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"How do you actually catch them?" |
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"A noose," Jerry said. "How about that?" |
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Then he took a deep breath and kicked down to the marker some twelve feet below. |
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Painted number 11, it was actually a huge, smooth block of cement that once had served as a mooring. Jerry anchored himself to it until Karsky kicked next to him, then pointed into the dark crevice among a nearby pile of boulders. He had no intention of getting closer. |
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While Karsky poked his head in for a look, Jerry fanned the sand for the inflation tube. He had buried it yesterday along with the length of white and yellow PVC cord that fastened to the cement block a dozen feet behind him. He then exposed a separate length of cord. He tapped Karsky to show him. Karsky backed out of the crevice and held up the cord to his mask. With a precise flourish Jerry slipped the flattened tube around Karsky's middle right over the T-shirt and locked the pulley clip. He yanked the CO2 cartridge release, and before Karsky could register on what was happening, he shot up the full length of the cord with the inflated tube embracing his rib cage like a fat boa constrictor. His feet spread, and from underneath Jerry kicked up and pulled off Karsky's fins. |
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The man was too stunned to comprehend his circumstance. With the four-foot cord still locked in his hand, he gaped dumbly at Jerry, who grinned and made a moving S with his arm. Nature strikes back, but the joke was lost on Karsky. |
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Because the inflation tube had fixed so high on Karsky's chest, his mask would not allow a clear view of what held him. But he could see that he was bound in suspension between the sand and the watery ceiling a mere body-length above his head. Then, like the snap of a magician's finger, he began to kick and squirm for his life. It would be brief. For a sixty-eight-year-old man thirty pounds overweight, about two minutes. |
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This was the fun part. While Karsky thrashed on his noose, Jerry swam predatory circles around him, taking it all in. The first minute Karsky burned up trying to work the tube off his chest, trying to snap off the nonnegotiable steel clip, fighting the cord that was tested for 2,000 pounds. |
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