Hold Your Breath (Search and Rescue) (25 page)

“Harness,” he said, and she scrambled to fasten it around him. When she crouched to slide on his fins, he shook his head and held out his hands for them. “I’ll put them on closer to the entry point.”

She nodded, following behind him as he exited the back of the van. Before he opened the door, he stopped.

“Gloves and radio,” he said.

Shaking her head at her scattered brain, she hurried to yank on her gloves and grab her portable.

The wind was a shock as they left the van. “Stay on shore,” Callum shouted over the howling gusts. “Call it in once I’m in the water.”

She nodded silently, her eyes fixed on his masked face. He leaned in and kissed her, quickly and firmly.

“You’ve trained for this,” he yelled as he walked onto the ice. “You’ve got this.” And then he was gone, swallowed by a wall of snow.

Lou stood, frozen, until a tug at the rope coiled in her hands jerked her out of her paralysis. She hurried to release the next loop, giving slack until Callum’s forward movement stopped. After she counted to twenty-eight, there was forward pressure on the rope again. She guessed he’d been putting on his fins during the pause.

Although she squinted toward where she’d momentarily glimpsed the hole in the ice, all she could see now was snow. She fumbled for her portable radio and pushed the mic button.

“Dispatch, 1244.”

“Unit calling, you’re unreadable,” the dispatcher’s voice responded.

Turning so her back was to the wind, she curled around her radio and tried again.

“1244, go ahead.”

“Diver One is in the water,” she said in a near shout as the wind gave an extra-hard blast.

“Copy. Diver One in the water.”

“Do you have an ETA for other responding units?” Lou asked, desperation creeping into her voice.

There was a pause, and then a different voice said, “Fire Rescue Four. We’re approximately twenty minutes out.”

“Ambulance Two. We’re right behind Fire Rescue Four.”

“County 401.” She recognized Rob’s voice. “Two squads en route. ETA twenty-five minutes.”

“Fire Rescue One,” another person said. “Just leaving Station One. Eighteen minutes out if we manage to stay out of the ditch.”

Lou closed her eyes. Eighteen minutes felt like a lifetime. “Copy.”

Dropping her radio into her coat pocket, she released another loop of rope. “You’ve got this, Cal,” she muttered, squinting through the snow. “You’ve got…”

She trailed off as the rope went slack in her hands.

Staring at the suddenly limp line, she started recoiling the rope, her movements getting jerky with panic as she pulled it in with no resistance. She gasped when the end appeared, sliding across the ice and then bumping along the shore. Dropping the coils, she grabbed the end, yanking it off the ground.

It had been cut. The nylon fibers were sliced evenly across the end. There was no way it could’ve snapped so cleanly. She stared for several precious seconds, trying to comprehend why his safety rope had been cut. Had the line gotten hung up on something and he had to use his diving knife to slice himself free?

She stared through the snow until her eyes stung, but she couldn’t see anything beyond the sheet of white.
He’s okay
, she told herself.
With all his gear, he’ll stay warm, even in the freezing water.
Without the rope, though, getting the victim—or victims, if the caller had decided to try to play rescuer—out of the water was going to be difficult, if not impossible. She had no idea what to do.

But she had to do something.

With sudden determination, she ran back to the dive van. She scrambled into a dry suit, twisting awkwardly to fasten the back. The hood pulled at her hair as she used gloved fingers to poke it back out of the way. Getting into her BCD and weight belt took much too long, thanks to her nerves and the dry gloves. As she tested her regulator, she looked at the unfamiliar-looking breathing apparatus and remembered reading that cold-water regulators were required so they didn’t freeze and allow oxygen to free-flow, releasing her precious air supply. Her previous tropical diving experience had definitely not prepared her for this.

Eighteen minutes, though. Eighteen minutes until help arrived, and that help wouldn’t include any trained rescue divers. Eighteen minutes was too long for the victims. If something was wrong, it would be too long for Callum, too. Lou beat back that line of thinking and the panic it induced.

Stupidly enough, her mask was the hardest thing to manage. Her gloved fingers were useless at tucking the edges under her hood, and she finally gave up in frustration, leaving the mask as it was while hoping it would still form an airtight seal. After fastening a harness around her, she dug her portable out of her coat pocket. Carrying it and her fins, she headed back out into the howling wind.

She tied the end of the safety line to a metal bracket on the dive van and stepped onto the ice. It was solid beneath her feet. Cal’s ice-rescue training lecture skipped through her mind then, about how no ice was safe—ever.

Although she tried to keep a straight line, she was walking blind. The dive light hooked to her BCD reflected off the sheets of sideways-driven snow. Her stomach twisted with the fear that she’d walked right past the hole when the wind settled for just a few seconds—just long enough for her to glimpse the dark smudge of water against the whitish-gray surface of the surrounding ice.

Her steps grew cautious as she approached the hole. She dropped to her hands and knees and then her belly, despite the growing urgency demanding that she hurry. The ice was firm beneath her, with no cracking or signs of weakness, and she frowned as she slid to the edge, suddenly remembering Callum’s throwaway comment during the tense drive over.

There are always weak spots on Verde once the temps start warming up. But Mission? What’d this guy do? Chop a hole before jumping in?

The edges were uneven, but smooth…and had
definitely
been cut by some kind of tool. What the hell was going on?

Staring at the dark water as if it would tell her the answers, she reached for the radio and pulled it close to her face.

“1244, Dispatch.”

“1244, go ahead.”

“Diver One’s safety rope was cut,” she said. “Diver Two entering the water.”

There was a startled pause, and then the dispatcher responded, “What is the status of Diver One? 1244, do you copy? Do you have another dive tender on scene? Is there someone else on shore?” Her questions increased in urgency as Lou fumbled to pull on her fins. Lou picked up the radio again.

“Status of Diver One is unknown. No one else is on shore. It’s just me.” Her voice wobbled on the last words, and she placed the radio back on the ice.

Closing her lips around the regulator mouthpiece, she slid feetfirst into the black water.

Although the majority of her was covered with the dry suit, the frigid water on the exposed skin of her face made her gasp. She sank quickly—too quickly—and fumbled to inflate her BCD. Although her thick gloves made her clumsy, she finally managed to add air, and her descent slowed. The light attached to her BCD cast an eerie glow, illuminating a short distance directly in front of her. When she turned her head without also rotating her body, the darkness was absolute.

Her breathing was too quick, too shallow. If she kept panting like that, she knew she would use up her air much too quickly. She counted to four on her inhale and then exhaled for four counts, tipping her light up so she could watch her bubbles ascend. The sight calmed her a little, that evidence of her ability to still breathe, despite her nightmarish surroundings.

Her ears ached, and she pinched the rubber over her nose and blew, equalizing the pressure. That familiar action settled her nerves even more, reminding her of all those sunlit sea dives she’d gone on before Brent became a fourth on their family vacations to the Caribbean.

Lou checked her depth gauge, which showed her at eighteen feet. She turned in a circle, careful not to get tangled in her safety line. Her light penetrated less than eight feet through the murky water and revealed absolutely nothing. Forcing her breathing to slow once again, she tugged her dive knife from the sheath attached to her dry suit.

Reaching back, she tapped it against her tank, creating a pinging noise. Sound traveled through water four times faster than through air, and the sharp ding of metal against metal cut through the reservoir better than her light. Lou paused, waiting for a response. Once again, she had to force herself not to hold her breath. There was nothing, though, and she quickly cut off panicked thoughts about what was keeping Callum from answering her signal.

Lou attempted to ease the knife back in the sheath, but the tool refused to cooperate. After several unsuccessful tries, she gave a frustrated grunt and kept the knife in her hand, telling herself sternly not to cut anything vital, like a safety line, regulator hose, or an artery.

As she’d messed with her knife, she’d descended another ten feet until her light glanced off the weedy bottom just beneath her. The reservoir averaged eighty feet in depth, so she was relieved this was a relatively shallow area. After equalizing the pressure in her ears again, she turned onto her front and began searching in larger and larger circles.

The bottom was littered with junk—from beer cans to umbrellas to fishing reels—everything that fell or was thrown into the reservoir during the summer months when the water warmed to a balmy forty-two degrees Fahrenheit. Her light created odd shadows around the waterlogged objects, turning everyday items into ominous shapes.

The image of HDG’s body kept flashing in her mind, no matter how many times she forced the visual from her brain. The possibility that she’d stumble upon another body in this eerie darkness made her breathing quicken, forcing her to consciously slow it down, again counting her inhales and exhales. There were two victims in the water, she reminded herself, plus Callum—although she refused to think of him as a victim. It would be a
good
thing to find them. Despite that, she shivered beneath the thermal layer under her dry suit.

Systematically scanning for a glimpse of Callum or the victims, she turned her light and gaze from left to right and then forward again. Every so often, she would rotate to look upward, shining the light into the murky, endless water, which brought a stifling rush of claustrophobia each time. It was hard to believe the surface existed less than thirty feet above her.

She checked the pressure gauge and saw that her tank was half-full. Giving a near-hysterical huff of laughter into her regulator, she commended herself on her optimism. It wouldn’t be good to start thinking about her tank being half-
empty
.

Lou refocused on her search, sweeping her light to the left. She moved it past the figure before it registered. With a jerk of delayed reaction, she aimed the light back at the dim form as she turned, kicking her fins as hard as she could to propel her toward the human-shaped shadow.

As she grew closer, the shape became more defined, and her muscles tightened with excitement as she recognized the back of a figure in a dry suit—Callum! Her light reflected off his oxygen tank, and she renewed her forward plunge. Kicking closer, however, Lou had a moment of confusion when she saw a second dry-suited figure in front of Cal.

It appeared that they were grappling, which didn’t make any sense. Lou stared, confused, as the second diver shoved Cal, making him stumble back. His fins kicked up clouds of sediment that fogged the water, adding to the surreal image.

It had been just a couple of seconds, but time felt stretched to Lou, like she’d been watching the horrifying tableau for hours. The second diver’s dry suit was green and black—definitely not one of the dive team’s.

And he was attacking Callum.

At that realization, she kicked forward toward the pair, plowing into his shoulder and knocking him away from Cal.

As she glanced back to check on Callum, she saw he was swimming toward them, shouting something into his regulator. Distracted, she didn’t see the stranger’s swing until her head was jarred to the side, knocking her face mask askew.

The shockingly cold water hit her eyes as her mask filled, paralyzing her for a frozen second. Lou couldn’t see, blinded by the twisted mask and the rush of water. Squinting, she barely caught a blurry black-and-green arm swinging toward her, and she threw her left arm up to block the anticipated blow. His bellow of pain reverberated through the water, amplifying the sound, and she realized she still held her dive knife in her hand.

Callum’s blurry form darted between her and the other diver. Fumbling, her heart pounding in her ears, Lou managed to straighten her mask and partially clear it by pressing on the top with her non-knife-holding hand and exhaling through her nose. Air filled the top two-thirds of her mask, allowing her to see the other two divers were locked together, struggling. The water and sediment churned around the fighting pair, turning them into hazy shapes. Frantically, Lou swam around them, knife clutched in her fist. Her heartbeat thundered in her water-blocked ears as she tried to figure out how to help Cal. She jerked back as a fin almost connected with her face.

Diluted blood turned the water light red, and Lou felt a sob creep into her throat. As the two divers flipped and turned, a green-and-black target would open to her before disappearing again. She darted toward them but pulled away as the fighters rolled. Her fingers gripped the knife so tightly they cramped, but she didn’t strike, not wanting to hit Callum by mistake.

The other diver’s fist slammed into the side of Cal’s face, snapping his head back. As the aggressor pulled his arm away, it caught his regulator hose, ripping Cal’s mouthpiece from him. The regulator bobbed, bubbles floating uselessly toward the surface. As Cal swept his arm through the water, trying to retrieve his air supply, the second diver wrapped gloved hands around his neck and forced his back against the reservoir bottom. Callum’s struggles were losing power.

No!
Lou lunged toward the person trying to kill Cal—
her
Callum. Releasing his hold, the diver turned and kicked, his fin hitting her in the stomach. She folded, breath knocked from her lungs, caught by the physical memory of another kick to the stomach, into fire rather than ice water that time. Fear turned her body to useless rubber for a second, but she forced herself to push back the terror. Callum didn’t have any air. She needed to save him. Scrambling upright, she saw the other diver barreling directly toward her.

Screaming into her regulator, her hands extended defensively, Lou fell backward in slow motion. The other diver followed her down, and she pulled her knees to her chest before kicking her fins toward his belly.

Let’s see how you like it
, she thought viciously. The ends curled under, muffling some of the impact of the kick, but it got him off her. She scrambled upright and pushed off the bottom with both feet, tackling him. The water robbed her of much of her power, but the knife sank into his side. As she pulled it free, her light illuminated a cloud of red as his blood mixed with the already-murky water. Lou felt a bloodthirsty thrill of satisfaction.

He reached for her again, but pulled back when she slashed at him, this time aiming for his regulator hose. His eyes widened as he saw her intent, those crazily familiar brown eyes she’d looked into so many times in the past. A sense of unreality washed through her. This was Brent, ex-boyfriend Brent, who was trying to kill her and Cal in the freezing depths of Mission Reservoir. At the thought of Callum’s weakening form, she shook off her distraction and fought with renewed ferocity, aiming her knife at the hose supplying Brent’s life-preserving air.

The blade sliced through the hose, and he immediately dropped his regulator and reached for his alternate air supply. Her brain flashed to Callum, inhaling water behind them, each second increasing his chances of brain damage and death. The fight felt like it had gone on forever, and desperation tightened her throat.

As his arm lifted to fumble for the second air supply, it exposed the right side of his chest. She plunged in the dive knife, feeling it scrape against something hard and then slide in deep. Brent stared at her, eyes wide behind the mask, his hand frozen, before he folded like a lifeless rag doll.

Yanking the knife free, she turned toward Callum, panicking in the few seconds it took to locate his limp form. Relief flushed through her as she finally spotted him, and she half ran, half swam the short distance to his side. Cursing her gloves, she fumbled for his regulator, which was still burbling oxygen. She pressed it to his mouth, clearing it of water and inserting it between his slack lips, but it fell free the instant she released it.

She cut the fabric of his weight belt and then dropped her knife, not wanting to accidentally stab Callum as she worked over him. Unhooking the carabiner attached to the safety line from her own harness, she hooked it to his. After she inflated his BCD, he began to float upward, and she scrambled to stay with him.

She noticed they were passing her exhaled bubbles, and every dive-safety lecture she’d ever heard about ascending slowly—no more than thirty feet per minute—ran through her head. What if she thought she was saving his life, when actually she killed him from the nitrogen building up in his system? But Lou didn’t slow their ascent. Oxygen was the priority. They didn’t have time for a three- to five-minute safety stop on their way to the surface.

When the slab of ice appeared above them, she almost sobbed with relief. A rush of panic quickly followed, since the hole where they’d entered was nowhere in sight. Although nightmare visions of being trapped under the ice as Callum died and she slowly ran out of air flashed through her mind, she shoved the images into a dark closet in her brain and slammed the door. She could have bad dreams about it later. Right now, she needed to
think
.

Grabbing her safety line just past where it connected to her harness, she started pulling in the slack. It was a hundred-foot line, and she had no idea how far from the hole she’d drifted in her search for Callum. She pulled in the rope, hand over hand. When she hit tension, it took several tugs for her to realize she’d removed all the slack. Once she did, it took another moment for her to feel someone on the other end of the rope was tugging back.

This time, she did give a sob of relief into her regulator. She gave two answering pulls and wrapped her arms around Callum. Whatever guardian angels were on the other end of the rope hauled them both through the water until the dark shape of the opening came into view. Lou actually laughed in relief. She never thought she’d be so glad to see a hole in the ice. With a squeeze around Cal’s middle, she allowed herself to hope he’d make it.

It was just in time, since Lou could feel the increased tightness of each breath that indicated her tank was getting low on oxygen. She kicked her fins, helping to move them through the water toward the opening.
Hold on, Cal,
she thought.
Almost there.

Something closed around her left calf and yanked. Her heartbeat stopped as she plunged back into the deep. Startled, Lou opened her mouth, releasing the regulator and sucking in a mouthful of reservoir water. Her arms flailed, releasing Callum to churn at the water. Looking down, she saw Brent, his fingers wrapped around her lower leg as he towed her deeper.

She kicked and fought, terror ripping through her as she struggled, but she was pulled deeper and deeper. With a desperate upward glance, she saw Callum’s body floating away from her, his limbs outstretched like a starfish, until he disappeared into the murky darkness above her.

Another jerk on her leg made her renew her fight, kicking out at Brent uselessly. His hold on her dragged her farther down even as the fin on her free leg just bumped against him harmlessly. Her lungs started to burn with the need to expel the water she’d inhaled, and she swung an arm out to the side, hooking the regulator hose and sweeping it back in front of her.

Jamming the regulator into her mouth, she pushed the button to clear it as she coughed into the mouthpiece.

The image of Cal’s limp form getting farther and farther from her burned in her mind, igniting a rage like she’d never felt before. Twisting her body, she reached for Brent. She grabbed for him, but her gloved fingers slid uselessly against the slick material of his hood. Knocking away her grasping hands, Brent yanked her down so they were mask to mask.

Desperately wishing that she hadn’t dropped her knife, Lou thrust her hands toward his chest, attempting to shove him back. His fingers gripped her arms, pulling her closer to him, and she swung her fists, trying to strike him where she’d buried the blade beneath the skin. The resistance of the water robbed her blows of any power, however, and his hold on her didn’t lighten.