Payback (5 page)

The head man in the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Department lifted his brows and shook his head. “Hell, right now your doubts are the only thing we have to go on. We've got a murdered man on our hands, and so far not a hope of finding out who did it. How many men on the 27 platform where the man worked?”

“I saw a report that said it had about thirty men,” Irwin said.

“Okay, tomorrow we'll send out three of our detectives and they will interview every man. We might turn up somebody who had a grudge against Gifford strong enough to kill him. Whoever murdered Gifford must also have been a diver, or at least a good swimmer. Something to watch for.”

“I'd like to go along.”

“Negative, Irwin. Interviewing is not your strong suit. I have three men who are experts at it. They'll go out tomorrow and do a good job.”

“So that leaves me to do what?”

“You watch for any signs of activity or problems in the water around that tower. Large boats coming there and anchoring. Next time one does that, we get the Coast Guard and we go out and inspect the ship on some pretext. You keep in touch with Pete Rumford, that platform boss on 27. Whenever he spots a freighter dropping anchor near that Platform 4, have him give you a ring.”

“Yes, sir,” Irwin said, reverting to his SEAL training. He could take orders even if he didn't like them. He spent the rest of the day on routine calls, and just after dark, drove his two-year-old SUV to his favorite parking spot when he went diving. He put on his wet suit, cap, and boots and took out the new Draegr III. It was the latest underwater rebreathing device, and didn't leave a string of bubbles. This one was programmed to mix the right amount of chemicals with the oxygen so a diver could go as deep as he wanted to and still get the right mix of air. It was the same type he had used in the SEALs. He locked the SUV, put the key in the small flap
pocket on the wet suit, and walked into the water off Goleta Point.

Nevin swam toward the lighted oil-drilling rig. He figured it was about two miles, not even a warm-up. He went down ten feet and stroked toward the tower the way he used to in the SEALs. His blown-out knee had been replaced and worked fine in the water. It was the parachute drops hitting the ground at twenty-one feet per second with two hundred pounds of equipment and ammo that his new knee couldn't take. He loved the water. Sometimes he felt more at home in the ocean than he did on land. He surfaced with just his face out of the water. He was dead on course. A small moon gave off its feeble light, but he didn't need it. The required marine lights were on the tower, plus a few hundred more bulbs to make sure no wandering tanker or freighter crashed into the rig.

Nevin went back down to ten feet and stroked toward the tower. He had no idea what he would find once he got there. He had looked at the steel pipes that extended downward into the depths when he had been there that morning. He could see about ten feet, and nothing had looked unusual.

At least he could do a good scouting job, and if he did find anything out of the ordinary, he'd go back out with the sheriff and make a thorough inspection. What could you hide around an oil-drilling rig? It didn't make a lot of sense. But then neither did the murder of a man who the platform boss on 27 thought had had suspicions about Oil Rig 4.

The next time Nevin surfaced, he was fifty feet from the tower. He dove then, working down to fifty feet and sensing change in the air/chemical mix that would keep his body functioning despite the added depth pressure. He came on the first tendon and touched it. He circled it and looked upward. No huge mass obstructed his view of the surface where the half-moon and the rig's lightbulbs gave off a faint glow. He dove down, checking the pipe all the way to the bottom. Nevin had no idea how deep the water was here, but well beyond what the old Draegr would tolerate.

Nothing. He found nothing. That troubled him. There had to be something here or nearby. What in the hell was going on? He worked his way back up. At forty feet he saw a
swimmer above him, moving slowly back and forth from one steel tendon to the next. Hunting him, or patrolling? Either way it was bad news and good news. It could mean they knew he was there. The good news was if they had a swimmer out at night, they did have something to hide.

He worked up cautiously, trying to stay away from the swimmer above, confident that the one on top could not see him in the gloom of the deeper water. Then the swimmer above turned and came directly toward him. Nevin's hand flashed to the KA-BAR knife in its leg scabbard. He had it out and ready when some sixth sense made him turn his head and look behind him. Another swimmer was there within arm's reach and Nevin saw the blade in his hand. Nevin tried to power away, but he was too late. He hadn't watched his back the way every good SEAL always did. The thrust of the blade missed his back, but cut a slit across the wet suit's side, letting in a surge of cold water.

Nevin spun around to face the fighter just as the second diver above reached him and drove his own knife into the Draegr, disabling it and ripping off the mouthpiece. Nevin kicked and powered for the surface. He figured he had about ninety seconds. That was as long as he could hold his breath, and he was getting no air from the torn-apart Draegr. The second diver followed him, slashing at his kicking feet. Then he was closer to Nevin and the knife went into his side, daggering through the tough wet suit and bringing a gush of water into his screaming mouth.

His beating legs slowed and then stopped. Nevin had never felt pain like that. It overwhelmed him. It burned in his side; it exploded in his brain. He mouth refused to close and more water surged in. He tried to find the attackers. They had pulled back and he could barely make them out. They had attacked. Now they rested and let the sea claim one of her own. His arms went limp. He had no control over them or his legs. The lights from above fuzzed out, came back, then went almost black. He didn't know if he was floating upward or sinking. He hadn't thought about dying since leaving the SEALs. Now the idea came into his fogged brain and he rejected it. Spewed it out with the water in his mouth and held his breath. Another few strokes and he would be on the
surface and find plenty of air. But his arms wouldn't work. His side hurt like fire. For a moment his whole body shook, and then a strange calm settled over him. He looked up at the lights, but they faded more and more to a dusty gray, and then to full black. He let out the last breath in his burning lungs and let the Pacific Ocean stream into his mouth and nose. He couldn't fight it anymore. He felt his whole body relax, and he knew then that he was sinking. There was no light or dark, there was only the cool, serene waters of the ocean. Now at last he had returned to the ocean from which life had begun so many millions of years ago. He was one with the sea. Then a total, inescapable, deadly deep darkness engulfed him and he sank deeper and deeper into the Santa Barbara Channel.

Murdock stared at the news story in the San Diego
Union-Tribune.
It had made the front page. “Former Coronado SEAL Murdered in Santa Barbara.” He read the item quickly.

“Santa Barbara Deputy Sheriff Nevin Irwin . . .”

“Damn, it's Irwin, he's dead,” Murdock blurted out. Lieutenant Ed DeWitt looked up from the training chart he was writing. “Irwin? Nevin Irwin, who used to be in Team Five?”

“Yeah. I interviewed him a couple of times to come to our platoon. Then he blew out a knee. I knew he was up at Santa Barbara with the Sheriff's Department.” He read the article aloud.

“The body of missing former Navy SEAL Nevin Irwin, a county deputy sheriff, washed up on Goleta Beach this morning. The county coroner said the body had been in the water for up to a week. Irwin had been reported missing at the Sheriff's Department six days ago when he failed to report to work.

“His vehicle, a late-model SUV, was found near Goleta Point, where many surfers and divers often park. Irwin wore a full wet suit and an underwater breathing device. The coroner said death was due to a deep knife wound through the side that penetrated the wet suit. There was also seawater in the victim's lungs.

“Irwin had been with the Sheriff's Department for almost two years, had as his special assignment all water-related problems, and did whatever diving the sheriff needed doing.

“Sheriff Kirkendol expressed regrets at the death, and
praised Irwin as an ideal deputy. He said Irwin had not been on any specific assignment involving the beach or the channel and that he did little recreational diving. Sheriff Kirkendol said the murder of the deputy would be investigated thoroughly and the perpetrator would be brought to justice.”

Murdock passed the paper to DeWitt, who read it and looked up. “Most SEALs don't lose underwater knife fights.”

“Unless he was outnumbered three or four to one.” Murdock stared at the paper. A former SEAL killed in the water. That was unusual. Who would be skillful enough to do that? Another SEAL or some other highly trained diver. Who and from where? He looked at DeWitt. “You have the training sked worked out for the rest of the week?”

“Nearly done, Commander.”

“Good, you've got the con. I'm going to take three days leave and I'll see you next Monday.”

Ed looked up, then nodded. “My guess is you're going up to Santa Barbara.”

“Thought I might, but you don't need to tell anyone. I'll tell the master chief. He can reach me on my cell phone if we get an alert.”

Ed stood. “My guess is you'll be needing your full wet suit and a Draegr.”

“Might just need them at that, Ed. Thanks. You take care of the store.”

 

Just after noon that same day, Blake Murdock sat across the desk from Sheriff Kirkendol. He wore civilian clothes and had just shown the sheriff his military ID and his SEAL Special Duty Card.

“Sheriff, I knew Nevin Irwin. He wasn't in my platoon, but I had interviewed him twice. If he hadn't blown out his knee he would have been one of my men. It bothers me that a former SEAL was killed in a knife fight in the channel. Our men are highly trained in knife fighting in and out of the water. In the water there are few men in the world who can beat us.”

“We can't say for sure he was killed in the water,
Commander. He might have been drowned first, then stabbed, or the other way around.”

“Still, it would take an extremely skilled and trained man to do it to Irwin. If that's so, you may be dealing here with something more than a shiv fight at a tavern.”

The sheriff shifted in his seat, took a sip of his coffee, and stared at Murdock over the rim of the cup.

“Commander, I don't know just how much to tell you. Irwin wasn't on a water assignment the night he was killed, but we had been talking about another water death of an oil-rig worker. The man had been snorkeling and became entangled in wire around one leg of his diving platform three feet underwater. He drowned. The wire hadn't been there the day before.”

“You have any suspects?”

“Not for sure. The platform boss where the man died said the worker had been curious about another drilling platform. Said curious things were going on out there. Gifford, the drowned man, was a scuba instructor and led kids on free-diving tours. He was an expert in the water. The coroner's report says he was clubbed on the head and then drowned.”

“So, Irwin wanted to check out that other oil platform?” Murdock asked.

“We did. Went on a safety inspection. Everything seemed normal. She was drilling, nothing out of order.”

“But Irwin wasn't satisfied. You guess that he parked his car on the point and swam out to the other platform.”

The sheriff frowned. “I'm not sure of anything. But that is a strong possibility. Irwin wasn't easy to get off a project once he got a sniff of something rotten. I'd bet my last twenty he swam out there the night he was killed.”

“What could they be doing illegal on that drilling rig?” Murdock asked. “It's too small to store drugs on there that they took off some ship. They could be smuggling diamonds, but that would be a lot of extra trouble. What could be going on?”

“We've had reports of merchant freighters stopping at the platform,” the sheriff said. “Some stay a few hours, some overnight. Makes no sense to me.”

“A question. If they killed the first man and tried to make
it look like an accident, why didn't they do the same with Irwin? If they couldn't, why would they let the body wash up on shore when it would be obvious he was murdered?”

“Bothered us here too. Our best ideas are that in the fight the other man might have been wounded and had to go for aid, or maybe he simply lost the body. It would sink right after being killed, and at night at even a hundred feet a black-clad body would be tough to find.”

“Makes sense, Sheriff. This is sounding more and more like something highly sensitive is happening on or near that tower. The ships stopping is puzzling. Were there many Orientals on that platform?”

“Yes, now that you mention it. The man who toured us around said they had a lot of foreign workers. They didn't care what nationality they were if they were good at their jobs.”

“Orientals? Chinese?”

“I'm no expert telling Chinese from Japanese from Koreans, but I'd guess there were ten or fifteen Orientals out there who I saw.”

“Have you made a report to any other agency?”

“Just the Coast Guard. I reminded them that I have jurisdiction on the platforms, but they might want to keep an eye on them.”

“I was thinking more like the U.S. Attorney General's office or the FBI.”

“Oh, hell, no. Why would they be interested?”

“I don't know, just wondered.”

The two men looked at each other for a moment. Then the sheriff shook his head. “I can't let you go out there, Commander. I lost one good man to whatever it is out there. I don't want you on my conscience too.”

“Thanks for the warning, Sheriff. But I'm just a private citizen going for a nighttime swim.”

“You don't know what's out there, Commander.”

“No, but I know they are deadly, and knowing that, I'll be ready for whoever shows up. I'd like to bring back one of those live divers they must have. There had to be more than one to get the drop on Irwin that way. He had to have
been surprised and attacked from the side or the back while facing another fighter.”

“Are you better in the water than Irwin was?”

“Sheriff, I've killed at least a dozen divers in the water in my career. So far I've been better than the man facing me.”

“A dozen?”

“Sheriff, we're SEALs. We work in places and on big and little jobs you never hear about. So don't let me be a worry to you. If I find out anything, I'll tell you, or the FBI or the CIA or the President. If I don't, nothing is lost. If I don't come back, I've met the man who's better than I am at underwater fighting.”

 

Two hours later, Murdock found the spot he wanted on Goleta Point to park his Ford Explorer. It was another two hours until dark. He had a burger and a milk shake and took a quick combat nap in the cab of his SUV. At dusk he put on his full wet suit, boots, and cap and then shrugged into his Draegr. It was the new type that mixed nitrogen and oxygen according to the depth you were diving. At a hundred feet it was a 32% mixture. If you went deeper it changed. It meant you didn't have to set the depth mixture you wanted as you did on the older Draegrs.

He'd had special Velcro flaps put on the wet suit on each thigh. One held an ultra-short speargun. It was powered by CO-2 cartridges and fired a steel shaft that looked like a ten-inch dart. It had three shots. Accuracy was good up to twenty feet. Beyond that it was plain luck. On his left thigh he positioned an old reliable Colt Detective Special .38-caliber with a two-inch barrel and six rounds. He checked the loads and put rounds in all six holes. Firing a pistol underwater wasn't the smartest move. It was a last-ditch defense. He checked his KA-BAR to be sure it was in place. He put in earplugs and carried his flippers to the edge of the water. The point was deserted. He slipped into the channel just as complete darkness fell.

As he waded out, he spotted the lights of the two drill rigs in the immediate area. The one they called 27 was to the left, and farther out to the right would be the mystery tower, 4. The lights on both towers glowed in the darkness of the
channel and the faint islands beyond. He figured it at two miles at the most.

For the first mile, Murdock swam on the surface. It was faster and there was no way his splash would be noticed. He had just passed the first platform when he went underwater to his normal fifteen feet and powered forward toward the second tower. He had no idea what he would find there, but he would start out deep and check around. He would constantly keep watching his back, and if any divers showed up, he'd be ready for them.

He came up once more to check his course, changed it slightly to the right. He was two hundred yards from the tower. It looked benign enough. Lights everywhere. He could see men working, hear the clang and roar of motors and steel hitting steel. Nowhere could he see any security lights bathing the channel waters around the tower legs. To detect any movement in the water around the tower would take a series of sonars, and he doubted if this outfit had them. But how else would they know there was a swimmer in the water near the tower? He gave his silent mind a point. All right, they had sonar, and highly sophisticated so it could tell the difference between a shark and a man swimming.

When he could see the lights through the fifteen feet of water, he surfaced once more and checked the oil rig. He was so close now he couldn't see the top two levels. He could spot nobody on the first story. One more long look around, then he swam down and worked toward the depths. He leveled off at what he guessed was eighty feet and did a slow circle, watching every way around the compass. He spotted no swimmers, but his visibility was no more than five feet down this deep. He could still see the lights of the tower above, although now they were faint and wavering.

Time to start up. The sonar should have picked him up by now. Where did they have the sonar setup? How powerful was it? He leveled off at fifty feet. No swimmers, no spearguns, no bang sticks. He wondered if a bang stick would disable a man as well as a shark? He knew it would. The CO-2 set off by a shotgun shell would slam through a wet suit and gush inside the body cavity, expanding rapidly. It probably would collapse both lungs and balloon the body,
sending it floating quickly to the surface. He should have a few for the SEALs.

At thirty feet he paused again, then swam around the square legs of the tower. No enemy divers. Why? If they had regular scuba gear they could easily go to thirty feet. The old Draegrs were set to work at a maximum of thirty-five feet. He looked upward watching for any shadows crossing the pattern of light from the hundreds of bare bulbs burning on the platform. Nothing. The third time he swept the area he found a swimmer. High up, maybe at fifteen feet.

Could the ones running the sonar communicate with a swimmer in the water? He didn't know. If they had sonar, they might have a way to use voice through the water to a swimmer. He'd have to check that out. Upstairs. They were watching for him up there. They? He watched for another fifteen minutes and saw three swimmers. They came together for a conference evidently, then parted. Two went out of sight and the third one stayed on Murdock's side of the platform.

He knew now the swimmers were there. Time for more surveillance. He swam down to the bottom. He wasn't sure of the depth as he began to swim around the tower in ever-widening circles. Out about fifty yards on the west side of the tower, he found a strange structure on the sea floor. It was a dark blob, but definitely man-made. He didn't want to use the one waterproof light he had. Up close he estimated the concrete-looking dome of a building was fifty feet square and fifteen feet high. There were no pipes, tubes, or wires extending from the structure on any side he could see, and no entryway on the sides or top. He pulled away from it and swam toward the tower and upward.

At fifty feet he paused again and watched for the shadow divers above him. Once more they gathered, probably exchanging notes on write boards, flashing small lights. Then they parted. Murdock drew his KA-BAR and powered upward at the lone diver on his side of the tower. The guard swimmer moved slowly back and forth as if walking a post. Murdock came up beneath him and touched his foot. The man reacted at once, drawing a knife and turning to face Murdock. The Navy SEAL powered straight at the surprised
diver, batted away his knife hand, feinted one way, then drove in the other way, his KA-BAR slashing and tearing at the diver's face mask and air tube. The man wore air tanks and was clumsy in his turns. Murdock dodged one way, surged upward as the airless diver clawed his way toward the surface. Murdock caught him and drove his blade deeply into the man's stomach, then jerked it out.