Three Tales From the World of Cotton Malone by Steve Berry Page A

police report he knew the name of the owner who’d taken Scott out, and found him after asking around.
    The boat was a twenty-footer, with a small cabin forward and a cluttered deck aft. The man moving about on board was short, thin, andwalked with a hitch in his left knee. He had a broad nose, tense jaw, and dark eyes, his black hair cut close.
    â€œ
Bonsoir
. Are you Yann Dubois?”
    The man glanced up at him with a faint smile. “You want to dive?”
    â€œLooks like a calm day. Can you take me out?”
    He saw that he’d now attracted interest. Here was money to be made, and Dubois seemed ready to accommodate.
    â€œSure, I take you out. You have card?”
    He shook his head. “Not on me. But I’m U.S. Navy certified. I can handle it.”
    He assumed that requirements like diving certifications were not much of a problem in Haiti.
    Dubois smiled. “U.S. Navy. That’s good, mon. Where you want to go?”
    â€œSame place the guy drowned last week.”
    Dubois’ pleasant attitude vanished. “You police? Here to bother me more? I don’t want that.”
    â€œNo police. A relative. The man who died was my brother-in-law. I need to find out what happened.”
    â€œHe drown. That what happened. Not my fault.”
    â€œI didn’t say it was. I just want to see where it happened. Have a look around. I’ll pay double your usual rate.”
    He watched as Dubois considered the offer, but the outcome was never in doubt.
    â€œLet’s go, mon.”

    Malone donned the air tank and buoyancy vest, fastening the belt around his waist and adjusting the shoulder straps. Not the newest of equipment, but it appeared in reasonable shape. The trip out from shore had been short, the stern engulfed in a boiling exhaust from overheating engines. They were anchored no more than three hundred yards from the beach, dark smudges in the turquoise water indicating a reef below. A wet wind blew steady from the west. He kept time with the deck’s jerking pitch, glad to know that his sea legs had not left him.
    The navy had taught him how to dive ten years ago. He liked it but, unlike his father who’d been a submariner, he hadn’t wanted a career underwater. The sky appealed to him, so he learned to fly fighter jets.Ultimately, he was steered toward the law, where he found a home first as a JAG officer, now in the Justice Department.
    â€œWe go down thirty feet,” Dubois said as he adjusted his own harness. “Lots of current. Watch yourself. I show you where it happened.”
    â€œDid you fish him out?”
    â€œYeah, mon. He not come up, so I go down.”
    â€œWhy didn’t you go down with him?”
    Dubois eyed him with irritation. “ ’Cause Scotty say he don’t want me down there.”
    None of which had been detailed in the police report. But the whole thing was more overview than report. Few details, even fewer conclusions. Just a simple statement of “diving accident.”
    â€œScotty?” he said. “You and him buddies?”
    Dubois eyed him again with a cool stare. “I like him. He okay.”
    Then Dubois rolled over the side into the water.
    Malone followed.
    A gray reef shark immediately greeted him. The air from his tank carried a dank, oily aftertaste, probably from a bad compressor. He hadn’tbeen underwater in five years, but he quickly acclimated himself, listening to the burbling sound of his exhaled breath.
    Dubois led the way to the bottom.
    He checked the depth gauge snaking from his regulator.
    Twenty-five feet.
    Shallow enough to have no decompression worries.
    He stared around in the aquamarine sea and noticed only a few tropicals here and there, some wrasses and an angel, but nothing like the numbers one would expect. He knew Haiti’s reefs had been decimated by overfishing and sedimentation. Most of the trees on the island were gone—cut down for fuel and shelter with