Loch

Chapter 7

Silence hung in the room as everyone stared at the journal Maddock held in his hands. Monster. He’d have to translate the entire entry just to be certain, but this, combined with the tooth they’d found embedded in the U-boat, appeared to confirm what had sounded like a far-fetched tale when Bones told it. Of course, that was true for most of his stories.

“Can you read all that?” Willis asked.

“A bit of it. My German is rusty.”

“Let me take a look.” Bones moved to Maddock’s side and squinted down at the words formed in a neat hand.

“Come on,” Matt said. “You speak German?”

“I took it in high school. A bit more in junior college, then some in the Navy.” Bones shrugged, his attention on the book.

“Why German?” Matt prodded. “Wouldn’t Spanish be more practical?”

Bones turned a long, level look at his friend. “You’ve known me all these years, and you don’t know the answer to that question?”

Matt flipped his hand in a “go on” gesture and raised his eyebrows.

“The French hate the Germans, and you know what I always say.”

“Screw the French,” the others chorused, chuckling as they spoke.

“Amen, brothers. Now, let’s take a look at this thing.”

It took some time, but Bones, with help from Maddock and an online German translation program, managed to decipher the text. It was what Maddock had expected, and a little bit more. Just as they had finished, Corey appeared, carrying a manila folder. He joined them as they all circled around and read it together.

After they’d all finished reading, Willis was the first to break the silence. “Man, I don’t know about messing with no monsters, but I do like the sound of treasure.” He rubbed his hands together and smiled.

“But there is no treasure on that sub,” Matt said. “We searched that thing from stem to stern.”

“No, I mean the treasure he’s talking about in this journal,” Willis said.

Maddock nodded. “If this captain’s account can be trusted, a German spy found something of great value. Whatever it was, he couldn’t bring it all with him, so he took just a bit of it. Whatever it was, it apparently would have embarrassed the British for it to surface.”

“And the monster that guarded it got pissed off and came after him,” Bones finished. “I don’t see what’s so hard to believe about that.”

Maddock chuckled. “It would be harder to believe if we hadn’t seen the tooth and the bite marks for ourselves.”

“Something else is bothering me,” Matt said. “There were no bodies on the U-boat. What happened to them?”

“According to the legend,” Bones said, “the creature damaged the sub, but broke off its attack when ships from the Royal Navy arrived on the scene. The Germans knew they were sinking, so they ended up surrendering.”

“And the captain didn’t want the British to get their hands on his treasure,” Maddock said.

“You think there’s anything in here that might help?” Willis pointed at the journal. “I know the front part was unreadable, but if some of the later entries are legible, they might mention where he went and what he did.”

“Let’s see.” Maddock began turning the pages again, working from back to front, but almost immediately he met with disappointment. The previous page contained only a few legible words. The page before that, only two. Four more pages back, the journal was the same inky sludge as the front of the book.

“Dead end,” Matt said dully.

“We’ll have to get creative,” Maddock said. For some reason, he still felt they could solve this mystery. It wasn’t like they’d never tackled something like this before. “The sea monster attack is such a far-fetched legend that I’ll bet no one’s ever taken a serious look at it. Maybe, with some research, we could learn more about the captain and his crew.”

“You mean if I and maybe Jimmy do some research,” Corey said. Corey was a computer whiz, and their friend Jimmy Letson was an absolute legend.

“Do you really need to ask?” Maddock said. “But that’s not the only angle. If we can figure out what this treasure was, we could hunt it on our own. It won’t be as quick as if we had a journal entry saying, ‘dig here,’ but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. We’re good at finding treasure.”

“Yes, we are,” Willis agreed.

“Do you think the black stone could be a piece of this so-called treasure?” Bones asked. “The journal mentions ‘damaging something sacred.’ You wouldn’t phrase it that way if you found a treasure chest and snagged a handful of gold and jewels.”

“And the bit of stone appears to have been chipped off of something larger.” Maddock scratched his chin. “Whatever this treasure was, he had to leave it behind, but it was significant enough, maybe unusual enough, that he wanted the Kaiser to know about it. What’s more he wanted to be believed.”

“If this treasure is just a big, black chunk of rock, I’m not sure there’s going to be money in it,” Willis said. “Don’t get me wrong, Maddock, I’m curious about this stuff too, but I got to get my mama out of Michigan and set her up down in Florida with the rest of us.”

“I understand.” Disappointment welled inside Maddock. There was little he enjoyed more than unraveling a historical mystery, but he owed it to his crew to take care of them. They’d done all right the past few years, but none of them were exactly well-off. He owed it to them to remain here and keep searching for the colonial-era shipwreck. He glanced at Bones. The big Cherokee was turning the black chunk of stone over and over in his hands, a glum expression painting his face.

Corey cleared his throat. “If you two want to stop acting like a couple of emo kids, I think I’ve got a solution.”

“What’s that?” Maddock asked, absently flipping through the ruined journal.

“You and Bones can head off on one of your legend quests, or whatever the hell you call it. Meanwhile, the real treasure hunters will stay here and bring up the gold on the colonial-era ship I just found.” He held up the manila folder he’d brought along.

Maddock dropped tweezers and gaped at Corey. “Are you serious?”

Corey nodded. “While you all were screwing around down here, I worked a new grid in the direction you suggested. I found it right away. Even sent UMA down to check it out.” UMA was a remotely-controlled underwater camera they often used for scouting out wrecks. “I liked what I saw.”

Maddock’s heart raced. “What did you find?”

“See for yourself.” Corey opened the manila folder to reveal a high-resolution printout of an underwater photograph. At the center lay a broken chest, its brass bands discolored but still easy to make out, and spilling out of it…

“Gold!” Bones exclaimed. “Hell yes, you did it, you ugly, ginger virgin!” He high-fived Corey, who seemed to be trying to decide whether to smile at the praise or protest the unfair characterization.

“Do you guys think you can take it from here?” Maddock asked Willis and Matt. “The gold is just lying there waiting to be scooped up, but if anyone can screw this up…”

“It would be Bones,” Matt said. “So get him out of here as soon as possible. We’ll keep you posted on how the dive is going.”

“We might even save a little gold for you.” Willis winked.

“That settles that.” Maddock turned to Bones, who couldn’t hide his excitement. If there was one thing Bones loved more than a dive, it was hunting cryptids.

“I know how we should start,” he said.

“How’s that?”

Bones held up the tooth. “See if we can find out where this thing originally came from.”