Walking into the dive shop, it took the cop's eyes a few minutes to adjust. The sun outside was blindingly bright, in contrast to the cool shade inside. He stood in the doorway for a moment to catch his bearings before moving again.

As soon as he could see, he picked the person he wanted to speak to out of the customers and store clerks in the shop. The uniformed officer moved quickly through the store toward the classroom in the back.

"Jackson, you got a minute?" Sheriff Yearly said without preamble or greeting. Tanned from years of patrolling the keys, the man could have been any age - from 30 to 50. His skin was coarse and tough-looking but he was also fit and his closecropped hair was dark and thick. The one thing he was not was a diver. Even after growing up in the Keys and spending most of his adult life around the water, he had never made the attempt.

"Sure, Sheriff, what can I do for you? I just finished up a class, so I'm done for the day."

"That's good to hear, because I've got a job for you," Yearly began, as he motioned Jackson Pauley back into the classroom. Pauley was a former New York City firefighter/paramedic who had retired after the terrorist attacks on 9/11 and decided to take life a little slower working as a divemaster in the Keys. While many of the dive guides who worked around the island tended to be younger and came and went as they pleased, the Sheriff knew that Jackson was stable. Yearly also knew him as a gutsy operator who could be counted on when things got tough.

"So, what gives?" Jackson asked when the officer closed the door behind him, his 5'11" body immediately getting tense, although he wasn't sure why.

"We've got a report of a plane crash out near Handsome Reef. I want you to go out there and see if you can find anything."

"Sheriff, you're gonna have to give me a little more detail than that. I know the FAA investigates plane crashes. Why do you want me out there?" Jackson asked, still a little uncertain as he ran a hand through his sand-colored hair.

"Couple hours ago, a boater on a private fishing boat called in to say that a big plane nearly hit his boat. Then it crashed. After that, nothing. We can't raise the boat and have no record of a flight plan through the area. The boat gave us his GPS coordinates, but nothing else. I'm not even sure there was a crash. I've alerted the FAA and a couple other agencies, but they don't want to come down without us confirming there was a crash in the first place."

"All right. That makes sense. I've got nowhere else to go this afternoon. I'll get one of the guys to come out with me just in case."

The sheriff produced a paper with the coordinates on it and left to take care of other business.

It didn't take Jackson long to round up a dive buddy and get his boat, the Daydreamer out to the site of the crash. He brought along Randy Littlebear for this trip. A Seminole who served with distinction in the first Gulf War as a Navy diver and had returned home after his military service, he decided to move further south than his traditional home in the Florida Everglades to set up shop. Randy repaired dive equipment and compressors and all the mechanical tools of diving. Jackson knew that he was also as cool as they came. He never got rattled and always took care of business. Littlebear would disappear from time to time, for a day or two, but then would be back like nothing ever happened. Everyone always assumed he was doing something on the reservation.

Not knowing the plane's depth or condition before they left the dock, they had planned heavy. They brought along more equipment and larger air supplies than they would most likely need, but, Jackson reasoned, it wouldn't do to have to call the dive and come back later.

Both divers had "doubles" strapped to their backs - twin tanks linked together through a special manifold system that would allow them to breathe off of one or both cylinders. The knew the general depth of the area they planned to investigate so had brought along a specially-mixed breathing gas called Enriched Air Nitrox. Supplemented with additional oxygen, it would allow them to stay at depth longer. They were also carrying lights, reels of line and small lift bags that could be inflated with air to move objects underwater.

"Something sure happened here," Littlebear noted as the Daydreamer arrived at the coordinates of the crash, as reported by the missing fishing boat. Debris floated around the general area, slightly down current from their location. Jackson had intentionally approached the scene against the current to see what floated by.

"Whatever it is, it's right over there," Littlebear continued. The water was so clear the divers could see the bottom and could make out the outline of a plane resting on the bottom - right beside a drop off into an underwater canyon.

"Call the sheriff?" Randy asked.

"He'll just ask about bodies and that sort of thing. He can wait a little longer until we've had a chance to lay our eyes on it and see what happened," Jackson replied as he turned to begin gearing
up.

"I'm right behind you."

Descending through the water, Jackson and Littlebear took their time. They were focused on the dim image of the plane below them. Bubbles, stirred up sediment and sand rising from the bottom made it difficult to tell exactly what type of plane rested below them, but they could tell it was a plane. The ocean floor came up quickly as the divers approached the bottom at 100 feet.

While not a canyon with extreme depths, Jackson knew that the plane was resting on the lip of a depression that descended several hundred more feet - well below the depths they planned to dive.

Communicating with hand-signals, the divers approached the plane cautiously. They quickly agreed to swim around the perimeter of the aircraft. Its precarious position made both divers wary. Both took their time to survey the wreckage and establish its stability before risking their lives by going in too quickly.

After assuring himself the conditions were relatively safe, Jackson made his way to the cabin door and attempted to open it. It was still secured from the inside and would not budge. Jackson realized the only other way into the plane was through the jagged hole in the fuselage of the plane.

Jackson and Littlebear settled down on the sand beside the wrecked airplane and prepared themselves to penetrate the wreck. As they had agreed before-hand, Jackson would enter the plane while Littlebear stayed outside. Connected to the exit by a nylon line, Jackson would be able to use the line to find his way out if, for some reason, visibility inside the plane dropped to zero. Outside, Littlebear would also be able monitor Jackson and ensure that he was still moving around. He could provide help if Jackson got in trouble, although they had also agreed that Littlebear would only enter the plane as a last resort.

Kneeling on the sand bottom, able to look inside, Littlebear shined his light through the jagged opening. Jackson held on to the safety line and slowly moved into the opening. Littlebear kept a close watch to ensure that the thin line didn't get caught or cut on the torn sheet metal. Jackson pushed dangling lines and hoses out of his way as he moved inside. He could taste the leaking fuel in the water as it quickly seeped through his mask and regulator. He didn't want to think about what it was doing to his gear. To his right, he could see the area that would have been used for passengers and now held large bundles. To his left was the cockpit. He decided to check and see if the bodies of the pilots were still there. Maybe I can find some identification, he thought.

Entering the cargo hold of the former airliner, Jackson realized some of the bundles were floating and others were heavy on the floor. He guessed the black plastic coverings on the bails must be holding in air bubbles on some, giving them buoyancy. Others must already be waterlogged, giving them additional weight.

The hole was about halfway back in the airplane. Jackson began swimming forward toward the flight deck. As he moved cautiously, a large bundle floated past him, probably disturbed by the currents or escaping air bubbles, or something, he thought to himself. He pushed it out of his way. That force caused the bundle to roll.

Out from behind it floated the dead, bloated body of a man. Jackson recoiled in shock. He was expecting to see bodies in the front of the plane, still strapped into their seats, but he hadn't prepared himself to find someone floating around loose. The man was naked. The impact of the crash must have stripped his clothes off of him, Jackson thought.

It was too soon for a large predator to have discovered the body - they wouldn't come close to the wreck for a little while longer until things settled down completely - but small fish had been inside and had obviously began to nibble.

Jackson slowed his breathing and quickly regained his composure. It wasn't the first time he had seen a body in the water, but he wasn't prepared for it to come out and greet him. I'll send the recovery crew back for you, buddy, Jackson thought. You're not going anywhere.

Moving around the floating corpse, Jackson continued to move to the front. He slowly played his light back and forth and Jackson moved from the relative gloom of the interior of the wrecked aircraft to the brightness of the flight deck. Light filtered in through the windshield to give Jackson a full view of what lay in front of him.

And that was exactly nothing. The seats and panels and control equipment were all in place, just not the main thing Jackson expected -- two more dead bodies. The sound of Jackson's own exhalations filled his mind for a minute as he realized the flight crew had gotten out. How did they manage it? Where are they now?

Jackson grabbed some of the papers he found floating throughout the cabin. He noticed a sea chart with two areas marked in red grease pencil. One showed two small islands, near the far end of Withrow Key. The second was in the ocean, not far from where the plane had crashed, but over the deeper water.

While he floated weightless, Jackson heard a groaning sound. After a millisecond, Jackson realized what was happening. The plane was sliding off the lip of the depression and was starting to roll.

Jackson turned and struggled to get back out the way he came as the plane moved around him. He didn't know how far the plane would slide or what would happen, but he didn't want to be inside to find out.

Arriving at the place in the fuselage where he had climbed through the hole, he quickly realized his problem. The plane had rolled as it had slid and now his opening to the outside world was pointing down and was up against the coral. While he hovered in the water and stared, dumbfounded for a second at the turn of events, a heavy bundle toppled off a stack behind him and slammed Jackson to the un-giving side of the plane.

Jackson was stunned and disoriented, lying on his stomach and side, pressed against the curved side wall of the plane. The large tanks on his back prevented him from turning very far, but he could tell there was a heavy bundle lying on top of him. In fact, heavy packages had fallen all around him.

Trying to push himself up, Jackson could feel the cargo move, so he was reassured that he wasn't totally buried, but he knew he needed to work fast. Because of the extra air supply he had brought along, Jackson wasn't immediately concerned about running out of air, but he knew it wouldn't last forever. Also, the quality of the water with the fuel and hydraulic fluid leaking into the cabin wasn't helping matters. Jackson's biggest concern, however, was the stability of the plane itself. It seemed to have stopped moving, but Jackson wasn't sure how long that would last. He didn't want to be if the plane slid down the canyon beside it. He would quickly be dragged down to 200 or 300 feet - depths he was not prepared for. The special breathing gas he was carrying would become toxic at those depths, possibly causing him to have a seizure and drown if he wasn't rescued quickly.

He stilled himself so he could think. How can I lift these things off my back? Wiggling his light free, Jackson shined it on one of the bundles beside him. It was approximately three feet long by two feet across, by about two feet deep. It occurred to Jackson that it was about the size of a bail of hay. With his fingers, he confirmed that the bundle was wrapped tightly with black plastic.

He quickly came up with a plan. Jackson struggled to twist his body around. Finally he was able to double over and reach the inside of his leg. With his finger tips, Jackson could feel the hilt of his dive knife. Slowly he unclasped the strap holding it in the sheath strapped to the inside of his leg. He withdrew the blade between two fingers and brought it up to where he could see what he was doing.

Maneuvering himself into a better position, Jackson turned the knife in his hand and then jabbed it into the bundle on his back. As he did, Jackson felt the blade hit something solid and twist in his grasp. Jackson felt the precious blade slide free. He grabbed for it as quickly as he could, realizing that this might be his only chance to get the weight off his back. Barely able to move his arms, and not able to see what he was doing, Jackson flailed around for the knife.

On his third grab at nothingness, Jackson felt a finger tip brush the steel of the blade. Its sharp edge cut his hand, but Jackson ignored the sudden pain. Nothing was going to cause him to drop the knife again. He grabbed out again and was rewarded with the feeling of his hand wrapping around the hilt.

Jackson took a minute to catch his breath and think about what had just happened. He studied the bundle beside him and then finally realized his mistake. A metal band ran the length of the bundle. He must have jabbed the blade directly into the strap.

||| |---|---| | << Previous Page | Next Page >> |