The Deep

“Chances are, nobody will. But there’s no sense issuing engraved invitations.”

Treece put in his mouthpiece and made a thumbs-up no sign. Sanders answered with the same sign, and they rolled backward into the water.

Beneath the surface was utter darkness. More than an absence of light—it was a thick, enveloping black, a positive nothingness. Sanders’ eyes were open, but they did not see-not his bubbles as he breathed, nor the rim around the faceplate of his mask, nor a finger held an inch in front of his face. For a second, he believed he had suddenly been struck blind. Water washed around his nose. He tilted his head to clear his mask, feeling for the top of the faceplate, pressing hard with his fingers, exhaling through his nose, and he saw undulating pinpoints of light-starlight refracted by the water.

As he exhaled and his lungs emptied, Sanders began to sink toward the bottom. He took a breath, and his descent slowed. The water, chilly at first, was warming to body temperature inside his wet suit. He felt warm and helpless and peaceful, as if he were revisiting the womb. He spread his arms and let himself glide softly to the bottom.

His flippers touched sand. There was a gentle current, enough to make standing difficult, so he dropped to his knees. The light hung around his wrist by a rubber thong. He felt for the on-off switch and pushed it with his thumb. A cylinder of yellow stabbed through the black.

Sanders had no idea where he was or which way he was facing. He swung the light left and right over the sand and rocks and was startled by the brilliance of the colors brought out by the incandescent beam. By day, the sand had looked pale blue-gray, the rocks blue-brown, the fish blue-green. But the flashlight brought out the natural in colors. He saw the whites and reds and oranges of the coral, the power-pink belly of a slumbering parrot fish. The light hit a line of brown, covered by green, and Sanders recognized it as one of the timbers from the wreck. The head of a small barracuda appeared at the edge of the beam of light.

It lingered for only a moment. Sanders looked around.

Outside the narrow shaft of yellow, all was black. He wondered if sharks were attracted by light.

Something touched his shoulder. He jerked backward in spasmodic shock and felt fingers tapping him. Then he saw the black figure of Treece move into the beam of light. Treece gestured for Sanders to turn off the light and follow him; he held out his hand.

Sanders took the hand, turned off the light, and when he felt a slight tug, began to kick alongside Treece.

Still he saw only black. Without Treece’s special mask, the infrared light was invisible. Sanders assumed that Treece was homing in on the cave, for there was no hesitation to his movement: he was swimming fast, in what felt like a relatively straight line.

Treece slowed, then stopped. With his hand, he guided Sanders to a spot on the bottom. He tapped the light, and Sanders pressed the switch.

They were at the mouth of the cave.

The light reflected off the white sand and rock walls. Sanders saw the rock marker they had placed in the cave. Treece’s hand moved it and set it in the sand next to the infrared light. A finger pointed to the depression in the sand where the rock had been, telling Sanders to train the light there. The finger withdrew, and a hand appeared, holding the Ping-Pong paddle. Treece moved the paddle over the sand in short, swift motions. The sand rose in billows: in seconds, the cave was filled with a cloud. Sanders put his face down beside the light. The hole in the sand grew. It was several inches deep, more than a foot in diameter. Treece brought his face down beside Sanders’, and the two heads clustered about the light as the paddle waved the sand away.

Treece stopped fanning. At first, Sanders thought he had given up. Then he saw two fingers reach into the sand hole and withdraw, clutching what looked to Sanders like a brown leaf. There was a faint impression on the leaf, traces of writing or printing. The fanning resumed, and Sanders saw a glint in the sand. The fingers probed again, as delicately as if they were extracting a splinter from a child’s foot. An ampule was pulled from the sand.

Soon more leaf appeared-rotten wood, Sanders now assumed, from the cigar boxes that held the ampules; and then another ampule. Then two ampules together.

Then, as the hole deepened, the corner of a box, faded and flaking. Sanders backed off a few inches, for most of the box seemed to lie outside the cave.

Treece fanned until he had uncovered the box.

It lay upside down, a brown square about six inches by eight. He set the paddle down and gently lifted the box bottom, which came away in one mushy piece. Inside, protected by a honeycomb of cardboard partitions, lay forty-eight ampules, all intact.