Sakira

by Robert blanton

  Catie looked at him expectantly.

  “The house was booby-trapped with explosives.”

  “Was anyone hurt?” Catie asked.

  “Just me, I was too slow.”

  “He wasn’t slow. He grabbed the last guy and pushed him out in front of himself,” Liz said.

  “What happened to you?”

  “Lost my legs,” Kal said.

  Catie looked aghast. “Your legs?”

  “Yeah. But the Marines gave me these new titanium legs. So, except for the fact that I can’t surf, I’m doing okay.”

  Thankfully, by this time, their dinner arrived. Once everyone was served, Blake indicated to the staff that they should leave them.

  “Okay, let’s eat,” Blake said. “The room is secure, so you’re free to ask any questions.”

  “Why all the security?” Liz asked.

  “We’re talking about an opportunity to make a few hundred million,” Marc said. “We’re worried someone might want to take an unauthorized share or even beat us out of it entirely.”

  “That’s a lot of money,” Kal said. “How are you dividing it up?”

  “Kal is a cut-to-the-chase kind of guy,” Blake said with a laugh.

  “I respect that,” Marc said. “We’re guaranteeing one million for each crew member. We might have to hire another one or two, but we’ll see. Crew shares are two percent of the gross return for each.”

  “Two percent doesn’t sound very generous,” Liz said.

  “You have to decide that,” Marc said. “We’re taking all the financial risk, providing the intel and covering all expenses. Not to be blunt, but ignoring the percentages, what would you expect to make in six months? We’re talking about one million to over twenty if we find what we expect.”

  “Hey, that sounds good to me,” Kal said. “Six months of adventure, then we’re set for life, or worse case, we have one million to start our own business.”

  “I can roll with that,” Liz said.

  “Everyone, please eat, don’t let the food get cold,” Marc said as he took a bite of his sushi.

  “Sushi doesn’t get cold,” Catie said.

  “Not everyone is having sushi,” Marc replied.

  “Okay, so what’s the big secret?” Liz asked. “Treasure ships?”

  “Exactly, how’d you guess?”

  “You wanted divers,” Liz replied.

  “Smart woman,” Blake said. “You sure know how to pick them, Kal.”

  “Hunting for treasure ships is risky business. What makes you so confident you’re going to find something,” Liz asked.

  “We have excellent intel,” Marc said. “In fact, our intel is so good, we aren’t going to be searching, but pretending to search.”

  Liz and Kal both looked dumbfounded. “Pretending to look!”

  Catie giggled. “We already know where they are.”

  “On screen,” Marc said. The 64-inch TV on the wall in front of their table lit up. It displayed the image of a huge ship sitting on the bottom of the ocean.

  “We have two options,” Marc said. “The first is the Las Cinque Chagas. It is a Portuguese ship that was returning with plunder from the conquest of Goa in India. It was riding the trade winds back toward Portugal when the British started chasing it. They caught it by the Azores and attacked. After a pitched battle, it was sunk. It is reputed to have been carrying over four billion dollars in treasure at today’s prices.”

  “But what about all the competing claims for salvage?”

  “Our plan is to negotiate directly with Portugal,” Marc said. “We’ll promise to deliver the ship whole to them in the Azores. They can deal with the competing claims. Possession is nine-tenths after all.”

  “You think you can move that ship in one piece?!”

  “Blake.”

  “As you can see,” Blake said as the image panned around the ship, “the ship is surprisingly whole. It is in deep water, so there hasn’t been the usual rot and decay. We’re just starting to do the engineering on how to raise her, but the thought is to put a big rubber sheet under her, attach baffles and raise her. Once she’s on the surface, all the excess water will pour out, and we’ll tow her to an agreed-upon location to meet a Portuguese escort.”

  “You guys certainly don’t think small,” Liz said.

  “Small is for chipmunks,” Catie said.

  “Says the smallest member of our crew,” Blake laughed.

  “Our second option is in the Caribbean,” Marc continued. The display changed to the image of a Spanish galleon sitting on the bottom much as Las Cinque Chagas had been.

  “Looks like the same play,” Liz said.

  “Not quite,” Marc said. “This one isn’t as isolated as Las Cinque Chagas. And if we decide to go for both, then everyone will know about the recovery of the Chagas, so we’ll have lots of scrutiny.”

  “Do you need a wheelbarrow for those balls?” Liz asked Marc.

  Marc laughed. “Audacity is part of our Scottish heritage. We’re distant relatives of Robert The Bruce.”

  “Hey, so am I,” Liz said. “So big shoes to fill.”

  “I prefer, a great example to follow,” Marc said.

  “I like that. So how are you going to pull this off?”

  “We’re still planning that,” Marc said. “Catie and I are off to Miami and the Caribbean in a few days. We’ll see you in Antigua. You guys and Blake are going to do team training to make sure we’re ready with security. Liz and Blake should tune up their dive skills. We’re all dive qualified. Catie will probably be manning the underwater rover most of the time, but she’ll be able to pitch in with diving. We’ll work on her deep dive skills in Antigua.”

  “I can dive,” Kal said.

  “You can?” Marc asked. He didn’t want to comment about Kal’s legs, but the question was obvious.

  “Yeah, it ain’t pretty,” Kal said, “but I can maneuver around pretty good. Just put a wetsuit over these and lock the knees, and I can get a bit of thrust. Of course, I’d rather use a sea scooter.”

  “So would I,” Blake said.

  “It looks like most of the work will be done standing up, and I can walk underwater as well as I do above water.”

  “Okay, then get what you need, and maybe we’ll have enough divers,” Marc said.

  “How deep are we talking about for the dives?” Liz asked

  “Four to five hundred meters,” Marc said.

  “That’s deep, Hydrox?”

  “Something a little better,” Marc said.

  “What’s better?”

  “We start out with standard CO2 scrubber and pure O2, switch to Hydrox at thirty meters to get rid of the nitrogen, then switch back to the CO2 scrubber and O2. So, you’re carrying mostly pure oxygen. It gives you five times the air supply.”

  “Isn’t that dangerous?” Liz asked.

  “It fails safe to pure O2, but you’re still carrying a small amount of standard air for the last thirty meters of the ascent,” Marc said. “You can switch earlier if there’s a problem. We focus on the O2 for the working time.”

  “Clever,” Kal said. “You invent the rebreather?”

  “Yes.”

  “So, we have to figure out how to get the liner under the ship,” Liz said.

  “That’s why we have Blake,” Marc said. “Mechanical engineering from the academy, masters in aerospace engineering from MIT.”

  “I’ve got my ME from the academy,” Liz said. “Hopefully, I can help.”

  “Plus, we have our secret weapon,” Blake said.

  Kal and Liz both gave him the ‘And’ look.

  “Catie. She doesn’t know what can’t be done, so she comes up with some killer ideas.”

  “Really.”

  “Yes, she was the one who figured out the treasure ships.”

  Catie grinned at everyone. “It was obvious.”

  “Something only the young and brilliant can say,” Marc added.

  “How did she figure it out?�
�� Liz asked.

  “That touches on our intel source,” Marc said. “That’s something we are not willing to share at this time. Maybe on our next mission if you’re still with us.”

  “I cannot stress how critical it is to maintain operational secrecy,” Blake said. “We’ve already detected some surveillance. We cannot afford for any of this to get out. I trust Kal with my life, and he says we can trust you, Liz.”

  “This sounds like an adventure,” Liz said. “You won’t have any issues with me.”

  “Other questions?” Marc asked.

  “What is the Spanish galleon worth?” Kal asked.

  “Right to the chase again,” Blake laughed.

  “We believe it’s worth about two billion,” Marc said. “Again, we’ll negotiate with the Spanish government for delivery. We’re hoping in both cases to get between forty and sixty percent.”

  “And you avoid the months cataloging and such by bringing them up all in one piece.”

  “There’s not any debris?” Kal asked.

  “As you can see,” Marc said, panning the view on the display, “there are a few cannons and some minor debris around each ship, but they are mostly intact. They apparently broached and capsized in a hurricane and sank. Again, deep water so very little rot.”

  “Whose territorial waters are we going to be working in, and how will you deal with that government?”

  “All the ships are in international waters. In fact, they are outside the economic zone of the closest land. So, our problem will be pirates, not governments.”

  “Arg!” Blake bellowed.

  He got a laugh from everyone as he was sitting there with his eye patch and scarred face.

  “We Scots like to toast the beginning of a new venture,” he added, as the waitress came back in. They made the rounds giving everyone a highball glass and then poured a small dose of Glenlivet 15-year-old scotch in each glass. Marc gave the waitress a nod when she got to Catie using his fingers to indicate how much she should give her.

  “To success and adventure,” Marc toasted.

  Catie took a sip. Maybe a bit more than she should have, but she managed not to spew any of her whiskey out as she coughed. She took a much smaller sip and managed to take the third sip, finishing off the glass.

  “There we go,” Blake said, patting her on the back as she coughed some more. “We’ll make a proper pirate out of you yet.”

  “Oh, she’s a pretty good pirate already,” Marc said. “Just ask my wallet.”

  Chapter 7

  Paintball

  The next day they all met at a paintball arena. Blake had signed them up for a thirty-minute run through, then a 5-on-5 competition against another paintball team. He’d rated them intermediate given the military training that three of them had.

  Kal ran them through the basics of the equipment. Catie thought the helmet looked like a motorcycle helmet and she decided to wear her wraparound glasses under it.

  After their team completed the basic safety training and had practiced aiming and firing the paintball rifles, Kal started with tactics.

  “Anyone left-handed?” Kal asked.

  Catie and Marc raised their hands. “Marc, you’ll take the right side of any doorway or hallway. That way your rifle is away from the wall or jamb. Liz, you take the left side, Blake, you’ll play frog. When they call clear, you leap into the hallway and cover the way we’re going. Once we’re in, you play point.”

  “What if the door is locked?” Blake asked.

  “Then you should lie on your back and punch it out with your feet; roll to the left and come up behind Liz. Everything is the same after that. I’ll follow and cover behind us. Catie, you’re our backstop. You make sure to cover our rear when we’re going through a doorway, so you’ll be the last one through. Don’t let them shoot us in the ass.”

  “Right,” Catie said. “No shots in the ass.”

  Marc rolled his eyes and laughed at his daughter. She just couldn’t resist the chance to say ass in front of her father.

  “Good. Then you get to the middle once we’re through and cover wherever Blake isn’t looking. Got it?”

  “Got it,” everyone replied.

  “And Catie. If I fall or get knocked down, you cover me until I can get back up, okay?”

  “I’ll cover your … back,” Catie said. Marc had coughed before she could say ass. He figured once was enough for now.

  “Now hand signals,” Kal continued. “Point the way you want us to move with four fingers. Use two fingers when you want someone to look that way. Hand up means halt, fist up means take cover. It’s okay to yell, but then they’ll hear you.”

  He decided they were as ready as they were going to be, so he called the operator, who met them at the entrance to a second set of rooms.

  “Guys, the other team is already in there. Your job is to go in and root them out. Because they get to pre-position, you guys get three extra lives. That’s total, not each. If you get hit, you have to come back here. If your team still has lives left, you can go back in. Got it?”

  “Got it,” Kal replied.

  “One minute then you go in,” The operator told them.

  The first hallway was easy. Nobody was home, and they cleared the three rooms in no time. At the corner to the second hallway, Liz saw movement and let off a burst of three paintballs. She waved Blake in, and he jumped to the center of the hallway in a crouch and let off a burst of three. Then he waved the rest of the team in. Blake pointed at his eyes and shook his head; he hadn’t seen anyone.

  The first room was clear. When they got to the second room, the door was locked or jammed. Blake lay down, scooched close to the door, and waited until Marc and Liz both gave him a thumbs up. He reared back and kicked his feet forward with all his strength. The door burst open, and several paintball shots flew over him. He rolled to the left and came up behind Liz as he was firing back into the room. Marc took down the guy who was shooting and then scanned right. Liz was already firing to the right and took down a second person. Just after Blake jumped into the room and Marc was getting ready to follow, he heard Catie on the comm. “Dad, left, left, left,” she called out in a harsh whisper.

  She was already on her stomach, firing down the hall. Marc dropped and rolled up beside her and fired blindly. Then he got his bearings and took one guy out. Catie had already taken care of one.

  “That’s five,” Kal called out after he turned around and surveyed the scene.

  The opposition team got up and walked over to Kal. “No way you guys are intermediate,” the lead guy said as he took his helmet off.

  “It’s our first time,” Kal said. “I bumped us to intermediate because three of us have military training.”

  “I’d have gotten at least one of you if weren’t’ for the kid. How did she signal you?” he asked, looking at Marc.

  “Tapped me,” Marc said.

  “Well, good show. I wish I could say we’ll get you next time, but I’m going to tell the guy up front he has to push you up a level.”

  “Not a problem,” Kal said. “Like I said, we were guessing at levels.”

  “Cool, at least we learned some things.”

  The five MacKenzies did high-fives all around. “Good job everyone,” Kal said. “I didn’t even get to shoot.”

  By then, the operator came back to show them out. “You guys are getting pushed up to upper-intermediate,” he said. “That team wanted me to push you to advanced.”

  “Well, we thought we had a couple of weak links,” Kal said, looking at Catie. “Apparently, that was a bad call on my part.”

  “I’d say so,” the operator said. “It’s not often I get five sets of equipment back without any paint on them.”

  “And one gun that was never fired in the competition,” Kal said as he handed his rifle to him.

  “Well, that team has been doing pretty good, ripping up the intermediates, so you should think about advanced. But your call. You only used up twenty minutes of
a forty-five-minute slot, so you might want some stiffer competition.”

  “I’ll think about it,” Kal said as he handed the rest of his gear over.

  “Iraq?” the operator asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Good team skills, had to be from real combat,” the operator said as he gathered up the rest of their equipment.

  “Pizza?” Marc asked.

  “Perfect, we’ll debrief then,” Kal said.

  After they ordered pizza and the drinks arrived, Kal asked, “Okay, how did you alert Marc?” He was looking at Catie hard.

  “It’s our phones,” Catie said. “They act like comms, and we all wear an earwig.”

  Marc started to stop her from answering but realized she was doing just fine, providing only the information necessary without hinting at anything proprietary.

  “That would have been nice to know,” Kal said. “That kind of communication is critical in those types of situations. But I don’t see a mic.”

  “They’re really cool,” Catie said. “They pick up the sound from your bone, so you don’t have to yell, and they’re almost invisible.”

  “I’d like to get one like that,” Liz said, looking into Catie’s ear. “How can they be so small, where’s the battery?”

  “It’s super small,” Catie said. “Daddy, we should upgrade their phones. Set up a team comm.” She coughed into the crook of her arm and whispered, “they don’t need to know about ADI.”

  “Again, my daughter points out the obvious,” Marc said. “After pizza, we’ll go back to the condo and set you guys up. Once we have the comms up, we can talk about some of the other options.” Marc gave Catie a pointed look to make sure she wouldn’t add anything else until they had a chance to secure their communication from any eavesdropping.

  “Pizza,” Blake called out.

  “Great, let’s eat.”

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  They had a good time talking about the paintball exercise and eating pizza. They especially gave Kal a hard time about not getting off a shot. He just claimed it was superior leadership on his part. After pizza, they walked back to the condo.

  “Come on in, guys,” Marc said as he let everyone go in before he entered and closed the door.

  Marc focused on the surveillance icon in is HUD and blinked to activate it.