Drea ordered an Amaretto and Orange Juice and struck up a little chat with the bartender as she started with her drink. Spanish had been her minor in college and she spoke the language well. She had glanced Anne heading up a corridor, but seen nothing of her since. A man and a woman came from that direction and were swallowed up by the crowd, but there was not sign of Anne. Something must have happened, she reasoned. Surely Anne must have caught up to the woman by now! Drea finished off her drink and headed toward the corridor.

She continued down the corridor, but saw nobody, not even a staffer came the opposite way. No wonder Jack worried so much about Anne! She stood pondering her next move when she some sort of knocking. She went to the nearest door and waited. Three sharp knocks followed by a faint but audible "mmmmmmph".

"Anne?" she asked and got another "mmmmmmph" for a reply.

She checked the door, and it was unlocked. On opening it, Drea was relieved to find Anne inside, tied at the wrists and ankles and cleave gagged with a white hankie, but in one piece. Drea lifted Anne to her feet and removed the gag. "Are you all right?" Drea asked as she untied Anne's wrists.

"Only thing hurt is my pride." Anne replied.

"Then why are you rubbing your head?" Drea asked as she freed Anne's ankles. "Got any ideas about what happened?"

"Some sort of mugging, I guess." Anne said as she reached for her handbag on the floor "No that's not it. My money and credit cards are still here, and they sure wouldn't be interested in my notebook Or Kleenex."

"What's this?" Drea asked as she pointed to something she had just noticed: a slip of paper down sticking out of Anne's decolletage.

Anne withdrew the piece of paper and opened it. Scrawled on it, in English, was one sentence: "This is just a warning."

They returned to the dance area, where Drea was able to obtain some ice from the bartender, which was applied to the back of Anne's head as they returned to their quarters.

"You willing to go diving tomorrow?" Drea asked.

"Of course I am." Anne replied. "What bugs me is somebody is on to us already, and I'd like to know why."

"If Cindy can make our reservations for here and the plane trip by a computer, then somebody could have trailed Dr. Flynn to the office, seen us leave a few minutes late, and call somebody down here."

"Which ties in with Jack's theory of trouble at both ends." Anne reasoned." All the more reason to find that plane as soon as we can."

"So we rent ourselves a boat and go out along the flight path." Drea said. "But how far?"

"About as far as can be safely go down. Perhaps a little further. As long as we are looking for something, we really don't have to go down all that deep, as long as we have our lights with us." "Then we go tomorrow."

The two detectives rose early the next morning. The resort they were staying at mixed some old and new styles. The main building was a traditional hotel with rooms for guests, dining areas, and the ballroom where their night of fun had been disrupted. The rest consisted of separate buildings. Drea and Anne were in one of the smaller of those, which had a bedroom (with separate single beds), bathroom, and sitting room and a small area in back that was screened by seven foot hedges. As it was not the height of the tourist season, mainly due to the fact it was also the height of the hurricane season, accommodations were cheaper. They took their scuba gear and set in tank tops, shorts, and flip-flops.

As they were going to dining area, they encountered Dr. Chafee leaving. The professor wore black boots that nearly came up to her knees, tan trousers, white short-sleeved blouse that was tied off just above the belt, and blue bandanna around her neck, and hair still in a bun. "You two ready for a dive?" she asked.

"That's right." Anne said.

"I'd like to join you two, but I'm taking the ferry to the mainland to see some of the Mayan ruins. Very fascinating culture."

"Some other time, then." Drea said.

Drea and Anne ate their breakfast, then set out for the boat docks in a rented jeep. Drea was able to obtain a boat for their needs as well as a chart of the area. As they and the owner went toward the boat they passed another one, where two men, one with short red-brown hair, the other with handsome Latin features stood on its aft deck in swim trunks the former spoke: "Hi ladies, how would you like to go down with me and Tony?"

Anne and Drea looked at each other. There were a couple of ways interpreting that one! "I'm not touching that one." Anne said.

"Oh no, no!" he said in a mock hurt voice as he held up a pair of swim fins. "I mean diving!"

Drea chuckled "Sorry guys, you'll have to take a raincheck."

She and Anne continued down the dock, where they found the boat. It had a tiny galley and diminutive cabin, but was adequate for their needs. They took turns going below to change into the lower portion of a bikini and the upper portion of a wet suit, then started engines and cast off. Drea steered while Anne navigated, something she had learned on Sharon's 50-footer. Anne studied the chart and after a while announced "This is it." Drea cut the engine. They were about two miles off the island's northernmost point, well away from the popular tourist reef site on the southeast end of the island. As they donned their gear, they reminded themselves of the task at had by asking questions: "What type of plane is it?" Anne asked.

"Douglas DC-4." Drea replied. "Four engines, propeller driven. What color is it?"

"White with a green stripe down the fuselage."

"Good. We should be ready." All their equipment checked out. They stood on a small wooden platform with all equipment in place: air tanks, masks, fins, buoyancy compensators, depth and pressure gauges, and light to scan the bottom. Each also has a sheathed knife strapped to her right leg.

"Ready?" Drea asked.

"Let's not waste any time." Anne said.

They lowered their masks, put their regulators in place, and took the long stride entrance into the water. It was clear, almost crystalline, but they had no real idea how deep the plane was, so they only went down about twenty feet and scanned the bottom. Anne had noticed a few sharks. They weren't very big and generally left people alone, but she and Drea weren't careful, the could wind up swimming right into the sharks, which could make things very unpleasant.

As the kept up their painstaking search they heard a boat's engines. It stopped and they thought nothing more of it as they continued with the task at hand. By pure chance Anne happened to glance off to one side and see a woman about fifty yards away, in scuba gear and yellow bikini, aiming a speargun at her and Drea! She quickly tapped her partner on the shoulder and pointed downward. Drea hesitated briefly and ducked as soon as the strange woman fired. The spear barley missed Drea's head but cut open her air hose! Anne quickly swam toward her companion and began buddy breathing, sharing her supply with Drea. Their unknown attacker was already swimming away at top speed as the swam toward the surface.

"What was that all about?" Anne asked as they treaded water on the surface.

"I dunno." Drea replied as she held up the regulator she had miraculously caught before it could sink to the bottom. "All I know is I need a replacement."

"You okay?"

"Yeah thanks."

"Not much we could do here. Let's get back to the boat."

They returned to their boat and spotted another boat about one hundred yards away. "Think we should let them know how we feel?" Anne asked as they shed their gear." Anne observed.

"Never mind it looks like they're heading this way." Drea remarked as a rubber raft came from the other boat and headed toward them.

"Think they wanna apologize?"

They went to the foredeck as the inflatable approached. After the raft tied up alongside, it was clear those in it were anything but apologetic. Two blonde women, both in bikini tops and shorts and masked with bandanas climbed out. Followed by the woman who shot the spear. Although masked with a large silk scarf, the damp white shorts hastily pulled on wet hair was a dead giveaway. It would have been comical, if not for the roll of duct tape and pieces of rope they carried.

Drea and Anne weren't about to give up without a fight. They took up martial arts positions as best they could in the small area they threw they first blows, but the two blondes, but missed. On the counterblows, one caught Anne full in the stomach, simultaneously knocking the wind out of her and sending her staggering backwards, where she tripped over the rail and into the water!

"Anne!" Drea cried as she was seized by the two attackers.

"Forget her." the spearshooter said, evidently the leader "She's shark food. Take this below."

The woman's remark had disheartened Drea to the point she only offered token resistance to her captors. The found some gap in a bulkhead where they could tie Drea's hands to a solid object behind behind her. They then tied Drea's ankles with the same nylon rope. The ring leader then tore of a piece of the duct tape and smoothly placed it on Drea's mouth. "That should do it." she said softly in voice Drea thought was familiar despite distortion of the mask.

The trio left, though the ringleader stopped before leaving and said "Consider this your final warning."