The Girl Beneath the Sea (Underwater Investigation Unit #1)(75)

“Time to turn back,” he calls over the radio.

I check my air gauge and don’t question him. He gave us just enough margin to be safe. There’s no point in pressing it.

We swim back toward the raft, scanning the floor for our submarine, but only manage to see more of the same.

Halfway back, Dad taps me on the leg. I follow his hand to my left and see an eight-foot bull shark swimming twenty-five feet away.

It’s not in hunting mode; it’s just investigating the racket we’re making. We keep swimming, and it drifts off and out of sight.

I don’t have to look to know that Dad has his knife drawn and is checking our vulnerable angles to ensure we don’t get sneak attacked.

I spot the blinking strobe on the anchor before the glow stick. I’m disappointed by our lack of results, but at least we have another set of tanks. After slowly ascending, taking our safety stop, and decompressing on the raft, we can try again.

Getting on the raft in rough seas is like the world’s worst amusement-park ride. Fortunately, Dad thought ahead and attached two rope ladders on either side. This allows us to climb up and enter the Zodiac at the same time, keeping the raft’s balance and making the whole process safer. It’s a tricky feat, but one we’ve had plenty of practice doing.

After removing our vests and tanks, we lie back on the soaking floor of the boat to catch our breath. It stopped raining, but the waves are every bit as high as before.

I roll over and check the satellite phone. There’s a message from George:

Lost sight of the Vader. I don’t know where it is.





CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

WHIRLPOOL

I’m toweling off my hair while Dad uses George’s night-vision goggles to scan the horizon for the Vader. We’re both still in our dive suits, and the Zodiac is tied behind Fortune’s Fool.

I didn’t want to leave the dive site, but I knew it was stupid to stay out there with the Vader roaming around. I also didn’t exactly love our chances of finding the Kraken in the next dive. What we really need is the Fool’s sonar.

“The Vader vanished about an hour ago,” says George. “Not too long after you guys went in the water. That made me a little nervous.”

“We didn’t see them on the way back. Maybe they returned to port?” Dad says.

“Or maybe they have a better idea where to look than we do. I think we need to take the Fool back there and do a sweep,” I say.

“Then we run the risk of the Vader seeing where we are. It could even be a trick, if they think we went too far out for the Kraken. Otherwise they might’ve pulled back to see where we go next,” Dad theorizes.

“I agree with your father. These people aren’t dumb. And to be honest, they probably have more experience with this kind of thing than us.”

“Maybe,” Dad allows. “But I agree with your larger point.”

“So, we take the raft back,” I say. “If the Vader’s waiting to see what the Fortune’s Fool does, then we keep it anchored here and go back in the Zodiac.”

“I think we’re missing something,” says George. “If two of the smartest treasure hunters around can’t find the Kraken, what chance did Raul have? Much less doing it by himself?”

“He wasn’t,” I reply. “He had Stacey, remember? They probably were going to use their own boat to go out there, and he’d do the dive.” Something dawns on me. “Hold on . . . wait . . .” I get a sinking feeling in my stomach.

“What is it?” asks Dad.

I sit on the bench. “What if Stacey wasn’t trying to get hold of me because I was a cop?”

“What if she wanted to recruit you to salvage the Kraken?” asks George. “She and Raul decided they needed help, but didn’t know who to trust?”

“Yeah. Maybe. Either way, they had their own salvage operation planned.”

“And their own boat, I agree,” says George. “If it’s traceable, I’m sure K-Group already did that. But the question of how they planned to find the Kraken still isn’t answered.” He turns to Dad. “If you could set it up from the start, how would you do it?”

Dad doesn’t hesitate. “Transmitter. I’d hide it on the Kraken and have it set to beep every minute or so. It wouldn’t transmit more than a mile underwater, but that would be enough if I knew the area.”

George produces the electronic component we found on Winston. “Like this? Can we plug this into something?”

Dad shakes his head. “That’s probably for just surface communications. We’re looking for something else. A whole device tuned to a specific frequency. You could modify a standard radio if you knew what frequency you were looking for.”

A buzzing rises in the back of my mind.

Wait . . . What did I miss?

“Shit!” I leap up from the bench and run for the cabin where I stowed my gear.

George and Dad chase after me, crowd into the passage, and watch as I open my duffel bag and dump the contents onto the floor.

“The day I found Stacey, someone had been in my truck.”

“They took your driver’s license,” says Dad.

“Yes. Her killer. He probably didn’t know my connection to her and was just being cautious. But I forgot about this.” I reach into the pile of gear on the floor and pull out a police radio. “I found this in my bag the day after, on a different dive. I assumed someone loaned it to me at some point and I forgot to return it. Some police departments issue you their own communication gear to use. Sometimes I’m too focused on the dive to pay attention to what goes in my bag. Now I’m wondering, did Stacey put this in here?”