The Danger ( PDFDrive.com )

Tired.
Kaz’s awareness diminished one wave at a time, until only that single word
remained.
He bobbed in the heavy chop, kept afloat by the air in his B.C. But he felt
nothing anymore — no motion, no spray, no heat from the blazing sun. He knew
only his own exhaustion.
His sense of time had been the first to go. Underwater, fighting the current,
he had lost track of the decompression schedule. Terrified of ascending too soon,
he’d done the only thing that made any sense — stayed under until his oxygen
had run out. At that point, he’d had no choice. He had broken the waves, gasping
for air.
He had no idea how long he’d been floating here. Hours? Days? The one
thing he knew with absolute clarity was that it couldn’t go on much longer.
He struggled against the confusion, reciting his name, address, and telephone
number — concrete facts to replace his disorientation.
“My name is Bobby Kaczinski … I play right defense …”
Then what are you doing in the middle of the ocean?
It took a moment for him to come up with the answer to that question.
“I’m a diver. I was on a dive, but something went wrong.” He could not
remember what, just that he was here, and had been here for a long time.
He barely noticed when the roar of the outboard motor swelled over the
whitecaps. Nor did he recognize the dark features that loomed over him as he
was lifted into the inflatable raft. But the face of his rescuer was the most
welcome sight he’d ever laid eyes on.
*
Adriana and Dante hurried through the narrow streets of the tiny village of