The shock of no air hit him at the
same instant someone pulled his mask loose from behind, filling
it with icy water. Despite the shock, Ben’s diver’s
mind instinctively began a countdown: He had two minutes.
Ben couldn’t sense his attacker’s
location – the other diver had to be staying behind him,
hovering at the edge of a forest of kelp where Ben had been concentrating
on a broken pump. Forcing himself to stay calm, he tried reaching
up for his air hose, hoping to follow it with his fingers to the
mouthpiece. But his assailant had looped his right wrist with
a restraint. Ben struggled against the cuff, quickly realizing
that his left wrist had also been fastened.
It had been perhaps fifteen seconds
since his last breath. He pulled frantically on both the lines,
but seemed only to tighten the restraints around his wrists. In
the blur he saw that the material around his wrists led to some
sort of white line around his torso and thighs. It was a simple
but effective binding slipped on from behind in the distraction
of work. Ben had no time to solve it.
Compressed air pumped into the seawater
behind his head, making a tantalizing bubbling sound. He wrenched
his arms and reached for the air button on his buoyancy compensator
to inflate and ascend. By hunching over he could barely push the
valve. Instead of the comforting feeling of an inflated vest,
a torrent of bubbles escaped the BC. The other diver had opened
the release valve when Ben used the compressed air.
He tried hard kicks to propel himself
to the surface, but his restraints seemed to be tied to the net
wall of the octopus pen.
Panic set in. He forced himself to
think of something else. umping air into his dry suit wouldn’t
work because his assailant had opened the heavy zipper on his
back. Releasing his weight belt might help. Ben had enough leeway
to unbuckle it, but when it fell away he didn’t ascend.
It hung on him somehow, perhaps clipped to the lines at his thighs.
Almost unconsciously, Ben’s fingers
inched toward the backup mouthpiece velcroed to the BC at his
chest. The lines at his wrists were too short; he couldn’t
bring it to his mouth. He hunched over but his lips came just
short of the mouthpiece.