by Larry Baxter
"How's my daughter?" said Robert.
"We are tracking that situation carefully for you. The family is at home, but CDC says there is no danger."
"Any progress in treating the disease?
"Lots of activity, no progress," said Teppin. "I have also commissioned a half dozen teams to work with the charge microscope on the virus, and we are starting to work on commercial production. But that production is probably going to take more time than we have. Anyway, tell me how you were hurt."
They described the events in the cave and their conclusion that the unfriendly cave residents were drug smugglers.
"Dr. Teppin," said Robert. "We think that the local police are compromised, bought off by the druggies. We talked to Colonel Muñoz here a few minutes ago, he said he wouldn't help. And he warned us that if we persisted we would be killed. We thought we'd bought him off, but the other side must have talked to him. But we need to get back into that cave. Do you know anyone in the neighborhood with heavy artillery? Marines? Anybody?"
"We can start an operation with the Marines," said Teppin, "But it would take at least a day on this end and a few days with the Mexican government. And that is if everything works, the Mexicans do not like our soldiers in their country. I will make some calls. Maybe somebody more local, like Mexican armed forces. Wait a moment." Two minutes passed. "Got it. There is a capable, well-armed crew on a boat called Bolero. They are somewhere in the Cayman Islands, I should be able to get a call through. They will love this one, they are all borderline insane."
"What are they?" asked Teresa. "Marines? French Foreign Legion? Republican Guards?"
"The captain is named Gabor. He is a treasure hunter, an adventurer. He made a bundle in Mediterranean shipping before he cashed out. We used him and his boat for a phytomedicine project in the Amazon, a while back. His crew includes a man called Kiraly who is the most dangerous man you will ever meet."
"What is Gabor doing on a treasure boat?"
"He retired. But I think he would still accept this commission. Wait a second, my call is going through now." A minute later, he returned. "It is all set up, he will be in Puerto Aventuras in about eight hours if the seas stay calm. Teresa, maybe you can meet him there and fill him in. Look for a yacht called Bolero. It is about 85 feet long, if I remember correctly."
Chapter 29
* * *
The Caribbean Sea, November 8, present day
The yacht was styled with the expensive rakish cut of an Italian sports car. It was 85 feet long, and it looked as if it could run at fifty knots all day. Its aluminum hull was white, its trim was dark green, and its windows were heavily tinted against the strong equatorial sun. It was anchored about fifteen miles north of Cayman Brac, in turquoise water unruffled by wind and warm in the unusual midday calm. With the flat calm, the nearly transparent sea, and the sun almost directly overhead, the ship looked as if it were suspended a hundred feet in midair over the sandy sea bottom.
The ship's aft deck held not the expected collection of sport fishing equipment but a large and efficient-looking crane. The transom was cut away sharply in the center to allow easy movement of cargo onto the deck. A large radar arch carried a Furuno dish antenna and a long magnetic anomaly detector, and the cabin roof was shingled with photoelectric cells for power generation.
The foredeck held an impressive array of nautical playthings. Two Kawasaki jet skis, demure in flame-striped iridescent emerald paint, were tucked in behind the anchor winch. A float-equipped ultralight aircraft with high-aspect-ratio cantilevered carbon fiber wings was positioned amidships, wings folded for storage. Two windsurfers were tied down to port of the ultralight, four one-person minisubs were arrayed near the windsurfers, and a black and yellow Zodiac inflatable was suspended vertically on starboard-side davits.
The ship's anchor chain dropped directly down into the ocean, and near the chain the smooth surface of the sea was disturbed by bubbles released from a diver on the sea bottom. The outlines of a wrecked ship could just be discerned, lying on her side, encrusted with barnacles, obscured by seaweed, and drifted over in places with sand.
Below decks in the yacht, marble and teak alternated with industrial-strength computers, satellite communications gear, and a workshop with both electronics and machine tools. Work and play functions alternated here, as on deck. A big Jacuzzi hot tub dominated one room and in the next a side-looking sonar system and a sensitive magnetometer array fed a bank of video monitors.
In the communications room, Todd Goldstein handled the audio and video link to the diver. He was an expert in the latest technology of treasure hunting, and he was also a pioneer in the new science of synchronizing the assortment of data that contributed to a successful hunt. The most dependable data was from towed video cameras, working both the visible and infrared bands. But the sensor inputs included the latest proton magnetometers and side-looking sonar arrays. The magnetometer arrays showed any concentration of material that altered the earth's magnetic field, and the side-looking ultrasonics revealed undersea contours even in murky water.
Goldstein also synchronized a variety of written records like old commercial and shipping manifests and historic weather data. Carbon dating was used to make sure that a wreck was from the right era. Goldstein superimposed the data on a high-resolution computer monitor, with color-coded three-dimensional overlays of all the data types, and he added the position of the diver, determined from the ELF radio transponders he wore.
Goldstein also handled communications with the diver, feeding Grateful Dead audio to the young man below, interrupting sometimes with voice commands to reposition any wandering. He handled local audio from a different player, selecting classical music CDs for the ship's sound system. The skipper hated rock 'n' roll. And Goldstein used the ship's radar to check on the position of Bartok, the skipper's number two son, on the second ultralight aircraft. Bartok was now about twenty miles due east and flying at an altitude of two thousand feet.
On the aft deck of the yacht a crewmember named Kiraly sat in a comfortable deck chair. Kiraly, compact, well muscled, deeply tanned, and completely bald, worked with brushes and solvents to clean off several pieces of bronze statuary recovered from the three-hundred-year-old wreck below. From time to time, he would sift through the screen tray that was receiving the airlifted detritus from below, but it all seemed to be pebbles and sand now.
Kiraly had been hanging around boats since his youth, except for a five-year hiatus as a mercenary. He had joined the Hungarian skipper, Gabor, to hunt for treasure. He had thought that modern treasure hunting was sort of like ice fishing, an excuse for the men to go off and drink and swear a lot, but Gabor and Bolero had brought a new high-tech approach to the exercise. They actually nearly broke even while donating the most interesting finds to museums.
Nearby, feet propped up on the port rail and sipping a rum and pineapple juice, Gabor paged through a copy of the shipping log for the port of Havana for the year 1822. He was generous of midriff, with a craggy, lightly bearded face lined from spending most of its life in the sun. He wore a bright red "Bolero" T-shirt and a straw hat.
Gabor had run away from home in his teens, ended up in Athens and invested wisely in a small fishing boat. By his twenties, his fleet had expanded to include several larger cargo ships, and when he reached fifty he ran one of the largest fleets of mixed-use ships in the Mediterranean. His wife had borne him two sons, Bela, now a hundred feet below, and Bartok in the ultralight. Now in his sixties, his wife dead eight years, Gabor was retired from business and kept himself amused with his new boat and his new crew, diving on sunken ships and making trouble in seaside ports.
"Ha! Kiraly!" asked Gabor with a voice like a train wreck.
"Ya?"
"Gotta bail out here. Nothing's happening. What you think about Costa Rica next? Here's this nice little square-rigged brigantine, Eudora: cargo ship, two-master, a hundred forty feet at the waterline, loaded up with wax, sisal, and a ton and a half of silv
er. Headed out of Havana, March 18, 1822, bound for London. Never arrived."
"Costa Rica's a little out of the way, skipper."
"Hey, I'm thinking Costa Rica west coast, way the goddamn hell out of the way."
Kiraly got out the toothbrush for the final cleaning, turning the little statue this way and that so the sun could catch the bronze. He glanced up at Gabor.
"Maybe a little weak, maybe I look a little more into it." Gabor slipped the reading glasses back into place and turned back to the old shipping log.
In Bolero's galley, a third crewmember, Sarah, assembled club sandwiches for the crew and added pickles and olives for plate decor. She chose a California Chardonnay from the wine locker. Fastening the thick sandwiches with colored toothpicks, she sang, "The stars desert the skies and rush to nestle in your eyes, it's lunchtime."
Distributing plates to the crew, she continued, "How else can I explain the rainbows when there is no rain, it's lunchtime."
"Goddamn betcha," said Gabor. "Hey, cutie, sit over here near the old man." He pulled a deck chair close. "I'll teach you how to sing."
"I'll teach you how to drink," she answered, filling his wine glass. "Put down that rum thing. Check out this grape. We have today a crisp young Chardonnay and this awesome roast turkey sandwich with the Béarnaise sauce. Pay attention. Get your hand off there."
A hundred feet below, Bela, wearing a two-tank aqualung, manhandled an airlift pump nozzle. Bela, Gabor's number one son at twenty-one years old, was the more mature and focused of the two boys; but then, everyone was more mature and focused than the nineteen-year-old Bartok. Bela was an experienced diver, as each summer his father had taken him and Bartok on a cruise around the Mediterranean, diving on ancient Roman and Egyptian underwater relics in Greece and Turkey.
They had just about picked the old schooner clean. There was not much loot. It appeared that someone else had been through the old relic some time before, not surprisingly as the wreck was visible to the naked eye in calm seas.
Above, on the aft deck of Bolero, Gabor was eating his sandwich with one hand and talking on a radio handset in the other, a wide smile on his face. He put down the handset and turned to Kiraly.
"Ho ho! It is Edward Teppin! In trouble again! He says one of his college boys, he got beat up pretty good in Mexico. We go pull his nuts out of the fire, hey? Goldstein, get that bum off the bottom, pull the anchor, get Bartok, get the steam up, we're heading for Puerto Aventuras! Bolero, to the rescue!"
Goldstein broke into the Grateful Dead selection with the news for the diver and hauled up the air hose with Kiraly. He changed the ship's music selection from Mozart to Wagner.
Under way, Gabor at the helm steered for the position of Bartok and the ultralight aircraft. Bartok had given up on high school after two years and instead had opted for a career as a world-class goof-off. His father had offered him a position as chief goof-off for Bolero and sweetened the deal with an assortment of aquatoys, figuring that it was the only way to keep his problem child under a semblance of control.
Bartok was cruising at forty mph in the second K-Craft airplane, practicing loops and listening to music tapes. The K-Craft had a wingspan of thirty-five feet, a weight of three hundred twenty pounds, and a forty-five-hp engine. The engine, unlike the standard K-Craft 30 and unbeknownst to the regulatory authorities, had been tuned slightly with a high compression cylinder head, and that plus the plane's clean aerodynamics and unguyed cantilevered wings made the craft loopable. But you had to start with a steep dive and really snap it around. Bartok wondered if the wings would break off. So far, they seemed to be fine.
Below, Bolero was matching speeds with the aircraft and waving to the flier to land. Remembering the time he had landed on deck, they gave him a few hundred yards margin this time. Everyone watched on the starboard rail, as Bartok's reputation for over-the-edge behavior was well known. And Bartok did not disappoint them; at an altitude of about a hundred feet he throttled down to thirty m.p.h., near stall speed, unfastened his seat belt, cut the motor, and climbed down until he was hanging from the open seat by one hand, the other hand held out to the yacht as if requesting applause or conferring a benediction.
On the boat, Gabor muttered loudly, "Oh. Sure. Do something young and foolish. Why grow up?"
Sarah guessed first, "Omigod, he's going to jump. Pretend not to watch."
Bartok swung his feet forward, then back, and dropped in a perfect pike position before making a reasonably clean entry into the water.
In the silence at the rail, Bela said, in a bored voice, "five point eight, maybe five point seven. A little too much splash."
The boat crew circled to pick up Bartok the Younger as they watched the ultralight settle gracefully down on its floats. They hauled him in over the transom and he explained, "Wow, what a rush. Sunovagun. I've been meaning to try that all summer. Gotta have a flat calm day so the plane can land itself. What do you think? Wicked cool, huh? Anybody film it? Do I have to do it again?"
Nobody commented. Sarah brought him a towel, a sandwich, and a beer as they stowed the ultralight and resumed cruise speed.
Chapter 30
* * *
Puerto Aventuras, November 9, present day
Robert and Teresa pulled the rental van into the access road for Puerto Aventuras, slowed for the security gate, bumped over the junior-size speed bumps, and admired the architecture in the flattering red rays of the setting sun. To the left was the eighteen-hole golf course, on the right a low beachfront hotel. Curving around with the access road, they passed a row of small stores and found themselves surrounded by condos and timeshare units, and a large hotel with a huge sign announcing its name, Oasis. The hotel seemed to mark the northern end of the resort.
They retraced their path and found a canal with maybe a hundred boats tied up, parked the VW, and walked towards the water. Robert, still weak, leaned on Teresa, away from the splinted hand. The violin was still playing in his right ear, and when he moved his head or heard any loud noise, there was a strange sloshing sound. He moved carefully.
The vessel of choice in the marina seemed to be a sport fishing boat, mostly anywhere between forty and seventy-five feet long, with tuna tower and at least half a dozen tuna rods. They walked past Carlos 'n' Charlie's and The Neon Margarita with the colored lights. A green parrot sputtered in a cage near a group of tourists getting happily drunk. They located Bolero tied up at the end of the pier.
"Holy cow, is this what an eighty-five-foot boat looks like? It's gigantic," said Teresa.
"Leave it to Dr. Teppin," said Robert. "He's got more contacts than the Republican National Committee. Let's see what's for dinner."
Gabor emerged from the aft cabin and welcomed them aboard. "Ha! Ha! Nice! Pretty young people! Just what we need! Come in here and meet everybody!"
They were surrounded by Gabor and conducted inside. Kiraly produced an extension to the monkeywood dining table, more chairs materialized, they all sat down, and Gabor introduced the crew.
Robert had been on many boats, but not with this kind of grande luxe. The trim and furnishings seemed to have been selected with little regard for weight or price, with solid-looking marble and granite pillars and dark tropical wood everywhere. The harsh edges of ambient sounds were smoothed by the heavy dark-brown curtains on the walls and windows and by the multiple layers of oriental rugs on the floor.
The sound system surreptitiously emitted a classical piece. Ravel's Bolero, wasn't it? Cute. The stereo had the untroubled confidence of a kilowatt of audio amplifier power. Gabor sat them down at a large table and introduced the crew: the teenagers Bela and Bartok, the dangerous and efficient-looking Kiraly, technologist Todd Goldstein, and chef Sarah.
Robert looked again at Sarah—pretty, young, blonde hair, with a warm curve of neck and cheek. He looked over at Teresa: she had done something effective with makeup tonight. And the glasses? Oh, yes, they weren't there. Perhaps she wore contacts, or perhaps she used glasses for re
ading only. She had nice smile lines at the corners of her eyes. The eyes were compelling, with the exotic color almost glowing in the subdued incandescent lighting. Wonder what those eyes looked like from maybe three inches away?
"So!" bellowed Gabor, jarring him back to reality. "Teppin says we have to pull your nuts from the fire. What is happening here, exactly? Somebody beat on your head? Nice bandage."
"Kind of a long story," said Robert, refocusing on his problem. Gabor's vocal volume triggered the noises in his ear, but Gabor didn't seem like the kind of person who could quiet down successfully.
"We got provisions for two months, liquor for six," said Gabor. "We have enough guns to fight off the Mongol hordes. We have the eternal patience of the serious treasure hunter. We should be able to handle one helluva long story." He leaned forward, his face crinkled into an eager smile.
"OK, you asked for it," said Robert, his voice unconsciously rising in volume.
"Sarah!" screamed Gabor. "Can you handle dinner for eight?"
Sarah replied, "Oh, I'm sure I can find something. Hot dogs work for you?" She retired to the adjacent galley, where she could continue to audit the conversation. Actually, thought Robert, she could probably continue to audit the conversation in Cleveland.
"Two months ago," said Robert, "I used a new kind of microscope—call it a charge microscope—to make a picture of a virus, the Austin virus, the one that's killed two thousand people in Austin, Texas. The microscope shows the charge pattern of the molecules rather than the physical structure, so it predicts how the molecules will behave rather than what they look like. It made a distinct and unusual pattern, take a look at this computer printout." He pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and unfolded it on the table.