The second book in the Assassin series, 2008

Moseby needed to slow down. His haste stirred up a gray confetti of silt, disintegrating paper, and pulverized glass from the neon sign that once flashed OYSTER PO’ BOYS, TREAT YO MOUTH. The tiny halogen beams on either side of his face mask bounced back from the confetti, the light made useless by his excitement. Moseby drifted in the warm water of the Gulf, waiting. Plenty of time, no need to rush. He easily got four hours out of a three-hour tank. More if he stayed calm and clear.

Mama’s Home Cookin’ lay crumbling on its foundation, roof gone, the concrete-block walls scoured clean by the tide. A couple of red leatherette stools still sat upright, the floor carpeted with gently waving sea grass. He thought of the crowd at the LSU homecoming game last month, Annabelle on her feet beside him, pom-poms shaking as she cheered louder than anyone. He smiled around his mouthpiece. The cash register was sprung open on the counter, soggy bills hanging out like fingers from the till. Old money. Worthless. Mama’s didn’t hold any treasure. The oyster shack was just a marker, an indicator that he was close to what he sought.

Moseby floated in place, listening to the sound of his own steady breathing. Easy to get spooked fifty feet under, a swimmer alone with the dead. It took patience to survive in the drowned city. More than patience, it took faith. Moseby pulled at the chain around his neck, clasped the small gold crucifix between thumb and forefinger. He silently asked the blessing of Mary, mother of God. Asked her to intercede on behalf of all who had lost their lives in the city below. Asked the dead for their permission to take what they no longer needed. A man could never pray too much. Particularly a man like Moseby, who had much to atone for. He let go of the crucifix, drifted again, shivering in the warm water.

Unlike Moseby, most scavengers used electric sleds in their explorations, racing around at full power, churning up debris. Greedy, frightened men chopping their way through the city, so eager to get back to the surface that they ruined most of what they brought up. Dangerous work under the best of circumstances. Rebreathers failed. Floors and ceilings gave way. Walls collapsed. Jagged metal sliced through wet suits, the rush of blood attracting the barracuda and morays that lurked in the mossy grottos of the French Quarter and the collapsed Superdome. More dangerous than anything else to the scavengers was the panic, men disoriented by the darkness, and the fractured geometry of wrecked buildings. Gulping air, swimming frantically, they got lost in the concrete maze, adding themselves to the long list of dead.

The streets below were almost beyond the reach of sunlight, obscured further by thousands of automobiles leaking oil even after all these years. Murkier still in the houses and restaurants, the grand hotels where the easy spoils lay. Afraid of the deep, the scavengers used ever more powerful lights, blinding themselves, losing all perspective in the undersea tableau. Men had died for a crystal doorknob they mistook for a massive diamond, gotten trapped reaching for a sterling punch bowl far from their grasp. Frightened of the dark and the loneliness, frightened most of all by the ghosts. Commuters floating in their vehicles. Lovers in their hotel beds, honeymooners huddling in the lavish bathrooms where they had taken cover. Hard to pluck a gold Rolex off a bony wrist under those watching eye sockets. Hard not to hurry, to drop the goods and fumble to find them again. Easy to breathe too fast, to let the nitrogen build up in the bloodstream, to overestimate the air supply. This year alone sixty-seven men had died or disappeared. Most scavengers focused on the French Quarter-the fancy stores and tourist emporiums had been picked over, but their familiarity offered some illusion of safety. Not Moseby.

His crew worked the untouched areas, the mansions and banks and businesses outside the central core, places where the flood had been most ferocious, leaving behind a deadly jumble of concrete and steel and twisted rebar. They were the most successful crew working the city, bringing up gold coins and jewelry, carved stonework, vintage brandy, and Creole memorabilia. Steering wheels from classic cars had been particularly hot this year-most of them sold to collectors in Asia and South America. Moseby trained his men himself, taught them as much as they could handle. The men were careful…but they still died. Not as often as the men working the supposedly safer parts of the city, but too often, for Moseby. That’s why he dove alone today. Men had the right to risk their lives to feed their families, but Moseby wasn’t seeking treasure today. At least none that would be sold or bartered.

He switched off his light. Gave in to the darkness. Waiting. Moseby closed his eyes. Patient. When he opened them again, he could see. Not clearly, even his eyes weren’t that good, but he could see. Now that Mama’s had oriented him, the shapes and shadows seemed laid out before him, the messy grid on the city’s outskirts. St. Bernard’s Parish in the Ninth Ward, where the levee had failed first.

The old government had raised the levees two times after Hurricane Katrina inundated the city. Built them higher and higher, trying to keep up with the rising sea level and the ever more powerful hurricanes spawned by the warming. September 23, 2013, thirty years ago, Hurricane James, a category 6 hurricane, predicted to miss the city, had suddenly veered west in the middle of the night and struck New Orleans at sunrise. The levees gave way as though made of tissue, the waters of the Gulf covering the city under fifty feet of water. Most of the estimated 300,000 dead were stuck in traffic trying to flee. Hurricane James was the most violent storm ever recorded. Until Hurricane Maria two years later.

He glided over the road, his no-wake flippers almost living up to their name. Brightly colored fish ignored him, twisting and turning as they darted past him, weaving in and out the open windows of the barnaclecrusted vehicles strewn below. The houses in the immediate area were small and falling down, but the land rose slightly toward the north, where the homes were larger, many of them surrounded by iron fences and stone walls. This was where Sweeny would have lived.

Annabelle couldn’t remember much from her visit to her eccentric uncle’s house-she was barely five-but there had been an ancient banyan tree in his backyard dripping with Spanish moss, and a swing set already rusted, squeaking loudly, one leg of the swing lifting off the ground as she had rhythmically pumped away. She remembered Sweeny taking her and her mother to a local po’boy joint, a hole-in-the-wall specializing in oysters drenched in fresh lime juice, bourbon, and Tabasco. Sweeny said he ate two po’boys for lunch every day, proudly watched as his niece devoured one of her own, smacking her lips with pleasure in spite of the blistering hot sauce. Moseby had spent months searching for New Orleans take-out joints specializing in the Cajun delicacy, months of scouring local guidebooks and newspaper articles. Last week he got lucky, ran into an old-timer…a regular at Mama’s in the old days.