The Danger

CHAPTER ELEVEN

They were a strange procession down the hall of the hospital of the Antilles Oil platform. Star was at the center, taking baby steps, hanging on to the handles of a walker. Kaz, Adriana, and Dante matched her slow pace, leaning into the hushed conversation.

“Captain James Blade,” whispered Star. “How cool is that? I wonder what he was like? Maybe some kindly grizzled old sailor, hobbling around on a cane with a bone handle.”

“He was a privateer, Star,” Adriana reminded her. “They were as bad as pirates, sometimes worse. He may have hobbled, but he wasn’t kindly.”

“Or he was a maniac with a whip,” put in Kaz.

“The point is, he was a rich maniac,” said Dante. “Or he would have been if his boat hadn’t sunk. Can you imagine that feeling? All your dreams are coming true, and then—”

“I can,” Star said huskily. “I’ll never dive again.”

Kaz didn’t mean to snap, but the thought of Drew Christiansen set off an avalanche of emotion. “Don’t you think that’s a little nitpicky? You could be in a wheelchair right now!”

Star’s eyes flashed, but she nodded sadly. “I know how lucky I am.”

“When are you heading back to the States?” Adriana asked Star.

“Friday morning. Poseidon doesn’t want me on the catamaran, so we have to wait for an oil company helicopter to Martinique.”

“I can’t believe you’re leaving,” said Kaz.

“My dad can’t miss any more work,” Star mumbled. “The choppers don’t run every day. We’ve got to grab this one.”

They nodded lamely.

“The thing is” — Star looked from face to face — “people like Cutter, treasure hunters, they spend decades searching, all for nothing. But between Dante’s eyes, Adriana’s smarts, and Kaz’s guts, we did the impossible. I mean, we found two needles in the world’s biggest haystack. If only I could dive, I’d—”

“You’d what?” challenged Dante. “Swim down to seven hundred feet and bag up a billion dollars? It can’t be done.”

“It can, you know,” Adriana argued. “English can do it. The oil-rig divers go that deep all the time. What did they call it?”

“Saturation diving,” Kaz supplied. “But that’s a big operation — a diving bell, special breathing gas, a support ship—”

“Maybe English and his friends can get the treasure for us,” suggested Dante. “One-point-two billion — you can split it a lot of ways and still come out loaded.”

“Are you kidding?” exclaimed Star. “English hates treasure hunters. Why do you think he’s so mad at Cutter?”

“We’re not treasure hunters,” Dante argued. “We’re just people who happen to know about some treasure. And we may as well get it, because it isn’t doing anybody any good sitting around in the mud.”

“And the money goes to charity, of course,” Adriana added sarcastically.

“What’s so bad about wanting money?” Dante shot back. “I don’t see your family giving away its millions. Come on, let’s just ask the guy.”

“It looks like you’re going to get your chance,” observed Kaz.

They had reached the door of Star’s hospital room. There, seated on the edge of the bed, his face unsmiling as always, sat English.

Pushing the walker, Star led the way inside. “Look how fast I’m getting. Think they’ve got some kind of NASCAR for these things?”

The dive guide got to his feet, towering over the interns. “Bon. You are all here. Now you will tell me — on Deep Scout, exactement what did you find?”

“Sure.” Adriana explained their theory of the wrecks of Nuestra Señora de la Luz and the Griffin, and the vast treasure that lay in the ruins of the second ship. “We can’t be positive, but we’re ninety-nine percent sure. The J.B. handle proves it. Captain Blade must have lost his walking stick or whip during the battle over Nuestra Señora. That’s why we found an English artifact in a Spanish galleon.”

“One billion American dollars,” English repeated gravely.

“One-point-two,” amended Dante.

“We didn’t think you wanted to know,” put in Kaz. “Every time treasure came up, you got mad. What’s the big interest now?”

English rested his chin on an enormous fist. “At Poseidon, I see Monsieur Cutter’s name on the schedule for use Tin Man. Such equipment is not for working on the reef. I think he tries to find this treasure for himself.”

“But Cutter doesn’t even know about the second ship,” argued Kaz.

“Perhaps he knows more than you think.” English paused reluctantly. “You must not jump on the conclusions. But this thing you should hear: The damage to Deep Scout — this was not the shark attack. It was the sabotage.” He explained the tampering he’d observed on the fiberglass plates that covered the sub’s temperature probe.

The interns were horrified.

“Cutter!” Adriana exclaimed. “He killed the captain!”

“He could have killed all of us,” added Star. “And he nearly put me in a wheelchair.”

“I always knew he was a jerk,” put in Kaz. “But I never thought he was a murderer.”

“I have no proof, me,” English said sternly. “When I talk to him, he seems very surprised. Conviction without trial — this is not civilized.”

“But how else could he know about the deeper wreck?” Dante persisted.

“We have a saying — on a small island, all the world knows your underwear size. A secret — on Saint-Luc there is no such thing. Me, I do not accuse Monsieur Cutter of murder — yet. Alors, however he learns of this treasure, I think he dives for it Saturday.”

“We’ve got to stop him,” Star exclaimed determinedly. “Otherwise we’re letting him get rich off the captain’s death.”

“Stop him,” repeated English. “How to do this?”

“By beating him to the treasure,” Kaz reasoned. “You know saturation diving; I know where the wreck is. I’ll go with you.”

“Absolument, no.”

“I made it to three hundred feet; I can do this, too.”

English nodded. “You are brave, monsieur. But you are a boy, and no boy is ready for the sat dive.”

Kaz stuck out his chin. “I can dive in a helmet; I can handle an air hose; I can sit in a chamber and decompress—”

“Ah, oui,” English interrupted. “All these things you can learn. But I ask you this: You have been on my island for more than a month. How many old divers do you see? And the men who yet live, they limp, they ache from the bends, from the arthritis, from the injury. You are children from a wealthy country where danger is for the daredevils. I must do this job — I cannot trade the shares on Wall Street. You have the choice. Be smart.”

“It’s the only way to stop Cutter,” argued Kaz. “And you can’t do it without me.”

“And me,” added Adriana. “This is plundered Spanish treasure in the wreckage of an English privateer! Living history! I have to be a part of it.”

“Not me,” said Dante. “I’ll do what I can; I’ll help on the boat. I swore I’d never dive again.”

“Bravo,” English approved. “Someone has the intelligence.”

“It can work,” Kaz persisted. “You know it can.”

English thought it over. “We will need a ship,” he said finally. “A bell. Crew who can be trusted. Très difficile—”

“But not impossible,” Kaz finished.

The guide took a deep breath. “I will try, me.”

Star sat down on the bed. “I can’t believe I won’t be going down there with you.”

“We’ll e-mail you,” Adriana vowed. “You’ll get every detail.”

Star regarded the friends who had been closer than family for the past few weeks. “I’ll miss you guys,” she told them soberly. “I hope we can figure out a way to keep in touch back home.”

“If this works, we’ll be millionaires,” Dante reminded her. “Plane tickets are chicken feed compared to the kind of money we’re going to have.”

Star choked on the notion that this was really good-bye. “I’d trade it all for the chance to go on one more dive with you.”