She swam around a bit, then took several deep breaths and dove down once for practice. Riley knew she was always better at breath-holding and free diving after she’d been in the water for a while. She swam over to the entrance to the tunnel and peered down. It did get tight in there. She surfaced after staying under for just over a minute. She treaded water for a while to get her heart rate back down to normal. She’d left her headlamp on the dock next to him. Maybe it was the light, but he really looked terrible.
“You’re right,” he said.
She put one hand behind her ear and grinned at him. “What’s that you said?”
“In this condition, I couldn’t stay down that long. Deep breathing’s not my strong point right now.”
“And I’m just getting warmed up. Are we ready?”
He stared at her for the longest time and didn’t say anything. Finally he said, “Yup. I’m ready.”
She nodded and speeded up her hyperventilating to super-oxygenate her system. She put her finger in the air and announced, “I shall return!” Then she took a deep breath and dove.
The little fins weren’t super powerful, but she felt good cruising through the underwater tunnel. She could see the narrow space ahead, but she hoped it was just a curve and not too tight a space. When she got there, her shoulders brushed against both sides, but she could tell the space was taller than it was wide. She turned on her side and scraped though. Her lungs were starting to burn when she could see the end of the tunnel about twenty feet ahead. That was when the rope around her waist went tight and pulled her to a stop. The rope wasn’t long enough. It was so tight in there, she couldn’t see the bowline knot at her waist. There was no way she was going back now. She pulled at the knot and felt herself growing weak. One of the strands of rope loosened a bit. She got her finger into the gap and it loosened a little more. She pulled the loop and the line came free. She gave the rope three strong tugs, then swam for the light as the blackness closed in, and she fought to hold on to consciousness and not open her mouth.
When Riley broke through the surface and inhaled a lungful of air, she immediately flopped over onto her back and floated. She gasped air in and out in raspy breaths. She opened her eyes and saw a spot of blue sky showing through the clouds. That had been close, much too close.
When her breathing returned to normal, Riley pulled the bag out of her pants. The phone looked dry inside and the vacuum seal was still intact. She opened the bag and pushed the button to turn the phone on. Not only did it work, but she had service. She pushed the button to pull up her favorites and dialed the number Cole had given her for his sat phone.
“Hello?”
“Greg? It’s Riley.”
“Riley! Are you okay? Is Cole with you?”
“I’m okay, but I’m going to need your help. I just swam out of the cave and left Cole inside.”
“We must not be far. When the weather calmed down, Theo decided to up anchor and move the boat off the coast closer to where you are. Give me your position.”
“Hang on.” Riley pushed buttons on the screen of her phone and read off the longitude and latitude.
“Got it. We’re anchored in the bay off Sulvec, just over a mile away. We’ll be there in a few minutes.”
“Good, because I’m treading water, and I’m going to need two pony tanks with regulators to swim Cole out of there.”
“No problem. I’ll get the gear and meet you in the Boston Whaler.”
Thirty minutes later Riley surfaced inside the cave and swam over to the dock. She handed Cole one of the pony scuba tanks. The little bottles were only fifteen inches long and could be held in the palm of one hand, so she’d been able to coax them in front of her body through the tunnel’s pinch point.
“See, I told you I’d come back for you.”
Cole grinned. “Hey, Magee. I never doubted you for a second.”
“Right.”
Manila Yacht Club
The Philippines
December 31, 2012
“May I come aboard?”
Riley was sitting in the cockpit of her boat, wearing a light and lacy summer dress and drinking a glass of chilled pinot grigio. The ice bucket and bottle were on the cockpit table along with another glass. She felt very self-conscious about the low-cut front and the little half sleeves, so she didn’t get up. She simply called out to him, “Come on aboard.”
When Cole stepped under the dodger, she let loose with a soft wolf whistle. He stood in front of the companionway and modeled the beige linen jacket, khaki pants, and blue checked shirt. “Can I take the jacket off now?” he asked.
“Sure.” She laughed. “Make yourself comfortable.”
But he didn’t take it off right away. He stood in front of her with his mouth gaping open. “Riley, you know nobody is going to notice my sartorial splendor with you at my side in that dress.”
She tugged at the front. “I’m not used to showing this much skin.”
He sat next to her and pulled her close. “Your skin is gorgeous,” he said before he kissed her.
When she came up for air, she ran her finger along his jawline and rested her head comfortably against the slight hollow between the muscles of his chest and his shoulder. “If you keep this up, Thatcher, we’re going to be late for our own party.”
“Magee, with you, I can keep it up all night.”
She sighed with a little half smile on her face. “Promises, promises. By the way, speaking of promises, you were going to tell me about Washington. You’ve been avoiding the issue.”
“For good reason. Are you sure you want to get into this tonight? Why ruin a lovely evening?”
“Now you have to tell me. Did they give you access to Ozzie’s files?”
Cole sucked his lips in over his teeth. It was a habit of his. He did it when he was uncomfortable.
“Just tell me and get it over with. You’re making it worse by hesitating.”
“Okay. After you recounted what he’d said just before he died, and I passed that on to the folks who handled the Surcouf decrypts, I was permitted access to certain files. What your grandfather told you was true. Harold Oswald Riley was stationed at CAST Station Corregidor in the fall of 1941. Andrew Ketcham, whom he knew from Yale, was the one who broke the Japanese naval code. He knew what the Japanese were planning a couple of days in advance of Pearl Harbor. We can assume your grandfather did, too.”
She reached across her body and slipped her hand under her dress onto the skin of her injured shoulder. Her fingers massaged the skin and she felt the familiar sharp flashes of pain.
“We know that Ozzie Riley left Corregidor in January on a Dutch ship. There is a record of that ship meeting a French submarine in the North Atlantic, so it appears that Ozzie was the one who passed the diplomatic pouch to the Surcouf in an attempt to get those message decrypts about the attack on Pearl Harbor back to the Patriarchs.”
“So the secrets my father fought to protect involved the misdeeds of his own father.”
“Right. And given how many Bonesmen have been involved in all branches of the intelligence community, it’s a good bet that in spite of the top-secret designation, your father knew about what your grandfather had done.”
“Since he named all his boats Bonefish, I expect that’s the case.” Riley looked across the harbor and watched a containership steaming out of the harbor. The early evening was clear and she could see the smoky blue outline of the island of Corregidor peeking over the breakwater. “I wonder if Ozzie really did change there at the end of his life, or if he was just using us to get the gold.”
“I don’t suppose you’ll ever know for sure.”
She turned to watch his face when she asked the next question. “Do you think it’s possible to have evil in your blood? Like, does it get passed from one generation to another?”
Cole reached over and picked up her hand. “I think you’ll find the answer to that question in your memories of your brother Michael.”
S
he leaned in and put her head on his shoulder again. “And that’s why I think I’m going to keep you around for a while.”
They sat together in each other’s arms, not speaking for several minutes.
Then Cole slipped away from her and pulled off his jacket. He fanned himself. “I think I’m getting overheated. Maybe we’d better stay home. Forget the party. We could stay here, turn on the AC, put on some nice music. We could make our own little happy new year.” He poured himself a glass of wine and refilled hers.
Riley clinked her glass against his. “That is a tempting suggestion.”
“I think I hear a but coming.”
Riley sat up straight. Resting on the table next to the ice bucket was the embossed invitation to the night’s shindig. She picked it up and read aloud. “‘You are cordially invited to attend a New Year’s Eve Party at the National Museum of the Filipino People and the Grand Opening of the Dragon’s Triangle Exhibit sponsored by the Full Fathom Five Maritime Foundation.’ That’s you, remember?”
“Yeah, I know. I just hate parties.”
From behind her, she heard a female voice call out. “Knock, knock. Permission to come aboard, captain?”
When Riley turned to look at the finger pier next to her boat, she saw Greg and Theo standing arm in arm.
“Permission granted,” Riley said. “You both look fabulous.”
“Thanks,” Greg said as she stepped aboard. She was wearing a bright red silk sheath dress that accentuated her curves. It was the first time Riley had seen her wear her hair down. She was stunning.
Riley noticed Theo had stayed on the dock. “Aren’t you going to join us, Theo?”
“No, I want to get to the museum to check over the preparations. But Greg has something she wants to give to you first.”
Greg sat down on the cockpit seat, her eyes alight with joy. She was holding a white envelope on her lap. “I came right over because I thought you’d want to know and it’s just not the kind of thing to discuss at some big party.”
“What are you talking about?” Riley asked.
“When you first told me the story that Ozzie told you, I figured the old man had lied about everything else, so why should I believe him about that. But it bothered me, and I decided I needed to know for sure. So before we buried him, I asked the pathologist to take a DNA sample. I got the test results back this morning.” She handed Riley the envelope. “He was my grandfather.” She opened her arms and said, “Welcome to the family.”
Riley sat there frozen for a moment, overwhelmed. Then she stood up and grinned. “Thanks, cuz,” she said, and she threw her arms around Greg. She could tell from the young woman’s grip on her that Greg was just as rocked by the moment as she was.
“Okay, Greg,” Theo said gently, at last. “Come on, let’s go. There are going to be dozens of dignitaries at this shindig and I have to make sure everything comes off as planned.” Riley and Greg stepped away from each other, backhanding their tears from their cheeks and laughing sheepishly about the display. Theo rolled on: “Seriously, the vice president of the United States is going to be there. Not to mention the president of the Philippines. A princess from Thailand. A deputy prime minister from Vietnam.”
“Yes, Theo,” Cole said. “We know.”
“Well, obviously you’re not going to help. I’ll bet you’ve been trying to talk Riley into staying home.”
“Right again, Theo,” Riley said.
“Cole, this was all your idea,” Greg pointed out. “You’re the one who said the only way you could prevent the Philippines from hiding all the treasure away in their government coffers was to convince them of the great international relations coup it presented. We’ll make half the countries in Southeast Asia permanently in our debt tonight by returning all the identifiable gold, works of art, books, manuscripts, jewels to the countries from which it was originally taken. It’s a brilliant idea and I’m going to be very proud to be a Filipina tonight.” Greg kissed Riley on the cheek, and then jumped back onto the dock. “Of course, if you really don’t want to go, Theo is going to be there, and you could just let him take all the credit.”
“Okay, already. I know I have to go. Can’t you just let me whine about it a little longer?”
Greg laughed as she and Theo started up the dock. Theo called out over his shoulder, “I guess that’s up to Riley.”
When they were gone Cole turned to Riley with an expectant look.
“What you’ve done here is a good thing, Cole Thatcher,” she said. “I’m proud of you. Let’s go. I have my old friend Pedro waiting with his kalesa out in the parking lot.”
“Not just yet.” Cole lifted his jacket, reached into the pocket, and drew out a long box. “I have a little present for you. It will go great with that dress.” He opened the box and lifted out a gold chain necklace. Hanging from the chain was a golden dragon, and in its mouth was a very large diamond.
“Cole, it’s stunning, but a diamond like this must have cost a fortune.”
“Not necessarily,” he said as he brushed aside her hair and hooked the clasp behind her neck. “Not if you happen to pick up an uncut diamond while sightseeing in the Philippines.”
“But—”
“Shhh. Don’t worry. They know. You don’t think I struck this deal and got nothing out of it, do you? I’m going to need a lot of fuel.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Well, I’ve been reading up on the Knights of Malta. Did you know that the Sovereign Order of Malta has its own constitution, passports, stamps, and public institutions, but it’s not a real country? There are those who believe—”
“So I take it you’re going to the Mediterranean.”
“We’re going to the Med. We can take the Bonhomme Richard and have the Bonefish sent aboard a ship.”
“Why is it you always want to have my boat delivered?”
“Well, there are those Somali pirates between here and the Med.”
“And you don’t think I can handle them?”
I would like to thank the following people: Terry Goodman, David Downing, Anh Schluep, Keith MacKay, Brian Homan, Rob Schwab, Tom Bennett, Cindy Gray, Bruce Amlicke, Kevin Foster, Jan Helge, Sharon Potts, Neil Plakcy, Christine Jackson, Miriam Auerbach, Kristy Montee, Mike Jastrzebski, Wayne Hodgins, and Tim Kling.
Photo copyright by Tim Kling
Christine Kling has spent more than thirty years messing about with boats. It was her sailing experience that led her to write her first four-book suspense series about Florida female tug and salvage captain Seychelle Sullivan. Christine earned an MFA in creative writing from Florida International University and her articles, essays, and short stories have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies. The first novel in the Shipwreck series, Circle of Bones, was released in 2013, and Dragon’s Triangle continues the adventures of Riley and Cole. Having retired from her job as an English professor at Broward College in Fort Lauderdale, Christine sails the waters of the Pacific, the Atlantic, and the Caribbean with her pup Barney, the Yorkshire Terror, and she goes wherever the wind and good Wi-Fi may take her.
Visit Christine at http://www.christinekling.com
Dragon's Triangle (The Shipwreck Adventures Book 2) Page 41
