The Reef

out of the pool.”
    From the rail, Hayden watched Tate and his associates play like children freshly released to recess. It made him feel old, and more than a little stodgy.
    “Come on, doc.” Lorraine gave him her quick, flirtatious smile. “Why don’t we take a dip?”
    “I’m a lousy swimmer.”
    “So, wear a flotation, or better yet, use Dart as a raft.”
    That made him smile. At the moment, Dart was bobbingaround in the Pacific like a bloated cork. “I think I’ll just watch.”
    Keeping her smile in place, Lorraine shrugged her bare shoulders. “Suit yourself.”
     
    More than three thousand miles away from where Tate frolicked in the crystal Pacific, Matthew shivered in the frigid waters of the North Atlantic.
    The fact that he headed the salvage team was a small point of pride. He’d worked his way up in Fricke Salvage over the years, taking on all and any assignments that paid. Now he was in charge of the underwater dig and hauled in ten percent of the net profits.
    And he hated every minute of it.
    There wasn’t a nastier cut to the pride of a hunter than crewing a big, ugly boat on straight metal salvage. There was no gold, no treasure to be discovered on the Reliant. The World War II vessel was crusted with the icy mud of the North Atlantic, its value solely in its metal.
    Often when his fingers felt like icicles and the exposed skin around his mouth was blue with cold, Matthew dreamed about the days when he’d dived for pleasure as well as profit.
    In warm, mirrorlike water in the company of jeweled fish. He remembered what it had felt like to see that flash of gold, or a blackened disk of silver.
    But treasure-hunting was a gamble, and he was a man with debts to pay. Doctors, lawyers, rehab centers. Jesus, the more he worked, the more he owed. Ten years before if anyone had suggested his life would turn out to be a cycle of work and bills to be paid, he would have laughed in their faces.
    Instead, he’d discovered that life was laughing in his.
    Through the murk, he signaled to his team. It was time to start the slow rise to the surface. The damned ugly Reliant lay on its side, already half hacked away by the crew. Matthew poured salt on his own wounds by studying it as he stopped at the first rest point.
    To think he’d once dreamed of galleons andman-of-wars. Privateers bursting at the seams with bullion. Worse, he’d had one only to lose it. And everything else.
    Now he was little better than a junkyard dog, harvesting and guarding scraps. Here, the sea was a cave, dark, hostile, almost colorless, cold as fish blood. A man never felt quite human here—not free and weightless as a diver felt in the live waters, but distant and alien where there was little to see that wasn’t eating or being eaten.
    A careless movement sent an icy spurt of water down the neck of his suit, reminding him that like it or not, human he was.
    He kicked to the next point, knowing better than to hurry. However cold the water, however tedious the dive, biology and physics were kings here. Once, five years before, he’d watched a careless diver collapse on deck and die painfully from the bends because he’d hurried the rest stops. It wasn’t an experience Matthew intended to have.
    Once he’d boarded, Matthew reached for the hot coffee a galley mate offered. When his teeth stopped chattering, he gave his orders to the next team. And he damn well intended to tell Fricke that the men were getting a bonus on this trip.
    It pleased him that Fricke, the miserly bastard, was just enough afraid of him to dip a little deeper into his tight pockets.
    “Mail came in.” The mate, a scrawny French Canadian who went only by LaRue, shouldered Matthew’s tanks. “Put yours in your cabin.” He grinned, showing a gleaming gold front tooth. “One letter, many bills. Me. I get six letters from six sweethearts. I feel so bad, maybe I give one to you. Marcella, she not so pretty, but she fuck you blind, deaf and dumb, eh?”
    Matthew peeled off the hood of his wet suit. The chill Atlantic air breathed frigidly on his ears. “I’ll pick my own women.”
    “Then why don’t you? You need you a good bounce or two, Matthew. LaRue, he can spot these things.”
    Matthew brooded out toward the cold, gray sea. “Women are a little scarce out here.”
    “You come with me to Quebec, Matthew. I show you where to get a good drink and a good lay.”
    “Get your mind off sex, LaRue. At this rate, we’re going to be out here