Trap Line - Carl Hiaasen [33]
Albury swam ten measured strokes to his right and dove. A cave. He let the current carry him, arms extended. The water was not deep, but it might as well have been a hundred fathoms. He could see nothing.
He broke the surface.
“Nothing, Breeze,” Jimmy yelled. “He sank like a rock. Come back now.”
“I hear something,” Augie shouted from the beach.
Albury dove again and struck out for the Diamond Cutter. He nearly lost his air in the involuntary grunt of surprise when a coral claw raked his left arm.
That will bleed, he thought anxiously. Shallow water or not, sharks made their own rules. Albury swam faster. He winced when the salty night air fingered the wounded arm. He knew he was dripping like a stuck pig.
Then he touched it with his foot. Not coral, or turtle grass. It was fabric.
“Here!” he shouted and dove again.
This time his fingers traced the figure of a small man. Albury found a cold arm and tugged with all his might. The figure swayed but did not yield. He pulled again.
The man was moving gently with the current, suspended like a sponge from the ocean floor. Dots of phosphorescence spangled the curly hair. Albury sensed instantly what had happened. Somehow, in his panic, the Colombian had become entangled in the stiff branches of coral. And there he would stay until the sharks came for him.
Albury kicked toward his boat. Winded, his arm aching and sticky, he swam doggedly against the roiling tide. He felt weak and tired.
Suddenly he realized that he was no longer alone in the water. If it was a shark, Breeze Albury knew, he was as dead as the luckless Colombian. He spun in the water to face it, thrashing with both fists, aiming for the blunt snout of a killer he could not see.
It took a long, shivery moment for Albury to recognize Augie, bringing him the rope so that he, too, could hoist himself aboard and complete the Diamond Cutter’s alien complement.
“NOT TOO TIGHT.”
“It’s got to be tight enough to stop the blood. It needs stitches, man.”
Jimmy stretched the tape across the gauze. Augie held out four Tylenols and a bottle of Wild Turkey.
The deck was warm and wet, and Albury sat there puffing, like an old man. He gradually became aware of the circle of dusky feet around him, and a muttering. He looked up into gaunt, frightened faces: Colombians.
His ears rang, but it was not in his head. It was out there, much louder than before. “That’s a big boat coming,” Albury croaked. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
Jimmy helped him to his feet. Albury breathed deeply and waited for the world to right itself.
“What are they doing up here?” he demanded.
“They came up when their guy lost the rope. I couldn’t stop ’em, Breeze.”
Augie said, “We’ve got to move.”
“Jimmy, get the anchor.” Stiffly, Albury walked to the wheelhouse and punched the ignition buttons. “Augie, get those people down below.”
“I tried, but they won’t go. They say they won’t leave without the guy in the water.”
“Tell them he’s dead, Augie. And tell ’em we’re all going to a very nasty jail if they don’t get below. Now!”
The patter of half-understood Spanish washed over Albury; the Colombians were insistent.
“It’s not the guy they care about,” Augie explained. “It’s what he was carrying. They say it is their luck.”
“Oh, shit.”
“Before they left Colombia, they got a local priest to bless a small religious statue to take along. A Virgin or something. For luck. The guy who was carrying it—they called him El Cura—he’s the one who drowned.”
“Some luck.”
“It must have been made of stone, way he went down,” Jimmy said.
“These people are fucking crazy,” said Albury. Now he could see it, a speck where the sky met the ocean. Then twin pinpricks of light, one red, one green. Bow and stern.
“Tell them that anybody who wants to stay can be my guest. Tell them there’s a boat coming and that I’m not waiting,” Albury said. “Tell them to go below and say their crazy prayers.”
He slipped the diesel into gear. Jimmy was at the bow, coiling another rope. Augie spoke Spanish,