by Matthew Rief
It was a miracle that none of them lost consciousness. Seeing the others were alright in the blurry darkness, Jack moved back and grabbed hold of the chest. The three of them managed to slip out through the broken windows and swim up through a sea of bubbles toward the surface. When they broke free into the night air, they took big gulps of air and looked at each other in amazement.
“Did that really just happen?” Jack said, managing to come up with words first.
He was working hard to stay above water. Born and bred in the Keys and having spent much of his life out on the water, Jack could tread on the surface until he died of thirst. But the chest was heavy, and it felt even heavier as he worked to keep it afloat while fully dressed and with shoes on.
Pete and Walt quickly swam over to help him. The three of them were amazed that they’d made it out of the ordeal relatively unscathed. Jack’s head hurt like hell from being slammed against the wheel. He knew he most likely had a concussion. Blood dripped down from a cut above Pete’s right eyebrow. And Walt was wincing and groaning from the bones he’d clearly broken in his left forearm. But they were all three of them still alive and able.
“Any sign of movement?” Pete said, motioning toward where the SUV rested thirty feet down at the bottom.
Jack shook his head.
“Looks like we’re in the clear for now.”
“I can’t wait to see the look on Logan’s face when you tell him that you’ve donated his truck to the artificial reef program,” Pete added.
Jack laughed.
“He was in need of an American-made upgrade anyway,” he replied jokingly. “Never understood how a guy named Dodge could drive a Yota.”
The three guys treaded water and quickly decided that the best course of action would be to swim across the man-made inlet to the downtown cruise pier and promenade. Climbing up the end of the Zachary Taylor Pier would mean a long hike in wet clothes back to the main road to hail a cab.
It only took them five minutes to traverse the six hundred feet of dark tropical water. As they swam past one of the branches of the downtown pier, heading for the prom, a woman called out to them from a tied-off catamaran.
“Jack?” the woman said in a heavy Southern drawl.
Jack looked up, narrowing his gaze for a better look.
“Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes,” Jack said with a big smile. “How are you, Sweetie?”
She shrugged.
“Same old,” she replied. Then she looked over the three of them and chuckled. “Ya know, I’d say this is a strange situation, but for you it’s almost normal.”
Lauren Sweetin was the owner and operator of a snorkeling charter. Her sailboat, Sweet Dreams, was a thirty-four-foot catamaran. She’d been standing on the port pontoon, coiling a rope, when she’d spotted the three guys swim over. She was pretty, with long auburn hair, tanned skin, and a voluptuous figure. In her mid-thirties, she’d migrated to the Keys from Tennessee after a nasty divorce with her cheating lawyer husband a year earlier.
“It felt like I was watching an old episode of The Dukes of Hazzard,” she said with another contagious laugh. “Sure put an interesting exclamation point on this strange Key Weird evening. You guys aren’t hurt, are you?”
“Nothing a little do-it-yourself first aid won’t fix,” Jack said. “The other guys weren’t so lucky.”
She nodded.
“Should I even bother asking what you guys are up to now, or should I just wait for the Keynoter article?”
“I’m sure Harper Ridley will make it sound more entertaining than I could.”
“Alright, I won’t prod. You know me, Jack. I’m pretty laid-back. Not really the proddin’ type. You guys just be careful, alright? Key West needs its resident top dive aficionado and best restaurant owner. Not sure who you are, but I’m sure you’re unique too if you got caught up in their mess.”
“This is Walt Grissom,” Pete said. That caused her eyes to go wide in amazement. “And he kind of caught us up in his.”
She raised her eyebrows. “That so? Well, come on back and get out of the water already. Jack, you look like you’re about to get a hernia keeping whatever that is in your hands afloat.”
Jack grinned but felt slightly embarrassed. He’d been doing his best to hide his struggling. Over the years, he and Lauren had shared an interesting relationship. No intimacy had ever come of it, but Jack had developed a crush on her and planned to make a move soon.
Lauren helped them up onto the swim platform, then handed each of them a towel.
“Should really get that looked at,” she said, motioning toward Pete’s forearm. “Those guys that chased you off the pier,” she added, looking over her shoulder toward the scene of the incident, “any chance there’s more of them nearby?”
The three guys exchanged glances, not knowing how to respond.
“I’ll take that as a probably yes,” she said. “Well, I haven’t called the Guard yet. I saw you guys swimming over and was gonna wait until I talked to you. But I can’t speak for anyone else who might’ve seen what happened.”
She glanced over at the people walking along the nearby promenade.
“Don’t worry,” Pete said. “We’ll get ahold of Jane and let her know what happened. You got your phone, Jack?”
Working in and around the water, Jack kept his phone in a waterproof sleeve most of the time. He reached into his pockets, patted them down, then looked up in surprise.
“Ah shit,” he said. “Looks like my phone went to Davy Jones’ Locker.” Turning to Lauren, he added, “You mind if I use your phone, Sweetie? We’ll probably need to call for a cab too with the streets so busy tonight.”
She waved a hand.
“No need,” she replied. “I’ll give you a ride. I was just finishing up anyway. Plus I’d like to hear a little more about what you three have been up to tonight.”
TWENTY-TWO
I tried Jack’s number two more times. Nothing. It was still off, and Ange and I were unable to get ahold of Pete either.
We headed past the wrecked SUV, which was still resting halfway through the brick wall, and crossed the street back to the lighthouse grounds. Small clusters of people had gathered, the noise from the wreck and gunshots sparking their fear and curiosity. We heard sirens in the distance that were growing louder and louder with each passing second.
We detoured around the lighthouse and headed for downtown. We didn’t know where they’d headed but figured that Pete’s restaurant or the marina would be our two best bets for finding them.
We moved with a purpose. Not too fast to draw suspicion, but fast enough to traverse the distance quickly. Not only were we worried about what had happened to them, but we were also mindful of the fact that the bad guys could return to try and finish us off at any moment. It was clear that the big woman had been their leader, and she’d managed to slip through our fingers and get away.
Halfway to Pete’s restaurant, my phone vibrated to life. I slid it from my pocket and read the screen. It was a local south Florida number. A 786 area code, but I didn’t recognize it. I let out a sigh of relief when I answered and heard Jack on the other end.
“Are you guys alright?” I asked.
“We’re fine, bro,” he said. “Ran into a little trouble but managed to get away. What about you two?”
“A little beat up, but we’ve made off worse before. We’re heading over to Pete’s now.”
“We’ll see you there,” he replied. “Anxious to take a good look at this chest.”
We hung up, hailed a bike taxi, and were at the front door of the restaurant five minutes later. Needless to say, we were anxious to take a look at the relic we’d dug up as well. It’d been buried in secret and had remained hidden in underground obscurity for over a hundred years. Whether it contained the lost diamond or not, we were certain that we were in for one hell of a surprise.
“Logan!” I heard a voice call out just as I reached for the brass doorknob.
I t
urned around and saw Jack leaning out the passenger window of a yellow Suzuki Samurai. I smiled when I saw the group of four adults crammed into the small off-road vehicle.
They thanked Lauren for the ride, and I waved to her as she drove off. Ange and I looked them over from head to toe.
“You guys decided to go for a little swim, huh?” Ange said.
“More of a quick improvise to take down the bad guys on our tail,” Jack said.
“Do I even want to ask why you guys needed to hitch a ride in Lauren’s Samurai and not my truck?”
The three of them looked at each other. They were smiling but trying not to.
“No,” Jack said. “You don’t want to ask that, bro.”
I shook my head and sighed dramatically.
He went on to explain how he might have kind of, sort of driven it off a pier. I raised my eyebrows and laughed.
“Sorry, Jack,” I said. “But it sounded like you just said that you drove my truck off a pier.”
Pete laughed. “That’s what happens when you give Jack the keys. You know he got a ticket during his driving test, right?”
Jack shrugged. “Stop sign came out of nowhere. But what’s important is that we made it out alive. All of us. Don’t know how, but we did.”
“And that you’ve got good insurance,” Walt said. “I hope, anyway.”
I’d bought the truck over a year ago. While cruising through Marathon in a rental car, I’d spotted it parked with a for sale sign at the corner of a small used car place. It was the first thing I’d bought after moving back to the islands, and I’d been driving it ever since.
There would be a time and place for giving Jack crap. But for now, he was right. We were alive. And we all had two major things on our minds: watching out for more Albanian mafia, and the mysterious chest.
Not wanting to draw too much attention or raised eyebrows, we entered through the kitchen. The place was packed, but we managed to slip through the back door and up the wooden staircase with just a few people noticing. The three of them were still pretty wet, and their shoes left faint wet marks on each step.
We went straight for Pete’s office, crammed inside, and shut the door behind us. For the first time since bringing it out from the dirt, we took a good look at what we’d found. It was fascinating. The chest had captured all of our interests when we’d first laid eyes on it by the light of the fireworks. Now, in Pete’s well-lit office, our excitement was amplified even more.
The chest was small, only about a foot long, six inches wide, and six inches deep. It was incredibly intricate. Every inch seemed to be customized with unique patterns. It was sturdy, built of what we suspected was steel. Unlike most chests, it had no locking mechanism at the middle of the front seam.
One of the first things I noticed was a symbol etched into the top. It was the same irregular double-rose-shaped symbol that I’d first seen on the compass. A symbol representing the Florentine Diamond.
The most unique aspect of it was the four round metal dials situated in the middle of each of the four vertical sides. The dials were similar to those of combination locks. They each spun smoothly, but instead of numbers, there were unique symbols marking the various positions.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Pete said, shaking his head.
We examined it on his old oak desk, then took turns passing it around and looking over its elaborate details. I paid particular attention to the dials and was fascinated by the fact that each dial had an array of different symbols. I recognized a few of them from books I’d read or images I’d seen over the years.
“Some of them look like family crests,” I said, pointing at the different etched images.
Ange nodded and leaned over me.
“Wait a second,” she said, then snatched a magnifying glass from the top drawer. She examined the edge of one of the sides and added, “There are words here.” Looking closer and focusing the magnifying glass, she added, “It’s French.” She cleared her throat, then read the words aloud in English. “I couldn’t talk. I couldn’t walk. Life had only just begun.”
She looked up at us with raised eyebrows. I stroked my chin, mulling the words over.
“Why couldn’t this Hastings guy have just been like, ‘Hey, future treasure hunters, the diamond is buried at so-and-so location?’” Jack said, shaking his head.
Because he was having too much fun with it, I thought. He was knocking on death’s door. The money didn’t interest him. He wanted to leave behind something fascinating.
The others moved in closer, nodded their agreement as they peered through the magnifying glass, then looked over the other sides.
“This side’s Italian,” Walt said, pointing to the right vertical side.
The two remaining sides each had words etched as well, one in Devanagari, a nearly two-thousand-year-old script that’s used widely in and around India, and the other in German. None of us were familiar enough with the other three languages to attempt a translation. Ange had been born in Sweden and had spent much of her childhood there. Even though German is a common foreign language spoken in the Scandinavian nation, she’d never learned it, instead becoming fluent in Swedish, English, and French.
We thought over the translation Ange had made but couldn’t make heads or tails of it. It was clear, however, that the words somehow corresponded to the symbols around the dial. Each of the four dials had twelve possible positions, which meant that it would take forever to try all of the combinations.
“We could always try the old sledgehammer method,” Walt said with a shrug. “Or maybe a hammer and chisel to pry the lid open.”
“Bad idea,” Ange said, shaking her head. “That could damage whatever’s inside.”
“Ange is right,” I said. “If this guy Hastings was as smart as I think he was, I’m guessing he designed some kind of contingency for people who tried methods like that.”
After an hour of trying to figure out how to get into the chest, we took a quick break and shifted our conversation to our incidents that evening.
“We ran into a beast of a woman at the Hemingway House,” Ange said. “About my height, shoulders wider than an Olympic rower, short black hair, tattoos. Ringing any bells with you, Walt?”
He only had to think for about a second before replying.
“Valmira Gallani,” he said. “Or, as she’s more commonly known in Southeastern Europe, the Angel of Death.” He paused a moment and took a sip of whiskey. “She’s the daughter of Isidor Gallani, a dangerous man who ran a massive criminal underworld for over thirty years. Story goes, Val put some arsenic in his vodka one night. Less than a week after his death, she put a bullet through her older brother’s head. This made her the only remaining heir to the Gallani Mafia. From what I’ve learned about her, she took a liking to danger and fighting from an early age. She’s notorious as one of the most dangerous women in Europe.”
We went quiet a moment, letting Walt’s words sink in.
“She went toe to toe with Ange, and she’s still breathing,” I said. “So that’s saying a lot.”
“So let me get this straight,” Jack said. “Not only did you borrow money from an Albanian mafia to get funding for a salvage project, but you borrowed from a murdering criminal’s daughter who just so happens to be called the Angel of Death?”
Walt didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. It was clear to all of us, especially to him, that he’d messed up royally.
I changed the subject, asking for the story of how Jack had managed to get them away by drowning my innocent truck. After an animated segment of storytime, we went back to the chest, using our smartphones and Pete’s computer to try and decipher it.
“We should show this to Frank,” Ange said at one point.
Pete nodded. “You’re right. I’ll see if he’s in town.”
I agreed wholeheartedly. Professor Frank Murchison would be just the guy to figure it out. He worked over at the nearby Florida Keys Community College and had helped u
s out a few times before.
I closed my eyes, squeezed the bridge of my nose, then checked the time. To my astonishment, it was nearly midnight. We’d spent over two hours looking at the chest, reading the inscriptions, looking over the symbols, and trying to figure out how we were going to get inside it. It had been a long day, and I felt the mental and physical exhaustion begin to take hold. I was also sore and bruised from the day’s encounters with our friends in the Albanian mafia.
We called it a night not long after. The streets were still packed and noisy when we drove the few blocks to the marina. Walt was staying the night at Pete’s house, and we decided to crash on our boats.
We told Jack we’d meet him in the morning, then climbed aboard the Baia as he made his way down the dock to the Calypso. We’d kept a sharp eye out for bad guys but figured that they’d had enough. At least for one night.
After saying goodnight to Jack, we climbed aboard our boat and Ange headed down into the saloon while I did a quick scan of the marina. I spotted a figure walking toward me on the dock. Gus switched off the marina lights every evening at 2100, so they were indistinguishable at first. Fortunately, my eyes had adjusted to the relative darkness, and I recognized who it was long before she reached the boat.
“It’s been quite the evening,” Jane said as she walked within earshot. She stopped along the starboard side and put her hands on her hips. “Even for Fantasy Fest.” She looked out over the water and cleared her throat. “I’ve got a handful of dead guys over in Papa’s backyard and two vehicles in the ocean off Fort Zach Pier. You got anything you wanna tell me, Logan?”
I told her everything that had happened, starting with when we were attacked at the lighthouse. Jane and I didn’t beat around the bush with each other, and there was no sense lying to her. She’d just figure it all out anyway.
“Jeez, Logan,” she said, shaking her head. “You know, believe it or not, Key West has a government organization whose purpose is to keep the peace.”