“Yeah.” Elise dropped back into her chair. “Pretty simple. She called him and explained the situation. David sounded confused, telling her that it had taken him three weeks to find the Meskwaki Gold Spring. She asked why he didn’t retrieve the document then, but he warned her that Sam Reilly and Tom Bower were inside the tunnel with him. It would have been too difficult to retrieve the underwater safe, while they were down there with him.”
Sam turned to Virginia. “With the Leverage Records we’ll know every single step of their operation, with enough information to arrest potentially hundreds of people, and close down the entire system. More importantly, we’ll be able to locate where they’re keeping your father.”
The room went silent while they all contemplated the current fortune of Virginia’s father.
To Elise, he then said, “When will they make the dive?”
“Ten p.m. tonight.”
Sam grinned. “Tom and I will be there by 9:30.”
Chapter Seventy
Submerged underwater, with a strong sense of déjà vu, Sam and Tom waited inside the wreck of the J.F. Johnson. Sam reflected that it felt like they had come full circle.
Sam waited behind the first hatchway that led into the lower decks of the shipwreck, while Tom was stationed all the way inside the ship’s bilge. They were well prepared this time. Having been through this game of cat and mouse enough times to know how to win it, they weren’t taking any more chances. They each had a pair of military grade bolt-cutters, to prevent either of them from becoming trapped. They were both armed with a sharp knife and a pneumatic hand-held spear gun.
Watching the hatchway through infrared night vision goggles, Sam waited silently in total darkness. He was a predator, fully expecting and prepared for his prey to come to him.
Right on time, he spotted two dive lights — presumably Murphy and Perry’s. They used sea scooters. Careful not to kick up the silt, they still moved quickly. They stopped, and locked the hatchway, as David Perry had done last time.
Sam followed the divers as they progressed through the wreck, descending down into the lower two decks, through the locked door, and down the hatchway into the bilge.
Inside the bilge the twin sea scooters whirred as the divers raced to the opposite end of the old secret cargo hold from the ship’s Prohibition days. The two divers reached a barrel that had been turned on its side. There were small handprints in the silt over the top of the barrel.
Sam watched as one of the divers untwisted the fake lid, before retrieving a small sealed box. It appeared to be made of plastic, and small enough to fit into someone’s hand. Sam was expecting something larger, but actually, this made sense. Everything Senator Arthur Perry knew about every aspect of his company, could now be kept on a single 1Terabyte Flash Drive.
Smiling much like a crocodile waiting by a waterhole, he watched the first diver place the storage device within his or her dive vest.
A moment later, the two divers squeezed the twin triggers of their sea scooters and raced out through the cracked hull of the J.F. Johnson and into the subterranean cavern of the Meskwaki Gold Spring.
“After them!” Sam yelled through his dive radio.
Tom came out of his hiding place. “I’m on it!”
Sam squeezed the twin throttles. His scooter whirred into life and he shot forward, and through the opening.
On the other side, his world opened up into the cavern. Through his night vision lens, he searched his new environment. He had a clear line of vision through the crystal-clear waters of the Meskwaki Gold Spring. But up ahead, there was no sign of the diver’s lights.
Sam swallowed hard. Where did they go?
Sam’s heart raced, his thoughts went blank. Where did they go?
An instant later, he heard the blast of a shark-stick being fired.
The propeller of Sam’s sea scooter whined and tore itself to pieces, bringing him to a standstill.
Chapter Seventy-One
David felt a sharp burning pain in his left thigh.
Adrenaline surged throughout his body. His heart hammered in his throat and his chest tightened. He glanced at his leg. Sam Reilly had shot him with a spear gun! He squeezed the trigger throttles and his sea scooter shot through the Meskwaki Gold Spring.
Next to him a second sea scooter raced.
After fifteen minutes and nearly a mile, he reduced his speed, and they began their gradual decompression section of the dive.
He scanned the area behind them. His two pursuers had remained on board the J.F. Johnson. He switched on his flashlight and shined it at Rachel. He felt his heartrate ease as the light confirmed that she was unharmed.
Safely ascending, they slowly reached the surface of the Meskwaki Gold Spring. The subterranean cavern was alight with the green sparkle of glowworms.
David removed his facemask and dragged the dive gear to the water’s edge. He was breathing hard with the pain and exertion.
Rachel wrapped her lithe arms around him in a fervent embrace, “We did it!”
“Yes, we did.” He hugged her back. A moment later he tried to step on his injured leg and stumbled from the pain.
She swore. “You’re injured.”
“A little. That bastard, Sam Reilly, shot me with a spear gun.”
“Are you going to be all right?” she asked, concern in her voice.
“I’ll live. We just need to get the flash drive somewhere safe.”
“We can help with that.” A voice from the dark commanded. “Now hand the flash drive over.”
David looked up. Surrounding them, weapons drawn, were more than thirty members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
Chapter Seventy-Two
Sam took a seat on a leather chair inside the Annabelle May’s main living space. Feet apart, arms behind his head, he relaxed back in the comfortable recliner.
“I’ve made some calls,” Sam said. “Your father has been rescued from a safe house in New York. The FBI found where he was being held captive.”
Virginia leaned down and wrapped her arms around Sam’s neck. A formidable woman, she embraced him with all of her heart — and the superhuman strength of a python.
“Thank you,” she said, giving him a kiss on his cheek. “Thank you for everything.” She then turned to Tom, “You too, Tom. I’m so grateful for what you’ve both managed to do.”
“You’re welcome. Really, it was fun. Hey, I think this deserves a celebratory drink.” Sam stood up, walked over and rummaged at the expensive, well stocked bar.
“What have you got?” Virginia asked.
Sam shrugged, looking through cupboards. “I’m pretty sure the good Senator has something nice lying around here.”
He came back a few minutes later, carrying three drinks on ice-cold rocks — actual rocks — the traditional way to cool rum without diluting it as the ice melts.
Tom brought the first glass up to his lips so that he could smell it. “There’s a first-rate aroma here.”
Sam raised his glass with Virginia, Tom, and Elise. “Congratulations. That was really something. We did a good thing today.”
Virginia gave a crooked grin. “Yeah, we sure did.” Silent teardrops running down her cheeks were the only sign of the emotional pressure she’d been under throughout the last few weeks.
“Will your father make it through his cancer do you think?” Sam asked, his voice serious.
“Only time will tell, but the trial has been achieving great results, and his treating oncologist says she feels confident my father got in early enough.”