Blue Descent

by David Wood

  “Oh.” Echard frowned. “I thought it was mine. I’ve got one just like it. Sorry,” he added belatedly.

  “It’s all right,” Maddock said, though he did not in fact think things were all right. He thought Rae and Alexei were right about this fellow. He was sketchy.

  Echard made an apologetic wave, then turned and continued to walk away from the beach.

  “Don’t you need to go find your bag?” Maddock asked.

  Echard stumbled, then glanced back over his shoulder, still walking. “No, I just remembered I left it at home.” With that he turned and hurried away.

  “Right,” Bones said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “And the Pope doesn’t crap in the woods.”

  Rae looked at Maddock and frowned.

  “Don’t try and make sense of Bones. Just give him some attention. That’s all he really wants.”

  “What I really want,” Bones said, “is the attention of that Japanese chick over there. Call me when the contest starts.”

  Rae shook her head as he walked away. “I’m sure he’s going to make it far calling women ‘chicks’ and the like.”

  “He says things for the shock value. He insists his favorite football team is the Redskins. He’s been known to wear a Redskins t-shirt when he goes home to the reservation, just to piss people off.” Bones had grown up on the Cherokee reservation in North Carolina, where the rest of his family still lived.

  “He is one of a kind,” Rae said.

  “That’s true,” Maddock agreed. “And thank God for that. I love the guy, but I wouldn’t want two of him.”

  “And that,” Rae said, “is exactly how I feel about my brother.” She gave him a quick, impulsive kiss on the cheek. “Come on,” she said, “I want to see you dive.”

  4

  By the time the dive contest began, Maddock still was not quite sure about it. He’d done plenty of diving in his time, but with proper equipment. On the rare occasion he had attempted a deep free dive, it had always been for a good reason — usually a life or death situation. But to attempt what they were about to try solely for sport seemed absurd.

  “I can tell what you’re thinking,” Bones said. “Just trust me for once.”

  “Why do you always say that? We’ve been putting our lives in one another’s hands for years, but you act like I never listen to you.”

  “You’re right. And you’re still alive, aren’t you? So shut up and do the dive. If it’s too tough for you, you can go down a few feet and wuss out. I won’t stop you.” Bones flashed a grin and glanced back toward the shore where Rae and Kyle stood. “Of course, your girlfriend will be disappointed in you if you don’t give it your best effort.”

  “Come on, Bones you know it hasn’t been that long since Melissa...” He couldn’t bring himself to say it.

  “Look, Maddock, I get it. I loved her, too. I was there the moment you two met. It sucks that she’s gone, but it’s been more than long enough.” When Maddock opened his mouth to object, Bones spoke over him. “Almost two years,” he said slowly.

  Maddock frowned. Had it really been that long? “How did the time go by so fast? What have I been doing?”

  “Working your ass off. Having no fun.”

  Maddock nodded. “Oh, what the hell? Okay, let’s do this.”

  They swam out to the platform where they received their final instructions.

  The divers would descend straight down, holding on to a rope. The diver would descend as deep as he or she was able. Upon returning to the surface, the diver was required to remove all facial equipment, give a visual “okay” sign and a verbal okay in order for the dive to be complete. Scuba divers would be all around, keeping an eye on the contestants, ready to provide aid if needed.

  Maddock glanced over at Bones, who was keeping pace with him. The pair were a good five meters deeper than the other amateur divers. It looked like one of the two former SEALs would be the winner. Maddock’s heart raced. He was actually excited. Sure, it was a stupid contest, but no more foolish than his and Bones’ constant attempts to beat each other at rock climbing. It was a passion the two shared, and they seldom missed an opportunity to race to the top. Well, they’d see if Bones could beat him this time.

  He continued his slow steady descent. He was beginning to run out of air. His chest constricted, his heart thudded, his throat was tight. He stole another glance at Bones and could tell that his friend was experiencing similar symptoms.

  This is going to be tough. He’s too stubborn to quit. Then again, so am I.

  And that was when Maddock saw her. Saw something, anyway. It looked like a human shape, coming closer. Higher and higher it floated. He saw dark eyes, a gaping mouth, a halo of hair spread out around its head. And then darkness.

  Maddock’s eyes snapped open. Through the stinging, cold saltwater, he saw a diver swimming toward him. He felt strong arms around his chest. Bones had a hold of him. He tapped Bones arm twice to let him know he was okay and felt his friend release him. The diver, one of the competition’s volunteers, removed his regulator and handed it to Maddock. They buddy breathed their way back to the surface, where Maddock swam to the platform.

  “Second place as usual,” Bones said. “Too bad, Maddock.”

  “Your buddy beat you by less than a meter,” Val said. “You guys got some serious depth. I just wish you’d come back up before you blacked out. That was close.”

  Maddock nodded. He’d rather them believe he blacked out than tell them what he thought he had seen. Bones, however, wasn’t fooled. He frowned and Maddock gave a small shake of his head.

  “Sorry about that,” Maddock said. “My mistake.”

  Val patted him on the shoulder. “It’s fine. Just glad you’re okay.”

  Bones leaned over and whispered, “What’s going on?”

  “I’ll tell you later.” Maddock turned to see Rae standing on the beach, looking in his direction and clapping. She had no idea what had happened. “Actually, I’ll make a deal with you. You babysit Kyle while Rae and I go to the lab, and I’ll tell you what I saw.”

  “So you saw something down there? Tell me it wasn’t the girl Kyle saw.”

  “No comment. You going to babysit for us or not?”

  Bones stared at him his eyes narrowed speculatively. The two had been best friends for so long that sometimes they could read one another’s thoughts, but the thoughts Bones seemed to be reading had nothing to do with the mysterious figure under the water. There was a sudden twinkle in his eye.

  “That’s what I’m talking about!” Bones slapped Maddock on the shoulder. “Take her out for a drink. If all goes well, the egg can wait until morning. I’m sure there are plenty of empty hotel rooms on Nassau.”

  That was way too much for Maddock to think about right now, but he played along.

  “We’ll see how it goes.” The truth was, he thought he would enjoy spending some time with Rae. He was also eager to see what, if anything, was hidden inside the egg. But try as he might, he couldn’t get the thought of that spectral figure out of his mind.

  5

  Brigadier’s Restaurant was a seafood bar located on the northwest coast of Andros just off the Queen’s Highway, just a few miles from Blue Holes National Park. The indoor dining area was situated at the end of a pier, offering picturesque views of the sea.

  Bones chose an outdoor table and ordered a round of mojitos while he and Kyle waited for the remainder of their party to arrive. It wasn’t his usual drink but at the end of a hot day, he couldn’t deny the minty concoction of white rum and citrus was refreshing. The gentle rush of the waves and the whisper of the breeze rustling the palm trees made for a pleasant atmosphere. He could almost allow himself to relax. But there was Kyle to consider.

  “How deep do you think the water is down there?” Kyle asked, peering over the rail.

  “Six feet maybe? Why?”

  “When I have a few too many, I’ve been known to dive. Mostly from hotel balconies.”

  Bones
shook his head. “Babysitting a grown man,” he grumbled.

  “What was that?” a voice asked. He turned to see Val, followed by Alexei and an attractive woman of Japanese descent, whom Val introduced as Koharu Shimizu, another freediver.

  “What disciplines are you competing in?” Bones asked Shimizu, trying to start a conversation with the attractive young woman.

  “I’ve competed in all three,” she said. “But I’m just here for fun. I’m expecting, you see.”

  “Oh, congrats.”

  “Thank you. I’m trying to choose the perfect blue hole for giving birth.”

  “What was that?”

  “I’m going to give birth in a blue hole,” she said. “Babies are aquatic creatures. I can’t think of anything more fitting than giving birth underwater. My boyfriend is a diver, too.”

  “You do realize babies can’t breathe underwater after they’re born,” Bones said.

  “I know. I’m still working that part out,” she said.

  “Buddy breathing?” Kyle asked. “You know, with a SCUBA tank?”

  The pair launched into a discussion of alternative childbirth methods.

  “Those two are a pair,” Val said. She bought a round for the table, which raised her several notches in Bones’ book. Now that she was no longer stuck running the registration table at Blue Descent, Bones found that he enjoyed her company. She was bright and seemed to love the ocean as much as he did.

  “You seem a little antsy,” Val finally said. “Do you need a dose of Ritalin?”

  “Oh, don’t pay any attention to me. It’s just that my friend ditched me so he could hang out with a girl while I’m stuck babysitting her brother.”

  Val pursed her lips and frowned. “If you’re his age and you still need babysitting, you need to examine your life.”

  “You should meet some of my students,” Alexei said. “Old enough to fight and die for their country but ask them for a five-page paper and they act like they’re living through the siege of Leningrad.”

  “Cheers,” Bones said, chuckling. They clinked bottles and drank deeply.

  “So, what brings you to the islands? Not an amateur dive competition, I’ll wager,” Val said.

  Bones explained that he and Maddock were marine archaeologists, and that they were searching for the wreck of legendary pirate Riddick Blackwood’s ship, Maelstrom.

  “So you are a treasure hunter.”

  “Is that a bad thing?”

  Val considered for a moment, then shook her head, the seashells in her braids clicking. “Not necessarily.”

  “That’s good, then. I don’t want to get on the bad side of the only woman at the table with a fully-functioning brain.” He glanced at Kyle and Shimizu who were discussing the relative merits of various crystals.

  “Did you know you can grind up rose quartz and drink it with water as a treatment for kidney stones?” Kyle asked.

  “I think that’s more likely to cause kidney stones,” Alexei said.

  “Not if you do it right,” Kyle said seriously.

  “Are you going to drink that?” Alexei pointed to the crystal around Kyle’s neck.

  “I don’t know. Echard wasn’t sure what its powers are. I need to wait and see what, exactly I’ve got here.”

  Bones rolled his eyes, then took another drink. “I don’t suppose any of you know any good pirate legends, do you?”

  Val frowned, considered. “Legends? Not sure about that. But I can tell you a little history.”

  Bones resisted the urge to let out a groan. Maddock was the history nerd. But, he liked Val and didn’t want to give offense so he flashed a smile and nodded.

  “Nassau, or New Providence as it was known then, was once the home of the Republic of Pirates,” Val began.

  Bones perked up. The Republic of Pirates? This might be one history lesson that was actually worth paying attention to. “Never heard of it.”

  “It was a sort of confederacy among pirates and self-described privateers in the region. It lasted about ten years until just after the turn of the eighteenth century. It wasn’t an official republic, not in the technical sense, but they did work together under a unified code of conduct.”

  “Are you freaking kidding me? Even pirates have to behave? It’s not grade school.”

  Val grinned and shook her head. “No, it wasn’t like that. It was a set of guidelines on how they went about their business. Not just the way they interacted with one another, but how crew members should be treated, how plunder was shared, and how a captain could be deposed.”

  “That’s... unexpected,” Bones said. “I thought things would be a little more cutthroat than that. No pun intended.”

  “Sometimes it was. The interesting thing about the Code of Conduct is that it was a way for pirates to guarantee better working conditions onboard their ships than did most merchant and naval vessels. In a pirate crew, an African or an Irishman was equal to an Englishman or any other. Several mulattos even became captains during that time.”

  Bones nodded. He was not surprised that pirates would treat their crews better than the Navy treated its sailors. He’d been there, done that.

  “It’s really a fascinating time period,” Val said. “Lots of colorful figures. The two most famous, and the two who dominated the Republic, were pirate captains named Henry Jennings and Benjamin Hornigold.”

  Bones nearly spewed his drink all over the table. He took a moment to clear his throat. “Hornigold?” he rasped. “Seriously? I mean, I get excited at the thought of treasure but come on.”

  Val’s small, pitying smile was almost enough to embarrass him. Almost.

  “How old are you?” Val asked. “I nearly didn’t say his name because I expected a reaction of that sort.”

  “And yet you brought him up anyway. On some level you find me amusing.”

  “Keep telling yourself that. I mentioned him because so few people know about him, yet he was a significant figure in history.”

  “I do not understand this joke,” Alexei said.

  “Horny is an American idiom for sexual arousal,” Val said.

  “Oh, a pun,” Alexei said. “I understand. A joke, but a small one, I think.”

  “That’s the only thing small about me.”

  “Lots of guys say that, but none of them live up to the advance billing.”

  Bones laughed, then returned to the subject at hand. “Tell me about Hornigold.”

  “Well, he was a mentor to Edward Teach.”

  “Blackbeard,” Bones said.

  “Yes. Thanks for interrupting. Also Sam Bellamy and Stede Bonnet. And Jennings was a mentor to Charles Vane, Calico Jack Rackham, and the so-called ‘pirate queens’ Ann Bonny, and Mary Read.”

  “Pirate chicks,” Bones said approvingly. “Feminist buccaneers.”

  “Do you ever stop with the lame comments?” Val said, signaling the server for another drink.

  “Think of me as Mystery Science Theater. Most of my jokes are weak, but when one lands, it’s a thing of beauty.”

  “Right now, I think of you as a bit of a misogynist.”

  “No, just a smartass. I’ll shut up now.”

  Val raised her eyebrows. Though she was a foot shorter than Bones, she managed to appear as if she were looking down upon him. “I doubt that. Anyway, even though they were rivals, the two pirates formed the so-called ‘Flying Gang’ and quickly became famous for their exploits. At one point, there were over a thousand pirates living in Nassau, and only a few hundred inhabitants. Eventually they became powerful enough that they dared to challenge the Royal Navy on occasion.”

  “I’ll bet that didn’t go over well across the pond.”

  “Definitely not. King George the First appointed a governor of the Bahamas, a man named Woodes Rogers, to bring an end to piracy in the islands. He came to the Bahamas with a fleet of ships and an offer of pardon to any pirate who turned themselves in and vowed never to return to piracy. Hornigold took the deal.” She paused, bu
t Bones didn’t offer any more one-liners. “Although some pirates, like Charles Vane and Blackbeard, escaped capture, Hornigold managed to take ten of his former comrades prisoner.”

  “Hold on. He didn’t just take the deal, but he flipped to the other side?”

  “No honor among thieves, or pirates. Anyway that ended the pirates’ dominance in the Bahamas but not in the rest of the Caribbean. As the remaining pirates fled, they spread out across the region. That began what is known as the Golden Age of Piracy.”

  “That’s actually a really cool story. I don’t suppose you know anything about Riddick Blackwood, do you?”

  Val frowned for a moment. “No, sorry.”

  Bones shrugged and took another drink. It had been a shot in the dark. Of course he couldn’t possibly get that lucky.

  “Excuse me,” a delicate voice said from behind him. “But I heard what you said, and I happen to know a lot about Riddick Blackwood.”

  He turned and could not help but suck in his breath sharply at the sight before him. It was a woman, and a drop dead gorgeous woman at that. She had long red hair, so impossibly red it couldn’t possibly be natural. Her creamy skin was out of place among the dark-skinned locals and sunburned tourists. She had big green eyes that sparkled like emeralds, and a few other assets he was trying very hard not to stare it, but her form-fitting tank top and shorts made that a challenge.

  “I’m sorry, what did you say?” He blinked twice. There was something about her that made him feel dazed.

  “I said, I know a lot about Riddick Blackwood.” Her voice was almost musical. “And if you’d like to buy a girl a drink, I’ll tell you all about it.”

  Bones was about to accept the offer, but then he remembered that he was supposed to be keeping an eye on Kyle.

  Val read his expression immediately. “You go ahead. I’ll keep an eye on him.” She gestured with her chin in the direction of Kyle, who was extolling the virtues of homeopathy to Koharu, who was listening intently. The pair glanced in their direction and Kyle frowned at Thel, blinked, then turned away.

  “Are you sure?” Bones asked. “He literally might jump over the rail at any second if he thinks there’s something interesting down there. He’s already considered it.”