After he pulled himself up through the dive door, instead of sitting on one of the benches, he spit out the regulator and knelt and lay facedown on the deck in the sluice of the water.

He’d shrugged out of his clanging tanks and was still light-headed with the ebullient joy of breathing through his nose and being alive when he finally stood a long minute later.

And still, there is no rescue effort! he thought as he looked over the wreckage to the now-dark horizon.

Nothing. Not a boat. Not an aircraft. Not even a light anywhere in sight.

The boat pitched hard port to starboard in a swell as he peeled off his dripping gloves. As it baby cradled back and forth, he turned to the left and saw that the floating rear tail section of the shattered jet was lower than it had been. It had foundered to one side a tad, its pale cruciform tail fin slightly tilted.

In a moment, it would sink, too, Gannon thought, shaking his head at the absurdity of the whole crazy thing. In an hour, the dark Atlantic would swallow it like it had swallowed the first half of it. And but for Gannon’s memory, it would be as if the plane had never existed at all.

Gannon had just pulled up the dive rope and was clacking up the dive ladder a minute later when the boat pitched again, and he heard the clatter to starboard.

He walked over and looked over the gunwale and saw some luggage there in the water, bumping up against the side of his boat.

The first piece Gannon brought aboard with the help of his gaff was a little dark green hard case that looked like something you’d put a camera in. He laid it on the deck and went and got a penlight. He clicked the light on, put it in his mouth, undid the case’s clasps and flipped up the lid.

Inside of the case, sunk into the hard gray packing foam, was a gun. He could tell by its distinctive shape and black matte texture that it was a polymer Glock pistol. There were some large magazines and a suppressor half-buried in the packing material beside it. He peered at the length of the magazines then tilted the light at the pistol barrel. A thin number 18 was engraved along the side.

A Glock 18? Gannon thought with a whistle.

He’d heard of them. They looked like a regular pistol but they were actually small yet extremely powerful handheld machine guns with a rate of fire twice that of an Uzi.

A fully automatic machine gun pistol, he thought, looking at it curiously. But weren’t only people in law enforcement or the military allowed to legally possess those?

He was still staring down at it with a hand to the back of his wet mind-boggled head a full minute later when he heard some more knocking and clacking against the boat.