Gannon strained to hide his elation as El Mighty Mouse walked over and knelt. There was a quick metallic snick of a knife and then the zip ties were cut from his wrists.

“You win,” he said to Gannon. “We won’t touch the girl. Put your shit on. You’re going down with our boys to find it.”

81

Blackbeard stroked across the surface of the blue hole as Gannon came down the rope, lugging his tanks and vest. Gannon looked at his tattoos. There were plenty to look at. In fact, from his bull neck on down, there seemed to be virtually no uninked skin at all.

He tensed at the playful expression on the mercenary’s face as he arrived.

“Hey, boss,” the huge killer said, smiling widely.

“Hey,” Gannon said.

“C’mere. Let me show you something,” Blackbeard said, swimming up close.

As Gannon watched, the commando grabbed his rope. As he did this, he drew from somewhere a machete-sized black knife. It had evil high-tech lines and a silvery razor-sharp scimitar-like edge that glittered in the firelight as he laid it none too gently up under Gannon’s jaw.

“Hey, it’s cool, man,” Gannon said, trying to hold the rope and his heavy gear and stay very still all at the same time.

“I don’t give two shits about recovering anything or whatever they said up there,” he said, staring in Gannon’s eyes. “You mess with me when we go down, you’re going to be the world’s first recipient of underwater open-heart surgery.”

“No problem,” Gannon said, swallowing carefully. “Gotcha, man.”

As the blade was withdrawn, there was a tremendous splash. When Gannon turned, he saw Sunglasses was there in the water behind them.

Gannon winced again as the man smiled at him. He was without his sunglasses now, and where his left eye should have been was a hole you could have putted a golf ball into.

Where did Reyland get these people? Gannon thought as he began to strap up.

Three quick minutes later, Gannon adjusted his mask, popped the regulator’s gummy rubber piece into his mouth and let go of the rope. He went down first with Blackbeard following almost at the end of his flippers and Sunglasses close behind him.

He had been walking it all through in his mind, so as they got to the floor of the blue hole’s bowl, he softly tapped the BCD valve to get the horizontal perfect and went easily and immediately into the corridor-like passageway to the east.

He turned around for the first time when he got to the limestone stairwell with no stairs about a minute later.

Shit, they were actually good divers, Gannon thought. Still Blackbeard was right behind him, shining his light in his face, and his buddy Sunglasses was close behind him.

It didn’t matter, Gannon thought as he turned and began to descend lower and lower into the darkness.

There was no other choice. No other play.

He breathed in deeply through the hissing regulator and slowly let the air bubbles flow out behind him. He closed his eyes and listened to the silence. After a moment, he began to hear his heartbeat pulse faintly against his eardrums.