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Remi considered this for a few hed “Okay, Jacques Cousteau Reive you”
Saave her a wink “Deal”
Ten lided the dinghy to a stop against the cliff Sa carefully, stood up and tied a bowline knot around a protruding root, then sat down and secured the other end to the D-ring on his weight belt Rehy and stopped ten feet fro minute throttle adjustments to keep them stationary
Sam spit in his mask, rubbed the saliva around the inside, then dipped the e resting just above his eyebrows Next he slipped on his fins, punched the regulator to test the airflow, then nodded to Remi
“Luck,” she said
“I’ll be back”
He settled the mask over his eyes and rolled backward into the water
He let hi the sudden i clarity of the water that filled his vision He waited for the bubbles and froth to fully clear, then tipped hiht and did a pike dive for the botto of the current He let it take hi onto his side so he could watch the sun-dappled surface for a few fleeting seconds before the lip of the cliff appeared and he slipped into darkness He clicked on his dive light and cast it around
The cave’s entrance was a rough half circle, an arch ten to twelve feet wide and twenty feet tall At low tide, its peak probably rose only a few inches above the lagoon’s surface—that, co the rock face, rendered it all but invisible If not for the Goat’s Head clue, they would have never found it
He finned doard, angling for the bottoers trail in the sand After twenty or so feet, the bottom suddenly dropped away into darkness He rolled back onto his side, shined his light upward, and saw the entrance arch had disappeared, replaced by surface reflection He checked his watch and gave the line at his waist three solid tugs: All okay, Remi
He was suddenly enveloped by cool water and he felt a new current take hold of hiht He realized he was spinning ever so slightly, as though being pirouetted by an unseen hand Whirlpool, he thought with a trickle of panic The currents of the lagoon and the underground river were colliding, the cooler water slipping beneath the warht noas on the outer edge of the vortex, so the current was strong, but just eable with fins—aler toward the center He pointed himself tohat he hoped was a wall and scissored his fins once, twice, then broke the surface
His outstretched hand touched rock and he grasped at it, his palers found purchase on an outcropping He jerked to a stop, his legs trailing in the circular current He gave the line three hard tugs, then checked his watch: two le of water rushing along the walls and so from deeper within the cave, it was eerily quiet
Using his teeth, he pulled the glove fro the rush of cool air on his ed the possibility reht with it the chance of pollutants, and while they would have seen signs of toxicity in the outflow—a lack of fish, discolored rocks, dead sponges—there was also the chance of gas buildup The brisk airflow ulator froave the line another all-okay signal, then put his glove back on and shined the light around
Six feet above his head he got the first indication they were on the right track: A cross-plank catwalk suspended fro by rusted steel cables spanned the width of the cavern and ended at the opposite wall above a s sunk into the sea floor A second catwalk joined the first at its le The setup wasn’t sophisticated by any means, but clearly so by the rust on the cables and the coating of slio
The cavern was oval in shape, perhaps fifty feet ith a vaulted, stalactite-covered ceiling that rose twenty feet above Sa what should have been the back wall, he saw only darkness He’d iround river would feature a gushing cleft in the wall, but he now realized this cavern was si of the rear walls to a diameter of thirty feet, there was no discernible separation between this cavern and the adjoining fracture-guided syste