Barracuda (15 page)

“I’m sure it’ll be a sight to behold,” Micko
answered, marveling at the depth of the rivalry between the two
resorts. “I can’t wait.”

Micko and Hiroshi said their goodbyes, and Micko
went up to his room. He was astonished at how extravagant it was.
There was a small hallway with closets and a bathroom that then led
into a lavish sitting room with a huge TV set, a stereo, a wet bar
with four stools, a large velvet sectional couch, and two matching
recliners. This room alone was larger than any hotel room he had
ever been in. Off to the right were another bathroom and the master
bedroom. The bedroom was also massive with oversized furniture and
a king-sized bed. Wall-to-wall mirrors adorned the bedroom, and the
floor was covered in a thick shag of cream-colored carpet.

“I think I’m going to like this place,” Micko
thought aloud.

He quickly but meticulously unpacked his clothes
then took a quick tour of his room and found a door leading to a
veranda. The terrace looked out over the golf course and the atoll
with a spectacular view. It was large enough that a glass table and
two chairs were set in a corner.

Micko went to the bar, grabbed himself a cold
beer, and then sat out on the terrace and relaxed, soaking up the
view. He could see the pool bar and a few bikini-clad women in the
pool. Without hesitation he finished his beer, put on his swimsuit,
and went down to the pool. When he arrived, however, it was empty.
He dove into the deep end, swam to the bar, and sat on a stool in
the water.

“Did I scare everyone away?” he joked to the
barmaid.

“No,” she laughed back. “I had a crowd that just
went to dinner. My name is Flacka.”

“Hi Flacka, I’m Mick, but my friends call me
Micko.”

“Oh, you’re the NYPD detective I heard
about.”

Mick shook his head. “Flacka, does everyone know
who I am?”

“Yes, they do.” She grinned with those big white
teeth of hers.

Micko had several beers, and Flacka played a
variety of music on her CD player as the two spoke. Micko liked
her. She seemed honest and unpretentious. Soon they were talking
music, agreeing that the Righteous Brothers’ blue-eyed soul music
was the greatest. Flacka found one of their CDs, and while “Ebb
Tide” was playing, Micko asked,

“Flacka, maybe you can help me. I hope I don’t
offend you, but I can’t figure a few things out. Why do the locals
on Bikini hate the Japanese so much? Is it just the war and the
hotel rivalry?”

Flacka was slow to respond. She looked Micko in
the eye and simply asked, “Why?”

“I’m a policeman, Flacka,” he replied, “and some
unusual things were going on before I even unpacked my bags. I need
to trust someone, and I’ve picked you.” Micko knew that bartenders
were always good sources of information. “Chuu said I could trust
you,” he added. This was his ace in the hole. Since locals drank at
her bar, she would be in tune with their complaints.

“Chuu told you to talk to me?” she asked.

“Yes. He wanted to tell me more, but Tanya was
always around.”

“Okay, policeman, I will tell you everything,
but you must never tell anyone,” she began. “I am from Nicaragua,
so I am considered neutral, and everyone talks to me. The Japanese
and the Russians are hiding some kind of illegal activity. One of
the Russians got drunk here one night and said that he should be
paid more with all the money that they launder through the resort
business. The locals have a guerilla group that is hell-bent on
destroying the Majestic through vandalism. The locals resent the
Japanese and the Russians as cheap employers, and because they are
trying to run the Bikini resort out of business.

“The atrocities of Word War II don’t help the
race relations of Bikinians and Japanese. The vandals have been
active, and the damage has been costly, but now several of the
rebels have disappeared. The locals believe the Majestic henchmen
are responsible. Fishermen tell tales of several nights when two
boats went out into the lagoon late at night, but only one
returned. The next day, a boat was reported missing—and so were the
rebels. Then, a few days ago, two scientists returned a diary to
the Russians that they found, and now they are also missing. Also,
two brothers hired a local to take them on an illegal dive to one
of the wrecks and they never returned. Too many things are
happening, and the place has not even had its grand opening. These
Japanese and Russians will let nothing stand in their way.”

Micko let Flacka talk—and talk she did. She knew
about many of the things that were going on that no one else would
discuss. Much of what she said made sense. Now he understood why
Russian muscle was so prevalent. The missing saboteurs, scientists,
and brothers concerned him.
How could people just go missing
without a police investigation?
he thought. Then Flacka
explained that Hiroshi was actually the law on Shark Alley Island,
and his bodyguards were the police.

Micko had many questions. “What was in the diary
that the scientists found?”

Flacka didn’t know, except that it was important
enough to have them go missing. She further stated that a few kids
had been crabbing and saw two Russian goons follow the scientists
out near the Enidrik pass. The kids thought nothing of it until
they saw the two boats return without the scientists. Then they saw
the boat the scientists were renting get scuttled and sink at the
mooring ball to the
Apogon
submarine. She further said that
Hiroshi dismissed the missing men as drowning in the storm that
day. The children saw all this from the shelter of some thick
foliage, but they were afraid to come forward, as were most of the
natives. Luckily the natives trusted Flacka since she lived in the
fishing village with them.

Micko asked Flacka about the two brothers.
Flacka stated that they had evil intentions and had hired a local
to take them on a dive to the USS
Saratoga
. The pair had
tools to penetrate the wreck so they could remove artifacts and
hide bandanas. She couldn’t make any sense out of it all, but Micko
knew what was going on from his previous conversation with Rat.
Flacka said that the two divers had never surfaced, and the local
fisherman was also afraid to report what had happened. She was very
surprised that no one else had reported them missing yet.

Flacka was a wealth of information, and Micko
gave her a twenty-dollar bill before he went back to his room to
digest all that he had learned. He felt that it was a pretty good
bet that the Japanese and Russians were involved in a money
laundering scheme, and that they were using strong-arm tactics to
protect themselves and their investment in the resort. The poor
scientists were probably two innocent men who were murdered. The
brothers had probably drowned on the
Saratoga
, and the
missing saboteurs had probably also been murdered.

What kind of vacation am I on?
Should
I get involved, am I ready to take action?
he thought.

***

It finished feasting on Bob, carefully picked up
the leftover scuba tank and gear, and placed it inside the huge
nest. Then It swam stealthily back to Bill, where it didn’t hear
any more of the funny bubbly noises. Looking closely at Its
shackled prey, It saw that the eyes were bulging and that the mouth
was slack-jawed with small cleaner fish entering and exiting.

It swam tentatively toward the new opening that
these strange creatures had created. The hole was large enough for
It to easily pass through, but It still swam with caution. The
interior of the wreck had been the only home It had ever known. Now
a new venue had presented itself.

Slowly, It exited, seeing real sea life for the
first time. Initially, It swam through schools of fish, killing
with the veracity of Attila the Hun, until It was completely
satiated. Then It swam up to the bridge section of the
Saratoga
and hid in the shadows of the fish netting towering
over the wreck.

It watched and realized that this all belonged
to him. Billions of fish, a huge lagoon, and dozens of reefs and
shipwrecks were all his for the taking. It was the top
predator.

It hovered above Its domain, watching until the
company of gray reef sharks entered his kingdom. The sharks had
entered to feed as usual, and It immediately became territorial. In
the fish world, size mattered. It knew It was larger than the gray
reefers, so It unflinchingly attacked from the cover of the
shadows, bending Its long sinewy body into an S shape until the
pack of sharks began feeding on schools of fish on the flight deck.
Then It launched the assault.

Snapping straight, It rocketed at fifty knots
toward the first shark. It didn’t stop to wrestle or fight with his
opponent. Instead, It sped past the shark, severing its dorsal fin
with razor-sharp teeth. Without a dorsal fin, the shark had no
balance. The maimed reefer spiraled to the deck of the
Saratoga
like a wounded World War II fighter plane. It
continued to race through the pack of sharks, severing pectoral
fins as well as dorsal fins.

This underwater battle was eerily reminiscent of
the USS
Saratoga
in its finest hours on the surface. It
fired away like anti-aircraft fire, and the sharks corkscrewed as
if caught in aerial combat. The wounded sharks caused a feeding
frenzy among the uninjured, and soon the deck of the
Saratoga
was once again a hotbed of bloodshed.

It retreated to the shadows of the bridge and
watched the combat below as shark attacked shark until the deck was
a graveyard covered with reefers. The survivors withdrew to the
safety of the passage and the open ocean, not knowing what had
caused this deadly chain reaction.

It followed from a discrete distance, learning
how the sharks entered and exited Its realm. It would be ready for
them next time, and It would not permit them to ever enter
again.

***

“More snapper, Professor?”

“No, please, no, James. We’ll be the only men
alive who got stranded by a monsoon and put on weight.”

James laughed heartily, knowing that his
colleague was right. Their fishing system worked so well that they
had more fresh fish than they could eat. This, in turn, became crab
bait, and soon they had more fresh crabs than they could eat.

“A search party might come at any time, James,
so be prepared to light the bonfire on a moment’s notice,” Dr.
Collins reminded him.

“You get set to do that while I try something,”
James said. “I have a lot of air left in my scuba tank, so I’ll
hunt for some clams and mussels, and then make a seafood chowder
with the leftover crabs and snapper.”

“Now
that
sounds enticing.”

***

Micko walked down to the dive shop before he
went for dinner, where he met Steve along the way.

“Are you ready for your checkout dive tomorrow?”
Steve asked.

“I sure am. What time?” Micko returned.

“Seven a.m. sharp. It’ll just be the two of us
since the
Lily I
is taking a boatload of divers to the U.S.
Submarine
Apogon
. They’ve been diving all week and requested
a chance to dive there. I’m a little hesitant to take divers there
because there are live torpedoes in the tubes that are rotting
away. Anyway, I always take new divers to the
Saratoga
for
the checkout dive. You arrived too late for a checkout dive today,
so tomorrow morning we’ll take the
Lily II
.”

“Why so early?”

“The Bikini resort has a nine a.m. checkout dive
scheduled for a boatload of new divers who arrived when you did.
One group will dive the bow, and then the
Thor
will pick up
a second group and drop them on the stern.”

“I met them,” Mike noted, “one dive club from
California and another one from Australia.”

Steve made a noise of disdain. “I had two
asshole brothers here last week, and they went to the Bikini resort
to meet their buddies for another two weeks of diving. I’m sure as
hell happy that they’re gone.”

Micko looked Steve square in the eye. “I heard
that they broke into the
Saratoga
while doing an
unauthorized dive.”

“They better not have! Those bastards!” Steve
yelled before quickly quieting his voice. “They wanted to remove a
hatchway cover and steal artifacts. I think they also had some
stupid scavenger hunt thing going with the guys who came
yesterday.”

“I heard that they hired a local fisherman to
take them back to the wreck,” Micko warned.

“We’ll check that out tomorrow morning,” Steve
promised.

Micko went back to the hotel and decided to
order room service while he checked his dive gear.
Seven a.m.
comes mighty early
, he thought. He checked his dive computers,
air hoses, and regulators while chewing on a sirloin cheeseburger.
He turned in early, but instead of a restful sleep, he dreamed of
murder and mayhem.

The next morning at six thirty Micko entered the
dive shop carrying his dive gear. Steve was already in the shop
signing out the scuba tanks they would use. Micko was used to
diving with 80 cu aluminum tanks, but this resort preferred the use
103 cu steel tanks. They held more air, so they were actually safer
and gave better bottom time.

“Mara is already in the boat. He’s our captain
today. Grab your tank and let’s go,” Steve commanded.

“Okey dokey,” Micko replied.

Steve threw a scuba tank onto his right shoulder
and grabbed his dive bag. Micko flinched as he did the same. These
tanks were a hell of a lot heavier than the aluminum ones. But at
least Steve was not giving him the VIP treatment, and Micko was
pleased. He was not fond of special favors—except for the
tremendous suite he’d been given.

He placed his gear on board and immediately
began to set up his regulator, tank, and BC vest. Steve was talking
with Mara, but he discreetly watched Micko’s every move. All good
dive masters did this to observe whether the divers know their gear
and how to properly set it up. Steve was content that this cop
appeared to know what he was doing.