Night Diver

by Elizabeth Lowell

  She digested that in silence.

  “Mingo’s been busy,” Holden said.

  “Mingo’s been making a treasure map,” she said bitterly. “And here, look. He’s been over in that rocky corner a lot.” She pointed at the screen where the markings were clustered around the odd formation. “Holden, you’ve been down there. What’s visible in that grid?”

  “Mainly that it’s less a grid than it looks on the dive plan.”

  “Could you see it on descent or ascent?”

  He thought back past the memory of pain like a white-hot crochet hook digging inside his thigh. “I would have noticed Benchley, but what I saw otherwise was a grid that only looks like neat squares on the plans. The truth is more like a net, pulled here and there to accommodate the reality of the seabed itself.”

  “Nothing about the rocks at the edge of the grid jumped out?”

  “Not on the descent. On the ascent, I had my mind on . . . other things.” Like breathing through the pain. “Volkert, you have my dive record, do you not?”

  “Yah, if you filed it.” More keystrokes and an orange dive track came up.

  Kate studied it, then let out a pent breath. “You were in a grid that never even touched where Mingo went off his dive plan. In fact, you were as far away from the outcropping and drop-off as you can be and still be diving the same wreck. All you found was junk.”

  And pain, he thought, but that’s of no value to anyone, especially myself.

  “And that’s all you were going to find,” Kate continued. “Because you were given a dive plan in a dry grid.”

  “The gold chain was found near there,” Volkert said.

  The keys clacked and violet dots appeared, one for each valuable find. All the recorded dive tracks also appeared with the dots. The screen now looked like an electric rainbow had thrown up.

  “The gold chain was almost certainly a red herring,” Holden said neutrally.

  “Yes.” She frowned, studying the violent colors.

  He saw that her face was a pale mask of revulsion and loss, her few remaining childhood illusions cracking and falling about her feet. He touched her arm, silently telling her that she wouldn’t be alone in this storm.

  “Larry made and assigned dive plans,” she said bleakly. “With Grandpa’s input, of course, and whatever information my parents had left that might have been pertinent to this wreck. They researched it for years before they died. Years of dreaming of emeralds and sapphires, rubies and pearls, a woman’s weight in gold and gems . . .”

  She shook off the past and its mistakes, the hopes and greed centered on the treasures of the Spanish Main, the past gleaming and flashing as wealth was pulled from a saltwater grave.

  “Anything else we should know?” Holden asked Volkert, tapping him on the shoulder.

  He cleared his throat. “I’m not looking for trouble.”

  “Then don’t make us come back on you when we find something you bloody well should have told us,” Holden said, his voice as hard as his eyes.

  The Afrikaner shifted uneasily, making his chair groan. “Yah, okay. I can try to see if there are any old files from before I came.”

  Which we have already requested, Holden thought. He didn’t bother to say it aloud. Volkert knew his ass was in a vise.

  “The survey you Brits made is shite,” Volkert said.

  “Already noted.”

  “Someone must have made a better one,” the man continued, stuffing a cookie into his mouth. “I’ll look for it again.”

  “Please do,” Holden said, his request as sardonic as his voice. “And do notify us immediately when you find something or give up.”

  When Kate started to say something more, he guided her from the dive center and shut the door behind her.

  “All right,” he said. “Tell me.”

  “Larry might forget to delete all records of a second survey, but Grandpa wouldn’t,” she said. “And he would keep a hard copy somewhere. That’s just his old-fashioned way.”

  “The dive has found a good weight of silver ingots, plus the odd bit of gold here and there,” Holden pointed out. I’ll bet they went ashore in his valise.

  “The ingots were chemically cemented together by seawater,” she said, her voice empty. “Lifting them would require heavy tackle and the work of several divers. Hard to handle, hard to conceal, hard to sell. As for the rest that we’ve found . . .” She shrugged.

  “Pretty little cake crumbs to keep the overlords happy and the dive funded,” he finished for her. “If we check the dates, I’m rather certain we will find that whenever it was time for a dive disbursement, up came the crumbs to placate the overlords.”

  “But the rest of the cake is hidden away.”

  “Or already eaten by the black market, or both,” he said. “Until we—”

  The squawk box in the hallway went off, burying Holden’s words in static.

  “Is the captain down there?” Raul asked in a metallic voice.

  She went over to the nearest intercom, which was on the wall near the crew’s head. “Kate here.”

  “Weather is getting bad. Wind’s steady and strong, and we’re getting some real chop. The period between waves has changed. Cook wants ashore. So do we. Malcolm packed up his speedboat and left.”

  Good thing I have the keys to the tenders, she thought. But all she said was, “I’ll be up to check the weather.”

  She disconnected and headed up toward the wheelhouse and Grandpa’s special—and specially hated—weather computer.

  CHAPTER 19

  GRANDPA’S COMPUTER DIDN’T tell Kate anything new. The storm had indeed settled in to throw a tantrum. It was picking up speed faster than had been predicted. The sea had gone from clear to cloudy. Small, chaotic ripples of energy passed through the boat, warning of the storm surge that was coming. The air tasted different, heavier. A smoky mist concealed the horizon.

  “This is just the start of it,” Kate said unhappily to Holden as she stepped out of the wheelhouse. “If it keeps up like this, the next twenty-four hours will be quite a ride.”

  “You feeling okay?” Holden asked as she looked out over the ocean.

  “Aside from being ripped up and lied to, I’m just fine, why?”

  “Because you’re looking at the leading edge of a tropical storm while standing as the captain on a ship, and a handful of days ago you were fighting yourself on placid seas belowdecks.”

  “The sea is nothing compared to how angry I am right now.”

  “Give it some hours,” he said softly. “I may be from the opposite coast and considerably farther north, but when I see weather like this, I begin checking that everything nearby is nailed down.”

  “Give me a few more hours like the last ones, and I could stand toe-to-toe with this storm and scream it down.” She blew out a long breath, took in another, blew it out slowly. “It’s over. We’re going in.”

  “There’s time for a short dive,” Holden said. “I’d like to take a look at that pile of rocks.”

  “Raul is the only diver left aboard. Even if I ordered him to go with you, I doubt that he would. They’re frightened by more than just the storm. And they don’t know me well enough to trust me.”

  Holden wanted to argue, but he knew she was right.

  The storm will blow out, just as storms have always done, he told himself. We can come back when it is calmer and see what is left. Surely that coral-covered lava formation isn’t going to wash away.

  I’d very much like to see what Mingo found that was valuable enough to lure him into night diving off the books.

  Aware of being watched by the crew, Kate gripped the rail and forced herself to live in only this one moment, not in the lost past or the near future when the last lie would be revealed and she would stand alone and bleeding in the wreckage of her childhood beliefs.

  Holden’s arm brushed her, hot and strong and alive, reminding her that she was alone only if she chose to be. She leaned into him for a moment
before she faced the crew that had gathered below. They needed leadership and that meant her.

  The wind flexed casually and lashed her hair across her face like a thousand stinging whips.

  “They’re calling this Tropical Storm Davida,” Kate said. “She’ll make life miserable for anyone on the beach in Venezuela.”

  The crew stirred and glanced uneasily at the stormy horizon. Raul crossed himself as the cook cursed loud enough to be heard above the storm. Even Volkert had come out of his cave for a look.

  “What about us?” called the cook.

  “We’re taking the Golden Bough to a lee marina.”

  Holden’s phone rang and vibrated against his leg. He ignored it. Whoever wanted him could wait. The unhappy crew could not.

  “But we won’t leave until everything on the ship is stowed and secure, including the two tenders,” Kate said. “Get to it!”

  As the crew dispersed, Holden’s phone rang again. He took it out of his pocket and saw that it was Antiquities.

  Probably going to tell me what I already know. Davida is a right bitch.

  He stepped back from Kate and the crew, turning into the bulkhead to minimize the noise.

  “Cameron here.”

  “Finally,” Chatham said with a grim kind of cheer. “We have a spot of trouble here. We need you to return soonest.”

  “I must have heard incorrectly. Say again.”

  “You are to return to London before Davida grounds all aircraft on St. Vincent. Then you will report directly to the office.”

  “This is rather sudden.”

  “The expedition is over,” Chatham said, his voice edged with malice. “It has been rubbish from the start. We will throw no more good money after bad.”

  “There are some developments that—”

  “Developments,” Chatham cut in. “Is that the new term for shagging the Donnelly bint?”

  “She is not a—”

  “While that peccadillo could be overlooked in a spectacularly successful operation,” Chatham said, ignoring the interruption, “the Golden Bough has proven to be anything but.”

  “My personal life has no bearing on the work that I’m doing out here.”

  “Bollocks.”

  Holden was aware of Kate waiting a step away from him, but he didn’t bother to lower his voice. “We have recently discovered a thief operating from within the dive team, a thief who could very well be responsible for any perceived shortfall in small, valuable salvage.”

  “Utter rot. Moon Rose is a historical fantasy. As the Yanks say, it is time for a reality check. After the lack of return on investment, your misjudgment is as notable as it is disappointing.”

  Holden gripped his phone and wished it was Chatham’s neck.

  “Our sources have also brought up certain irregularities in your recovery reports,” the man continued in his clipped voice. “At this point it is more circumstance than fact. If you would like to keep it that way, be on the next plane out of St. Vincent and we will put this unhappiness behind us. I would not want to see an honored and honorable member of our navy disgraced. Am I clear?”

  “Quite, sir. Just as it is clear that you have only part of the available information, and not the important part at that.”

  “Rubbish. Take your bruising like a man along with the rest of the department and I’ll see what I can do to smooth this over. There is a flight from Kingston in less than three hours. Do be on it.”

  Chatham disconnected.

  Bugger, Holden thought savagely.

  He turned and saw Kate watching him, worry drawing her face into tight lines.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  Mist breathed over them, forerunner of the long, twisting curtains of rain that would follow.

  “I have been ordered back to London,” he said. “Immediately.”

  “Why?”

  “It doesn’t matter. I’m not going.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “As my commander used to say, the whys and wherefores are not terribly important when you have a device at hand to defuse.” Holden smiled faintly. “We didn’t call them bombs or mines; device is a less threatening term. The commander drilled into us that our job wasn’t to worry about how the device got to where it is, only to prevent it from working and to keep ourselves alive, in that order. In all, it is rather excellent advice for many things.”

  She came closer, her hair and eyes radiant against the coming storm. “What do you need to keep yourself alive?”

  “You,” he said, wrapping her close. “Nothing else amounts to a tinker’s damn.”

  She put her hands on his face and looked into his incredible eyes. “I’m yours.”

  He hoped it was true, that the fragile roots of their relationship weren’t ripped out in the storm—or its aftermath.

  You can’t see the future, boyo. Take what you have and thank God for it.

  “AO ordered me to shut down the dive,” he said.

  “For the duration of the storm?”

  “There was no mention of resumption.”

  “What if the site survives the storm with only a little damage?”

  “They have washed their hands of this dive. Chatham refused to hear of any thief or other new information. I rather believe that as far as AO is concerned, the sooner the storm buries everything, the better, and me along with it.”

  “Bastards,” she said.

  She stood on tiptoe and kissed Holden until they were warmer than the light rain slicking the deck.

  “Kate, if I want to keep asking questions despite the storm, questions that include your family, will it change things with us?”

  “I have some questions of my own.” She wiped damp hair back from her face. “We can compare notes once we’re ashore. I hope to see Larry, or at least Grandpa, before the storm shakes the island like a terrier with a rat. I don’t like being lied to.” The words were more forceful because of her calm.

  “I would like permission to search Larry’s quarters,” Holden said.

  “Now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then do it. I have a ship to secure.” She turned away.

  “Thank you, Kate. Captain.”

  “No thanks required. I’ve had a gut full of playing with shadows on a wall.”

  Her words echoed in Holden’s head as he went to Larry’s quarters on the main deck. Like the crew quarters, the door only unlocked from the inside. Other than having more room and an adjoining head—and the fact that the area didn’t look like it had been searched—there was little difference between the captain’s cabin and Mingo’s.

  Larry’s bed was adequately made, though hardly up to navy standards. His clothes were folded or hung, shoes stashed, nothing to trip over even if the going got rough. Nothing was taped along the back or sides of the locker drawers.

  As he headed for the small, two-drawer desk in the corner between the outer wall and the head, a color photo secured to the wall caught Holden’s eye. A much younger Kate was hanging upside down on the railing of the Golden Bough while Larry made a great show of trying to pry her loose. Her hair hung in a wild red tangle and she was laughing with the carefree contagiousness of a child. Larry was laughing, too. In the background their grandfather was watching them with an indulgent grin.

  Holden felt more like an intruder than before, losing all appetite for the process. But he kept going because it had to be done.

  The first drawer of the desk held the usual mix of stuff that had been useful once or might be useful again—pens, ruler, paper clips, rubber bands, a magnifying glass, an old cell phone that had died, various pads of sticky notes. It also held a small black plastic box. Inside the box was a dive watch like Mingo’s.

  Feeling like a thief, Holden pocketed the watch and replaced the box.

  The second drawer held old magazine and newspaper articles about Spanish treasure finds, plus an assortment of dubious treasure maps of the sort sold by con men to gullible divers. Non
e of the maps were for areas in St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

  By the time Holden headed for the wheelhouse, the workboats had been hoisted aboard into cradles and tied down, as had the siphon and its coils of hose. The decks were cleared, ready for sailing.

  “What about the dive buoy?” Luis yelled to Kate as she climbed up to the wheelhouse.

  “Leave it,” she called. “It should ride out this storm without a problem.”

  Holden stood on the deck with Larry’s watch feeling like a lead weight belt in his pocket. As he went down to the dive center, the Golden Bough growled to life. Heavy metal links clanked into the chain locker as the winch worked, the sound even louder than the Techno beat. Vibration shook the deck plates and the whole ship shuddered as the anchor finally came off the bottom. Instantly the motion of the ship changed, becoming more alive, a force set free.

  “Where is the plug you used to connect Mingo’s watch to the computer USB port?” Holden asked Volkert.

  The Afrikaner shut a drawer, tested that it was secure, and opened a deeper drawer, where various cables and cords lay coiled. Without a word he pulled one out, handed it to Holden, and went back to checking that all the computers and screens were secured.

  “Did you send the content from Mingo’s watch to my e-mail?” asked Holden.

  “Yah.”

  “Excellent,” Holden said, stuffing the cord into a pocket with the watch. “Need any help here?”

  Volkert shook his head and said, “I’ve been preparing for the past day.”

  Chain stopped rattling into the locker, and the anchor clanked into place in its holder at the bow.

  Holden turned away and began climbing to the wheelhouse. With every step up from the ship’s center of gravity, the motion became stronger. By the time he reached the wheelhouse, the horizon was tilting and straightening with rhythmic regularity. When a bigger wave came along, the motion increased.

  He realized he was grinning. Despite the burning ache in his leg and the damning weight of Larry’s watch, Holden felt the elation of being at sea in a good blow. And that was all the storm was now, well under thirty knots, just an exhilarating ride on nature’s own roller coaster.