Nick immediately flipped over and gave Gus a one finger salute. There were a thousand seals in sight everyday near Fisherman’s Wharf. Nick logically considered this should be happy meal paradise for great white sharks, as the Pacific Grove area was. Nick used easy strokes with his fins, arms at his sides to propel him forward at a measured pace while he breathed through his snorkel in the relatively calm water. The blackness of being in the ocean at night is an experience few people endure. Contrary to popular belief, Delta Force trained in everything, and Nick was proficient with all phases of underwater scuba technology. His one man obliteration of the men in charge at Tanus Import/Export, who sought the death of Rachel, illustrated why he needed all facets of secretive approach practiced diligently at all times. Only Gus’s boat, The Lucky Lady, had been a casualty of Nick’s war on Tanus Import/Export, and that didn’t count in his mind - Gus was another story.
The wind didn’t make the surf Nick cut through too rough. He reached the outer parameters of the Marina East docking area in good time. Rounding the outer perimeter, Nick made his way to the Shalimar without any problem. The cold water was only an unpleasant afterthought enveloping him. His active stroking generated enough body heat to negate most of the discomfort. Nick slowed his approach considerably as he neared the Shalimar. He could see they already had a party going on. Loud music, and lights, abounded on the ported vessel, with figures dancing or cavorting in a wildly festive manner. All good, Nick thought moving nearer to the hull.
Keeping his distance from the yacht, Nick swam to the bow. He extracted the RFID from his small gear pack. After tearing away the filmy cover over the adhesive, Nick reached as far as he could to place it on the upper part of the bow’s forward point. It adhered instantly to the hull. Nick waited a few minutes, and then tried to move it. The transmitter didn’t budge. Easing down again into the water, Nick slowly kicked out beyond the boat, and to the side away from the dock. He took out the small waterproof video cam he had, and filmed the boat, zooming in at different points of view, both at sea level and above it. Then the inexplicable happened.
A shouting match developed on the foredeck, away from the main party going on below. Nick filmed the man with his lowlight camera, arguing with a scantily clad and shivering woman, clutching an evening purse. They seemed to know each other, but Nick stayed in place, embracing the anonymity of his project. Observing the unobservable, kicked in the part of his psychotic side’s quirky makeup, holding him in a place he should be leaving. He jolted upright in the water as the man grabbed the female, looked back inside the boat, and injected her with something. The man held the struggling woman to him, and then let her slide down and over the deck enclosure, grabbing at and missing the evening purse the woman had been holding. He cursed in Arabic before walking away. She hit the water, and sank slowly with Nick kicking toward her at full speed.
He used his snorkel until arriving ten feet away from where he saw the woman disappear. Nick dove down, his low light goggles helping him to see into the water with moderated blurriness. Spotting a whitened appendage, Nick grabbed it. He kicked out full bore away from the Shalimar. When he broke the ocean surface, Nick held the woman’s head above water, while compensating for the effort utilizing a constant kicking motion with his fins. He grabbed her floating purse before making an instantaneous decision. Nick jettisoned his weight belt. He then stuffed her evening purse into his dive bag. With the extra buoyancy, Nick kept kicking away from the Shalimar while pinching off the woman’s nostrils and breathing air into her. A frenzy of activity on the boat with searchlights hunting in the dark water convinced him he had only a little time to get her to shore. There was no way to do a chest compression method for reviving the woman. After moments of exhaling into the woman’s mouth, she gasped for breath, vomited violently, and panicked.
Nick had moved them quite some distance from the Shalimar into the open water beyond the docking area by the time he got her revived. Search lights and voices could still be seen scanning the waters on all sides of The Shalimar. The cold water and adrenaline worked against the drug in the woman’s system. He gripped her head in his hands, repeating hushed but urgent orders into her face, while still kicking through the water toward where Gus blinked a flashlight beam every few seconds to speed Nick’s return.
“Stop struggling! Shut the fuck up! I will save you, but you must shut up! You’ve been drugged! You have to stay conscious and fight this.”
The woman’s wide eyed horror and panic subsided. She gasped for breath, the cold water making her entire body a shivering burden.
“Can you swim?” Nick prompted her.
“Yes… I…I’m freezing!” The woman’s eyes began to glaze over again.
Nick shook her. “Then swim! I’ll guide you. Stroke as fast as you can toward that blinking light on shore. It will increase your body heat, and fight off the drug’s effects. I’ll keep you in the right direction.”
Gasping for air, the woman began breast stroking in moderated form while Nick kept her on course to where Gus awaited his departure from the water. Ten long minutes passed before she reached the rocks. Nick popped out of the water, seizing her away from the rocks in a fireman’s carry before delivering her to Gus. Gus immediately wrapped the towel around her from Nick’s backpack meant for Nick. Nick stripped off her clothes, tearing what she had on off with little trouble.