Sam ran his eyes across the lines.
Dear Virginia Beaumont,
I see now why you decided to steal my money. You needed it to save your dying father. Just so you know, I ordinarily would have killed you for your simple mistake. Nothing personal, but you know… in my line of work, a reputation is the most valuable thing.
As it is, it turns out you may have access to something I need. It has been brought to my attention that you’re currently being assisted by a Mr. Sam Reilly, who, among other attributes, is regarded highly as an excellent treasure hunter.
It just so happens I’m currently in the process of finding a particular treasure myself.
Somewhere along the Canadian alps, east of Lake Superior, legend has it there is a vast treasure named the Meskwaki Gold Spring. For more than a century, westerners have searched for it, without any luck. But in 1931 an explorer and a seaplane pilot named Jack Holman discovered the treasure. It is believed that the man made detailed notes on the treasure’s location and was on his way back to Lake Superior to organize a team to perform the retrieval of the vast sums of gold, when he crashed and was never seen again.
Now, I’m not an unreasonable man, I don’t expect you to find the Meskwaki Gold Spring that has evaded western explorers for more than a century. All I ask is that Sam Reilly locates the wreckage of Holman’s seaplane and retrieves his journal for me.
Do this by the end of the week and I’ll return your father to the clinic to receive his next treatment.
Good luck.
Sam noted that whoever they were dealing with had intentionally left out the consequences of failure.
Virginia looked up at him. There was a softness about her that he hadn’t seen before, as her wide eyes stared at him imploringly. “Tell me you’ve heard of Jack Holman and his Meskwaki Gold Spring!”
Sam grinned. “As a matter of fact, I have.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
The Anabelle May cruised toward Isle Royale at speeds just shy of forty knots. The yacht turned sharply around the southern point, sending sea-spray high into the air. Sam watched as Virginia played with the controls, getting an easy feel for the luxury Blohn and Voss sports cruiser.
He’d sent the image of the strange treasure map Virginia had found to Elise, in an attempt to extract a location from the topographical reference points. As it was, the person who wrote it was obviously no cartographer. The map lacked any form of legend to indicate the distances. Instead it simply used reference points such as rivers, valleys, and a shipwreck as a starting point. Elise’s computer search of North American topography returned more than eighteen thousand locations that could have met the basic requirements of the map.
Unable to locate the treasure from the map, Sam decided their best efforts needed to be focused on finding Jack Holman’s wrecked aircraft.
It was getting dark and they were nearing the end of their first day. Six more days to find the Holman’s wreckage and the Meskwaki Gold Spring. Tom had shown Virginia the sports cruiser’s controls and she quickly became confident enough to be left alone with it. Sam was still certain that the wreckage of the J.F. Johnson still held the greatest clue to the location of the Meskwaki Gold Spring.
Senator Perry died after he and Tom found the message inside the pilot house of the wreckage — STANFORD STOLE THE MESKWAKI SPRING. I CAN TOO. Something about the strange message lead to his death and the attempt on Tom’s life. When Elise ran a search on the overhead Defense satellite’s data, she discovered that the local dive charter boat, Superior Deep, motored above the wreckage site of the J.F. Johnson every night at eight ten p.m. It was one trip, every night, same time. The Superior Deep always slowed, but never stopped, on its routine trip across the western side of the Isle Royale.
One thing was certain, someone was diving the wreck nightly. It was most likely they were using the shipwreck to store drugs or weapons, or some other type of contraband. The question that kept plaguing Sam was, why? They weren’t crossing any borders. It wasn’t like they were shipping contraband into or out of Canada. The wreckage was clearly well within the U.S. side of Lake Superior, so why were they going through the trouble of diving on board every night? There was something else, too, that kept disturbing Sam.
The Superior Deep, nor any other vessel for that matter, ever returned for another twenty-four hours. It was far too long to be submerged in the near freezing waters. Even with a thermal suit, batteries would run out, gas supply would fail, and divers would die.
So where did the divers go after the dive?
Sam had no idea, but he was certain that finding out would lead him to the Meskwaki Gold Spring. The sound of the Rolls Royce engines eased and the bow of the Anabelle May dipped and settled back into the water. He watched Virginia shift the twin propellers out of gear, letting the sports cruiser coast.
She glanced at the GPS map. “We’re here.”
“All right. You know the plan?”
“I’ve got it,” she replied. “You make the dive and I’ll head off, taking anchorage on the opposite side of Isle Royale. You and Tom are both wearing satellite tracked homing beacons, that will notify me of your precise GPS location when you’re on the surface.”
“Right,” Sam confirmed. “Remember, we’ll be using Sea Scooters, so we might surface miles from the initial dive site. Also, there’s something keeping the other divers down there for twenty-four hours. If we don’t find anything that indicates where the Meskwaki Gold Spring is while we’re down there, we’ll hide and wait for the nightly SCUBA diver.”
“Are you planning on staying somewhere else for twenty-four hours?”
“No. But the other divers do, so I’m not ruling it out.”
Virginia nodded. “And if I don’t hear from you within twenty-four hours?”
“Contact my friend, Elise, on the number I gave you. She’ll track down the rest of my crew from the Maria Helena. They’re currently vacationing all around the world, but she’ll find and recall them if I get into trouble.”
“And they’ll come rescue you?” Virginia asked.
“No. By then we’ll most likely be dead, but they’ll be sure to finish what we started.”
“You think they’re going to finish one of the most dangerous organized crime families in the history of the United States of America?”
“You haven’t met the rest of my crew. They’re a determined bunch, professional and dangerous in their own unique way.” Sam smiled and turned to Tom. “When is Genevieve back?”
Tom’s eyes lit up and he smiled at the name. “End of the week.”
“Do you think she’s going to be upset you got into all this fun without her. Not to mention risked your life in the process?”
Tom nodded. “Yeah, she’s going to be pissed.”
Sam grinned. “Then we’ll just have to make sure we’ve found the Senator’s kid, saved Virginia’s father, and found the Confederate gold before Genevieve gets back, won’t we?”
Chapter Thirty-Three
They dropped into the water approximately one mile to the South of the J.F. Johnson wreckage. After recognizing how easily Elise was able to obtain the satellite images of the diving charter boat, Superior Depth, stopping at roughly the same time every night above the location, Sam decided not to risk any chance that someone was tracking their movements. Particularly after the attack on Tom. This time they would put in farther away, and use a Sea Scooter, capable of running at 4.6 miles per hour for up to 1.5 hours to reach the J.F. Johnson.