The Danger

CHAPTER SEVEN

Star sat up in bed and swung her legs over the side, her features set in an expression of grim determination.

I will not be crippled by this. I had a disability before, and it didn’t stop me. This isn’t going to beat me, either.

But her legs buckled instantly, and no force of will could straighten them. A flailing arm tried to catch the nightstand, but succeeded only in upending the duffel bag that sat there. The pain that came when her shoulder made contact with the hard floor was nothing compared with the anguish in her heart.

I didn’t expect to tap-dance today, but shouldn’t there be some sign of improvement? Some ray of hope that I’m getting better? Something?

Enraged, she picked up the first thing her hand closed on — the bone handle. With a cry, she hurled it with all her might across the room. With a crack, it struck the steel door frame and bounced off.

All at once, her anger turned inward. Sure, that makes sense. Smash a three-hundred-year-old artifact. That’ll help you walk.

Now the only piece from the shipwrecks that Cutter didn’t know about was lying on the floor like a dropped pencil. She had to hide it away before anybody saw it.

Using her arms, which were swimmer-strong, she began to pull herself across the tiles. Panting, she reached for the hilt. It was just out of her grasp.

“Room 224,” came a familiar voice from outside in the reception area.

Oh, no, Marina Kappas!

In a desperate bid, Star stretched her body to full extension, snatched up the carved whalebone, and wriggled back toward the bed. There were footsteps in the hall as she stashed the handle back in the duffel, zipped it shut, and shoved it under the nightstand.

Two legs appeared in the doorway. “Star, what are you doing on the floor?” the striking Californian asked in alarm.

“The Australian crawl,” Star replied sarcastically. “What does it look like I’m doing? I’m trying to walk, and it isn’t happening.”

And then a soft voice spoke her name.

For the first time, she looked up. “Dad,” she barely whispered.

So much had happened in the past weeks, but their exotic location had given it a dreamlike fairy-tale quality. Now, to see her father — someone from home, from her real life — brought it all crashing down on her.

It was heartbreaking and terrifying at the same time.

Mr. Ling scooped his daughter off the floor and lifted her gently back to her bed. There he held her and let her cry.

Zipped safely away in the duffel bag, the whalebone handle rested on a pile of wadded-up T-shirts. What Star had been in too much of a hurry to notice was that the collision with the door frame had chipped a piece of coral from the hilt. The stone set in its center now glowed a deep fiery green.

The crane was so large that, when its winch was in operation, the roar was like an airport runway during takeoff. Poseidon Oceanographic Institute had nothing like it. This titanic piece of equipment, along with Antilles IV, the enormous ship that supported it, was on loan from Antilles Oil Company. It was normally used to salvage lost drill parts and underwater piping. But today the quarry was Deep Scout, the research submersible that had been disabled and abandoned by the late Captain Vanover and the four interns.

Three hundred feet below, oil company divers fastened grappling hooks and lift bags to the crippled sub’s hull. And then the powerful cables began to haul Deep Scout from its watery prison. The lift bags inflated as the vehicle rose and the air inside expanded.

Minutes later, Deep Scout broke the surface, its clear bubble gleaming in the sun. Dripping, it was winched onto the expansive work bed of the Antilles IV, where dozens of crew members awaited it.

Far astern, a second, smaller crane was in operation. It was raising the diving bell, which housed the salvage divers. It also acted as a decompression chamber, saving the deep-sea workers the need to make decompression stops in the water.

Inside the bell, the men played cards, read magazines, and snoozed the time away. But one pair of eyes was glued to the porthole, following the progress of the work on Deep Scout.

English watched intently as the crew shoveled an endless supply of wet mud out of the sub’s belly. Oui, this was in agreement with what the four teenagers had told him. Two fiberglass plates had separated, causing Deep Scout to scoop up huge quantities of sand and mud from the ocean floor. The extra weight had made the vehicle too heavy to return to the surface.

English and his fellow divers were used to decomps that lasted up to two weeks, but today their stay was short. After two and a half hours, the bell was opened, and the deep-water crew emerged. By this time, the sub’s titanium husk was suspended above the salvage deck. A single technician stood below, examining the vehicle and making notes on a clipboard.

English went to join him, peering up at the short, snub-nosed hull. He spotted the loose plates almost at once.

He pointed. “Here — this was the problem, yes?”

The man nodded. “The temperature gauge is behind there.” He frowned. “I can’t imagine how the plates came apart. It’s never happened before, and this boat’s fifteen years old.”

The native guide squinted for a better look. According to the interns, the damage had been done by a collision with the shark Clarence. But, alors, this seemed unlikely. The attack of a large tiger shark would batter the fiberglass, leaving dents from the rounded snout. These panels were intact except for the locking mechanism, which was bent apart.

A one-in-a-million shot from an angry predator?

No. Then the connection would be bent inward. This was bent outward — almost as if it had been pried apart….

“Sabotage?” he mused aloud.

The technician laughed. “What for? Who would go after a research sub? It’s got nothing but bottom samples and rare algae.”

It took a lot to surprise Menasce Gérard, but when his mind made the leap, he was profoundly shocked. Perhaps other missions were seeking sand and algae. But on this occasion, Deep Scout had been after sunken treasure.

Who had an interest in seeing that mission fail?

For Tad Cutter and his crew, frustration had begun to set in. They had been excavating the wreck site on the reef, and knew it to be the fabled galleon Nuestra Señora de la Luz. They had found a great many artifacts there — dishes, cutlery, medallions, crucifixes, weapons, and ammunition; even huge items like anchors and cannon barrels. There was only one problem. An estimated $1.2 billion in Spanish treasure was simply not there.

That amount of silver, gold, and gems didn’t merely get up and walk away. It was definitely down there somewhere. But where to look for it? That was the question.

The kids seemed to be after the treasure, too, with Braden Vanover helping them. But why had they taken a submersible into deep water when the shipwreck was right there on the reef, a mere sixty-five feet beneath the waves? Did the kids know something that Cutter didn’t?

It was infuriating, and not a little worrisome. The Californians hadn’t been out on the R/V Ponce de Léon in days. Their excavation was a dead end, but what were they supposed to do? Start from scratch?

Bide their time. That was Marina’s idea. But how long could they keep this up before Gallagher noticed that they weren’t mapping the reef anymore? How many hours could Cutter waste in the Poseidon laundry room, watching his socks tumbling by in the window of the dryer and praying for a jolt of inspiration?

The machine clicked off, and Cutter listlessly began to fold his clothes.

The laundry room door was pushed open so violently that it slammed into the wall, and English burst onto the scene, his face a thundercloud.

“English — what brings you — ?”

The guide crossed the room in two strides that would have been impossible for a normal-sized person. In a single motion, he pulled a large towel out of Cutter’s basket, wrapped it around the smaller man’s torso, and pulled tight, binding his arms to his sides.

Cutter was shocked. “What’s going on, man?”

His rage boiling over, English squeezed harder. “You will tell me how you killed Braden Vanover, monsieur, and I maybe take you to the police alive!”

Cutter was having trouble breathing. “What are you talking about? Nobody killed Braden! It was a sub accident! The shark—”

“Enough!” The diver’s booming voice rattled every loose object in the room. “I see this ‘accident.’ Unless the shark is handy with the crowbar, this is no accident! This is le sabotage! And who has the motive for this? You!”

The look of astonishment on Cutter’s face was so complete that English released him at once. Surely such genuine surprise could not be faked.

“You’re serious?” Cutter was aghast. “Someone tampered with the sub? And you think it was me?”

“I am not blind, me,” English growled. “Do you think you can hide from me this thing you do? I see the coral you destroy to search for gold. I see you smash the reef with airlift and jackhammer. You do not fool me!”

“Okay, okay,” said Cutter. “We’re not saints. But we’re not killers, either.”

English glared at him. “We shall see.” He turned on his heel and left as abruptly as he had arrived.