by David Wood
“Far-fetched is okay with us.” Maddock knew he was clutching at straws, but he didn’t like the idea that this visit had been a complete waste of time.
Tengku shrugged “legend has it that the shipwreck is cursed and any who seek it are doomed to failure.” He grinned and shrugged. “I told you. Far-fetched.”
“Yeah, it sounds like the sort of thing you hear all around the world in relation to lost treasures.” Maddock couldn’t hide his disappointment.
“So, are you planning to search for the shipwreck?” Tengku’s tone was conversational, but something in the man’s demeanor made Maddock uncomfortable.
“No. We’re here on vacation and thought it would be a good opportunity to poke around a bit. Shipwrecks interest me and this is one I’ve read about previously.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t help you.” Tengku offered his hand and Maddock reluctantly shook it.
“Thanks for your time. Look me up if you’re ever in Key West. We’ve got some great bars that play Jimmy’s music.”
“Thanks. I’ll do that.
Tengku saw his guests out and waited by the front door until they disappeared from sight. He hurried back to his office and rummage through his desk until he found the slip of paper on which the phone number had been written.
He felt decidedly uncomfortable making this call. Maddock and Maxwell seemed like perfectly nice people, but the people who had reached out to him had promised him a tidy sum of money in exchange for information about anyone who came looking for the Dourado. Exactly enough, in fact, to cover his gambling debts. The coincidence roused his suspicions, but he was in dire straits and couldn’t afford to be too discerning about the people with whom he did business.
He swallowed hard and dialed the number. Someone on the other and picked up immediately but did not speak. Tengku waited and finally spoke.
“This is Dr. Tengku from the national Museum in Kuala Lumpur,” he began.
“What do you have to report?” The speaker asked in clipped tones.
“Two people came to visit me. They were looking for information on the same ship you asked me about.”
“What did you tell them?”
“Nothing. I mean, what is there to tell? The ship’s been lost for two centuries. But I was told to call this number if anyone came looking, so…” Tengku broke off, uncertain how to continue.
“Did you get their names?”
“Yes. Dane Maddock and Kaylin Maxwell.”
“Did they tell you what their plans are? Where do they intend to begin their search?” The man on the other end of the line actually sounded excited, or at least interested.
“He said he was here on vacation and was just asking around.”
“He’s lying.” The man said flatly. “Anything else you can tell me?”
Tengku racked his brain. He sensed that the information he was providing had been measured and found unsatisfactory. “He’s from Key West. He’s interested in shipwrecks.”
“Call me back if you learn anything useful.”
“Wait a minute! When do I get my money?” Tengku’s heart raced.
The pause on the other end of the line was so long that Tengku thought they had been disconnected, but finally the man spoke.
“You’ll get your money when we get what we’re looking for.”
Chapter 8
Maddock sat in the cabin of the Queen’s Ransom, the ship they had hired off a British expatriate living in Kuala Lumpur. They were now cruising the northern coast of the island of Bintan in search of the wreck of the Dourado.
He and Bones leaned over a chart, comparing it to the information Jimmy had put together for them. Jimmy had accessed an amazing computer program belonging to the Navy. The program factored in such details as currents, water levels, the terrain of the seabed, and historical weather data. Utilizing this information, along with the ship’s last known location, the computer then made a projection, based on the size, shape, and composition of the Dourado, of where the wreck could now be found. The program had shown itself to be highly reliable in helping the Navy locate sunken ships, though to Jimmy’s knowledge, the program had only been used to locate vessels of the World War I vintage, or newer. Nevertheless, he and Maddock held high hopes that they could locate the missing vessel. Whether or not they would find the sword, however, was another question.
“We’re approaching ground zero,” Corey Dean called from his seat in front of a computerized display behind them. Corey, a slightly overweight, balding thirty-something was a computer geek with a love of the sea and a nose for treasure. To Maddock’s knowledge, Corey had never dived, but he was a vital part of the crew.
Maddock and Bones moved over to stand on either side of Corey. Staring at the GPS display, Maddock felt the same thrill that he always felt when he began a hunt. He never grew weary of it. It was not the treasure that kept him coming back; it was the challenge. He loved putting together clues to solve the mystery. He relished pitting himself and his crew against the sea, daring it to surrender its secrets. He even enjoyed the time-consuming sonar sweeps, waiting patiently for that anomaly on the sea floor that would tell him that he had nailed his target.
A few minutes later, they were circling the spot that Jimmy had pinpointed as the probable location of the Dourado.
“Slow it down, Matt,” Corey called to the helm. “You want to take it a little to port.”
“Thanks, Corey,” Matt deadpanned, “I could never have read the coordinates myself.” Matt and Corey enjoyed needling each other almost as much as they enjoyed working together.
“The game is afoot,” Bones said, clasping Maddock’s shoulder. Maddock smiled and nodded. Bones tended to enjoy the hunt for about forty-five minutes, after which time he was ready to dive.
“Get the sonar going, and let’s start our grid,” Maddock instructed.
“How big?” Matt asked.
“Let’s go a quarter-mile square to start off.” Matt nodded, and Maddock left the cabin. In the bow of the ship, Kaylin lay stretched out on a deck chair. Her red bikini left little to the imagination. She was chatting with Willis, who was doing an admirable job of looking Kaylin in the eye, but every time she turned away, he let his gaze drift.
“Are we there yet?” Willis asked.
“Yeah, get out,” Maddock shot back.
“Sorry, Dad.” Willis got up and stretched. Maddock noticed with a slight pang of jealousy that Kaylin was admiring his friend’s thickly muscled back. “You need to make this quick, man,” he said. “The ladies in the clubs like a medium skin tone, and if I don’t get out of this sun I’m going to be invisible after dark.”
“If you’re in such a hurry, I think I’ll pay you by the hour.”
“Don’t you dare pay that man by the hour,” Bones called out as he exited the cabin behind Maddock. “He’ll ride the clock for all he’s worth.”
“Go back to the reservation, Tonto,” Willis taunted.
Maddock laughed at the surprised expression on Kaylin’s face. Bones and Willis had always had an odd relationship. Their years spent together in the SEALS had helped them build a bond of trust that allowed them to say anything at all to one another without ever questioning the other’s friendship. People who were unaccustomed to their banter sometimes found it disconcerting.
“Sorry, bro. Me got to make this dive first,” Bones said in a gravelly voice. “Find gold, buy heap much fire water.”
“I really don’t understand you two.” Kaylin peered over her sunglasses as she spoke.
“Don’t worry, you’re not alone,” Maddock assured her.
Willis and Bones wandered off, heading for the ship’s stern, still insulting one another.
“What happens now?” Kaylin asked.
“To put it simply, Matt draws a square on his map, with our target location in the center. He takes the boat out to one corner of the square and takes us back and forth, moving a little farther across the square with each pass until we’ve covered the
entire thing. Corey keeps an eye on the sonar, looking for anything that looks like a ship. “
“What if we don’t find anything?”
“We cover the same square, but we change directions. If we went east-west the first time, we go north-south the second. If that doesn’t work, we expand our grid until we find what we’re looking for.”
“Sounds time-consuming,” she observed, turning over onto her stomach. “Will you get my back?”
“Sure,” Maddock replied, picking up the sunblock and kneeling beside her, “since we’ve got such a ‘time-consuming’ job ahead of us.”
“You know what I mean.” Kaylin gave him a half-hearted slap on the shoulder. “When you hear about hunting for sunken treasure, you imagine it being a lot more exciting than making grids and looking at sonar readouts.”
“Fair enough.” Maddock slathered the lotion across her back, and methodically worked it into her skin.
“Do you do everything that way?”
“Do what?” The question caught him off-guard.
“Systematically. Like the grids, or the way you put lotion on me.” She turned over and sat up, looking him in the eye. “Don’t you ever just, I don’t know, wing it?”
“The Navy pretty much took that out of me,” he answered truthfully. It was not the whole truth, but it was all he was willing to reveal.
“You sound like my Dad,” Kaylin said, looking away. “He never lightened up.”
“I know perfectly well what your father was like. He was a great man.”
“Yes, he was.” Kaylin turned and looked him directly in the eye. “And he was impossible to please. Everything had to be his way, and it had to be perfect.”
“Is that why you’re an artist? So you can be in control of what you create?”
“I’m an artist because I appreciate beauty. What do you find beautiful, Maddock?” She leaned close to him, her face inches from his, their gaze still locked.
She had hung him a big, fat curveball that he couldn’t miss. Bones would have knocked that sucker out of the park. Somehow, he couldn’t bring himself to take a swing. A part of him wondered why he didn’t feel something for this girl more than physical attraction. He doubted he would ever feel that way for someone again. He sat up straight and looked out across the ocean.
“The sea is beautiful. The way the sunlight dances across the waves. The way the colors play over the surface. I love it.”
Kaylin was silent for a moment, then reached out and put a hand on his shoulder. “Is there room in your life for any other love?”
Maddock was spared the uncomfortable necessity of answering that question when Corey called from the cabin.
“Hey Maddock, get in here!”
He hopped to his feet and hurried into the cabin. He was relieved that Kaylin did not follow him. He moved to Corey’s side. Bones and Willis hurried in and stood behind him.
“What have you got?” Maddock asked.
“Sonar picked up something promising. Matt’s taking us back for another look.”
Maddock held his breath, staring at the sonar display, and waited for the ship to pass over the anomaly again.
“We’re coming up on it again,” Matt said. “Slowing down.”
The image coalesced on the sonar.
“Print it,” Maddock instructed. Corey had already captured the image and sent it to the printer. Maddock picked it up and examined it carefully. “It’s a ship. Got dimensions for me?”
Corey clicked the mouse a few times.
“Too much of it’s submerged, but it could be the Dourado.”
“All right. We’ll send Uma down.” Uma was the nickname of their unmanned miniature submersible camera. Bones was a fan of the movie Pulp Fiction and felt that Uma was a “sexier” name than the acronym UMSC. That and UMSC was too close to the Marine Corps acronym.
Bones went back out onto the deck where the little submersible was prepped and ready to go. Just over a meter in length, Uma resembled, if anything, a half-flattened egg with three “eyes” set in the front edge. A camera lens was set in the center, with a headlight on either side. A propeller in a circular frame was attached to either side of the device. The entire frame could rotate forward and back, and each propeller could oscillate inside the frame, controlling the direction of the small craft. Another propeller set in the back provided thrust. Uma could also take on and discharge water for ballast and for diving. He carefully placed the instrument in the water and gave Corey the thumbs-up.
Controlling Uma from his console, Corey instructed the device to take on water in order to accelerate her dive. He flipped on the lights and the camera. The wreck was in relatively shallow water, and soon the sea floor came into view on the monitor. Fish scattered as Uma careened at them, piloted remotely by a maniacally cackling Corey.
“You’re enjoying this way too much,” Maddock told his colleague, placing a hand on his shoulder.
“Don’t you want me to enjoy my work?” Corey said, still laughing.
“I want you to find the ship.”
“Done,” Corey replied. The faint outline of a sunken ship appeared in the distance. Corey picked up the pace, and the bulk of the ship gradually filled the screen.
“It’s an old one,” Bones whispered.
The wreck had gone down bow-first. The stern stuck out of the silt at a gentle angle, and the outline of much of the ship was discernible beneath the silt. A heavy mast lay half-buried. Everything was encrusted with sea life, but its old age was obvious.
“Take her around the stern,” Maddock instructed.
Kaylin entered the cabin and stood next to Bones, as far as she could stand from Maddock and still be able to see the monitor. Maddock took little notice of her. His eyes were on the prize. As Uma rounded the far side of the wreck, his heart sagged.
“It’s not her,” he said flatly.
“How can you be sure?” Willis asked.
“See the rudder?”
Willis nodded. Beside him, Bones cursed loudly, and Kaylin hung her head.
“The Dourado lost her rudder when she hit the rocks. This ship has her rudder, and her stern appears intact.”
Everyone was silent for a moment. Maddock took a deep breath and tried to lighten the mood.
“Hey, we didn’t really think we were going to find her in five minutes, did we?”
“Hell yes that’s what we thought,” said Bones. “You know I don’t like to wait.” He turned and stalked out of the cabin. Willis followed behind, chuckling.
“Bring Uma back up,” Maddock instructed.
“Gotcha,” Corey replied. Under his control, Uma discharged the water she had taken on and began a steady climb to the surface, where Bones was waiting to fish her out. “Maybe the next one,” he sighed.
Chapter 9
Maybe this one is it.” Corey’s voice was void of all conviction. They had struck out so far: three wrecks that had looked promising, three misses. Such results were not unusual, but it dampened their enthusiasm in any case.
Maddock stared at the screen, watching as the submerged ship came into view. This one lay on its side, a gaping hole where the center of the deck had been. The masts were long gone, but it was obviously a wooden sailing ship.
“Can you see the rudder?” Maddock asked as Uma approached the stern.
“Negative,” Corey replied. He leaned closer to the screen, narrowing his eyes. “Let me get a little closer.”
Uma banked sharply and dove down toward the ship’s rear. Maddock leaned closer to the screen. It was difficult to tell beneath the crust of barnacles that coated the wreck, but the ship appeared to be absent its rudder. As the image clarified, Maddock’s suspicions were confirmed. The rudder was missing.
“Looks good,” Maddock said. “How close are we to where Jimmy predicted we’d find her?”
Corey consulted a chart, tracing his finger along the lines and moving his lips as he read. Satisfied, he looked back at Maddock with a broad grin on his face.
“Spitting distance.”
That was all Maddock needed to hear. “Let’s get wet!” he shouted.
Bones whooped and clapped his hands.
They hastily donned their dive gear. Willis leaned against the rail, a rifle held loosely in one hand, looking at them with undisguised envy.
“Man, I know y’all are gonna let me dive sometime, right?” He grinned. “No fair letting y’all two have all the fun.”
“Let’s see how it goes,” Maddock said, strapping on his dive knife. “For now, we need your eyes up here.” He hoped Willis would not, in fact, be needed on the surface, but he was playing it safe.
“I know,” Willis replied. “At least I can chill with the lovely lady.” He gave Kaylin a playful wink.
Kaylin smiled but did not answer. She took Maddock’s hand and drew him closer to her. “I know this sounds cheesy, but I hope you can do it, you know, for Dad.”
Maddock nodded. This one was for Maxie. He hoped they would not let him down. He turned to Bones.
“Ready?”
Bones raised his right hand, palm outward, in a sarcastic imitation of an Indian salute. Maddock returned the salute with an upraised middle finger. The two divers sat down on the rail, turned and nodded at one another, and flipped backward into the water.
The water was cool, but not unpleasant and the initial shock wore off quickly. Maddock got his bearings. A few strong kicks, and he was shooting down toward the wreck that lay beneath their boat. Bones swam alongside. The faint shafts of sunlight dissolved as they penetrated the depths of the ocean. As the darkness swelled around them, Maddock flipped on the dive light strapped to his forehead.
The sunken ship was just barely visible in the distance. Once again, he welcomed the shiver of excitement that ran through his body whenever he dived on a new wreck. They approached it cautiously, careful not to stir up any more silt than necessary. The closer they swam to the ship, the more certain he became that this was the Dourado. It was the right size, the right apparent age, and in the right location.