Chapter 33
Danielle had her tanks secured by the time Hawker exited the cave. By the haste of his actions, he’d heard the call, too, and was rapidly strapping his own harness back into place. He pulled it onto his shoulders and they dove for the DPVs they’d left at the entrance to the tunnel.
She grabbed hers by the handle and twisted it to full throttle. The propeller spun and Danielle kicked with her feet to assist the acceleration. In seconds she was cruising as fast as she could possibly move, with Hawker only a few yards behind her.
Together they raced away from the sunken temple, climbing gradually as they did. Fortunately, they hadn’t been down deep enough or long enough to require a true decompression stop, but rocketing to the surface was never a good idea.
They would ascend at a constant angle, giving their bodies time to reabsorb any dissolved nitrogen, and when they spotted McCarter in a minute or two they would drop the scooters and surface.
Suddenly Hawker yelled, “Look out!”
At Hawker’s shout she turned her head. A shadow flashed over, one of the hammerheads buzzing them. A second one followed, brushing her and twisting violently to the right as it passed. It raced into the distance and disappeared, but others were streaming their way, rocketing toward them like underwater missiles.
On the surface, McCarter couldn’t take his eyes off the boats flying toward them.
He grabbed the transmitter. “If you guys can hear me, you need to hurry. They’re only two miles away at most.”
If he wanted to be safe he would have to go to full throttle soon and start heading west. That was the plan, go west, call the Mexican coast guard, and hope a few helicopters were enough to scare off whoever was attacking them.
It seemed the prudent thing to do, but McCarter couldn’t stand the thought of leaving his friends behind. He bumped the throttle down, wheeled the boat around until it pointed back toward the dive zone, and then grabbed the transmitter once more.
“I’m a half mile north of where we dropped you,” he said. “I’ll wait as long as I can.”
Suddenly Yuri dropped the sunglasses, stood up, and began staring trancelike at the water ahead of them.
Danielle turned to the left, angling down to get away from the oncoming sharks, but even with the propulsion of the DPV and her own legs kicking, the sharks were moving at three or four times her speed.
A few of the smaller ones zipped past her; another dive-bombed her from above, slamming her shoulder. She looked for Hawker. He was coming her way, his own DPV running full throttle, but the sharks were basically ignoring him. For a moment it actually pissed her off, until she realized why.
The hammerheads, the circling honor guard of the sunken temple, were homing in on the object that had drawn them there in the first place: the power-emitting stone now secured in Danielle’s pack.
None of them had tried to bite her, at least not yet. In fact they seemed almost oblivious to her presence, as stunned and surprised by the sudden impacts as she was. But they were unable to resist the sensory overload in the magnetic detectors in their brains and they continued to come on in waves.
She twisted to escape another hit but there were too many sharks to avoid. It soon became a blur, like being caught in a stampeding crowd. Her world spun: the gray tops of the sharks, the white of their underbellies, bubbles from her regulator exploding around her.
A glancing blow on one leg was followed by a thud on her right arm and then a shot to the ribs that bent her body and whiplashed her neck.
“Hang on!” Hawker shouted.
“They’re after the stone,” she managed to say.
In the next moment a large group of the juveniles hit, spinning her around and leaving her disoriented.
She saw a larger one rocketing in. She dodged the hit, but the shark crashed into the DPV, ripping it from her hands and sending the yellow device spiraling toward the bottom.
She righted herself, saw a flash of the surface above, and kicked toward it but something grabbed her. She turned to see Hawker; with an arm around her waist he pulled her close. She reached for a handhold on the DPV just as the acceleration from the propulsion unit kicked in.
Another group of sharks came racing their way. She hardened her body against the impact, but two more followed, and a third on its own.
They broke the surface and Danielle spun around. McCarter was racing toward them in the boat. Thank God he was close. He slowed and turned beside them.
She grabbed the ladder, pulling herself up as Hawker pushed her from behind.
Tumbling into the boat, she whipped around, stretching a hand toward Hawker.
He clutched at it, just as a gray-green shape split the surface, rammed him like a torpedo, and dragged him away.
She felt his hand ripped from hers.
“Follow him!” she shouted to McCarter.
McCarter punched the throttles and spun the wheel and Danielle grabbed for the speargun.
Flying through the water, pushed by the big shark, Hawker felt as if he’d been hit by a train. His mask was torn off and the DPV wrenched out of his hands as he was pulled by forces he could not overcome or even influence.
He twisted and wrenched his body to try to free himself but the animal’s flat, angular head had wedged itself between his tanks and his back.
And then suddenly he flipped over and slowed. The shark had torn itself free after dragging him two hundred feet or so.
Kicking upward, Hawker burst through the surface, gulping the air and looking around for the boat. He spotted it circling toward him.
He guessed, and hoped, that the sharks would leave him alone now, as they had before he’d teamed up with Danielle. But as he caught his breath and began to tread water, he saw a line of color dripping down the edge of his nose. He touched his forehead and his hand came away red with blood.
Instant panic hit him. He shed his tanks and began kicking hard for the oncoming boat, trying desperately to keep his face above the water.
On the boat, Danielle saw him. She saw the blood and a pair of dorsal fins slicing through the surface right at him.
She threw out the cargo net. “Hurry!” she yelled to McCarter.
They sped toward him. Hawker grabbed the net. Danielle pulled with all her might, leaning back and throwing her weight into it.
Hawker rolled and tumbled into the boat as one of the hammerheads launched itself, arching its back, half its body out of the water.
It landed on the cutaway, tipping the small craft, almost swamping it.
The front third of the shark was inside the vessel. The head whipped around, jaws snapping for anything it could grab. Yuri screamed, Hawker kicked it, and Danielle grabbed for the speargun again.
And then it flipped back into the water and disappeared in a tremendous splash.
“Go!” she shouted.
McCarter punched the throttles and the V-hulled fishing boat leaped forward like a stallion launching itself from the gate.
Danielle locked the cutaway back into place as other sharks whipped by. They followed briefly before falling behind the speeding boat. All she could think of was Petrov’s story of being followed by sharks and killer whales. She thanked God that she’d rented the fastest boat available.
Suddenly she felt Yuri at her side. “This siren,” he said, grabbing for the stone. “This siren.”
She tried to calm him and then opened the equipment locker and pulled out a lead-lined box they’d had specially made. She placed the stone into the box, sealed it shut, then slipped the box into her backpack. Beside her, Yuri stared.
“Siren,” he said quietly. “Siren.” As Danielle placed her pack inside the locker and latched it shut, he sat next to it and stared as if it were a television.
Danielle stroked his hair and looked out in front of them. A mile off, the boats McCarter had seen were splitting up, one continuing toward them, the other heading directly west to cut them off.
Perhaps the hard part was not over.