by Matt Betts
“But do you guarantee it’ll be from the Cudgel?” Martin asked.
The line was quiet. “No,” Subtle said. “I can’t. But I have this feeling.”
“The last time you had that feeling, we came up with nothing,” Martin said. “And it cost me nearly a million dollars.” Martin sighed and stood. He walked toward the open portal, fully intent to head to his quarters and catch another hour of sleep.
“Maybe I’ve had a couple of bad guesses, but how did my tips on the Swansea turn out?” Subtle asked. “Word has it you’re onto something out there, is it the Swansea?”
Martin was slightly dumbfounded that news could travel that fast. “We just found this wreck, how could you possibly know about it?”
“When you put out a distress call for assistance with some pirates, word gets around,” Subtle said. “So matey, did ye find the booty or not?”
Her pirate impersonation annoyed Martin. “Yeah. We found it. But it’s going to keep us pretty busy. We’ll have to pass on the war machine.” There was a slight gasp from one of the crew members, but Martin couldn’t tell which one.
“Look, if you’re getting out of the Cudgel business, just let me know,” Subtle said. “I can look for a contact more willing to take risks.” The feed ended and the screen turned blue.
It was quiet for a second as Martin paused at the doorway.
“Seriously?” Takis asked. “Seriously?”
Ozzie interjected. “I think what my brother is trying to ask is whether you truly intend to just walk away from this?”
“Yes. Seriously, dude?” Takis asked.
Jakob rolled his beer bottle in between his hands. “We’ve been after this for a good long while.”
“But we’re not getting paid to chase bubbles and underwater signals. We have an historical find out there, just lurking below the waves. All we have to do is collect it.” Martin didn’t sound very convincing to himself, he could only guess how he sounded to the others. “And you want to go out and waste that money on another wild goose chase?”
“I’m good with that. In fact I’m all for it,” Cass said from one of the booths. “I’d forgo my share of the Swansea if it means a shot at the Cudgel.”
The others turned and looked at her, deciding if they’d go that far in their own convictions.
“I’d do it.” Jakob was generally up for anything and had voiced his excitement whenever they got a tip on the Cudgel, not exactly a hard sell.
A glance brought the Suvari brothers into agreement. “Eh, at the very least it’s a trip to the lovely waters not far off the former Territories’ home turf,” Takis said.
Joe raised his hand. “I can’t do it. I mean, look, I know I spend most of my time in the wheelhouse, and I keep to myself, but look out there. There’s gold, there’s something tangible out there. I can’t chase another dream, hoping it’s better than this one.”
“I get that,” Cass said. “But…”
“No buts. Forget the hunt, forget the find. We had guns pointed at us. Jesus, you guys blew up a fucking boat. People are dead here. I can’t stand around and pretend that didn’t happen. When the Alba Varden gets here, I’ll jump over there and hitch a ride back to port.”
“You don’t need to go, you can work on the Varden,” Martin said. “Whatever.”
“No. I think I’m good. I appreciate it, but I need to get out of here.”
Takis shrugged. “You’re joking. You’re a sailor. You love this shit. What the hell else are you going to do? Go back to giving Hover Duck tours in Boston?”
“Maybe. Can’t remember the last time one of those was hijacked at gunpoint. Can you?”
Martin was frazzled, already at odds with himself, and unwilling to listen to the crew split the same way. “Look, you don’t have to go, no one has to go. Just let me think.” He left the room and plodded down the hall alone.
7
Linden Kemp listened to the recording Chaperone Delta-One had sent via satellite message, while on the phone with her. “So she didn’t say where in that area she believes the Cudgel is?”
“No, she didn’t. She was waiting to see what Martin said before she sent the information. I don’t know what kind of agreement they have, but she was pushing that idea, and he wasn’t having it. I like to think that I know him by now, but his whole internal process is still a mystery to me.” Cass’s voice sounded tiny in the phone and Linden had the volume turned all the way up.
“So what’s next?”
There was a crackle and Cass’s voice broke up. “I don’t know. I guess we just wait for Martin to make up his mind.”
“If he says no, is there a way for us to trace that contact and try to obtain the information ourselves?” Linden was already running through scenarios and ideas in his head for catching up with this contact of theirs. Treasure hunters generally don’t have mysterious informants.
“I don’t know. She contacts them when she wants. We can see if there’s any way to trace signals that the ship receives, but it sounds like this Subtle Bagpipe is pretty savvy from what they’ve told me.”
“Okay. Keep me posted and I’ll start running down any information on this repeating sound she talks about. Maybe I can find all the military records and then start looking at the private instances. At least then we can confirm or disprove what this contact is saying,” Linden said. “It may take a while, hopefully Martin changes his mind quickly.”
Cass signed off and the line clicked. Linden looked at his screen and pulled up a map of the area that Cass and the recording had outlined. It was a wide area. Setting drones loose out in that expanse would probably yield some sort of results, but to be effective, they’d have to go reasonably slow and that would take a long damn time. Linden sighed, knowing that he had nothing but time at this point in his career. He swiveled in his chair and walked around the corner to find his partner, Lou Forester. After catching Lou up on the call, they both walked down the hall and got in the elevator.
“A repetitive noise? That’s what’s going to finally find this thing?” Lou asked.
“I don’t know. Just another lead. Their weird little informant seems pretty sure of herself,” Kemp said. “Who the hell knows at this point?”
They rode the elevator upwards, both reading from their tablets, both humming along to the music softly piped in through the elevator’s speakers. Once they got up to the forty-fourth floor, the doors opened and they walked out into the land of the computer literate. These were the tech gods that most of the Naval Interdiction Administration relied on at this point for most of their intelligence and evidence. They were the ones that collected obscure information from the airwaves and stored it away for some sort of use later.
Linden walked up the hall to his friend Holli Edson’s office, where she worked with six other analysts to identify, among other things, various auditory phenomena. Her team was tasked with such delicate projects as identifying sounds on recordings, like the make of gun that could be heard in a tape, what type of vehicle was leaving the scene of a crime off-screen on a video, and more. Generally, the computer did the heavy lifting, but it took real direction from an operator to feed it information.
As soon as he opened the door, all seven analysts looked at him, though none of them stopped typing.
“That guy over there is playing Galaga,” Linden said, pointing at a random person. The analysts stared at him blankly. “Come on, that’s an Avengers joke. You’ve seen the movie, right? Come on, you have to love super heroes. You’re computer nerds.”
One of the analysts mumbled about it being an ‘old-ass movie,’ only one really acknowledged him. Holli’s expression was an obvious smile of pity, meant to keep herself from cringing. “Hi Agent Kemp. What can I do for you?”
“Got time to take a quick walk to talk to me? I need some help with a noise.”
The other analysts turned and looked at Linden nearly in unison.
“I don’t think that would be a good idea.” Holli had lowe
red her voice and leaned in close to Linden.
“Why?”
She discreetly nodded her head toward her coworkers, who were still staring. “We are crazy swamped here. If I take on one more ‘one-time’ quick favor for you, or anyone else for that matter, they are going to stab me in the eye with a stylus sharpened into a shiv.”
“Oh, that’s not…” Linden looked up at the others, who had slowly gone back to work, but were leaning a little closer, listening. “Look. We’re just trying to identify a noise that repeats over and over for a minute. We have it from various sources over a period of several years. How hard could it be?”
Holli stared at him blankly. “I’m slowly moving over to the side of the room that hates you.”
“I mean, isn’t all this analysis done by computer anyway?” Linden could feel he was digging a deeper hole for himself. “Not that you…don’t…” He looked to Lou to help him get out of it, but Lou pretended to have a stain on his tie, and worked at getting it out.
“Just…” Holli sighed deeply. “Just send me the details,” she said as quietly as possible.
“That’s great.” Linden started to say more, but could feel Lou grab his arm and pull him toward the door. Holli did not look happy, and turned back to her workstation, typing away almost immediately. “Goodbye.”
“Thanks,” Lou muttered.
“Thanks!” Linden tried to smile at everyone in the room, hoping that a smooth departure would get them all to like him more. Or even some.
“That went well.” Lou pressed the button for their floor and stared forward as the doors closed.
The term ‘gibbering idiot’ was the first thing Linden thought of as they descended. “I could have brought them around.”
“No you couldn’t. You had no chance. They’re still mad about the Christmas party you ruined and the fart noises you made them try to identify.”
Linden laughed. “That was two years ago. Plus the Christmas thing wasn’t my fault.”
They got out of the elevator and walked past the closed doors to empty offices until they got to their own.
“What’s next?” Lou asked.
“I guess we have to wait for Martin to make up his mind, find this Bagpipe person, or hope we can pinpoint the thing ourselves.”
Lou turned and started back for his own doorway.
“Hey,” Linden said.
Lou turned.
“They were manatee farts, not my own.”
“Oh,” Lou said. “That’s much more mature.”
8
Martin ascended the nearby stairs up to the deck. He stood in the cool sea breeze and looked over the web of buoys that marked the treasure on the surface. He’d seen similar sights more than a dozen times now at sea, from the small wrecks he started on, to the salvages for corporations, to these personal passion projects. He’d done finds on land from the Himalayas and New Jersey, to Thicket Portage in Manitoba. None of them pissed him off more than the Cudgel A-9. There was so little to go on, and many others had tried already and failed. Then, there was the whole matter of what would happen if they actually found it. Would the government swoop in and cover it up and take it away? The navy eventually gave up their active search and finally put it out there that the weapon was missing. Sure, they’d want it, but would they allow Martin’s crew to get some publicity for it? Would it even make the news? It was a lot of money to throw at a project with possibly no return, other than satisfaction that they found the apparently unfindable. Personal satisfaction didn’t pay the bills.
“You know you want to.” Rina was standing next to Martin and he hadn’t realized it.
“Want to what?” Martin wasn’t on his game and the question came out lame.
“Here’s my opinion.”
“On what?”
Her eye roll was epic. “We’re doing fine. We’re getting more work than we can handle.”
“Is fine good enough?” Martin looked back at the ocean and the markers over their latest find. “Is this what we do from now on?”
“Martin, there are maybe three treasure hunters in the world that people can name. One of them is you. If news heads want an expert, you’re at the top of their list. But what we do really isn’t the lead story on the news. Never has been,” Rina said. “And that’s fine, too. But, if you find the Cudgel? That changes, and you move up the news cycle. You’re talking a book tour, museum tours, documentaries, speaking fees—hell, maybe you can even finally pay someone to build a nice website for you.”
It wasn’t the accumulation of money that kept Martin going, but it was nice. No, at this point in his life, he would settle for being THE top treasure finder in the world, not one of the top three. “You don’t think the government will screw us?”
“How could they? We’ll broadcast live via the internet as soon as we confirm what we have. The world will know before any government can come after it,” Rina said. “I can send Bagpipe an email tomorrow.”
“You’re kind of smart for someone dumb enough to join my crew.”
Rina put her earbuds in and walked away in the bright morning sun. “I question my judgement every single day.”
9
The entire ship’s crew stayed onsite for another week, mapping the site deep below the sea. They’d found more than just gold, they’d found weapons, and skeletons and barrels. A good portion of the ship was intact, lying on its side in a particularly deep valley on the ocean floor. After he’d done the preliminary work, posed for pictures, started the paperwork, and shook hands with the locals who’d be deciding the fate of the treasure, Martin notified his harbormaster, Ben Durant, that he’d need their other ship, Alba Varden, brought on site to take things over, so that the Adamant team could follow up on Subtle Bagpipe’s lead on the Cudgel A-9’s whereabouts.
“Jesus, Martin. This thing isn’t exactly a speedboat. People notice when it leaves and shit. I thought you were trying to keep a low profile.” Ben had been with Martin since practically the beginning. They’d been on treasure-hunting legend Ed Hanley’s crew together back in the day. Ben and Martin were both young and full of enthusiasm for finding lost ships, getting rich and getting famous. Every time Ed had his picture taken for a paper or magazine, he did it alone, and gave the crew absolutely no credit in the ensuing interviews.
“Look. It’s not like we haven’t used it before, and no one batted an eye any of those times,” Martin said.
“What? You weren’t here. Eyes were batted. People noticed.” Ben sounded agitated to Martin; he was talking fast and in a higher pitch than usual. It was rare that Ben voiced disapproval. They’d just been in it for the fun after they left Ed’s crew, but it’d become a business more recently. “I’ll need to see which freelance crew are free. I can’t guarantee I can get everyone we need.” There was a moment where it went silent, and Martin was afraid that he’d lost Ben’s signal. “Jesus, we’ve tried this before, haven’t we? What makes you think you’ll find it this time?”
“Ben, I don’t know. Hell, we might lose out again.” Martin paused. He’d thought about all of this, but never put it together. Money was usually the motivation. It always had been. What was the return on investment? Money in, versus money out. But it just didn’t ring true with this one, and he couldn’t think of the next one that money would be at the top of his list. Maybe Subtle Bagpipe was right. “I don’t know, Ben. It’s getting to be the time when I think about what I’m doing next.”
“And that’s going to be chasing the Cudgel for the rest of your life?”
“No.” Martin was getting agitated with himself now. “Look, I need the crew here as soon as possible, and once they get here, we’ll update them and the rest of us are off. This is kind of time-sensitive, so turn this around and send them quickly.”
“So you’ve made up your mind?”
Martin waited with the receiver in one hand and a bottle of warm beer in the other. “Just send them. Full equipment.” He shut off the receiver and left the communicat
ions room, just in case Ben tried to get back to him. If Martin wasn’t in the room, he wouldn’t have to ignore the little light that flashed to tell him there was a call.
He walked out onto the deck, where there was a small fire still burning on the grill. Rina was lying on her back on a lounger, her feet propped up on the railing, dark sunglasses on at nearly midnight. Martin wouldn’t have even noticed her if it weren’t for her music blaring loud enough to be heard outside of her headphones. Martin turned, not wanting to bother her and not in the mood for small talk.
“What’s your favorite constellation?” Rina asked. She didn’t move.
Against his better judgement, Martin stopped. “How can you see anything with those glasses on?”
“Just tell me.”
“My favorite constellation?”
“Yeah.”
Martin turned and looked up at the star-filled sky. “I have no idea. I don’t have a favorite random pattern of stars, really.” It was a silly question. The woman may as well have asked him what his favorite recipe for poutine was.
“How long have you been doing this at sea? I mean, just look up. Tough to see all of this in a city.” She reached up like she was taking a handful of stars and squeezing them in her fist. “It’s like someone dumped a salt shaker across the hood of a black Pontiac Firebird.”
Trying to decide whether that was profound or ridiculous, Martin shot back, “Where have you ever seen a Firebird? They haven’t been made since long before either of us was born.”
“You find a lot on the web.”
Martin turned and walked back toward the stairs. “You’re a complex and wonderful person, Rina.”
“Don’t you forget it.”
As he neared the first step, Martin knocked over a number of bottles sitting on the deck and they fell with a clatter.
Three loungers away from Rina, a giant frame suddenly flew into the air and Jakob stood up, fighting his way out of a blanket. “What? I’m up. What was that?” The blanket fell to the deck, and Jakob was left in a close approximation of a ninja pose, with his hands chopping at air and legs ready to strike.