Cam sank to his haunches over his sister’s body and stared up at the skies. “I always said I wanted to live a day less than you and you always laughed. You knew it was my way of saying I hoped you’d live forever. I never wanted to live a day without you, Ruby, and now I have to live a lifetime. I’m sorry.”
Cam bent his head one more time, then rose upright. He suddenly seemed to notice all the people standing around.
“Who are you people?”
CHAPTER TWENTY NINE
They couldn’t stand around for long. One misstep here could bring the entire camp down on top of them. That thought, occurring to Alicia now, was somewhat alarming considering what she’d just done.
I’d do it again in a heartbeat.
Without speaking, everyone in the team headed toward the long slope that ran down from the line of trucks to the beach and the ship graveyard. Alicia didn’t know Cam one bit but did think she had a small insight into his personality.
“You want to fight them all,” she said, nodding in the direction of the criminal camp. “I know. I get that. You feel it deep in your bones now that Ruby’s gone. But save it, Cam. Save it here.” She tapped her chest with a fist. “Save it to fight another day.”
Cam could barely move. His sister lay dead behind him along with four mercenaries. Alicia could see the struggle in his eyes. Seconds passed.
“Better a new devil than an old one, eh?” she asked with a glimmer in her eye.
Cam responded to that, blinking and wiping his eyes. “You heard everything they said? Why would you help me?”
“Honestly, I don’t know. But I’d come with me if I were you.”
She offered a slight smile and turned to the slope. Everyone else was already halfway down. She started toward it and glanced back. Cam was following. She descended with care. The ground was loose, comprised of earth and sand, giving way with every step.
The wind was fully in her face, tugging at her hair, and threw a mix of sea, salt and corrosion at her. The corrosion was a concentrated, complex stench. Almost coppery, like blood. It reminded her of an old car she’d once found behind her parents’ house, decades dead and long forgotten, overgrown with weeds, its chassis and frame rusting away. She’d only sat inside it once. The reek was too profound, and she escaped quickly, frightened it would seep into her body through her pores.
The graveyard began at the bottom of the slope. A ship’s angular stern jutted above them as they came to level ground, brown and dripping with water thrown up by the ocean winds. To its right another, smaller boat lay on its side, mast ground into the beach. To its left only half a boat rested, the stern either washed away or lost at sea. Alicia saw an empty, desolate place, a sinister dwelling of ghosts as haunted as any human graveyard. Winds whistled through ragged holes. Timbers and rivets creaked as they slowly settled or cracked. The surf made an eerie, whispery sound as it crept along the beach, between vessels. Each broken hull towered over them, monsters ready to crush them as they passed by.
Crouch turned to Marco as Alicia reached the bottom of the slops and pulled up. “Where to?”
Marco pointed to the right. “Roughly 200 yards.”
“Does this matter?” Russo said.
Crouch spun. “What?”
“It’s not like we can take the treasure with us. What is this—a confirmation mission? We might as well just call Akhon now.”
“Of course it’s a confirmation mission,” Crouch said. “Unless you wanna trust the word of these three assholes and risk Duggan’s life.”
Alicia leaned forward. “They are assholes,” she affirmed.
“And I thought we’d bonded.” Elyse pouted at her.
“In your dreams, bitch.”
Cam tapped Alicia on the shoulder. “What’s going on? You people are enemies?”
Alicia was at a momentary loss to explain. “Bear with me for a few minutes,” she said. “It’s a long bloody story.”
“They are clearly telling the truth.” Russo shrugged. “Just saying.”
Alicia understood his point. She also knew why Crouch was pushing it. He wanted no slight obstacle, no miniscule error, getting in the way of Duggan’s safe return. He gestured at Marco now.
“Lead the way.”
But Marco didn’t move. Instead, he began to laugh. Alicia grew wary, backing away from Elyse and drawing her gun.
“He’s lost his mind,” Russo said. “I’ve seen it happen to veterans before.”
“No, no.” Marco held up a hand. “Stand down, soldiers. There’s no malice here. You see, we didn’t just pull a fast one on Akhon by hiding the treasure among these ships. We concealed our own boat in their midst, cosmetically altering the exterior. It wouldn’t stand up to a close inspection, but nobody ever comes here.”
“Let me get this straight,” Crouch said. “You have a boat, laden with treasure, ready to sail, just a few hundred yards up this beach?”
Marco nodded. “Yes. I spent some hours watching the criminal encampment through your field glasses earlier and they have no interest in the graveyard. They’re here for the beneficial routes, the position, in and out of here. We can escape with the treasure without incident.”
Alicia felt a wary mix of elation and suspicion. Every breath she took told her that Marco was up to something. He was a wily enemy and she’d lost the fourth member of his crew—Chase. Did these people care one bit about getting Duggan back safely?
Or were they here for the money?
“Remember,” she said. “We’re the only people offering to get Akhon and the Assyrians off your backs for good.”
Marco nodded. Elyse chewed her lip. Ralston looked away. Alicia felt another tap on her shoulder.
Again, it was Cam. “Treasure?” he asked. “Assyrians? I don’t understand.”
Alicia sighed. “Join the fucking club, mate.”
She found herself staring into his intense blue eyes and caved. She gave him an abridged version of their mission. As she did so, Marco led the way across the beach. They slogged through deep, wet sand, occasionally leaning against the rusting hulks to keep their balance. When they fell, the sand clung to their trousers.
The heavy heat from above helped, drying everything out from the ships to their clothes. Russo and Crouch kept an eye to the slopes, checking that their progress remained unseen, but no criminals seemed to venture anywhere near the graveyard. Maybe it was taboo, off limits. Maybe it was seen as a creepy place and avoided. The patrols they’d seen earlier were at least 100 yards inland, well away from the beach.
Marco slowed. “Gotta say,” he muttered. “It looks entirely different in the light. We had no landmarks either. The real problem is, at this point the ships are three or four deep.”
Alicia looked over the uneven mass. No two vessels were the same and many leaned against others. It was a ruined puzzle that could never be fixed. Crouch allowed Marco some time to think.
“All right,” he said at last. “Over here.”
Crouch sent a warning glance at Russo and Alicia before following. Alicia understood. This could be an ambush. Old skills came into clear focus as she cleared her mind to evaluate the area. She drew her Glock, ready for anything. Cam, at her back, said nothing. He hadn’t spoken since she explained what she could about what they were doing. Marco trudged on for another three minutes.
“You see the black tanker,” he said after a while. “Still hanging onto its paint? I remember that now. We’re almost there.”
Despite her apprehension, Alicia felt a small flicker of excitement in her heart. Discovering treasure or ancient relics never got boring and always lit a fire inside her. They turned toward the ocean for the first time and threaded their way down the side of two rusting carcasses toward the incoming tide.
Once they walked past the ship’s bows, a small space opened out about the size of a tennis court. To the right, Alicia now saw a mahogany colored boat. It had been stained darker with mud and silt. Blending in well with the other boats she saw that it was
indeed intact.
“It will lift at high tide, and sail once we engage the engine,” Marco said. “I don’t know when, but I imagine high tide is approaching.”
Studying the afternoon skies, Alicia agreed. “Let’s get on with it.”
They used each other’s shoulders and ropes they’d brought to ascend from the beach to the deck of Marco’s boat. Feeling exposed up here, they crouched around the starboard deck. Marco and his crew showed no signs of treachery, but Alicia knew that for now their goals were aligned. They all wanted the same thing.
To get this boat safely off the beach.
Marco led the way into the boat’s cabin and down a narrow set of stairs. The boat smelled musty, full of old, dead things. Alicia turned her nose up. It was cold inside here too, a cold that might creep into your bones if you lingered too long. They trooped down in a long line: Marco first, Russo bringing up the rear.
“Are we there yet?” Alicia asked, only half joking.
“Let me show you,” Marco said, and for once his voice trembled with emotion.
In the lowest part of the boat, where the air reeked and the timbers creaked, in that dark, dank place, Alicia and her Gold Team saw a select part of the great treasure that was lost when the Manila galleon, the Santa Azalea, succumbed to a killer hurricane and sank beneath the fury of the waves over 250 years ago.
Marco dragged four crates from the shadows. Inside were salvage bags used for underwater lifting, and dive bags for carrying.
Over the course of the next ten minutes he revealed the Santa Azalea treasure. Even down here, in the torchlight, it sparkled. It glinted and shone and became burnished as artificial light glanced off the sides of the boat and reflected off it. She saw lozenge-shaped diamonds that glittered. Pure blocks of jade that glistened. Ivory statuettes that simmered with exquisite purity. She saw vases that Marco handled with infinite care, naming them from the Ming dynasty. And she saw gold, countless ingots, as many as Marco and his crew could carry with the help of inflatables. As the treasure passed before her eyes, its beauty clear, its lure endless, her heart was drawn to the history, luster and splendor of it. She heard Cam’s sharp intake of breath and turned to him.
“Amazing what’s just lying around, begging to be taken, isn’t it?”
Cam nodded, speechless.
Alicia drank in the sight a few moments more. Her eyes reflected the gold patina like a burning fire, as the effect from its rich sheen smoldered inside her. In the end, she thought, everything ended up being about gold.
Marco covered the diamonds, quenching their piercing, sparkling beams with a cloth. Quickly, he then packed away the rest of it.
“This was all on the manifest, which the Spanish keep on record,” Marco said. “Easy. The items we didn’t find are the real treasure.”
“Don’t beat yourself up about it,” Crouch said. “There are millions of dollars here.”
“But it’s not the highpoint.” Marco’s eyes gleamed. “I know you know what I mean. This is significant, but the real treasure’s still out there.”
Alicia found herself nodding along with him, as did the others. It was Crouch that broke the spell by purposely turning off his flashlight.
“Right,” he said. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
As Marco, Elyse and Ralston got the boat ready to move off, Alicia conferred with Crouch and the rest of her team.
“It’s always been his plan to head out to sea,” Alicia said. “There has to be a reason.”
Crouch agreed with a nod. “He kept the fact that this boat is seaworthy very quiet, ergo he always wanted to sail out of here. I think Alicia’s right.”
Russo sent her a sly look. “There’s a first.”
“You think it has something to do with this Chase guy that escaped?” Caitlyn asked. “Their weapons expert?”
“Unless he’s drifting around the ocean waiting for an event that may never happen,” Crouch said. “I doubt it. They have no comms, no phones and have been under surveillance the entire time. No way they got a message out to Chase.”
“Are they using us to spirit the gold away?” Alicia mused aloud. She was about to say more when Cam tapped her on the shoulder.
“Can I talk to you?”
“Yes.”
She walked over to a corner, away from the others. Cam went with her, head down.
“What is it?” Alicia asked.
“Does it ever get any better?”
Alicia didn’t have to wonder what he meant. There was only one event filling Cam’s mind at that moment, an event that would never diminish no matter how long he lived.
“You’re asking me?”
“I sense you’ve lost people. I’m no fortune teller like my aunt but I can empathize when I need to. I see your hurt.”
“Well then,” Alicia said, more gruffly than she’d wanted to. “Let me be blunt, because it looks like you can handle it and I don’t have time to babysit. It never goes away. Time doesn’t heal. You have to learn to cope. To survive. To fight life with everything you have until it’s your time to die.”
Cam looked shocked. “I wasn’t expecting that.”
“It helps if you have someone by your side,” Alicia went on. “I didn’t accept that for the longest time. But now, recently, I’ve been turned into a believer.”
“Ruby was my second skin. My companion for my entire life. I had someone and now she’s gone.”
Alicia saw how different their circumstances were. “I can only give you my experience. Stick with me through this if you can. Then, we’ll talk properly.”
Cam nodded. “Where else would I go?”
His words raised more than one question. Alicia assumed he had a family. Maybe some friends. She’d assumed he might want to return to them and at least tell them the news that Ruby was gone.
A shudder went through the boat. Alicia heard the burbling sound of engines running and then Crouch shout over to Marco.
“That’s too loud.”
“Don’t worry. Just checking they’re in working order. I’ll switch them back off whilst we wait for high tide.”
Marco was good to his word a few seconds later. All seemed to be prepared. She could only stare out of the cabin’s grimy windows, a stunning seascape to one side, a derelict graveyard to all the others. The sun had dimmed, the seas were darkening. The tension in the cabin was almost thick enough to slice. Alicia eyed Elyse who stared calmly back. Was there a connection between them? Something to do with mutual admiration? Alicia had thought so but now that Marco was back, the dynamic had shifted. Marco himself didn’t appear to be a bad sort and the crimes they engaged in—underwater pilfering—didn’t cause any direct harm to civilians.
But now that they’ve been caught, I wonder what side of their nature will emerge?
She was close to Crouch and felt him flinch ever so slightly as his cellphone rang. She held her breath as he fished it out.
“Crouch here.”
Alicia was close enough to hear the voice on the other end of the line.
“Your time is up.” It was Akhon.
“Calm down.”
“Do you have my gold?”
“We have the crew that stole it from the Santa Azalea. We have them right here.”
Crouch ignored Marco’s glare. Alicia held her hand up to avoid any confrontation. The tension heightened, but Alicia knew Crouch would protect Marco and his crew just as much as he would protect her.
Of course, Marco didn’t know that. Not really.
Alicia listened to Akhon.
“Do they have the gold?”
“Yes,” Crouch said, “they do.”
Akhon’s voice rose several octaves. “Then we can do business. Your friend is desperate to see you.”
“If you’ve hurt him...” Crouch growled.
“Hurt him? Hurt? Oh, shit, were we supposed to keep him in one piece?”
Akhon laughed loud and long at a pitch that made
Alicia grate her teeth together. Crouch held the phone away from his ear.
“He’s alive,” Akhon said. “You want any more than that... fuck you.”
Crouch closed his eyes but spoke evenly into the phone. “We have everything you need. We’re gonna meet.”
“Name the time and the place. I’m ready.”
“Ninety minutes.” Crouch rattled off a coordinate that Caitlyn had plotted from a sea chart. It was forty minutes from the beach.
Akhon came back after a slight pause. “I can do that. So we’re meeting at sea?”
“We’re meeting at sea. Don’t be late.”
Crouch jabbed at his phone, ending the call, and squeezed the bridge of his nose with a finger and thumb. Alicia glanced over at their captives, but Marco was staring out to sea. Elyse watched them with compassion in her eyes. Ralston stared into the middle-distance, the IT guy probably wishing he was at home playing Minecraft.
“Ninety minutes,” Alicia said. “To end all this.”
Marco turned from the window and gave her a speculative glance. “For us too?”
Crouch took a deep breath. “I give you my word, as an ex-SAS captain, that I will rid this world of Akhon and do everything in my power to set you free from the Assyrians.”
Marco nodded. Alicia saw him slip his hands into his pocket. It was getting surprisingly cold in the cabin.
“Shall we get underway?” Marco said.
*
Whilst Crouch had been on the phone, Marco had been studying the horizon, thinking hard and plotting his next move. He heard Crouch give Akhon coordinates, and memorized them. From his pocket he slipped a device that he’d stolen from one of the dead mercs back at the beach. It had been an emotionally charged battle. Elyse had even been in the thick of it, helping. Nobody noticed when Marco reached down and took something from one of the still-twitching merc’s pockets.
A cellphone.
Looking ahead with the phone low in his hands he sent a text message to Chase. It began: Meet us at sea, and then gave coordinates and how many enemies Marco would be bringing to the party. It warned of Akhon. Chase should be ready.
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