The Discovery

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Jaws the size of a small desk clamped down on the bars of the still-open door in a shriek of bone on metal. The powerful head began to shake relentlessly. The cage tossed, its occupants rattling around like backgammon dice in a cup.

The tugging from the struggle must have reached the surface, because the cage began to rise. The shark remained clamped on the gate, stubbornly trying to bite through the two-inch titanium. English braced himself against the rear slats, kicking frantically with his flippers at the flat blunt snout.

Hanging on to the bars to avoid being catapulted out the opening, Kaz knew a panic he would not have imagined possible. He saw that the only thing keeping them alive at this point was the tiger shark’s own stupidity. For if the beast had the sense to let go of the door, it would have been able to poke its head inside the cage and reach them.

The glowing dial of his Fathometer watch showed that the surface was still forty feet away. When the cage rose above the waves, he wondered if he and English would still be in it.

Aboard the Hernando Cortés, Captain Vanover bent over his electric winch, which was groaning and vibrating.

Dante looked worried. “Does it do that all the time?”

“Shouldn’t,” the captain frowned. “Not to reel in a cage and two divers.”

Star peered over the stern. “I can’t see anything. No, wait—”

The others rushed to join her at the gunwale.

The ocean was boiling, churning up white water from the depths.

Adriana drew in a sharp breath. “Holy—”

The cage broke the surface, and with it rose the tiger shark, a writhing mass of muscle and fury as thick as a redwood. It was still doggedly clamped on to the bars of the door, being winched from the water up past its huge triangular dorsal fin. Now, hoisted out of the element that was its home, the beast went completely berserk, twisting and thrashing as its snapping jaws punished the tempered steel.

Vanover grabbed a long pole and began beating at the shark’s enormous head. Star hefted another and jabbed sharply at the white underbelly. Dante bounced a soda can off a pectoral fin. Nothing seemed to have any effect.

Kaz remained cemented to the bars, still breathing out of his regulator, although he hung six feet above the water.

Bellowing French curses, English shrugged out of his scuba harness, reared back with the compressed air tank, and brought it down full force on the shark’s obsidian eye. The force of the blow caused the monster to open its vice-grip jaws. It fell back into the sea with a mammoth splash that rocked the boat and sent a torrent of water over the four spectators on deck. It took two menacing laps of the research vessel, its dorsal fin slicing the waves. Then it finally disappeared.

The captain swung the cage over the gunwale and lowered it to the deck.

English hauled Kaz out and yanked the regulator from his mouth. “You are all right, boy? You are in one piece?”

Kaz nodded. His knees felt wobbly, but he was determined not to collapse. “You — you saved my life!”

The dive guide’s response was an elaborate shrug that was very French. “But next time,” he added pointedly, “you like excitement, you ride the roller coaster, oui?”

The radio burst to life in the navigation room belowdecks. Tad Cutter’s voice: “What’s going on over there? Was that a whale? Is everybody okay?”

Rolling his eyes, Vanover dragged himself down the companionway. “Everybody’s fine, Cutter,” he said shortly. “One of your interns almost got eaten. Nothing for you to concern yourself about.” He severed the connection.

“Hey—” Adriana pointed to the cage. There, pressed into a corner, its skin matching the steel-gray of the bars, cowered a small octopus. “Mr. English — here’s the octopus we owe you.”

The big guide reached in through the bars, drew out the terrified creature, and spoke directly to it. “You are lucky I’m in a good mood.” And he tossed it back into the sea.

It was the only time the four interns had ever seen him smile.

It was decided that the teen divers would ride back to Côte Saint-Luc harbor on the Hernando Cortés instead of switching to the Ponce de León.

“The last thing you kids need is face time with Cutter and his crew,” said Vanover grimly.

Kaz nodded his agreement. “Reardon’s probably still sore about losing that grouper. I’ll bet he has no idea that his stupid fishing line almost turned me into the catch of the day.”

Vanover regarded him seriously. “I’ve seen too many divers pretend it never happened by making little jokes like that. What you went through — that’s as scary as it gets. Here’s what you have to decide: Was it a knockout punch? Some guys can shrug off an experience like that and strap on fins the very next morning; others never put a toe in the water again. Your job, Kaz, is to figure out which one you’re going to be.” He headed up the companionway, leaving them alone in the galley.

“He’s right, you know,” said Dante. “How are you ever going to be able to dive after today? I don’t know if I can, and it didn’t even happen to me.”

“That’s just plain dumb,” scoffed Star. “Today was a freak accident. Even if you do run into a big shark like that, chances are he’ll look right through you and keep on swimming. To quit diving because of this would be like refusing to drive a car because you almost got into an accident once.”

“Yeah, but Clarence is still out there somewhere,” Dante reminded her.

She shrugged. “The captain says he’s been around for years. People hardly ever see him, and even when they do, it’s no big deal. Kaz just happened to be there when he was feeding and there was blood in the water.”

“Even so—” Dante began.

“I’m still diving,” Kaz interrupted suddenly.

Adriana was wary. “You probably shouldn’t make up your mind right away.”

“I’m still diving,” he repeated. The decision had come to him suddenly, unexpectedly. It was something Star said — “a freak accident.” How had the doctors described Drew Christiansen’s catastrophic injury? A freak accident. A one in a million shot. To consider what happened as anything more than pure wild chance was the equivalent of blaming Drew’s paralysis on Kaz.

There was no more extra danger of shark attack in these waters than there was likelihood that a body check from Bobby Kaczinski would put another boy in a wheelchair.

The more he thought about it, the more it made sense to him. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.”

“You’re tough, rink rat,” Star said with grudging approval.

“Now, listen. You’re not going to believe this, but Clarence was not the top news story today.”

“That’s because it wasn’t your head he was practically chewing on,” Kaz retorted.

“Seriously.” Star persisted. “First off, all this didn’t happen at some random spot on the reef. We were directly above the anchor back there.”

“We saw it,” added Adriana. “The whole thing.”

“That’s impossible!” Dante exclaimed. “It’s buried under tons of coral.”

“Not anymore.” Star informed him, “because Cutter blasted the reef to smithereens. That’s why the ocean was cloudy — from the dynamite.”

Kaz shook his head. “Scientists don’t destroy coral. They love coral. Every day is like take-a-polyp-to-lunch day.”

“That’s exactly why we’ve been having so much trouble trying to figure this thing out,” Star told him. “Why would a scientist steal our coin? Why would a scientist waste our time tagging caves? The answer is: Cutter, Marina, and Reardon aren’t scientists. They’re treasure hunters.”

“Treasure hunters!” Kaz exclaimed. “It all adds up. They sure aren’t oceanographers. Did you catch what Cutter said over the radio? ‘Was that a whale?’”

Dante was skeptical. “But if treasure’s what they’re really after, why would they bring in four kids on summer internships? Wouldn’t we just be in the way?”

“I think we’re kind of a smoke screen,” Adriana put in. “Remember, Cutter’s people don’t work at Poseidon, Saint-Luc. They’re from the head office in California. It’s the perfect cover — they come here and nose around the Hidden Shoals, acting like it’s for our benefit.”

“And they keep us out of their hair,” Star added, “by sending us after caves nobody cares about.”

Kaz nodded slowly. “And they picked us because we wouldn’t be good enough to interfere with their discovery.”

“If they make a discovery,” Dante added.

“They already did,” said Adriana. “Or at least, you did.”

Wordlessly, Star reached into the pocket of her cargo shorts and drew out the artifact she had pulled from the wreckage of the coral — the carved white handle. “The anchor, the silver coin, and now this, all in the same spot. Are you going to tell me there isn’t a wreck down there?”

The two boys’ eyes widened as they stared at the gleaming whalebone hilt. A pockmark of coral growth obscured its main decoration — a large dark stone inset in the delicate pattern. Directly above it were etched the initials JB. The old English script was as sharp as if it had been carved only yesterday.

JB. Was that some poor shipwrecked sailor, dead for hundreds of years?