Beloved Gomorrah Read online

  The fish, some in such gaudy colors they seemed a cartoon, swam by indifferently, and a few hovered teasingly within reach. A shoal of silvery sweepers engulfed her, like a shower of coins, surrounding but never touching her, as if magnetically repelled, then swept away.

  They descended farther, and for a brief moment she missed the chattering of the surface world and the ease of communication. The rasp of her inhalations through the regulator and the gurgle of the exhale-bubbles that rose in a column over her head did nothing to dispel the sense of silence.

  Soon the concrete structures came into sight, dull gray-green walls and arches and domes, like a ghost city. Lone groupers darted in and out of the low doorways, and an eel snaked through without stopping, as if in a hurry. This was the audacious project that the Ministry of Culture had officially named the International Egyptian Underwater Exhibit of Ecological Art, but the local Egyptians simply called al medina, the city.

  At an average depth of thirteen meters, and stretching over nearly a hectare of dead coral, the joint UNESCO/Egyptian art project had reached its final stages. When completed, it would be an underwater sculpture museum. Eventually, however, a new reef would form over it, while the public that had contributed to its original destruction would witness and help pay for its regeneration. Even now, when only a few of the art works had been installed, the surfaces of the buildings had a soft velvet growth. Three small gray reef sharks glided toward her from the side. They approached with animal curiosity, and when they were close, Joanna could see that the largest one had a badly torn dorsal fin, perhaps from a fight with another male. The sharks circled once and then swam off over her head, indifferent.

  Charlie looked back over his shoulder, his trim beard flashing white against the black of his diving suit, and she quickened her pace. In a few moments they spotted the steel rod and signpost that identified Site 13, which had been assigned to her on the outer edge of the coral plain. They paddled closer and she reached for the measuring tape in her net bag, preparing to fix the optimum position of her fountain. But something was wrong.

  The rod identifying Site 13 tilted at a forty-five-degree angle with scarcely a square meter of ground beneath it. Beyond that, the coral dropped away immediately at a steep angle into the abyss.

  Baffled and annoyed, she swept in closer. Charlie paddled to her side and, through his mask, she could see his expression of What the hell?!

  Where there was supposed to be ground she saw only a crevice. It appeared the designers had located Site 13 too far toward the edge of the coral shelf, and some blow, perhaps something as simple as driving in the identification rod, had broken away a porous section of coral. More astonishing was the size of the damage.

  She followed the crevice downward as it widened and darkened increasingly with the depth. Damn. The site was useless for her sculpture. She would surely be assigned another spot, but that would mean delay, maddening delay, which she was already familiar with. For starters, she and Charlie would have to write a report of the damage to the committee in charge of the project, explaining how it precluded the installation of a fountain. Damn! Damn! Damn! She groused inwardly as she descended farther, fanning the ever-widening walls with her torch beam.

  At thirty meters, she checked her tank pressure. No hurry. She still had plenty of air to allow time for the safety stop, provided they didn’t stay long at a great depth. She continued downward and Charlie followed. At thirty-eight meters the crevice flattened out to a shallow slope.

  She made a sweep with the torch, trying to memorize what she saw so she could file a report to the project committee and request another site. Just gray, dead coral, split to a width that could encompass a car. Then something below caught her eye. Fish, she thought, their scales catching the light. But no. They didn’t move.

  She dropped down another meter and peered, intrigued. Charlie swept in close to her and tapped on his wrist computer. They were pretty far down now and this part of the dive was unplanned, so they’d have to ascend soon. She signaled agreement, then pointed toward the shining objects jutting up out of the white grit of the slope. She poked at them with her finger and almost jumped when she saw what they were. Cups, a plate, other more mysterious objects, and, farther along, what looked like clay tablets, both broken and intact.

  After a moment of disbelief, realization hit. If the objects had been embedded in the coral until the catastrophic split, they might well be artifacts from a shipwreck. Since she detected no sign of a rusting vessel, it would have to be a very old one.

  Charlie was already reaching for one of the cups. Joanna signaled don’t touch but he ignored her, dropping the cup into the net bag hooked to his vest. Then he tapped on his wrist computer again. It was time to go. She agreed, and as they turned to ascend, Charlie snatched up two more objects from the sand.

  They hovered at twelve meters, to decompress, and then again, for safety, at six. Joanna had time to shine her torch on the objects he had pilfered. A metal cup, possibly gold, with a simple geometric ornament around the rim, and two clay tablets. Through the net, she could see they were covered with writing. She tried to make out the lettering and then gasped so hard she almost sucked in water. It was cuneiform.

  The artifacts were ancient.

  A half dozen thoughts went through her mind. Whatever they had found, it was something big, very big. They’d surrender them to the Egyptian authorities right away, of course, but what would happen then? Presumably the committee would assign her another exhibit space, but would they close off the wreck site to divers? Or would they halt work on the project altogether? She feared that the Egyptian government was not well-enough organized to do anything but delay.

  Their safety stop over, she signaled up. Overhead a dark form dropped toward her, surrounded by a ring of froth. Something heavy and dead. While she peered upward at it, vaguely irritated, more ominous forms appeared from both sides. Within seconds of the strange object hitting the water, the three reef sharks were back.

  As the object, which she could now see was a dead fish, dropped past her, the sharks tore into it, thrashing wildly in a sudden feeding frenzy. She kicked upward, to escape them, but before she could rise more than a meter, something bit through her wetsuit into her lower leg and pulled her downward. She struck out with her torch, trying to dislodge it, then felt a sudden bright pain on the side of her face. Under slashing teeth, the strap of her mask broke, and it fell away, exposing her eyes to the intense salt water. She swung her torch wildly, trying to protect her face and air tube and sensed Charlie struggling next to her. She forced her eyes open to a squint against the scalding water but saw only the red mist of her own blood seeping out from her cheek and enveloping her head.

  Oh, my God, she thought. I’m being eaten alive.

  Chapter Two

  With the words “still a knockout at forty-nine” buzzing in her mind, Kaia Kapulani let the review of her last film slide from her lap and began to doze on the sunny upper deck of the yacht Hina. The voice of her husband jolted her to wakefulness.

  “What the hell is this?!”

  She squinted up at him. “What the hell is what?”

  “This!” He shook the remains of a very large and no-longer-fresh fish at her. “I told Jibril to dump it this morning, but he said you ordered him not to. You know how I hate it when you contradict me. It confuses the help and makes me look foolish. Don’t ever do that again.”

  “You’re not allowed to throw garbage into the sea here,” she replied softly. “You can dump it when we get back to the dock.”

  “Are you stupid, or what?” His volume was increasing. “It’s not garbage. It’s a goddamn fish. What the hell do you think the sea is already full of?” He heaved the pungent remains over the side and, without even watching it enter the water, stormed off muttering “bloody eco-fanatics.”

  Kaia stared up into the cloudless blue sky, mentally shrugging as she heard the splash. There was no point in arguing with Bernard once he’d mad
e up his mind. He made the decisions—about nearly every aspect of their lives—and since his decisions had earned them a lot of money, she rarely challenged him.

  But now that she was awake, the review began to trouble her. No matter if it was couched in a compliment, forty-nine was a frightening number in Hollywood. They had come to the Red Sea to celebrate her fiftieth birthday in seclusion, away from the media and cameras. But the fact that her age had appeared in the review showed that the press—and the public—were counting. Was it going to be the countdown, or count-up in this case, to the end of her career?

  A loud male voice disturbed her once again, this time from the water. She lurched from her chair to the railing and saw a diver waving frantically. He held another person hooked in his arm, and even from a distance, Kaia could see the second diver’s face was covered with blood.

  At the same time one of the Egyptian crewmen swung a life-ring toward him. It was a good throw, and once the diver grabbed ahold of it, the crewman reeled him in.

  Kaia clambered down the stairs to the stern deck and arrived just as Jibril was pulling the injured diver up onto the deck. A woman, but it was impossible to make out her features for all the blood.

  She snatched the towel that she’d had around her neck and pressed it against the open wound on the woman’s cheek while the other diver hauled himself up the ladder next to her.

  “Sharks,” he said. “I kept them away from me, but they got to her. In her arm and her leg too.” He pointed to the semicircles of punctures on the left sleeve and leg of the wetsuit, from which blood now oozed onto the wooden deck.

  “Back to the dock,” Kaia shouted toward the crewman standing behind her, though Bernard must have already given the order, because the yacht was turning.

  He was standing next to them now as well. “What happened?” he asked. “Are you hurt too?” He pointed to the blood on the diver’s

  beard.

  Cradling the delirious woman in his arms, the diver whispered comfort, pressing the towel over the wound. “No, I’m okay. It’s her blood. We were inspecting a site and saw a few sharks, but nothing unusual. Then, as we came up, some damned fool chummed the water, and they went into a feeding frenzy. We were right in the middle of it. We beat them away but not soon enough.”

  Bernard held up his cell phone. “I’ve already contacted the hospital. They’ll send an ambulance right away.” For once, Kaia was relieved at his ability to take charge. Now all they could do was try to stop the bleeding.

  “What’s your name? Her name?” Kaia asked, for lack of anything better to say.

  “Charlie Hernie. Her name’s Joanna. We’re with the underwater-museum project.”

  “Oh, yes. I’ve heard about that. The underwater City on the Plain, the paper called it. We saw boats putting down a statue a few days ago.”

  “That’s right,” Charlie said, but his attention was on the woman, who had begun to moan. “Don’t worry, kiddo. We’ll have you to a doctor in just a few minutes.”

  Jibril brought another towel and wrapped it around the bleeding leg, though it did little to halt the flow. In the soaking wetsuit, blood couldn’t coagulate.

  They were at the dock now and the pilot backed the yacht up against the end of it. Jibril dropped a plank across the short gap between stern and dock, and together he and Charlie lifted the woman off the deck. They had carried her most of the way along the long dock when the ambulance pulled up at the far end of it.

  Kaia stood, stunned, on the stern deck of the Hina, while the men draped the limp form onto a stretcher and slid it into the ambulance. “What do you think we should do now?” she asked her husband.

  “Call the goddamn lawyer,” Bernard snarled, and walked away.

  Kaia watched him, nonplussed. This vacation wasn’t turning out well at all.

  *

  Charlie paced nervously in the waiting area, furious that he couldn’t find anyone to give him an update on Joanna, furious that he hadn’t been able to fend the sharks off her as he’d fended them off himself, furious at whoever had attracted them in the first place.

  After arriving at the hospital and seeing her disappear into the emergency room, he had been barred from coming inside in his wetsuit. He had no trouble hitchhiking back to the dock, but then it had taken him nearly half an hour to retrieve their dinghy with the help of Bernard and to change out of the wetsuit into dry clothes. The rented car was parked near another dock, so fetching it and getting back to the hospital ate up another half an hour. By the time he arrived at the hospital with Joanna’s clothes, he was frantic with worry.

  The emergency-room staff directed him to the waiting area, but nobody could tell him how long it would take. And so he paced.

  He scratched his beard, debating whether to telephone someone, but couldn’t think of anyone. The committee in charge of the project would want to know if one of their artists was affected, but he had no one, really, to turn to for advice in an emergency. The people back home at the museum would care, of course, but he didn’t know yet what to tell them. He patted the bundle of clothing he had brought from the car: blue jeans, hoodie, and sandals. She most likely wouldn’t be putting them on right away, but when? He couldn’t stop thinking of the blood that kept oozing through her wetsuit. How much had

  she lost?

  The door from surgery swung open and two orderlies wheeled out a gurney with someone on it. It took a second look to ascertain it was Joanna, for one side of her face was covered with gauze, and she was still unconscious. The gurney didn’t stop for him but continued along the corridor toward an elevator. He started after it but halted, seeing one of the doctors emerge from the operating room. “How is she? Will she be all right?”

  “Please, have a seat.” The doctor, a sinuous man whose hair and beard were trimmed to about one centimeter and seemed to grow together in a single white balaclava, directed him to a row of chairs.

  “How is she?” Charlie repeated, sitting down. “How bad is it?”

  The doctor shook his head. “It took a long time before we could even get to her. We had to cut away the wetsuit, and all that time she was bleeding. But she was lucky. She had only punctures and lacerations and no loss of limb.”

  “So she’s going to be all right?”

  “Her heartbeat is good, and we gave her a lot of blood serum, but she’s not out of danger yet. We’ll keep an eye on her for a few days and see what happens. The punctures on her arm were easy to close, but the muscle damage in her leg will keep her from walking for a while. Then she may need cosmetic surgery on her face.”

  “Oh my God. It’s that bad?”

  “The shark’s teeth caught her just in front of her left ear, cutting downward, but fortunately missed her eye and critical facial nerves. We have to monitor how well the wound closes. But it looked like the strap on her mask kept the teeth from slicing too deeply. In any case, we’ll know a lot more in a day or two. She needs to rest in a clean, quiet place and let her body heal itself.”

  Charlie rubbed his forehead. Outside of the hospital, there was no clean, quiet place. The hostel attached to the workshop where they were staying had no services, and she had a room at the top of a flight of stairs.

  “She’s going to need someone to take care of her then, right?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “I see.” Charlie’s voice dropped. “Can I see her now?”

  “There’s really no point. She’s sedated and will be unconscious for several more hours.”

  “Right,” he said, defeated. “Um. I brought her clothes.” He held up the neatly folded pile.

  “You can leave them here if you like. She won’t need them for a while, but she may find comfort in seeing them. Why don’t you come back tomorrow morning when she’ll be awake. I’m sure she’ll be happy to see you.”

  “Yes, all right. I’ll do that.” He handed over the clothing and shook hands with the doctor. Then, dazed, he walked down the hospital corridor and out the door.


  *

  Kaia stood on the prow of the Hina looking westward, trying to enjoy the sunset, but the red glow in the sky agitated her more than it calmed her. This was supposed to be a vacation, a quiet week at the Red Sea on their boat after the shooting of her last film. Her salary had been considerable, so she should be celebrating, but she wasn’t in the mood.

  Bernie himself had soured the air. His aggressive take-charge manner made him an invaluable agent but a rotten husband. It had also gotten them into trouble again. He just couldn’t accept rules other than his own, and now he had endangered the life of a young woman. God, the poor thing was covered in blood. Would she die? Or be maimed or crippled? Kaia rested her elbows on the railing and stared at the darkening sea.

  Bernard came up beside her. “I’ve called Landau.”

  “What did he say?”

  “That we’re in deep shit if she decides to sue.”

  “You mean because of the fish you threw overboard?”

  “Yeah, apparently signs were posted all over the dock saying, NO GARBAGE DISPOSAL IN THE SEA. And since they’re working on that damned underwater-city thing, they’re real Nazis about it.”

  Sued for criminal negligence. Her money for Bernie’s aggressive stupidity. She wanted to say, “I told you so, goddamn it,” but instead she simply rubbed her face. “So what do we do now?”

  “Well, we try to stop her from suing.”

  “And just how are we supposed to do that?” She faced him, turning her back on the spectacle on the horizon.

  Unperturbed, he lit a cigar, sucked in its first smoke, and exhaled it from the side of his mouth. He puffed again in short bursts and, in the increasing darkness, the burning tip glowed menacingly. She hated his cigars, although they were expensive ones that didn’t smell so bad. It was the image he projected. Bad enough when a big man puffed on a stogie, but when a short man did, he looked slightly pathetic, like a child playing grownup.