Chapter 5 Black Forest

Sirona on a plane from Brazil to the USA escorting a valuable horse finds it dead of an unatuaral kind. She is then confronted with a brute that attacks her rending her unconcious. Read on for what's next.

 

Chapter 6-- Black Forest

 

Consciousness did not return as a great roaring flood, but more like a small trickle.  With a groan that can not escape through my lips, I found that I am being wrestled out of the trunk of a car.  This was confusing!  I was on a plane, how did I get into a car?  I tried to struggle, but my hands and feet are bound!  No!  I attempted to scream and now that I know I am being manhandled by the very brute that has made the side of my head ache so very much, I had to get free.  I thrashed wildly as he tossed me over his shoulder.  I heard him tell an unseen associate, “Get the damn boat and bring it to the dock.”  He carried me down a graveled path way, each step crunched a death toll. 

 

I heard the sound of water lapping against a beach and manmade structures.  I can see in an upside down manner that we are heading down a slope; the sound and smell of the water was getting closer.  I endeavored to view more of my surrounding with the hope that I could find someone and draw attention to my plight.  There was no one in sight, but I KNEW this place!  I was here not that long ago.  This is the marina that we had used for our scuba diving adventures.  I was on Grand Cayman!  If I can only get free, I can get help from my friend Natalie.  I renewed my struggles on Neanderthals shoulder with the hope he would drop me and delay him long enough for someone to see us.

 

The buzzing of an inboard engine’s drone came closer and then revved down as I hear the distinctive sound of a hull scraping along the wall of the boat loading dock.  I bucked my whole body in a refreshed effort to be free, and tried to rid my mouth of the tape with my tongue.  He growled at me to behave, and hoisted me and himself up and over the gunwales of the boat, then dropped me onto the deck.  I could see that this boat was a typical boat used by the small scuba diving operations similar to Natalie’s.  Being in the middle of the afternoon, all the boats are back in from their morning dives and not yet gearing up for their night dives.  No one is going to even notice this boat is leaving the shelter of very this protected marina.  Grand Cayman has so little crime that keys and equipment are often left right in the boats and cars unguarded.

 

Neanderthal and his Hispanic cohort put the boat underway and slipped and slither through the cannels heading out to the west bay area.  All I can do is hope that they do not know this area as well as I do and they end up in Stingray City, where I can safely throw myself overboard at an opportune moment.  Once we cleared the channel, Neanderthal ripped the tape from my mouth and said, “If you scream no one but the fishes will hear you.” 

 

He paused to study me as I glared at him.  “You will not get away with this!”  I shouted over the roar of the engines and waves splashing against the hull.

 

He laughed, “We already are Miss High and Mighty.  Do you know how to scuba dive?”

 

Oh not, I’ve finally figured out why we’re heading out to sea!  “No,” I lied as I shook my head, and felt the fear rising.

 

He must have seen the fear in my eyes, and was convinced by my lie.  “Good.  You’re going to go scuba diving for your first time and have a little accident.” He gloated as he picked up a dive skin from a pile and tossed it my way.  “Put that on,” he commanded.  “Fortunately for us, there is all this gear to make it seem real.”

 

I looked around to see tanks with regulators and BCD vests hanging off of at least three.  Who ever ran this boat was careless; regulators shouldn’t be left attached like that.  I raised my bound wrists towards him.  “I can’t put any of this on tied up like a pig.”  I added, “How could my being tied up be explained?”

 

He pulled a large pocket knife from his jeans and snapped it open.  He held it menacingly in front of me, and I withdrew as far as the gunwales would let me.  “Give me your hands or I will slice you up for the sharks to eat,” he snarled.

                  

I reluctantly held my writs up and he cut away my bindings.  I felt relief at my limbs being freed and possibly defend myself when the moment appeared.  “I don’t have a swim suit.  Wont’ it look odd for me to put this on over my clothes?” I asked holding up the slightly damp dive skin.

 

“Take your clothes off and put it on.”  He barked, “Now!”

 

I slid over to one of the diving prep bench seats and I pulled off my tee, shucked off my jeans, boots and socks.  I then pulled on the light weight diving skin over my underwear, which could possibly pass as a modest swimsuit.  I was not going to give him the pleasure of seeing me stark staring naked as he was already devouring me with his beady eyes as he held the knife in readiness   With salt spray misting the cockpit, the boat rocked and pitched as it made it’s way further out of the west bay area,.  The sea’s azure blue of the shallow waters was becoming darker as it gave way to greater depths.  We were not swinging far enough west to catch the very busy shallow reef of Stingray City.  Every nice day, the five to twelve feet deep reef was host to countless stingrays and their multitude of human guests from dawn to dusk.  I had on several occasions helped Natalie shepherd groups of tourists to and from this popular spot.  Tourists were able to stand in the shallow waters and feed the stingrays chopped up squid right from their hands, or even catch a ray and get their photo taken wearing a live stingray sombrero. 

                         

I was definitely not going to be lucky enough to be heading towards the rays.  I felt a wave of despair threaten to drown me even before I reached the water.  If he did not kill me outright, he could set me adrift where eighteen to twenty hours would pass before anyone may possibly find me.  If he put me adrift outside of the farthest reef, no one would find me until my corpse or the dive gear washed up on some very far away beach.  Even if I survived being tossed overboard, the eighty degree water would slowly leach the heat from my body and I would succumb to hypothermia.  

      

I thought while eyeing his meaty fist wrapped around the knife, what ever happens I can’t let him cut me. The area is not greatly populated by sharks, but blood in the water is never a good idea for survival and I wanted, no… needed to survive.  “What now?”  I asked my captor.  “I can’t look like a diver in just a snorkel,” I said as he tossed a dive mask with attached snorkel at me.

 

“Put one of those on.”  He gestured at the weight belts littering the floor under the seat.

 

I picked up a belt with five one pound weights strung like giant square beads on the woven strapping.  I clumsily threaded the buckle and settled the belt around my waist.  Five pounds would be three pounds more than I normally wore, but was an easily manageable amount.

 

He grabbed a tank tagged as 36% nitrox with attached regs and BC vest and slung it next to me.  I could see that the vest was a Lady Hawk with a built in octopus so it had one less hose than the older traditional diving set up.  Feigning ignorance, I attempted to stand and heft the heavy tank and vest onto my back, nearly tumbling to the deck when the boat crashed through a large swell. I cringed as he grabbed me and flung me to the seat.

      

“Sit down and put that on,” he snapped as he set the tank beside me.

 

Turning my back to the tank, I easily slid my arms into the vest’s holes and zipped it closed.  “Where are you taking me?”  I asked hoping that it would be towards Black Forest reef rather than Lemon or Hammerhead, and I wondered if they even knew where they were heading.  Trying to be apparently uncomfortable with the weight now firmly attached to my back, I reached back to adjust the tank and to crack open the valve with trembling fingers.

 

“Out past some damn place called Eagle Ray Pass, at least according to what is marked on the GPS,” the man piloting the boat called back over his shoulder.

 

I covertly glanced at my attached dive computer to see if the tank was mostly empty or full.  Ah, finally some good luck!  The tank was a full one!  If I was very careful and did not expend any excess energy, I could stay submerged with this large tank of enriched air well over an hour, if I could manage hitting the water alive.

 

Neanderthal lobbed a pair of split fins at me and snapped, “Put those on.  You don’t need to know where you are going; the dam sea is all one big grave yard for you!”  He turned to the Hispanic man piloting the boat.  “How much longer?” he barked.

 

The pilot shouted over the engine’s roar, “Just a few minutes.  We need to be close enough to a dive site to look like she got left, but not so close that someone will actually see her for a long time.”

 

I could feel the panic closing off my throat.  I needed to do something, but what?  I do not have the time for a panic attack!  Damn it, think!  Sliding the fins on, I tighten the heel straps, and rose unsteadily to my feet to position my back as close to the gunwales as the narrow bench seat would allow.

 

Neanderthal glowered and barked at me, “Sit down!”  I continued to stand and threw a defiant look at him

 

As boat bounced and slammed through the waves, Neanderthal lunged towards me with fist raised. He took a swing at my head with goggles still raised.  Taking advantage of the unstable footing, I threw myself twisting backwards and away just as I turned my head taking a slight blow from his massive fist.  I flipped over the boat’s side away from this cretin and into the warm Caribbean waters.  As soon as I hit the water, I released the valve that controls the amount of air in the BC vest and began to sink.  The last thing I heard while on the surface was the shouting of the two men coming from the boat as they realized I was out of their control.  I pulled the mask over my eyes and nose and cleared the water from the inside of this mask as I have done hundreds of times as I quickly sank out of sight, popping my ears to equalize the building pressure.  I aimed to get near the forty to fifty foot bottom with the hope that I could hide in the depths, corals sea fans and fish long enough for them to decide I had drowned.  I could hear the whine of the boats motor coming closer.  I finally touched the sand of the bottom and turned to peer upwards at the slowly circling boat.  It was now just a dark shadowy form floating above me.  I adjusted the amount of air in the BC vest to give me neutral buoyancy, and took a compass bearing to orient myself as best as possible in my watery environment. 

 

I was fairly sure that Sting Ray City was somewhere to the west and south of my current location, and decided to swim towards that heading.  At least when I surfaced, I should be quite some distance from the lurking predatory boat.  Just before I began my ascent almost an hour later, I noticed a few beautiful black coral formations.  I did my normal decompression stop at fifteen feet, and keenly searched the surface for any sight or sound that the boat was close.  Seeing and hearing no sounds, I broke the surface and quickly scanned for the boat.  No “Sting Ray City” tourist boats, no dive boats, not even a glimpse of the island!  All that I saw was the blue water of the Caribbean with its surface broken by small peaks of gentle waves.  I had counted on being closer to the tourists and dive operators.  How had I gone wrong? I am an expert ant underwater navigation!  My dive instructor friend, Natalie and her fiancé Tim, have told me numerous times that I was the best they’d ever seen and even better that they were ant finding my way arounf under water.  I knew I’d gone over the “Black Forest” main dive site as I had swam close to and over several familiar formations.  I just must not have come as far away as I had hoped, but I still wasn’t over the outer reef, thank goodness!  I checked the dive computer for the time; it was mid-afternoon.  I was now experiencing one of scuba divers worst fears… being adrift!  I searched the many pockets of the LadyHawk vest to see if the owner possibly had any of the standard signaling devices divers should carry.  I was in luck, stowed in the right front pocket was a plastic whistle, a dive slate and a signal sausage.  I did not dare to inflate the sausage or start blowing the whistle, as Neanderthal and friend may still be in the area.  I did write a short message with my name and briefly why I was adrift on the dive slate and stuffed it back in the pocket.  I prayed the note would be un-necessary; I would be alive, conscious and find a friendly boat to pluck me from the warm waters of the Caribbean… I hoped.

 

Author's Note

All comments corrections and suggestions appreciated. If you want ti do a line by line review in a program like MS WORD please let me know and I will send you my yahoo email address