Ocean Blue (Sea Lab Book 1)

CHAPTER 5

With the heat from the afternoon sun glistening on his shoulders, Tony Cruze peered through the binoculars at Sarah's speedboat. She had yet to resurface, and he'd grown bored pretending to fish. He watched her field assistant, someone he knew as Ben Porter, rummaging through a compartment in search of something.

Tony sank his teeth into a red apple and crunched on the juicy flesh.

Porter pulled out a pair of binoculars of his own and brought them to his eyes.

Tony recoiled, slinging his field-glasses into the deck chair on top of the logbook. He wheeled to face the open ocean, pretending to be interested in the welfare of his diver in the water. He turned his head and peeked back at the vessel. Porter still looked his way. Tony's spy game was over as fast as it started. Jake had kept a low profile for most of the day as they followed them along the reef. But leave it to Tony to blow their cover. Busted in a hair over thirty minutes.

Tony placed the binoculars in Jake's bag and made a show of stowing his fishing pole in a holding bin, along with a handful of other rod and reels. Keeping up this cloak and dagger routine might be more difficult than he thought.

Another bite of the crisp apple.

In the middle of chewing, he swore out loud as he stepped into the shade of the wheelhouse to make it harder for Porter to see him. Leaning against the cabin wall, he wiped his face with a towel and listened to the sound of waves licking the hull.

An alarm pierced the air.

Tony glanced at the knee-high wooden bench doubling as a table for the diver transponder unit. A red light flashed, backed up by a repetitive, high-pitched shrill. Jake was an experienced diver with countless hours under the water. He should have some air left, but maybe his breathing regulator malfunctioned?

Tony checked his watch and then tried the comm station. "Jake, talk to me. What's going on down there?"

No answer.

"Come on, man, you're spooking me."

Still nothing.

Tony knew the drill. He flung the remains of the apple in the air and opened the lid of the boat's storage bin.

The half-eaten fruit thumped off the wood deck.

Tony pulled on a wet suit, shrugged into a scuba tank and dug his feet into a pair of fins. He slid a mask over his face and bit down on the mouthpiece. He stole a glance back at the speedboat and hoped Sarah would be okay. Then he plunged into the water.

He swam toward the reef, where he assumed Jake planned to be for most of the dive. But when he arrived, his friend was nowhere to be found. He checked one way and the other. Coral stretched out in both directions. No trace of Jake. He could have gone anywhere. With that in mind, Tony shot off for the deep, cutting through the water, his fins propelling him forward.

His instincts led him in this direction. Sure, Jake could have gone either way at the reef. But Tony suspected he would've expanded his search beyond the obvious span of coral to discover the mystery behind the absence of marine life in the area.

Tony paused, drifting, his eyes alert, penetrating the depths.

At first he saw nothing but underwater islands separated by yards of seabed. Then a large reef with another object off to the side appeared. He swam for it, scanning the vicinity, his mind processing the information.

He kicked closer.

As he moved in, he saw Jake struggling to free himself from a cage.

Tony floated to the bars as Jake's eyes rolled back in his head. His arms drifted out, swaying with the movement of the ocean. If Tony didn't get to him in seconds, the battered cage would be a death trap.

The bars looked like a battering ram had pounded them. Tony gripped the door and pulled. Nothing. It felt welded shut. He shifted his focus on keeping Jake alive.

He took a breath and removed his regulator. The door wouldn't budge without help, anyway. With a free hand, he reached inside the trap and pulled Jake up to the bars. He made quick work by removing the full-dive mask and crammed his mouthpiece between Jake's lips.

He still wasn't breathing.

His friend wouldn't like what came next, but Tony had to keep him alive somehow.