Page 9 of Rowe

Cowboy nodded. Christopher did not. He pointed to a length of chain disappearing behind the slab.

Patrick saw it then. The chain was half buried, thick links furred with corrosion. One end ran behind the standing supports beneath the slab. The other traveled across the bottom into debris. Christopher reached for it.

Patrick caught his wrist.

Christopher pointed at the chain, then toward the surface. Evidence.

Patrick shook his head and pointed at the rebar. Danger.

Cowboy moved between them. He traced a circle with one finger, indicating they should follow the exposed end rather than pull it. Patrick agreed.

They tracked the chain away from the slab. It passed beneath a log, looped around a concrete block, and ended at a padlock. The lock was closed around nothing. Christopher lifted it. Fresh scratches marked the brass beneath the green corrosion, as though another chain or shackle had recently been removed.

Patrick took the slate from his vest and wrote: CUT?

Christopher wrote beneath it: NOT HERE.

Cowboy tapped both answers and added: SMART MEN. RARE SIGHTING.

Christopher was still angling the slate toward Patrick when the slab moved.

The slab shifted above the surface. The rebar snapped taut. One rod tore loose with a metallic crack they felt in their teeth. The hanging concrete dropped an inch, driving a wave through the supports and the water below. Darkness billowed around them. Patrick lost sight of both men.

He reached left and found chain. Reached right and found nothing. His safety line tightened around his tank valve. He turned too fast, struck a support with one shoulder, and a chunk of concrete fell from above. It brushed his tank and vanished below.

A light flashed twice through the mud. Back out.

Patrick followed it, crawling hand over hand along the line until Cowboy’s glove closed around his forearm. Christopher appeared on the other side, mask inches away. Patrick held up a fist. They waited together while the slab settled into a new angle. The steel continued to quiver.

When the water cleared enough to see, Patrick sliced the fouled line free from a hook of rebar. Cowboy pointed toward the marker rope. No argument this time.

They surfaced beside the boat in a churn of bubbles. Gator hauled Christopher’s tank valve, then Cowboy’s, then Patrick’s, pulling each man close enough to grab the rail.

“Report,” he said.

Patrick spat out his regulator.

“The upright slab shifted. At least one rod failed. Chain behind it, loose lock at the other end.”

“Anybody hurt?” Christopher shook his head. Cowboy lifted one hand.

“My faith in municipal construction has suffered a grave injury.” Gator looked at the fresh scrape across Patrick’s tank.

“That faith was brain-dead when we arrived.”

They climbed aboard. Water ran off them in muddy sheets. Gator restarted the engine and backed fifty yards from the tilted slab before letting the boat drift. The men peeled off masks and hoods. For a while no one spoke. The surface humor had burned away, leaving only the practical facts: the chain went somewhere they could not safely follow, the slab could fall, and there might still be someone beneath it.

Christopher took the rosary from Patrick’s pouch and laid it on the bench.

“We call the recovery team.”

“And tell them what?” Patrick asked. “We saw a lock and nearly joined the evidence?”

“We don’t go back under that slab.”

“Agreed.” Cowboy stared over the side.

“We don’t have to.”