Vanover called to them from the cockpit. “Morning, guys.” He noticed their diving equipment piled up on the dock, noted the absence of the Ponce de León, and looked disgusted. “Not again.”
Kaz nodded. “They stood us up. We were here by five. They were already gone.”
“That tears it! Load up your gear and get on board. I’ll take you to Cutter.”
When English came back from the harbormaster’s office, he was dismayed to find the four teens aboard, and Vanover preparing to cast off.
The dive guide was annoyed. “Captain, pourquoi — why these teenagers again?”
“Relax, English,” the captain soothed. “We’re just a taxi service. Cutter blew them off, and I’m not going to let him get away with it this time.”
English looked suspicious. “No diving?”
“Not with us,” Vanover promised. “We’ll radio the office and get the Ponce’s location. There and back, that’s all.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The Cortés was seven miles out of Côte Saint-Luc when they heard the blast.
“Thunder?” asked Dante. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky.
Vanover and English exchanged a look, and the captain cranked up the boat’s speed. On the open water, a boom like that usually meant an engine explosion.
English took over the helm, and Vanover rushed belowdecks to the radio. “This is the Cortés calling the Ponce. Bill, we just heard a whale of a bang. Are you and your people all right?”
There was no answer. The captain repeated the message. Still nothing.
English leaned on the throttle, and the research vessel surged ahead.
The four young divers braced against bulwarks as the chop tossed the racing boat. Their expressions were sober. Had something happened to Cutter and his crew?
At last, the Ponce de León appeared, a speck on the horizon.
Vanover studied it through binoculars. “Well, it’s in one piece,” he reported. “And I don’t see any fire.”
English maintained top velocity. “And the people?”
“Nobody yet,” said the captain.
They were four hundred yards off the other vessel’s starboard bow when the radio crackled to life. Bill Hamilton, captain of the Ponce de León. “This is the Ponce. Braden, is that you?”
“What’s going on, Bill? Is everybody okay over there? Why didn’t you answer our hail?”
Tad Cutter’s voice came on the line. “Things got kind of crazy around here. You wouldn’t believe the engine backfire we just had.”
“That was a backfire?” Vanover exclaimed. “It sounded like a bomb!”
“We’re checking the engine now,” Cutter went on. “But I’m pretty sure we’re all right. Thanks anyway, Braden.”
“Not so fast,” said the captain. “I’ve got a surprise for you, Cutter. Four surprises, actually. You left a little something on the dock this morning.”
“Oh, yeah, the kids. We got an early start today. I didn’t have the heart to wake them.”
“Yeah, well, they’re awake now. And they’re coming over.”
“Not a good idea,” Cutter warned. “My compressor’s down, so they can’t dive.”
“No problem,” Vanover assured him. “I’ve got a few charged scuba tanks. We’ll come alongside, put them in the water from our platform, and they’ll ride home with you when you’re done.”
There was a very long silence. Then, “Sounds like a plan.”
By this time, the two boats were close enough together that Kaz could see Cutter, Marina, and Reardon on the deck of the Ponce de León. Reardon was in the stern, checking the fishing line that seemed to be his foremost concern aboard the research vessel. If Kaz had not been preoccupied with struggling into his tropical suit, he might have noticed that Reardon’s hair was wet. The bearded man had been in the water, and recently.
The Cortés idled one hundred feet astern of the Ponce de León, and the four divers took to the waves.
“Remember” — Vanover’s parting words — “you have every right to be here. You didn’t pick Poseidon; Poseidon picked you. Don’t be afraid to tell that to Cutter.”
Floating on the surface, Star muttered, “There are plenty of things I intend to tell Cutter.”
“What’s the point?” sneered Kaz, treading water. “He lied to us before; he’ll lie to us again.”
“Hi, guys!” Marina beckoned from the deck of the Ponce de León, beaming and waving. “Come aboard! We’re moving off!”
“In your dreams,” muttered Star. “I’m going down to see what they’ve been up to.” She flipped her mask over her nose and mouth. “Who’s with me?”
“Me,” volunteered Adriana.
“But what are we supposed to tell Marina?” asked Dante.
“Tell her we didn’t hear,” Star said. “Her voice doesn’t carry so good. I might never hear her again.” She bit down on her regulator, deflated her B.C., and disappeared below the surface. Adriana followed.
The water was dark and murky — almost opaque. What had happened to the clear blue Caribbean?
As Star continued to descend, she kept one eye on the fluid kick of Adriana’s flippers slightly above her. It would be easy to lose track of her partner in this silt.
Silt. That’s what it was. But what force could stir up so much of the stuff? An engine backfire? Not likely.
Forty feet. Where was the bottom?
A curious barracuda peered at them through the pea soup and darted quickly away.
Sixty feet. How deep was it here? The visibility was so bad it was impossible to tell. There was almost no light now. Star felt isolated, disoriented. Only the direction of her bubbles told her which way was up.
Suddenly, her flippers scraped something unseen. The reef! She valved air into her B.C. to make herself neutrally buoyant, and grabbed Adriana before the girl hit bottom. The two squinted at each other in the gloom. Cutter and company may well have been up to something, but the girls weren’t likely to find evidence of it with the ocean in this condition.
They swam along the seafloor, following the line of the reef from a few feet above it. And then, quite abruptly, the coral spine was no longer there.
Star gawked. This was no natural feature. It was almost like a crater in the reef — a circular zone maybe a dozen feet in diameter.
She finned ahead and peered down. The hole was filled with chunks of broken coral of all sizes, from boulders to gravel.
The realization almost took her breath away. Cutter’s “backfire” — dynamite! An explosion big enough to break the coral and send clouds of muck and silt billowing in all directions!
Her initial reaction was outrage, followed quickly by bewilderment. Why would a bunch of oceanographers — scientists! — dynamite a living reef? This detonation meant the deaths of tens of millions of polyps, an environmental disaster that would take decades to regenerate. It wasn’t just despicable; it was illegal! Coral was protected around the world.
But mostly, it flat-out made no sense. What was to be gained by such mindless destruction?
All at once, the shape came together, a familiar image concealed by the rubble that had been the reef. A dark form amid the lighter, multicolored debris: a ring, cross, and double hook — Dante’s anchor. The marker buoy had been removed, but there was no question it was the same artifact.
They’re after our discovery!
Star felt a pinch on the sleeve of her wet suit. Adriana, coming to the same conclusion.