking, Kimo swam backward. They were coming for her.
As the craft completed the turn and started for her, she tucked and dove beneath the surface, kicking her flippers hard, sending herself as deep as she could get—out of the way of the boat and its propellers.
She swam as fast as she could, going deeper and deeper. The boat slowed over her. The spotlight searched the water, found her and tracked her movement.
Kimo couldn’t go deeper. The ocean’s sandy floor was barely twenty feet down. The clear water did little to hide her. She had to find cover, somewhere to hide.
Darkness rose ahead of her.
The reef.
She kicked hard, aiming for the jagged rocks.
The boat’s muffled motor rumbled overhead. A popping sound reached her ears, and something shiny pierced the water, zipping past her head so fast she couldn’t tell what it was. When another small, shiny object whizzed past the opposite side of her head, her blood chilled.
Bullets. They were shooting at her.
With the reef just ahead of her, she pushed harder, faster, flicking her flippers.
If she could reach the reef, the boat driver would be foolish to follow. She could hide among the jagged, volcanic rocks.
More bullets penetrated the water around her. Something stung her calf, but she didn’t slow. Couldn’t, if she wanted to live.
As she neared the reef, a bullet hit her tank, the loud metal ping sounding like a death knell.
Bubbles erupted around her. She wouldn’t have much time to hide before she ran out of air, and the bubbles would help them center on their target.
Her.
Then again, if they focused on the bubbles, she might be able to slip away.
Within a couple of yards of the reef, Kimo released the clips on her BCD, took a long last breath, spit the regulator from her mouth and let the BCD and tank sink to the ocean floor.
She swam for the reef, ducked into the maze of rocks and coral, releasing only a small stream of air from her lungs a little at a time.
The bullets stopped streaming past her, but she could hear the fading pops.
Once in the middle of the rocky outcroppings, she found a place where the rocks cleared the surface.
Her lungs screaming for air, she surfaced long enough to take a breath, clear her snorkel and fit the mouthpiece between her teeth.
With her mask half in the water, she peered around the rocks, at the waves gently splashing, and watched as the men on the boat shined their spotlight down at the bubbles still rising from the ruined scuba tank.
A man’s voice rose above the low rumble of the idling engine. “Can’t see much around the bubbles.”
“I know I hit him,” another man said.
“You better hope he’s dead.”
“What about the girl?” a voice said. “Should I throw her in and let the fish finish her off?”
Kimo’s breath caught and held. They had Alana.
“No. We can’t risk her body washing ashore.”
Her body.
Kimo fought the sob rising up her throat. Her friend… Was she dead?
“He’s gotta be dead; the bubbles are slowing.”
“We don’t have time to dick around. We need to clean up the mess and get the hell out of here.”
As the engine revved, the spotlight moved from where the tank had landed to sweep across the ocean’s surface.
When it came her direction, Kimo ducked behind the rock and sank beneath the water, her snorkel the only part of her sticking up.
The light moved past her as the boat slowly circled.
Each time the boat and spotlight turned away, Kimo swam in the opposite direction, putting as much distance as she could between them. She stayed hidden in the reef, less afraid of sharks or stinging creatures than she was of the men with guns still searching the water for her.
All she had to do was wait for them to leave, then she could swim back to the dive boat and call for help.
Finally, the boat sped away.
Kimo watched as it slowed again, the spotlight slipping over the dive boat where they’d left it anchored.
Minutes later, the boat took off, with her dive boat in tow. So much for using the radio to alert the authorities. She’d have to go ashore and find a house to call for help. On the side of Maui where she was, homes were few and far between.
Once the two boats disappeared into the darkness, Kimo looked around at the blue of the bioluminescence, its brilliant glow undulating toward the shore, the tiny plankton sparking to life as the waves stirred them over the reef and against the sandy Shoreline.
While her best friend had been injured, and possibly killed, nature never even held its breath.
The fish continued to swim, and stars twinkled overhead.
Kimo struck out for shore. The sooner she could get a call through, the sooner the Coast Guard could be on the lookout for the boat and the men who’d taken Alana and bring her back.