She and Sam followed the man back to the group.
Sam caught up with the guide. “That island back there?” he asked. “What’s the name of it?”
“That?” he said, glancing behind him. “Frog Island.”
Sam nodded, and Remi asked, “Is it part of the Oak Island mystery?”
“Find me something around here that isn’t.”
“Anything specific?”
He glanced over at her and she gave him her most charming smile. “Actually,” he said, “there were some claims that at one time there was some sort of connection between Frog Island to Oak Island. An underwater tunnel, though how anyone could have built one without it flooding is beyond me. Probably someone was digging there for treasure and a new rumor started.” He stopped and pointed toward the shoreline. “See that little cove where the boat is? By all accounts, that’s where the tunnel was built.”
Remi and Sam watched as the two men on shore waded back to the boat, tossing in their shovels and packs. “Do you think there’s any truth to the legends?” she asked.
He laughed. “I certainly hope so. I’d hate to think how many people have spent millions of dollars digging a hole in the same spot looking for something that isn’t there.”
“Good point,” she said as he left them to join the group again. Through the trees, she saw the boat speeding away, and she looked over at Sam. “What now?”
“Come back tonight and figure out what they found so interesting on that other island.”
Thirteen
Sam skyped Selma on Remi’s tablet when they returned to their hotel.
“Good morning, Mr. Fargo,” she said from her desk. “You’ll be pleased to know that Bree is safely on her flight and will be landing in just a few hours.”
“Good,” Sam replied.
Remi took a seat on the sofa next to him, asking, “What fascinating theories have you discovered so far?”
“Lazlo believes the cipher wheel is for a simple substitution code.”
Lazlo’s face appeared on the screen behind Selma. “Good show, you two,” he said, his British accent evident. “Miss Marshall informed us of your timely rescue. That must have been frightful.”
“It was,” Sam said. “About the cipher . . . ?”
“Right-o. Actually, what I believe is that you’re looking for a shipwreck off the southern tip of the island, according to the hidden map.” He shuffled through some papers, then held up the photo of the map Professor Hopkins had found behind the endpaper. “I was able to translate part of the text,” he said, “but not all of it. To do that, I need to have the key. Unfortunately, the drawing of the cipher wheel on the map the professor found is merely an illustration of what we’re looking for. If I had to guess, an actual instrument. One hopes it wasn’t on paper because that supposedly was lost in said shipwreck.”
Remi sighed. “Never easy, is it?”
Sam asked, “Do we have this shipwreck narrowed down?”
“I’m assuming the map of the island is either where it was buried or perhaps even where the ship was wrecked. There is one word that has popped up twice—assuming I have translated it properly. Serpens. Being that it’s Latin, it could be snake, dragon, or serpent.”
“That narrows it down,” Sam said.
“Quite.” Lazlo turned Selma’s tablet so that he was once again in the frame. “One other thing that has popped up is a reference that whatever it is will be found on or near the southern tip of the island.”
Remi and Sam exchanged glances, Remi saying, “That has to be why they were digging there.”
“Who?” Lazlo asked her.
“Avery’s men. We spotted them on the island across from Oak Island.” She gave a brief description of what they’d witnessed.
“Ah,” Lazlo said. “It appears they’re one step ahead of us in the translation of the ciphers. Let’s hope they haven’t found the actual cipher wheel. I certainly haven’t found any specific location. But if they’re digging there, at least we know we’re on the right track.”
Selma poked her head into view. “We’ll update you as soon as we know more.”
Remi said, “We have every confidence.”
“In the meantime,” Sam told Selma, “we’re going to need a motorboat for this evening. Something small enough to maneuver ourselves.”
“On it,” she said. “Any other equipment?”
“I don’t think so,” Sam replied. “We have wetsuits and dive gear. I think that’s about it.”
Sam was about to end the call when Remi added, “Don’t forget insurance.”
Selma’s brows raised slightly. “As hard as you two are on equipment? That goes without saying. Along with detailed plans so we know where to find you in case anything happens.”
Sam gave her a mock look of offense. “I’m shocked you’d have so little confidence in us.”
“Not you, Mr. Fargo. It’s the type of people you tend to run into on these ventures of yours. Greed brings out all sorts of evil.”
Two hours before sunrise, Sam and Remi donned their wetsuits, then set out for Frog Island from the Gold River Marina at the north end of Mahone Bay in their seventeen-foot Boston Whaler. It wasn’t the fastest of vessels, but it would blend in with any other boats that left before dawn.
Even though the Oak Island guide had made mention of an underwater passage between there and Frog Island, neither Sam nor Remi believed anyone from the seventeenth or eighteenth century had the skills to build something of that nature.
Then again, the attention to Frog Island intrigued Sam for a different reason. In past centuries, the area surrounding Nova Scotia had certainly been frequented by seamen, from French and English warships to pirates. The rumors of buried treasure in the area had always been bandied about—Oak Island happened to be the most popular location.
But Frog Island? Like many of these small islands in the area, it was privately owned. This one boasted a large house on the southeast side, probably a vacation home, and one Sam hoped wasn’t occupied at the moment—not that they expected to be there for that long.
He cruised toward the small cove at the southernmost tip of the island. They wanted to see the area where Avery’s men had been seen. What they were doing there was anyone’s guess, but the way they were digging made Sam wonder if they weren’t looking for this cipher wheel that Lazlo had mentioned.
“Look,” Remi said, pointing to the sky. “The aurora borealis.”
Sam glanced up. Through a parting of the clouds, he saw a faint greenish glow that seemed to pulsate. “Too bad it’s not a clearer night.”
“A glimpse is better than nothing. Right now, the cloud cover’s a good thing. No moon to give us away.”
“Pragmatically said.” He slowed as they approached the cove.
Remi shined a light along the shoreline. “That looks like the area they were poking around,” she said. “I remember that heart-shaped boulder.”
“That’s a heart?” he said, eyeing the massive boulder near the water’s edge. He let up on the throttle. The boat slowed and bobbed in the surf. “It looks more like a two-humped camelback.”
“No sense of romance, Fargo.”
“What if I said I ordered the aurora borealis just for you?”
“It seems someone lost their line.”
“I thought it was a pretty good line.”
“Not you. Fishing line.” She aimed the beam of her flashlight near the base of the boulder.
Sam saw nothing other than rocks and water lapping against them in the growing wake of their boat. “Where?”
“About a foot to the left of the, uh, camel-humped boulder. A bit of moss or something stuck on it.”
There it was, the wisp of moss or seaweed hanging from a nylon line about six inches above the waterline, possibly secured to something on the land behind the boulder. His ga
ze followed the glint of light on the line before it disappeared into the dark to his left, and the same to the right.
Whatever that line was caught on, it was tight. Their boat moved up and down with the current, but the line remained still.
“Call me paranoid,” he said, maneuvering the boat to one side of the boulder for a better view, careful not to move in too close, “but that has all the markings of a trip wire.”
“Do you really think they wired explosives?”
“They certainly had enough time. An even better question is, if they wired them because they knew we’d be coming here to investigate?”
“You think they set us up?” Remi aimed the beam near the boulder and a pile of small rocks behind it.
Sam saw the light reflecting off copper wiring disappearing into the midst of the pile.
“We’re idiots,” she said. “Of course they did. Otherwise, why make such a big show? That boat engine was the loudest in the bay. Making sure we would hear them and see them. Knowing we’d probably investigate . . .”
“How far does it go?” he asked, his gaze following Remi’s light.
She pointed the beam to the left of the cove where a dead fir had fallen into the water, the fishing line barely visible wrapped around a branch of the tree. “I seem to remember them getting out there.”
He turned the boat south, passing the boulder to the right. The fishing line continued on past it, swept across the water onto the shoreline, and was secured to a stump. If anyone tripped that line trying to get to shore . . . “Investigation over. We go back, notify the authorities. Let the experts deal with the explosives.”
“Agreed,” Remi said, shutting off the light.
Sam turned the boat, heading northwest. As he neared the northern tip of Oak Island, he noticed another craft heading right for them.
“Sam . . .”
“I see it.” He turned the boat south at full throttle only to see a second vessel coming toward them from the south side of Oak Island.
He glanced over at the Money Pit’s brightly lit visitor center, then back at the approaching boats, trying to decide if they should make a run for it.
The rapid muzzle flash from an automatic weapon changed his mind.
They’d never make it in time. Not against that sort of firepower, and certainly not in a fishing boat.
Remi gripped the side of their craft. “This is where you’re supposed to tell me you have a brilliant plan in the works.”
“Sorry.”
“Not what I was hoping to hear.”
He glanced back toward the boats, then at Frog Island, realizing they were meant to be herded right toward the cove and the explosives. So be it, he thought, turning the Whaler that direction.
“Remi, get the boat hook,” Sam said as he turned the wheel, aiming the vessel in the direction of the boulder.
“Sam—”
“I’m going to send this boat right through that trip wire.”
“The pressure wave . . .”
If the bomb was in the water with them, the pressure wave would kill them. In this case, he was hoping the bomb was planted out of the water and behind the boulder to hide it from view, since the fishing line disappeared there. That way, any explosion was going up, back, and out the sides. A gamble, since there was always the possibility that there were more explosives hidden.
Only one way to find out—not that he was about to voice his concerns to Remi. If they were going to die, better to go fast and not know it. “You think you can hold your breath until we get to that fallen tree?”
She looked over and nodded.
Sam jammed the handle of the boat hook through the wheel to keep it on course.
“Get ready to jump.”
Fourteen
Sam glanced at the approaching boats, saw the flash of more gunfire. He hoped they wouldn’t notice two dark forms dropping from the side. “Ready?”
“Ready.”
They sat on the edge, turned, and pushed off. The boat sped on.
Sam dove down into the cold depths, sensing Remi beside him as they swam. A few seconds later, the water lit up as the explosion rocked the air above them, sending a shock wave through the cove. Flaming debris rained down on the water. Sam and Remi kicked harder, Sam hoping the hull of the boat wasn’t going to follow. He had no idea how far they’d swam, only hoped they’d arrive at the safety of the tree. After several more hard kicks, Sam reached out, feeling his hand brush up against the trunk.
He turned in the water, grabbed Remi’s hand, and pulled her beneath the trunk to the other side. They broke the surface, both sucking in air as they treaded water behind the trunk. Just beyond, they heard the crackle and roar of a giant fire, the air glowing above it. The sound of boat engines grew closer.
He used one of the branches to lift himself slightly so that he could peer over the trunk.
Their little fishing boat had overturned and what was left of it was burning in a blinding fire fueled by the spilled gasoline. The two craft carrying the gunmen neared, one moving in close to the vessel. One of the gunmen aimed his weapon toward the cove and fired. Dozens of rounds peppered the burning boat and the water around it.
Finally, the man stopped, looked around, then signaled to the driver. The vessel veered toward them, and Sam quietly dropped into the water, watching as both boats sped off toward the north.
Neither he nor Remi made a move until the engines had faded in the distance. When Sam felt it was safe, he and Remi swam beneath the tree trunk to the other side.
The blast of the explosion had blown their rental boat to the middle of the cove. Beyond it, not much was left of the boulder that had shielded the explosives. It was split down the middle, one half broken into several pieces from the force of the blast, the other half sitting in a deep hole on the shore.
Sam’s gaze returned to the boat. He didn’t want to think about what might have happened if Remi hadn’t seen the trip wire and they’d gotten out to see what those men had been digging for.
Even Remi couldn’t tear her gaze from the sight.
“Let’s go,” he said.
“Where?”
“We can swim over to Oak Island. There’s got to be a phone at the visitor center. At the very least, we can walk to the mainland from the causeway.”
They had covered about half the distance, nearly a thousand feet, when Sam heard the rumble of a large sea vessel coming from the south.
He glanced in that direction, worried Avery’s men were returning. But as the boat sped into view, its emergency lights flashing atop and spotlights sweeping the water before it, he realized help had arrived.
They both shouted, waving their hands, relieved when the spotlight swung their direction, blinding them momentarily as their rescuers steered toward them.
They were pulled aboard the Royal Canadian Mounted Police vessel, where Sam related what had happened to the captain, who said, “You’re telling me you survived an underwater explosion?”
“No. I am saying we went underwater to survive an aboveground explosion. That boulder,” he said, pointing at it, “or, rather, what’s left of it—directed most of the force away from the water.”
“Darn lucky,” the captain said.
“That’s putting it mildly.”
“What makes you think they were targeting you specifically?”
Sam glanced over at Remi, who sat in the chair across the table from him, holding a blanket tightly about her. “Sort of a long story.”
“And I get paid by the hour. So tell away.”
Sam gave as brief a version as he could, starting with the San Francisco trip, Bree’s abduction, and then what she overheard her kidnappers discussing.
“Quite the story, Mr. Fargo,” the captain said. “Any chance it can be verified?”
“Easily. San Francisco
PD and Carteret County in North Carolina.”
“We’ll check it out. This employee of yours. Bree Marshall. You’re sure you can trust her? You don’t think she set you up, do you?”
“What do you mean?” Sam asked.
“She’s the only one who heard this alleged discussion about Oak Island.”
Remi seemed to bristle at the idea. “I trust her implicitly.”
“And I,” Sam said, “trust my wife’s judgment.”
“Just throwing it out there. Wouldn’t be the first time someone was betrayed from inside.” He looked down at his notes, then back at Sam. “Guess that’s about all the questions I have for now.”
“I have one,” Sam said. “What are the chances of publicly ignoring that you found us?”
“Not sure I get what you’re saying.”
“If you hadn’t found us, what would your impression of the crime scene have been?”
“On first glance? The boat on fire after an explosion? A recovery operation. Search for survivors.”
“So if you have to make a press release, can’t you say that?”
The captain held Sam’s gaze as if contemplating the pros and cons. After a moment, he gave a nod. “Sure. Assuming your story checks out with those other agencies, we could probably work with that.”
“We’d appreciate it,” he said, ignoring Remi’s menacing glance.
Sam looked over at Remi as he drove back to their hotel. Even though he couldn’t see her facial expression in the dawn of the new day, he sensed her tension. “What?”
“You’re actually going to let everyone think we’re dead?”
“It’s a brilliant plan.”
“It’s a horrible plan. After everything that Bree has been through, you honestly believe she could possibly survive more emotional trauma by thinking we’re dead? And thinking it’s her fault?”
“It would only be for a day or so.”
“And what about Selma? And the rest of our staff?”
“We’d tell them, of course.”
“But not Bree?”