Fallen Mangrove (Jesse McDermitt Series Book 5)

by Wayne Stinnett

  “A day late and a dollar short,” I growled. “A lot of people are dead now because of your and Conner’s greed.”

  “I am sorry about that,” Bradbury said. “It’s something I’ll have to live with. But if Chase hadn’t brought me in, they’d be just as dead. I’m here now and can tell you all you need to know.”

  Over the next hour, Bradbury explained how Conner had approached him about planting the bug after our first meeting on the boat. He said he never thought it would amount to anything but went along anyway. When they heard our conversation weeks later, Conner contacted Madic without Bradbury’s knowledge to provide the funding and manpower. Madic in turn planted a bug in the bar at the Anchor and contacted Maggio to have him dig up more information about us. It turned out that Maggio’s son had more connections to the crime world than Madic realized and took steps to beat Madic to the punch. As he was winding up his explanation of the snowball of events, Deuce’s phone chirped.

  “It’s Cleary,” he said, before answering it.

  He listened for a moment then said, “Thanks for letting us know.” After another moment, he said, “No, we’re going to continue with our plans. If she’s smart, she’s long gone by now.”

  Deuce ended the call and turned to me. “Tena Horvac somehow coerced Cleary’s one-man guard force into opening her cell. He’s in the clinic, experiencing hallucinations and a very high pulse rate. Horvac and her little magic briefcase are gone and a Cigarette boat was stolen from a marina in Hope Town Harbour.”

  “Oh, great,” Charity said. “That’s all we need is a necrophiliac pharmacist on the loose.”

  The two women from the villa exchanged surprised glances and Bradbury’s head drooped.

  “What?” I asked him.

  “I did some checking after meeting her,” he said. “She was some kind of cult leader in her home country. Practiced witchcraft. Mostly harmless spells that were supposed to increase a farmer’s crops or a fisherman’s catch. But she was said to be a dark witch. Not that I believe in such nonsense, but when she was a young woman, she was gang raped by ten men. They were arrested and tried but never convicted. Over the next year, each one died of an apparent heart attack. Most of them naked in bed.”

  “Well, if she’s smart,” Deuce said to all of us, “she’s long gone from here. We have work to do.” Finally, he turned to Bradbury. “Mister Bradbury, we’re going to hold you here until we figure out what to do with you. My guess is, you’ll be turned over to the Police when we get back to Florida.”

  Rusty volunteered to stay and keep an eye on Doc and Bradbury while Deuce and three others headed to the second site, the house on the rock. Tony, Bourke, and I would get the boat ready if they struck out at the house. The third site was the offshore rock and we could work it well into the night if we had to.

  Michelle, the blonde woman from the villa, asked Tony, “Do you think it would be possible to sort of tag along? We won’t get in the way. Just watching a treasure hunt sounds like a lot of fun.”

  Tony looked over at Deuce. “Just stay out of the way,” Deuce replied.

  With Doc resting, Nikki taking care of him, and Rusty watching over Bradbury, we were down to seven people. Charity, Julie, and Rosales went with Deuce to the house on the rock, while Tony and Bourke helped me get the boat ready. The two women from the villa proved to be helpful also, as they were familiar with dive gear.

  Within an hour, we had the mailboxes mounted above the swim platform on the Revenge. I’d had the pair made after using just a single one with great results on a Confederate shipwreck last summer. They were mounted on special swing arms that would drop them down over the platform to the twin propellers, redirecting the wash from the props straight down.

  Before leaving for the third site, I went up to check on Doc, Pescador racing up the hill ahead of me. He was sleeping, having taken some pain pills and self-diagnosed himself as being fit enough, if he could just get a few hours of rest.

  “You’re going to make him quit the team, aren’t you?” I asked Nikki as she walked to the door with me.

  “I won’t have to,” she said. “He already told me that’s what he wants to do. Carl still hasn’t sold Miss Charlie and Bob thinks he can talk him into hanging onto it and letting him skipper it. It’s not a nine-to-five job, but it’s a lot less dangerous. I’m sorry, Jesse.”

  “Don’t be,” I replied. “He’s got a family to think of now.” My own thoughts turned to Kim. I was already rethinking my own involvement with the team. Colonel Stockwell was putting together another team to work out of Key Largo and had asked me to help him find the right boat, Captain, and location. Maybe I’d just have to find him two. I made Pescador stay with Rusty and walked back down to the Revenge to get underway.

  It was 1300 before we arrived at the rock a mile off the coast. The water on the lee side of it was fairly shallow, only ten to fifteen feet deep. We anchored about a hundred and twenty yards, or what we’d calculated would be the greatest distance that “eighty forceful advances” west of the rock would be. We put out two heavy Danforth anchors with plenty of rode astern and the main anchor nearly on the rock. The idea was to first blast sand from the bottom at the furthest place we thought the treasure might be. Then we could work our way closer to the rock by letting out ten or fifteen feet of rode to the stern anchors and taking up the slack with the windlass. Michelle and Yvette would be useful when we had to move, by letting out the stern lines.

  Tony and I got our scuba gear ready, adding extra weight to our belts to help us hold our ground against the force of the churning water.

  “What will you do if you find the treasure?” Yvette asked Tony.

  He glanced at me and I nodded. “First, we have to call Cleary,” he told her. “He’ll in turn contact the Interior Minister, who will send out a survey team to lay out a grid and catalogue everything.”

  Michelle looked shocked. “You mean you won’t be bringing anything up?”

  “Maybe one or two things,” I said. “Anything that might easily be overlooked or lost. If we find anything that we’re sure wasn’t on the ship’s manifest, well, that’s fair game. We’ll have to wait for the survey team to finish the excavation, catalogue everything, and report it to both the Bahamian and Spanish governments.”

  “How many days will that take?” Yvette asked.

  Tony and I both laughed as we rinsed our masks. “Days?” Tony said. “More likely months or years. Eventually we’ll get credit for the find and probably ten percent of the total worth.”

  The two women exchanged nervous glances. “Years?” they asked as one.

  “That might be a stretch,” Bourke told the women. “Depends on how much is down there, if it’s there at all. Getting governments involved will cause a lot of red tape, so maybe eighteen months at the outside.”

  Turning to me, Bourke said, “Just got off the horn with Deuce. They struck out at the second site. Not even a single Bahamian coin. Good luck.”

  I gave him a thumbs up and nodded at Tony. Wearing full face masks equipped with communications on the same frequency as Bourke’s earwig, we rolled backwards off opposite gunwales and descended to the sandy bottom.

  “They seemed real disappointed,” I heard Tony say over the com.

  “You take the north side, Tony,” I said. “Get a good twenty feet away from the target area and make sure you keep that lanyard around your wrist.”

  “Roger that,” Tony replied. We each had a small pick with a lanyard tied to it that we could jam in the sand to help hold us in place as Bourke engaged the engines and blew the sand away from the bottom.

  When we were in position, I told Bourke to engage the engines and bring them up to about nine hundred rpm. The force was stronger than I’d counted on, as the twin props forced tons of water down at the bottom. It was all I could do to hang on. After thirty seconds I told Bourke to go to neutral.

  There was a pretty good current flowing north and the sand was quickly swept away, exposin
g a ten-foot-deep crater about thirty feet across and twenty feet wide. Tony and I swam down into it and circled slowly, checking out the newly exposed rocky bottom.

  “Nothing,” I called up to Bourke. “That really blasted the bottom clean, though. Next time, just eight hundred rpm. Go ahead and move the boat twenty feet forward. This hole is huge.”

  Watching from below, we could see the two stern lines go slack and a few coils dropped into the water. Slowly, the boat inched forward using only the windlass until the stern lines pulled tight once more.

  “We’re in position,” Bourke said.

  “Same thing, Tony,” I said. “Twenty feet away.”

  We got into position and I told Bourke to engage the engines again. Once more the force of the water gouged another hole in the sand, sending it mushrooming all around us.

  “That’s good,” I called up to Bourke.

  Tony and I waited a moment, while the sand was swept away in the current then descended into the hole.

  “I got something here,” Tony said. I looked over where he was fanning the bottom and swam over to him, not quite ready for what I saw.

  “What is it?” Bourke asked over the com as a chill coursed through my veins.

  I looked at Tony as he crossed himself reverently. “A grave,” I replied. “Bones and a few metal pieces. Looks like four bodies were buried here. Nothing else. Move the boat fifteen more feet.”

  “How did anyone bury someone that deep?” Tony asked as Bourke and the two women went through the process of moving the boat again.

  “Maybe they didn’t,” I replied. “Didn’t Chyrel mention something about a lower sea level and that rock being the east end of a spit of land? This was all dry land then.” I checked my console and added, “We’re only ten feet deep here.”

  “Okay,” Bourke said, “we’re in position.”

  “We’re ready here,” I replied. “Blast away.”

  Once more, we were enveloped in swirling sand and suddenly something landed right in front of me.

  “Shut it down!” Tony called and Bourke stopped the engines instantly.

  Right in front of me was another skeleton, this one much shallower than the others. It had been in a sitting position and was knocked over nearly on top of me by the force of the water.

  “It’s another body,” I said as Tony swam over to me. “Let’s move it to where the others are.”

  We positioned ourselves side by side and as gently as we could, we moved what was left of the bones over to the previous hole, where the others now lay resting at the bottom of the partially filled grave.

  “What do you want to bet this guy buried the others?” Tony asked while looking at me.

  I stared at the empty sockets in the skull and was overcome with an emotion I’d never felt before. This is how we will all end up one day, I thought.

  “You’re probably right,” I replied. “Let’s put him with his crew.” Somehow I knew this man was the leader of the others. Responsible for their fate and ultimately for their deaths.

  I placed a three pound lead weight with a line attached to it next to the bodies and inflated a small balloon with air from my buoyancy compensator, allowing it to drift up to the surface. Somehow I felt the need to recognize this man and with Tony kneeling beside me, I saluted him. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Tony do the same.

  A moment later, we were back in position and I told Bourke to hit the blower again. We were quickly enveloped in the swirling sand, our visibility cut to nothing.

  “That’s enough,” I called up to Bourke.

  He stopped the engines and we waited for the current to carry the sand away. This time, we didn’t have to swim around searching the inside of the crater. We both knew we’d found the spot as soon as we reached the edge of the crater.

  Tony let out a whopping yell and started laughing so hard I thought he’d choke.

  “What is it?” Bourke asked. “What’s wrong?”

  “We found it,” I said. “The Captain was sitting right next to where he’d buried it.”

  Tony and I swam down to the bottom of the deep pit. There, sitting on the rocky bottom which hadn’t seen the light of day for four hundred and forty years, were four large chests and five smaller ones. They were obviously very old, but well preserved. Each seemed to have been covered in pine tar, or something like it, and buried side by side.

  I looked at Tony over the larger chests. “Want to take a peek?”

  He nodded and I pulled out my dive knife, inserting it into the crack beneath the lid. It took some work; the pine tar seemed to have been poured over each chest after they were placed there.

  Finally, the top cracked open a little, the hinges on the opposite side instantly crumbling, as I lifted the lid.

  “Holy mother of God!” Tony exclaimed.

  The chest was filled almost to the top with gold bars, each one gleaming like the day they were struck. There must have been hundreds of them. Excitedly, we worked on cracking open the other chests. After fifteen minutes we had them all open. Only the one held gold. The other three large chests were filled with silver pesos, some slightly encrusted. Thanks to the pine tar seal, not as much as I would have expected, though. The five smaller chests were filled with what appeared to be rough green stones of varying sizes, with flat areas all over them, mostly the size of marbles. Emeralds, I thought, no doubt about it.

  I looked over at Tony once more. “Didn’t Chyrel say there were three chests of emeralds?”

  Tony looked up from the huge mound of wealth that lay before us, his eyes dancing behind his mask, knowing exactly what I was thinking.

  “That’s right,” Bourke said. “The manifest said three small chests of uncut emeralds. Hang on, I got Chyrel’s printout right here. Yeah, three chests, twenty libra each. She told me a libra was pretty close to a pound, so twenty pounds.”

  “Yep, and that’s exactly how many we found,” Tony said. “Three twenty-pound chests.”

  I nodded and gently picked up one of the small chests. Clutching it close, I slowly filled my BC. It inflated nearly to bursting before I began to rise from the bottom, Tony doing the same thing next to me.

  “Meet us at the swim platform, Bourke,” I said. “And bring two of my goody bags from the dive locker next to the engine room hatch.”

  At the surface, Bourke helped us get each chest into its own bag in case the ancient wood split open. A goody bag is a heavy canvas bag that divers use to hold their catch when spear fishing or lobstering. They can easily hold thirty pounds out of the water.

  “Put these in the fish box for now,” I said, pulling off my mask. “The manifest said three chests of emeralds and there’s five. This is contraband treasure, never recorded on the manifest. We’re going back down to look around for anything else, but it’s all piled together and I don’t think we’ll find anymore. Call Deuce and let him know to get Cleary started on arranging things with the Interior Ministry.”

  I looked beyond Bourke at Michelle and Yvette, who were both smiling broadly. “Feels good to be a witness to history, huh? If you ladies promise to keep what’s in these two bags under your hat, there might be a little something in it for you.”

  They glanced at each other, then turned to me and smiled again. “That won’t be a problem,” Michelle said.

  I put my mask back on and Tony and I headed back down. I was pretty certain the chests in the hole would be all we’d find, but wanted to make sure.

  When we reached the bottom, I heard Bourke yell, “What the hell!” His yell was quickly followed by a large splash. I looked up and saw Bourke struggling in the water. Thinking he’d fallen in, I started up toward him. Suddenly the engines on the Revenge started and all hell broke loose.

  In seconds, I saw the lines to the stern anchors fall into the water, as if they’d been parted at the cleats. Those were soon followed by the main anchor line. Then, before I’d moved even a few feet toward Bourke, the engines raced and the force of the water surge pus
hed me down and tumbled me and Tony both away, along with a ton of sand and debris.

  A moment later, I heard a shearing noise, then the unmistakable sound of my boat roaring away, as the two mailboxes fell away to the bottom. The force of the downdraft stopped and I quickly surfaced, only to see my boat rising up on plane and turning south. In minutes, it was almost out of sight. Tony surfaced twenty yards to the east and both he and Bourke were swimming toward me.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” Sabina asked as Elana steered the big boat southward.

  Surprised at how fast the boat could go, Elana pointed to the radar and GPS, showing their position in relation to the smaller barrier islands and the larger Great Abaco. “This boat has everything. All we have to do is go south to the tip of Great Abaco and then southwest to Chub Cay. After that, it’s a straight shot to Florida. Do you know anyone in Florida that can fence forty pounds of emeralds?”

  “Not in Florida,” Sabina replied. “But I know just the person in New York. Head to the nearest port in Florida. I’ll call him and have him fly down to meet us. How long do you think we have?”

  Elana checked the GPS and started playing with its settings. A course was displayed that showed they had just over one hundred and forty miles until they reached international waters, west of Chub Cay. Checking the electronic display on the helm, she saw that they were traveling at almost forty knots.

  “We’ll be in international waters in three hours. Those three will be lucky to make the swim to shore in that time. We were over a mile out.”

  “What if the police send out a helicopter?” Sabina asked, worried.

  “A helicopter? The politia drive around that island in golf carts and bicycles. There’s only the one airport and I did not see any police helicopters there. Besides, there are many boats just like this all over these islands. They’ll never find us.” Smiling, she added, “I bet there’s some champagne down in the cabin. Why don’t you go see?”