“We don’t want them to think we’re on to them,” Star advised. “No matter what they’re up to.”
Dante was all for the interns minding their own business. “If it’s top secret or something,” was his reasoning, “then it should stay that way.”
“We’re just curious,” Kaz insisted. “It’s not like we’re spies.”
“And who has a better right to know?” Star added. “They’re messing up our summer program. The least they can do is tell us why.”
So they continued with their busywork and kept an eye on the team from San Diego, although there was little to see. According to Captain Vanover, a magnetometer looked pretty much like a sonar, so the tow fish itself yielded no clue. Cutter spent most of his time belowdecks, his head buried in reams of printouts. Reardon could have been any fishing bum on a Caribbean vacation. He seldom left the stern and his rod and reel. Captain Hamilton ran the boat, period. Marina was the only one who had much interaction with the teen divers.
“If anybody’s innocent on Cutter’s team, it has to be her,” was Adriana’s opinion. “She’s just a friendly, interested mentor.”
“Who looks like a supermodel,” finished Kaz.
“You don’t have to be a photographer to recognize that thing of beauty,” Dante agreed.
Star shook her head. “You guys are such losers.”
It was not the first piece of ribbing Dante had taken on the subject. When he printed his second batch of pictures, more than half of them were of Marina. To make matters worse, the developing was so off that her perfect skin matched the bright orange of the fire coral in the reef shots.
“Stick to purple water, Romeo,” was Adriana’s opinion.
The interns kept their suspicions to themselves, saying nothing to the other institute people for fear of word getting back to Cutter. When they did ask questions, they kept them general, omitting any reference to the team from California.
“Why would a ship tow a side-scan magnetometer?” Adriana asked Captain Vanover in the cafeteria one night.
“Depends who’s on board, and what he’s looking for,” came the reply. “A mag is basically a fancy metal detector. Geologists say most of the world’s mineral ore is under the sea.”
“Mining companies use them?” asked Kaz.
“Sometimes. But the salvage people love them too — anybody who wants to track down something big underwater. How do you think they found the Titanic? The military is also a big user. They’re always going after stuff — equipment and ordnance they lost in the drink.”
Dante shot the others a meaningful glance. Could that be the mysterious assignment — top secret work for the navy, searching for a sunken submarine or even a lost nuke?
“But around here,” Vanover went on, “a lot of the mag scans are done by treasure hunters.”
“Treasure hunters?” repeated Star.
“Sure,” the captain told them. “A few hundred years ago, these waters were the money highway. And they say at least half of it is lying under the seabed somewhere.”
Adriana nodded wisely. “In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Spanish shipped billions in treasure from the New World back to Spain.”
“A lot of those ships never made it to Europe,” Vanover explained. “Hurricanes, reefs, pirates. That’s why a mag comes in handy. Gold and silver are metals. If a galleon went down in the area, its cargo would show up on the scan.”
Dante was amazed. “And that works? You just tow it around till you get a hit, and bring up millions?”
The captain laughed. “It’s a little more complicated than that, Dante. First of all, the sea is a big place — three quarters of the earth’s surface, remember? Second, most of those wrecks are under thousands of feet of ocean, far too deep for any diver to reach them. But even if a wreck is located in shallow water, it’s not like there would be a boat full of gold bars just sitting there in the sand. Those old ships were made of wood. Most of that would be gone by now, eaten little by little by microscopic worms in the water. And pretty much all that’s left is buried in coral, which is another problem. It’s against the law to destroy a living reef.”
“In other words, forget about it,” concluded Kaz.
“Most treasure hunters search for decades and never find much,” Vanover agreed. “But there are exceptions. A man named Mel Fisher excavated two galleons off the Florida Keys, and brought up hundreds of millions in gold and gems.”
Dante whistled. “He’s got it made!”
“Not necessarily,” said the captain. “Who owns sunken treasure? Now the government’s suing him, and he’s up to his ears in lawyers.”
“A hundred million bucks can hire a lot of lawyers,” Dante pointed out. “That’s not just rich; it’s rolling.”
Huge money — that was Dante’s secret dream. Not that most people didn’t want to get rich. But for an artist, a big pile of cash had a special meaning — freedom. He could pursue his craft without having to worry about selling pictures or making a living.
A financially secure photographer wouldn’t have to learn color. Which had one definite advantage in Dante’s eyes.
No diving.
* * *
Dante was the weakest diver in the group, but even his meager skills were improving. This was true for all of them, if for no other reason than the huge amount of ocean time they were logging.
“You learn to dive by diving,” was Star’s opinion. “Even a baboon would get better if he spent as much time underwater as us.”
When it came to scuba, Star held on to her praise the way a miser holds on to his pennies. To listen to her, the only people who had ever gotten it right were herself, English, and Jacques Cousteau, probably in that order.
It bugged Kaz. She thinks we’re all useless, he reflected resentfully. I probably saved her life in that plane, and she never even said thanks.
In fact, Star was very much aware of Kaz’s development as a diver. His technique was raw, but the Canadian’s natural athletic ability gave him amazing strength, stamina, and body control. He could also hold his breath for a year! One time Adriana got her tether line tangled up in a stand of sea fans. In the process of cutting herself free, she accidentally sliced through her air hose. Now she had to “buddy breathe” to rise to the surface — with her partner, Kaz, sharing his regulator.
It was a tense moment for any diver, but Kaz remained calm, just as he had in the German bomber. Star watched the ascent anxiously, ready to offer help. None had been required. From what she could tell, Kaz barely needed more than a breath or two on the way up. How would some rink rat learn to do that?
The one thing that Kaz could not seem to get used to was sharks. With the water acting as a magnifying glass, even a small reef shark seemed pretty intimidating, with a mouth large enough to bite your hand off. And, of course, there was still an eighteen-foot tiger shark around somewhere — unless that whole Clarence story was a goof cooked up by Vanover to pull everybody’s chain.
Some goof, Kaz thought to himself. He liked the captain. Around Poseidon, Vanover was the only person who seemed to take the summer interns seriously, except maybe Marina.
But Bobby Kaczinski didn’t find sharks very funny.
* * *
The teen divers took off every fourth day to outgas — to let their systems expel residual nitrogen. It gave them a chance to get to know one another above sea level. The strange turns their internship program had taken seemed to have forced the four closer together. It was something that might never have happened if the summer had gone off as planned.
The institute had mountain bikes for them to borrow, so they explored Saint-Luc’s other villages and swam at the many beaches and coves that ringed the small island. Even off the reef they spent much of their time in the water. It was the only way to beat the relentless heat.
Star was awkward on the bicycle at first, until Kaz suggested that the others slow down so she could keep up. Then, somehow, the girl with the limp put
on a burst of speed that nearly flattened him. They spent the hours that followed panting to keep up with her on the dirt roads.
“Now I know how to get something done around here,” commented Kaz. “Just tell Star she can’t do it.”
“Maybe we should dare her to air-condition the island,” gasped Dante, struggling up a hill at the back of the pack.
As they circled Saint-Luc’s west coast, a new skyline began to appear — massive offshore oil-drilling platforms that stretched into the Caribbean like a series of colossal croquet hoops.
“Man,” breathed Dante, “look at those.”
To see anything man-made in a place as remote as Saint-Luc was jarring. Huge towers of concrete and steel soaring hundreds of feet out of the sea seemed almost fake — clever forgeries merely painted onto the horizon.
“This must be where English works,” said Kaz in a small voice. To slip beneath the waves at the feet of such massive pieces of equipment — it was nothing short of terrifying. But for English, it was probably no big deal. The sea did not intimidate Menasce Gérard.
It wouldn’t dare.
Marina Kappas surveyed the light chop that frosted the Caribbean, a frown on her exquisitely formed lips. “It doesn’t look too bad on the surface. But I’ll bet there’s a current a few feet below.”
“Yeah, whatever.” Star yawned and jumped off the dive platform.
Marina turned to the three remaining interns. “You’ll be tethered to the Brownie, but without an anchor line, you can drift without knowing it,” she said in concern. “And you’d better watch out for Star. Sometimes confidence can work against you.”
Kaz flipped down his own mask. “We’ll keep an eye on her.” He added quickly, “But don’t tell her I said that.”
Dante hit the waves with a splash, bit down on his regulator, deflated his B.C., and sank. Sure enough, the current kicked in a few feet below the surface. The unseen force was subtler than wind. And yet it was relentless, propelling him slowly but irresistibly backward.
Don’t panic, he told himself, remembering his certification training. Just keep descending.
The advice turned out to be correct. By thirty feet, the manhandling of the ocean began to weaken. That was when he noticed something unusual.
Where are all the fish?
The reef was empty. The coral was still there — with its growth of anemones and sea fans. But the permanent traffic jam of fish that characterized the Hidden Shoals was just plain gone.
He shot a questioning look at Adriana. His partner shrugged, mystified.
The disturbance came from above. At first, it seemed like portable rapids — a fast-moving wave of violently foaming water.
He tried to swing his camera around to get a shot of the phenomenon, but he spun too hard, twirling himself on a diagonal axis like a globe. Peering through the lens of the Nikonos, he saw a blurry panorama, and then —
Two eyes and a protruding snout staring right back at him!
He nearly jumped out of his wet suit. Then he recognized the creature in front of him.
A dolphin!
A whole pod of them, in fact, scouring the reef in a cacophony of high-pitched squeals and clicks. Dante tried to guess at their number, but the sea mammals were moving too fast — faster, in fact, than he’d ever seen anything travel in water. There were at least twenty of them, maybe thirty, diving and swooping as they streaked past.
His visitor circled him with a lightning spin-o-rama, and darted off to join the group.
No wonder the fish cleared out. This is a hunting party. They’re not gone; they’re hiding!
He began shooting pictures. Dante had seen dolphins only at aquariums and theme parks. These appeared similar — Atlantic bottlenoses. But the show tanks of Sea World could not begin to demonstrate the personality of these animals. Fish eyes were blank and staring. But the expression of a dolphin sparkled with charisma, even humor. The face that had scared Dante out of his wits wasn’t a threatening one. On the contrary, it had been almost mocking, as if to say, “Man, you’re a lousy swimmer. What are you doing in my ocean?”
I need a video camera, he thought to himself. Still pictures would never do justice to the dolphins’ playfulness. He squinted at a small dark object that appeared to be swimming along with the pod. It was a conch shell, batted from snout to snout. A toy!
They’re practically people! He wondered whether the dolphins would consider that a compliment.
A practiced bump from a bottlenose floated the shell directly into Kaz’s hands. The boy lobbed it back into the pack only to have it expertly volleyed to Adriana.
They’re not just playing, Dante marveled. They’re playing with us!
The game lasted maybe thirty seconds before Dante bobbled and dropped the shell, earning a squeaky reprimand from a five-foot cetacean. To interact with these creatures, so alien yet so strangely human, was something he would never forget.
But Star was not ready to say good-bye to their new friends. With a Herculean double kick of her flippers, she came up behind a dorsal fin and latched on to it. The dolphin seemed surprised at first, and then sped up, carrying the girl along for the ride. Suddenly, Dante felt his safety line go taut. And then he was flying through the water at spectacular velocity.
Shock soon turned to amazement. Since the four divers were connected via the Brownie, Star’s dolphin was towing them all! He could see Kaz and Adriana, sailing along with him. Kaz’s arms were spread like airplane wings. Those maniacs were enjoying this!
Like it’s some kind of underwater roller coaster.
The other dolphins kept pace with them as the reef accelerated to a blur.
But is it safe?
Dante never saw the coral head swinging out to meet him.
Wham!
Dante bounced off the tower of living limestone like a rag doll. The jolt halted the Brownie on the surface, and yanked Star off her purchase on the dolphin. The ride was over. The streaking pod disappeared from view a few seconds later.
The divers gathered around Dante, who hung in the water, dazed but unhurt, the Nikonos dangling limply from its arm harness.
Star peered into his mask, fearing that the collision had knocked him unconscious. But his eyes were open and alert, fixed on the seafloor.
For Dante, it was like studying a pixelgram — that moment when your brain makes the connection, and you plunge into the depths of 3-D. It wasn’t even a real image — more like the echo of one, formed by thousands of layers of coral polyps growing over an object long buried, long forgotten.
He deflated his B.C. and began to descend to the bottom. The others followed, confused. They didn’t see it, couldn’t see it.
In his excitement, he nearly fumbled away his dive slate. He scribbled the word that was pounding in his brain, revving his heartbeat up to the danger zone:
ANCHOR.
They stared at him blankly.
What are you, blind? he wanted to howl. Right there — in front of your noses!
The same condition that held color tantalizingly out of his grasp revealed the presence of the anchor in the subtleties of light and texture and shading. The others would never see it. He had to show them.
But how? Coral was like rock; it was rock beneath the living layers at the surface.
A few feet away, the reef gave way to sandy bottom. He began to dig, burrowing with both hands. Instantly, the crystal-clear water was murky with mud and silt.
Star, Kaz, and Adriana watched him, their bewilderment evident. Had Dante’s collision scrambled his brain? Why was he using the ocean floor as a sandbox?
Kaz touched his arm, but Dante shook it away. He was a man on a mission, tunneling down to the lost anchor. How big do they make these things? If the top is long enough, then it should be right about —
His glove struck something hard. “Got it!” he cried into his regulator.
He had stirred up so much silt that the sea was churning brown. He took Kaz’s gloved hand and presse
d it against ancient iron.
Star removed a fin and fanned the water clear above the buried object. They could make out part of a thick shank topped with a sturdy ring. A small black disk floated beside it, disturbed by the digging action.
A chip off the old metal?
Dante stuck it in his dive pouch — proof of the anchor’s existence. But there was another problem: How would they ever find this spot again?
Then he remembered the marker buoys. He clipped one around the iron ring, and sent the balloon shooting for the surface. They followed it up, carefully matching the pace of the slowest of their bubbles.
A few bold fish watched them ascend — the advance scouts venturing out of hiding to make sure the dolphins were gone. The reef was returning to normal.
The divers broke into the chop and swam a short distance to the Brownie. The Ponce de León was almost upon them, a silhouette against the brilliant sun.
“Over here!” panted Star, waving her arms.
“We found something!” added Dante.
Marina jumped down to the dive platform to help them aboard. “I don’t see a lot of markers.”
“Not a cave,” Dante exclaimed. “An anchor!”
“You’re kidding!” Cutter came running, Reardon hot on his heels. Soon the four divers stood dripping on deck.
Adriana pulled off her flippers. “Is that what you’re looking for? With the magnetometer?” She added, “We know you’re not taking sonar readings.”
The three scientists exchanged a meaningful look. Finally, Marina spoke. “Our tow fish can do both — side scan mag and sonar. When we publish our map, it’s going to come with an overlay page of mineral deposits under the reef. That’s what the mag is for.”
“What about this anchor?” Reardon put in gruffly.
“Dante found it,” Kaz explained breathlessly. “Most of it’s buried in coral. You can tell it’s really old.”
“I got a piece of it,” added Dante, fumbling in his pouch.
Cutter frowned. “A piece of anchor?”
“More like a chip.” The photographer pulled out the small black disk. It was irregular in shape, but generally round, about three inches in diameter. “Is there some way to get it analyzed? You know, find out how old it is?”