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Chapter 5

After entering the water, Mike gathered his camera from the divemaster and quickly dropped underwater. He immediately began looking for a suitable place to hide in the kelp and follow the other diver. He was counting on his cover story and the comfort and complacency that comes from doing things repeatedly. He was certain the diver collecting the packages this time around wouldn't watch too closely to see if he were being followed. He would be on the look out for recreational divers, but wouldn't suspect that someone was actively following him.

Mike had just gotten to the bottom and settled into the kelp on the ocean floor when he saw the last diver, the crewman, complete his giant stride and enter the water. After splashing into the water, the man never resurfaced to check his gear or signal OK, but just kept sinking and swimming. He was set up and prepared to get underwater fast and take care of business from the look of things.

As luck would have it, the diver swam almost directly in front of Mike, causing him to hold his breath. He didn't want his exhaled bubbles to float up and give away his position.

Mike stayed perfectly still. Moving wasn't even an option in his mind. He was lying as still as he could on the bottom. At the same time, he had his camera out in front of him, pretending to be focusing close-up on a small specimen under water, hoping this cover would work in case the diver spotted him.

His pretense to be doing something else proved to be unnecessary as the other diver was staring intently into his wrist-mounted computer that guided him to the packages. Mike didn't know it, but the man had to find twice as many packages on this trip because of the police interference the day before. He was in a hurry. He needed to be done with his task and back on the boat before the other divers surfaced after their dive. He didn't want to be seen swimming with a heavy bag on his belt, only to surface without one. He also didn't want to be seen surfacing alone, because the crew wanted to avoid questions about his diving alone.

Mike moved out to follow the man as soon as he swam past, but left enough room between them to keep things secret as well. Masks, hoods and the rest of the dive gear make it almost impossible for a diver to see someone who is swimming behind him. The man continued swimming in a straight line for 100 feet or so, and then suddenly turned to his left. He turned so quickly, in fact, that Mike thought he was caught in the act and even thought about defending himself. The man swam on, however, watching his gauge and Mike relaxed.

It was somewhat amusing to Mike, he realized, that when he was diving from another boat, he ran into the diver twice picking up the packages. This time, diving from the same boat and following the man, he probably wouldn't be able to get any frontal shots. Regardless, he had those images already. He needed to discover what the man was doing with the packages.

Mike saw the other diver pick up three of the tightly-wrapped bundles while he tagged along. Confident that the diver was collecting packages on this dive, Mike swam back to the boat. He wanted to be there to see what the diver did with the packages. Mike swam back to his hiding place in the kelp and waited on the man to board the dive boat.

Waiting quietly in the kelp, Mike worked to control his breathing and keep his bubbles to a minimum. The kelp would more than likely break up his bubble trail enough so it wouldn't be too much of a problem, but Mike didn't want to waste this effort by being discovered.

It only took a few more minutes for the diver to swim back into view. Dive gear looks very similar underwater and thick wetsuits tend to minimize body shapes, making it difficult to distinguish one diver from another, but the dangling mesh bag full of square packages made it obvious that this was the diver Mike was waiting on.

Mike rolled to his side, keeping the camera in front of him, trying to photograph the diver as he swam up to the boat. Mike planned on surfacing quickly behind the man to catch him on board with the packages.

Instead of making his way to the stern of the boat to climb out of the water on the swim step, the diver swam forward, half way along the starboard hull of the twin-hulled catamaran. Mike saw him pause for a second.

Trying to keep his breathing in check, Mike still had to exhale from time to time. He did so as cautiously as he could, but from his position on his side, the bubbles rose in front of his face for a moment, obscuring his sight.

When his vision cleared, the diver was moving toward the stern of the boat and the mesh bag was gone. Somehow he had disposed of it in just the few seconds it took Mike's bubbles to clear.

Mike waited for a minute after he saw the crewman climb out of the water before he headed for the surface and prepared to board the boat. He started to swim forward to examine the area where he saw the crewman pause on the hull, but as he did, he saw the first buddy team returning to the boat. He didn't want someone to ask him a question about his actions once he got back on board so he moved to the swim step and exited the water.