The Ariadne Connection

He snugged the mask onto his face and eased over the side. A quick, sharp breath and then his muscles eased, salty clean cold closing over him, deep blue washing through him. He took another deep breath and dove.

He kicked hard, straight down into hushed shadow. The water split and reformed around him as he arrowed into it, sharp-edged as flowing crystal. It was bare underneath, too, rock outlined precise below him, not much in the way of fish or plants. Here and there a sparse weed curtsied in the swell, fingerlings scattering in a silver spurt of alarm. But the water: incredible clear blue like swimming in air, and the pure salt cool of it you could almost see forever stay forever, siren voices calling him deeper. . . .

His lungs screamed. A shrill panicky voice sent him shooting for the surface in a cloud of bubbles.

He burst through, gasping in the white flare of sun, skin tingling with the salt chill. He’d never get over this Mediterranean water. The Florida Keys he’d grown up on and under were a whole different thing, softer-edged. He flipped onto his face, finning along the surface, sighting below. He floated face-down closer to the cliff, suspended in the hypnotic rhythm of the swells. Strobing ripples of blue-tinged light drifted him back:

Shadows whispering, pages rustling in the night, taking him away from vengeful Fathers and the rod not spared. Pegasus wings of his secret boyhood hoard, those deliciously pagan books, as he devoured the old Greek myths by flashlight under the covers. . . .

The books burning, his father fervent in the pulpit, red hair burning like the torch of the Reformed Brethren scouring the sinful earth. Reverend’s righteous voice ringing out King David and the born-again warriors for the glory of God, the good fight for the Way and the Mideast oil and the blessed U.S. of A. . . .

Haggard faces in the dim glow of control panels, fingers gripped over firing studs, stink of fear and trapped-animal sweat as the stricken submarine plummeted into the purple-blue depths—

Peter jerked his head up from the sea, shaking off a pathetic thrashing urge to scramble back to the dinghy and cling to the sunny surface. He took deep breaths, held the last, and plunged into those flickering shadows.

Clearing his ears, he kicked deeper, touching cold rock. He pulled himself down over the boulders, legs drifting upward as he peered into a crevice to see an eye staring back at him and a snakelike suction-cupped arm coiling back into its lair.

Jacknife reverse and back to the surface, lungs burning, heart hammering. He was going a little soft, not bad for thirty-four, but maybe he should think about working on it, maybe cut down on the booze. Clean up his act? And here he was in another pointless screw-up.

He kicked along the surface, scanning, closer to the cliff. A flash of dull color, fins hovering.

He hadn’t really expected to see anything, decades of dynamite fishing had taken care of most anything close in, and the tactical nukes over in the east Med some more, but there was some restocking going on. Now he recalled those caiques at the quay, nets on some, they weren’t all sponge boats. He grabbed more air and shot down, pulling the gun free.

The fins flickered ahead, disappeared in dark. He churned past a rock edge over a dropoff, almost too far, spotted the crevice to the side, a narrow dark cave, almost gave it up, chest starting to ache with the pent-up breath, saw a faint flicker, was doubling up before he could think and down through it. Dark, then sliding light, flashing strobe from above, more dark, rocks squeezing in, no air, but then he was through into open water. No sign of fins. Lungs aching.

He broke surface and flung drops, gasping. Treading water, dragging in air, he looked around to see he’d come through a tumble of stone slabs into a cove nearly sealed off from the open sea. Down below, a sand bottom and the escaping gleam of scales.

Reflexes took him down and after. The lithe body whipped away, then reversed and hovered. The spear shot of itself in a burst of bubbles.

The fish flailed at the end of the line, fighting the spear in a dark cloud of blood. Peter surfaced, pulling it in, suddenly wishing he’d let it go. Eyes gone dull already. But it was a nice pompano, he’d take it to the taverna and have them cook it up in some olive oil for dinner. If.

He raised his head, gripping the spear, checking out the cove. Over at the other end was what looked like a narrow inlet that might be an easier way out. He slipped under, kicked closer, and reemerged smoothly. Now he could see there was a trail running down this end of the cliff to the narrow beach. And a freshwater spring burbling out of the rocks.