He finned downward, angling for the bottom, and let his fingers trail in the sand. After twenty or so feet, the bottom suddenly dropped away into darkness. He rolled back onto his side, shined his light upward, and saw the entrance arch had disappeared, replaced by surface reflection. He checked his watch and gave the line at his waist three solid tugs: All okay, Remi.
He was suddenly enveloped by cool water and he felt a new current take hold of him, this one pushing him to the right. He realized he was spinning ever so slightly, as though being pirouetted by an unseen hand. Whirlpool, he thought with a trickle of panic. The currents of the lagoon and the underground river were colliding, the cooler water slipping beneath the warmer water, creating a hydraulic tornado. Right now he was on the outer edge of the vortex, so the current was strong, but just manageable with fins—almost two knots, he estimated—but he knew it would grow stronger toward the center. He pointed himself toward what he hoped was a wall and scissored his fins once, twice, then broke the surface.
His outstretched hand touched rock and he grasped at it, his palm bumping over the surface before his fingers found purchase on an outcropping. He jerked to a stop, his legs trailing in the circular current. He gave the line three hard tugs, then checked his watch: two minutes down, eight to go. Aside from the soft gurgle of water rushing along the walls and some dripping sounds coming from deeper within the cave, it was eerily quiet.
Using his teeth, he pulled the glove from his free hand and held his fingertips up, instantly feeling the rush of cool air on his moist skin. This was a good sign. Though he judged the possibility remote, the cave’s connection to an underground river brought with it the chance of pollutants, and while they would have seen signs of toxicity in the outflow—a lack of fish, discolored rocks, dead sponges—there was also the chance of gas buildup. The brisk airflow made this unlikely. He pulled the regulator from his mouth and took a sniff, then a breath. All okay. He gave the line another all-okay signal, then put his glove back on and shined the light around.
Six feet above his head he got the first indication they were on the right track: A cross-plank catwalk suspended from the ceiling by rusted steel cables spanned the width of the cavern and ended at the opposite wall above a makeshift wooden pier supported by wooden pilings sunk into the sea floor. A second catwalk joined the first at its midpoint and extended to the rear wall at a perpendicular angle. The setup wasn’t sophisticated by any means, but clearly someone had put some effort into the structure, and judging by the rust on the cables and the coating of slime on the wooden planking, it had been quite a while ago.
The cavern was oval in shape, perhaps fifty feet wide with a vaulted, stalactite-covered ceiling that rose twenty feet above Sam’s head. Panning the light along what should have been the back wall, he saw only darkness. He’d imagined the juncture with the underground river would feature a gushing cleft in the wall, but he now realized this cavern was simply an antechamber. Aside from a narrowing of the rear walls to a diameter of thirty feet, there was no discernible separation between this cavern and the adjoining fracture-guided system. Where and how far it went there was no telling.
Was this catwalk and pier system enough to service a mini submarine or two? Sam wondered. It would depend on what kind and how much work was required, he decided. This brought up another question: Why hadn’t the work been done aboard the Lothringen while at sea? A question for Selma.
The line at his waist began jerking violently, and though they’d arranged no emergency signal from Remi’s end, he instinctively knew that was exactly what she was telling him.
He slipped the regulator back between his teeth, flipped over, and dove, then scissored hard into the entrance, pulling himself hand over hand along the line. As the light from the lagoon’s surface appeared, he angled toward the ceiling and rolled onto his back, using his fins to keep himself away from the rock. He slipped past the entrance’s leading edge and broke the surface beneath a curtain of vines.
Suppressing the urge to call Remi’s name, he looked around.
The lagoon was empty.
The dinghy was gone, along with Remi.
CHAPTER 17
His rising fear turned to immediate relief as he saw a hand emerge from the undergrowth along the bank across the lagoon. The hand was pointed toward him, palm out: Wait. A second later Remi’s face emerged from the foliage. She tapped her ear, pointed toward the sky, and made a vertical twirling motion with her index finger. Ten seconds passed, then twenty. A full minute. And then he heard it: the thumping of a helicopter blade, faint and then moving closer. Sam poked his head out from beneath the vines and peered into the sky, trying to localize the sound.
Directly above his head, spinning rotor blades appeared over the edge of the cliff, followed a second later by a curved Plexiglas windscreen glinting in the setting sun. The lagoon’s surface rippled with the downwash, a fine mist filling the air. Sam pulled his head back; Remi wriggled back out of sight.
For what seemed like minutes but was probably less than thirty seconds the helicopter hovered over the lagoon, then banked away and headed south along the coast. Sam waited until the thumping faded away, then ducked beneath the surface and stroked hard across the lagoon until his belly touched sand. He broke the surface to find Remi’s outstretched hand before his face; he grabbed it and she helped him crawl into the underbrush.
“Is it them?” she asked.
“Don’t know, but I’d rather assume so than be surprised. Plus, that’s an expensive bird—a Bell 430, I think. Four million at least.”
“Ideally suited for a Ukrainian mafia kingpin.”
“And with room enough to seat a Russian henchman and eight of his best friends. Did they see you?”
“I’m not sure. The first time it passed over it was moving fast, but it swung around almost immediately, then made two more passes. They’re either curious about this spot, or they know we’re here.”
“Where’s the dinghy?”
Remi pointed off to the left and Sam could see a few inches of gray rubber jutting from the foliage. “I got it under cover as quickly as I could.”
“Good.” Sam thought for a moment. “Let’s get into the cave. If they decide to land and look around, that’s our best hiding spot.” Ears tuned for any sign of the Bell’s return, Sam shed his gear and handed it over to Remi, who started putting it on.
“What’re you going to do?” she asked.
“You cross the lagoon and slip into the cave and wait for me. There’s a clockwise current in there, so watch yourself. Take up the slack on the rope and stay close to the entrance.”
“Three tugs from my end is emergency; two for all okay, stay put.”
“Got it.”
“I’ll bring the dinghy over and try to get it inside. We’ll wait until it’s dark, then see what we can see.”
Remi nodded, finished donning the dive gear, took one last look around, then crawled into the water and slipped beneath the surface. Sam watched her bubble trail cross the lagoon, then slip out of sight into the cave. Next he crawled through the underbrush to where Remi had hidden the dinghy. He went still and closed his eyes, listening, but heard nothing.
After stuffing all their loose gear into their two SealLine dry bags and securing them to the cleats, he tied the dinghy’s eight-foot painter line around his belt, slipped into the water, and started breast-stroking across the lagoon. He was halfway across when suddenly from the direction of the beach he heard the pounding of rotors. Even as he looked over his shoulder, the Bell appeared over the tops of the palms and stopped in a hover above him. The door was open, and a figure in dark coveralls was leaning out and looking down at him. It wasn’t Frobisher’s kidnapper, Arkhipov, Sam realized immediately, but the other one, whose photo Rube had e-mailed to him—Kholkov. Nor was there any mistaking the stubby cylindrical object in Kholkov’s hands: compact submachine gun.