Is he going to kill me now? he wondered.
Chapter 3
TRAINING TELLS
So severe was the panic attack that Andrew found he was gasping and shaking. Fear pulsed through him and he began to pray.
He is a cruel looking mongrel, he thought as he stared up into the third diver’s hard face.
The third diver then looked at the other divers and snarled, “Get zem up! Get zem aboard!”
Andrew noted that the man had a distinct foreign accent, but his attention was diverted by several painful muscle spasms that wracked him, causing him to suck in his breath and to grit his teeth until they passed.
The third diver scrambled up the port side ladder onto the deck, pushed past the man with the SMG and then vanished aboard the game fishing boat. The second diver took his place on the dive platform. First, he placed his speargun flat on the deck over to port. Next, he took off his helmet and then dragged off his fins and tossed them up onto the deck. His weight belt followed. Then he scrambled up onto the stern of the launch and began taking off his BCD and air tank. The man with the SMG moved further forward to make room for him.
Then the first diver, the one in the rubber boat, called loudly, “Come on girl, get out!”
Andrew glanced and saw that the first diver had also taken off his helmet and his BCD and air tank and was aiming his reloaded speargun at Ella. To add ghoulish horror to the scene Tristan’s lower legs and fins just showed above the inflatable sides and the sight sent a shiver of fear through Andrew.
It was obviously horror and shock that afflicted Ella as she could hardly haul herself up onto the dive platform. Then she just stood there, trembling violently and with the water dribbling and dripping off her and onto Andrew’s face. The second diver, who had by now removed his BCD and air tank and picked up his speargun, shouted angrily at Dan, “Help her up you! Grab that air tank.”
Dan, looking stunned and shaken, did as he was told. As he leaned down to grab hold of Ella’s air tank Andrew noted that his face was bruised and bleeding. He has been bashed, he thought.
Ella was hauled up the starboard ladder onto the stern of the dive boat and Dan then helped her to take off her BCD and air tank. These were handed forward to a worried looking Mr Craig who stowed them on the racks that were set up on the centre line of the dive boat. Her weight belt was taken off and passed to Mr Craig as well. Ella then hunched and tried to cover herself with her arms. She looked blue with the cold and was shivering violently.
Andrew looked at her curvy body in the skimpy bikini and the thought crossed his mind that she might regret having not worn a wetsuit. I hope those men aren’t interested in her as a girl, he thought. Ella moved to stand between Mr Craig and Dan on the starboard side of the deck.
The heat of the sun now began to fog up Andrew’s face mask. Anxious to see as well as he could he reached up with his right hand and took out the regulator, then tugged at the face mask, pulling it down around his neck. As he did so he uttered a mental rebuke when he remembered what he had been taught on his diver’s courses.
I should have pulled the mask up onto my forehead, he thought, the signal that the diver was in distress. Around the neck was the normal place for it to be. But it was done now and so he did not change it.
Carmen pulled her own face mask down around her neck and leaned over. “Are you alright Andrew?” she queried anxiously.
Andrew nodded and groaned a yes, still unsure of how serious his wound might be. The second diver interrupted, leaning over and gesturing to get up.
“Get up on deck!” he snarled.
Carmen kept a tight grip on Andrew while she hauled herself up onto the dive platform. In the process Andrew’s head went lower and he felt water wash around his ears, but he managed to keep his face clear of it. Carmen then turned and reached down to lift Andrew. As she lifted him sharp darts of pain shot down his leg when the spear struck against the dive platform.
“Aargh! Ah!” he gasped. “The spear. Turn me over.”
Carmen stopped lifting and looked to see what the problem was.
“Sorry,” she said. “Dan, help me please.”
Andrew was gently rolled over while most of his body was still in the water and he then tried to use his hands to help her. Dan scrambled down the starboard ladder and took hold of his air tank and BCD and helped to lift. After a short struggle Andrew got his knees up onto the dive platform but when he bent forward the spear sent more stabs of pain through him, causing him to groan and cry out. As always he was astonished at how heavy all the gear felt when it was out of the water.
For a few seconds Carmen stopped trying to lift but then the second diver snarled at her to get on with it and Andrew was hoisted to an upright position. Shaking and shocked Andrew stood there, gripping the starboard ladder. This put his eye just above deck level. Close in front of him were the bare feet of the second diver and beyond them the boots of the man with the SMG.
Ella and Mr Craig were ordered to help by the second diver and they moved to bend down and grab his arms and equipment. “Face down,” Andrew managed to croak, fearing more pain from the spear. He knew it was stuck sideways somehow and did not want to suffer more agony. They heaved him up and lay him flat on the deck with his feet still sticking out over the stern. Andrew swivelled his head to the left to watch the men.
Carmen now climbed up, passing up her fins first and then her weight belt before clambering up over Andrew. She was helped to remove her BCD and air tank and it was placed in the rack by Mr Craig.
I wish someone would take off my air tank, Andrew thought as the weight off it on his back was pressing down on him, making it hard to breathe. But he could not seem to open his mouth except to suck in air. So he just lay there, gasping and groaning while something else went on down behind him on the dive platform.
The third diver now re-appeared, leaping athletically from one boat to the other. To Andrew’s dismay he now also carried a submachine gun. It was a tiny thing and Andrew vaguely identified it as possibly a Czech Skorpion.
The third man now stood right at the stern facing the prisoners. But he spoke to the other men first and from his tone of voice Andrew had no doubt he was ‘The Boss’. “Vich vone of you shoot zer man?” he demanded to know.
“Me, Mr Ivanoff,” answered the first diver from just behind Andrew.
“Vy?”
“He was undoing the net.”
A look of fury crossed Mr Ivanoff’s face and for a second Andrew thought he might be about to shoot Diver No. 1. “You blutty fool! Vot for ve need zer dead body to dispose off? You are zer idiot Barry.”
“But the sub is due in an hour,” Barry answered, truculence in his voice.
“Silence you idiot! Zey not need to know zat!” Mr Ivanoff snarled. “Now you giff us zer even bigger problem.”
“Sorry Mr Ivanoff,” replied Barry. This time his voice was tinged with anxiety.
Andrew’s mind raced as it tried to grapple with the surprising information. Sub? he thought. Does he mean a submarine? He was sure the men were criminals and now he suspected they were smugglers.
Mr Ivanoff now faced the prisoners. “You are zer university research group yes?”
“Yes,” Mr Craig answered. “Who are you?”
“Ve zer questions ask,” Mr Ivanoff snarled. “Now, how you come to be diving here? Who tell you to come here?”
Mr Craig answered that. It took several minutes of questioning for the details of the research expedition to be described. During this Andrew lay on the deck enduring waves of throbbing pain and wondering if he should interrupt to ask for medical help. But fear held