Deep Trouble
by Andreas Oertel

CHAPTER 1

“Are you sure you still want to do this?”  Eddie asked, squinting into the night towards Halcrow Lake.

“Absolutely, and we better hurry.” I followed his stare through the cracked windshield of his half-ton, and across the grass. “It’ll be light in an hour.”

Instinctively, we turned our heads towards the east. It was three thirty in the morning, but the sun was already pushing some pink onto the horizon.

We didn’t have much time.

“If we get caught…we’ve had it,” Eddie whispered, needlessly. There was no one around for a mile, and I could barely hear him above the din of mosquitoes, frogs, and other insects.

“Don’t worry. We won’t get caught.” I tried to calm him down, but there wasn’t much point. His face was already glistening with sweat.  Eddie only sweated when he was nervous.  “We’ll be gone before anyone shows up.”

He groped for the insect repellant on the dashboard, squeezed a quarter of the bottle in his hand, and smeared it over his perspiring arms, legs, and face. “What if there are guards?” he asked.  

“It’s a freakin golf course, Eddie.” I took the bottle from him and wiped some of the oily liquid on myself. “It’s not a bank.”

I knew Eddie wouldn’t make the first move—so I did.  Opening the door of the truck, I slipped into the humid August night. I took a deep breath and moved to the tailgate. Here we go.

Eddie took the hint and joined me.

Together we quickly unloaded the scuba gear and arranged it in front of his truck, near the fence.  The fence separated the fairgrounds from the Halcrow Lake Golf and Country Club. Luckily it wasn’t much of a barrier, just three strands of rusty, barbed wire stapled to posts.

The lights of a car suddenly came at us from down the highway.  We both froze.

Eddie’s dark features lit-up momentarily, as the headlights swung across the field like a searchlight. His black hair was plastered with sweat against his forehead. The guy could run five miles without getting hot, but when he was nervous his pores opened like floodgates. The car followed the bend in the road and continued towards town.  

“That was close,” Eddie said. His wrist swept across his forehead like a windshield wiper.

Eddie put one hand on a fence post and gracefully vaulted the top wire.  Mosquitoes droned around us in frustration, as I passed the scuba gear over the wire.  First the heavy air tanks, then the weight belts, and finally the dive bags, which contained everything else.  I looked in the back of the truck to make sure we didn’t forget anything, and then followed Eddie over the fence.  

My eyes stung from sweat and insect repellant. “Let’s see if we can get the gear to the water in one trip,” I said.  

Eddie grunted his agreement.  

Scooping up the heavy aluminum air cylinders, he headed across the fairway to Halcrow Lake. We’d chosen the closest route from the fence to the lake, but we still had to cross two hundred feet.  I trailed behind him carrying the rest of the gear.

The muscles in my shoulders burned by the time I caught up to him at the edge of the lake.  Slumping to the grass I tried to catch my breath.

Eddie stood over me breathing evenly. “Do we have time for a nap, Jack?” he asked sarcastically—a big grin spreading across his face.    

“Who’s napping?  I was going to do some sit-ups to warm up.” I squinted at the luminous hands of my Sector dive watch. “It’s ten to four. Let’s get in before we’re spotted.”   

We removed our shorts, shoes and T-shirts, and struggled to get in the wetsuits before the bugs found our unprotected backs.  The water would be warm enough near the top, but on the bottom you needed a wetsuit. We knew from experience that even comfortable water could suck the heat from your body and cause hypothermia.

Once I was in my protective, neoprene shell, I could assemble the buoyancy compensator vest without loosing gallons of blood. The BC was everything in scuba diving. It was the parachute that helped you float to the bottom at a controlled rate. It was a life-vest, which could pull you to safety in an emergency. And it was a jacket and backpack, with half a dozen pockets, to store everything you might need or find on a dive.

I threaded the regulator on the air valve, and secured the tank to the BC. “You okay?” I asked.

“Son-of-a-bitch,” Eddie cursed. “I wish I could see what the hell I was doing.” He was still fumbling with the zipper on the chest of his wetsuit.

I knocked his hand out of the way. “Move your sausage fingers, and let me see.”  He had pinched the zipper in frustration and it wouldn’t move up or down.

“Forget about it,” I said, rigging Eddie’s BC. “With your ninety-nine percent body fat, you’ll be warm enough.”

Eddie giggled and ignored the zipper. He hoisted the BC and air tank for me, and I stuck my arms in the vest. Then I did the same for him—only with more difficulty.  

With everything on, we examined each other and did a final safety check of our equipment.  As I did my pre-dive sweep of Eddie’s gear, I marveled again at our differences and similarities.

Eddie Raven and I had almost everything in common, but physically we couldn’t have been more different.  We were both born on the same day sixteen years ago, and had been best friends since kindergarten.  And our interests had never varied.

But to look at us was a different story. My blond hair, blue eyes, and fair skin were a sharp contrast to Eddie’s features.  He had jet-black hair, brown eyes, and skin the color of humus. Eddie was a native Cree.

“Everything looks good, Mr. Raven,” I said, slapping Eddie’s broad back. We often used our last names while diving, just as Mr. Jelfs our instructor had the previous summer. We thought it was funny at the time, but kept doing it long after we’d been certified.

It was Eddie’s turn now to look me over.      

He checked the air valve on the tank behind my neck, to make sure it was open. Then he examined my hoses and straps to see if anything was pinched or tangled.  He grabbed my pressure gauge and held it up to his face.  “Three thousand pounds, Mister St. Mars.  You’re good.”  

I bit down on my regulator mouth-piece to ensure it was working.  A blast of dry, compressed air filled my lungs as I inhaled. It worked fine.

We were about to break the law, but we didn’t cut corners with safety.  

We lumbered into the water and put on our fins.  It was always easier putting them on wet.  I watched Eddie spit into his mask and rub saliva carefully around the plastic lens.  Most divers do this to prevent the lens from fogging, but Eddie always seemed to take forever.  It was like his pre-dive ritual or something.

I waited patiently and thought about how much easier this would be if Mr. Freemantle, the head greens keeper, let us dive in the lake during the day.  All we wanted was permission to recover some of the thousands of golf balls that carpeted the bottom.  Halcrow Lake was a huge water hazard for three of the holes on the course, and it swallowed up dozens of balls every day.

Eddie and I had sat where his truck was now parked for three hours one afternoon, and with binoculars we watched ball after ball splash into the lake.  We had conservatively estimated that at least ten golf balls disappeared in the lake every hour.  And we wanted them.

Actually, we didn’t want the balls, we wanted money for the balls.  It didn’t matter to us if we sold them, or if Mr. Freemantle paid us for each ball we recovered.  We liked diving and we liked money, and we thought our offer was good for everyone.  That’s why we couldn’t believe his reaction.

I could still see his narrow, pockmarked face—“It looked like an asteroid,” Eddie said later. Freemantle almost threw us out of his office. He said he’d never let us dive in the lake, and that if he found out we had, he’d “prosecute us to the full extent of the law.”  Whatever that meant.  

“Are you coming, or what?”  Eddie said, pulling me back to the present.

“If you’re finished spreading phlegm on your goggles.”  I laughed and switched on my Pelican divelight, keeping the powerful beam under the water. Eddie did the same with his Nautica light.

“Let’s stay close to each other down there.”  We didn’t know what to expect beneath the surface, and I didn’t want us to run into trouble.  It would be easy to get tangled in irrigation hoses, cables, and weeds—especially in the dark.   

We popped the regulators in our mouths and slipped below the black surface.

It was always a thrill when Eddie and I went diving, but this was different.  It was four o’clock in the morning, and we could see almost nothing beyond the beams of our divelights. And we were breaking the law.

Once we descended six feet, we began to see golf balls.  They glowed like hundreds of tiny eyes when our beams passed over them.  First just a few balls here and there.  Then more and more.  As fast as we could, we scooped them up into our mesh “goody bags,” always being careful not to stir the fine bottom sediment.  

The plan was working perfectly. So far.

After ten minutes, I paused to shine the light on my depth gauge—13 feet.  The lake was already deeper than I’d thought, and the bottom still sloped away beneath us.  I wasn’t too concerned, but it would have been nice if the whole lake was only 12 feet deep.  It was comforting to see Eddie four feet away, sweeping his light along the bottom.

I followed him deeper.

As we descended, the number of golf balls increased.  We couldn’t scoop them up fast enough.  In some areas there were mounds of balls, as if heaped-up by some underwater creature.  This is too easy.

I did some quick math in my head. If we each pulled out four hundred balls, and sold them for twenty five cents each, we’d have….

Eddie tapped my arm.

I turned to him. What?  

Aiming the flashlight at his mouth, he removed his regulator and showed me his white, grinning teeth.  I laughed uncontrollably into my own regulator—bubbles rising around my head.  

I was glad Eddie was having fun.

Adjusting my mask, I continued plucking golf balls from the lake bottom.  We were now at 20 feet, and my cargo was getting heavy.  I still had plenty of air, but I had a hard time maintaining neutral buoyancy.  

My bag, now filled with over two hundred golf balls, kept hitting the silt-covered lake bottom, making it impossible to see.  Huge clouds of sediment hung suspended around me, and I had to swim through these areas before I could resume collecting.

I decided to grab another twenty-five golf balls and then head back up with Eddie.  No point in getting greedy.  We could always return.  

Suddenly, off to my right, Eddie’s light flashed wildly through the murky water. A chill shot down my spine.  Something was wrong. With three frantic kicks I was beside him.

I grabbed his muscled arm and pulled him close. Peering through his half-flooded mask, I gave him a “What the hell’s wrong?” look.  He was terrified and shaking like he’d seen a ghost.

I tried to hold him—to calm him down, but he was already kicking violently towards the surface.  His powerful legs would have propelled him out of the water like a rocket, but the bag wrapped around his wrist slowed him down.

One of Eddie’s fins caught my regulator and ripped it from my mouth.  I knew the surface was near, so I didn’t bother groping for it.

I hit the surface seconds after Eddie—gasping for air.  He spat out his regulator and ripped off his mask.  He was really freaking me out.  You never take your mask off in the water.  Never!   

Eddie was kicking hard, trying to stay afloat.  I grabbed his buoyancy vest and hit the power inflator button on his chest.  The valve opened with a hiss, allowing air from the tank to fill the inflatable jacket liner.  He could now float in the water without struggling.

“What’s wrong, Eddie?” I asked, my face just inches from his.  “What happened down there?  Did you see something?  Tell me!”