'Lots of people can't swim.'
'Sure. And lots of people drown every year.'
Al grinned back. 'Not if they don't ever go swimming. You ask me, it's mostly people who can swim and who go swimming who get their asses drowned. Let me ask you a question. Which of the two of us is more likely to get himself drowned at this particular moment in time? You or me?'
'You've got a point.'
'Absolutamente. On account of you're the dumb motherfucker who knows how to swim and how to use a self-contained underwater breathing apparatus. Right?'
'Comforting thought,' admitted Dave, and collected up his searchlight and his knife.
'QED,' shrugged Al.
Dave grinned. 'QED?'
'Yeah, that's another of them acronomes. Means the kind of shit that speaks for itself.'
'I know what it means,' said Dave, retiring to the stern of the boat and climbing onto the ladder. 'I just wondered if you knew what the letters stood for?'
'Sure I do. I may not read books, but I ain't exactly ignorant. Stands for Quite Easily Done. Just like the way even motherfuckers who know what the fuck they're doin' in the water and think maybe they're James Bond or something, can get their land-dwelling selves as drowned as the lost city of Atlantis. You hear what I'm saying? Be careful down there. Your ass gets in a puddle of trouble, don't expect me to jump in and help you out. And don't expect no Pamela Anderson either. Only Baywatch round these parts is that fuckin' clam on your wrist.'
Dave looked at his watch. 'If I drown it's yours.'
'Yeah. Like I'm goin' to come and get it. That thing waterproof?'
'Of course. It's a real tachymeter.'
'You said it, guy. Tackiest lookin' timepiece I ever saw.' Al laughed. 'Naw, you keep it. I got enough shit already.'
Still smiling, Dave slipped into the water. It was a lot colder than he had expected and he was glad for the wet-suit. He paused for a moment, glancing up at the high walls of the ship and the crowd of vessels around him. It wasn't just the daylight he was glad of. It was the calmer sea too. Going into the Duke's floating dock during that storm would have been a lot more dangerous. He switched on the flashlight, adjusted the mask on his face, secured the mouthpiece between his teeth, and then dropped beneath the oily surface.
As Dave swam down underneath the barnacled hull of the boat, a feeling of being enclosed threatened momentarily to give way to panic. It was like being back in Homestead again. Back in his cell, soaked in the cold sweat of his worst nightmare, drowning in the unfathomable depths of his five-year prison sentence. Steeling himself, Dave kicked out toward the underwater support welded to the Duke's dock floor, to which the Britannia was securely lashed. He had only to cut through the ropes for the boat to float free from the plinth. But for Al's ignorance of navigation and the workings of a modern motor yacht, this was the stage in the plan when Dave would have been most nervous of being double-crossed by his partner. For once the underwater line was cut, Al had only to let go the port lines mooring the Britannia fast to the Duke's dock walls for the ship to float free. A quick burst of reverse engines and the boat would be out in the Atlantic on her own. Al's lack of maritime knowledge had never seemed so reassuring as it did now.
Because the stern of the Duke was open to the ocean, there were fish swimming in the dock water. These were mostly mullet and grunt and he paid them little or no attention as he swam strongly underneath the yacht's hull and caught hold of her screw. The rope itself was a thick one and he used his diving knife's serrated edge to cut it. Even so, it was several minutes before the rope was finally severed and he was able to untie the end attached to the screw so that it wouldn't foul the propeller when they were underway. Meanwhile the end tied to the floor support sank down in the water, startling a small school of mullet. Mistaking the rope for some kind of predator, an eel perhaps, the fish turned back on themselves and swam straight past Dave, missing his face by inches, almost as if they intended to use him as cover. He was still marvelling at their speed and beauty and congratulating himself on the ease with which he had completed his task when he saw the real reason for the sudden departure of the mullet. Not the rope at all, but the streamlined, silver-blue shape of a great barracuda. The fright of seeing it made him drop his flashlight.
