Ocean Blue (Sea Lab Book 1)

CHAPTER 2

Somewhere behind Jake Soloman, predator and prey collided in a booming splash of ocean spray. It sounded like a tiger shark roared to the surface, snatched up a yellowfin tuna and disappeared in a gush of water, pulling its unlucky victim to an untimely grave. Jake whipped around and scanned the horizon, searching the endless ripples where the commotion came from. He paused, his eyes squinting into focus, waiting for the predator to emerge again. Thirty seconds passed. Then sixty. Seagulls squawked overhead as waves lapped against the hull. His senses must have been playing tricks on his mind, hours in the sun finally taking its toll. When nothing else happened, he wagged his head and dismissed the incident, contributing it to an overactive imagination. But he jotted it down in the logbook, anyway.

Jake dropped the leather-bound book in a deck chair and reached for a Gatorade in the cup holder. In several satisfying gulps, he downed the rest of the sports drink and returned the bottle to its place, lemon-lime droplets snaking along the inside of the plastic.

He sighed and turned his attention to something much more appealing.

After stepping to the rear platform of the Saint Charles, he raised a pair of binoculars to his eyes and gazed at the woman of his dreams. She was a jewel of the rarest kind, one he threw away after a senseless argument. What he did after the fight was worse, an irrational act of stupidity. Often he toiled over the past events, replaying them in his mind repeatedly as if he could go back and fix things.

Jake bit his bottom lip, his body poised against the lazy motion of the water while keeping the field of view on her speedboat anchored in the distance. Its smooth lines and raised bow said it was capable of wind-burning speeds. He panned over and dialed in on a delicate neckline and a flow of wavy hair the color of autumn leaves tinted burnt orange.

The woman zipped up her wet suit, tied her hair back in a ponytail and for a split second stared straight at him with the bluest sapphire eyes. Jake flinched, dropped the binoculars, and brought them up again. Now she was looking down, buckling a weight belt around her waist. He assured himself she couldn't see him near as well as he could see her.

As an added precaution, he peeked at her without the aid of the binoculars. She appeared as a thin profile of a woman with no discernible attributes except her hair color and the sun's glare on her face.

He zoomed in closer as she continued her pre-dive routine. She squatted and settled into her buoyancy compensator vest. With a man helping her, she fastened the straps, leaned forward and balanced the air tank on her back.

The director assigned him to this surveillance op at the last second, and Jake had to admit, it stung seeing her for the first time in six months.

He spied as she pulled a dive mask over her head, flipped over backwards and disappeared on the other side of the craft. Her partner leaned over and handed her an underwater camera and then turned his attention to monitoring a laptop computer.

She would be out of sight for a while. That meant he had time for his own excursion.

Jake wiped the sweat from his brow and flicked it over the turquoise water of the Western Atlantic Ocean. Then he turned and smiled at his buddy, asleep in a chair, Miami Marlins baseball cap on the bridge of his nose. A fishing pole hung over the gunwale, cradled in a stand in front of him.

The wheelhouse of the rented Baha Cruiser rose behind him, shaped like a box with a network of antennae on the roof. Jake admired the boat's white paint and redwood planks making up its rear deck. Adding to the makeover, a ladder arched over the starboard rail. A professional craftsman or a caring owner must have restored the older vessel to its pristine condition.

Jake set the binoculars in his duffel bag, then strung his arms through a buoyancy compensator vest and heaved the air tank on his back. Then he slipped into a pair of fins. He waved a hand behind him and snagged the line attached to his air gauge. It registered 3,000 P.S.I. As a last measure, he fingered the additional line that inflated his vest. This inspection was nothing more than a habitual safety-check, something he did without thinking. And as expected, everything worked properly.

On the stern, he posted the red and white flag that alerted boaters of a diver in the water. Although he had a plan in mind, an unsettling feeling crept over him, a nagging doubt. The scientist in Jake drew him beneath the waves, while a little voice in his head urged him to stay topside to keep a vigil on the speedboat. Her well-being was his primary aim. However, the director had given him permission to probe the area as long as someone remained above as a precaution. He craned his head around and looked at that someone.

"How long do you plan on sleeping?" he said.

When no reply came, Jake bent over, picked up the logbook and tossed it in his friend's lap.

Tony Cruze jolted in the chair, pushed his hat back and grinned. "I'm waiting for a bite."

"I can see that. Fishing is an excellent cover, but you have a better chance of being struck by a meteor than catching a fish."

"You think another dive will be more productive?"

"Yes, I do. And I need you to monitor their boat while I'm down."

"Sarah's a big girl." Tony pushed up from the chair and stretched, logbook in one hand.

Jake glared at him. "We're not here on vacation. We have a job and we're going to do it, orders from the director."

"Fine." Tony frowned. "Where are the binoculars?"

"They're in the bag. Log anything unusual." Jake tilted his head and caught his friend's attention. "Eyes peeled. No tomfoolery."

"I'm back on duty, skipper, don't worry. Just hit your distress beacon if you run into any trouble."

"You'll be the first to know."

"Hey... keep your eye out for any gold bullion lying around. Might be a Spanish shipwreck down there somewhere."

"We're not going on one of your treasure hunts today."

"Yeah, yeah, always business, no fun."

"Maybe another day." Jake stretched a full-face dive mask with a built-in breathing regulator over his head, padded over to the stern of the boat and dropped from the platform.

He wanted to see for himself what was troubling the water.