The Tombs fa-4

by Clive Cussler

  “What Henry was that?” Sam asked.

  “Henry Clay Barlow, our attorney.”

  “That Henry.”

  “He advised me we didn’t need bail. Instead he’s calling a friend of his in New Orleans, who will be prepared to come roaring down here in a helicopter with a suitcaseful of money and a writ of habeas corpus if we need him. Henry says he’s slick as an eel.”

  “Henry would consider that high praise. What will that cost us?”

  “Depends on what we do.”

  “Good point.” Sam heard a sound and looked up the dock. “There’s Dave from the dive shop.”

  Dave’s truck stopped at the end of the dock. He came along the floating dock with a uniformed policeman beside him carrying a toolbox. The cop was big and blond, with broad shoulders and a potbelly, so the shirt of his uniform looked as though it might pop a button. “Hi, Sam,” Dave said, then gave a slight bow: “Remi.”

  Sam got up. “That was quick, Dave.”

  “This is Sergeant Ron Le Favre. He figured he should look this over before we replace your gear.” As soon as Dave’s eyes passed across his boat he got distracted and pointed. “Look at that cabin door. That’s imported hardwood, varnished so you could have shaved in it.”

  Sergeant Le Favre stepped onto the boat. “Pleased to meet you both.” He took a camera out of his kit and began snapping photographs of the damage. As he did, he asked, “Mr. Fargo, what do you suppose is going on? Anything stolen?”

  “Not that I can see. Just wrecked.”

  “Anybody around here mad at you?”

  “Not that I know of. Everybody’s been friendly until now.”

  “You have a theory?”

  Sam shrugged. Remi glared at him, puzzled and frustrated.

  “Okay. I’ll write this up,” said Sergeant Le Favre. “That way, Dave can submit it to his insurance company. First, I’ll check around to see if anybody was sleeping on his boat last night. Maybe somebody saw something.”

  “Thanks very much, Sergeant,” said Sam. He went to work helping Dave Carmody carry the damaged equipment to his truck and the new equipment to the boat. Next he started the engine, and he and Dave listened to it, opened the hatch, and looked at the belts and hoses. Before Dave left Sam said, “Dave, this is probably because somebody got interested in what we were diving for. We’ve had some publicity lately, so this is probably the price. Just tote up the cost and put it on our bill. I don’t want you putting this on your insurance and then having them jack up your rates.”

  Dave shook his hand. “Thanks, Sam. That’s really thoughtful.”

  As soon as Sam and Remi were alone she said, “No theories, Sam? Really? How about the people in the black-and-gray boat who have been stalking us for days?”

  “I didn’t say no, I just shrugged.”

  “If something else happens, don’t you want them on the sergeant’s record?”

  “Well, if something happened to make those people upset, I’d find it inconvenient to have it in the police record that I suspected them of doing us harm.”

  “I see,” she said. “This should be an interesting day.”

  Sam moved around the boat, taking an inventory of equipment, before casting off the lines. Remi started the engine and drove slowly out of the marina toward the Gulf. The world ahead was all deep blue sky and sea that met at the horizon and seemed to go on forever.

  Sam stood beside her as she came around the breakwater and added speed. “I’m hoping to get this site finished today so that before we move on to the next site we can feel we’ve got everything there is to find.”

  “Fine,” she said. “That sounds like a peaceful ambition.”

  They moved westward along the flat green Louisiana coast toward the spot where they’d been diving. But as they came closer Remi said, “You might want to look ahead.”

  Sam looked over the cabin roof into the distance. He could see the black-and-gray boat anchored ahead. The red-and-white flag was up, and there were people in the water. “Interesting coincidence,” he said. “Our diving gear gets sabotaged and now we find these people diving in our exact location.” Sam took out the binoculars and stared in the direction of the black-and-gray boat for a few seconds. “They seem to be getting out of the water. Now they’re pulling in their dive buoys and striking the flag.”

  “Well, of course,” said Remi. “The famous treasure-hunting Fargos, it turns out, have been diving for broken pottery and deer antlers. Now these people have figured that out.” She slowed the engine. “Let’s let them get out of here. I’m not going down sixty feet and leaving them up here with our boat.”

  “Maybe that’s not why they’re leaving. If we can see them, they can see us. Let’s try another approach. Keep an eye on them for a minute.” He went into the cabin and returned with a chart. He held it up where Remi could see it. “Head along here toward Vermilion Lake. When we get there, I’d like you to take a winding course up into the bayou.”

  “That’s a little vague.”

  “I don’t want to stifle your creativity. Let’s see if you can lose them.”

  Remi started to move forward, set herself on the proper compass course, and gradually pushed the throttle up, making the 427 Chevrolet engine roar. She shot past the black-and-gray boat at a distance, and kept going at the same speed. After a few minutes, Sam tapped her on the shoulder and she looked back. When she saw the black-and-gray boat coming after them at high speed, she threw her head back and laughed. “Not very subtle, are they? I guess it’s a race.” She pushed the throttle forward all the way, then tapped it with the heel of her hand to get the last bit of speed out of it. As she sped west along the Caminada Headland, she looked delighted.

  Now and then the boat would reach a freak wave and leap over it. Remi would flex her knees to take the jump like a skier, cling to the steering wheel, and then duck to avoid the splash that the wind sent back at them. Sam stood close to her and said, “You can slow down a little bit now. If they lose sight of us this early, they might give up. We want them fully committed.”

  “Aye, aye,” she said.

  She drove on, keeping their pursuers barely in sight, until Sam said, “All right. Now go into Vermilion Lake.”

  She turned right, sped across the open water, and then headed for the bayous. As she shot into the first narrow, winding channel, she gradually pulled back the throttle. “Hey, make yourself useful,” she said. “Get up to the bow and make sure I don’t hit anything that’s alive or puts holes in boats.”

  “Happy to,” Sam said. He got up on the foredeck and pointed in the direction that was clearest. He studied the water for snags and shallow spots and kept her out of them. The water was dark and nearly opaque, the channel lined with reeds and trees hung with Spanish moss and vines. As they moved farther inland, the vegetation grew thicker, and the trees came together to form arches over the water. After a time, Sam called, “Idle the engine.”

  The engine went to neutral, and the boat coasted a few yards with a minimum of sound, then stopped and drifted into a shaded copse. Somewhere in the distance behind them they could hear the growl of the black-and-gray boat’s engine. Sam and Remi exchanged a nod, and then Remi sped up again. They went on for another twenty minutes, and Sam waved at her again. She slowed down to a crawl while Sam came aft and looked at the chart.

  “Get ready to anchor.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Something wrong with this spot?”

  “It’s a sweltering, mosquito-infested swamp where the alligators and the rare and celebrated American crocodiles can barely fight off the water moccasins. And I just saw an egret fall out of his tree from heat exhaustion.”

  “Perfect,” Sam said. “Let’s get our wet suits on. They’ll protect us from the mosquitoes. Wear your booties, because we’ll be walking. And we might as well bring flippers too, in case we need speed.” Sam studied the chart, then put a big red X in a location about a half mile from their position.

 
; “Isn’t that a little heavy-handed?”

  “They will have worked so hard to see it that they’ll need to believe it.”

  When they were ready, Sam used the blunt end of the gaff to pole them to shore and used the hook end to hold the boat while they got out and took a few steps into the mud. Sam pushed the boat so it could drift out into the middle of the channel.

  “Now what?” she asked.

  “Now we go on a great big hike.”

  “Charming. Lead on.” She walked along behind him through the reeds and muck.

  Every so often Sam would turn back to check on her. She was stepping along at a steady pace, and her face was set in a quiet smile. After about twenty minutes of walking, Sam stopped. “You figured it out, didn’t you?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Why only ‘maybe’?”

  “Are you assuming they put a GPS tracker on our boat?”

  He grinned. “I found it. I wondered why they didn’t sabotage the engine, then realized it was so we wouldn’t spend a lot of time looking around in the engine compartment.”

  “Then yes. I have figured it out. Let’s finish the trek and see if they’re out following our trail to the treasure.”

  He said, “Sometimes you amaze me.”

  “Really?” she asked. “Still?”

  He led Remi deeper into the swamp and then along a wide right turn so they completed a vast circle. When they came back to their boat, she went a hundred yards up to the next bend and pointed. The black-and-gray boat was anchored up there to hide it from them.

  Sam sat down on an old fallen tree trunk, put on his flippers, and pulled his mask down over his face.

  Remi put her hand on his arm. “The alligators weren’t just a figure of speech, you know.”

  “Don’t tell them I’m here.” He moved into the murky water and disappeared. He reappeared at the stern of the black-and-gray boat. He went to the bow, pulled up the anchor, and let the boat begin to drift downstream.

  Remi moved quickly along the shallows to where they had left the dive boat, close to the shore among the dead trees. She used the gaff to push off, lifted the anchor, and looked up the watery channel at Sam, drifting slowly toward her in the black-and-gray boat. She could see he was working with a set of wires he had cut and stripped with his dive knife.

  As Remi watched, Sam touched the two wires together, the engine started, and he began to steer the boat down the bayou toward her. She started the engine of their boat and moved along the bayou ahead of him at quarter speed, relying on her memory of where sunken logs and muddy bars had been. In a few minutes she was out into Mud Lake, then into Vermilion Lake, and then out into the Gulf. In a moment, Sam was coming up behind in the black-and-gray boat.

  When they reached the open water far out from the Caminada Headland, they brought the two boats together and tied them. Remi climbed aboard the black-and-gray boat. “Sneakily done.”

  “Thank you,” he said. They began to search the black-and-gray boat, concentrating on the cabin. In a few minutes, Remi held up a blue binder with a hundred pages in it. “They’re a company. Have you ever heard of Consolidated Enterprises?”

  “No,” Sam said. “Pretty vague. It doesn’t sound like anything specific.”

  “I guess they don’t want to rule anything out,” she said.

  “At the moment, they’re treasure hunters.” He pointed to a marine metal detector on the deck, ready to be deployed.

  “Why use that thing when you can just follow people who find treasures, wreck their equipment, and take over their spot?”

  Sam looked around the cabin again. “There’re six of them.”

  “Two women.” She nodded and opened the binder again. “Here we go. They’re a ‘field team,’ complete with pictures and names.”

  “Take it with you,” said Sam.

  “Isn’t taking things crossing the line?”

  “Isn’t stranding six people in a swamp forty miles from home crossing the line?”

  “I guess you’re right.” She closed the binder and went on deck. “What should we do with their boat?”

  “Where’s their home office?”

  “New York.”

  “Then we’d better drive it back and dock it in the marina,” Sam said. “It’s probably rented from somebody who can’t afford to lose it.”

  Remi swung her legs over the gunwale into their rented boat. Sam handed her his mask and flippers, then took off his wet suit and tossed it into the boat too. Remi cast off the line that connected the two boats. “I’ll race you back to Grand Isle.” She started the engine. “Winner gets the first shower.”

  Sam restarted the black-and-gray boat and got off to a fair start. Speeding up and heading for the marina at high speed, the bottoms of the boats rising to crest waves before smacking down into the troughs, they arrived almost an hour later nearly even. When Sam tied the black-and-gray boat to the dock, he climbed out wearing a purloined sweatshirt with the hood up over a baseball cap. He walked off the dock, then up the next one, where Remi was tying up their boat. She looked up. “You’re looking smug in your stolen finery.”

  He shook his head. “I just smile a lot. It means I’m guileless and friendly.”

  She finished with the lines, then stepped to the cabin and tugged once on the new padlock. “Guileless? Being transparent isn’t the same as being guileless. Take me to a long hot shower, a good restaurant, and then maybe we’ll talk about the friendly part.”

  LA JOLLA, CALIFORNIA

  SELMA WONDRASH SAT AT HER DESK IN THE OFFICE ON the first floor of the Fargo house on Goldfish Point in La Jolla. It was still early evening in California, and she looked up from the book she was reading to see the sun beginning to set over the smooth expanse of the ocean. She loved the moment when the sun seemed to sit on the horizon like the yolk of a fried egg. The long Pacific swells came in below the house at the foot of the cliffs, and she thought about how they came to her from across the world. She seldom had time to read books for pure pleasure, but the Fargos had been in Louisiana for nearly a month and what they were doing didn’t require much research effort from her.

  She ran her fingers through her close-cropped hair, closed her eyes for a moment, and thought about the book she was reading—The Greater Journey, David McCullough’s book about nineteenth-century Americans who went to Paris. They were like her, people in love with knowledge. For them and her, to learn was to live.

  She had, she thought, succeeded in finding the place for her.

  As a child, Selma had sometimes imagined a painted portrait of herself, a mousy, uninteresting creature—The Girl in the Front Row With Her Hand Up. She had begun as a prodigy, a child who read at two, and kept reading, learning, studying, calculating, and here she was, a master researcher.

  Catching sight of her reflection in the big shiny surface of the window overlooking the ocean, there she was, a small—perhaps compact—middle-aged—no fudging about that—woman, wearing a tie-dyed T-shirt and khaki pants. Well, these were Japanese gardening pants, and stylish.

  She had been working for Sam and Remi Fargo for quite some time now. They had hired her right after they had sold their company but before they had built this house. Remi had said, “We need somebody to help us do research.”

  “On what?” asked Selma.

  Remi answered, “On questions. On anything and everything. History, archaeology, languages, oceanography, meteorology, computer science, biology, medicine, physics, games. We want somebody who will hear a question and devise ways to answer it.”

  “I do that,” she’d said. “I’ve studied many of those fields myself, and taught a few. When I worked as a reference librarian, I picked up some sources and know many experts on the others. I’ll take the job.”

  Sam said, “You don’t even know the salary yet.”

  “You don’t either,” she’d said. “I’ll accept minimum wage for three probationary months and then you can name the figure. I assure you, it will be much high
er than you know. You’ll be much more appreciative then than you are now.”

  She had never been less than delighted that she’d chosen to work for the Fargos. It was as though she had never looked for a job but instead was to be paid for being a good Selma. She even helped Sam and Remi plan this house. She had researched architecture and architects, materials and sustainable design, and because she had already studied Sam and Remi she could remind them of things they liked and would need space to accommodate. She had also explained what was necessary for a first-rate research facility.

  The telephone rang, and she considered letting Pete or Wendy, her junior researchers, pick it up. The idea lasted a half second before she became, as always, the victim of her own intense curiosity. “Hello. This is the Fargo residence. Selma Wondrash speaking.”

  “Selma!” came the voice. “Meine Liebe, wo sind Ihr Chef und seine schöne Frau?”

  “Herr Doktor Fischer. Sie sind tauchen im Golf von Mexiko.”

  “Your German is better every day. I’ve made a fascinating discovery and I’d like to discuss it with Remi and Sam. Is there any way I can reach them right away?”

  “Yes. If you’ll give me a number where you can be reached, I’ll ask them to call you as soon as I can get them above the surface.”

  “I’m in Berlin. The number here is . . .”

  As Selma wrote down the number, she was already thinking she would put the McCullough book aside. Albrecht Fischer was a professor of classical archaeology at Heidelberg. It wouldn’t hurt to spend some time this evening reviewing a few of his recent academic publications just to see what might be next. “Thank you, Albrecht. I’ll get Sam and Remi’s attention as soon as I can.”

  Late in the evening, after their romantic dinner of shrimp etouffee, softshell crab, and bread pudding at the Grand Jatte and a moonlit walk home along the Gulf, Sam and Remi had just gotten into bed when his cell phone rang.

  As Sam dropped his feet to the floor to get his phone from the top of the dresser, Remi raised her head and leaned on her elbow. “Mine has an off switch.”

  “Sorry,” he said. “I forgot it was on.” He flipped his thumb across the screen. “Hello?”