The Scorpion's Tale (23 page)

The ‘Dolphin Princess’ was a fully restored,
forty-foot dive boat painted white with different hues of greens
and blues. The rear half was open and outfitted exclusively for
diving. The front was covered by a second-floor deck and a
“tuna-tower,” where the captain could climb a staircase and have an
elevated view of the water. The Dolphin Princess slowed as it
neared the dive site. Miguel and Rafael helped the captain tie off
to a giant buoy, securely connected to a massive underwater rope
fastened to the ocean floor. Two other men stood on the tower with
rifles.

Pablo pointed to the two men on the upper
deck. “Those two will not be diving with us. They’re here for
protection.”

Steven looked up at the men. “Protection from
what?” Steven asked.

“Renegade waitresses serving really bad piña
coladas,” Pablo joked.

Captain Mike hopped down to the deck. He was
an ex-pat from Tampa with sandy blond hair and a neatly trimmed
beard. The captain was lean and muscular, with well-tanned skin.
“Get that wet suit on, Steven,” Mike ordered.

After a few minutes, Steven managed to pull
and prod the wetsuit up to his waist. He looked at Pablo with a
pained expression. “This is killing me. I think my balls are going
to explode!”

Pablo and his bodyguards were amused. “Then
it’s a perfect fit,” Pablo exclaimed.

“Gentlemen, it’s time to review the dive
plan,” Mike said.

Pablo pointed at Steven. “Listen carefully my
friend.”

Captain Mike addressed only Steven. “We are
now above a 220 foot freighter at a depth of one hundred feet.
We’re going to jump off the stern, wait for each other, and then
submerge as a group. Miguel and Rafael will go first. Pablo will be
your dive buddy, and I’ll bring up the rear as we follow the buoy
rope down to the ocean floor.”

Steven nodded as butterflies swirled in the
pit of his stomach.

“It’s a simple dive. We’ll spend ten minutes
acclimating at one hundred feet and then we’ll begin our ascent.
When we reach thirty feet, we’ll swim for a while before surfacing.
We must remove excess nitrogen in the bloodstream to prevent the
bends.”

“Mike, this is too much information to
absorb,” Steven said.

Mike smiled. “Don’t worry; just follow our
lead and do as we do. You’re diving with four master divers with
dive computers. You’re perfectly safe.”

“Okay,” Steven said, feigning a smile. Why
the hell were they making him dive? He didn’t know anything about
these people. They could easily drown him and leave him tied
underneath the tanker.

Pablo sensed Steven’s trepidation. “If you’re
thinking this would be a wonderful place to commit the perfect
crime, don’t worry. If we wanted to kill you, there are much easier
ways of doing so. Besides, why contaminate this pristine reef with
the decaying corpse of a white-assed gringo?”

Captain Mike and the husky brothers
practically fell down laughing.

Steven was embarrassed. “Thank you Pablo,
that’s quite comforting.”

Pablo helped Steven pull his wetsuit over his
arms and chest, and then zipped it up from the back.

“How does that feel?”

“Like a straightjacket,” Steven protested.
Steven watched intently as Pablo’s bodyguards took a huge stride
off the dive platform into the water. After going under, they
resurfaced immediately and floated effortlessly.

Steven watched Captain Mike carry two loaded
spear guns to the diving platform and carefully hand them to
Rafael. Then he walked to the front of the boat and returned with
two more.

Steven looked questioningly at Pablo. “Are
these also for the waitresses?”

Pablo smiled. “One can never be too careful.
It’s not only the waitresses that worry me.”

Steven’s heart beat faster as he looked up to
see Pablo’s guards loading ammunition into their high-powered
rifles.

Pablo put a hand on Steven’s shoulder. “It’s
just a precaution.”

“Lemme check that BC,” Captain Mike said as
he secured the buoyancy compensator vest on Steven’s body, showing
Steven how to inflate and deflate the vest as needed to help
maintain his buoyancy underwater. He checked Steven’s weights and
strapped Steven’s mask around his head as Pablo strapped a sheathed
knife around Steven’s ankle.

“What’s the knife for?” Steven asked.

“I always take a sharp knife in case I get
tangled and have to cut something fast. Follow me and do exactly
what I do. Take a giant stride with your right foot and kick off
the dive platform with your left.”

Steven waddled to the platform and watched
Pablo leap into the water. Steven then tiptoed to the edge, placed
the regulator in his mouth, and took a few breaths. He felt the
tightness of his inflated BC against his body and the mask against
his face. His left foot unwittingly followed his right foot off the
platform and he hit the water doing a full split. The cold water
filled his wetsuit, sending a shiver down his spine. He took his
first breath, making sure to keep the regulator in his mouth. A
little too eager, he bit down hard on the mouthpiece and his jaw
muscles cramped. Steven surfaced in time to see Mike jump into the
water.

“Time to go down,” Pablo said.

Steven peed into his wetsuit, which warmed
him. He watched Pablo submerge and then followed him. It was a
strange sensation as he fought his natural instincts to hold his
breath. Before he knew it, he opened his eyes a few feet below the
surface. His adrenaline was pumping and he was breathing hard. He
was beginning to panic as he dropped further into the unknown. He
pinched his nose and gently blew through it, feeling his ears pop
and the pressure release. Steven saw Pablo ahead of him, motioning
for him to fill his BC with air as the air in his vest
counterbalanced the extra weights he carried to help him submerge.
Steven managed to inject a little air into the BC and his descent
slowed dramatically. He fumbled around and retrieved his depth
gauge, which indicated fifteen feet below the surface. Shit.
Another 85 to go, he thought.

Steven looked up and saw the hull of the
Dolphin Princess. Rays of sunlight pierced through the water as he
watched air bubbles escaping from his regulator and gently rising
to the surface. The water was crystal clear. He released air from
his BC and descended a little more. He looked at his depth gauge
and was astounded to see he was fifty feet below the surface.

Pablo approached and demonstrated how to
swim. By the time they reached Miguel and Rafael, Steven was almost
at the ocean floor, where he saw the huge steel fasteners that
secured the rope moored to the boat. Steven had now descended
ninety feet. He wondered why he had been frightened of the water
for so many years.

-------------------

Giovanna awoke as the plane landed.

As she reached Business Class, Nick and his
men began gathering their bags. No one noticed the man who ducked
into the lavatory to use his cell phone. He quickly called the
Scorpion to let him know he was with Nick and his party. The plan
was proceeding as scheduled. “We’re about to deplane. I’ll call you
in an hour.”

The man emerged, happy that the plane doors
had not yet opened. Nick and his posse were still in their original
positions, sandwiched between other passengers, impatient to
deplane. The man slowly maneuvered himself closer to the group. As
the doors opened and everyone started moving, he surreptitiously
slipped a small global positioning unit into Giovanna’s half-opened
purse.

The divers swam as a group, hovering ten feet
above the freighter’s deck. One hundred feet above, Pablo’s guards
on the Dolphin Princess listened to music, drank beer, and
occasionally scanned the waters for unwelcome visitors. A boat came
into view and ambled slowly toward the reef. In no apparent hurry,
it appeared to be looking for anchorage on the other side of the
wreck. One of Pablo’s guards scanned the boat with high-powered
binoculars as it moved slowly, trailing a small zodiac where three
divers appeared to be suiting up. The guard recognized the
captain.

“No worries, it’s West End Jorge.”

Both guards retrieved their beers. As one
lifted the bottle to his lips, it shattered, along with his head.
The second guard had no time to react as a bullet from a Long Range
Sniper Rifle exploded his head, too. A minute later, the zodiac
launched from the dive boat and headed toward the Dolphin
Princess.

Underwater, time was suspended as Steven
melted into the surrounding wonderland. At a depth of one hundred
feet, he couldn’t hear the small outboard engine of the zodiac, but
with almost perfect visibility, Steven caught a glimpse of its
underside moving slowly through the water. Steven could also make
out a portion of the hull of another dive boat that had dropped
anchor a few hundred feet from the Princess. Pablo and his men also
noticed the intruding vessel and Pablo signaled Rafael and Miguel
to surface. Suddenly, as Steven’s eyes were fixed on Pablo’s
bodyguards swimming to the surface, a huge net loaded with heavy
weights and unidentifiable contents plummeted down from the surface
to the ocean floor directly beneath the divers. It looked like a
giant meteor, rocketing toward the bottom, leaving a huge trail of
brownish-red smoke in its wake. The divers had only seconds to
evade the projectile. Mike and Pablo swam clear, but Steven’s right
flipper became entangled in the net, dragging him down to the sandy
bottom.

As the mass hit the ocean floor, it exploded
into a huge cloud, momentarily obscuring Steven’s view. Steven was
disoriented as he tried to extract his fin from the net and
pressurize his ears from the rapid drop. As the particles began to
settle, the water cleared and Steven realized the mass was a giant
ball of chum that exploded on impact, scattering bloody fish parts
in every direction. He looked up at the terrified expressions of
his companions, but because of his inexperience, he was unable to
immediately grasp their concern.

Pablo frantically withdrew his knife,
indicating a cutting motion to Steven, while Mike pointed toward an
object just beyond Steven. Steven unsheathed his knife, but still
failed to understand their urgency until he turned toward his
tangled flipper and saw a large, grey shadow passing a few inches
over his head. It was at least seven feet long with a pointed
snout; a Caribbean Reef Shark. Steven had no idea whether they
posed a threat, but his instincts warned him that the fish blood
would be like a red cape to a raging bull. Steven saw terror on
Pablo’s face and anxiously reached for his flipper while more
sharks passed on both sides of him.

One shark came straight at Steven and only
veered away at the last second, to tear into a huge piece of fish
floating near Steven’s tangled foot. Steven felt the predator’s
immense power as it thrashed its head and ripped apart the fish. As
another shark swam for him, Steven managed to cut the trapped
flipper off and spring from the sand, barely passing over the
shark’s rows of razor sharp teeth. He kicked with one fin,
following Mike and Pablo away from the chum and toward the
protection of the wreck. Steven looked up and saw the water turning
gray as it rapidly filled with more sharks. The fish chunks had
attracted hundreds of small fish, creating an eating orgy for the
sharks. With their snouts elevated, they thrashed as they charged
into a feeding frenzy.

Mike and Pablo readied their spear guns,
knives in hand and their backs against the wreck, anxiously looking
for any escape. A few sharks peeled away from the chum, becoming
more interested in the divers instead. A Black Tip Shark slammed
hard into Steven, dislodging his mouth-piece even though he had
been biting down so hard he thought it would break.

They needed decompression time and with their
air running out, remaining stationary was certain death. Steven
didn’t know which would be more gruesome; being eaten alive by a
shark or having nitrogen bubbles burst his brain. He refused to
accept either option; he was determined to survive, at least long
enough to exact his revenge upon the Scorpion.

Mike signaled for the group to ascend slowly,
attempting to draw as little attention as possible. Steven thought
his heart would explode as he watched his worst nightmare unfold;
the possibility of an underwater death.

As Mike rose by necessity off the ocean floor
and away from the wreck’s protection, a large Black Tip rammed into
him from behind, knocking his spear gun from his grasp. Mike
reflexively put his arms out to protect his torso. The shark took
the invitation to his right arm and began thrashing. Ten feet
below, Steven grabbed at the lost spear gun plummeting by him as
Pablo lunged to save Mike with his knife. At that moment, Pablo was
blindsided by another shark that wrapped its jaws around his thigh.
Overcoming terror, Steven swam to Pablo and jabbed the spear tip
into the shark’s eye, causing it to release Pablo’s leg from
certain amputation. Fearful of spearing Mike, Steven became a
desperate animal, digging his fingers into the shark’s eye socket.
The shark released Mike’s badly ravaged arm, which spewed blood in
every direction as they ascended, attracting the terror immediately
below.

No longer the novice, Steven stood guard
directly facing the danger beneath him, the only line of defense
for his injured comrades. Mike swam toward the surface with his
uninjured arm and Pablo kicked with his good leg, swimming ten feet
above him. They were now in sixty feet of water and closing in on
the sandy shoals that Mike had described. A huge Black Tip came
barreling straight for Steven, who was now the predator. At the
last possible second he pulled the trigger–hitting the shark in its
gullet, causing it to veer away and slash and roll erratically,
with blood streaming from its body. The harpooned shark’s blood
covered their trail, causing the others to cannibalize their
own.