by Matthew Rief
“My husband’s twelve years old,” she said with a grin.
“Don’t pretend like you don’t want a turn.”
Following the GPS, we turned west onto an even smaller dirt road and eventually came to the turnoff Jenny had told us about.
I brought the vehicle to a stop right in front of the gate. The young woman hadn’t been kidding about the signs. There were eight of them in all, ranging from Keep Out to Beware of Rabid Attack Dog.
“No Trespassing,” I said, reading one of the signs. “Violators will be shot. Survivors will be shot again.”
I laughed and shook my head.
“Nothing like a little good old island hospitality,” Ange said.
I patted my holstered Sig.
“At least we’re ready in case his bite is as bad as his bark.”
Following Jenny’s advice, I drove us slowly between the edge of the gate and the trunk of a palm tree. Neither of us were about to turn down an easier route to the hole. And we were both armed, of course, just in case there was any truth to the signs.
After a quarter mile, the road turned into little more than a barely noticeable footpath. Zigging and zagging around sharp corners, we soon reached the end of the line at a thick patch of bushes and a giant tamarind tree.
“Alright,” Ange said, looking at the GPS in her hands. “The hole’s just through there. Looks like just a few hundred yards.”
We grabbed all the gear and slogged through the thick foliage. As usual, Atticus took off ahead of us to check the way. There’s something comforting about having a dog with you when you walk through a dense jungle. I imagine it goes back to our hunter-gatherer ancestors. The four-legged mammals have far superior senses of smell and hearing, and they can move much quicker through just about any terrain. There’s a reason they’re called man’s best friend.
After ten minutes of navigating the difficult terrain, we caught our first glimpse of blue in a clearing up ahead. Moments later, the beautiful sight came into view as we stepped to the edge of a twenty-foot cliff.
We gazed upon a nearly perfect circle of crystal-clear freshwater gathered in a carved-out hole in the limestone. It was small, I estimated just a few hundred feet across. One of the edges was shallow, but most of the hole was dark blue.
We made our way to the western shore and set our gear onto a small beach. Using a manual portable pump, we inflated the raft, then loaded everything inside and paddled for the center of the lake.
The place was incredibly quiet and serene. The only sounds beyond our paddles dipping into the water were the slight breeze through nearby palm fronds and the songs of a few Bahama mockingbirds.
Blue holes are popular among freedivers, and they’re common locations for holding their competitions. Clear, calm, and devoid of obstructions, the natural anomalies provide the perfect setting for testing your limits with a single breath-hold. But Hastings was isolated and too difficult to access for most people. Out of the way, we had the place entirely to ourselves.
“I think we’re gonna have to come back here sometime,” Ange said. “This island’s a true paradise on earth.”
It didn’t take us long to reach the coordinates. Looking around, I saw that we were smack-dab in the middle.
“I know he had a house here at one point in his life. But how in the hell did a man in his eighties travel all the way here back in the early 1900s?” Ange asked, completely puzzled.
It was a good question. All I could think about were Frank’s words back in Key West. “This was a last hurrah from an incredibly intelligent and driven individual,” he’d said.
There was no current, of course, so all we had to combat to stay in place was the breeze, which I estimated wasn’t even five knots. Reaching into my waterproof backpack, I grabbed my depth finder and powered it on.
“Two hundred and forty feet,” I said, reading the depth from the screen once it appeared.
Handing Ange the paddles, I grabbed the black hard case, opened it up, and pulled out my top-of-the-line underwater drone. It was white, about the size of a briefcase, and had up, down, forward, and reverse thrusters. It also had two built-in cameras, LED lights, and a three-hundred-foot tether.
After hooking it up to a tablet and running a few quick diagnostics, I dropped it into the water. We both gazed at the screen as I quickly descended into the dark depths of the hole. There’s something exciting about exploring the unknown. So far off the beaten path, it was unlikely that anyone had ever seen what we were about to see.
“Dive technology was nearly nonexistent back in Hastings’s time,” Ange said. “So whatever we’re about to find, he must have simply chucked over the side.”
It reminded me of diving the blue hole in Belize. Sheer underwater cliffs on either side. A magical drop into the abyss.
Soon, we spotted something below by the glow of the two front lights. The rugged, sediment-covered bottom came into view. After a few passes, we spotted a shape that caught our eye. It was flat and had right angles, something that’s rarely seen in nature. Moving the drone in closer, I used the bottom thrusters to try and clear away the light coat of sediment.
As the cloud settled, we both smiled as we saw what looked like a stone tablet come into focus. It looked to be about three feet tall by two feet wide and three inches thick. Looking closer, we spotted a rusted chain attached to what was probably the top of it.
“He must have had a buoy or something to mark its location,” I said, pointing at the chain. “Probably intended the finder to use the chain to pull it up. Like you said, diving technology was nearly nonexistent compared to today.”
“And no one passing by would think anything of a random buoy in the middle of the lake?”
I shrugged.
“He probably made it so that the buoy floated just beneath the surface. That way it would only be visible to those who came close, which, in a remote place like this, I imagine would likely never happen unless someone had these coordinates.”
We used the thrusters to clear the tablet one more time. Clearly, it was the next clue to finding the diamond. The only problem was that it was completely blank.
Again, I wondered if maybe Hastings was just playing a big joke. Then Ange knocked some sense into me.
“It’s upside down,” she said, shaking her head. “Must have flipped over when he eased it to the bottom.”
Before the words had left her mouth, I was already sliding off my tee shirt and grabbing my scuba gear from the bag. The water looked great, and I was sweating under the late-afternoon tropical sun.
“Probably won’t be able to bring it up,” I said as I dipped my 3mm wetsuit into the water, then slid it on over my swim trunks. “I’ll take the underwater camera, and you can record with the drone as well once I flip this thing over.”
Ange strapped a trimix tank to the back of my BCD. Jack used his own special mixture of oxygen, helium, and nitrogen for deep dives, allowing him to dive deeper and safer than most operations in the Keys, though he only allowed it for advanced divers with at least a few hundred dives under their belts.
Once I had all my gear on, I sat down on the starboard pontoon.
“Should be about twenty minutes,” I said. “Keep a sharp eye out,” I added, scanning the shoreline surrounding us.
I petted Atticus, who’d been sitting quietly and watching everything intently since we’d shoved off from the beach. He had a stick in his mouth that he’d found on the shore, but he let it drop while I petted him.
“I’ll toss it a few times when I come back, boy,” I said.
“Be careful,” Ange said, kissing me on the lips before sliding my mask up over my face.
I grinned, gave the OK sign, then flipped backward. I hit the water with a soft splash. The water felt good, and I bobbed on the surface for just long enough to let Ange know that I was all good before venting my BCD.
The water on the surface was over seventy degrees. But as I descended into the dark blue void, I soon passed
through the thermocline, a thin layer where the water temperature drops dramatically. Within seconds, it felt like, the water around me plummeted down to fifty degrees. It was the reason why I’d decided to wear the wetsuit. Without it, the cold of the deeper water would cause me to shiver within minutes.
I kept my high-powered dive flashlight aimed ahead while my eyes scanned eagerly between my dive computer and the water below me. It felt like drifting through infinite space, or a dream where you’re falling into an endless pit. The visibility was about as good as it gets, over a hundred and fifty feet. It wasn’t long before the dark bottom appeared, vague and blurry at first, then clearer the deeper I got.
I kept close to the tether, using it as a guide all the way to the ROV, which was still situated right beside the tablet. When I reached the bottom, I vented the remaining air out of my BCD. This allowed me to plant my feet firmly on the lake floor. I clipped my dive light onto my shoulder, keeping the beam of light pointed in front of me.
Bending down, I wrapped my fingers under the tablet and lifted. It was heavy, much heavier than I’d expected. Using my legs, I managed to lift it up and set it on my knee before pushing it over the rest of the way.
A cloud of sediment whooshed up into the water as it fell. I waited for it to clear, then grabbed my light and moved in for a closer look. My lips formed an uncontrollable smile behind my regulator.
The backside of the tablet was covered in lines of text. Three distinct paragraphs, each with five lines. At the top of the stone was a name: Gladys Hastings, along with birth and death years. I shook my head as I gazed upon it. I remembered what Jenny had said about Hastings’s wife dying while they were on Andros. This was her memorial.
I collected myself, wiped away the settled dirt, and snapped about a dozen pictures with my waterproof camera. Other than the name, years, and rows of text, there was also a symbol etched into the bottom. It was the same familiar symbol that was on the compass as well as the chest—the symbol representing the irregular double-rose-cut Florentine Diamond.
I glanced over at the ROV, which was floating right beside me, its lights aiming at the tablet to help me get better shots. I gave a thumbs-up, knowing that Ange was watching, then motioned my thumb up and down, indicating that I was going to begin my ascent.
I sent a few quick hisses of air into my BCD, then took one more look at the tablet before pushing off the bottom and finning for the surface. I ascended at a controlled rate, breathing steadily in and out with each kick.
Rising out of the dark abyss and into the light above, I switched off my flashlight. I leveled off at fifteen feet to perform my safety stop. The ROV passed me, and I watched as it broke the surface and Ange lifted it out of the water. My dive computer kept track of the time for me, and once it beeped, I finned for the surface.
I broke out of the water, handed Ange the camera, then removed my fins and swung up into the small inflatable. Eagerly, I unstrapped and slid out of all my gear. Atticus wagged his tail and licked every inch of my face. As I set my BCD aside, he grabbed his stick and dropped it in front of me.
I laughed and grabbed hold of it.
“It’s freshwater, boy,” I said. “You’re gonna have to swim harder.”
His tongue sticking out, he glanced back and forth between me and the water.
“Alright,” I said, tossing it just fifty feet or so from the raft to see how he’d do.
He jumped over without hesitating and splashed into the lake. It took him a few seconds to get used to the less dense water, but he quickly got the hang of it and reached the stick without a problem.
“Any activity up here?” I asked while wiping the water from my brow and scanning the shoreline.
The sun was setting below the trees, shooting rays of light through the fronds and glowing the sky.
Ange shook her head. She held the camera in her hands and was clicking through the images.
“It’s a memorial to his wife,” she said. “She died years earlier, so that means he probably dropped this tablet years before finding the diamond.”
I nodded, grabbed the tablet, and quickly brought up the picture of the rolled-up parchment we’d found in the chest. Ange read the words from the tablet aloud first. They were emotional. Powerful. A testament to the love and passion shared by the two of them.
A tear streaked down Ange’s cheek, and I wiped it away. I was struggling to keep composed as well. From the words, it was clear that this was a man who’d been broken by the loss of his wife. A man who’d found it difficult to find the strength to keep on living.
After reading it, we made quick work of the cipher. The numbers corresponded to a paragraph, a line, and then a letter. After a few minutes, it was solved.
“F-T-J-E-F-F,” Ange said, reading the letters aloud. “M-U-D-D.”
We thought for a moment, then Ange smiled.
“Fort Jefferson,” she said.
I nodded and smiled back, my heart racing from the excitement of the moment. Fort Jefferson was located in Dry Tortugas National Park, just seventy miles from Key West.
I kept Atticus busy, tossing the stick farther and farther each time until he finally shook the water off his coat and plopped down in the raft for a rest.
“MUDD?” I said, confused by the rest of the letters.
The word, and it’s relation to Fort Jefferson, sounded vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place it.
“Must be short for something, given the spelling,” Ange said. She grabbed her smartphone and woke up the screen. “No signal.”
Her eyes gravitated back toward the shore. She slid her phone into her pocket and set the camera aside.
“Looks like it’s time to head back,” I said, grabbing the paddles. “I had a few bars back at Andros Town, so we can search when we’re there.”
She nodded, and I started rowing us back to the beach, the four letters dancing around in my head.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Walt stepped out to get some fresh air. He headed down to the end of the dock and looked out over the calm, dark water. He was excited and anxious to figure out the next clue. The Florentine Diamond was close, he could feel it. One last treasure, one last payout, and then he’d put an end to his wild and unpredictable career.
He hoped he could settle down and dig in his roots as Pete had recommended. Hoped that he could quell the burning passion within him that always strove for just one more search. He also hoped that he could rid himself from the mobsters who were hell-bent on making him pay.
Maybe the fight last night scared them off, he thought. Maybe they’ve lost all taste for this fight and have written it off.
He knew that it wasn’t like them to relent and wave the white flag. But he also knew that their death toll was stacking up. At some point, you cut your losses and move on. At least, that would be the logical thing to do.
He grabbed a flask from his pocket, unscrewed the cap, and took a few swigs. After wiping his lips, he looked out over the water and felt better. For the first time in a long time, he could see a light at the end of the tunnel. It was dim and shrouded by potential impediments, but it was still there.
He downed another sip, then took in a deep breath of fresh air and turned around. After just two steps back down the dock, his phone vibrated to life in his pocket. Unlike Jack, he’d left it on the boat the previous day, so it hadn’t been claimed by the sea.
He reached into his pocket, pulled it out, and looked at the front screen. It wasn’t one of his contacts, but it was a number that he knew well. Too well.
With each vibration, he debated whether or not he should answer. He decided that whatever she had to say, he didn’t want to hear it.
No good can come of talking to her, he thought.
After what felt like an eternity, the vibrating stopped. He let out a long sigh, then nearly smiled.
Good riddance.
He was about to drop the phone back into his front pocket when it shook to life once more. This time it was a m
essage. It was from the same number, and he didn’t need to flip open the phone to read it. The words were displayed on the small front screen.
“Peter Adams,” was all it said.
Nothing else needed to be said. The first and last name was all it took to cause Walt’s heart to go from a resting pulse to throbbing like mad in an instant.
How did she find him? How did she figure out he even existed?
With a handful of uncomfortable questions spinning around in his mind, he quickly flipped open the phone and called the number. Two rings. Three. Four. He gritted his teeth, knowing that Val would be enjoying every second of the cruel waiting game she was playing.
Finally, she answered.
“I thought that might get your attention, old man,” Val said slowly.
“Where is he?” Walt said frantically.
“He’s right here,” she replied, her tone ice cold.
There was a short pause.
“Walt, what the hell is this shit?” An angry male voice came over the line. “What the hell did you do? How dare you—”
The voice turned muffled, and Val’s returned to cut him off.
“That’s enough, Peter,” she said.
“What have you done to him?” The words rushed frantically out of Walt’s mouth.
“Relax. All we did was rough him up a little. He’s fine for now. They’re all fine.” She paused a moment, letting Walt come to the painful realization on his own. “That’s right. We didn’t just take your son. We took his pretty wife and their two little brats.”
“I swear,” Walt said, anger boiling over inside him, “if you hurt any of them, I’ll—”
“Shut the fuck up,” she cut him off in a loud, stern voice. “I’m doing the talking here, understand? I’m in charge, and you’ll do as I say or I’ll cut each of them apart, piece by bloody piece.”
Walt nearly fell over. His eyes welled up with tears. He felt helpless. Utterly and completely helpless.
“Alright,” he said, clearing his throat and gripping the phone tighter and tighter. “You can have the diamond. I’ll make sure of it. Just don’t hurt them. Please don’t hurt them.”