“What happened here?” Gray asked.
The story unfolded in stuttering bits and pieces, told by the pair of survivors, Maggie and Wendell. Three hours ago, the assailants had pretended to be a fishing charter. The ruse lasted long enough for the armed men to assault the catamaran. Simon had tried to fight them, but he was overpowered, stripped, and tossed overboard.
“Why?” Ben asked. “Why not simply shoot him?”
Maggie looked near shock with the retelling. “They were trying to get his daughter to cooperate.”
“Kelly?”
She nodded. “Only Kelly knew the coordinates where the Trident’s artifacts had been found. We were all on a dive that day, leaving her, as our lowly student, aboard the ship to monitor a routine glider survey. It’s mind-numbing work. While watching the feed, she happened to spot the bell and shackle. Excited, she free-dove down to collect the trophies. But when she recognized the name on the bell — and what such a discovery implied — she erased the glider’s record. Though she told us about the discovery, she kept its exact location secret.”
“But not from her father,” Ben added.
Wendell looked startled. “What?”
“Kelly told Simon,” Ben said. “Then he told me.”
Gray suspected Simon shared this information with Ben for selfish reasons. He likely wanted to recruit Ben before his daughter tried doing anything even more foolhardy, like attempting to search those caves on her own.
“Kelly eventually broke and told the gunmen the coordinates,” Maggie explained. “But before they could pull Simon out of the water…”
Ben grimaced. “He ran afoul of a box jelly.”
She nodded. “Kelly witnessed it all. That poor girl.”
“Where is she now?” Seichan asked.
The woman stared out toward the forested cliffs. “They forced her to go along with them. When she initially refused, they shot Tyler and threatened us.”
Gray pictured the dead man floating amid the wreckage. “How many went with her?”
“Six, including Dr. Hoffmeister.”
Ben frowned. “Dr. Hoffmeister?”
“Our team leader,” Wendell elaborated with a bitter scowl. “He was the one who betrayed us to those murderous bastards.”
Seichan snorted. “So much for the purity of scientific research.”
Maggie looked down. “We’d all heard rumors he had a gambling problem, but I never imagined he could be so callous. Especially with those he worked alongside.”
Gray was not as surprised. All too often greed trumped friendship or loyalty.
“You have to do something,” Wendell said. “They’ll kill Kelly once they find what they’re looking for.”
Gray knew he was right. And from the despair in the kid’s voice, his interest in Kelly was more than merely collegial.
Seichan glanced toward the coast and shrugged. “Three against six. Not bad odds.”
“And we still have the element of surprise,” Ben added.
Gray began to nod when a crackling noise drew his attention to the dead assailant on the deck. The noise rose from a radio headpiece.
He quickly snatched it free and lifted the radio to his ear and lips. A trail of words reached him.
“… late in reporting in. What’s your status?”
Gray had to take the chance. “All quiet here,” he said gruffly.
There was a long pause before the voice on the line returned, angry and suspicious. “Who the hell is this?”
Seichan stared at him as he lowered the radio.
He shook his head.
So much for the element of surprise.
“Let’s give those blokes a wide berth,” Ben radioed to them.
Seichan didn’t argue as she followed the two men. A trio of bull sharks circled the wreck of the catamaran, likely drawn by the blood of the murdered oceanographer. Their group steered well clear of that wreckage and headed for the coast.
Earlier, before going overboard, they had briefly searched the guards for the boat’s keys but had no luck. They also found the ship’s radio disabled, requiring a digital code to unlock it. So as a precaution, they had ordered Maggie and Wendell to suit up and swim to shore, sending the pair out of harm’s way with instructions to get word to someone in authority and let them know the situation.
Seichan knew better than to expect any help in time.
We’re on our own.
Before leaving, Maggie had also informed them what they’d be facing. The crew had departed with spear guns and carried satchels of demolition charges.
Seichan glanced to the ruins of the catamaran, recognizing the handiwork of those explosives. The thieves plainly had come prepared in case they had to blow their way into that cavern system in order to search for the cache of gold.
She pictured the mutinous crew back in 1852 rowing into those same sea caves to hide their loot, perhaps fearing the Trident might be recaptured by British forces. But was the gold still here after so long?
As they neared Simon’s coordinates, Ben waved for them to spread wider, making their group less of a target. They proceeded with great caution, using the ridges of reefs as cover. If the assailants suspected treachery after the aborted radio call, the enemy would likely have a guard hidden near the entrance to the cavern system. If any of their team flushed him out, the other two would still have a chance to take him down.
Unfortunately, once they drew closer to the coordinates, they realized the guard at the entrance was not what they expected. They almost missed it as the waters grew murkier, clouded by sand and silt stirred up by the waves crashing into the towering coastal cliffs.
Through the gloom, a yellow torpedo-shaped tube with fins hovered a couple yards in front of the black eye of a tunnel. Its nosecone pointed out toward the sea, its buoyant length gently bobbing in the current.
“One of ANFOG’s gliders,” Ben hissed.
The thieves must have left this electronic guard dog to watch the entrance to the cavern system. Someone was likely monitoring its feed from inside the sea caves.
“No way we can sneak past that glider’s sensors,” Ben said. “If we get too close, the enemy will know we’re on our way inside.”
“Then we find a way to blind it,” Gray said.
“How?”
Gray reached to a webbed bag hanging from his weight belt. He pulled out one of the two demolition charges they had found aboard the boat during their search.
“If you try to blow the glider up,” Ben warned, “it’ll be as good as being spotted. They’ll still know we’re coming.”
“That’s not my plan.”
Gray swam back several yards, then used his dive knife to remove three-quarters of the charge’s load of plastic explosive, weakening its potential blast. He then quickly buried it a foot into the sand at the base of a ridge of bleached, brittle coral.
“Move well back.” He waved them farther from the shoreline. “I set the timer for thirty seconds. Be ready to go on my mark.”
With the charge buried, they retreated.
Seichan counted down in her head as she swam. When she reached zero, a muffled whump thudded into her ears and rib cage. She twisted back around as the section of the seabed where Gray had buried the charge belched upward with a massive flume of sand and shattered coral. The current immediately swept the cloud toward shore.
“Now!” Gray radioed. “Get into the debris field and stick close together.”
Seichan understood. She swam with the others into the dense cloud of sediment. They quickly lost sight of one another, even when clutching an elbow or the edge of a neighbor’s fin. Still, Ben guided them unerringly forward, swimming by instruments alone, following his wrist GPS. He skirted them to the side of the blinded electronic guard dog, then along the rocks.