“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. Sorry. I just…” I’m not sure how to finish that sentence, so I stop.
“No, it’s fine. God. It’s good that you came up.” He takes a long pull on the water bottle and looks out over the waves, his wet hair dripping slowly onto his bare shoulders.
“Fucking hell,” he says.
I wait but he doesn’t continue.
“Are they in there?” I ask. I have to ask. I have to know.
“Yeah,” he says.
He takes another long swig of water.
“Two pilots up front, three passengers. That I could see. One of them was a woman, the rest men.” He looks out again at the waves, his jaw tight.
“Fucking hell.” I realize too late that I’ve echoed him. I don’t know what else to say.
“They weren’t good people, Erin,” he says, looking at me now.
What the fuck does that mean?
I want to know more, I want to know everything he saw, but it doesn’t seem right to ask. He’s processing. I wait for him to tell me.
But nothing comes. He drinks more.
His words still hang in the air. I try to catch them before they disappear. “What do you mean, they weren’t good people, Mark?”
“The things they had with them. Down there. They weren’t good people. Don’t feel too sad, is all I mean.” With that he stands. Grabs a towel and wipes his face, rubs his hair.
I realize that’s probably the most I’ll get from him right now, and I don’t want to linger too long on the thought of the people down there. I’m trying my hardest to stay focused as it is. I change the subject. Well, sort of.
“It’s flotsam, Mark.”
He stares at me blankly for a moment. I think he’d forgotten all about the bag until now. I continue.
“Well, sort of flotsam, lost by accident in an emergency—it can be claimed by the owners. But you’ve just met the owners and I don’t think they’ll be claiming it anytime soon. Will they?” My stab at dark humor. I’m not sure it sounded quite right.
“No, no, they won’t.” He says it flatly.
I move on quickly. “Mark, did you get the plane’s tail number? Anything we can use to identify them? Who they were? Anything helpful?”
He pulls the dive slate off his tank strap and hands it to me. The plane make, model, and tail number. Of course he got it!
“They’re Russian,” he says as I jot the slate information down in my notepad and wipe it clean again.
I look up. “How do you know that?”
“There were Russian snack packets.”
“Right.” I nod slowly.
“Listen, Erin. You said no one will claim the bag. Does that mean you’re suggesting we don’t report this? We don’t report a plane crash?” He’s scowling at me.
Shit. Yes. I thought that’s what we both were suggesting. Weren’t we? To keep the shiny pretty diamonds and the free money. To pay off our mortgage and have a family, right? Or am I crazy? Maybe I am crazy.
My mind flits to the people below us. The dead people, rotting in the water. The bad people. Should we keep the bad people’s money?
“Yes. Yes, that is what I’m suggesting,” I say to Mark.
