The Dig (The Blackwell Files Book 9)

by Steven F Freeman

  “You’re thinking they didn’t agree to cooperate?” asked David.

  “But if that’s the case,” said Cornick, “why didn’t they come to me and tell me about it? Surely they wouldn’t have stayed silent if something like this happened.”

  “Money makes people do funny things,” said Mallory, twisting a strand of hair around her finger, “even for people who aren’t falling on hard times. Maybe they did agree to stay silent, and the thief was just being thorough—leaving behind no witnesses. I see that kind of thing in my FBI job regularly. Or maybe the murder victims saw one of the thieves hanging around nearby and didn’t attach any significance to it. The thief might have worried they’d eventually be identified and killed them.”

  A shudder ran through Cornick’s frame. “It sounds horrible, but it does make sense in a ruthless sort of way.”

  “I have to ask…” said Mallory, hesitating.

  “Ask what?” replied Cornick.

  “If your artifacts are being stolen, is there any chance Dr. Miller is part of the scheme? Could he have disappeared to help peddle them in some black market somewhere?”

  “Harry? No way! His record is impeccable. I’ve personally known him to turn in a colleague who was dealing in those kinds of unsavory practices.”

  Mallory nodded. “Okay. Good to know.”

  Cornick folded his hands. “So based on your experience, what should we do next?”

  “I’d like to ask around and see if anyone’s been seen hanging out or approaching this building, especially someone who wouldn’t normally have any business here.”

  “What about questioning the guards?”

  “We could do that,” said Mallory, “but they may be part of the problem. I’d like to start with asking folks who don’t have a vested interest in this place. It may be our best shot of learning if at least some of the victims on your team had the bad luck to be around here the same time as the criminals.”

  CHAPTER 24

  O’Neil had to restrain himself from pacing too far down the pool deck. He certainly didn’t feel like eating the remaining half slice of toast in his hand. Nervous anxiety always suppressed his appetite that way.

  As he approached the table, he glanced down at Jess, who smiled back.

  “Easy there, partner,” she said. “Don’t look so nervous, or you’re gonna scare off the seller.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Wouldn’t he expect a couple of black-market newcomers to be a little nervous? It might come across as weirder if we acted like we bought stolen goods every day.”

  Jess shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

  O’Neil set about pacing again. Funny how much difference thirty minutes could make. He’d much rather be back in the cabin’s bed, Jess’s sleeping form nestled up against his side. His biggest concern would be whether room service had brought enough coffee for the two of them.

  Ah, well. Duty had called, so here he was, trying to make contact with some shadowy artifact smuggler.

  An older lady, one of many retirees on the cruise, leaned over to pick a cloth napkin off the deck in front of O’Neil’s table. “I think you dropped this, young man.”

  “Thanks,” said O’Neil, “but it’s not—”

  “I’m sure it fell off your table,” interjected the woman, casting a penetrating gaze his direction. “Let me give this to you so you don’t lose it again.”

  She leaned over and dropped the napkin on O’Neil’s plate. With a twinkle in her eye, she made a wordless departure.

  Probably best to not tear into the napkin like a twelve-year-old passing love notes. The seller—that old lady, or someone else?—would chalk him up as a hopeless amateur. Then sayonara future purchases, including the undertaker’s spear.

  O’Neil discarded the remaining corner of toast and sank into his seat. He took a sip of coffee and unfolded the napkin in as nonchalant a manner as he could muster.

  It contained a note typed on plain, white paper: If interested in the piece, go to the spa. Ask Alexandra there for the Mayahuel special. She will give you a massage and the statue. $3000 for “spa services” will be charged to your shipboard account.

  O’Neil passed the note over to Jess, whose eyes flitted as she scanned the document.

  “As easy as that, huh?” she said. “Why does that make me nervous?”

  “I guess they can’t make it too complicated. Probably most of the folks who’ll buy their stuff on this cruise have never done it before.”

  “This confirms something you said the day we boarded,” said Jess, a thoughtful look in her eye.

  “What’s that?”

  “Remember how you said we shouldn’t tell the captain about your plastic pistol ‘cause eventually the whole crew would find out and maybe tip off the black marketers? That was on point. These sellers must know that nobody on this ship carries cash—not enough to buy the kind of stuff they’re selling, at least. That’s why they worked out a partnership with this Alexandra in the spa.”

  “True,” said O’Neil. “And it could be worse than that.”

  Jess stopped stirring her coffee long enough to move a stray lock of hair wind gusts had carried across her face. “What do you mean?”

  “Cruise-ship employees don’t get paid shit. That’s probably why this Alexandra person is willing to join in—the chance to make some real money. Who knows how many other employees are part of this scheme? Maybe none. Maybe dozens. And who would’ve guessed that old lady was part of it? And she was a passenger.” He sat down and murmured to his partner in a grim voice. “One thing’s for sure: we can’t trust anyone on this ship with the secret of our mission.”

  CHAPTER 25

  “You need the scuba gear too, Señor?” asked the attendant at the LabnaHa cenote.

  “Yes, please,” said Alton.

  The attendant, a pale fellow Alton wouldn’t have guessed to be Latin American, pushed a tangle of gear across the counter.

  Alton glanced around. No one else besides Vasquez stood within earshot. “I was wondering…”

  “Yes?”

  “This is my first time, but a friend of mine has come here a few times in the past. He was trying to tell me how to find this good cavern he discovered. All he could remember was swimming along the left wall at first, then along the right for a while. Do you know what part of the caves he might be talking about?”

  With pursed lips, the attendant stared over Alton’s shoulder for a moment, deep in thought. “This doesn’t sound like a place I know.”

  Alton glanced toward Vasquez. She shook her head no.

  The attendant rubbed his chin. “If you go to the left for about ten minutes, there is a place where the rock comes down into the water. You have to choose which way to go: the left or the right. Maybe this is the place where your friend go to the right.”

  “Probably so. Thanks,” said Alton, pulling his scuba gear off the office countertop.

  Vasquez hoisted up her equipment but paused. “You’re scuba certified, right?”

  “Yeah. But I’ve never done anything like this before.”

  “There’s a first time for everything. Follow me.”

  The pair cut to the right of the cenote’s main entrance, a semi-circle of cliffs plunging down into a glowing, aqua pool. Instead, they plunged into the thick forest and trudged around a formation of volcanic rock. They passed through a doorway carved into the rock, heading back into the cenote itself, then traversed along a narrow trail carved into the enormous stone opening that formed the underground lake. A constant mist from above rendered the path slippery with water and broad patches of algae. Alton appreciated the exotic beauty of the location but preferred not to fall from his twenty-foot height above the still waters of the pool.

  Alton concentrated on taking deep breaths. To what extent was his pounding heart a result of the rugged hike versus the activity waiting for him at the end of it? He swam regularly, that form of non-impact aerobics being easier on his bad leg than most others, but underwa
ter caving was a whole different animal. It wasn’t taken up as a form of exercise. Rather, it represented a high-risk adventure for thrill junkies. At this point in his life, Alton had experienced enough near misses with death to resist the urge to seek them out.

  The trail sloped downwards until reaching a foot or so above water level.

  Vasquez halted. “Okay. We stop here.”

  “So this is where we access the caves?”

  “Yes.”

  They placed their equipment on the ground and began removing their clothes, down to the swimsuits they had donned just before leaving Guadalajara.

  As he peeled off his shirt, Alton glanced around the half-submerged cavern. He and Vasquez had the turquoise waters and lush foliage of this beautiful scene to themselves. Too bad Mallory wasn’t here to enjoy it.

  “How’d you find out about this spot?” asked Alton.

  “I’ve been here before. It’s where all the experienced divers go. That other place is just for the tourists.”

  “Speaking of experienced divers, does the route that attendant suggested sound like our best search path? Heading left, then taking a right when we reach the split he mentioned?”

  “Yes. I don’t know that place, though. The best caves are to the right.”

  “Probably why Cruz chose his location—an out-of-the-way spot.”

  Nodding, Vasquez slipped off the last of her outer clothes, revealing a lifeguard-red, two-piece swimsuit that did justice to the fitness regime she obviously maintained. After clipping a nylon belt around her waist, she snapped on a diving reel, a spool of thin wire.

  Alton found a sudden interest in attaching a regulator to his oxygen tank. He swung the assembly onto his back and checked the gauges, all the while facing a bank of hanging ferns rather than his shapely companion.

  “All set?” asked Vasquez.

  “Yep. Let’s roll.”

  The lieutenant lowered herself into the water, then attached one end of her wire to a heavy-duty eyelet screw mounted in the lagoon’s rock wall. “This is our lifeline. Whatever you do, don’t let go. And be sure to stay close behind me. You wouldn’t believe how easy it is to get turned around in here.”

  Alton eyed the branching, underwater caves. Within yards of the entrance, the lagoon’s sparkling waters transformed into an inky abyss. Getting turned around appeared quite easy indeed.

  He turned around to witness Vasquez already wading out into the deeper water.

  “Keep close,” she reminded him. “Several good divers have died here. You don’t want to be one of them.”

  If the speech was supposed to serve as a pep talk, it fell flat.

  Entering the water, Alton pushed off with his good leg and soon caught up. He may not have aquatic spelunking experience, but at least his swimming regime would hold him in good stead for this search.

  They reached the entrance to the underwater tunnels, the last spot illuminated by the sun’s rays.

  Vasquez reached up and turned on her dive light. Alton fumbled for a second before switching on his own helmet-mounted lantern. The lamps cast twin cones of illumination into the murky water before them.

  They proceeded into the gloomy depths. As the height of the ceilings decreased, occasional air pockets near the cave’s entrance soon vanished, plunging the duo into an entirely submerged world.

  Vasquez swam at a determined pace, all the while hugging the left wall. With one hand on the guide wire the lieutenant trailed behind her, Alton followed.

  His initial worry soon gave way to fascination. Underwater formations of every shape and size appeared around every bend. Bearing evidence of the cave’s initial formation before collapsing into a sinkhole, stalagmites reached up bony fingers towards partner stalactites clinging to watery ceilings. Rocks of all sizes lay spread across the sandy bed.

  A school of fish—a diminutive species with black-and-gold tails—swam into the lamps’ glow, then angled off into the gloom.

  Vasquez came to a halt.

  Just as the attendant had described, a wedge of rock separated the way forward into two halves. Alton’s waterproof watch confirmed they had been swimming eleven minutes. Vasquez motioned to the right, and the duo slow-kicked down that passage.

  Alton’s attention turned to the task at hand: finding Cruz’s drop-off point for the case he “lost.” He and Vasquez peered in all directions, sending the beams of their diver lights spinning in a disco-like frenzy. But no trace of the case appeared.

  Ten minutes past the rock-wall dividing point, Vasquez studied her oxygen gage and pointed to the direction from which they had traveled. Alton’s own gage indicated about 60% of his oxygen supply remained. Best to return and resume their search with fresh tanks.

  Vasquez swam into the lead position. She kept her left hand on the guide wire, following it back. All the while, they continued to search for the drug smuggler’s wayward case.

  Five minutes into the return journey, the lieutenant froze. Had she found the case?

  Alton kicked up beside her. The case was nowhere to be seen. Instead, Vasquez held up the severed end of the guide wire. Their lifeline back to the caves’ entrance had been cut.

  CHAPTER 26

  O’Neil sat on the bed in his cabin and studied his newly purchased artifact. “Three grand for this thing? Hell, I think I’ll take up statue making.”

  Jess laughed. “Good luck trying to sell it.”

  O’Neil set the artifact on the dresser. “We’ll need to dust it for prints and send the image back to Mallory Blackwell. She said she’d run anything we found through IAFIS to look for a match.”

  “I’ll get my cosmetic bag. That’s where I stored the fingerprint powder.”

  After finishing that task, they sauntered out to the balcony.

  “Well, now what?” said O’Neil. “We cut a deal—great. But we still have no idea who sold it to us.”

  “I say we wait. Once the seller sees we’re not calling the cops, maybe they’ll make another offer.”

  Her words proved to be prophetic. When they returned from a brief visit to the pool—strictly to keep up tourist appearances—a new note had appeared on the desk in their cabin.

  O’Neil scanned the note and shook his head. “Either our cabin steward is in on the fun, or the seller has access to room keys. Either way, the fact that notes keep showing up in here confirms that more employees than just Alexandra in the spa are part of this fencing ring.”

  Silva nodded towards the note in his hands. “What does it say?”

  “Thank you for your purchase. If you’re interested in more variety, come to muster station twelve located on the starboard side of deck five at ten P.M. I will ask ‘Do you have a smoke?’ and you will answer ‘Are imports okay?’”

  “What happens then?” asked Jess. “They break out a catalogue of stolen goods?”

  O’Neil shrugged. “Probably something along those lines—maybe photos on a cellphone. I guess we’ll find out for sure when we get there. Oh, there’s one other part to this message.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I warn you to exercise extreme caution. My motivations are strictly economic. But there are others on this ship who desire the merchandise I possess. To acquire it, they will stop at nothing—including violence.”

  CHAPTER 27

  Alton fought down a surge of panic as the severed end of Vasquez’s guide wire floated in the beam of their headlamps.

  How much oxygen did they have left? A quick glance at his meter showed fifty percent, providing at most twenty-five minutes of air.

  Alton had risked his life on countless Army and NSA missions. Of all the ways he might have died, this option had never entered his mind.

  And what an option. He didn’t remember much about the moment an IED blast in his Army communications van in Afghanistan had rendered him lame—only brief flashes of enduring bolts of lancing pain and gasping through choking smoke and fumes before losing consciousness. But the sensation of drawing breath
with no corresponding relief of oxygen had etched an indelible impression on his mind. Since that day, he had maintained a special dread of suffocation.

  And now the prospect of this form of demise stared him in the face.

  A new tightness gripped his chest. Mallory—the life they shared, the future they had planned together. Somehow, the thought of dying felt less devastating than that of losing this bond. In his line of work, most forms of dying—gunshots, explosion, and the like—provided no opportunity to contemplate one’s impending demise. This situation proved to be the unwelcome exception.

  But he wasn’t dead yet.

  He glanced at Vasquez, her wide eyes staring out through the plastic of her mask.

  Alton motioned towards the passage, pointing to the direction in which they had been traveling before their horrifying discovery. Better to die fighting than accept a watery grave.

  Vasquez nodded.

  The pair continued for a dozen yards before encountering a trio of branching passages. Two of them hadn’t been visible on their outbound journey. Which one led back to safety?

  Vasquez kicked downward to study the rocky floor. Alton wasn’t sure what she saw, if anything, but the lieutenant gestured toward the left passage.

  They swam at an even pace, unwilling to let panic overwhelm their judgment.

  Another thirty yards led to a pair of branching passages. Vasquez looked stumped this time, and Alton had no idea which option to pick. The beam of their headlamps penetrated a dozen feet or so into each passage before fading into black depths.

  The idea of successfully choosing the proper route through this murky labyrinth seemed preposterous. Rolling his eyes in frustration, Alton caught the faintest glimmer of light to the right of both tunnels, weak sparkles flickering through a crack of no more than three feet between stone columns.

  He grabbed Vasquez’s arm and pointed towards the narrow space. The combined brightness of their headlamps drowned out the ambient light. Alton held a hand over his lamp, and gestured for his partner to do the same.