by J. R. Rain
Talk to me, boys. What do you see?
MALLORY
There’s a box. And it ain’t chocolates.
Just as the Irishman reaches for the box, a loud metallic wrenching reverberates throughout the entire ship. The floor lurches, followed by more sounds of grinding. The explosion, it appears, has set off a an alarming chain reaction. Now a zigzagging crack appears in the closet’s rusted metal wall directly in front of Mallory.
TREY
C’mon!
Trey grabs his diving partner, but it’s too late. The corroded wall collapses forward, and the ceiling gives way, too, all crashing down upon the Irishman. Mallory quickly disappears in a hail of debris. The collapsing wall forces a rush of water—and Trey—out of the room, slamming him hard into the opposite hallway wall. A thick cloud of silt and debris billows out of the room, obscuring his vision.
INT. CONTROL ROOM – DAY
Eve hears the various explosions through her earpiece.
EVE
Trey! Trey!
She pauses, panicking, listening. There’s no reply.
EVE
Shit!
INT. LITHUANIA HALLWAY
Trey regains his senses, slips his mouthpiece back into his mouth, and swims immediately back into the now-destroyed cabin.
INT. CABIN 6F
Wreckage is still falling from the collapsing wall and ceiling. Trey darts through the wreckage, begins frantically pulling aside rusted sheets of metal and other ship material. As he does so, he spots a stream of bubbles rising from the mangled pile. Working feverishly, he finally uncovers an unconscious Mallory. The air bubbles are, in fact, from Mallory’s damaged air tanks, now useless. Mallory is still clutching the lead box in his hands.
More of the ceiling breaks loose. Trey grabs the box and pulls the unconscious Mallory out of the room just as the whole thing collapses in a cloud of rubble.
INT. LITHUANIA HALLWAY
TREY
(shaking the Irishman)
Mallory!
The Irishman moans, the suddenly lurches, reaching desperately for his throat. Eyes wild, face purple beneath his face mask. The message is clear: He’s suffocating. Trey removes the Irishman’s facemask. Once done, he feeds his own mouthpiece to Mallory, who sucks on it desperately, like a babe on a teat. The Irishman, briefly satiated, points to his right leg. Trey looks. The ankle is bent at a horrible angle. Broken.
Now the ship’s hallway is collapsing, a chain reaction of destruction that’s clearly extending to other sections of the massive sunken structure. Ceilings bulge and walls buckle. The whole ship shudders and lurches.
Mallory suddenly points behind them. Trey turns. Further down, the hallway walls are imploding, crashing inward. It’s a domino-effect, and it’s approaching rapidly. Trey grabs Mallory’s arms, pulls him along the hallway, half-swimming, half-running. Behind, the exploding walls are gaining rapidly. The floor lurches up. Mallory tries to help, but he’s useless. Mallory looks back—and screams. Trey hears a crackling in his earpiece, and then suddenly, loud and clear, he hears Eve’s voice:
EVE (V.O.)
Turn right!
Without hesitating Trey blindly turns right, yanking Mallory with him. He’s in another corridor. Behind him the imploding hallway continues past them. Silt immediately fills their side passageway.
TREY
Eve! You read me?!
No response. Just an empty, staticy crackling in his ear. Trey gives Mallory more air, and continues on, turning down corridor after corridor. Confused and lost, he looks down at his knapsack for his map, but the sack has been ripped open. His map is gone.
FULL SHOT – THE LITHUANIA RESTING ON THE SEA FLOOR
The ancient ship shudders. We see parts of her hull crashing down, spewing metal into the ocean. Silt rises from everywhere.
INT. UNKNOWN HALLWAY
Trey pulls the injured Mallory behind him, always just one swimming kick ahead of various falling debris. Trey turns into a stairway. He pauses, feeds Mallory more air.
INT. STAIRWAY
A great cloud of falling wreckage is coming down, crashing through the stairway. Trey kicks off, just barely avoiding being buried alive.
FULL SHOT – THE LITHUANIA
Ancient stacks and cranes and winches plummet down into the ancient ship, breaking through rotted floors.
INT. MANY HALLWAYS, MANY ROOMS
Everywhere Trey turns he’s blocked, and through it all he feeds Mallory oxygen from his own mouthpiece. And suddenly, like a miracle, a rift appears in the ceiling above them. Beyond the tear is the dark ocean. Trey kicks hard and the two men shoot up through the rift and out into open waters—
EXT. THE IRISH SEA
Immediately the aft jackstaff falls toward them. Trey swerves, but the pole knocks the box loose. It drops down toward the collapsing ship. Trey breaks lose from Mallory, who’s left futilely drifting in the ocean, and dives down for the box. The box is falling back toward the very rift they had swum out of, down toward the black abyss of the imploding super structure.
Trey kicks his fins hard, tearing through the water, and intercepts the box just inside the rift’s opening. He turns away and angles back up, clutching the box tightly. He recovers the injured Mallory. He shares his mouthpiece, and as the sunken ocean liner below finally collapses into an unrecognizable heap, silt billows everywhere in a magnificent mushroom cloud.
INT. RESEARCH VESSEL, BELOW DECKS – NIGHT
Above decks music is playing. Some of the other divers and workers are drinking and dancing and partying. Below decks, Trey, Eve and Mallory are in the research vessel’s laboratory. Mallory is sitting in a chair with his leg in a splint, wincing with each movement. Before them, resting on the counter, is the lead box.
MALLORY
Are you going to admire it or open it?
Trey nods, and Eve carefully breaks open the box’s lock with a chisel and hammer. Eve’s hands are shaking. Mallory peers over her shoulder, his interest piqued. Eve opens the lid carefully, reaches inside, and lifts out two objects, both wrapped in oilcloth. She unwraps the first, revealing an old, tattered book. Mallory doesn’t look impressed. She hands the book to Trey, who opens it to the first page.
TREY
The diary of Lord William Frost.
MALLORY
The chap who first collected the coins?
TREY
As the story goes, eight of the thirty
Judas Coins are hidden beneath his
Scottish castle.
MALLORY
Hey, we all need a hobby.
Eve next unwraps the second package. And there, lying within the folds of the antiquated cloth, is a silver coin. An eye-less Caesar. It gleams brightly in the lamplight, as if newly minted. The men crowd around the coin.
MALLORY
Pretty creepy if you ask me.
(looking in the box)
Anything else in there?
EVE
That’s it.
MALLORY
I risked my life for a damned diary
and a devil coin?
Mallory limps away on crutches, towards the doorway, muttering. He looks back.
MALLORY
(shaking his head, mumbling)
Americans...
INT. SHIP’S LABORATORY, HOURS LATER – NIGHT
Eve Friday is working hard late into the night, where she sits at a work station. A desk light shines down onto the old diary. She’s clearly highly intrigued and energized, making copious notes on a legal pad.
CAMERA TIGHT on her beautiful eyes, where a fire smolders just behind her pupils: intrigued, energized...and possessed. In her left hand, she grips both Judas Coins—her own original one and now the newly recovered one. Her knuckles show white. Purple, pulsating veins crisscross her forearms.
On the cot nearby, Trey snores contentedly after his rough dive. His snoring is particularly loud and grating. Eve winces and looks up. She watches him for a moment, and then shak
es her head and actually grins at the big lug. That she still has feelings for the master thief is evident.
Just as she’s turning back to the diary, a loud thumping sound echoes through the research vessel. Eve looks around, startled. Next to her, the single lamp swings back and forth. Trey, only slightly disturbed, rolls over peacefully, arm flopping to the floor. Eve listens intently. The thump comes again. Even louder. Now Trey sits up from the couch, fully alert.
EXT. FULL SHOT OF THE RESEARCH VESSEL – NIGHT
A small, black speedboat has docked alongside the ship. Like marauding pirates, men from the speedboat pour over the railing and into the research vessel.
INT. SHIP’S LABORATORY BELOW DECKS – NIGHT
Trey and Eve hear voices from above, shouting. Then gunshots, men screaming. Trey leaps to his feet.
TREY
Wait here.
(a beat)
And by ‘wait here’ I don’t mean
follow me.
Trey removes a pistol from the desk drawer, and then heads out of the laboratory. Eve anxiously watches him go. Eve, never one to wait, gets up to follow. But before she does so, she carefully conceals the coins and the diary into a zippered compartment inside her windbreaker.
CAMERA TIGHT on the hand-written notes she leaves behind on her desk. We realize this could be an important mistake.
INT. SHIP’S STAIRWELL – NIGHT
She follows behind Trey, who’s creeping up the stairs with a gun held before him. He’s unaware of her. Trey hesitates at the door. Cautiously, he opens it—and a bullet-riddled body tumbles through the door and down the stairs, coming to rest at Eve’s feet. The man is quite dead. Eve stifles a scream. Suddenly Mallory appears in the doorway, pointing a gun directly at Trey’s face.
MALLORY
Drop the gun, mate.
TREY
Let me guess: Draken paid better.
MALLORY
Good guess, mate.
TREY
I might have to start hiring union.
Mallory clicks back the hammer of his revolver.
MALLORY
Enough. Drop it.
Trey does so, and his pistol tumbles down the wooden stairs and comes to rest on the wooden floor, near Eve’s feet. She looks down at the gun, hidden from Mallory’s view.
TREY
Now what, Mallory?
MALLORY
Now I kill you.
As his finger tightens around the trigger, a shot echoes in the stairway—and a bloody rose appears on Mallory’s forehead, and blood pumps from the wound. The Irishman topples forward into Trey, who catches him momentarily. Trey looks back over his shoulder. Standing below him, of course, is Eve holding the pistol with two steady hands. She looks horrified. She’s also, obviously, a crack shot.
TREY
Nice shot. But I think you nicked my ear.
He releases Mallory, who tumbles down the stairs and lays in a heap at Eve’s feet. Trey turns forward, peering out through the open door. We see what he sees: On deck, black-hooded figures are rushing toward him. He slams the door shut, hurrying down the stairs.
TREY
(to Eve)
You have the coins and diary?
EVE
Yes.
TREY
Then, c’mon!
Trey and Eve dash off. They head down the narrow hallway, and then turn up a smaller flight of stairs. And at the top landing, one of the black-hooded men appears. Without slowing down, Trey throws a punch that catches the man in the face. He tumbles down the stairs. Trey and Eve step cautiously outside. All around is utter chaos: Dead crewmen, gunfights, and now rapidly-spreading fire on the bridge.
EVE
What do we do?
TREY
Just follow me.
FULL SHOT – THE BURNING RESEARCH VESSEL
Trey and Eve dash across the deck. Beyond, a storm rages. Lightning flashes across the sky. The sea is turbulent, angry.
INT. DIVING CABIN – NIGHT
Trey and Eve quickly don the neoprene diving suits and strap on air tanks, weight belts, fins, and full face masks. Eve secures the diary and coin within a pouch around her waist. Trey removes from the wall two lightweight state-of-the-art Torpedo 2020 diver propulsion vehicles. The hand-held vehicles have two battery-powered hulls that look a bit like rockets. Both machines can reach underwater speeds up to five knots.
EVE
How the hell do these things work?
TREY
It’s like driving a motorcycle.
Only underwater.
EVE
But I’ve never driven a—
But Trey is already moving. As he emerges from the shed, he’s immediately confronted by two of the black-hooded pirates. Trey levels his rifle and fires a burst of bullets. Both take cover, diving out of the way.
With Eve trailing behind, Trey dashes across deck, as bullets splinter the wood near their feet. As they run, Trey yanks down his dive mask. Eve follows suit. And in full stride, they leap together over the railing and into the black water.
EXT. WITHIN THE BLACK WATER – NIGHT
Bullets penetrate down into the inky depths, streaking like mini-torpedoes through the choppy swells. Ten feet underwater, Trey activates his propulsion vehicle. The twin turbines kick in. Eve does the same after a few desperate attempts.
Trey shows Eve how to turn the cyclic, and soon both streak off together twenty feet below the surface. Gripping the vehicle’s handlebars, Trey angles it down to thirty feet and guns it. Eve does the same.
EXT. ABOVE THE SURFACE – NIGHT
Black-hooded men leap into the speedboat, which guns to life. The speed boat heads out, a spotlight penetrating deep into the water, searching.
EXT. WITHIN THE BLACK WATER – NIGHT
Above a speedboat kicks into gear and whips about crazily. But the black depths are Trey and Eve’s ally. Finally the speedboat turns away, cutting across the surface of the water, back towards the burning research vessel.
Safe now, Trey turns on the vehicle’s powerful floodlights. Before them is an amazing scene of underwater life. A playful porpoise briefly escorts Eve, then dashes away. The two figures gun the throttle and continue forward into the black unknown...
EXT. RESEARCH VESSEL – NIGHT
Draken is standing on the deck of the burning research vessel. A man exits a nearby doorway. He removes his woolen cap; it’s O’Brien.
O’BRIEN
The coin and diary are gone, but—
DRAKEN
You’ve failed me again.
O’BRIEN
You didn’t let me finish, Senator.
But we found some notes. Dated tonight.
DRAKEN
Notes do not help me. You told me you
were the best. I’m beginning to think
otherwise.
O’BRIEN
These notes were made from the diary.
They lead the way to the remaining coins.
Draken takes this in, pauses, and then smiles wickedly.
EXT. DOWNTOWN EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND – EARLY MORNING
WIDE SHOT on a very old medieval town with cobblestone walkways, hulking brick and stone façades, and a distant mist-enshrouded castle in the background. A light rain is falling.
INT. SCOTTISH CAFE – NIGHT
CAMERA TIGHT on a hand holding what appears to be a Judas Coin, but it’s not. Instead, it’s just a large and very harmless English schilling. The hand turns the coin over and over. It gleams in the muted lights of the café.
CAMERA PULLS BACK and we see that the man is Trey Jordan. Sitting across from him is Eve. Sir William Frost’s diary is sitting open in front of them.
TREY
(looking at the coin)
Ever get the feeling something
bad is going to happen?
EVE
That’s not funny.
TREY
Seriously. Think about it. The Lithuania sinks
with
Frost as a passenger. A Judas Coin
was in his possession. Your father dies
in a plane crash, with a Judas Coin in
his possession. Your shop gets burned to
the ground. We lose a research vessel,
not to mention the many innocent sailors
who died on that ship. Do you see a
common thread?
But Eve doesn’t want to talk about bad luck. Not now. She’s irrationally focused on the diary...and, of course, the Judas Coins.
EVE
So what’s our next step?
TREY
Sleep.
EVE
And then what?
TREY
We storm the castle.
