When Mike got the order, he was already in the shadow of the wreck. The parrot fish had led the barracuda through a porthole high above. The big conch, under its sudden burden, had lurched across the sand, followed by its friends and family. It was heading for the Leta's hull.

Quickly he spiraled downward, hearing his breath in the regulator, quieting it as much as he could, in a cloud of bubbles climbing to the shards of light above.

The tidal current in Masthead Cut was flooding, as if the whole of the South Atlantic were trying to enter the Caribbean through it. The conch leapt and bumped against the hull. Mike saw sand swirling past the freighter's mortal wound. Ordinarily the torpedo hole was hidden under sand, but today there was an opening, easily large enough for a conch, and perhaps for a full-grown man. The conch leapt toward it. A hundred dollars disappeared inside the rusting hull.

The hell with the ghosts of the merchant seamen, from the flaming days of war. The hell with the other divers, too, and the edict of Government House.

The current swept him by, but he turned and fought back. He grabbed at a jagged, rusted plate, and pulled himself inside.

All was suddenly quiet. He was in a vast gallery. Beams of turquoise light shone in from portholes high above. Dimly he saw a curving, varnished staircase leading high above. Livid schools of damselfish, clown fish, and butterfish darted everywhere. A bright blue sergeant major peered into his faceplate and flashed away in flight. A firemouth chichild with a gorgeous crimson belly nudged his arm and would not leave. He waved it aside, his attention on the conch.

The creature was leaping across the jumbled wreckage to a counter with a grille like a cashier's window. It disappeared under a jumbled mass of springs and leather that had once been a couch.

He didn't like the current outside, and the hole might close again. The salon was a fine aquarium, but he didn't want to drown here, as the others had. Time to go.

A strange and lonely thumping stopped him, as if someone were signaling him from behind the counter.

He swam to the counter and grasped it, peering out from behind his mask. A watertight door was banging in the current. Above it was a tarnished plaque: PURSER'S OFFICE. Rusted crowbar scratches showed him that someone had tried to pry it open long ago but failed.

The latches that dogged it closed and made it watertight were still intact, but the sea and its salt had succeeded where man had not, for finally it had been a rusted hinge that had given way, and now the door hung all askew, aping the sweep of the tide.