Writing my first novel

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The black-clad diver came through the blue water like a torpedo. Fast. Deliberate. Deadly.

Mercer saw the weapon immediately, a compact underwater speargun modified with compressed gas propulsion instead of elastic bands. Military-grade. Built for killing divers, not hunting fish.

The attacker leveled it directly at Mercer. Rourke fired first.

The muffled underwater crack of the pistol sounded strangely small beneath the sea, but the round streaked through the water column trailing cavitation bubbles toward the approaching diver.

The Hijos operative twisted sideways with terrifying agility. The bullet missed. Then the speargun fired. The steel dart punched through the compartment opening so hard it buried itself six inches into the wreck bulkhead inches from Mercer’s head.

Mercer jerked backward instantly. The attacker surged closer. Not alone. Two more dark shapes appeared behind him out of the blue haze beyond the reef edge.

Three divers. All armed. All moving with disciplined formation. Mercer’s pulse pounded inside his ears. This wasn’t intimidation. This was an execution attempt.

Rourke kicked sideways across the reef and fired twice more while using the coral shelf for partial cover. One round clipped the lead diver’s shoulder tank, bursting a stream of silver bubbles into the water.

The diver barely reacted.

Mercer yanked the black document case free from the cargo straps and shoved it into a clipped recovery bag on his harness.

Suddenly, the wreck shuddered violently. One of the Hijos divers had planted something beneath the hull. A muffled underwater detonation erupted across the reef shelf. The blast wave hit Mercer like a truck. The compartment exploded into splintered debris and sediment. Visibility vanished instantly into a boiling cloud of white sand, shattered coral, and air bubbles.

Mercer slammed hard into the compartment ceiling as wreckage collapsed around him. His regulator nearly tore free. Pain shot through his shoulder. Outside, Rourke disappeared completely into the chaos.

Mercer couldn’t see anything. Couldn’t hear anything beyond the violent roar of bubbles and the pounding of his own heartbeat. Instinct took over. Move.

He kicked hard through the collapsing wreckage just as a section of cabin wall crashed into the compartment behind him. The entire stern structure was coming apart. Mercer burst free into open water.

Visibility remained awful. Less than six feet now inside the drifting sediment cloud.

Shapes moved everywhere. Impossible to identify. Then a dark figure emerged directly in front of him. Mercer reacted instantly, driving forward with his dive knife. The figure grabbed his wrist mid-strike.

Not Rourke.

The Hijos diver slammed into him bodily, both men spiraling across the reef in a violent tangle of hoses, tanks, and limbs. The diver moved incredibly well underwater. Military trained.

Mercer trapped the man’s knife arm and smashed his dive mask against a coral outcropping. Cracks spread instantly across the tempered glass. The diver retaliated by driving a combat blade toward Mercer’s ribs. Mercer caught the wrist barely inches from impact.

Both men rolled across the reef edge locked together while bubbles exploded upward around them. The Hijos operative headbutted Mercer hard enough to blur his vision. Mercer answered with brutal force, ramming his thumb beneath the edge of the diver’s damaged mask seal.

Seawater flooded inside immediately. The operative jerked violently in panic as saltwater hit his eyes and nose. Mercer ripped the knife free and stabbed downward into the diver’s buoyancy bladder. Air erupted outward in a violent silver torrent. The diver instantly lost stability control. He spun backward uncontrollably toward deeper water while clawing desperately at his harness. Gone into the haze.

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The recovery bag. He looked down instantly. The strap holding Vale’s document case had snagged beneath a twisted section of mast rigging now sliding slowly toward the trench. The entire tangled wreck structure shifted ominously beneath him.

Rourke saw it immediately. His eyes widened behind the dive mask. Leave it. Mercer hesitated for one fatal second. The rigging suddenly jerked hard. The wreck section broke free entirely and began plunging toward the abyss, dragging Mercer with it. Rourke reacted instantly. He drew his knife and slashed downward across the tangled strap.

The recovery bag tore loose just as the wreckage vanished into the trench darkness beneath them. Mercer and Rourke were violently sucked downward in the wake of it. For one terrifying moment Mercer felt himself falling underwater, dragged toward the abyss by the displaced current.

Both men kicked with everything they had. Eighty feet. Seventy-five. Seventy. The sediment cloud thinned slightly. Sunlight strengthened overhead.

Mercer’s lungs burned despite the regulator airflow as adrenaline and exertion devoured oxygen. He glanced sideways. Rourke’s pressure gauge flashed red. Low air. shite.

Rourke signaled it immediately. Mercer nodded once and unclipped his secondary regulator hose. Rourke grabbed it without hesitation.

Now tethered together, both men continued ascending through the haze while the reef collapsed behind them in muffled thunder. Shapes emerged overhead. The reef shelf. Open water.

And above that, the distant shadow of the BLACK REEF floating against the sunlit surface. Mercer had never seen anything more beautiful. But they weren’t safe yet.

A dark shape appeared between them and the surface. Descending rapidly. Mercer’s stomach tightened instantly. Another diver?

No. It was Baptiste.

The old salvage captain came down through the blue water carrying a compact underwater propulsion sled in one hand and a short-barreled spear launcher in the other. Even underwater, the man looked utterly calm. Baptiste reached them fast and checked both divers quickly with experienced eyes. Then he looked downward toward the collapsing trench. The captain’s expression hardened immediately.

He signaled sharply: MOVE. Now.

Mercer clipped the recovery bag securely to his chest harness while Baptiste handed the propulsion sled to Rourke. The compact motor roared softly underwater as Rourke activated it. Instant acceleration yanked all three men forward through the water toward the Black Reef.

Behind them, the trench continued collapsing in slow-motion catastrophe. Entire sections of reef vanished into darkness amid expanding clouds of white sediment. And something else moved inside the haze. Mercer saw it first. Another diver.

The last Hijos operative. Alive.

The man emerged from the drifting debris cloud swimming hard after them despite the chaos, blood trailing from one arm where Rourke had shattered it earlier. Relentless.

The operative raised an underwater pistol and fired. A round streaked past Baptiste’s shoulder trailing cavitation bubbles. Baptiste rotated calmly in the water and fired the spear launcher one-handed. The steel shaft punched clean through the operative’s chest.

The diver convulsed once. Then the collapsing trench current seized him and dragged him backward into the swirling white abyss. Gone instantly.
Mercer stared after him for a brief second. Then Baptiste shoved him sharply toward the surface.

All three men rocketed upward together through increasingly clear blue water. Twenty feet. Fifteen. Ten. Sunlight exploded overhead in blinding silver. Then they burst through the surface beside the Black Reef in a violent eruption of foam and spray.

Crewmen hauled them aboard immediately. Hands grabbed harness straps and tank rigs, dragging all three divers onto the steel dive platform while seawater poured across the deck.

Mercer collapsed hard onto his back, ripping the regulator free as he sucked huge breaths of hot Caribbean air. Above him, the sky looked impossibly blue.

Rourke lay beside him coughing seawater and laughing simultaneously.

“That,” he gasped, “officially sucked.”

Mercer laughed despite himself.

Nearby, Baptiste stripped off his mask calmly while crewmen crowded the stern rail staring toward the reef edge. Mercer pushed himself upright painfully and looked back across the water. The sea near the trench had changed completely.

White sediment boiled upward across the surface in enormous swirling patches while sections of coral continued collapsing below. The beautiful turquoise water had become a spreading stain of pale ruin.

One of Baptiste’s crew crossed himself quietly. The captain lit a cigarette with perfectly steady hands despite the soaked clothing and glanced toward Mercer. “You found something.”

Not a question.

Mercer looked down at the recovery bag still clipped securely against his chest. The black document case remained intact.

Rourke noticed it too and barked out a disbelieving laugh. “You crazy son of a bitch,” he said between breaths. “You actually kept it.”

Mercer unclipped the bag slowly. Every crewman on deck watched now. Even Baptiste’s expression sharpened slightly. The case looked old. Very old. Black leather reinforced with brass corner fittings beneath waterproof archival wrapping. Scuffed. Salt-stained. But remarkably intact after decades underwater. Mercer turned it carefully in his hands.

Then noticed something that made his pulse quicken immediately. Stamped faintly into the leather near the brass clasp sat a small embossed marking almost worn away by age.

Not a government seal. Not a military insignia.

A crown, and beneath it, a silver trident.

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