by Sandra Hill
John reached down and lifted her into a warm hug. “That’s right, Auntie, you always were good luck.” Then John turned to Brenda and gave her a quick kiss and a pat on the rear of her tight jeans, which caught her by surprise; otherwise, she probably would have belted him one.
Tony and Steve were already on their satellite phones, presumably calling their mother to inform her of the news.
Jake looked at her speculatively.
She raised a halting hand. She knew that look.
He ignored her, wrapping his arms around her and yanking her against his body. Even though she tried to push him away, he held on tight, burying his face in her neck. “Congratulations, honey, you are now a full-fledged treasure hunter.”
“No. I’m. Not.” She wanted to tell him that her contribution to this project was minimal, but she barely got those few words out over the overwhelming pleasure of being in Jake’s arms. He smelled like Jake. He felt like Jake. She stopped struggling and put her arms around his shoulders.
Jake inhaled sharply.
She knew exactly how he felt.
He drew back, but only a little. He wasn’t letting her go; that was evident. As he stared at her through ocean-blue eyes, only one thing stuck out to Ronnie: He had tears in his eyes.
She moaned. I am lost.
He didn’t kiss her. That was a line neither of them was ready to cross. Well, she wasn’t ready. He probably wasn’t, either, despite his claims to the contrary. But his face was so close their lips almost touched. She could feel his breath. He could feel hers. She felt his arousal brush her belly, even through his jeans and her shorts. Her arousal must have been evident in her eyes; Jake always said her eyes were a giveaway. Right now, she didn’t care.
The people and activity around them dwindled to nothing. They were aware only of each other. That’s the way it always was.
“Hey, you two. Get a room,” someone yelled with a laugh.
Slowly, she and Jake parted. Her brain was fuzzy. His eyes were glazed over with passion. He licked his lips, as if to savor her flavor, even though he hadn’t actually kissed her. Then they turned slowly to see everyone staring at them. Most were smiling, except Caleb, who was frowning. And Steve and Tony; they weren’t frowning, but they weren’t smiling, either.
Ever so slowly, he released her with a whisper. “I’m sorry.” For what, she wasn’t sure. The near kiss, his presence here on the boat, or the past ten or so years? Then he turned without a word, and walked away.
Everyone resumed their assigned jobs then, but now with a sense of excitement. Flossie and Tante Lulu went down to the galley to prepare a special celebratory lunch. Jake was up in the wheelhouse working the computers and preparing for the videotape of the wreck that Adam would bring with him; she would join Jake shortly, once her still-raging hormones were under control. Caleb and John were putting on dry suits for the next dive. Brenda was checking the anchor line that Adam would use to guide him back up. Frank was supervising it all with a professionalism and expertise that shouldn’t have surprised her, but it did. Most of the time he came across as an ignorant oaf, crude and offensive. But she was beginning to suspect it was an act. For what purpose, she wasn’t sure, but she promised herself to find out.
“Is this the most exciting moment in treasure hunting, locating the site?” she asked her grandfather when he came over to stand at the rail beside her.
“The second best thing.” He talked around the new cigar in his mouth. “Best thing overall is when they first bring up the treasure. Even in the best-planned salvage operations, you never know for sure what you’ll find.”
“Are you expecting any surprises with this project?”
“Oh, yeah!”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because I don’t trust the Menottis any further than I can throw ’em.”
“I thought Rosa was your friend.”
“More like a close acquaintance. Don’t think for one minute that Anthony and Stefano are here to guard their mother’s interest—at least not totally for that reason.”
“What do you mean?”
“There are diamonds down there, I’m sure, but my instincts tell me there’s something more, and my instincts are rarely wrong.” She must have looked skeptical because he continued, “Jake thinks so, too. You know that Jake has a talent for reading people, has to when he’s playing poker. He’s been suspicious from the get-go, I expect.”
Nice of Jake to let me know. The jerk! “Good gravy, Frank! Why are you involving yourself with such dangerous people? And Flossie and the rest of us, too?”
He blinked at her, surprised at her attack.
“And is that the real reason Jake is here? He thinks I am in some danger?”
“Girl, surely you know why your husband is here.” Frank refused to acknowledge that Jake was her ex-husband. “None of you are in any more danger than you would be at home. And we’re prepared for any violence.”
“Would you please explain how?” She pretended to be looking around the boat for something. “Nope. Not a cannon in sight.”
Frank didn’t laugh at her lame attempt at humor, which should have alerted her to his next words. “Most everyone’s armed on this boat, except for you and Flossie.”
Oh. My. God! “Do you mean guns?”
“No, slingshots. Shiiit! Of course, guns.”
“I did not sign on for any Indiana Jones/Romancing the Stone kind of half-baked adventure.” She put her hands on her hips and stamped her foot with irritation. “Actually, I didn’t sign on for anything, when you get right down to it.”
“Now, now—”
She stamped her foot again. “Dammit, I’m not a kid. Stop treating me like one.”
“Okay, you’re right. We’re on a treasure hunt. There is always some danger on these projects, whether they’re at sea or on land, whether they’re here in the U.S. of A. or off in frickin’ Casablanca. It’s the nature of the beast—money. Anytime things of value are involved—translated, money—there’s always gonna be someone who’s greedy and wants it all, or someone who wants the treasure without the work.”
“Translated?”
“On Project Pink, we’ve got to watch our backs in two directions—the Menottis and the pirates.”
Pirates again!
“But I don’t want you to be concerned. Everything is going according to plan.”
Aaarrgh! She had lots more to say, but she clamped her mouth shut for now, especially since Caleb, in full diving gear, came up to stand beside them, and her grandfather scurried off. Resting her arms on the rail, she stared over at the anchor line. “How long before Adam will be back up?”
“At this depth, he can stay down only twenty minutes, but he needs to take an hour to decompress on the longer journey back up.” At her questioning expression, he explained, “At intervals, as he ascends, he stops and waits a certain number of minutes before moving up again. It’s painstakingly slow, but necessary to avoid narcosis. Believe me, the bends are not a pretty sight. And a horrible way to die.”
“Why are you and John gearing up so soon?”
“Famosa’s job was to attach an anchor line to the wreck so Sweet Jinx won’t drift away and to videotape the wreck from all angles. No excavations at this point. Everything slow and cautious. Famosa won’t be able to dive again for a couple hours, more decompressing on board. So, LeDeux and I will go down next and begin examining the wreck hands-on and continue videotaping. We might not actually bring up artifacts, or diamonds, for two or three more dives.”
“Are you excited?”
He gave her a look loaded with double meanings, but then he said, “Yeah. We all are. I can’t wait to see the video and hear what Famosa reports.”
“Me, too,” she admitted.
“Are you going to stick it out till the end or go back with the Mafia brothers?” He must have overheard her making that threat to her grandfather.
She thought for several moments. “Good sense dictates that I
get out of Dodge ASAP, but the treasure fever has hit me, too, I suppose. Oh, not the treasure itself, but the lure of the unknown. I know there are risks and no guarantees, but that’s what makes it appealing, isn’t it?”
Caleb raised his eyebrows at her.
Before she could elaborate, Jake walked by and interjected, “Tsk-tsk-tsk! Ronnie, a risk-taker. Before you know it, she’ll become a gambler.”
“You . . . you . . . you . . . ,” she sputtered, but he was gone, heading toward the anchor line where everyone else was gathering. How soon he’d recovered from their near kiss!
Within seconds, Adam’s head popped up out of the water. He swam over to the boat’s side, dipped his head underwater, and came up the ladder.
He had a broad smile on his face. “There’s good news, and there’s bad news,” he said, breathing heavily as he removed his tanks and pulled off his head gear.
Frank took the bag with the video camera from him. Silence reigned as they waited for Adam to elaborate.
He soon did, and the news was surprising, to say the least. “I found the Sea Witch, and it probably contains the diamond cache. But surprise, surprise”—he held in his open palm an ocean-encrusted iron cross with what appeared to be a swastika in the center—“it’s a Nazi ship.”
Chapter
18
Could this treasure be verboten . . . ?
Pandemonium broke loose then.
For a long moment, it appeared to Veronica like the showdown at high noon, except it was only ten A.M.
Steve and Tony took out pistols, probably because everyone was glaring and yelling questions at them. Which caused Caleb to pull out a pistol and what she knew was a lethal K-Bar knife from a Discovery Channel program on special forces. Presumably he could slit a terrorist’s throat and disappear before the terrorist could say Osama. Famosa and Brenda were reaching for weapons as well, rifles, for God’s sake. How did I miss those? John went into his great-aunt’s huge handbag and pulled out a pistol big enough to blast an elephant to smithereens.
Veronica had no further chance to observe the chaos around her because—“Ooomph!”—Jake flung himself forward and tackled her to the deck. He lay on top of her, presumably to protect her from the gunfire.
She screamed, “Get off me,” but he wasn’t budging.
“Lay low till everyone calms down,” he said into her ear. “I don’t want you hurt by any side action.”
“And what do I do if you get shot and bleed all over me?”
She felt the ripple of his soft laughter against her cheek. “Then you collect on my million-dollar insurance policy.”
That stopped her short. Jake had her listed as his beneficiary on an insurance policy? And not Trish? Why? Enough of such morbid thoughts at a time like this!
Through her peripheral vision, she could see Tante Lulu coming up from the galley with a butcher knife in her hand. Is she going to filet the two thugs? Flossie looked like she was about to faint, but, no, she pulled a pair of manicure scissors from her beach coverup’s pocket. Yeah, that’ll make the Mafia Dumb and Dumber quake in their Speedos.
“Put the goddamn weapons down!” Frank bellowed. “I mean it. We need to talk, not kill each other.”
Jake kissed her neck, then slowly lifted himself off her. She couldn’t help but notice that his first thought in a moment of danger had been to protect her. Not that she needed his protection. Or wanted it. Still . . .
Everyone proceeded to lower their weapons, although Steve and Tony appeared most reluctant, being outnumbered as they were.
“Everyone, shut the hell up and listen.” Frank’s face grew florid with anger and the stress of his hollering. If his financial problems didn’t give him a heart attack, this latest crisis just might. “We need to know the situation first. Famosa. Speak.”
“It’s the Sea Witch down there, all right. You’ll see that on the video, but you’ll also note that there’s a swastika on other objects, too, like the dinnerware. And the remnants of some of the bodies have iron crosses, probably decorated S.S. officers.”
“Shit!” Caleb said, which was repeated by some of the others.
“And there’s more of those Nazi emblems down there, on everything from medals to plates.”
“What does it mean?” Veronica asked.
“I suspect that when the Nazis were pushed out of Italy in 1945, some of the Nazis tried to get their private plunder out of the country,” Adam speculated. “I rather doubt they were headed for the U.S., though. Probably Argentina. And the ship was blown off course. That’s just a guess, of course.”
Frank looked at Steve and Tony. “Well? Are there diamonds down there? Or was that a lie to get us here for some crackbrained reason? And, son of a bitch, what’s the Mafia doing with the Nazis?”
“Yeah, the diamonds are down there, and some other stuff. And, yeah, it was Nazi plunder, but it was plunder taken from my family in Sicily,” Steve answered, which was more words than he usually put together at one time.
“Wait for our mother. She’ll explain,” Tony added, equally terse.
“We need to decide now what the frickin’ hell to do with a Nazi vessel. We need to act quick, or we’re gonna have the U.S. Park Services on our tail, not to mention the Italian and German governments, who will all claim jurisdiction.” Frank was combing his fingers through his hair with agitation. “Bottom line, bozos, we can’t wait to meet with Rosa back on shore.”
“Actually,” Tony said, motioning his head toward the horizon.
In the midst of the chaos, no one had noticed the speedboat approaching. It must be Rosa, who had already been informed of the discovery.
“You folks are crazier than a bayou hermit with a bad case of the heebie-jeebies.” Tante Lulu, surely the poster girl for crazy folks, was making tsking noises at the mental state of the rest of them. “All I wants to know is iffen this big lunch me and Flossie is preparin’ is fer a celebration or a funeral?”
No one was sure.
She made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. . . .
Lunch was postponed till after the Cosa Nostra Jinx Summit.
That’s what Jake chose to call the meeting between the Jinx project members and the Cosa Nostra dudes and dudette. He told Ronnie that as they walked toward the wheelhouse.
Ronnie was not amused, but then she was still pissed over his self-appointment as her knight in not-so-shining armor. “How can you joke at a time like this?”
He shrugged. Sometimes, all a person could do was laugh. “If you keep frowning at me like that, your face is gonna freeze. That’s what Grace told me a couple days ago when we were in New Orleans: ‘Get happy or get lost.’ Those were her exact words.”
Ronnie still wasn’t amused. “I wish you would get lost.”
Immediately, her head shot up to see Tony and Steve standing in the doorway. “I didn’t mean that. Do you hear me? I. Did. Not. Make. That. Wish.”
They both nodded at her.
“What was that all about?” he asked her.
“Every time someone wishes for something around those two, the wish is magically granted.”
“Like Mafia fairies?”
He could see a smile twitch at her lips, but she held it back. But, whoa, this must mean Ronnie doesn’t want me riding in a concrete boat back to Barnegat. He, on the other hand, smiled widely. Hey, I’ll take my good news in small doses.
First, they all crowded around the computer in the wheelhouse to study the video Famosa had just made. It was a little murky, but here and there among the boat’s disintegrated wood frame, they could see bones—human bones; mixed in among them, presumably worn on long-rotted uniforms, were various types of Nazi medals. By the looks of them, these were not rank-and-file Hitler soldiers, but higher officers, probably fleeing Italy with their looted treasure.
After viewing the tape several times, they all moved down to the galley to discuss the situation over cups of Tante Lulu’s Cajun coffee, which was thick enough to float a boat. Jak
e sat on one side of the long galley table with Ronnie on his right and Frank on his left. Famosa and Peachey held down both ends of the bench. The ex-SEAL was sticking to Ronnie like a burr on his backside; Famosa was, too. But Jake had managed to squeeze himself between the two of them, much to Peachey and Famosa’s consternation and Ronnie’s amusement. Sometimes it pays to be immature.
Every once in a while, he pressed his thigh against Ronnie’s, then stared ahead with innocence. She wasn’t fooled, of course. But she didn’t move. A good sign.
On the table’s other side sat Rosa, who had indeed arrived by speedboat, wearing a dress even he recognized as fancy-pantsy; medium-heeled shoes—designer something or other that Ronnie, while still on deck, had told Flossie cost about six hundred bleepin’ dollars; and a wispy scarf over her helmetlike hair. On either side of Rosa were her two sons and two cousins, Tony and Guido Menotti, who had brought her out on the boat. Guido was a Newark lawyer. Standing back by the stove were Brenda, Flossie, LeDeux, and Tante Lulu, who kept bemoaning the fact that her crab étouffée was going to spoil if they took too long.
Frank was the first to speak, addressing Rosa: “You told us that the wreck took place in the 1950s.”
“No, I did not. I said a boat carrying my family property went down about fifty years ago. The Sea Witch was lost in a storm the autumn of 1945. Fifty years, sixty years, what is the difference?”
That was splitting hairs five ways to Sunday, but Jake zipped his lips and waited for the whole story.
“Since when were your family members Nazis?” Leave it to Frank to be blunt.
Rosa stiffened and her nostrils flared with outrage. She put out her arms to prevent her sons and nephews from rising to physically fight the insult.
“The Menotti family, and the Lambini family—my maiden name is Lambini—were never allied with the Nazis or with the fascist government in Italy under that bastard Mussolini. If you knew your history better, you would know that thousands of Italian soldiers were forced to fight alongside the Nazis in Italy or on the Russian front, but most of them and the citizens of Italy opposed the fascist regime. Whatever rumors or falsehoods people like to tell about the Cosa Nostra, know this: they were never Hitler lovers.”