The Project 02 - The Lance

It would be different if he'd never slept with her. It would be different if he'd never met her. It pissed him off, having to worry.
    He had to hand it to her. Not many people would jump at the chance to dive on a Nazi wreck two hundred feet down. He glanced over at her. She was reading an article on gender specific phrases in proto Indo-European languages. Nick had been reading a mystery about a wise-cracking detective couple in Boston that hung out with a psychopathic sidekick. Sometimes he saw a little too much of himself in the author's fictional hero, but it passed the time.
    He felt a headache starting. He went to the mini-bar for another whiskey. The view from the window hadn't changed. After awhile he fell asleep.

    Darkness. It was cold, very cold, a chill that ate into his bones. He was in a small room, pitch black except for a dull, reddish glow coming from somewhere. In the glow, something was lying on the ground. He wanted to see what it was, but he didn't want to see, either.
    He went over to it. It was a corpse dressed in a naval uniform, a seaman. He turned it over. The face was dried and sunken in on itself, eyes open and glazed. The pupils were a splotched milky white. The skin was brown and dry and shrunken like old leather. The lips were pulled back in a horrible smile. Stained teeth grinned at him in the eerie light.
    He stepped back, afraid. The light came from a box glowing dark red in the darkness. He knew he had to see what was inside. He forced himself to walk to it and place a hand on the lid.
    Then the lid was open and he was looking at his own severed head. He screamed.

    "Nick!" Selena was shaking him. "Nick. Wake up."
    He opened his ey es. The sound of the engines droned outside the window. The endless jungle canopy passed below. She sat down next to him. "You were having another nightmare."
    Nick rubbed his face. "God, I hate these."
    " I know Israel was rough." She rested her hand on his arm. "I've been thinking about you. About these nightmares and headaches you're having."
    He looked out the window. "I don't know what to do about these dreams. It's getting so I don't want to go to sleep."
    " You haven't been getting much sleep. Maybe that's part of the problem."
    " Catch 22, huh?"
    " Maybe you ought to think about seeing somebody."
    " Like a shrink?"
    " No, not a shrink. A counselor. Someone who could help you deal with the stress."
    " You think I'm stressed?"
    She laughed. "Are you kidding? Your week wasn't exactly relaxing."
    " Wasn't boring, though."
    " You know about PTSD. You know you've got it. If you talked with someone it could help."
    " You want me to see someone."
    " Yes."
    " I'll think about it."
    "There's something else. You're drinking a lot."
    He'd been about ready to get another drink when she said that.
    "You think I'm drinking too much?"
    He started to get angry. It came out in his voice.
    "Let me see if I've got this right. You think I need a shrink and that I'm drinking too much. Anything else you want to say?"
    "Not a shrink. And yes, you're drinking too damn much. And no, there's nothing else."
    She got up and went back to her seat.
    Nick got his drink and looked out the window.
    He looked at the whiskey in his hand and set it down. His head hurt.

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

    T ourist brochures called Mar del Plata the "Pearl of the Atlantic". From the air it didn't look much like a pearl. The city was gray and bleak under overcast skies. The plane banked out over the water on final approach. Below them a scimitar of smooth sand sliced into the cold, white capped waters of the Atlantic. A long, unbroken crescent curve of beach ended in a rocky cape jutting out into the ocean. Miles of hotels, houses, beach cabanas and high rises lined the shore. In the summer tourist season thousands of people would come here and pack together like sardines on the beach. Now it was mostly deserted.
    Selena 's Spanish charmed the suspicious Argentine Major who met them at the air base outside of the city. His eyes kept going to her breasts. He gave her his phone number.
    The diving gear weighed several hundred pounds. It was packed into four bulky aluminum cases. A fifth case held weapons. Personal things were stuffed into four black bags. The team loaded everything into a dented white van and headed into town, trailing blue exhaust smoke behind.
    The house Harker had secured was eight blocks from the beach. They took the gear inside. Heavy, dark furniture covered in brown fabric and