Sam smiled. “Unless he wants to steal it?”
“No. My son’s many things, but he’s not a thief. Besides, there’s nothing about this statement that indicates where the Meskwaki treasure — if it even exists at all — was taken.”
“You’re right,” Sam agreed. “So, we’ll analyze the photos we took inside the wheelhouse and then, if nothing comes up, we’ll plan a second dive. This one, a much more protracted one with significant decompression stops.”
“Why?” The Senator asked, his voice somehow tense and full of concern. “There’s nowhere else to explore except for the wheelhouse. I told you before, it’s the only hatchway locked permanently in the open position. The rest of the ship’s hatches have rusted in the closed position.”
“Yeah, about that…” Sam paused.
The Senator’s thick curly eyebrows narrowed. “What?”
Sam watched as the Annabelle May swung round on her mooring buoy, with the evening change in the wind. When it had finished, he fixed his penetrating blue eyes square on the Senator’s face, studying for a reaction as he spoke.
“We found an open hatchway leading to a set of stairs that descended into the main hull of the J.F. Johnson. What’s more, it looks like someone’s gone to the trouble of recently replacing the hinges so the door can be opened and closed at will.”
Chapter Six
“It can’t be!” Senator Perry didn’t even attempt to hide the fear in his voice. “The ship was supposed to be permanently sealed. Any hatches leading inside the main hull were welded shut more than ten years ago.”
“Why?” Sam asked.
“I can’t tell you. Not yet. It might cost my son his life — if it hasn’t already.” Perry stood up, took two paces and then stopped. “Oh David… what have you gotten yourself into!”
Sam stood up to support the Senator. “What is it?”
“I’m sorry gentlemen. I need to leave straight away.”
“Leave?” Sam asked. “Where?”
“New York.”
“Why? What do you have to do in New York?”
Senator Perry swallowed hard. “Plead for my son’s life.”
“Is there anything we can do to help?”
“No. I’m afraid there’s nothing you can do. I’m sorry to have wasted your valuable time. I’ll contact my pilot, who can come and airlift me to Duluth, where I can catch a flight to New York immediately. If you two would be so kind as to return the Annabelle May to her mooring, my house manager will arrange for someone to pick you up. Better yet, stay on board for a few days. I’ll let my house manager know you’ve got the Annabelle May. Have a short vacation at my expense. It will look better that way. What do you say?”
“Senator Perry,” Sam said. “Please, there must be something we can do to help?”
“No. Really, the best thing you could do for me now is forget the entire thing has ever happened. Forget about my request for you to search for my son, forget about Stanford, and for God’s sake forget about what you found on board the J.F. Johnson!”
Sam thought about it for a moment, watching sweat drip off the Senator’s neck in the icy cold wind. The man’s face had turned ashen, and for a moment Sam thought the man was about to have a heart attack.
“All right. We’ll forget about it. Look, you have my number. If there’s anything we can do to help, just give me a call.” Sam offered his hand. “I realize that you have powerful friends and ample resources at your disposal, but if you need help, I have a lot of connections who can help in… how do I put it… difficult times.”
The Senator took his hand and gripped it with a firm shake. “I appreciate that. Really, I do. Look, send me a bill for your time up until now and I’ll send you the money.”
Sam shook his head. “It’s not about the money. I don’t need your money. I was here because I was genuinely intrigued by your prospect of finding your son who’d considered himself a bit of a treasure hunter and disappeared on the trail — but now I’m genuinely worried about you and your son. So, I don’t offer my services lightly. I have people who can help. No matter what your son’s stumbled into.”
“Thanks. I appreciate that. But I’m hoping I can go fix this myself.”
“All right.”
Thirty minutes later, Sam watched as the Senator’s private helicopter whisked him away, leaving Sam and Tom in possession of the Annabelle May.
Tom expelled a deep breath of air. “Well, that was a surprise, wasn’t it?”
Sam nodded. “Yeah, who would have thought that we’d see something stranger than the bottom of Lake Superior today!”
“Did you see the Senator’s response when you told him about the second opened hatchway?”
“Yeah, he practically screamed, let me out of here.”
“I’d love to know what he’s really doing in New York.”
Sam untied and then dropped the mooring line. “Yeah, whatever it is, I don’t think the Senator’s off to have a good time.”
They made their way up to the bridge. Sam pressed the start button and the twin MTU diesel-electric marine engines roared into life. He set a course for Duluth, pushed the twin throttles all the way forward, and the Annabelle May quickly started to aquaplane until she was cruising just shy of forty knots.
“You still want to work for him?” Tom asked, his voice serious.
“Who said anything about working for the Senator?” Sam grinned. “I’m interested in what happened to his son and this ancient Meskwaki Gold Spring.”
“So, we’re not leaving Lake Superior yet?”
“No way in hell. There’s answers hidden deep inside the wreckage of the J.F. Johnson that someone’s gone to great lengths to keep hidden — Senator Perry included — and I want to find out what those are.”
Chapter Seven
Sam and Tom spent the better part of the next day in Duluth.
They spoke to a local pilot named Jeff Gads, who chartered his floatplane for scenic tours over Lake Superior. The man had said that he’d met David Perry a few months ago after the two of them got to talking about nearby lakes on the Canada side where a pilot could put down easily if he had to. Jeff had said that the kid seemed like a genuinely nice guy — particularly for a rich kid.
Sam had steered the conversation toward the Meskwaki Gold Spring. The pilot told him he’d heard of the legend, but as far as he knew, no one had ever found it, although some had claimed to find large amounts of gold in the rivers leading into Lake Superior.
Next, they headed over to the local dive shop that offered guided dives to tourists on any of the estimated six thousand shipwrecks lying in pristine waters at the bottom of Lake Superior. Out in front of the dive shop, someone was getting into a Lamborghini Urus. Sam recognized it only because of its hubris combination of Lamborghini’s traditional supercar being jammed into an attempt at an everyday SUV for millionaires. He waved at the driver — a young guy who couldn’t have been any older than twenty-five — who politely waved back. Beneath the brake lights was a bumper sticker that read, I dive Lake Superior looking for treasure.
Tom laughed at the arrogance. “Looks like he must have found some.”
Sam looked at the remaining car parked in the front of the dive shop — a Porsche Cayenne Turbo, with the same stupid bumper sticker. “Looks like the treasure hunting business is booming.”
They walked into the building. Inside, it was no different than any other dive-shop they’d been in around the world, with the exception that there was more emphasis on heated dry suits due to the freezing climate.