LONG AFTER HE HAD DISAPPEARED INSIDE THE BUILDING with the anchor in front, I was sitting on the pier, struggling to pull a thick wet suit over my dive skin.

Not far from me, several rescuers prepared a flat-bottomed boat they had moored to a piling. Shipyard workers wandered about curiously, and on the dive platform, two men in royal blue neoprene tested buddy phones and seemed very thorough in their inspection of scuba gear, which included mine.

I watched the divers talk to each other, but I could not make out a word they said as they unscrewed hoses and fitted belts with weights. Occasionally, they glanced my way, and I was surprised when one of them decided to climb the ladder that led up to my pier. He walked over to where I was and sat beside me on my little patch of cold pavement.

"This seat taken?" He was a handsome young man, black and built like an Olympic athlete.

"There are a lot of people who want it, but I don't know where they are." I fought with the wet suit some more.

"Damn. I hate these things."

"Just think of it as putting on an inner tube."

"Yes, that's an enormous help."

"I need to talk to you about underwater comm equipment. You ever used it before?" he said.

I glanced up at his serious face and asked, "Are you with a squad?"

"Nope. I'm just plain ole Navy. And I don't know about you, but this sure isn't the way I planned to spend my New Year's Eve. Don't know why anybody'd want to dive in this river unless they got some sort of fantasy about being a blind tadpole in a mud puddle. Or maybe if you got ironpoor blood and think all the rust in there will help."

"All the rust in there will do is give you tetanus." I looked around. "Who else here is Navy versus squad?"