by Matthew Rief
Once she left, I opened the tray and demolished all of the food in minutes, surprised by how good it was but knowing that I would’ve enjoyed anything, I was so hungry. I washed down the plate of eggs, bacon, and hash browns with orange juice and coffee, then went right back to work.
I spent my time looking over the digital map and doing intermittent searches on a laptop they’d set out. I thought back to Frank’s words, how he’d told us about the engineers that had been on the Crescent when she’d been taken over. I agreed with the professor in that, in order for the treasure to have stayed hidden all of these years, its location must have been well thought through. Years of storms, crashing waves, and shifting tides would have revealed the treasure to human eyes years ago had Shadow simply buried it all in the sand near the shore like in the old pirate tales.
After what felt like only a few minutes, Felix returned and informed me that they were anchoring over the site. What I didn’t understand was how exactly they planned to moor a massive yacht in Florida Bay and send a bunch of divers into the water to scrounge the ocean floor without expecting to draw attention. But I wasn’t about to offer tips to a bunch of criminals that were just looking to use me, then, in all likelihood, hand me over to my death.
“We have the gear stowed below deck,” Felix said. “And a handful of trained divers. Where are we going first?”
I finished off my coffee, then leaned over the large horizontal monitor.
“Here,” I said, pointing to an area on the map we’d referred to as the Elkhorn Garden. “This is where we found a cannon a few days ago. We’ll start here and dive southeast, following the trail of artifacts.”
Felix nodded, then motioned towards the starboard door.
“This way.”
He led me out of the dark room and into a long, bright hallway with luxury cypress hardwood floors and bright clear windows that looked out over the starboard side of the yacht. From my vantage point in the hallway, I estimated that the yacht was well over a hundred feet long and must’ve been worth a fortune.
We moved past two guys standing by the door, and they followed us as Felix led me down a few flights of stairs, down another hallway, and into a large open space. The port side of the room was full of all sorts of high-end scuba gear. Nitrox tanks, BCDs, first- and second-stage regulators, weights, wetsuits, and an assortment of fins and masks of various sizes. All of it looked new and was conveniently stowed.
Along the starboard bulkhead, I saw a massive fiberglass desk covered in assorted top-of-the-line underwater cameras and gear. Next to the camera gear was a table and a few sets of drawers containing underwater metal detectors, handheld sonar devices, magnetometers, sea scooters, and various other pieces of equipment that I’d never seen before.
Felix led me to the center of the room, where he lifted a lever and pressed a green button beside a large plateau that rose up a few feet from the deck. The room shook softly, and within seconds, a portion of the deck began to slide away. My eyes grew wide as the clear, tropical ocean came into view below. It was a moon pool, and one of the nicest I’d ever seen.
Felix, seeing my face light up, explained a few of the other features of the yacht and showed me the area around the opening, which was lined with cushioned seats for ease of getting in and out of gear. I couldn’t help but stare in awe for a few seconds at the setup. The unfortunate situation aside, the place was a diver’s paradise.
Felix then introduced me to a few of the guys I’d be diving with.
“Cesar you already know,” he said. “And I understand that you met Oscar some time back.”
My memory clicked in as I looked at the fat long-haired guy who I’d confronted back at Pete’s place. Even without ever getting a good look at him, I could tell who he was. He shot me an evil glance as he and Cesar prepared their gear.
“And this is Antonio,” Felix said. “He’s a master diver and salvager.”
Part of me wanted to ask what normal use Black Venom had for experienced divers, but I decided maybe another time.
Antonio barely gave me a moment’s glance. He looked older than the others and was close to six and a half feet tall, though he wasn’t as muscular as Felix. As I glanced Antonio’s way, I watched as he grabbed a compact pistol, then made eye contact with me as he holstered it on the outside of his XXL wetsuit.
“The yacht has a crane mechanism that is stowed here,” Felix said, pointing to a closed door in the bulkhead. “And we have two compressors.”
“Are we getting in the water, or are we gonna talk all day?” Cesar said, adding a few weights to his weight belt.
Felix’s face shifted instantaneously. He strode over to Cesar, grabbed him forcefully by the back of his neck and slammed him to the deck.
Jamming his right knee into Cesar’s cheek, Felix said, “If you don’t lose the fucking attitude, you’ll be in that water for the rest of your body’s miserable existence. Understand?”
I was amazed by how fast Felix’s attitude had shifted. I’d dealt with hard, crass no-bullshit-takers many times in my life, especially during SEAL training. But there was something about the way Felix spoke and the way the others reacted that made me realize that nothing he said was just a scare tactic. I knew that he was a man who could kill in a heartbeat, and that he wouldn’t lose any sleep over it.
Ten minutes later we were in the water. The weather was poor for diving—overcast and windy as hell, and the current was strong. The combination stirred up silt from the ocean floor, mixing it all around us and making it difficult to navigate through the terrible visibility.
Despite the conditions, the four of us were able to set up a search pattern and use the advanced equipment to find a handful of artifacts in just the first hour of diving alone. When we returned to the yacht, we’d filled a large container with another cannonball, two broken plates, a few pirate beads with their colors somehow still intact, and the metal bore of a musket. It was during the third dive later that evening, however, that we made the greatest find of the day.
It was just after five, and after taking a break for dinner, we were preparing to drop back down beneath the waves. I shimmied into my BCD, stuck the Velcro over my abdomen, clicked the buckles, and tightened the straps. With my fins already on, I spat into my mask, wiped it away, then rinsed it in seawater. Once it was strapped over my face, I gave a thumbs-up, then held my mask and regulator in place as I dropped back into the water.
Entering negatively buoyant, I splashed and sank a few feet underwater before letting all of the remaining air out of my BCD and descending to the bottom twenty feet below. Cesar was already at the bottom, and Antonio and Oscar came down right after me. Our plan for the dive was to search the area around the pile of ballast stones using our equipment, hoping to find something more useful than a set of antique silverware.
Just over an hour into the dive, I picked up a faint hit with my metal detector and started digging. The current had eased up a little, and the visibility was much better than it had been earlier. After five minutes of digging with a small shovel, and with my air pressure running low, I struck a hard object roughly three feet down. Kicking softly and hovering right over the hole I’d dug, I sifted my fingers through the sand and revealed a large object.
My eyes grew wide behind my mask lenses and my smile caused seawater to sneak in, forcing me to tilt my head back and exhale forcefully from my nose to clear it out. Part of me had trouble believing what I was seeing. Buried in the sand less than fifty feet from the pile of ballast stones, surrounded by patches of seagrass, were the remnants of a wooden chest.
TWENTY-THREE
Angelina had gotten everything she could out of the bleeding thug before the police cars and ambulances arrived. It had been difficult to understand him as he struggled to control himself, his hands clutching the part of his body where his healthy kneecap had once been.
“Took him… yacht…” The words struggled out of the thug as Angelina yelled at him to talk. “The… Yellow… Rose…”
>
He’d spoken with rushed, mumbled words and had gone into shock just as Angelina heard the sirens approaching the old structure. Paramedics provided emergency care and carried the injured thug out of the building. Of the three other thugs, only the guy who she’d kicked through the deck into the water below was still alive. Unconscious and beat up, but alive.
Sheriff Wilkes met her in the grass-infested gravel lot beside the Tacoma and the silver Jeep with tinted windows. He had a group of officers with him from the nearby Monroe County Sheriff Station on Cudjoe Key, along with a few from his department in Key West. Officers secured the area, and a few suited detectives took pictures of the scene as the ambulances blared their sirens and disappeared from view.
When detectives approached Angelina, Charles waved them off.
“I’ll handle her statement,” he said authoritatively.
One of the detectives, a pale-skinned guy in his early thirties, nodded and said, “It looks like a clear case of self-defense. But we’d appreciate if you sent over the statement to our department as soon as possible. The more evidence we can bring to the table, the better chance we have of locking these criminals away for a long time.”
“They’re with Black Venom,” Angelina said, drawing the detective’s undivided attention. “I’m sure they all have long criminal records.”
The detective said they would take care of it, then walked away to join a group of other detectives and police officers. Once he was out of earshot, Charles ushered Angelina to the other side of the parked Tacoma.
“Are you alright?” he said.
She nodded and replied that she’d received a cut on her arm from the confrontation, but that it was minor and wouldn’t require stitches. When he asked what she was doing there, she explained how she’d called around, asking if anyone had seen anything suspicious.
“The dishwasher at Sammy’s,” she said. “He told me he heard gunshots over this way.” She took in a deep breath and let it out. “I found a tranquilizer dart, and it was clear that a scuffle had taken place before I arrived. They took Logan, Charles. Black Venom. And that thug they just took away in the ambulance said that Logan was on the Yellow Rose.”
Charles looked back at her, surprised.
“The Yellow Rose?”
“Yeah. It’s a yacht, supposedly.”
Angelina reached for her keys and stepped towards the driver’s-side door of the Tacoma.
“Wait,” Charles said. “Where are you going?”
“To find the Yellow Rose,” she fired back, unlocking and swinging open the door.
“Hold on a second. You need to calm down. We need to think this through, and whether you think it’s important or not, I really need to get your statement.”
“You just got it,” she said, then sat down on the driver’s seat and slammed the door.
Charles shook his head and leaned in through the open window.
“No, I mean a real statement. Two people are dead, Miss Fox, and two more are on the brink of it. I need you to come down to the station and—”
“Hop in,” she said calmly.
Charles paused. “What?”
“Hop in and ride with me. I’ll tell you everything that happened here on the way.”
Charles seemed taken aback. He stepped away from the truck, thought it over for a few seconds, then looked over at a group of police officers.
“Wait here,” he said sternly as he stepped towards the group.
Angelina waited impatiently, tapping her fingers against the steering wheel while watching Charles through the side and rearview mirrors. After talking to them for a minute, he headed back towards the Tacoma and opened the passenger door. Just as he sat down and shut the door behind him, Angelina put the truck in drive.
She flew over what remained of the overgrown road and turned back onto Old State Road, heading west. Thirty minutes later, the tires screeched as she pulled into the Conch Harbor Marina and parked against in one of the few empty spots in the first row. On the way over, she’d gone into further detail with Charles about what had happened, and when their shoes hit the dock, she shifted the subject.
“What’s the deal with Ben anyway?” she asked, anger resonating in her voice. When Charles just looked back at her, confused as hell, she continued, “Look, I’m not a detective. But whatever happened with that Black Venom guy that escaped from your station? Wasn’t it Ben who was on duty that night? What did he say happened, and how was there no footage of the guys that broke him out?”
“They’re professional criminals,” he said. “You know that. I’m sure disarming our security system wasn’t difficult for them.”
“Exactly. They’re professional criminals. And professional criminals don’t leave things up to chance. What, you think they were just waiting at that old abandoned crap hole, hoping for the off chance that Logan would stop by?”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that I think Ben had something to do with this.”
Just as they were about to reach the Baia, Charles froze in place. He looked at Angelina like a priest would look at a guy who’d just cursed in the middle of a church.
“I trained Officer Kincaid,” he said, stepping towards Angelina and looking her dead in the eyes. “I know his character. I don’t know how this happened, alright. But I can vouch for him.” He took in a deep breath and calmed himself a little. “What would he have to gain from it, anyway? You’re forgetting that he was taken as well.”
“Charles, you worked for the CIA for twenty years and you’re seriously asking me that question?”
They walked in silence for a few moments, then both turned when they heard footsteps and saw Jack walking towards them from the Calypso.
Angelina took a step closer to Charles.
“I might be wrong about all of this,” she said, lowering her voice. “But I don’t think that I am. Either way, we know how we can find answers. We’ve got to find the Yellow Rose.”
“You guys saw it too?” Jack said, cutting the tension slightly with his laid-back voice. “She was a beauty.” His voice shifted and he added, “Any word on Logan?”
“What are you talking about?”
“The Rosa Amarilla,” he said. “One of the nicest yachts I’ve ever seen here at the Conch. Gus even took a picture of it.”
Both Charles and Angelina looked at their friend, stunned.
“You’ve seen it?” Angelina asked. “When?”
His demeanor changed slightly and he replied, “Last week. Why? What’s going on?”
Angelina and Charles glanced at each other.
“That could be where Logan is,” Charles said.
“It is where Logan is,” Angelina corrected him. “That’s what the cartel member told me.”
Jack threw his hands in the air. “What a minute, you ran into more of Black Venom’s thugs? When did this happen?”
“Earlier today,” Angelina replied. “They surrounded me over at an abandoned building near Sammy Creek Landing. The only words I got out of him were Yellow and Rose.”
Jack shook his head, having a hard time believing what Angelina was saying. He sat down on the half-moon cushioned seat and stared off into space for a moment.
“That’s crazy, Ange,” he finally said. “I’m glad to see you’re alright. Hey, Gus might be able to help us track it down. He must have some info on her. You guys call the Coasties yet?”
Charles shook his head. “This all just happened.” Then he looked over his shoulder at the marina parking lot, where a police cruiser was just pulling in. “I’m gonna take off. I’ll call everyone I can and see if we can find this yacht.” He patted Angelina on the shoulder. “I’m glad you’re alright too. But try and stay away from this. Let us do our jobs. If we learn anything, we’ll let you know.” He headed down the dock, then turned over his shoulder and added, “And I still need that statement.”
Charles walked to the parking lot, then hopped into the passenger side and told the
other officer to drive to the police station. During the short drive, he couldn’t help but think about everything Angelina had said. As much as he hated to admit it, he too had a hard time believing everything that had happened involving Ben had been a coincidence. Maybe it was his nature to be too trusting of his own, but the truth was, the idea of Ben playing a role in Logan’s disappearance hadn’t crossed his mind until Angelina had brought it up.
Angelina and Jack watched him walk away and cruise out of the parking lot from the Baia. Both of them knew Charles hadn’t really meant it when he’d told them to stay out of it. He was just doing his job, trying to save face and have them leave the law enforcing to law enforcement officers.
“We’ve got to find this thing,” Angelina said.
Jack nodded. “I’ll call around the Gulf. See if anyone I know has seen her.”
Angelina looked out over the water, wishing she knew where to look.
TWENTY-FOUR
I reached down with the shovel to dig deeper, but before I could, I felt a hand grab hold of my BCD from behind and jerk me backward. I twisted my body around and saw the fat body of Oscar, his blob of a right arm pulling me back and forcing me aside. Instinctively, my right hand formed a tight fist and I wanted to give his jaw a taste of my knuckles, but I didn’t. He was armed and so were the two other guys nearby. If I tried to take them out, the chances of me even making it out of the water unscathed were slim, and then what? Like a recruit, I held my temper and breathed slowly in and out of my regulator.
Oscar ripped my shovel out of my hands and finished the work I’d started, moving piles and piles of sand away from the chest. After a few minutes, the cloud of sediment had settled and most of the chest’s exterior came into view. It was old, rotted, and covered in grime, barnacles, and other growths. Its metal braces were rusted and disfigured, and colored a deep dirty-red color. The chest looked like any attempt at moving it would cause it to crumble to pieces and drift away with the current, but that didn’t stop Oscar.