Free kiDNApped (A Tara Shores Thriller) by Rick Chesler Page B

scientists to the field of marine biology, such as turtles, sharks, dolphins, whales and the like, but by the unseen organisms all around them—in the water, the sand, even within the larger animals themselves, Kristen knew. She swam along the bottom, taking special care not to let her fins kick up the sand, which would ruin their visibility.
    She looked over and saw Dave treading water, turning slowly around, looking. Then he turned to face her and gestured excitedly.
    This way!
    She followed him as he finned across a sand bottom patterned into a series of grooves running roughly parallel to shore. In the distance, Kristen saw a whitetip reef shark laying on the bottom. She was glad Dave’s course took them further away from it.
    Then Dave was kneeling on the seafloor, reaching for something. He held it up as she swam up to him.
    The metal detector!
    She watched as Dave untangled the unit’s coiled wire and put on the headphones. While she waited for Dave to fine-tune the instrument’s controls for the search, Kristen tilted her head back to gaze at the sunlit world above. She could just make out the bottom of their rental boat, a dark rectangle silhouetted by the tropical sun. She hoped Lance was doing okay up there. At least the FBI agent was on board. Kristen made herself useful by picking up the nearby sand scoop and bringing it to Dave, like a nurse handing a surgeon a needed instrument.
    Dave took the scoop and gave her the OK sign. He began swimming again, headphones in place, the detector in one hand and the sand scoop in the other. Kristen followed him.
    He swam in a tight circle, sweeping the electronic disc an inch over the ocean floor. After five minutes, just as Kristen was beginning to wonder if this would work, Dave stopped swimming, positioning himself over one area.
    Kristen watched as he swept the search coil back and forth over the same patch of sand. He took the sand scoop and laid the basket end where the search disc had been, marking the position. He turned to Kristen and pointed to an earphone, a broad smile forming behind his mask.
    Signal !
    Kristen watched as he knelt on the bottom and started to dig. He scooped out some sand and dumped it aside, then swept the search coil back over the spot. Dave pointed, indicating that something metallic still occupied the hole he was digging. He continued his efforts with the sand scoop.
    Then he reached a hand into the hole and made fanning motions, clearing away suspended sand. Kristen watched as he removed the detector’s headphones before ditching the machine altogether.
    Looking over at her with the same gleaming eyes she’d seen yesterday at Duke’s, Dave extracted something from the seafloor.

 
     
     
     
     

…CGAC 15 TTAG...
     
    Clinging to the anchor line in fifteen feet of water, Kristen thought she would die of impatience. She looked on as Dave checked his dive watch . He held up two fingers: two more minutes.
    For the past three minutes they had hung here just beneath the boat. Decompressing to allow any nitrogen in their bloodstreams to dissolve back into solution before making their final ascent to the surface, there was not much else to do but stare at the object Dave had pulled from the seabed.
    A box.
    A rectangular, watertight box. Black, opaque plastic.
    Whatever was inside must contain at least some metal, Kristen thought as her eyes scrutinized the box. But it’s not a ring that slipped off Johnson’s finger, that much is clear. She wished she had x-ray vision as she watched Dave turn the thing over in his hands. He was careful to avoid touching the hinged lid, lest the box open underwater.
    Kristen looked down and saw her water sample bottle. She had been so absorbed in the dive that she hadn’t yet collected any microbes. She unscrewed the bottle’s lid, checked to see that its fine mesh filter was in place, and then held the bottle into the surging current. After a few seconds she screwed the lid back down.
    Then Dave was