Breeders by Arno Joubert Read Free Book Online Page B

they started bragging about sleeping with Alida. He decked three of them. After that, he had only Alida.  
    And he didn’t care that none of them had come to visit him since Alida’s death. They were probably celebrating it. But he knew he had lost his soul mate. No one on earth could ever come close to her intellect and wit. He wondered if he should simply end it all, as Ingrid Jonker had. Pop some pills and walk into the ocean. Then he shook his head and sat up determinedly. No, he would be better than that. He would leave life soon enough to join Alida, but not until he found out the truth.  
    How was Alida killed? And probably more important—  
    Why?

Alexa and Neil hung around at sixteen feet for another ten minutes, allowing the compressed gases they had been breathing in the deeper water to naturally diffuse out of their bloodstreams and tissues. They knew they would need to do another dive in order to extract the bodies, and they wanted to minimize the side effects of breathing compressed oxygen.
    Neil glanced at his dive watch and made the OK sign. He pointed his thumb toward the surface. Alexa wanted to get out as soon as possible; the shadowy shapes were still circling far down in the depths below. It had been the creepiest dive she had ever done.  
    She nodded and started inflating her Buoyancy Control jacket. Suddenly, she heard the patrol boat on the surface gun the motor and roar away above their heads, leaving a plume of white foam in its wake. The explosion followed, ramming her with a wall of water and almost ripping her mask off her face.
    Neil grabbed her arm, his eyes darting. He pointed toward the surface, but Alexa shook her head. No way, buster. She pointed to her cylinder gauge then grabbed his. They had been submerged for less than thirty minutes; they had ample air left to wait things out. Neil pushed her away and gestured that she should stay put. A burst of bubbles escaped her mouth as she growled, but her angry pleas reverberated in her own ears. Shit. What had happened to the cool, calm, and calculated Neil? He was the one who used to keep her out of harm’s way, who stopped her from blundering into danger like a damned fool. She heard her teeth grind, but she followed him. She couldn’t risk losing him ever again.
    As they breached the surface, a cold blast of air stung their faces. The fine spray from the rotor blades blinded her; she popped her regulator back in her mouth to keep from choking on the salty mist. She shielded her mask with a hand. A small chopper hovered six feet above them. Someone hung out of the cockpit on the passenger side, and she saw his arm move as he lobbed something at them. Shit, not again.  
    She pulled Neil down with her as she dove, but he responded a second too late. The blast hit them in the back at a depth of five feet, Neil taking the brunt of the impact. It sounded like someone started tuning an electric guitar underwater, but the tone remained at a screeching pitch, unwavering. She breathed deeply, calming herself, and mercifully the sound subsided to a barely tolerable high D, dipped to a low C, then back up again.
    She held Neil by the arm. His body was limp, a large rag doll that slowly rotated onto its back as soon as she released him. Bubbles streamed from his regulator. It was a good sign; he was still breathing. She pulled him toward herself, mounting him and gripping his torso between her legs. She equalized both of them at twelve feet, examining his face as she did so. His eyes were closed and his mask had started filling with blood. Shit, this could be serious. She tried to recall the safety drills they had performed for emergency situations. It had been more than two years ago since Boucher, her dive instructor, had drilled the process into her. Loss of consciousness: Ascend at less than a foot per second while slowly forcing air out of the victim’s lungs with your legs. Bring the diver to the surface. Head trauma: Same drill. Listen,