He'd posed this to Tom a number of times since this morning but had yet to receive a satisfactory answer.

"They won't. No reason they should. We're anchored well outside the reef preserve, we're nowhere near any of the protected wrecks. We're just a couple of divers."

"But just say they do a random check. We are, in a very true sense, illegal aliens. I don't want to end up in that prison."

"Will you stop worrying? You sound like a nervous old biddy."

Attention to details, anticipating potential problems before they became real… it had kept Jack alive and on the right side of jail bars. So far.

Tom stepped over to the pump. They'd placed the heavy, steamer-trunk-sized contraption near the transom. The hoses were in the water and ready to go. The short feeder had a weighted end that hung over the port side and drifted a couple of feet below the surface; the coils of the longer one, a fifty footer, floated on the starboard side.

A touch of the starter button brought the pump's diesel engine to sputtering life. The end of the longer hose began bubbling and snaking about as it filled with water drawn through its shorter brother.

Tom fitted his mask over his face. "See you downstairs," he said in a nasal voice.

He stuck the mouthpiece between his lips, waved, then fell backward into the water. He hit with a splash, righted himself, then grabbed the end of the hose. He motioned Jack to follow him, then kicked away toward the bottom.

Jack adjusted his own mask, then took a test breath through the mouthpiece. Everything seemed to be working, but he hesitated. He was about to jump into a hole and couldn't help but remember another hole, the one in the Everglades, the one that had no bottom…

Shaking it off, he seated himself on the gunwale, tank over the water and—here goes—toppled backward.

He hit the water and let himself sink. Immediately the tank and the weight belt became weightless, the clumsy, unwieldy, uncomfortable gear became lithe and supremely functional. He held his nose and popped his ears, then kicked toward the bottom, following the hose down to where Tom hovered and waited forty feet below.

This sand hole was a forty-foot-deep oblong depression in the reef, about half as wide as it was long. They'd anchored near the upstream edge, so as Jack dropped through the crystalline water, popping his ears whenever the pressure became uncomfortable, he checked out the nearby coral wall.

Something strange here.

He drifted over for a closer look. The coral looked bleached and barren—no sea grasses, no algae, no vegetation at all. No sponges or anemones, no starfish or sea urchins. A closer look showed not a single living coral polyp.

The reef was dead.

Jack had heard of coral blights that wiped out entire reefs. Maybe that was the story here. He looked around and could not find a single fish. Even in the shallow water by the dock he'd been accompanied by a wide variety of brightly colored fish. He'd been able to identify a parrotfish and an angelfish, but the rest were strangers.

Here, on this reef, however… no movement, no color.

In a way that made sense. The coral polyps were the bedrock of the reef ecosystem. When they died, the hangers-on went off in search of greener pastures.

But you'd think you'd see at least one fish.

Jack did a full three-sixty. Nope. Not one. Nothing alive in this sand hole except Tom and him.

He shook off the creeps crawling up his back and kicked down toward where Tom was impatiently motioning him to come on!

When Jack reached him, Tom signaled him to sink closer to the bottom. When Jack was down, almost prone, Tom aimed the hose at the floor. The invisible stream of water stirred up the sand, billowing it up to then drift downstream, leaving a smooth depression in the floor.

Although Tom had explained it to him, he'd needed to see it in action to appreciate the simplicity of using a stream of seawater to move undersea sand.

Holding the hose at a low angle, Tom swept it back and forth in slow arcs, removing a thin layer, then stepping forward to repeat the process along the center of the sand hole's long axis. Sort of like power washing a patio or walk, except that it exposed no clean surface, just more sand.

Wondering how far down to the bottom of the sand, Jack hovered behind, checking the newly exposed layer for anything that might be man-made. It was slow going, and on their first pass they found nothing.

So it was back to the upstream end for another try. This time, midway along the course, Jack felt a tap on his wet suit hood. He looked up to see Tom excitedly pointing at the sand.

Just ahead lay the edge of a piece of wood, rotted and crumbling but still bearing unmistakable signs that it had been milled. This was no remnant of a sunken log. This had once been a plank.

4

"We've found her!" Tom said as soon as they broke the surface.

Their air tanks had been running low so they'd ascended to a depth of fifteen feet and hovered there, clinging to the anchor rope, for a brief decompression stop to clear excess nitrogen from their bloodstreams. They hadn't been deep enough to worry much about the bends, but why take the chance?

Well, Jack thought, we found something. Surprise, surprise. Too soon to tell if it was the Sombra. But he kept mum. No point in raining on Tom's parade.

They removed their fins and climbed the transom ladder to the deck. They decided on a beer break before strapping on fresh tanks.

Tom seemed to be a different person. His eyes danced, his movements were full of energy, he couldn't stop grinning.

"Got to be the Sombra." The mask had left a red ring across his forehead and around his cheeks. "Now we know where to concentrate."

Jack gave a noncommittal nod. His thoughts kept returning below, to the sand hole.

"What's up with the coral down there?"

"Yeah, I noticed that. Looks dead. Could be a pollutant, could be a disease."

"But even then, wouldn't you expect some algae or something to be growing there?"

Tom shrugged. "Could be a lot of things. It's a problem all over the world. They've got this starfish in the Pacific called the crown of thorns. A bunch of them can wipe out reef after reef."

"Okay, but no fish either. I didn't see a single fish."

Another shrug, plus a grin. "Neither did I, but that should make you happy: No fish means no sharks."

Tom just didn't get it.

"Maybe I'm being oversensitive and paranoid, but consider this: For the whole time we were down, you and I were the only living things in that sand hole. Don't you think that's just a little strange?"

Jack hoped nothing more than a blight or pollution was at work here.

"Whatever," Tom said, rising and starting to strap new tanks to the vests. He appeared to be vibrating with anticipation. Or was it greed? "Let's get back down there before the sun gets too low."