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  “This should be interesting,” Ray said.

  They were simple wood boxes, nailed shut. I pulled the dive knife from the scabbard on my calf. The sound of nails ripping from wood shrieked again and again until Truck was able to fit his fingers under the crate’s top and pull it loose.

  The light from the cabin windows illuminated deep gold and dull silver bars. Emeralds and rubies sparkled, wrapped in gold chains. Ornately decorated boxes were partially buried amidst the loose cob coins, pieces of four and eight, and gold doubloons.

  Staring at the four-hundred-year-old booty, I couldn’t help but think of how it had gotten here. Mined by slave labor; fashioned by hand; carried by horseback, carts, the backs of slaves; transferred from ship to shore; hauled overland again in portage; reloaded in galleons; sailed to Havana only to set sail again a day before a hurricane ultimately took hundreds of lives. The two sister ships, Atocha and Margarita, both sank into the quicksands between shoals in the Marquesas and weren’t discovered again until 370 years later by a California chicken farmer who lost several family members of his own over a fifteen-year search, followed by a court battle with the State of Florida and the Spanish government. After a couple of decades at the museum, the treasure was spirited away again by these Peruvian nationals who sought to repatriate assets stolen from their ancestors by foreign imperialists.

  Now Truck, Ray, and I had written ourselves into the history of the cursed treasure of the Señora de Nuestra de Atocha. I only hoped we wouldn’t meet the same fate as those who had possessed it before us.

  “Can’t we just sail to a nice little Banana Republic and live like kings?”

  Surprisingly, it was Ray who asked the question.

  “That’s what I’m talkin’ about,” Truck said.

  I started to ask what we’d do with Betty but stopped and swallowed hard. Exactly. Why not run away and live extravagantly in some remote paradise? These crates contained millions in irreplaceable objects.

  Visions of my good old days pulled at me like a black hole. But those days were the result of a legitimate business, albeit built on an unsustainable model. Life on the lam would bring entirely new problems. I thought of my partner, Jack Dodson, still in jail. I thought of the accusations by various authorities after my parent’s deaths. Finally I thought of Special Agent Edward T. Booth.

  I’d had enough law on my back the past few years. I picked up the lid and placed it back over the crate, then hammered the nails back in place with the butt of the dive knife. Truck and Ray watched in silence. I handed Truck the knife when I was done.

  “Party pooper,” Ray said.

  I thought of Betty and the dive trip Ray and I had planned to recover my waterproof pouch. We still had the dive gear, and it was on the way home. I dialed Frank Nardi’s cell phone number aboard the Mohawk and handed Truck the phone.

  He hemmed and hawed, then broke the news. I couldn’t hear Nardi’s side of the conversation but could tell he was amazed that Truck had escaped, captured his captors, and was just this side of the Panama Canal. Truck didn’t mention Gutierrez. They agreed to sail toward one another, and for Nardi to send choppers toward the Sea Lion once they were within range. I felt I’d done everything I could to ensure Truck safe passage home.

  “It’s not the only treasure in the sea,” I said. “Let’s get out of here before the Panamanians get curious.”

  Ray headed straight for the ladder.

  Reluctant

  Goodbye

  22

  We circled the Sea Lion once. Her sails were full and she was pointed north. Truck waved from the helm. In his other hand was the spare radio we’d given him.

  I suddenly wondered whether he’d really sail toward the Coast Guard or return to Key West at all. Wouldn’t that be a kick in the ass if he didn’t?

  Ray programmed the GPS, checked weather, adjusted the transponder, and estimated our fuel capacity. Once set, we cruised with minimal conversation until we landed back at Cozumel for fuel. I knew he was still brooding about my holding out on him, but at least we were on the way home.

  What if Booth had cancelled the card? We’d been incommunicado for twenty-four hours, and he had to know about our stop in Cozumel. I needed to check in and give him the news. There’d be enough daylight left to make a quick dive on the sunken ocean racer if we kept an aggressive pace.

  I spotted Ray’s cell phone clipped to his flight bag. I glanced out the window and saw him pointing out features of my 1946 Grumman Widgeon to the fuel jockey. Once I energized the phone, three service bars appeared, so I dialed the number Ray had saved for me. Plus, if Gunner was one of Booth’s guys, I wanted to make sure he called him off—

  “Where the hell have you been?”

  Damn! I’d been hoping just to leave a quick message.

  “You called earlier, how’d you get this number?” I asked.

  “I’m with the FBI, Reilly, what do you think? Why the hell did you leave the Bahamas and go to Cozumel, Mexico—”

  “Relax. I found the Sea Lion at the mouth of the Panama Canal.” I heard a sharp intake of breath.

  “Was Lewis on board? The treasure? What about—”

  “Present and accounted for. Truck was tied up below deck. Four Peruvians had him hostage.”

  “I’ll be a son of a bitch.”

  “No argument here.”

  “What about the treasure, Reilly? You didn’t call to say goodbye, did you?”

  The thought of toying with him was hard to suppress, but the concern that popped into my head earlier about Truck’s vanishing hadn’t entirely gone away. Nor had my brief fantasy about disappearing, for good.

  “Truck called the Coast Guard. The Mohawk and Sea Lion will meet somewhere along the way. There were four crates of treasure and four slightly damaged Peruvians on board, along with Captain Lewis, anxious to get home.”

  “How the hell did you manage that? Last I saw you had nothing but dive gear and that cherub of a mechanic. Four armed Peruvians?”

  “I have some connections in Colón from my e-Antiquity days—”

  “Smugglers and mercenaries, no doubt.”

  Did he know about Gunner?

  “I haven’t heard jack from the Coast Guard,” he said. “They would have called me. Or I’d have heard an alert—”

  “This only happened an hour ago. Maybe they’re waiting until they reach the Sea Lion.”

  “You’re not bullshitting me, are you, Reilly?”

  “I never bullshit the FBI, Special Agent Booth.”

  A chuckle surprised me. “Nice work, kid. I knew you’d be useful—”

  “The Sea Lion was headed north to Key West, and so am I.” I swallowed. I didn’t want Booth to get too comfortable with this relationship. “And you can call off your other asset, too. My job is done.”

  “What other—”

  I pressed the end button. More than done.

  “Who were you talking to?”

  Ray’s voice made me jump. He was looking in my side vent window, slid open to offset the heat. When would I learn?

  “Nobody, just checking messages at the La Concha.”

  “Oh yeah? So Karen’s replacement is named Special Agent Booth? Sure sounded like you said, ‘I never bullshit the FBI.’ I’ve risked my ass, and for what? An attaboy back in Key West?”

  I unclipped my seat belt. “I’m going in to use the head. We need to get airborne, ASAP.”

  “How about the truth, Buck!”

  I bit my lip. Ray was one of my best friends—hell, one of my only friends.

  “Promise I’ll come clean when we get back to Key West, okay?”

  Ray shook his head. “Sure, Buck. Later. In Key West. If it’s not too dark, or too late, so then maybe tomorrow, or maybe never.”

  Damn.

  BEFORE WE TOOK OFF I checked in with Harry Greenbaum, who’d garnered some interesting information on our friend Gunner. His actual name was Richard Rostenkowski, and he’d been thrown off the Chicago poli
ce force for excessive violence only to disappear for a decade. A recent scandal that involved a Blackwater security team in Afghanistan resulted in criminal charges, again, for excessive force and the murder of civilians, which caused the expulsion of a man known only as Gunner, whose fingerprints matched those of Officer Rostenkowski. Blackwater wouldn’t reveal any information, but word was that Gunner was now self-employed and pursuing work that could yield him significant sums of cash.

  He said he was hired to find “lost goods,” but hired by whom? Booth wasn’t paying any big rewards, so it had to be someone else.

  Just the kind of guy I didn’t need to have a grudge against me.

  I decided to put all that behind me. The Sea Lion was found, I’d made the report to Booth, and Truck had contacted the Coast Guard. As for Ray, he wasn’t talking to me. He either ignored my attempts at conversation or was sincerely asleep.

  With about a thousand miles of water to cover, I had plenty of time to think about the imminent dive on the ocean racer. It had been months, but I was certain the integrity of my waterproof pouch would hold up. Gutierrez must have salivated at the contents. At least a dozen maps, letters, articles about missing galleons, descriptions of hidden caves, missing cities, buried valuables. Even though they were just copies, their value could hardly be more obvious.

  I reached down and felt the new waterproof pouch below my seat, in the new shelf I’d built after Gutierrez trashed the last one. Now, I had the original maps and information stashed there, fresh from the numbered account in Switzerland. I might be crazy to keep them there again, but I wanted them with me at all times. Gutierrez was back in Cuba climbing the ranks of the Secret Police, and nobody else knew I’d kept the pouch there, except Ray.

  Now if I could just recover the copies from the sunken ocean racer, I’d have the only ones in existence. Someday, if I had the money, I’d be equipped to find some of the world’s greatest missing treasures. I could even go academic and pursue the treasures for posterity using public grants. The Great Recession may have ended, but I was still in the no-man’s land between recovering materialist and socially responsible activist.

  Big territory, and new to me.

  And what about Gutierrez? Could he be the one Nardi said was searching for the boat? Could Truck be right about his involvement with the theft of the Atocha treasure? He’d lived in Key West for years and certainly knew the museum well. But the two matters were totally unconnected. What were the odds of his being tied to them both? Remote, but I had learned the hard way that with Gutierrez, you never knew.

  I was dying to use Ray’s phone to call Nardi and see how close they were to Truck, but the last thing I wanted was to arouse Ray’s curiosity. The time flew by as my thoughts ricocheted between the treasure on the Sea Lion, whether I’d see Truck again, what to tell Ray, the maps under my seat, the sunken ocean racer, and what Karen was doing in New York. A ping in my headset brought me back to the present. Cuba was ahead, the western tip visible on the horizon.

  My palms broke into a sweat. I wanted to steer clear of their airspace, so I banked to the north. Lightning may not strike twice in the same place, but it would sure strike me if I got too close to Cuba while Gutierrez was still around. I sat up straight in my seat.

  Only about fifteen miles to the coordinates Nardi had given me.

  23

  Ray finally spoke to me.

  “Where are we?” he said.

  “Halfway through my landing checklist.”

  He rubbed his eyes, took a deep breath, and studied the instrument panel. It was nearly 5:00 p.m., maybe an hour of daylight left given the time of year. If the GPS coordinates were accurate, it should be enough, but I could tell by Ray’s long glance at his watch that he wasn’t sure we’d make it.

  “Plenty of time,” I said.

  Before he could comment I pushed the yoke forward and began our descent. We’d passed a number of boats and ships as we skirted Cuban waters, some of them still visible in the distance, but the landing site was clear of any impediments. The GPS alarm sounded as we passed over the target during our approach. My heart bounded in my chest and a smile pulled at my lips—but only for a moment. The remains of Gutierrez’s partner might still be on board the sunken boat.

  As we touched down, a spray of salt water shot up the sides of the fuselage and catapulted off the props in every direction. Calm seas welcomed us and made for a smooth turn and taxi on the step back over the dive site. The depth gauge showed approximately a hundred and ten feet of water, and sonar depicted a smooth bottom.

  “Can’t we come back another day for this, Buck?” Ray said. “It’s been a hell of a week.”

  “I know you’re pissed, Ray, and I’m sorry, but we’re here. Let’s get this over with.”

  Ray shook his head and stared at the window. The GPS sounded again. I pulled back on the throttles and we came off the step and settled into the deep blue water. Anticipation tingled in my fingers. I unstrapped my harness and stepped out of the flight deck. Ray slid over and took control of the helm.

  I peeled off my shirt as I opened the aft locker. With the gear laid out, air turned on, GPS location programmed into the rented dive computer, I flipped open the hatch. Water splashed around, but Ray did a nice job keeping us pointed away from the swells. Had it been a little earlier, the conditions would have been perfect. Clear day, no wind, no rain, and optimal visibility. I figured there should still be enough sunshine to get me through the dive.

  Once I had on the BC, tank, and fins, I held the mask in my hand, checked my watch, and adjusted the bezel.

  “I should be back in twenty minutes, max.” I had to shout over the sound of the engines. “If it takes longer, I’ll need to hang for ten to decompress, but I won’t have much more air than that.”

  Ray stared straight ahead. I could tell he was determined not to look at me.

  “How will I know if you need help?”

  “I’ll be fine,” I said.

  “Okay, how will I let you know if I need help?”

  I had to remind myself that Ray’s world is all about precision, accuracy, planning, and predictability. This whole week had taken him off his axis. That and my not being straight up with him. I reached into the aft locker and pulled out my anchor line.

  “This has a hundred feet of line attached to it. If anything goes wrong just throw the anchor in over the dive site and I’ll come right up.”

  He nodded. It wasn’t exactly high-tech, but I didn’t expect the precaution to accomplish anything other than to ease his anxiety a little.

  “Okay, now?” I said.

  He was silent.

  Good luck to you, too.

  I dropped into the chilly autumn water. As soon as Betty passed me, I spun over and began to descend into the blue depths, with no bottom in sight.

  24

  There was minimal current as I progressed steadily toward the bottom, alternately equalizing pressure in my ears and watching the depth gauge. At forty feet below the surface, details on the ocean floor began to materialize. Patches of sea grass, small coral heads—and there in a sandy ravine was Gutierrez’s black ocean racer. The boat rested flat on its hull like a sleeping nurse shark. My old green kayak was still stuck through the cockpit, and memories of the chase were still fresh. After several attempts, here I was, taking back what Gutierrez and his partner had stolen. The thought added confidence to my kick.

  The boat gently rocked on the bottom. I arrived at its stern. The hull was covered with green algae, and coral had started to grow on the exposed metal. Parrot fish, sergeant majors, purple tangs, a fat angel fish, along with dozens of wrasses and other smaller fish swam in and out of the grills on the engine cowling and around the double stainless steel props partially buried in the sand. I checked the starboard side but couldn’t see in the side window, which had remained intact. It too was coated with sea life. I took a deep breath, which lifted my body up a few feet and allowed me to hover over the kayak to see where it
had crashed through the windshield. I couldn’t see inside—damn, I’d forgotten a flashlight.

  Brilliant move, moron.

  That could be a problem, given that the windows were covered with algae. Air bubbles from my regulator whisked past my ears and provided the only sound as I circled around to the driver’s side door, ajar and swaying slowly in the current. Crap. What if the pouch had been washed out?

  I checked my depth gauge: 108 feet, which only gave me another three minutes to avoid any decompression stops. I’d already used over a third of my air. Time to get inside. I took hold of the door, pulled hard, and swung it open—

  A green flash exploded in front of my eyes, and I kicked away from the boat. A massive moray eel craned its fat head out and stared me down. It was dark inside the cabin, and the limited light at this depth caused him to glow an iridescent green.

  Crap, crap, crap! Not only had I forgotten the flashlight, I’d left the spear gun on the Sea Lion. With two minutes of bottom time left I swam hard around the back of the boat to the starboard side door. A crust of coral and muck coated the handle and filled the seam separating the door from the hull, but I took hold of it and pulled. It opened a little. I positioned my fins flat against the hull and used the leverage to tug as hard as I could, and the door pulled free.

  The moray lunged at me, but I kicked back hard, separating myself from the ship.

  I ascended ten feet and stared down. I again swam over to the port side but stayed far enough away so the eel wouldn’t feel threatened. With both doors open, I could now see inside. The human remains were gone, no doubt consumed over time by my fat friend. The moray was coiled and staring at me like a giant rattlesnake.

  I scanned the inside as best I could but saw no sign of the yellow plastic waterproof pouch. As I started to swim back around to the other side, I was astonished to see Betty’s Danforth anchor come hurtling toward the sea floor, then jerk to a stop ten feet above the sunken boat.