Twenty-four feet beneath the surface of the Deep Anchor Anchorage, the light died into the color of curdled moss.
Tomas Reed stood knee-deep in the anaerobic marl of the basin floor, his twelve-pound lead soles sucking into the muck with every step. Above him, thirty deep-water lengths of braided hemp hose and vulcanized tube snaked upward through the green salt water to the diving punt moored beside Slipway Four. Through the bronze faceplate of his four-bolt helmet, the world was a circle of distorted murk lit only by faint grayness filtering down from the fog-choked harbor.
Every eight seconds, the double-acting copper pump on the pontoon clanked through the air line. Clack-wheeze. Clack-wheeze. The sound traveled down the hose as a rhythmic hammer-stroke inside the helmet. That brought the bitter smell of whale animal fat and hot copper filings onto Tomas’s tongue.
Deep water pressure pressed the stiff rubberized canvas hard against his shins and ribs. He drove the sea chill through his double-layered wool drawers. On his left arm beneath the cuff, the calfskin brace held his scarred forearm rigid. Even bound in cured hide, the scarred tendon sheath throbbed with a cold pull that tightened his two smallest fingers into a reflex half-curl, restricting his grip to sixty-five percent of normal purchase.
