“I think you already know,” Grizzly said, slipping into the straps of his backpack and buckling it above his hips.
“Actually, no. I only researched Ben Macdui and the Grey Man. I didn’t study up on any of your other projects.”
Grizzly folded his arms and gazed down at her, a condescending smile painting his lips. “Come on. We’ve only known each other a day, but aren’t we past playing games? I’m not blind, you know.”
Isla rolled her eyes. “You’re the one playing games here, and I really don’t have time for it. If you don’t want to tell me about your next project, that’s fine. I won’t include it in the article.” She turned on her heel and strode away.
“You think I didn’t notice how much attention you were paying to the summit indicator?” Grizzly called.
His words stopped her in her tracks. He couldn’t possibly know, could he? “I took pictures,” she said through gritted teeth. “That’s my job.”
“Yes, you did.” The sound of crunching gravel marked his approach as he strolled over to where she stood. “Dozens and dozens of close-up images of every inch of its surface. Those will look great in the magazine.”
“I thought they would look interesting.”
Grizzly narrowed his eyes, his smile vanishing. “You thought it would lead you to the treasure of the Tuatha de Dannan.”
Chapter 7
Silence hung in the room as everyone stared at the journal Maddock held in his hands. Monster. He’d have to translate the entire entry just to be certain, but this, combined with the tooth they’d found embedded in the U-boat, appeared to confirm what had sounded like a far-fetched tale when Bones told it. Of course, that was true for most of his stories.
“Can you read all that?” Willis asked.
“A bit of it. My German is rusty.”
“Let me take a look.” Bones moved to Maddock’s side and squinted down at the words formed in a neat hand.
“Come on,” Matt said. “You speak German?”
“I took it in high school. A bit more in junior college, then some in the Navy.” Bones shrugged, his attention on the book.
“Why German?” Matt prodded. “Wouldn’t Spanish be more practical?”
Bones turned a long, level look at his friend. “You’ve known me all these years, and you don’t know the answer to that question?”
Matt flipped his hand in a “go on” gesture and raised his eyebrows.
“The French hate the Germans, and you know what I always say.”
“Screw the French,” the others chorused, chuckling as they spoke.
“Amen, brothers. Now, let’s take a look at this thing.”
It took some time, but Bones, with help from Maddock and an online German translation program, managed to decipher the text. It was what Maddock had expected, and a little bit more. Just as they had finished, Corey appeared, carrying a manila folder. He joined them as they all circled around and read it together.
30 April, 1918
I write these words fearing that I and my men are doomed. The curse has followed us. As night fell, something began slamming against our hull, powerful crashes that shook the very framework of our boat but no enemy vessels were in sight. And then, with a terrible shriek, something breached our hull in several places at once. We thought it might be enemy fire, but as we fought to stem the flow of sea water into the ship, it happened again. I saw it with my own eyes — razor sharp fangs, terrible to behold. I did not believe our agent when he handed me this small portion of what he insists is a valuable treasure, nor when he told me of the beast that guarded it. Has this same monster come to reclaim its prize, or is this one of its brethren? How is either one even possible? Does it want this small bit of treasure back, or is it merely punishing us for the damage done to something it holds sacred? I regret that I will not be able to show this to the Kaiser. It would bring great shame to the Tommies to realize they have been sitting on a false throne.
After they’d all finished reading, Willis was the first to break the silence. “Man, I don’t know about messing with no monsters, but I do like the sound of treasure.” He rubbed his hands together and smiled.
“But there is no treasure on that sub,” Matt said. “We searched that thing from stem to stern.”
“No, I mean the treasure he’s talking about in this journal,” Willis said.
Maddock nodded. “If this captain’s account can be trusted, a German spy found something of great value. Whatever it was, he couldn’t bring it all with him, so he took just a bit of it. Whatever it was, it apparently would have embarrassed the British for it to surface.”
“And the monster that guarded it got pissed off and came after him,” Bones finished. “I don’t see what’s so hard to believe about that.”
Maddock chuckled. “It would be harder to believe if we hadn’t seen the tooth and the bite marks for ourselves.”
“Something else is bothering me,” Matt said. “There were no bodies on the U-boat. What happened to them?”
“According to the legend,” Bones said, “the creature damaged the sub, but broke off its attack when ships from the Royal Navy arrived on the scene. The Germans knew they were sinking, so they ended up surrendering.”
“And the captain didn’t want the British to get their hands on his treasure,” Maddock said.
“You think there’s anything in here that might help?” Willis pointed at the journal. “I know the front part was unreadable, but if some of the later entries are legible, they might mention where he went and what he did.”
“Let’s see.” Maddock began turning the pages again, working from back to front, but almost immediately he met with disappointment. The previous page contained only a few legible words. The page before that, only two. Four more pages back, the journal was the same inky sludge as the front of the book.
“Dead end,” Matt said dully.
“We’ll have to get creative,” Maddock said. For some reason, he still felt they could solve this mystery. It wasn’t like they’d never tackled something like this before. “The sea monster attack is such a far-fetched legend that I’ll bet no one’s ever taken a serious look at it. Maybe, with some research, we could learn more about the captain and his crew.”
“You mean if I and maybe Jimmy do some research,” Corey said. Corey was a computer whiz, and their friend Jimmy Letson was an absolute legend.
“Do you really need to ask?” Maddock said. “But that’s not the only angle. If we can figure out what this treasure was, we could hunt it on our own. It won’t be as quick as if we had a journal entry saying, ‘dig here,’ but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. We’re good at finding treasure.”
“Yes, we are,” Willis agreed.
“Do you think the black stone could be a piece of this so-called treasure?” Bones asked. “The journal mentions ‘damaging something sacred.’ You wouldn’t phrase it that way if you found a treasure chest and snagged a handful of gold and jewels.”
“And the bit of stone appears to have been chipped off of something larger.” Maddock scratched his chin. “Whatever this treasure was, he had to leave it behind, but it was significant enough, maybe unusual enough, that he wanted the Kaiser to know about it. What’s more he wanted to be believed.”
“If this treasure is just a big, black chunk of rock, I’m not sure there’s going to be money in it,” Willis said. “Don’t get me wrong, Maddock, I’m curious about this stuff too, but I got to get my mama out of Michigan and set her up down in Florida with the rest of us.”
“I understand.” Disappointment welled inside Maddock. There was little he enjoyed more than unraveling a historical mystery, but he owed it to his crew to take care of them. They’d done all right the past few years, but none of them were exactly well-off. He owed it to them to remain here and keep searching for the colonial-era shipwreck. He glanced at Bones. The big Cherokee was turning the black chunk of stone over and over in his hands, a glum expression painting his face.