Abaco Gold

by Patrick Mansell

  Next Gaffer returned to the helm to express his excitement and approval for what Virgil had done. Max recovered from the shock and smiled broadly. Virgil could see that he was drawing a crowd, so for safety sake he ejected the magazine and cleared the chamber. He visually inspected the weapon thoroughly to make certain there were no live rounds in it and placed the safety in the on position. P.J. begged Virgil to allow him to handle the weapon which he did only after he received a consenting nod from Max. P.J. held the ouzzi the same way Virgil had and pretended to be shooting the bad guys. While he examined the gun, Gaffer fingered the magazine which still held live rounds, while Matthew picked the spent shells off the deck. For the next ten minutes everybody touched and felt and examined the gun and magazine. Even Max took a turn at examining it. He had never shot or even seen weapon like this one.

  Finally the excitement was over and the adrenaline subsided. The grey Magnum was nowhere in sight, probably would never be back again. Max slipped the throttles into gear and continued on his run to the dive site. The boys sat in the bow laughing and joking about the experience, pumped up from the action with the sound of the shots still ringing in their ears.

  Even as Bimini Twist approached the salvage barge, the mood on board was electric. Virgil, through his years in police work, took the job of chasing away pirates in stride. He knew that the incident would have to be reported and that he would have an hour of reports to file that evening on his laptop. His cool attitude gained him even more respect from the boys, if that was possible.

  Virgil crossed over onto the barge and Max handed the two equipment bags across. The night watch from the Defense Force was there waiting to greet Virgil and accept the new equipment. Conchy Lady was already tied to the barge and the workers were busy preparing equipment and making dive plans for the day’s activities.

  Ted Grant had not heard of the incident before he arrived at Marsh Harbour. Hammerhead Riley went to the airport at noon. From the look on Hammerhead’s face, the Deputy Assistant to the Governor knew something was terribly wrong. Even as Ted Grant stepped off the plane, Hammerhead spoke in a nonstop streak until the entire story had been told.

  “What were you doing bothering that boat, you idiot? Didn’t I tell you to observe what was going on, and report to me. Who told you to get involved like this. Are you crazy?”

  “The kid harassed us when the boat broke down. It wouldn’t surprise me if he was the one that rigged our props to fall off. He’s a real wise punk. I’m goin’ to even the score with that one.”

  “You are an imbecile,” replied Ted Grant. “You want to play childish games with a kid while those people take millions of dollars in treasure off the site. You must be out of your mind. Do you know who that distinguished gentleman who put the holes in the boat was?”

  “Ask me if I care,” said Hammerhead. “He’s no one to me. I’ll get him, too.”

  Grant Web walked over to where the pilot of the chartered Beechcraft Bonanza was pre-flighting his plane for the return trip to Nassau. “Do you have a charter to return to Nassau?” he asked.

  “I’m dead heading. I have a Nassau to Harbour Island later this afternoon.”

  “This might be your lucky day,” said the Deputy Assistant. “I want to charter you back to Nassau, plus I’ll pay you another $200 if you’ll wait an hour for me.”

  The pilot looked at his watch and shrugged. “Two fifty for the charter and 200 for the wait. That’s a deal!”

  Grant Web counted out the $450 and handed it to the pilot. “Here, I’ll see you in an hour.”

  The pilot put the money in his pocket. As he walked toward the small building the people on the island called an airport terminal, he called back, “One hour, don’t be late.”

  Grant Web then turned to Hammerhead and Whale. “I can’t stay on this island. Now then, back to that guy who’s nobody to you. He works in an office down the hall from the Governor, no more than 100 feet from my office. I see him every day.”

  “So, who’s the dude?” asked Whale. “What’s the big deal?”

  In his most aggravated tone, the Deputy Assistant replied, “The dude,” strong emphasis on ‘dude’, “is Virgil Price. He is the chief law enforcement officer in the Bahamas Islands. Ever heard of him?”

  Hammerhead and Whale gulped. Beads of sweat broke out on each of their brows and their throats became dry. “Virgil Price?” croaked Whale.

  “Yes, Virgil Price,” said Ted Grant. “And you have him shooting at you. There is nobody I can think of in the entire country who would be worse for you to mess with than the one man you did!”

  “So what are we supposed to do now?” asked Hammerhead. “Maybe we should just clear out. We haven’t really broken any laws yet. Maybe we should just cut our losses and clear out.”

  “I wouldn’t blame you if you did. Go ahead and leave nearly a quarter of a billion in treasure at the bottom of the ocean and let those do-gooders have it for their precious museum. Go ahead, I’ll find someone else to work with who won’t be so clumsy and stupid. Go, I don’t need you.”

  “Hey, Man,” said Hammerhead. “I’ve got a lot of time invested in this scam. I’m not leaving. Nobody has identified us as far as we know. I’m staying in for my share whether you like it or not. Now let’s just sit here until we work this thing out.”

  “Then there has to be a complete change of plans,” said Web. “For one thing, you better get another boat and clear out of Marsh Harbour. Hide the Magnum somewhere and move up to Green Turtle Cay. When you get settled up there, you are only to move at night. You know that barge has twenty-four hour guards, don’t you?”

  “I figured it did. We’ve never been there when there weren’t at least three or four people on the barge. But I think we can still sneak up on the dive site at night. There’s probably $1,000,000 just sitting on the bottom for the taking. Just dive down there and pick it up. When we’re ready to go, I know a couple of divers who we can hire for the night. Two thousand dollars each and we’ll own them. It’ll be sudden, it’ll be fast, and we’ll be out of there before anybody even knows we were there. It’s a perfect plan.”

  “I’ll give you one more chance to prove yourself,” said the Deputy Assistant. “The first thing you have to do is get that new boat and get out of here. This place will probably be crawling with Defense Force storm troopers by this time tomorrow.”

  “Consider it done,” said Hammerhead. “Now, you go back to Nassau and leave the rest to us. I’ll call you if I need anything.”

  The meeting was over. Grant Web walked into the airport building and retrieved the pilot. Within twenty minutes they were flying 7,000 feet above the clear Bahamas waters for the return trip to Nassau.

  Seventeen

  Intensification

  Matthew jumped across to the barge and ran to his father. He excitedly told the story of the encounter with the bad guys in the grey Magnum. Skeeter was alarmed until Max was quick to assure him that Matthew was at no time in any danger of harm. He further assured him that Virgil Price had control of the situation the whole way. That helped Skeeter to relax. The story of the encounter spread throughout the barge instantaneously. With this new turn of events, Skeeter felt compelled to call a meeting of everyone on board the barge to discuss this new development.

  When the party was assembled, Skeeter addressed Virgil. “Please tell the group what you believe to be the short term and long term implications of this morning’s encounter. I want us to be prepared for whatever might happen.”

  Virgil walked to the center of the group and took a moment to collect his thoughts. “There is good news, and there is bad news. The bad news is that these pirates, whom I am now prepared to identify as Hammerhead Riley and Whale Mills, have obviously declared their intention to make things difficult for this project. As I understand it, they have been all too visible to this operation for quite some time, and we can expect more activity from them. The good news is that their stupidity, disorganization and lack of training
works to our advantage. They have a goal of stealing treasure from this project. They have backing in the form of money and information, but they are ill-prepared to take us on. I have reason to believe that they intend to step up operations and make an attempt to raid the site sometime soon. I believe that effort will be made under the cover of darkness, a night dive raid. To counter that effort I am bringing six more guards in to watch the site. Night time security will be doubled. There will be no more sleeping guards on this barge at night. The night watch will come here fresh from a day’s rest as opposed to the exhausted sentries who have been diving on the site during the day and sleeping on the barge at night. Are there any questions about this?”

  Jenny, who had the largest stake in protecting the site asked, “Will your guards still dive on the site? If not, I need to hire some professional salvage divers.”

  “I want my guards, the ones who are proficient at diving, to continue to help. I have heard from Sergeant Ford that the diving is what keeps them stimulated. I also believe that now that we have had this incident with those men, the guards will be more inclined to take a serious interest in their work.”

  “How do you want us to react if that Magnum comes back into the area?” asked Skeeter.

  “I seriously doubt that they will try anything in the daylight. My guess is that we have scared them off pretty well. But, you never know, so from now on Conchy Lady and Bimini Twist go nowhere without one of my security officers on board, armed with a weapon and orders to keep the Magnum and its crew far away from the vessels, including the barge.”

  “How do you propose to protect the site from an attack at night?” asked Jenny. “They could easily pull a boat up to within 100 yards at night without being noticed. I’m most worried about security after dark.”

  “You have voiced my main concern as well,” responded Virgil. “It is for that reason that I am doubling the night guard. But I also have brought with me a few added tools that I believe will be helpful.” He moved over to where the two equipment bags had been placed earlier. Before he could reach down to pick them up, P.J. and Gaffer each had one and were carrying them into the center of the gathering. Virgil opened the first one and brought out several coils of heavy duty electrical wire.

  “These cords are for underwater use. The first order of business for my security forces will be to lay out an underwater perimeter of high intensity lights. We will use sensors that will automatically activate the lights when an intruder comes into our area. These lights will be strung out far enough so as not to interfere with your daily work. And you can believe me when I say these lights are very bright. They will not only light up the entire underwater area, but they will also activate an alarm on board the barge so that the guards will be immediately alerted.”

  Gaffer raised his hand but did not wait to be recognized, “What if a fish comes into the area. Won’t that trip the lights?”

  Virgil’s features softened as he replied to Gaffer. He liked Gaffer a lot. “This light array is controlled topside by a computer module and the sensors are very sophisticated. I discussed this earlier with Sergeant Ford and we considered exactly that scenario. What we have decided to do is to set the sensors to activate when they pick up at least two masses, we believe the intrusion will be made by at least two and probably more than two divers. To distinguish divers from fish, the sensors can also be set to detect metallic objects. Divers’ tanks, regulators and so forth provide enough mass to set off the alarm. Good question, Gaffer.”

  “Any more questions?” asked Virgil. No one responded, so Virgil began working with the three guards to unpack the rest of the electronic equipment. The rest of the group moved away to begin preparing for a day of diving. Gaffer and Matthew stayed with the men from the Defense Force as their curiosity for high tech spy stuff was overwhelming. Virgil took the two boys on as personal assistants, “Take this over there, hand me that, go get this or that.” And they loved it. Within two hours a plan had been drawn for laying the light grid out under water and not long after that the Defense Force divers had the first three sections in place on the ocean floor. P.J. and Gaffer made three trips to the bottom that day to watch the men work. Even uncertified Matthew made one trip. The Defense Force activity was heating up on the barge and the excitement was palpable.

  Max stopped at Great Guana to drop off Cameron, Matthew and Gaffer before returning to Orchid Bay. Susan and Sissy were standing on the dock waiting for the men to return. When Max greeted her, he could see concern in her face.

  “Hi, Susan. Is everything OK? You look upset.”

  “Have you been listening to the weather channel?” she asked.

  “Not at all,” responded Max. “Is that storm coming?”

  “The storm has intensified. Winds are just below hurricane force and it has taken a turn to the north. There’s a front moving down from Georgia and with luck it will get here in time to blow the storm further east and north. Right now it is headed more or less this way.”

  “How long before it gets here?” asked Max.

  “It’s about seventy two hours away. The windward islands are getting hit right now with high winds and a lot of rain.”

  “OK,” said Max. “I’ll just wait here until Skeeter gets back and we’ll see what we’re going to do.” Instead of turning around to return to Orchid Bay, Max tied up to the dock and turned off the engines. He walked up to the Pincus’ house and took a seat in front of the television which was tuned to the weather channel via satellite. What he saw was a large swirl of red, orange and yellow weather covering a quarter of the area of the Caribbean and a series of arrows overlaying the map and pointing toward the Bahamas Islands. The nearest band of showers lay 400 miles to the southeast. A system moving at twenty miles per hour would be in the lower Bahamas by tomorrow and would hit Abaco by the next day. The brunt of the storm, if it were to stay on course with Abaco as its target, would arrive within three days. Max did the math in his head. If he were to try to outrun the storm, to be safe he would have to leave either today or tomorrow. The following day would be too late.

  Then he had to consider the other odds. The storm was not yet a hurricane and even if it did turn into one, it would probably still be at minimal strength in two days. Compounding the variables was that front coming down from Georgia. It was reasonable to hope that it would chase the storm out to sea. If the storm became a hurricane and the eye passed 100 miles or more to the east, then they would be able to secure the boats safely and anticipate minimal damage to the islands. Storms of this type had to be taken seriously. The Bahamas Islands were low and rising water with high winds could mean much property and boat damage and possible injuries and loss of life. Max felt trapped. He did not like the idea of packing up everything and making a run for it to home ahead of the storm. The ride home was twelve hours by boat and a miscalculation could result in increased opportunities for danger for his family. He imagined himself and his boys stranded in the middle of the Gulf Stream in a hurricane. Many people have died from just that scenario. The idea was unthinkable. He would much rather take his chances here. It would be safer and it would also give him an opportunity to help the people on the island prepare.

  “I need to borrow your phone,” he said to Susan. Without waiting for a reply he dialed his home number. Lisa answered right away. After their initial greeting Max got to the point of why he was calling. “Honey, did you see the storm on the weather report?”

  “I saw it earlier and thought about you right away,” said Lisa. “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m not so sure we’re going to get hit that hard here. There’s a very good chance that the front moving south will carry the storm off. In any event, it will be a minimal hurricane at worst. It’s almost too late to head back in front of it. I think I’ll stay here and help the islanders with the preparations. I’ll make sure that everyone is in a safe place during the worst of it and that the boat is well secured. I just don’t want you to worry.”

 
; “Of course I’ll worry,” said Lisa. “You can’t be in a giant storm like that without me worrying.”

  “I know,” said Max. “I just want you to know that the boys will be safely with me and that I’ll be in touch as soon as possible. The phones will probably go out so don’t get all excited. As soon as it’s over and the seas calm down we’ll be headed home.”

  “What if the storm starts heading here. Will you come home then?”

  “If I see that happen, I’ll fly home right away and put up the shutters. Form the looks of things, I think you’re too far west and south to be bothered by it. It doesn’t even look like the mainland will get any rain. I’m telling you, don’t worry. It’s tending to the east and north.”

  “Call me tomorrow, will you?”

  “Of course I will. Now don’t worry.” They said their goodbyes and hung up. Max went out the front door and saw that Conchy Lady was just pulling up to the dock. He hurried down the path to give the news of the storm to Skeeter and Virgil.

  Eighteen

  Nipper Blood

  Hammerhead Riley held the receiver away from his ear as Grant Web screamed a tirade of expletives and threats. For all of his showy display of expensive clothing and jewelry, the truth was that his money reserves were approaching zero, his credit cards were maxed out, the mortgage payment had not yet been sent and his five year old automobile was badly in need of an overhaul. He spent his last cash to charter the Magnum and now Hammerhead was presenting him with the news that he had found the perfect new boat to charter, a thirty-four foot Ocean Master with twin Yamaha 300’s. Twelve hundred a day plus fuel, five days rent in advance. He was going to have to hock his Rolex, his diamond and gold bracelet and his star sapphire pinky ring to keep the scam alive for another week. The charter company was going to blow its stack when it saw the bullet holes in its $200,000 Magnum, and now the storm brewing off Jamaica was threatening to set him back another week. He left a few choice words for Hammerhead, told him to go ahead and arrange for the Ocean Master and the necessary scuba gear and then hung up in his ear.