Retribution Road by Jon Coon (e reader comics .TXT) 📕

The night before flying out to meet the barge, Gabe and Carol went alone to Captain Anderson’s for dinner overlooking the water. They enjoyed fresh grouper, deepwater red shrimp, and key lime pie. Gulf Coast favorites. Afterward, as they walked from Gabe’s truck back into the hotel where they slept in separate but adjoining rooms, Carol asked how he’d been sleeping.

“Honestly? Not very well. The dreams are back. But not as badly as the last time you came to rescue me. I don’t think I’ve been yelling in my sleep, but I wake in a cold sweat and I know why. I think I’m just worried about this dive.”

“I wondered. I think I heard you last night, but by the time I’d gotten up you were quiet, and I didn’t want to wake you. Let’s leave the doors open between our rooms tonight, just in case.”

“I’ve got a better idea than that,” he teased.

“I’m sure you do. But we agreed to the rules, and we’re sticking to them.”

Through the open doors between the rooms, he heard her shower and get ready for bed. He lay staring at the ceiling, trying to go to sleep, trying to get his mind on something else. Eventually sleep came, but when he woke two hours later, she was there beside him. She was wrapped in a blanket on top of his quilt sleeping soundly. He lay beside her smelling her damp hair and listening to her breathe.

When he awoke again near dawn she was gone, but her pillow was still damp and smelled of the wildflowers in her shampoo. He tried to focus on the technical aspects of the gear and the dive, but the attraction of that scent was a powerful thing. He didn’t think that “I’ll try not to be a distraction” thing was really working.

His mind drifted back to the sheer, black negligee she’d left hanging on the back of his bedroom door in the RV. Although he’d never seen her wear it, the fantasy was enough to roll him out of bed in search of predawn coffee.

Their work platform would be a 200-foot barge with a hundred-ton crane and a dive station with a pod dive locker and modular compressor and 54-inch-diameter, double-lock chamber. The tug left Panama City with the barge and headed southwest for the two-and-a-half-day trip to the sub. Tom, Chief Kurczewski, Gabe, and Carol flew out from Galveston and landed on the heliport of a nearby Mobil Oil deepwater platform. Tom had arranged for them to have quarters and meals on the platform if they needed to stay overnight. After grabbing a quick lunch, they rode a personnel basket down sixty feet to the stern of a waiting crew boat that took them to meet the barge.

NOAA had given special dispensation for deepwater anchoring, and the work barge was secured over the sub with four anchors on computer-operated winches that, like the mooring systems used by floating drilling rigs, would hold the barge precisely in position. Crossing over a shallow portion of the coral-encrusted salt dome, Carol was amazed at the clarity of the water and the sight of two whale sharks basking near the surface.

“I’m jealous. This is beautiful. I want to dive.”

When they arrived at the barge, Master Chief Kurczewski briefed the first pair of divers. “Okay, the drop camera shows the hatch is sealed, and we need to get it open for Sgt. Jones. We made a shaped charge based on the measurements from the first sub, so set it and run a Primacord trunk line back to the surface float. Tie in an electric number 8, and when the inflatable is clear, shoot it. Questions?”

“No, Master Chief.”

“Good. Get to work.”

“Yes, Master Chief.”

Their dive tenders looked them over a final time and walked them to the edge of the barge. With two helmet taps, both jumped. Gabe and Carol watched them descend more than a hundred feet before the rich blue enveloped them. Standby divers, fully dressed, waited by the dive station, and two radio operators seated by the gas manifold watched fathometers and kept a regulated conversation going.

“Approaching one hundred feet,” a diver reported.

“One hundred feet, aye.”

At 150 feet, the gas manifold operator said, “Switching to bottom gas.”

The tender and the diver both acknowledged.

“What are we diving?” Gabe asked the chief.

“Bottom gas is fifteen percent oxygen, eighty-five percent helium.”

“In the oil field we waited until one-seventy to switch to bottom gas. Has that changed?”

“One-fifty keeps things easier, and we don’t worry as much now about the helium. That’s another advantage.”

“The cutter is set, they’re starting the ascent.”

“How long till we get them in the chamber?”

“Ten minutes bottom time, sixty-nine minutes in water deco, Master Chief.”

“We’ll wait until the chamber is clear to start your dive, Gabe. Just tell me if there’s anything you need.”

“As a matter of fact there is, Mike. Can we talk privately for a minute?”

They walked to the round house beneath the crane and stood facing the water.

“What I’m about to tell you is going to make you think I’m nuttier than a Snickers bar, so please just hear me out.”

“Okay.”

“I need you to turn off the radio while I’m in the sub.”

“What?”

“Things are going to happen in there that are highly classified. I looked at the helmet and I don’t think I could reattach the com wire even if I could unplug it, so I need your help.”

“I don’t like the idea of your being in there without com. Isn’t there another way?”

“There is, but you won’t like it … Put Carol on the headset. She’s got clearance, and she can let you know if I’m in trouble.”

“You’re right, I don’t like it. I wish you would just level with me, Gabe.”

“I’m sorry, Mike. I just can’t.”

“Okay, we’ll do it your way. But one of these days I’m going to find out what’s going on.”

“Fair enough. One of these days.”

They waited the hour for the two divers to surface and get quickly