"Is he okay?"
"Yeah, he's in here with me. Scared brainl
ess, but he's fine."
"You and Jack sit tight," Austin advised. "McGinty, how soon can you yank the bell to the surface?"
"I've got my hand on the switch."
"Then start hauling."
"It's on its way. D'you want me to call the Coast Guard?"
"A squad of navy SEALS would come in handy, but you can call in the Bengal Lancers for all the good it will do. This thing will be over before help gets here. We'll have to deal with it ourselves."
"Austin, you watch your ass! Haven't been in a donnybrook in ages. Wish I could get down there and break a few heads."
"So do I. Don't mean to be rude, Cap, but I gotta go. Ciao."
Behind the dark plexiglass shielding Austin's face the pale blue-green eyes were as hard as turquoise stones. Most mortals placed in'Austin's situation would have reacted with alarm. Austin wasn't fearless. He could make a good case that his hair had turned platinum white from the healthy scares he'd received in his career. Had he seen six white sharks bearing down he would have been wishing he'd renewed his life insurance. The forces of nature were unthinking and relentless. Despite the fearsome picture the intruders presented, Austin knew that under their aluminum skins were men, with all their frailties.
A replay flashed through his eyes of the attacks in Morocco. The only difference was the underwater setting. They wanted the talking stone, and the NUMA divers were in the way. Further intellectualizing was dangerous. Thoughts could be like slippery banana peels. What was needed was cunning rather than intelligence. A wolf doesn't think about its prey before it pounces. Austin let his mind slip into its survival mode, letting instincts dictate his moves. A spreading warmth chased away the cold chill that had gripped his body when he'd first seen the attackers. His breathing became regular, almost slow, his heart beat at an even pace. At the same time he wasn't kidding himself. A wolf had claws and teeth.
Zavala had heard the radio exchange with McGinty. "What's the game plan, Kurt?" The words were measured but edged with anxiety.
"We'll let them come to us. We know the territory. They don't. We'll need weapons."
"My specialty. I'll see what I can dig up."
Zavala glided toward the back of the armored trick "Cable cutters. What do those guys have?"
"I don't know. I thought it was a spear gun. Now I'm not so sure."
Zavala brandished the loppers. "If we can get close enough I can cut a few zippers."
Austin's mind, which had been working at Mach speed, came to a screeching halt. He'd been staring past Zavala at the open door of the armored truck, mesmerized by the bright rectangle of light standing out against the inky blackness. He moved closer. The portable halogen lamps they had used during the slab removal brightly lit up the interior.
"I may have a better idea," Austin said. "The Venus flytrap."
Keeping an eye on the hull opening, Austin outlined his plan for Zavala.
"Simple yet audacious," Zavala replied. "That takes care of one. What about the others?"
"Improvise."
Zavala raised the loppers like an Indian brave armed with a tomahawk about to do battle with the rifles of the cavalry and melted into the darkness on the far side of the truck, just beyond the engine compartment. Austin pried the lid open on two more jewelry chests.
It was like opening boxes full of stars. Even underwater the glitter of diamonds, sapphires, and rubies was blinding. He arranged the strongboxes neatly in a row just inside the trick where they would be in plain view, propping up their backs. He added a few shills for dramatic effect, then moved away from the truck until he, too, was cloaked by the artificial night within the great ship. He hovered in the vast empty space, glancing back and forth between the truck and the hull opening above. Although the interior of the Hard Suit was dry and cool, he was sweating.
There was a glow near the hull opening, then a pair of divers came into the ship like ferrets entering a rabbit burrow, their twin flashlight beams stabbing the murkiness, probing this way and that. Watching their cautious entry Austin recalled the tentativeness with which he and Zavala had first entered the wreck, their nervousness at the unknown, and the adjustment to a disorienting topsy-turvy world where up and down were no longer useful referents. He was counting on that initial confusion. And on the natural tendency of the eye to focus on the only visible object in the empty void. The armored truck, looking out of place and time.
The divers moved back and forth, probably debating a course of action, whether they were walking into a trap. They approached the truck, staying dose to each other, adjusting to the current, drawing nearer until their burnished suits were semi-silhouetted in the doorway.
Austin cursed. They were shoulder-to-shoulder. As long as they stayed that way his plan was dead, and maybe so were he and Zavala. Then human nature intervened. One diver muscled the other aside. He was framed directly in the truck's doorway, body at a forward slight angle, head bent into the truck. Austin's lips curled in a fierce grin. Pushiness doesn't pay, pal.
He alerted Zavala. Assuming ram speed."
"Cutting started," Zavala shot back.