“Agreed,” said Kaz. “This is between us and Cutter. We’ll keep it to ourselves.”
The Cortés moved smoothly into its berth, and the hulking figure of Menasce Gérard leaped over the gunwale and tied up the vessel. He did not look in their direction, and they were not sorry.
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.”
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.
Everything fell into place. No scientist would dynamite coral. But Tad Cutter was no scientist. It explained the magnetometer, and why Cutter kept his interns busy tagging caves when he took them out at all.
And it explained why he and his people h
ad instantly recognized the Spanish coin for what it was.
Cutter, Marina, and Reardon may have worked for Poseidon, but they were treasure hunters!
A sweep of Adriana’s flipper stirred up the pebbles of shattered coral below them. Star caught sight of something else in the swirl of movement — something smooth rather than jagged, and stark white. She reached into the debris and picked it up — a hilt or handle, perhaps eight inches long. It was carved and polished — and definitely man-made.
A meaningful look passed between the two scuba masks. Had Dante and his sharp eyes inadvertently led Cutter and his team to exactly what they were looking for?
It was the first time Kaz had ever seen Marina Kappas angry.
“They had no right to dive! I ordered them aboard!”
“We couldn’t hear you,” Kaz called up to the Ponce de León.
“I want them now!” she exploded. “You go down there and get them. We have a schedule to keep.”
Kaz dipped his face mask in the water and popped right up again. “Cloudy today. Let’s go down the anchor line. It’ll be easier to stay together.”
He and Dante began to kick their way around the stern of the boat.
“Hurry!” Marina exclaimed peevishly. “We don’t have all day!”
A sharp ringing buzz cut the air. It took Kaz a few seconds to identify the sound — Chris Reardon’s unmanned fishing reel, playing out at light speed. Reardon’s special bait, squid parts mixed with cold pizza, had hooked something big.
It happened before Kaz could even bite down on his mouthpiece. The thousand-pound Mylar line wrapped around him, pinning his right arm to his body. He was dragged below the surface, keenly aware of a force many times his own strength.
Fighting off panic, he used his free hand to fumble his regulator into his mouth. He squinted through the murky water and got a bead on the dark shape at the end of the line. It was a huge grouper, four hundred pounds or more, hooked and fighting wildly. In the creature’s mad struggle for its life, it was pulling Kaz straight for the bottom, its desperate gyrations tugging the Mylar ever tighter around the helpless diver.
I’ll never fight it, he thought, the water rushing past him, the big fish just a blur. My only hope is to cut myself free.
His dive knife was in a scabbard on his right thigh. He could just reach it with his left hand. As his glove closed over the hilt, the big grouper abruptly changed direction. Kaz was yanked after it like a puppy on a leash. In agony, he felt the knife slip through his fingers. His last hope, swallowed by the churning sea.
No, he reminded himself. There’s still one chance. Something has to stop that grouper.
And something did. At first, Kaz thought it was a submarine — it had to be, something so big. But then the huge torpedo-like shape opened a gaping mouth. And when it snapped shut, half the grouper was gone.
The Mylar line went slack, but Kaz made no attempt to shrug himself loose. He was paralyzed with a fear that dated back to his very early childhood. For he knew, as surely as if the big fish had been wearing a neon name tag, that this was the eighteen-foot monster tiger shark the locals called Clarence.
Still sinking slowly, he watched the enormous jaws savage the grouper in a cloud of blood and tattered flesh. The blood looked green at this depth. The color red is filtered out by seawater…. His scuba instructor’s voice echoed in his head, repeating the words in an endless loop. Kaz was powerless to stop the lecture. His mind had shut down. Terror was in charge.
He had left home, family, hockey, everything that was familiar, to travel two thousand miles to the Caribbean — to die.
He barely noticed the moment that he bumped into the seabed. It was almost a comfort. A place to hide while the big shark circled overhead, snapping violently at the bloody scraps around it. To Clarence, blood in the water meant food. The predator already had no memory of the grouper it had just devoured. It never gave a thought to its last meal; its next one was the main concern.
Kaz huddled on the sandy bottom, trembling with dread. No plan was taking shape in his mind, no strategy for survival. Even the inescapable fact that his air supply wouldn’t last forever could not penetrate his overpowering compulsion to hide from nature’s perfect killing machine.
* * *
Dante broke the surface and spit out his regulator, gasping in the fresh air.
“Shark!” he tried to yell. It came out a high-pitched wheeze.
He looked around desperately. He was closer to the Ponce de León than the Cortés, but he instinctively began thrashing toward Vanover’s boat. When it was a matter of life and death, you went with the people you trusted.
Something bubbled up out of the water directly in his path, and he screamed in shock and fear.
Star pushed her mask aside. “Not so loud,” she warned. “Listen, we found out what Cutter’s — ”
“Clarence!” Dante bellowed right in her face.
“Who?”
“The shark!”
Adriana hit the surface, and this time both Dante and Star recoiled.
“Where’s Kaz?” Star asked.
“He’s on the bottom and he’s not moving!” Dante wailed. “I couldn’t get to him! The shark — ”
Star was already kicking for the Cortés, shouting, “Captain!”
Both Vanover and English were on the dive platform to pull the three out of the water.
“What’s going on?” the captain demanded. “Where’s Kaz?”
Chest heaving, Dante sobbed out a breathless explanation. “The shark didn’t bite him,” he babbled on, “but I think he’s too scared to come up!”
English was already strapping on a scuba tank.
“It sounds like old Clarence,” Vanover decided. “You’d better take the shark cage.”
The dive guide scowled. “I am not a canary, me.”
“The kid could be injured, even bleeding,” Vanover argued. “You’ll need the cage because of him.”
English grunted his agreement.
They spent precious minutes unfolding the titanium cage and attaching it to the Cortés’s electric winch. English climbed inside and pulled the door shut. The clang sounded like the closing of a prison cell.
Vanover swung the cage over the gunwale. “One tug for down, two for up, three for stop.” He hit the winch, and the guide disappeared into the sea.
Menasce Gérard was as much at home in the ocean as on land. In his commercial work with the oil rigs, he often descended to depths of a thousand feet or more — thirty atmospheres of pressure. He feared nothing down here and viewed the cage as an inconvenience, almost an embarrassment. Why was he surprised that those American teenagers had brought him to this?
The poor visibility was unexpected. But, alors, this made perfect sense. No single shark could disturb so much silt. But whatever had done it might very well attract a large predator like Clarence.
He peered through the bars, looking for the shark and the young diver, but there was no sign of either. When the cage hit bottom, he gave a triple yank on the signal rope, the sign for stop. Then he opened the steel door and ventured out.
He had no weight belt, so maintaining depth was a struggle. He could do it, but not forever, and the effort would surely deplete his air supply quickly. He had to find Kaz right now.
The cloudy water made the search difficult. The minutes fell away. How many? Even a veteran diver couldn’t judge. Too many.
He passed directly over the boy and almost missed him in the gloom. Kaz lay flat against the sand as if attempting to bury himself in it. At first, English mistook the blackness of the boy’s wet suit for a large sea fan that had fallen over.
Kaz nearly jumped out of his skin when the dive guide grabbed him under the arms and pulled him upright.
Menasce Gérard did not waste words anywhere, especially underwater. “Come,” he said into his regulator.
Kaz grabbed the big man’s arm and did not let go. Now connected to a weighted diver, English was able to
lead the way efficiently along the bottom toward the cage.
It might have been underwater radar, or even a sixth sense, but English knew instantly when the shark began pursuing them. A quick glance over his shoulder revealed nothing. But the predator was coming, concealed by the swirling silt. English could picture the eighteen-foot monster with the cold black eyes.
He spit out another word: “Faster.” He still couldn’t see Clarence, but he was aware of a dark shape behind them, and it was grow-ing larger. They kicked like machines, propelling themselves toward the cage and safety.
Kaz did not risk a look back, but there was horror behind his mask, and the desperation of the hunted.
The shadows ahead began to resolve themselves into the straight lines and right angles of the cage. But the shark was visible too now, and gaining. Its sweeping tail powered the attack as it closed the gap, mouth slightly open, lethal arsenal at the ready.
With a burst of speed and strength that surprised even him, English finned for the cage and thrust Kaz inside. He scrambled in himself, and grabbed the door to swing it shut.
And then the great mouth exploded out of the shadowy deep with appalling violence.
Jaws the size of a small desk clamped down on the bars of the still-open door in a shriek of bone on metal. The powerful head began to shake relentlessly. The cage tossed, its occupants rattling around like backgammon dice in a cup.
The tugging from the struggle must have reached the surface, because the cage began to rise. The shark remained clamped on the gate, stubbornly trying to bite through the two-inch titanium. English braced himself against the rear slats, kicking frantically with his flippers at the flat blunt snout.
Hanging on to the bars to avoid being catapulted out the opening, Kaz knew a panic he would not have imagined possible. He saw that the only thing keeping them alive at this point was the tiger shark’s own stupidity. For if the beast had the sense to let go of the door, it would have been able to poke its head inside the cage and reach them.