The Deep

Gail touched his shoulder and looked worriedly into his eyes. He made the “okay” sign and dropped to his knees. Treece handed him the grip and fit the tube under his arm. Sanders held the grip so tightly that his knuckles whitened. When he was sure he was in control, he nodded at Treece and dipped the gun to the sand. It twitched and hummed against his body, but held firm.

Treece swam to the other side of the hole, facing Sanders, guiding him around the green cone, directing that he dig the hole wide enough so that it wouldn’t collapse on itself.

The shell was standing on end, and it widened-as sand was stripped from it-to a diameter of about six inches.

It was coated with marine growths, but, judging by the way Treece was handling it, it was still very much alive.

When the shell was almost free of sand, Treece wrapped his hands around its middle and gingerly lifted it from the bottom. He inspected it, then set it on the sand at the base of the reef. He took the air lift from Sanders and scoured the ragged hole for more ampules.

The bag filled quickly. Gail was marrow-cold, longing for the sun’s warmth but unwilling to admit it to the men. She would force herself to wait the last few minutes until the bag was full enough. Then, to her delight, she felt the tightness of breath that signaled a nearly empty tank. She tapped Treece, ran her finger across her throat, and pointed to the surface. Treece gestured at the bag and raised his left hand, with two, then three, fingers extended comtelling her to bring down more bags. She nodded. As she rose toward the surface, she saw that Treece and Sanders were staying at the hole instead of moving to the reef. They were going to dig as many ampules as they could, as fast as they could.

Ten or fifteen feet above the bottom, the weight of the bag reminded her to drop her weight belt.

She unsnapped the belt buckle and watched the twelve pounds of lead drop to the sand.

Again Coffin was waiting for her at the surface. As she passed him the bag, she said, “There’s something in the bottom.”

“What?”

“I don’t know. They found it on the reef.”

Gail took off her tank and passed it to Coffin.

“You want a fresh one?” Coffin asked.

“Yes. He wants more bags.”

“Shouldn’t wonder. If what’s supposed to be down there is down there, it’ll take a bleeding eon to get it up with one bag.”

Gail pulled herself onto the diving platform and unzipped her wet-suit jacket. She leaned back against the stern of the boat, letting the sun warm her cold, wet skin. There were tender spots on her face, at the pressure points from the mask, and her mouth felt stretched and sore from the mouthpiece—as if a dentist had been working on a back tooth and hyperextended her lips. She wiped her nose and saw blood on her hand.

“Tired?” Coffin said as he unloaded the ampules.

“Exhausted.”

“I’ll take a trip, then. There’s nothing going on up here.”

“No, it’s all right,” she said, not sure why she was rejecting his offer. “I’ll take one more. If something does happen, better to have you here.”

“At least we’ll rig up something to make it easier.”

Gail rested for a few more minutes, then climbed into the boat and disconnected her regulator from the empty air tank. As she prepared a new tank, she tried to think of a subtle way to get Coffin talking about Treece’s wife. There was no subtle way, so finally she said, “What did Treece’s wife die of?”

Coffin glanced at her, then concentrated on the bag.

“I’m counting,” he said, dropping ampules into plastic sandwich bags. “There. Fifty.” He tied off the sandwich bag and started to fill another one.

Gail was silent until she had finished working on her tank. Coffin dropped the last ampule in the plastic bag and tied it off.

“Has she been dead long?”

Coffin ignored her. “Two-ten,” he said. “That’s four fifty-six altogether.” He reached into the bottom of the canvas bag and removed the piece of green metal. “Hello.”

“What is it?”

“An escutcheon plate.” He held it up. The plate was shaped like a fleur-de-lis. In each of the leaves there was a keyhole. Around the edges were six holes where nails had been. “Covered the lock on a box or chest. What’s he want with that?”

“He didn’t say.”

Coffin set the escutcheon plate on the shelf in front of the steering wheel. “It’s just brass.”

Gail paused. “If you won’t tell me,” she said, “I’ll ask him.”

Coffin opened a locker and took out two canvas bags and a coil of three-eighths-inch hemp. “That would be a cruel thing to do.” Coffin fed an end of the rope through the handles of one of the bags and tied a bowline. He paid out twenty or thirty yards of rope, cut it, and tied the cut end to a cleat on the stern. He repeated the procedure with the other bag, securing the rope to a cleat amidships.

When he was finished, he stared at the knife for a moment, thinking. Then he stabbed it into the gunwale and turned to Gail. “All right. I don’t want you asking him. I don’t want you giving him pain. He’s had his fill of that.”