Barracuda by Mike Monahan Read Free Book Online Page A

come all this way and
pay all this money to look at the outside of an old rusty boat, did
we?”
    “I guess not,” Billy murmured.
    “Are you guys ready?” Steve asked the
brothers.
    “Yup,” they answered in unison.
    Steve checked that their air tanks were turned
on, their gauges were working, and their computers were on. “In you
go, but wait at the surface for the rest of us.”
    Billy and Bobby duck-walked to the rear of the
boat, and Billy took a giant stride into the water. He submerged
several feet and then bobbed to the surface, patting his hand on
top of his head, the universal diver signal indicating that he was
okay. Billy kicked his fins to get out of the way so Bob could take
a giant stride.
    With all twelve divers on the surface, Steve
said, “When I give the divers down signal, I want everyone to vent
air out of your buoyancy compensator—that’s BC—vests and follow me
down the mooring line.”
    He gave the thumbs-down sign, expelled air from
his vest, and slowly sank into the clear blue South Pacific water.
When he was down ten feet, he watched the others as they slowly
sank. All looked good, so he inverted his body and descended
headfirst to swim to the mooring line that led down to the flight
deck of the Saratoga .
    Once he arrived at the huge flight deck, Steve
glanced up at the new divers looking down at the silent warrior
vessel. He knew that this was a great checkout dive for divers who
had just arrived at the Majestic hours ago. It was barely past
three o’clock, and the weary travelers were descending into a
watery time warp. Less than one hundred divers had yet to have the
pleasure of standing on this deck in the past fifty years, and
these descending divers would soon join that illustrious group.
    It was like watching a movie in slow motion as
the divers glided down past the aircraft carrier’s bridge
superstructure, silhouetted against the afternoon sky above. The
visibility was in the one-hundred-foot range, and the fish life was
active. Steve saw the silhouettes of several sharks and schools of
diverse fish, from small baitfish to the larger pelagic fish that
were so abundant in this tropical water.
    Once the divers were all kneeling on the flight
deck at a depth of one hundred and fifteen feet, Steve went up to
each diver to give the okay signal. Each diver, in turn, returned
the signal.
    Then Steve slowly swam to the bow of the massive
carrier and bobbed headfirst down into the abyss. When he reached
the front torpedo tubes, he stopped and looked at his dive gauges;
he was at one hundred and forty feet, and his bottom time was near
three minutes already. He waited for the rest of the divers to
catch up to him and then pointed to the once deadly torpedo shafts
of death. After each diver got a good look, Steve continued
swimming back toward the stern pointing out various parts of the
ship’s hull and compartments that were crushed shut. He pointed to
several large green moray eels that had made the crevices their
home. He even gently pulled out a small octopus that occupied a
hole in a piece of metal tubing. The octopus immediately began
changing colors to adapt to his surroundings as Steve let the
creature float within the group of inquisitive divers.
    Bill quickly reached out to touch the octopus,
and as if sensing aggression, it darted away in a spray of black
ink that left a dark cloud in its place. Steve shook his head
disapprovingly at Bill and continued the underwater tour.
    The divers were able to get up close and
personal with the USS Saratoga . They could see and touch her
corroded hull, and see the reddish colors produced by years of
oxidation. The many levels of the hull looked like someone had
stepped on a child’s dollhouse and crushed it. Groupers, angelfish,
snappers, and many other kinds of fish swam in and out of the small
openings of this now dormant centurion. The once sleek lines of the
hull were buckled, and sharp edges were precariously protruding.
Thin sheets