by Rachel Lee
He forced himself to ignore it. There were more important problems than his dislike of being in the water at night.
And a few moments later he discovered them. The propeller was fouled, all right. Fouled in something that looked like heavy-duty chicken wire. The stuff was wrapped so tightly around the propeller and shaft that he figured it would take him days to cut it all off.
Then there was the rudder. It had fouled, too, and in the process had broken. They wouldn’t be going anywhere anytime soon.
After a moment, he kicked his way to the surface and pulled himself up on the diving platform. The night air chilled him immediately, but he didn’t care. He was just glad to be out of the water. He pulled his regulator and mask off and dumped the diving rig into Tam’s lap.
“Jeez, thanks,” Tam muttered.
“What’s wrong?” Veronica asked him. “What happened?”
“Sabotage. We have been royally sabotaged. We’re not going anywhere.”
“So call the Coast Guard.”
He looked toward the Conchita, and saw activity on the deck. The launch was being lowered again. “I’m not sure we’ll live long enough for them to get here.”
Then he sat down to wait.
Veronica watched the launch approach and could hardly believe this was real. It was three in the morning in the middle of nowhere basically, and she was watching a boat approach bearing what could only be more bad news. Instinctively, she eased toward Dugan and tucked her hand in his, taking what comfort she could from the way he squeezed her fingers.
But there was no comfort. She had barreled ahead on this insane search despite her father’s warnings that it could be dangerous to discover a treasure ship. She had insisted they stay in the face of threats, and only now that they could not escape had the reality of all of this come home.
She had been a fool. She had been worse than a fool, she had been a self-centered bitch. She’d been angry at her father for no good reason, and now she might never again have the chance to tell him that she loved him and that she understood why he’d kept the story of the mask from her all these years. She’d dragged Dugan and Tam into a mess that might well get them killed, and had refused to listen yesterday when Dugan had suggested they just clear out. She’d been full of herself.
No, not full of herself. Driven. Driven to a point past common sense. If she had just agreed to leave yesterday afternoon, they wouldn’t be sitting in a disabled boat watching the approach of doom.
“Well,” said Dugan, looking at her. She turned her attention to him, reading his lips. “Now we know why Emilio was making so little sense when he was here. He was just buying time for his diver to disable our boat.”
Her heart lurched. He was right. “Call the Coast Guard now,” she said. “Please.”
He shook his head. “I’m telling you, if we do that, we might be signing our own death warrants. Cooperation is all we have left. Until I think of something.”
He squeezed her hand again. She nodded reluctantly and turned her attention back to the launch. It was only a few yards away now, and slowing down. It bore three men, she noticed. None of them was Emilio Zaragosa.
“Ahoy,” said the man in the bow of the boat as they pulled alongside. He said something else, but Veronica couldn’t make it out, especially since it was so dark she could barely see his face.
Dugan answered, but he wasn’t looking at her now, and she couldn’t understand. God, she hated this. Hated it.
Then Dugan looked at her. “We’ve been invited aboard the Conchita.”
“No,” she said, feeling her whole body tense. “No.”
“Yes,” he said. “We don’t have any choice. Time to negotiate.”
Finally, she nodded. “I need the bag for my hearing aids. In case . . .”
He turned, said something to the man in the boat, then faced her. “Go get it.”
She went below, her mind working at top speed, trying to figure out a way to avoid going with the men. But what difference did it make? They were sitting ducks anyway, miles from shore. Maybe they would be safer on the Conchita. Emilio probably wouldn’t want to dirty his decks with their blood.
She got the waterproof case and put her hearing aids in it. With the noise from the launch’s engine, and the wind blowing in her ears from their speed, she wouldn’t be able to hear anything anyway.
She hesitated, thinking of the Glock. But there was no way she could fit it in her case, which was just big enough to hold and cushion her hearing aids. Nor could she hide it on her person, not when she was wearing a tank top and shorts.
So what was she going to do? Go above deck and point the gun at the men in the launch? Men who weren’t waving weapons at them? If she, Dugan, and Tam started waving a gun, things might get really ugly. At least as it stood now, they hadn’t reached that point. And they might not ever reach it if everyone kept a level head.
Still, she opened the drawer to look at the Glock, only it wasn’t there. Dugan must have it up above.
Back on deck, she found that Tam had already climbed into the launch. Dugan indicated that it was her turn. He helped her over the side and steadied her until Tam caught her waist. Then she was sitting on one of the bench seats, watching Dugan climb aboard. Moments later the launch pulled away from the Mandolin.
She noticed no one was talking as they made their way to the yacht. She also noticed that the three sailors in the launch with them were armed. The guns were visible now, and the gloves were off, it seemed. Now they would find out the real story. She was suddenly grateful she hadn’t tried to bring the Glock, not when she looked at those guns. One little pistol wouldn’t stand a chance.
Ten minutes later they were all standing on the deck of Zaragosa’s yacht, being watched by armed men. It was a luxurious boat, Veronica noticed. The kind of thing she had hitherto only seen in movies. Upholstered chairs, tables with glass tops, even a Jacuzzi on deck.
She opened the bag to take out her hearing aids and insert them, but as soon as she started to reach into the bag, Dugan’s hand shot out and stopped her.
She looked at him, and he shook his head.
“Why? I need my aids.”
He jerked his chin, pointing and she looked, discovering that she had two gun barrels pointed directly at her. They thought she might be armed.
A sudden chill made goose bumps rise on her arms, but she refused to stop. Reaching into the bag, she pulled out one of the flesh-colored devices and showed it to them. Then she put it in her ear. A moment later she inserted the other one.
Sound returned to her, none of it useful. She could hear the whistle of the wind and even the restless movements of the people around her, but that was all. No one was talking.
Then a small man appeared. He resembled Emilio with his round friendly face, although he was considerably plumper and much younger. Unfortunately he also had a thick moustache, and Veronica couldn’t understand him at all when he spoke.
Dugan turned to her. “He says we should sit and make ourselves comfortable. His father will be here soon.”
“His father?” A family affair. Somehow that didn’t reassure her. “Sit? When I’m this nervous?”
“There isn’t much choice when you’re at the wrong end of a gun barrel, sweetie.”
Sweetie. She didn’t know if she liked that either, but she promptly sat on a tube chair that was upholstered in blue-cotton duck. A few minutes later another man appeared, this one wearing a short white coat. He offered them iced drinks.
As if it were a social call. Veronica passed on the drink, and on the plate of crackers and caviar that appeared next.
“What is this?” she asked Dugan. “Our last meal?”
Despite the tension in his face, she caught the glimmer of laughter around the edges of his eyes and mouth. “Try to be positive,” he suggested. “It’s caviar.”
But she couldn’t laugh with two guns aimed in her general direction. “This is surreal.”
Dugan nodded, and fo
r that matter, so did Tam. Tam who had brought all this trouble on them. She supposed she ought to be angry with him, but she couldn’t muster the feeling. She had no difficulty believing that he had been scared into cooperation. And if they’d disabled Tam somehow, there would have been another diver, and the same problem.
Emilio joined them at last, wearing a silk smoking jacket over slacks. He greeted them all warmly, as if they were his welcome guests and not his prisoners. And Veronica still couldn’t understand a word he said. She had to twist to watch Dugan just so she could piece together what was going on.
Dugan reached out and took her hand. Trying to help as much as he could, he framed everything he said to Emilio in a way that would keep her fully informed.
“So,” said Emilio, “your boat is disabled, eh?”
“Funny, funny. That was pretty slick, keeping us occupied while your diver set us up.”
Emilio spread his hands. “Of course. I am not a fool. Did you really think I was going to let you run for help?”
“In retrospect, no. I was the fool to think you’d ever let us leave.”
“Ah, but I will. Once I have accomplished my task. I have no desire to hurt anyone.”
Dugan believed that about as much as he believed he could dig a hole to China. There’d be too many international complications if Veronica reported that a major archaeological find had been looted by this man. No, Emilio would have to get rid of them sooner or later. But he wasn’t going to let Emilio know he realized that. It was better to make the man believe that they would cooperate to save their lives.
“So,” said Emilio, “the lady had offered a deal. I’m interested. Why don’t we discuss it?”
Dugan looked at Veronica, squeezing her fingers. “He wants to discuss the deal you offered.”
She nodded and looked at Emilio. She looked as cool as a cucumber, Dugan thought. Nobody would guess how uptight she was. He could tell only because her hand was so icy.
“The deal is exactly what I said,” she told the man. “I have no interest in the gold. There may or may not really be ten or twenty million dollars in bullion down there. I don’t know. But you can have it all. I’m more interested in the artifacts. Specifically, a gold mask.”
Emilio nodded slowly. “What is this mask?”
Dugan relayed the question, but he couldn’t quite escape the feeling that Emilio already knew the answer.
Veronica spoke. “It’s the one remaining artifact from a dead culture, an article of great religious significance. To me that makes it worth more than anything else on the Alcantara. If it’s even there.”
Emilio sat up a little straighter. “You have doubts?”
Veronica nodded. “My father very wisely pointed out that an item that was so precious to a culture would hardly have been allowed to sail away to Spain. At least not voluntarily. And the story goes that the priestess carried it voluntarily.”
Emilio shrugged. “And maybe someone lied about how it came to be on the ship.”
“Perhaps.”
“But that is all you want, this mask?”
Veronica nodded.
“Then we have a deal. We will work with you. You get the mask, I get whatever else I want, yes?”
Veronica nodded, but from something in her expression, Dugan got the strong feeling that she felt she was selling her soul. “Whatever you want.”
“Fair enough. And I can trust you not to go to your Coast Guard?”
Veronica hesitated, then said, “Yes.” Dugan wondered if she was lying, or merely out of her mind.
Emilio smiled. “Good. That is good. Because you see, I have a man in Key West. And if you call down trouble on my head, you will call down trouble on your own. I know who your father is, and I know where to find him.”
Dugan felt the jaws of the trap snap shut. They were done for.
Emilio offered them beds aboard the Conchita, but the three of them refused adamantly, so the launch carried them back to the Mandolin, where they gathered in the lounge and stared glumly at one another.
“We’re all running on adrenaline,” Dugan said finally. “Let’s be careful we don’t get punchy from lack of sleep.”
“Who can sleep?” Veronica asked. “My God, I’ve got to find some way to warn my father. Some way to get him to go into hiding until we find a way out of this mess.”
“He was bluffing,” Tam said. “I’m sure he was bluffing.”
Dugan repeated his words for Veronica, then asked, “How the hell can you be sure of that?”
“Because if he’s talking about that Luis guy, I can tell you right now the man’s no killer.”
“He scared you enough to convince you to cooperate.”
Tam subsided.
When Dugan had caught her up, Veronica said, “Maybe he’s talking about someone else. He could have more than one man in Key West.”
“Great. This is just fucking great.” Dugan, a laid-back guy to the bone, felt a totally uncharacteristic urge to smash something. He didn’t like feeling boxed in with no way out.
“I’ve got to figure out how to warn my father,” Veronica said. “There’s got to be a way. Then we find the mask and get the hell out of here.”
“Sure,” said Dugan sarcastically. “We’ll just sail off into the sunset on our broken boat.”
She turned on him. “You can give up if you want, but I’m not going to. There’s too much at stake. I’m not going to let that man hurt my father, and I’m not going to let him have the mask. No matter what it takes.”
Dugan admired her spunk, if not her brains. “Let’s hold it right here. We’re not making sense. We’ve got two problems, and instead of making grandiose statements about what we will and won’t do, we need to work the problems. First, we need to find a way to warn Orin so he can get out of the way. Then we need to find a way to get ourselves out of here.”
“With the mask.”
Dugan frowned at her. “With or without the mask. The important thing is getting out of this alive.”
She looked at him, her face tight, her eyes suspiciously wet. “I’m not going without the mask.”
“Two hours ago you said—”
“That was before he threatened my father. That was before I realized that he wants the mask, too.”
Dugan opened his mouth to argue, but snapped it shut. She was right. He’d had the feeling when Emilio asked about the mask that he already knew what it was. And more, his question about it not being on the boat had seemed too . . . interested. If all he wanted was the gold, he wouldn’t give a damn whether the mask was there.
“Hold it,” he said finally. “If Emilio wants that mask . . . Honey, it’s the last thing on earth you want to get your hands on. He’s willing to kill for what he wants.”
“But don’t you see? If I can find it and hide it, he can’t kill us without losing it forever. So we can use it as a bargaining chip. We can promise to give it to him if he lets us go safely home and leaves my father alone.”
He nodded slowly. “Well, that’s a decent possibility. Except for one problem.”
“What’s that?”
“How likely is it that we can find the mask in the next four days?”
“What do you mean? Why does it matter how long it takes?”
“Because if we don’t reach port by Friday at the latest, my office manager is going to call out the dogs.”
“But why? We haven’t exactly been regular about our comings and goings.”
“No, but she knows I have five days’ provisions. She won’t worry until she knows we’re out of food and still haven’t shown up. Then nothing short of an aerial bombardment is going to keep her from going to the Coast Guard.”
“Oh.” Her tone sank.
“Then there’s your father.”
“He won’t worry. Not for a while. He’s in Tampa and won’t be back until after his last test on Monday.”
“That leaves Ginny. And believe me, Ginny is enough of a problem. Once she gets a
search going, Emilio’s going to know it. It’s kind of hard to miss the choppers. And then . . . well, I’d be surprised if we weren’t dead meat. Because he’s not going to give us a chance to tell anyone what he’s up to.”
She nodded slowly. “The mask is our only chance, then. We’ve got to find it. It’s the only chip we have.”
Dugan knew unyielding stubbornness when he saw it. She wasn’t being entirely rational, but then he realized she hadn’t really been rational about this from the beginning. Maybe it had something to do with the loss of her hearing, and maybe it had something to do with feeling that she’d been second best her entire life. Or maybe it was something else. But he had the feeling that Veronica’s entire future depended on finding this mask. That without this, she would exist as a shell of the woman she could have been.
As for using it as a bargaining chip—well, maybe. It was a slim hope, worth pursuing if they could find the thing. But he wasn’t going to hold his breath. For now, he just had to concentrate on using every minute to try to figure out an effective way out of this mess, no matter what it cost him.
The mask might be more important to Veronica than her life. She certainly gave him that impression sometimes. But she was more important to him than life.
The feeling hit him sideways and made him angry. He tried to dismiss it, telling himself that was just a wild-eyed overdramatization of what he felt, which was that she was a nice lady who deserved to live, but was in serious need of a brain tune-up.
Because nothing, but nothing, was more important to Dugan than his own skin. He’d made that mistake once, and wasn’t dumb enough to repeat it.
Regardless of what he really felt about Veronica, he knew one thing for certain. He wasn’t going to bail out on her. If she was going to stay and hunt for the mask, then so was he.
In the meantime, he’d pray to all the gods, past and present, that something would turn up to get them out of this mess.