Nick made the sign of the cross and looked up at the heavens. “If you get us outta this one, I won’t ask for nothin’ else, and I take back those thoughts I had today of Ralph Jenson’s wife.” Nick gripped the spear gun in one hand, the flashlight in the other, and fell backwards into the dark sea.
At thirty feet down, O’Brien adjusted his buoyancy and waited for Nick. Within a few seconds, Nick appeared next to O’Brien, and they began to swim the remaining seventy feet to the floor of the ocean. Nick panned his flashlight beam left to right as they descended, occasionally looking toward the surface, the light illuminating jellyfish and squid. O’Brien kept his light pointed in the direction they were heading. A minute later, they could see the dark gray hull, most of it encrusted with barnacles and algae.
O’Brien tapped Nick on the arm and motioned toward the long remnant of the sub they had not entered on their first exploration. Nick nodded and followed O’Brien as he swam for the opening, a twisted cavity of metal so thick with sea growth it looked like a dark entrance to an underwater cave.
The spotlights crisscrossed as the men entered, the light illuminating plankton, small fish, and shrimp flittering across the floor of the broken U-boat like mice scurrying for shelter. Nick pointed to a human skull, decapitated from the rest of the body, the skull wedged under a shard of metal. The skull had a small hole above one eye socket. A moray eel, mouth slightly parted, dogteeth visible in the light, backed into the dark crevice beside the skull. The men swam by, careful not to disturb the sediment, their bubbles rising to the ceiling of the broken U-boat.
The lights panned across shattered wires, pipes, pressure gauges frozen in time, and valves resembling small steering wheels, locked with barnacles. O’Brien thought it looked as if the insides of the U-boat were coated in volcanic lava.
Even with the veneer of ossified sea life, O’Brien could tell the long objects in front of them were torpedoes. They had entered the torpedo room. Four of the deadly cylinders had never been fired. A partial skeleton, missing one leg, was resting on the floor, half buried in residue.
The men could find no evidence of the U-235 canisters anywhere in that half of the submarine. O’Brien pointed toward the entrance and motioned to leave. He thought he caught a glimpse of relief in Nick’s eyes through his mask.
They swam by the remains of an eighty-caliber deck gun, blown off the area near the conning tower when the sub was hit. They tied the rope to a piece of metal shard at the opening, connecting it to the other half of the sub. Nick secured his spear gun at the entrance, and they slowly entered. Everything was as they’d left it.
Within a minute, O’Brien and Nick were back at the place where they originally found the U-235 canisters. They spent another ten minutes searching through the remainder of the sub. Nothing. Nothing but bones and bent metal. Then O’Brien spotted something on the floor about two feet from what looked like human pelvic bones. The object was a leather holster, caked in corrosion. O’Brien heard Glenda Lawson’s voice echoing off the walls of the U-boat. “All three gunshots sounded the same … and I’d heard Billy shooting lots of times at cans he’d set up in our backyard. His gun didn’t sound like the shots I heard that awful night.”
O’Brien lifted the gun out of the sediment, the move causing a soup of rust colored water to swirl in a vortex, a small red ghost dancing down the center of the submarine before melting to the floor.
They swam back to the cage that held the U-235, opened it and together lifted out each canister. O’Brien motioned for Nick to help him swim with the first canister to the blown-out entrance of the sub. Nick nodded, held a flashlight under his armpit, and swam beside O’Brien with the canister between them.
At the entrance, they turned and looked back toward the cage that held the remaining canister, the water murky, rust and sea mud in a thick broth. O’Brien shined a light on his watch. Eleven minutes of air left. He motioned for Nick to follow him to the cage for the other canister.
Nick’s eyes popped behind his mask. He reluctantly followed O’Brien back into the sea of tarnish, reaching for one of O’Brien’s fins for a connection. Using their sense of touch, the men lifted the remaining canister and walked it toward the entrance.
Nick stepped on something hard and round, like a bowling ball under his fin. The object, a human skull, cracked under the weight of the canister. Then Nick felt a pain across his shoulders as he backed into a sharp metal shard, the rusty edge slicing through his wetsuit, blood mixing with the decay in the water.
O’Brien tied the canisters to the end of the rope. He looked at his watch. Less than eight minutes of air left. O’Brien checked the slash across Nick’s back. Blood drifted from it, creating an eerie image of red smoke floating around his shoulders. O’Brien pointed to the surface. Nick nodded as they started a slow ascent.
Something shot through a flashlight beam. It could have been a shadow out of the corner of his Nick’s eye. But there are no shadows ninety feet down in the ocean at night. There are only predators.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Nick grabbed his flashlight and spear gun at the same time. Within a second, O’Brien had his knife off his belt. Nick looked at O’Brien and motioned toward the left. Both men aimed their flashlights into the dark void. Squid and needlefish swam by them.
Nick panned a few feet to the right, his shoulder bleeding.
A monster bull shark, at least ten feet long, circled the men.
O’Brien knew the bull shark was one of the most aggressive. One this size feared nothing, especially when there was blood. He looked at Nick, whose eyes were wide behind the face mask. O’Brien gestured, moving Nick’s back against his and pointing toward the surface. Nick nodded, keeping the spear gun in front of him as his flashlight swept the murky sea. Back-to-back, both men began moving the beams of light in half-circles as they ascended. They followed the anchor rope. To rise too quickly would risk a dangerous case of the bends. To stay where they were any longer would put them at risk of more sharks arriving and attacking.
O’Brien looked at his depth gauge. At fifty feet they stopped, held onto the rope and breathed slowly. They would have to decompress here for two minutes, purging the trapped nitrogen from their bloodstreams.
The shark circled again. Each orbit closer. An aggressive twist of the head. Eyes watching the men. Closer. O’Brien and Nick followed it with their lights. Then it was gone. Vanished. O’Brien looked at his watch. Thirty seconds more to decompress. Two minutes of air left. For thirty long seconds they would have to stay right where they were. He tapped his watch and showed Nick who nodded, his eyes darting back to the moving light. Then Nick aimed the flashlight beneath them.
The image was frightening. The bull shark rose like a torpedo from the inky depth. Mouth open. Rows of one-inch teeth expanding. Nick fired the spear gun. The spear grazed the shark’s side. It was like hitting a dinosaur with a dart. But it was enough to confuse the shark. It cut to the right and swam off into the dark.
O’Brien pointed toward the surface. Nick nodded and they followed the rope. Another twenty feet and they’d be at the dive platform. Could they clear the water before the shark turned around and charged? O’Brien tried not to think of the odds. Within ten feet of the boat’s dive platform, they broke the surface. Nick spit out his regulator and blurted, “Swim! Fuckin’ swim!”
They both reached the wooden platform at the same instant. Hands slapping wood. Fingers gripping the half-inch slots. Feet and fins grappling for the ladder rungs. Nick stood. He grabbed O’Brien’s hand and helped pull him up from the top rung of the ladder. Under the moonlight, they saw the shark swim closer. Just beyond the dive platform, the shark’s steal gray dorsal fin slicing the surface.