Adjusting his aim, Jackson pulled himself together and tried again. This time, he was rewarded with the gentle resistance of the blade cutting through the protective plastic outer layer.

As a safety back up, whenever he made a dive using the double tanks and would potentially be making a dive that was a bit more extreme, Jackson also carried a pony bottle. The extra cylinder was a completely independent air source with its own regulator he could use in a rescue.

This time, however, Jackson was going to rescue himself. He pulled the pony bottle loose from the straps that held it in place and then pulled the regulator hose free. He placed the knife on the aluminum floor in front of him and took the regulator in the same hand that he had used to cut the bundle behind him. He worked the mouthpiece into the hole he had just made.

When he felt like he had pushed the regulator mouthpiece through the hole in the bundle, he pressed down on the purge valve and began venting air into the bail.

Jackson hoped there would be enough room in the bundle for the air to help him lift the bundle off of his back. After a minute Jackson pushed backward. He felt it begin to move. He reached back up and squeezed the purge valve again, sending more air into the package and he kept pressing with his other hand and his knees. Slowly, the weight that formed his prison gave way and he was able to push himself up.

After he got on his knees and could feel the bundles moving backward, Jackson lurched forward to get out from under the weight.

Just as suddenly as it had struck him, Jackson was free. It was only then that he realized the cargo in the back of the plane had shifted and he was nearly buried by it all.

The plane hadn't moved any further, but Jackson didn't like the groaning noises he could hear coming from all around him. It was time to get out. Unfortunately, he still faced the same problem. His entry way was still trapped against the reef. He was going to have to open the cabin door. He swam to the doorway and studied the latch. It was a fairly simple mechanical mechanism. With the plane lying on its side, he would have to open the door straight up against the weight of the door and the water above it. He wasn't sure if he could do that.

Jackson released the latch on the door and braced his feet against the bulkhead beside him. He began to push. The door began to move slowly, but Jackson's head began to swim from the exertion.

Jackson paused for a second, allowing the door to drop back down against the frame of the plane with a dull thump. I don't know if I'm going to have the energy to do this for much longer, he thought to himself. After a moment, he pulled himself together and prepared for one last push. I'm not going to die diving if 9/11 didn't get me, he decided.

Anchoring his feet and fins against a bulkhead inside the derelict plane, Jackson began to push with all of his strength. The door began to budge again, slowly, but it was moving. Jackson noticed his breathing was getting difficult, but he didn't seem to be able to draw enough air through his regulator. Suddenly the thought came to his mind; his main tank was running out of air. He didn't know how or why, considering how much air supply he brought with him, but possibly the bundles falling on his back had damaged the manifold between the cylinders. He couldn't spare the effort to switch from his primary system to the pony bottle or he would lose his chance at getting the door open. If he didn't he was going to run out of air.

Just about to give up, let go and switch to the backup, Jackson found himself bolting upward and out of the plane as if by magic. The weight against his shoulder was gone and Jackson was free. Randy Littlebear was there.

It had taken the other man a minute to approach the plane after it rolled, and then another moment to realize where Jackson was attempting to make his exit, but the sound of the door clanking shut had attracted his attention. Arriving by the cabin door, Littlebear saw the door begin to open again. He quickly realized Jackson wasn't going to be able to open it on his own. He had grabbed the door and pulled it backward with all his strength. The weight of the door was no match for the combined efforts of the two men.

Jackson quickly rolled to his side after being pulled through the opening and saw Littlebear kneeling on the plane. Without hesitating, Jackson swam forward and grabbed his friend's alternate regulator and pulled it to his mouth. He took a long, deep breath as he settled down on the side of the plane as well.

Once Jackson's breathing was back under control, he reached around and grabbed the regulator from the pony bottle and switched mouthpieces. He gave Littlebear the signal to ascend and the pair of divers began slowly swimming for the surface.

"Wow, man, that was a gnarly dive," said Hoss, a 6'4" hulk of a man who had moved around the country from surfer to river guide to ski instructor to dive instructor, finally ending up in the Keys. He was known for being a little eccentric. When their favorite bar had banned patrons from bringing their dogs in while they drank, Hoss had walked in with an alligator on a leash. The sign prohibiting dogs had disappeared later that night. Everyone expected one day, Hoss would be gone, off on his next adventure - with his dog. "Good thing Littlebear was there for you."

"No kidding," laughed Jackson from his chair at the outdoor restaurant. He and a couple of the other dive instructors from the local dive shop were relaxing after the day's dives, but instead of talking about the passengers from the day, or what they were going to do that night, they were talking about the plane crash and the investigation going on around the island. FAA investigators had descended on their sleepy little island and it was more activity than they had seen in months, at least since the odd circumstances surrounding the sinking of the USS Beauregard.

The word had quickly gotten out about Jackson's harrowing escape from the sunken plane and everyone wanted to hear about it. Jackson normally kept things to himself, but for some reason, he felt like talking about the dive. He knew his friends would keep themselves in drinks and food tonight as they retold the story, but he didn't mind that either.

"Man, tell me again what it was like inside the plane when the bale fell on you. What were you thinking?" asked Miguel, the newest of the itinerate divemasters on the island.

Before Jackson could answer, all eyes turned and looked at the two strangers who took a table on the patio. Obviously deep in their conversation, the men didn't notice anyone else around them. Jackson waved for his friends to stay quiet for a moment. The men were over-dressed for the islands, even though they had attempted to be more casual; they were still wearing shoes.

"We won't know anything until we bring the plane up, but something about this crash doesn't feel right," Matt said.

"I know you've investigated hundreds of plane crashes for the FAA and I'm new at this, but what's bothering you? We just got one report on it from that local and then took our first look at the plane this morning ourselves," the younger agent, named Jamal, replied.

The federal agents had chartered a local boat to begin surveying the wreckage that morning. It was only a day after the wreck and Jackson's nearly fatal dive.

"I can't be sure until the rest of the salvage crew gets here later today and we can get the plane up, but I don't think this plane crash was an accident," the senior agent explained.

"You think it was an act of terrorism?" Jamal asked, somewhat incredulous.

"Yeah, right. The national security of the United States rests on a derelict DC-3 flying in the Florida Keys," Matt replied with a sarcastic laugh.

"What is it, then?" Jamal replied, blushing visibly in spite of his dark skin.

"Did you notice the cargo in the back of the plane? It was floating all over the place when we opened the door."

"I just remember straw floating loose in the back."

"That's it. The plane's cargo was straw. You would have thought it was pot with bales stacked like that."

"I don't get it. You think someone crashed a plane load of straw?"

"Let me ask you a question. Would you transport straw in an airplane?" Matt asked, bringing the younger agent along. "Obviously, the answer is no. It's too heavy and bulky. You transport straw on trucks or trains, but not planes. All I'm saying is, something just isn't adding up."

"All right, gentlemen, here's your lunch," the waitress said as she walked up with a large tray. The men broke off their conversation and got down to eating conch fritters.

"Guys, what we just heard really makes me wonder," Jackson said to the other divers around his table.

"What is it, Jackson?" Miguel asked.

"The FAA guys think the plane crash may not have been an accident and the one guy just said it was full of straw. I can only think of one way that makes sense," Jackson said, staring off into space a bit. The other divers stayed quiet as Jackson reasoned the situation out in his head.

"Guys, remember I said there were two places circled on that chart I saw in the cockpit before the plane rolled over? The first place was right where the plane actually went down or right beside it anyway. They had circled the deep hole and the plane actually landed on the ledge. The other place was a small sandbar out in the narrows. There's nothing out there," Jackson said. "I didn't think much about it at the time. Then, of course, the plane rolled over and that went completely out of my mind."

"I'm still not following you, Jackson," Hoss prodded the retired firefighter.

"Ok, think about it for a second. Smugglers fly in pot. They take all the chances, but only get paid by the bosses, not what the drugs are actually worth. Maybe this time, they hid the pot and filled the plane with bales of straw to confuse the money men. They fake out their suppliers in South America and then crash the plane to cover up their plan and disappear. Who else would have access to that much dope that they didn't actually buy? It isn't like the stuff is insured. It doesn't have to work forever, it just has to work for a few days until they make the sale and disappear somewhere. If they had gotten it into the deep hole, the plane might never have shown up."

"Wow, man. Don't know how you put all that together," Hoss said. After a moment's reflection he asked "So what do we do about it?"

"There's no way we can go to the cops with this idea. But, we can go check out the island marked on the chart ourselves and see if anyone is out there."

"You think they would stay close by?" Miguel asked. "If I were them, I'd get as far away from here as possible."

"I was a firefighter, not a cop, but it sort of makes sense to me. The buyers for the pot are here waiting on the plane load at some small airstrip in the swamps, but then it goes down. Our double-crossing smugglers turn up with a load of pot and the buyers are more than happy to take it off their hands," Jackson said. "I know I'm making a big leap here, but if these guys are just pilots taking all the risk, and not reaping the rewards, maybe they got greedy and wanted their share."

"So, when do we leave?" Miguel asked.

"Right now."

Heading toward the island Jackson had seen identified on the map, the three men took stock of their supplies. They had tried to call Randy Littlebear before they took off, but they couldn't track him down, and none of them felt like waiting.

Jackson kept a flare gun, two full sets of dive gear and four tanks on board. The boat was outfitted with radios and state-ofthe- art electronic navigation equipment. There were ropes (lines on a boat) and the tools for them to handle basic maintenance away from shore. But that was about it. There wasn't a lot there if they needed to defend themselves. None of the men had any idea what they would do if they actually found what they were looking for. They were winging it.

Jackson was able to match up the location he saw marked on the chart on the crashed aircraft with two tiny islands on his sea charts. They were really twin sandbars, no more than an acre or two each. Both islands rose 10 or 15 feet above the surface of the water and had a few trees, but that was about it. There was no structure on either island. They were really even too far away from the shore for partiers to come out and spend the night celebrating summer.

Hoss continually scanned the first island with a pair of highpowered binoculars as they approached from the south. When they got close, Jackson backed off on the Whaler's throttles and slowed down, but not too much. He wanted to look as if they were just boaters out having a good time.

"So, do you see anything?" Miguel asked, nervously scanning the horizon. "Maybe your hunch was wrong." The more northerly of the two islands was blocked by the first. Jackson remained silent, his eyes scanning back and forth between the water in front of him, the radar screen and the depth finder.

"I tell you what guys," Jackson began, as he flipped a lever to raise his outboard engines out of the water and steered directly toward a small sandy beach on the island. "Let's beach this thing and take a look. The radar is telling me there isn't anything on this island, but I can't see anything on the second island and I want to get a closer look."

"Sounds good to me, boss," Hoss said from his position on the bow as he rose up and handed the binoculars back to Miguel, then selected a small anchor to secure the boat in the shallows.

Once the boat was tied off, the three men left the boat. They cautiously moved across the middle of the island, keeping an eye out for other people. From the highest point of the first island, they found what they were looking for. The second island was no more than 200 yards away, separated from the first by a shallow underwater sand bridge, but they could see the stern end of an 31-foot cabin cruiser and a larger Hatteras-style fishing boat. Both boats were bow into the beach on the other island on the eastern side, at a 90 degree angle from where Jackson and his two friends had approached.

"I can just see the name on that big Hatteras. It's the No Account. Isn't that the name of the fishing boat that reported the plane crash?" Miguel asked, still holding the binoculars.

"I think you're right," Jackson replied. "The boat never turned up and neither did the men that were on board. I think we might have the answer to the missing fishermen."

Jackson returned to his boat. He turned on the radar and adjusted it to its maximum range. He watched intently for a few minutes as the radar sweep made its circles.

"Guys, it looks like a boat is heading this way. I show a hit on the radar and it looks like it's moving this general direction. They're about 10 miles away right now, so they'll be here in 15 or 20 minutes," Jackson explained. "I think we've got enough to call this into the police now, but I don't know if they'll make it out here in time. The sun will be setting before long and these guys could make their exchange and be gone into the night. I think we need to do something to stall them."

"What do you have in mind, man?" Hoss asked, enjoying the way this day was turning out.

"Come over here. I've got an idea."

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