by J. R. Rain
“Talk to me,” Eve said.
Trey stated the obvious. “The door’s sealed shut.”
Mallory motioned to Trey. “Over here.” The Irishman pointed toward a glass box embedded in the wall near the door. The sign read: $100 DOLLAR FINE FOR BREAKING GLASS.
And behind the glass was a perfectly preserved ax.
“No good,” Trey said in his deadpan voice. “There’s a hundred-dollar fine for breaking the glass.”
Mallory grinned through his mask. “I won’t tell if you won’t.”
Trey promptly kicked in the glass with the heel of his flipper. After removing the ax, he proceeded to hack at the badly corroded door. Each swing, Eve observed, was in slow-motion due to the water, and would have looked comical if they weren’t so desperate. Every swing left behind deep wedges in the old metal as thunderous, metallic clangs echoed all around. Trey paused, gathered his strength, and swung hard one final time.
Crash! The door swung open violently, then fell off the rusted hinges entirely. But as the door sunk, an ominous wrenching sound reverberated throughout the entire ship. Wasting no time, Trey tucked the ax in his belt and motioned for the Irishman to follow him. They both kicked off down the ship’s dark hallway.
Eve bit her pretty nails as she watched their progress on the computer screen. As they moved down the hall, she gave them additional instructions. “Turn right,” she told them.
Their images were fading to blinking lights in the deep iron depths of the ship. The lights paused, then turned right on her screen.
“Good,” she said. “Continue to the end of the corridor.”
The divers swam quickly now, making up for lost time.
“Now turn left,” Eve instructed, hearing her own voice crackle. Communication was becoming weaker.
As their images flickered back and forth, from moving forms to green dots, she watched as their flashlights revealed more of the heavily damaged luxury liner. As they swam further into the heart of the ship, all three heard more sounds of creaking and rumbling. The divers’ mere presence seemed to have awakened the slumbering giant.
Trey and Mallory nervously shone their lights around, eyes wide behind their full face masks.
Eve’s monitor now showed a bright blinking light at the end of the 3-D hallway. The divers, two blinking dots, were rapidly approaching it.
“You’re coming up to Cabin 6F now,” she told them.
Trey shined his flashlight on the faded cabin numbers above each doorway. Most of the numbers were still readable, but just barely. The first one read 6D. The next, 6E. Then he reached 6F.
“Okay, this is it,” he said. Mallory was right behind him as he added, “Come on.”
The door before them was open and swayed slightly in the freshly disturbed currents. A very dark room waited beyond.
The two divers entered the cabin.
A bleeping sound interrupted Eve’s concentration. She glanced at another monitor. She frowned. “Gentlemen, you have twenty-two minutes of oxygen remaining. I strongly suggest you get to it, and no screwing around.”
Trey and Mallory both looked down at their own dive watches. Mallory glanced up at Trey. “Is she always this demanding?”
“Oh, you noticed it, too?” Trey asked.
Eve heard the men through her own earpiece. “Careful, boys,” she said a little playfully, “I might just lead you down into the ship’s brig.”
Mallory played back. “Did luxury liners even have brigs?” he asked her.
“Get to work,” Eve ordered.
Both Trey and Mallory grinned and did just that. Trey, master thief, shone his light around the small, but once luxurious room. Silt rose up, disturbed by their flippers. The room was dark and eerie now.
The rust of a bed’s box springs were tucked away in the far corner. A glass light fixture still hung from the ceiling. There was little else in the tiny cabin.
“According to all reports,” Eve explained, “you’re looking for a closet. The safe should be within.”
Trey’s searching light soon settled on a recessed area of wall in the far corner of the room. He immediately swam over to it. Indeed, it was a closet of some sort.
Just as he approached it, a massive devilfish—a giant devil ray—appeared from the darkness. Trey gasped, dropped his light. The endangered ray flicked its spiny tail once, twice, and darted surprisingly quickly through the waters and out of the cabin, its great wings almost grazing him.
Hearing Trey’s gasp, Eve panicked. “What just happened?”
With Mallory’s assistance, Trey retrieved his flashlight. “I’m fine, sugar,” he said.
Mallory chortled, “Your friend had a run-in with something even more scary than him.”
“Knock it off,” Eve snapped. “Trey, do you see the safe?”
Trey, still breathing hard, swept his light around the small closet. There, implanted within the wall, was a small rectangular safe.
“Bingo.”
“You’ve got nineteen minutes, boys,” Eve calculated.
Mallory moved into position in front of the safe. From a fanny pack, he removed two cylinders and a black box. Mallory quickly and expertly wired the explosives to the safe. Once done, the two divers swam out of the room and down the hallway.
Out in the hallway, Mallory grinned like a true pyromaniac. He held up the detonator.
Trey looked worried, as he should have been. It was clear that he began to think this might not be such a great idea.
However, there was no stopping Mallory now.
“On your mark...” Mallory started...he flipped open the black box, revealing a series of blinking red lights. “Get set...” He held his finger over a glowing red button. “Ka-boom.”
He pushed down and an explosion immediately ripped through room 6F. Debris and watered smoke poured through the doorway and out into the sea-filled hall.
“C’mon!” Mallory’s shout was heard by both Trey and Eve. The Irishman led the way back into the room.
The safe had clearly been blown open. Indeed, the explosion caused significant damage to the room and closet. Mallory shone his light through the churning, now muck-filled water and into the safe. Within was a heavy-looking lead box.
“Talk to me, gentlemen,” Eve pleaded. “What do you see?”
She could hear the smile in Mallory’s voice. “There’s a box,” he told her, “and it ain’t chocolates.”
Just as the Irishman reached for the lead box a loud metallic wrenching sound reverberated throughout the entire ship. The cabin floor lurched, followed by more sounds of grinding. The explosion, it appeared, had set off an alarming chain reaction. A zigzagging crack appeared in the closet’s rusted metal wall directly in front of Mallory.
“Come on!” Trey shouted. Eve listened, with only a little visual, as the two moved as quickly as possible. She held her breath, trusting their expertise.
Trey grabbed his diving partner, but it was too late. The corroded wall collapsed forward, and the ceiling gave away as well, all crashing down on the Irishman. Mallory quickly disappeared in a hail of debris.
The collapsing wall forced a rush of water—and Trey—out of the room, slamming him hard into the opposite hallway wall. A thick cloud of silt and breaking metal billowed out of the room, obscuring his vision.
Eve had heard the various explosions through her earpiece. “Trey!” She shouted. “Trey!”
No answer. She panicked, listening. No reply. “Shit!” She slammed her hand down onto the desk.
Trey regained his senses, slipped his mouthpiece back into place, and swam immediately back to the now-destroyed cabin.
Wreckage was still falling from the collapsing wall and ceiling. Trey darted through the wreckage, frantically pulling aside rusted sheets of metal and other ship material and equipment. As he did so, he spotted a stream of bubbles rising from the mangled pile.
Working frantically, Trey finally uncovered an unconscious Mallory. The bubbles were, in fact, from Mallor
y’s damaged air tank, which was now useless. Mallory was still clutching the lead box in his hands.
Eve heard the ceiling break loose. She gripped the desk hard, willing Trey, whom she trusted unconditionally, to succeed.
More of the ceiling broke loose. Trey seized the lead box and hauled Mallory out of the room just as it collapsed in a cloud of rubble.
Trey held the Irishman close, now safe from the collapse. “Mallory!” He shook his dive partner.
Mallory moaned, suddenly lurched, reaching desperately for his throat. His eyes were wild, his face purple beneath his face mask. The man was suffocating.
Trey removed Mallory’s mask. He fed his own mouthpiece to the Irishman, who sucked in the oxygen desperately, like a babe on a teat. Mallory, briefly satiated, pointed to his right leg.
Trey glanced down at his partner’s leg. The ankle was bent at a horrible angle. Broken.
But the ship’s hallway was collapsing; a chain reaction of destruction clearly extended to other sections of the massive sunken structure. Ceilings bulged and walls buckled. The whole ship shuddered and lurched.
Eve watched in stunned silence. She desperately searched the ship’s architecture to find a way out for them, but everything was happening too fast.
Mallory suddenly pointed behind them. Trey turned. Further down, the hallways were imploding, crashing inward. The domino-effect was approaching rapidly.
Trey grabbed Mallory’s arms and pulled him along the hallway, half-swimming, half-running. Behind, the imploding walls were gaining on them. The floor lurched up. Mallory tried to help but he was useless with his broken leg.
Mallory looked back—and screamed.
Trey heard a crackling in his earpiece, and then suddenly, loud and clear, he heard Eve shout, “Turn right!”
Without hesitation, Trey blindly turned right, yanking Mallory with him.
The divers found themselves sheltered in a side corridor. The imploding hallway continued past them. Silt immediately filled their side passageway.
“Eve!” Trey shouted. “You read me?!”
No response. Just an empty static crackling in his ears.
Trey gave Mallory more air. They continued on, turning through corridor after corridor. Confused and lost, he looked down at his knapsack for his map, but the sack was ripped open, the map gone.
The ship was still shuddering. They could feel, and Eve could see, parts of its hull crashing down, spewing metal out into the ocean. Silt continued to rise from everywhere.
Trey kept going, using all his strength to keep one swimming kick ahead of falling debris. He paused to feed Mallory more air.
Finally, he found a stairway. A great cloud of falling wreckage was coming down, crashing through it. He kicked off, Mallory holding on tight, just barely avoiding being buried alive. Everywhere he turned, Trey was blocked. He knew his oxygen was fast depleting, but through it all, he shared it with Mallory.
Suddenly, Trey saw a rift in the ceiling above them. Beyond the tear was the open, dark ocean. Trey kicked hard and the two men shot up through the rift and into open waters.
Trey was just about to sigh in relief when the aft jack staff fell toward them. Trey swerved, but the huge pole knocked the lead box loose. It dropped down toward the collapsing ship.
Trey broke loose from Mallory, who was left futilely drifting in the ocean, and dove down. The lead box was falling back toward the very rift they had swum out of, down toward the black abyss of the imploding superstructure.
“Shit! Trey! Shit!” Eve was screaming now, and he could hear her. He had neither the time nor the strength to respond. She watched him kick his fins hard, tearing through the water. He intercepted the box just inside the rift’s opening. He turned away and angled back up, clutching the box tightly.
As he rose through the depths, he miraculously recovered Mallory. He shared his mouthpiece with the Irishman, who sucked deeply, gratefully. Together, they continued up toward the ocean surface as the sunken liner below finally collapsed into an unrecognizable heap, with dirt and silt billowing everywhere in a magnificent underwater mushroom cloud.
Chapter Thirteen
Music played above decks in the now clear evening skies. Other divers and deck hands were partying, drinking and dancing in celebration.
Belowdecks, Trey, Eve and Mallory gathered in the research vessel’s laboratory, each with a mug of ale as well. Mallory sat in a comfortable chair with his leg propped up in a splint. Tough as he was, he winced with each movement. Before the three of them, resting on a counter, was the lead box.
Mallory’s Irish accent became thicker according to the amount of ale he consumed. “Are you, lads…” he paused, nodded politely at Eve. “Lassie, are you going to admire the thing all night or are you going to open it?”
Eve glanced at Trey, who grinned in return. Her hands shaking, she carefully broke open the box’s lock with a chisel and hammer.
Ignoring the pain in his leg, Mallory peered over her shoulder, his interest piqued. Eve opened the lid carefully, and reached inside. She lifted out two objects.
Both were wrapped in oilcloth. She opened the first, revealing an old, tattered book. Mallory wasn’t too impressed, but Eve handed the book to Trey, who opened it to the first page.
“The Diary of Lord William Frost,” his words distinct and clear.
“The chap who first collected the Coins?” asked Mallory.
Trey nodded. “As the story goes, eight of the thirty Judas Coins are hidden beneath his Scottish castle.”
Mallory rolled his eyes. “Well, we all need a hobby,” he said, “but what was his purpose, I wonder?”
“Doesn’t really matter.” Trey dismissed the question.
Eve unwrapped the second package. There, lying within the folds of the antiquated cloth, was an eyeless Caesar coin. A Judas Coin. It gleamed brightly in the lamplight as if newly minted. Mallory leaned closer still; Trey bent closer to it, careful not to touch it.
“Pretty creepy, if you ask me.” Mallory’s voice was foreboding. He peered more closely into the box. “Anything else in there?”
“That’s it,” Eve told him.
“I risked my life for a bloody diary and a devil coin?” Apparently disgusted, the Irishman gingerly lifted himself up onto crutches, limping toward the doorway.
He looked back at Trey and Eve. “Damned Americans...”
* * *
A few hours later, Trey lay snoring on a cot, but Eve Friday sat, concentrating hard at the work station. A desk light shone down onto the old diary. She wasn’t tired at all; in fact, she was energized and highly intrigued with Lord William’s diary. She had already written pages of notes from the old book.
Just behind her pupils, a fire smoldered, giving her an odd, even possessed quality. Her pen flew across the page with her right hand.
Eve’s left hand held both of the Judas Coins—her own original and now the newly recovered one. Her delicate knuckles showed white around them, purple pulsating veins crisscrossing her forearm.
The innocent thief continued to snore contentedly, exhausted after his rough dive. Eve tried to ignore the particularly loud and grating sound. She winced and glanced over at him. Her eyes softened a bit, and she shook her head and actually grinned at the big lug. She couldn’t quite deny that she still had feelings for the master thief.
Eve turned back to Frost’s diary just as a loud thumping sound echoed through the boat. She looked around, startled. Next to her, the single lamp swung back and forth.
Trey, only slightly disturbed, rolled over peacefully, arm flopping to the floor.
Eve, however, listened intently. The thump came again, even louder. Now, Trey sat up from the cot, fully alert.
“Someone’s docking,” he announced. Even as he jumped up, he two heard voices from above, shouting. Gunshots, men hollering.
Trey grabbed a pistol from the desk drawer and was at the door in a flash. “Wait here,” he told her. He looked back for just a brief second
. “And by ‘wait here,’ I don’t mean follow me.”
Eve anxiously watched him go. He should have known she was never one to wait. She got up to follow him, but first, she carefully concealed the Judas Coins and the diary into a zippered compartment inside her windbreaker.
If she hadn’t been so anxious and stubborn, she would have remembered the notes she’d left behind.
Chapter Fourteen
Trey crept up the stairs, gun held before him. Eve followed in the shadows.
Trey hesitated at the door. Cautiously, he opened it—and a bullet-riddled body tumbled through the door and down the stairs, coming to rest at Eve’s feet. Eve stifled a scream.
Suddenly, Mallory appeared in the doorway, pointing a gun directly at Trey’s face. The Irishman used only one crutch, but the point-blank gun was nothing to play around with.
Mallory’s voice was dead serious. “Drop the gun, mate.”
Trey shook his head. “Let me guess: Draken paid better.”
“Good guess.”
“I might have to start hiring union.” First Karen and now Mallory. Trey, at a loss for anything else at the moment, tried to buy some time.
Mallory didn’t bite. “Enough. Drop it.”
Trey dropped his gun, and it tumbled down the wooden stairs, coming to rest on the floor near Eve’s feet. She stooped down, quietly picked it up, staying hidden from Mallory’s view.
“Now what, Mallory?” Trey asked. “I saved your life. What now?”
“I do have to thank you for that,” the Irishman told Trey. “I’m sorry, lad, but now I must kill you.”
Mallory’s finger tightened around the trigger, and a shot echoed in the stairway...
A bloody rose appeared on Mallory’s forehead, and more blood pumped from the wound. The Irishman toppled forward onto Trey, who caught him momentarily. Trey looked back over his shoulder.
Standing below him, of course, was Eve, holding Trey’s dropped pistol with two steady hands. She was horrified. She was also, evidently, a crack shot.