The Danger

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

It was well after midnight, but the quiet of Côte Saint-Luc harbor was shattered by the rattle and roar of the winch of the R/V Ponce de Léon. The thousand-pound piece of equipment being lowered to the research deck was a sight straight out of Star Wars. It looked like an eight-foot-tall metal-plated robot, with side-mounted thrusters and mechanical claw hands.

It was Tin Man, Poseidon’s one-atmosphere suit, capable of taking a diver to a depth of two thousand feet or more. Tad Cutter had signed it out at exactly 12:01 A.M. Saturday morning.

“I don’t see why this couldn’t wait until we all got some sleep,” yawned Chris Reardon, guiding the huge suit into place for the ride to the wreck site. With a grunt, he added, “This thing weighs a ton.”

“Half a ton,” corrected Marina.

“We’ve only got it for a day, and I’m not taking the chance of coming up empty,” Cutter explained. “The kids are onto us. English is suspicious. It’s time to claim the treasure before somebody beats us to it.” He signaled to Captain Bill Hamilton in the wheelhouse. “Ready to go!”

Thunder rumbled as the Ponce de Léon picked its way out of the harbor, and headed into open water. Distant lightning illuminated the overcast at the horizon.

They had not yet made it to the wreck site when Captain Hamilton cut lights and power, and called his three passengers to the bridge. “There’s a ship ahead,” he informed them. “Looks like an old clunker. The oil company has a few still active.”

“Did they see us?” asked Marina.

“I don’t think so,” replied Hamilton. “I went dark as soon as they came up on radar. They wouldn’t have visual contact yet.”

“You did the right thing,” Cutter approved. “Let’s stay here and play dead until they pass by.”

“They won’t pass by,” Hamilton told him. “They’re anchored. In just about the exact coordinates we’re looking for.”

“No way,” said Reardon in consternation. “There’s no oil on this side of the island.”

“English!” breathed Marina. “The kids must have told him where the treasure is. And he’s put together a team of sat divers to go after it!”

Cutter let fly a string of curses. “Those guys are pros! If there’s anything to find, they’ll find it.”

“It doesn’t matter,” countered Marina. “If they’re diving sat, they’ve got days of decompression ahead of them. All we have to do is go down in Tin Man and get one piece of treasure. Then the International Maritime Commission declares the wreck is ours. It won’t make any difference if English and his pals pick that ship dry. They’ll just be saving us the trouble.”

Seven hundred feet below, the interns shrieked, sang, and sobbed out their celebration. They had been belittled, ignored, and deceived. Now, finally, they had their reward — gold, not at the end of the rainbow, but at the bottom of the sea.

Gold, gold, and more gold!

“What’s going on down there?” cried Star. “Are you guys all right?”

“You — you won’t believe it—” babbled Dante. “You gotta see it—”

“Will somebody tell me what’s going on?!”

Kaz provided the answer. “Dante hit Fort Knox.”

And the party spread to sea level.

For three and a half centuries, the ocean had concealed this prize from armies of treasure hunters, oceanographic experts, and professional divers. Yet four kids on a summer program had managed to unravel the puzzle — with a little help from a West Indian Frenchman named English. And Captain Vanover, of course.

The captain. It was the only melancholy note in this exultant symphony. Braden Vanover should have been here to share this triumph.

Now came the business of recovering the spectacular find. Captain Bourassa repositioned the ship so that the bell and lift basket were directly over the shelf. The divers changed from flippers to weighted boots. Swimming was no longer required. A vast fortune was buried right here. It was simply a matter of digging it up.

After eluding human hands for so long, the treasure of Nuestra Señora de la Luz seemed to give itself up in a single glittering moment. Kaz and Dante pulled hundreds of gold coins and ingots of all shapes and sizes out of the seabed. English yanked on what looked like a chain, only to come up with a rope of gold nine feet long. There turned out to be dozens of these. Beneath them, Adriana uncovered strings of pearls, and necklaces decorated with rubies, emeralds, and sapphires that made her mother’s expensive jewelry seem like dime-store junk.

Gold and gems were easy to spot, but silver was another matter. Silver oxidizes over centuries underwater, so the valuable Spanish pieces of eight were now flat black discs. They littered the bottom like gravel.

“We need a shovel,” panted Kaz. He had lost count of his armloads.

“Or a bulldozer,” Dante added exultantly.

Even English had trouble keeping the smile off his normally sour face. “Monsieur Cutter, he will — how do you say — have the cow.”

“I’m having one myself,” put in Adriana. “And my uncle—”

“I wonder how long it’ll take to get the whole one-point-two billion,” mused Dante.

“Yesterday you refused to dive,” put in Kaz. “Now you want to stay here forever?”

“Dante,” Adriana explained patiently, “the treasure of a Spanish galleon would fill that basket fifty times.”

Star cut in from topside. “I want you guys to come up as soon as you start to feel bushed. Don’t try to be heroes. Remember, it only takes one piece to put a claim on the whole wreck.”

It was unreal — a scene straight out of some swashbuckling adventure story. The very mud under their boots glittered from the pounds of gold dust that had been dispersed by the whirlpool of the sinking ship. It seemed as if every square foot of bottom silt held something of great value — gemstone-encrusted medallions and crucifixes, silver cups and plates, solid-gold candlesticks, even hatbands and collars made with braided gold. Dante was disappointed when the jewelry box he pulled out of the mud turned out to be bronze. Then he opened the lid and realized that the thing was packed to the top with huge pearls.

Adriana was on her knees, gathering loose gems, when she spied a strange shape half-buried in the sand. In surprise, she realized that it was wood — blackened and made rock-hard by the centuries at depth and pressure. Intrigued, she played her light over the carved contours and curves. The artifact had been broken on one end. She frowned. Why did the jagged angles of the crack seem so familiar?

When the answer came to her, she nearly cried out in amazement. This, she realized, was the most amazing find of all. Her heavy boots sinking in the mud, she carried the piece to the lift basket and dropped it on top of the growing mountain of riches.

When she looked up again, she saw the intruder.

It was moving slowly but steadily toward them, emerging from the darkness into the cocoon of light cast by the bell. She stared at the armored contraption that was cruising in, powered by twin thrusters. For a moment, she toyed with the possibility that the depth had driven her to hallucinations. This looked like something from outer space!

And then she recognized it. Tin Man, Poseidon’s one-atmosphere suit, sailing through the water like a humanoid submarine. Tad Cutter!

She tried to call out a warning to the others, but she couldn’t make her mouth work. How would the treasure hunter react to the sight of the wealth of Nuestra Señora being loaded up by someone else? He had already committed one murder out of greed.

The aluminum-plated suit cruised past the wreck site to the lift basket, not ten feet from Adriana. A bulky arm reached into the cage, and a mechanical claw hand closed on a small gold bar.

Despite her terror, the theft puzzled Adriana. Sure, the ingot was valuable. But it was small change compared to the fortune in the basket.

Star’s words came back to her: “It only takes one piece of treasure to put a claim on the whole wreck.”

We could lose it all if we don’t stop him!

Finding her helium-squeaky voice at last, she rasped a warning to the others: “Cutter!”

But Tin Man was retreating from her, gliding steadily away from the shelf toward the cover of the ocean’s cloak.

Kicking off his heavy boots for more speed, English dove for the suit like a linebacker. The comm. system clearly broadcast his “oof!” as he made contact. He hung on, struggling to lock onto the metallic shell.

“What’s going on?” came Star’s query from topside. “Did somebody say Cutter?”

Adriana didn’t answer. She was already running in an awkward slow-motion gait, determined to help English, who was being tossed around like a rag doll by Tin Man’s hydraulics. The six-foot-five guide looked like a child next to the half-ton suit.

“Help, you guys!” Adriana cried, launching herself into the battle. She grabbed on to the suit’s huge leg and hung on for dear life.

“The bell!” English ordered in a strained voice. “Go to the bell! Vite!”

“No!” Adriana shrieked. But his logic was clear. If English couldn’t handle this sea monster, what hope did a thirteen-year-old girl have?

But I can’t just leave him to fight alone!

With a superhuman effort, she scrambled up the fortresslike body. Now she could see Kaz and Dante plodding across the wreck site toward them, battling against the weights on their boots.

Henri was yelling in French over the comm. system, adding volume every time he got no answer.

English’s grunts were directed only at the interns. “Stay away!… go back!… the bell!…”

Straining, Adriana pulled herself up higher, until she was looking into Tin Man’s Plexiglas bubble.

A yelp of surprise escaped her.

It was not Tad Cutter in there, attempting to steal their find. The face inside the one-atmosphere suit belonged to Marina Kappas.