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the wet suit. When she was suited up, she moved forward to stand beside him so
that she could see where they were headed.  Is it far?
Blaine shook his head.  About ten minutes for this boat. We should be able to
see the rig as soon as we curve around that spit of land there. He pointed at
a large rock outcropping that sheltered San Gabriel s harbor.  Then we head
straight on. If Simon isn t down, he ll probably be able to see us.
And what then? she thought. If he saw her would that make him stop and wait?
Not Simon. He d hurry up and dive. If she was going to stop him, she d have to
follow him down and get him to surface.
Piece of cake.
Underwater communication was so very easy, she thought sarcastically,
especially with the paltry array of hand signals used by divers. A big O made
with the thumb and index finger for  I m okay. A slashing palm over the neck
for  Out of air. Thumbs-up for  Let s surface. Crawling fingers for  Critter
around. Or her favorite, a vertical open palm cutting the water to indicate a
reallybig critter around. As in,  Watch your butt or you ll be some
prehistoric creature s breakfast.
Blaine cut the boat hard, steering around a coral reef she saw only in the
boat s wake, then moved back on course for the point of the small peninsula
ahead. It was obvious that he knew these waters extremely well. After a few
more seconds, the boat was out far enough that Peta could see the small
drilling rig and make out the shape of a boat tied up to it.
 I see his boat.
 Yes, Blaine said. He looked back at her.  One person topside. Simon must be
down already.
 Shit.
The closer they got to Oilstar s exploration platform, the more ominous it
looked. No one moved on the skeletal structure, and the small main cabin s
windows were shattered, smashed Peta guessed by locals cruising by and taking
potshots for their momentary amusement.
She looked at the boat they were chasing. Simon s pilot, probably some local
he d hired for the day, stood up and calmly watched their progress.
Peta checked her watch. Simon could have been down five minutes, maybe ten.
Depending on depth, he was good for another fifteen or twenty minutes. Add one
screwup something to make him breathe too hard, not shift his mixture right,
get snagged on a rock and it could all go wrong fast.
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ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
She pulled on her fins and strapped a rusty old dive knife to her leg. It
looked like a relic that hadn t cut anything other than stray fishing tackle
since the American invasion of Grenada. Grabbing a face mask, she spat into
the lens and smeared the slick liquid around before dangling the mask in the
water. Funny, she thought. Who knew why spit defogged a mask?
She dug out a weight belt and slipped on twelve pounds. It was more than she d
use normally, but with 120 feet to the seabed and who knew how much deeper
into the cave, she had to be sure of getting down fast and staying there.
The boat bumped. Peta bounced out of her seat.
 Sorry. Getting choppy. The sea can turn nasty quickly out here. Blaine
didn t look particularly perturbed.
Peta clamped the belt tight and looked up to see him pull alongside the other
boat.
 How long has he been down? the Venezuelan shouted.
The Trini in Simon s boat shrugged, exposing the bottle of Red Stripe he d
been hiding behind his leg.  Dunno, he said sleepily in a thick accent.  Five
minutes, maybe. Maybe more.
Peta stood up. It made little difference. However long he d been down there
was too long, and discussing it wouldn t make it any shorter. She
double-checked her gear and assured herself she was good to go. Pulling on the
buoyancy vest with the double tanks, she strapped it tightly to her back with
twin wide Velcro straps. The tanks were heavy; she cinched them a little
tighter, and gave the vest a shot of air. Then she pulled the mask down,
popped in the regulator mouthpiece, and made a big O with her right index
finger and thumb.
 Good luck! Blaine shouted.
Without missing a beat, she sat on the edge of the boat, facing into it before
she slowly tilted backward, flying head over heels into the water.
After the amusement-park fall into the water, Peta quickly oriented herself,
dumped the air out of her vest, and turned facedown, away from the light and
the path of her ascending bubbles. She kicked smoothly, straight toward the
bottom. With the press of a button she started the timer function of her dive
watch, then looked at it to make sure the seconds were ticking down.
While she was traveling to the bottom, she kept her air mix heavier on oxygen
than she would have it when she entered the cave. She d have to check depth
and cut back the oxygen to something around a 15 or 16 percent
mixture quickly. If she took too long to do that, the excess oxygen would turn
toxic in her bloodstream.
To get her mind off the dangers of the dive itself, she focused on how to find
Brousseau. It occurred to her that the oil rig team had probably planted
markers when they got to the bottom, showing the direction to the cave. A rip
current could play havoc with marking poles, but if they were still there, she
could follow them straight to the deep hole& and Simon.
The light began to fade, and with it the colors. Everything settled into a
murky gloom. She took a quick glance at her depth gauge. Sixty feet. It would
soon be time to turn on the headlight. She checked her time& passing three
minutes into the dive. She was tempted to push it, kick a bit harder, but she
resisted. It wasn t just a question of speed. She knew she could swim faster
than Simon. The problem was, if she did push herself, the exertion might make
her breathe too fast. If she did that, the oxygen-nitrogen mix would be wrong
no matter how she tried to balance it, which would makeher the one in need of
saving.
That was another danger she didn t need to focus on.
Her depth gauge was nearing one hundred feet, the edge of the recreational
dive limit, when she saw something dark ahead of her.
She reminded herself that this was no rec dive.
Thinking, hoping, that the dark shape was the first outcropping of the sea
floor, she turned on her light. Its pale glow caught the floating soup of
 snow in the water, making the tiny falling debris shine around her like
fireflies.
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