Sheriff Kirkendol frowned. “I didn’t get that feeling, Nevin. He was smooth, maybe like he had worked over what he was going to tell us. But he answered your question off the top of his head and I bought it.”
“Maybe I’m just suspicious. I have a hard time accepting that a scuba man, snorkeling instructor, and college swimmer is going to drown in an accident like that. What bugs me is that somebody went to a lot of work with that wire to make it look natural. Still, it held the man three feet underwater. Besides, the dead man complained to his boss about that other platform. He may have been the kind of guy who decided he’d swim out there and take a look for himself. Do it at night when they wouldn’t see him. Can’t be more than five hundred yards, a warm-up for him.”
The head man in the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department lifted his brows and shook his head. “Hell, right now your doubts are the only thing we have to go on. We’ve got a murdered man on our hands, and so far not a hope of finding out who did it. How many men on the 27 platform where the man worked?”
“I saw a report that said it had about thirty men,” Irwin said.
“Okay, tomorrow we’ll send out three of our detectives and they will interview every man. We might turn up somebody who had a grudge against Gifford strong enough to kill him. Whoever murdered Gifford must also have been a diver, or at least a good swimmer. Something to watch for.”
“I’d like to go along.”
“Negative, Irwin. Interviewing is not your strong suit. I have three men who are experts at it. They’ll go out tomorrow and do a good job.”
“So that leaves me to do what?”
“You watch for any signs of activity or problems in the water around that tower. Large boats coming there and anchoring. Next time one does that, we get the Coast Guard and we go out and inspect the ship on some pretext. You keep in touch with Pete Rumford, that platform boss on 27. Whenever he spots a freighter dropping anchor near that Platform 4, have him give you a ring.”
“Yes, sir,” Irwin said, reverting to his SEAL training. He could take orders even if he didn’t like them. He spent the rest of the day on routine calls, and just after dark, drove his two-year-old SUV to his favorite parking spot when he went diving. He put on his wet suit, cap, and boots and took out the new Draegr III. It was the latest underwater rebreathing device, and didn’t leave a string of bubbles. This one was programmed to mix the right amount of chemicals with the oxygen so a diver could go as deep as he wanted to and still get the right mix of air. It was the same type he had used in the SEALs. He locked the SUV, put the key in the small flap pocket on the wet suit, and walked into the water off Goleta Point.
Nevin swam toward the lighted oil-drilling rig. He figured it was about two miles, not even a warm-up. He went down ten feet and stroked toward the tower the way he used to in the SEALs. His blown-out knee had been replaced and worked fine in the water. It was the parachute drops hitting the ground at twenty-one feet per second with two hundred pounds of equipment and ammo that his new knee couldn’t take. He loved the water. Sometimes he felt more at home in the ocean than he did on land. He surfaced with just his face out of the water. He was dead on course. A small moon gave off its feeble light, but he didn’t need it. The required marine lights were on the tower, plus a few hundred more bulbs to make sure no wandering tanker or freighter crashed into the rig.
Nevin went back down to ten feet and stroked toward the tower. He had no idea what he would find once he got there. He had looked at the steel pipes that extended downward into the depths when he had been there that morning. He could see about ten feet, and nothing had looked unusual.
At least he could do a good scouting job, and if he did find anything out of the ordinary, he’d go back out with the sheriff and make a thorough inspection. What could you hide around an oil-drilling rig? It didn’t make a lot of sense. But then neither did the murder of a man who the platform boss on 27 thought had had suspicions about Oil Rig 4.
The next time Nevin surfaced, he was fifty feet from the tower. He dove then, working down to fifty feet and sensing change in the air/chemical mix that would keep his body functioning despite the added depth pressure. He came on the first tendon and touched it. He circled it and looked upward. No huge mass obstructed his view of the surface where the half-moon and the rig’s lightbulbs gave off a faint glow. He dove down, checking the pipe all the way to the bottom. Nevin had no idea how deep the water was here, but well beyond what the old Draegr would tolerate.
Nothing. He found nothing. That troubled him. There had to be something here or nearby. What in the hell was going on? He worked his way back up. At forty feet he saw a swimmer above him, moving slowly back and forth from one steel tendon to the next. Hunting him, or patrolling? Either way it was bad news and good news. It could mean they knew he was there. The good news was if they had a swimmer out at night, they did have something to hide.
He worked up cautiously, trying to stay away from the swimmer above, confident that the one on top could not see him in the gloom of the deeper water. Then the swimmer above turned and came directly toward him. Nevin’s hand flashed to the KA-BAR knife in its leg scabbard. He had it out and ready when some sixth sense made him turn his head and look behind him. Another swimmer was there within arm’s reach and Nevin saw the blade in his hand. Nevin tried to power away, but he was too late. He hadn’t watched his back the way every good SEAL always did. The thrust of the blade missed his back, but cut a slit across the wet suit’s side, letting in a surge of cold water.
Nevin spun around to face the fighter just as the second diver above reached him and drove his own knife into the Draegr, disabling it and ripping off the mouthpiece. Nevin kicked and powered for the surface. He figured he had about ninety seconds. That was as long as he could hold his breath, and he was getting no air from the torn-apart Draegr. The second diver followed him, slashing at his kicking feet. Then he was closer to Nevin and the knife went into his side, daggering through the tough wet suit and bringing a gush of water into his screaming mouth.
His beating legs slowed and then stopped. Nevin had never felt pain like that. It overwhelmed him. It burned in his side; it exploded in his brain. He mouth refused to close and more water surged in. He tried to find the attackers. They had pulled back and he could barely make them out. They had attacked. Now they rested and let the sea claim one of her own. His arms went limp. He had no control over them or his legs. The lights from above fuzzed out, came back, then went almost black. He didn’t know if he was floating upward or sinking. He hadn’t thought about dying since leaving the SEALs. Now the idea came into his fogged brain and he rejected it. Spewed it out with the water in his mouth and held his breath. Another few strokes and he would be on the surface and find plenty of air. But his arms wouldn’t work. His side hurt like fire. For a moment his whole body shook, and then a strange calm settled over him. He looked up at the lights, but they faded more and more to a dusty gray, and then to full black. He let out the last breath in his burning lungs and let the Pacific Ocean stream into his mouth and nose. He couldn’t fight it anymore. He felt his whole body relax, and he knew then that he was sinking. There was no light or dark, there was only the cool, serene waters of the ocean. Now at last he had returned to the ocean from which life had begun so many millions of years ago. He was one with the sea. Then a total, inescapable, deadly deep darkness engulfed him and he sank deeper and deeper into the Santa Barbara Channel.
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