Chapter Two: Dive Into Danger

Corrine ordered an Amaretto Sour and struck up a little chat with the bartender as she started with her drink. She had glanced at Sasha heading up a corridor, but had seen nothing of her since. A man and a woman came from that direction and were swallowed up by the crowd, but there was no sign of Sasha. Something must have happened, she reasoned. Surely Sasha must have caught up to the woman by now! Corrine finished off her drink and headed toward the corridor.

She continued down the corridor, but saw nobody, not even a staffer came the opposite way. She stood pondering her next move when she some sort of knocking. She went to the nearest door and waited. Three sharp knocks followed by a faint but audible "mmmmmmph".

"Sasha?" she asked and got another "mmmmmmph" for a reply.

She checked the door, and it was unlocked. On opening it, Corrine was relieved to find Sasha inside, tied at the wrists and ankles with clothesline and cleave gagged with a white linen rag, but in one piece. Corrine helped Sasha to her feet and removed the gag. "Are you all right?" Corrine asked as she untied Sasha's wrists.

"Only thing hurt is my pride." Sasha replied.

"Then why are you rubbing your head?" Corrine asked as she freed Sasha's ankles. "Got any ideas about what happened?"

"A mugging, I guess." Sasha said as she reached for her handbag on the floor "No that's not it. My money and credit cards are still here."

"What's this?" Corrine asked as she pointed to something she had just noticed: a slip of paper down sticking out of the top of Sasha's dress.

Sasha withdrew the piece of paper and opened it. Scrawled on it, in English, was one sentence: "FIRST WARNING."

They returned to the dance area, where Corrine was able to obtain some ice and a bar towel from the bartender, which made a suitable compress for Sasha's bump as they returned to their quarters.

"You willing to go diving tomorrow?" Corrine asked.

"Of course I am." Sasha replied. "What bugs me is it appears the Yorkshires are on to us already, and I'd like to know how."

"If I can make our reservations for here and the plane trip by a computer, then somebody could have trailed Dr. Flynn to the office, seen us leave a few minutes late, already have arrangements made to intercept us."

" All the more reason to find that plane as soon as we can," Sasha reasoned.

"So we rent ourselves a boat and go out along the flight path." Corrine said. "But how far?"

"About as far as we can be safely go down. Perhaps a little further. As long as we are looking for something, we really don't have to go down all that deep, as long as we have our lights with us."

The two young women rose early the next morning. The resort they were staying at mixed some old and new styles. The main building was a traditional hotel with rooms for guests, dining areas, and the ballroom where their night of fun had been disrupted. The rest consisted of separate buildings. Corrine and Sasha were in one of the smaller of those, which had a bedroom (with separate single beds), bathroom, and sitting room and a small area in back that was screened by seven foot hedges. As it was not the height of the tourist season, mainly due to the fact it was also the height of the hurricane season, accommodations were cheaper. They took their scuba gear and set off in tank tops, shorts, and flip-flops.

As they were going to dining area, they encountered Dr. Wells leaving. The professor wore black boots that nearly came up to her knees, tan trousers, white short-sleeved blouse that was tied off just above the belt, and blue bandanna around her neck, and hair still in a bun. "You two ready for a dive?" she asked.

"That's right." Sasha said.

"I'd like to join you two, but I'm taking the ferry to the mainland to see some of the local ruins. ."

"Some other time, then." Corrine said.

Corrine and Sasha ate their breakfast, then set out for the boat docks in a rented jeep. Corrine was able to obtain a boat for their needs as well as a chart of the area. As they and the owner went toward the boat they passed another one, where two men, one with short red-brown hair, the other with handsome Latin features stood on its aft deck in swim trunks the former spoke: "Hi ladies, how would you like to go down with me and Tony?"

Sasha and Corrine looked at each other. "I'm not touching that one." Sasha said.

"Oh no, no!" he said in a mock hurt voice as he held up a pair of swim fins. "I mean diving!"

Corrine chuckled "Sorry guys, you'll have to take a raincheck."

She and Sasha continued down the dock, where they found the boat. It had a tiny galley and diminutive cabin, but was adequate for their needs. They took turns going below to change into the lower portion of a bikini and the upper portion of a wet suit, then started engines and cast off. Corrine steered while Sasha navigated. Sasha studied the chart and after a while announced "This is it." Corrine cut the engine. They were about two miles off the island's northernmost point, well away from the popular tourist reef site on the southeast end of the island. As they donned their gear, they reminded themselves of the task at had by asking questions: "What type of plane is it?" Sasha asked.

"Douglas DC-4." Corrine replied. "Four engines, propeller driven. What color is it?"

"White with a green stripe down the fuselage."

"Good. We should be ready." All their equipment checked out. They stood on a small wooden platform with all equipment in place: air tanks, masks, fins, buoyancy compensators, depth and pressure gauges, and light to scan the bottom. Each also has a sheathed knife strapped to her right leg.

"Ready?" Corrine asked.

"Let's not waste any time." Sasha said.

They lowered their masks, put their regulators in place, and took the long stride entrance into the water. It was clear, almost crystalline, but they had no real idea how deep the plane was, so they only went down about twenty feet and scanned the bottom. Sasha had noticed a few sharks. They weren't very big and generally left people alone, but she and Corrine weren't careful, the could wind up swimming right into the sharks, which could make things very unpleasant.

As the kept up their painstaking search they heard a boat's engines. It stopped and they thought nothing more of it as they continued with the task at hand. By pure chance Sasha happened to glance off to one side and see a woman about fifty yards away, in scuba gear and yellow bikini, aiming a speargun at her and Corrine! She quickly tapped her partner on the shoulder and pointed downward. Corrine hesitated briefly and ducked as soon as the strange woman fired. The spear barely missed Corrine's head but cut open her air hose! Sasha quickly swam toward her companion and began buddy breathing, sharing her air supply with Corrine. Their unknown attacker was already swimming away at top speed as the swam toward the surface.

"What was that all about?" Sasha asked as they tread water on the surface.

"I dunno." Corrine replied as she held up the regulator she had miraculously caught before it could sink to the bottom. "All I know is I need a replacement."

"You okay?"

"Yeah... thanks."

"Not much we could do here. Let's get back to the boat."

They returned to their boat and spotted another boat about one hundred yards away. "Think we should let them know how we feel?" Sasha asked as they shed their gear." Sasha observed.

"Never mind it looks like they're heading this way." Corrine remarked as a rubber raft came from the other boat and headed toward them.

"Think they wanna apologize?"

“Somehow, I don't think so.” Sasha said grimly; Corrine turned and noticed everyone on board was armed with spearguns and masked. They went to the foredeck as the inflatable approached. Two blonde women, both in yellow bikinis and masked with blue bandanas climbed out. Followed by a third woman in a scuba top and a dark blue bikini bottom. It would have been comical, if not for the weapons and rope they carried.

“Don't even think about it, girls!” the ringleader warned.

“Hands up!” barked one of the blondes, waving her speargun for emphasis.

“Let's get these two...” began the second blonde, but she never finished the sentence before Sasha had deftly swept the speargun from her hands with a kick and shoved her compatriot into her, sending both women sprawling. A spearpoint missed it's mark and sank deep into a wooden stanchion. The brunette lunged forward with her empty speargun, slamming it hard and fast into Sasha's stomach, knocking the wind out of her before bringing it up under the young woman's chin. Sasha staggered, flailed then flipped over the rail and into the water !

"Sasha!" Corrine cried as she was seized by the two attackers.

The brunette peered over the side, “Well, she's shark bait.” she said with a dreadful laugh,” Take this one below."

Corrine was crestfallen and offered no resistance to her captors. They found some gap in a bulkhead where they could tie Corrine's hands to a solid object behind behind her. They then tied Corrine's ankles with the same nylon rope. The ring leader then tore of a piece of the duct tape and smoothly placed it on Corrine's mouth. "That should do it." she said softly in voice Corrine thought was familiar despite distortion of the mask.

The trio left, though the ringleader stopped before leaving and said "Consider this your final warning."