And then there was the kid. Brandi wasn’t positive, but weren’t they breaking all kinds of laws by not having him in some kind of school?
She watched the youth push back from the console. For the first time, Brandi realized that the youth had no legs. Or at least not flesh-and-bone limbs. Instead, titanium prosthetic legs jutted out from his hips. She gawped, trying to process the sight.
But the boy just casually leaned over the desk, reaching for what she had assumed were instruments. However, those “instruments” he reached for were his “feet.” Or, more accurately, “flippers.” She squawked in a strange combination of horror and fascination.
“Wha…Wha…How?” Brandi stuttered like she had in grade school.
Most of the crew stopped their rushed preparations and stared at Brandi.
Rob, however, just asked, “Buton, hand me my flippers?”
As the Indian scientist complied, he nodded toward the teenager. “Rob did not exaggerate his intimate knowledge of a feeding frenzy.”
“You? You’re…” Brandi stammered at the teen. “You’re not going with them?”
Rob looked up through mussed hair, a smirk painting his face. “Hell, yeah!”
Brandi pivoted wildly around the room, seeking a sympathetic face. She somehow landed on Jarod. “You’re not going to let him, are you?”
“Hell, yeah!” Jarod’s response was a perfect imitation of the teenager’s. “He’s small, and makes fast movements.” He tousled Rob’s hair. “Perfect shark bait.”
The two chuckled, seeming to enjoy Brandi’s discomfort. This was insanity. Was she missing something?
The mocha-skinned biologist tapped Jarod on the shoulder. She jerked her head out toward the deck. “Could I speak with you for a second?”
Finally, someone on this ship was showing some sense. Brandi forced her breathing to slow and the wrinkles in her forehead to uncrease. She would probably have to retouch her makeup now.
* * *
Jarod’s jaw clenched in irritation as Cleo accompanied him on deck. She swiveled around, not waiting to launch in.
“You promised me that—”
Jarod was ready for this one, though. It was long in coming.
“The kid wants to go, Cleo.”
Couldn’t she see how important this was to Rob? He needed to face his fears and finish his dad’s work. This was about being a man. And Cleo seemed determined to keep that from happening.
“He’s only fourteen!”
“Okay, Cleo, he may be fourteen, but you and I both know that he’s not really fourteen. Not since…” Jarod’s voice broke until he steadied it. “And he really wants to go down.”
Cleo’s voice softened, pleading. “Jarod, it’s not what Rob wants or doesn’t want. It’s about what’s best for him.”
“I’m not his father, and I don’t pretend to be.”
“If not you, then who?”
Jarod’s cheeks billowed in and out. A thousand retorts rose to his lips and then fell away, sounding hollow.
Cleo smiled awkwardly. He was sure that she meant it to be reassuring. “Jarod, you’re his uncle. You have to—”
Clumping behind them cut off Cleo’s argument. Rob exited the bridge, flippers now attached to the ends of his prosthetic legs. Jarod glanced away from the reminder of his failure. But determination radiated from the teen like waves of heat off hot asphalt. Rob looked so much like his dad when he was in this mood.
“Sorry, Cleo, but this whole ‘mom’ look just isn’t working for you this season.”
Cleo stiffened. “Rob, I’m not trying—”
“I liked you better when you were shooting for that ‘I’m Dad’s cool girlfriend’ vibe,” Rob sniped.
“You can’t see it, but you’re still so young, and—”
“You know what?” Rob yelled. “Why don’t you just go below deck, smoke some weed, and leave my life decisions to me?”
“Rob!” Jarod barked. Some rules even Jarod enforced. Rob met his gaze, still defiant. Jarod, no stranger to a good glare, didn’t flinch. The two stood locked in a battle of wills. But there were some things this boy who wished to be a man had yet to learn. Finally, his nephew let out a long breath and dropped his gaze.
Cleo stepped into the charged silence, her tone hesitant. “I’m not saying that I was, or am, perfect. Those days were before…”
Rob’s voice lowered, but it was no less challenging. He turned his stare on Cleo. “Look, my dad, my real parent, wouldn’t have blinked an eye at me going back down there.”
Cleo looked at Jarod with an eyebrow raised, obviously looking for support. When she didn’t find it, she continued, “The fact that Chuck’s not with us today shows that his judgment was more than a little impaired when it came to this site.”
Rob’s face hardened. He glanced at Jarod. Why did everyone keep looking at him, for? Jarod wondered.
“You going to let her talk about him like that?” Rob demanded.
Jarod tried to soothe Rob’s fury. It wasn’t that he didn’t agree with the kid, but it was more complicated than that.
“Rob, Cleo is just trying—”
Rob’s voice dropped to a furious hiss. “This was Dad’s baby. His find.”
Jarod wavered, feeling ripped down the midline.
Rob appeared to lose patience with him and whipped back to Cleo. “You’re seriously going to try to keep me from finishing Dad’s work?” He glared back at Jarod for one more twist in the gut. “Why is she even in this discussion? She’s not even family.”
Cleo bristled at the dig, but somehow she managed to keep her tone level, doing a far better job than Jarod.
“Because I’m the only one who seems to be concerned that three dozen sharks are within a league. And with the aftershocks to agitate them…”
Her eyes begged Jarod to agree with her. But he couldn’t. Not completely. “All true, but you are going back down, aren’t you?”
“That’s different,” she mumbled, suddenly not on the offensive.
“How?” Jarod challenged. “I’m definitely going back.” She opened her mouth to reply, but he overrode her. “I’m sorry, but he’s got a point, Cleo. If we are both willing to risk our lives, and yes…limbs…” He saw Cleo squint. Okay, so maybe that was a low blow. He continued, “then why shouldn’t he?”
“But—”
Jarod turned to his nephew. “Rob, do you promise to come back up with all your remaining body parts?” From Rob’s vigorous nod, Jarod said, “Then it’s settled,” more to Cleo than to Rob. “He’s coming.”
All the tension and anger drained out of his nephew’s face. He pumped his arm up and down, an excited kid once more.
“Yes! I’ll get my gear!”
* * *
Brandi stepped onto the deck, visions of Jarod’s bare chest dancing in her head. She had come up with the perfect reason to get a bit more of his attention before he headed back down.
As she rounded the bulwarks, she heard voices. Before it registered that she was intruding on a fight, she was in it. Time to be anywhere else but here. She tried to backtrack, but two sets of eyes were glued to her. Too late.
“Sorry. I’ll come back later,” she murmured.
“No worries.” Jarod’s grin would charm a cobra. “We were done.”
Looking at Cleo’s grim face, Brandi wasn’t so sure about that. The last thing she wanted was to step into some kind of intra-crew squabble. Her carefully constructed pirate fantasy would have trouble holding up to some weird family-type infighting. Pirates didn’t argue—they swashbuckled.
But the biologist seemed unwilling to continue the fight with an audience. She gave a curt nod and stalked away. Brandi couldn’t quite feel bad about that. Once alone with the treasure hunter, she gave a coy smile and delivered the excuse for some additional Jarod time she’d been practicing in her head.
“I’d like to get a little more footage.” There. That sounded totally plausible.
Somehow, Jarod di
dn’t appear to be fooled. “Sure, you did.”
His grin turned into a smirk. A very pirate-like smirk. The warmth already present inside her blossomed into an almost volcanic heat. She squirmed with a mixture of discomfort and something a little more pleasant.
“No…no. I meant for a follow-up piece,” she stammered.
When did it get so hot? Jarod’s eyes bored right into the place where the heat generated from, ratcheting it up a few more notches. “Sure, you did.”
Oh, seriously. Who was she kidding?
* * *
Buton watched as Cleo raged back onto the bridge. She was a tropical storm incarnate. She walked straight through the holographic image of the ocean floor, swiping her arms as if to disrupt the seabed itself.
“Your concerns were not taken seriously?” he queried.
Cleo at first shrugged, as if to dismiss the obvious fight, but then grabbed a chair, picked it up, and slammed it back down with a sharp bang. It ricocheted off the floor and bumped into the console. Normally, he would have reminded her of how expensive the advanced equipment was. However, he thought that now was perhaps not the best time.
“I see,” he gently murmured.
“It’s just…” Cleo said through clenched teeth, and then she sighed, plopping down next to him in the chair she’d just thrown. “They both want to pretend that it never happened.”
“Perhaps they are processing the events in a different—”
“You weren’t down there, Buton. There’s no different way to process a…Process a…”
She was right. He was not there. Their shared experience of that horrible dive kept him separated from truly becoming a Rogue team member. He knew most of the events of that dark day, but not having been there…He moved closer to Cleo, wanting to do something…anything…to soothe the hurt he saw there. His hand hovered, unsure.
“Tragedy informs each in their own way.”
“You sound just like them,” she snorted. Buton’s hand withdrew as Cleo railed on, “This wasn’t some generic tragedy! This was Chuck and Rob being torn apart like rag dolls right in front…”
Her voice trailed off. Her eyes gazed past the hologram, as if seeing the events live. With a start, she shook her head, and then began again. “If Jarod hadn’t fought off…” She stumbled, searching her way through the landscape of the past. Buton found himself moving in once more, seeking to fix the unfixable.
“Without Jarod, what was a tragedy would have been a calamity.” Buton said, shuddering to think of what his life would be right now without Rogues Incorporated. Without Cleo.
“If Jarod hadn’t stepped up, we would have all been…” Cleo’s voice broke.
Buton was so close to her that he could feel her warmth. Her scent of sun and salt and something deeper, earthier, surrounded him.
Cleo sniffed, brushing away the half-formed tears. Her voice hardened along with her features. “Well. Anyway. We’ve got fourteen million dollars’ worth of bullion to—”
“Fourteen million,” Buton reflexively corrected, “seven hundred fifty nine thousand—”
Cleo chuckled, the tears seeming a distant memory. “Like I said, a lot of bullion to find.” She grabbed a shark prod from the counter and headed out to the deck.
Buton watched her leave from inside his cocoon of monitors.
* * *
Brandi put the final touches on her B roll with the now fully clothed and equipped Jarod. Pity. She watched the treasure hunter as he spoke directly to the levitating, blinking circle like an old pro.
“And if our readings are correct, this will be the largest find of the century.”
Brandi stepped in on his heels, finishing off the shot so that the camera swept past the railing and out to the stunning ocean.
“That’s the Rogues, ‘Striking It Rich.’ “
Their timing together was perfect. Flawless. She needed a quick cigarette. Just as she cut the camera, the rest of the motley crew clamored out onto the deck, all noise and excitement.
The young one with the fake legs called out to Jarod from the dive deck, “Hey! If we’re going, let’s go!”
“After we run through safety procedures.” Cleo, however, seemed to be the wet blanket of the group.
“This is it, folks!” Jarod yelled, slapping his mask onto his face before tipping backward into the water. The teenage boy followed suit, right on Jarod’s heels.
One moment they were there. The next, only a splash was left.
Clearly irked, the African princess finished shoving in her hair and joined the other two in the swirling waters. One second after her submersion, no trace of any of the divers was anywhere to be seen.
Brandi turned to the Indian man beside her, noting once more how out of place he seemed on this ship. The wind whipped his shiny, dark hair into his face as he attempted to push it away. His mind clearly seemed elsewhere.
“You’re not going down?” she asked, always on the lookout for a new angle.
The dark-skinned man looked at her in apparent surprise. “Into the water? With all of its variables?” He snorted. “I think not.”
Brandi gazed into the churning waves and could only agree with him.
CHAPTER 3
Tongue of the Ocean
March 18, 2049
1100 hours, EST
Cleo swam through a different universe from anything anyone could barely imagine topside. The crystalline waters were so clear that if not for the familiar varieties of fish skimming back and forth across her vision, she might be on the surface of some foreign planet dealing with a poisonous atmosphere, feeling the pull of a different gravitational quotient.
This was her world. This is what she was born for. Studying marine biology had told her heart nothing it hadn’t already known from the moment she slipped under ocean waters when she was six years old.
She soaked in the beauty around her, her mind automatically supplying scientific names for every plant and fish. Red lionfish, Pterois volitans. Queen conch, Lobatus gigas. Angelfish, Pterophyllum scalare. Agarophyte seaweed, Gracilaria was a species of various red algae genera. Name after name scrolled. It was a mental background noise that fit in perfect harmony with the sounds of her breathing and the throb-throb-shush of her heartbeat.
Sea anemones stirred in the current of their passage. Mollusks closed up with the abrupt change in pressure. She brushed her hands through a bed of seaweed, feeling the tug of the plant life against her gloves. Her eyes scanned back and forth, missing nothing. A school of tiny, bright blue fish shimmered near, too fast for her to track or name, and then abruptly vanished. Were they just startled by her presence, or by something else?
She spoke into her mic. “Keep a sharp eye out for hammers.”
Rob’s voice popped and hissed in her ear. “I’ll do you one better. I’ll keep a leg out for them.” Both his and Jarod’s laughter sparkled over their connection.
“Har de har har,” Cleo responded. “Just watch, will you please?”
The boys continued to chuckle until they topped the rise that led to the galleon. At that point, even they were subdued into silence.
The sight was breathtaking.
The San Rafael lay wedged tightly into a coral reef system, its prow hanging over the edge of the ravine, where it had lodged itself many centuries ago. The reef itself was a mass of varying shapes and textures. Writhing. brain-like ripples interspersed with tubes and fans fought for space, different species bumping into one another.
The shallow waters right next to the colder streams seeping up from the Tongue of the Ocean created a riot of color. Lace coral, brain coral, and whip coral gave way to the deeper water black coral the nearer they got to the trench.
Once more, Cleo noticed the conspicuous lack of fish surrounding the coral. She would expect to see dozens of varieties squeezing in and out of the massive formation. Cleo felt their absence in a growing tension between her shoulder blades.
While she was busy studying the local fauna a
nd flora, the boys were tearing their way into the hold of the ancient Spanish galleon, following the tether of the vid-cam. Silt billowed up, swirling in the wake of their hurry. Rapidly, they expanded the portholes just enough to allow them to wiggle in without granting access to any larger unwanted guests down here. Cleo had to swim hard to catch up.
She squeezed through the rough opening, cursing the men and their narrow hips. She swam past a partial wall into the hold as row after row of chests opened up to her view. The number of chests truly was staggering. Seeing them up close hit harder than any digital displays, no matter how detailed or three-dimensional, ever could. She peered through the dim light filtering through the portholes as well as the growing cracks in the decaying hull. Movement stirred in sluggish waves amongst the awaiting treasure. Sea snakes.
“Okay, guys, let’s take this slowly. We don’t want to excite the natives.” Cleo struggled to keep the worry out of her voice.
She needn’t have bothered, for all the notice Jarod and Rob gave her. Deadly snakes darted between the two men’s legs as they moved toward the nearest of the chests. The reptiles slithered away, seeking a safer retreat. Cleo released a breath she had not realized that she had been holding. The two men groaned as they lifted the lid of the aged box.
Inside, there was nothing but blackness until Jarod wiped a hand in the chest, clearing off the accumulated layer of slime. Gold reflections bounced off the two excited faces as they dug their hands into the coins inside.
Cheers and whoops sounded in Cleo’s ears as she realized that hers was one of the voices. After years of work, it was finally paying off. In gold.
A more staid voice interjected itself into the riot. “I would suggest a little less celebration and a touch more haste,” Buton suggested.
“Yeah, yeah,” Jarod rejoined.
“Radar shows five sharks heading your way.”
Cleo wanted to say, “I told you so,” a thousand times, but Rob made a raspberry sound. “Party pooper.”
* * *
Buton ignored Rob. The teen’s response was typical of one whose brain had not yet created the cognitive ability to filter impulse from reasonable thought. What exactly was the redhead’s excuse, then?
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