The Devil Went Down to Austin (Tres Navarre #3)(85)

There was no sight, no sound except my own exhale bubbles and the steady suck of air into my lungs from the regulator, dry and steady.

I tried to breathe normally. I'd stirred up the bottom. What had Lopez said about that?

Swim east. Could I trust him? I'd seen the shore. It was east.

I groped along the top of my tank until I found the pressure gauge that led to my computer console. I brought it in front of my face, pressed buttons on the side until I found the one that made the console illuminate.

Suddenly I wasn't alone. I had faint, green dials to keep me company. I turned until the compass said I was pointing east. Then I started kicking slowly in that direction, still completely blind.

I heard the plinkplinkplink of Lopez's knife on his tank. Was he in front of me? Or behind? The plinking sounded more urgent than it had before. I slid my own knife out of the sheath on my leg, but my hand was so cold even through the glove that I couldn't feel the handle, much less see it. I let it go in the darkness.

I kept kicking—three cycles of leftright. Twelve cycles. I checked the console and found I had about nineteen minutes of air left. I'd been underwater for only sixteen.

I began to see again—the gentle slope of the lake bottom under me. Rocks the size of sofas rose out of the silt, and moving among them, catfish as big as I was. The black was turning to green. I could see the lower spectrum of colours.

I checked my depth and found that I'd risen to sixtytwo feet. I stopped, and had no idea where I was. I was supposed to do something— Go up. Go up slowly. I followed the rocky slope.

At thirty feet I stopped, sat on a furry, silted ledge that had probably once looked over the river valley. It now offered a view of a dark green void. I forced myself to time ten more minutes, which according to the computer left me fourteen minutes of air. I knew the math wasn't right, somehow. Then I remembered that I was using less compressed air as I ascended.

Another ten feet of gradual ascent and I could see the surface—a flashing sheet of silver and yellow. The fish were now clear. I loved every speckle on every trout, every whisker on every catfish. If I'd had a package of hot dogs, those fish would've eaten like kings.

I forced myself to wait ten more minutes to expend the extra nitrogen. I stared into the green, tried to remain calm, tried to sort out the reality from the fantasy. What had happened down there?

Finally, I kicked up and broke the surface in the late afternoon light. I almost sunk below the surface again, then inflated my BC. I ripped the mask off my face, spit out the regulator. The air burned from the summer heat. It was charged with the smell of approaching storm and cedars. I promised myself I would never complain about cedars again, no matter how bad the pollen fever season got.

The Flagship of Fun was floating not thirty yards away—so impossibly close it made me angry, given the odyssey I'd just completed.

There was no place I wanted to go less, just then, than the Flagship of Fun. But I could hear the voices clearly over the water— Clyde, Lopez, and most frantic of all, Maia.

I yelled, "Hey!" with more anger than I knew I had, letting out twentytwo minutes of terror in a single word.

Lopez and Maia rushed to my side of the boat.

Maia spotted me and her whole body seemed to sag under the weight of an extra G

force. "Oh God. Oh thank God."

Lopez yelled, "You son of a bitch!"

He'd stripped off his gear except for his mask, which was still stuck to his forehead—the sign of a diver in distress. I don't think, at that moment, Lopez cared what signals he sent.

His face was livid, but the look in his eyes was not what it had been at one hundred feet. It was not wild. He yelled: "You could've killed us both!"

I bit back comment, kicked over to the ladder on the boat.

Clyde was there, too, talking on a cell phone, giving the Lower Colorado River Authority our position. His expression could've been carved out of slate.

Lopez helped me aboard, Maia taking my other arm. I let them help me get my gear off.

Then I turned to Lopez just as he was starting to cuss me out and I slammed a right uppercut into his jaw.

His teeth clacked shut and his head did a little snap. He staggered back, looking momentarily stunned. That was all. I must've been even weaker than I felt.

Lopez's face hardened, got very calm. Then he charged me. He knocked me to the deck, began throwing sloppy punches into my ribs and face, kicking, kneeing. Clyde was above Lopez, trying to pull him off, either because he wanted to break it up or because he wanted his own shot at one or both of us.

A gun roared.

Lopez rolled off me instantly, stood. Clyde backed away. I rose to my elbows, wiped a trail of blood off my upper lip, and looked up at Maia, who was holding Clyde's revolver, the barrel pointed out over the lake.

"That's it, gentlemen," she told us. "You are now above water. Above water, I am the queen almighty. And the queen says no fighting. Any questions?"

I shook my head.

Lopez rubbed his jaw, stepped carefully to the bar and grabbed a bottle of vodka.

"What the hell do you mean hitting me, Navarre? Me, who just tried to save your sorryass life."

"Fucking fascist cop," Clyde growled.

Maia said, "Drink something, Clyde. Gin?"

"I hate gin."

She tossed him the bottle anyway. He caught it, uncapped it and drank.