Skeleton Key

uncomfortable. It‟s the same all over the world.”
    “I didn‟t ask to be here,” Alex said.
    “But still you came. They would have been happier without you.”
    The boat creaked. A light breeze had sprung up, rippling the flags. The sun was sinking faster now and the whole sky was turning to blood. Alex looked at his watch. Ten to seven. The twenty minutes had passed quickly. He scanned the surface of the ocean but there was no sign of Turner or Troy.
    Another five minutes passed. Alex was beginning to feel uneasy. He didn‟t know the two agents well, but guessed they were people who did everything by the book. They had their procedures, and if they said twenty minutes, they meant twenty minutes. They had been underwater now for twenty-five. Of course, they had enough oxygen for an hour. But even so, Alex wondered why they were taking so long.
    A quarter of an hour later, they still hadn‟t come back. Alex couldn‟t disguise his fears. He was pacing the deck, looking left and right, searching for the tell-tale bubbles that would show them coming up, hoping to see their arms and heads breaking the surface of the water. Garcia hadn‟t moved. Alex wondered if the old man was even awake. A full forty minutes had passed since Turner and Troy had submerged.
    “Something‟s wrong,” Alex said. Garcia didn‟t answer. “What are we going to do?” Still Garcia refused to speak and Alex became angry. “Didn‟t they have a back-up plan? What did they tell you to do?”
    “They tell me to wait for them.” Garcia opened his eyes. “I wait an hour. I wait two hours. I wait all night…”
    “But in another ten or fifteen minutes they‟re going to run out of air.”
    “Maybe they enter the Devil‟s Chimney. Maybe they climb up!”
    “No. That wasn‟t their plan. And anyway, they‟ve left all their equipment behind.” Suddenly Alex had made up his mind. “Have you got any more scuba gear? Another BCD?”
    Garcia stared at Alex, surprised. Then he slowly nodded.
    Five minutes later, Alex stood on the deck dressed only in shorts and a T-shirt, with an oxygen cylinder strapped to his back and two respirators—one to breathe through, the other spare—
    dangling at his side. He would have liked to put on a wetsuit, but he hadn‟t been able to find one his size. He would just have to hope that the water wasn‟t too cold. The BCD he was wearing was old and it was too big for him, but he had quickly tested it and at least it worked. He looked at his instrument console; pressure gauge, depth gauge and compass. He had 3000psi in his air tank. More than he would need. Finally, he had a knife strapped to his leg. He probably wouldn‟t use it and would never normally have worn it. But he needed the reassurance. He went over to the side of the boat and sat down.
    Garcia shook his head disapprovingly. Alex knew he was right. He was breaking the single most critical rule in the world of scuba-diving. Nobody ever dives alone. He had been taught scuba by his uncle when he was eleven years old and if Ian Rider had been here now he would have been speechless with anger and disbelief. If you get into trouble—a snagged air hose or a valve failure—and you don‟t have a buddy, you‟re dead. It‟s as simple as that. But this was an emergency. Turner and Troy had been gone for forty-five minutes. Alex had to help.
    “You take this,” Garcia said suddenly. He was holding an out of date dive computer. It would show Alex how deep he was and how long he had been down.
    “Thanks,” Alex said. He took it.
    Alex pulled his mask down, pushed the mouthpiece between his lips and breathed in. He could feel the oxygen and nitrogen mix rushing into the back of his throat. It had a slightly stale taste but he could tell it wasn‟t contaminated. He crossed his hands, holding his mask and respirator in place, then rolled over backwards. He felt his arm knock against something on the side as the world spun upside down. The water rushed up to greet him and then his vision was pulled apart like a curtain opening as he found himself plunging into the water.
    He had left enough air in the BCD to keep him afloat and he made one last check, getting his bearings on the coastline so that he would know where to swim to and, more importantly, how to get back. At least the sea was still warm, although Alex knew that, with the sun rapidly setting, it wouldn‟t be for long. Cold is a dangerous enemy for the scuba-diver, sapping the