“You seem to be healing up pretty well,” Lee said.
Clay turned around. “I am. Thanks to them.”
“Things are sure different.”
“Yes, they are.”
“I just hope we haven’t given up too much.”
Clay considered the question. “So do I.” He looked out over the water at Alison, still playing with Sally, head also bobbing above the water.
He was still staring out over the water when, all of a sudden, both he and Lee heard a loud screech, quickly spinning around. Inside the door, the boat’s VHF radio burst into noise — static, laced with words being shouted through the unit’s small speakers.
Clay was already halfway to the radio when the shouting stopped, only to quickly resume again. The yelling was now beginning to sound more like screams and was almost unintelligible.
“What the hell is that?”
Clay reached inside and checked the channel while snatching up the handheld microphone. He glanced briefly at Lee.
“It’s a distress call.”
From under the water, Alison jumped when she heard the sound of the boat’s diesel engine roar to life. She stared up through the blue water with a look of confusion and kicked her fins hard to reach the surface.
Once above the water, she pulled her mask off and watched, puzzled, as their aluminum craft turned and charged directly for her with John Clay at the helm. She cleared water from her eyes to see Lee hanging over the starboard hull, his hands cupped over his mouth.
It took less than half a minute for them to cover the distance. Clay immediately forced the engine into reverse, slowing the boat and swinging its gleaming stern toward Alison.
“ALISON!” Lee called. “You have to get aboard! Now!”
“What is it?!”
“It’s an emergency!”
Still confused, Alison watched as Clay left the wheel and ran back to Lee. Once there, both leaned out over the rear ladder with their hands extended.
Alison kicked forward and reached up. The men grabbed and pulled hard, lifting her out of the water like a rocket.
“What’s happening?”
“Distress call,” Clay yelled, running back toward the pilot house. “Hold on to something!” he called, just before jamming the throttle forward again.
Lee and Alison both caught themselves in mid-slide, keeping firm handholds on each railing.
With a grave expression, Clay checked their bearing and pushed hard against the throttle. He did the math in his head and frowned.
They were likely too far away. And listening to the details over the radio… probably too late.
44
It was known as the Terra Firma Fleet. Composed of seven Spanish galleons, the flotilla was the most successful of the extraction efforts of Spain during the early 1600’s. They were charged with the extraction of valuables from the new world, including gold from Peru and Colombia, which were wildly more productive than Europe’s older mines.
Yet what historians did not know of the Terra Firma Fleet was that as the ferocity of the Spanish government’s war with the Dutch continued, the more desperate their need became to replenish its dwindling coffers. And ultimately the more fearful the Spanish became of losing their critical, ill-gotten treasure galleons.
They even went so far as to create falsified sailing logs showing those very galleons to be sailing Caribbean waters much farther to the north than was actually true. And it was an essential detail that would be missed by nearly every historian since, until it was realized centuries later and hundreds of miles away by a Greek treasure hunter.
Forty-seven-year-old Dimitris Demos was that man. And his years of painstaking research and personal loss to locate the Spanish galleons now paled in comparison to the sacrifice he was about to endure.
All of the dreams, of fame and riches, of being the first to find what no one else in history could — it all meant nothing as Demos stared into the eyes of his seventeen-year-old son and felt utterly horrified at what he had done.
Demos knew the look. He had seen it before. His son was now moving beyond fear, and into the early stages that would soon become uncontrollable panic.
And yet Demos was still struggling to understand where things had gone wrong. He’d taken the precautions: the equipment, the unexpected changes in pressure, and the guideline back to the exit. He had been careful.
But somehow they’d still gotten lost. And Demos was about to pay the ultimate price: to watch his son die before his very eyes, only minutes before he himself succumbed to the infernal darkness.
The guilt and shame were simply indescribable and were already being overtaken by the worry for his son. They’d managed to find a small pocket of air at one end of a tunnel but what little oxygen existed was quickly being replaced by carbon dioxide, spewed forth by their hyperventilating lungs.
In fact, Demos could already feel the remaining oxygen growing thinner, due to the rapid depletion of their last breathable air.
Not knowing what else to do, Demos checked his regulator again, depressing the large valve. Nothing. His dive light desperately searched the cave, shining upon the dark ceiling less than a meter from their heads, with scattered minerals sparkling in the bright white beam.
“Dad.”
Demos turned to face his son, who stared back at him with a listless terror in his eyes. There was no way out without drowning. No way to make it back to the boat. My God, Demos’s thoughts turned back to the boat. His wife and daughter. They were going to lose them both!
The guilt returned in a flood of emotion. And the realization was like a stab directly into his heart. He had killed himself and his son and left his wife and daughter alone. And for what? A shallow, superficial quest of adventure. And for something that might not even really exist!
Demos now felt the panic overtaking him, just as it was his son. And it was the terror alone that kept him from crying, knowing what was about to happen and that his last memories alive would be of shame.
Helplessly, Demos reached out and grabbed his son, pulling him in close. A fleeting thought came to him as he searched the tunnel in vain. At least their lights had not failed them. At least his son’s last memory would be the face of his father, who loved him more than anything.
At least they would go together.
45
It was the same bright dive lights in their hands that prevented them from seeing anything else, above or below the water. All they could see were themselves. Not even the reflection of a slightly dimmer light, or for that matter, the faint shadow approaching.
And when it finally arrived, the first thought for both Demos and his son was that they were hallucinating.
After all, what would a dolphin be doing in a place like that?
Their second reaction was bewilderment… when the dolphin poked its gray head out of the water, less than a few feet away.
In fact, both Demos and his son were so surprised at the appearance of the dolphin that they failed to notice the eruption of bubbles all around them as John Clay, still ascending from below, held out a regulator and began flooding the small cavity with fresh air.
It took several seconds longer before his head slowly emerged, covered with dark dripping hair. He raised the regulator above the water and kept the button depressed. Talking over the loud hissing sound made by the escaping air, he smiled with a calm expression. “Good morning.”
Demos was stunned. There were simply no other words. His son, floating nearby, looked utterly frozen in shock.
Another light appeared beneath Clay and slowly rose from the darkness. Two more figures, human and dolphin, breached the surface together. The second diver peered at them through a fully enclosed face mask with large attractive eyes.