Sam grinned. “As a matter of fact, I have.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Lake Superior, Minnesota
The Anabelle May cruised toward Isle Royale at speeds just shy of forty knots. The yacht turned sharply around the southern point, sending sea-spray high into the air. Sam watched as Virginia played with the controls, getting an easy feel for the luxury Blohn and Voss sports cruiser.
He’d sent the image of the strange treasure map Virginia had found to Elise, in an attempt to extract a location from the topographical reference points. As it was, the person who wrote it was obviously no cartographer. The map lacked any form of legend to indicate the distances. Instead it simply used reference points such as rivers, valleys, and a shipwreck as a starting point. Elise’s computer search of North American topography returned more than eighteen thousand locations that could have met the basic requirements of the map.
Unable to locate the treasure from the map, Sam decided their best efforts needed to be focused on finding Jack Holman’s wrecked aircraft.
It was getting dark and they were nearing the end of their first day. Six more days to find the Holman’s wreckage and the Meskwaki Gold Spring. Tom had shown Virginia the sports cruiser’s controls and she quickly became confident enough to be left alone with it. Sam was still certain that the wreckage of the J.F. Johnson still held the greatest clue to the location of the Meskwaki Gold Spring.
Senator Perry died after he and Tom found the message inside the pilot house of the wreckage – STANFORD STOLE THE MESKWAKI SPRING. I CAN TOO. Something about the strange message lead to his death and the attempt on Tom’s life. When Elise ran a search on the overhead Defense satellite’s data, she discovered that the local dive charter boat, Superior Deep, motored above the wreckage site of the J.F. Johnson every night at eight ten p.m. It was one trip, every night, same time. The Superior Deep always slowed, but never stopped, on its routine trip across the western side of the Isle Royale.
One thing was certain, someone was diving the wreck nightly. It was most likely they were using the shipwreck to store drugs or weapons, or some other type of contraband. The question that kept plaguing Sam was, why? They weren’t crossing any borders. It wasn’t like they were shipping contraband into or out of Canada. The wreckage was clearly well within the U.S. side of Lake Superior, so why were they going through the trouble of diving on board every night? There was something else, too, that kept disturbing Sam.
The Superior Deep, nor any other vessel for that matter, ever returned for another twenty-four hours. It was far too long to be submerged in the near freezing waters. Even with a thermal suit, batteries would run out, gas supply would fail, and divers would die.
So where did the divers go after the dive?
Sam had no idea, but he was certain that finding out would lead him to the Meskwaki Gold Spring. The sound of the Rolls Royce engines eased and the bow of the Anabelle May dipped and settled back into the water. He watched Virginia shift the twin propellers out of gear, letting the sports cruiser coast.
She glanced at the GPS map. “We’re here.”
“All right. You know the plan?”
“I’ve got it,” she replied. “You make the dive and I’ll head off, taking anchorage on the opposite side of Isle Royale. You and Tom are both wearing satellite tracked homing beacons, that will notify me of your precise GPS location when you’re on the surface.”
“Right,” Sam confirmed. “Remember, we’ll be using Sea Scooters, so we might surface miles from the initial dive site. Also, there’s something keeping the other divers down there for twenty-four hours. If we don’t find anything that indicates where the Meskwaki Gold Spring is while we’re down there, we’ll hide and wait for the nightly SCUBA diver.”
“Are you planning on staying somewhere else for twenty-four hours?”
“No. But the other divers do, so I’m not ruling it out.”
Virginia nodded. “And if I don’t hear from you within twenty-four hours?”
“Contact my friend, Elise, on the number I gave you. She’ll track down the rest of my crew from the Maria Helena. They’re currently vacationing all around the world, but she’ll find and recall them if I get into trouble.”
“And they’ll come rescue you?” Virginia asked.
“No. By then we’ll most likely be dead, but they’ll be sure to finish what we started.”
“You think they’re going to finish one of the most dangerous organized crime families in the history of the United States of America?”
“You haven’t met the rest of my crew. They’re a determined bunch, professional and dangerous in their own unique way.” Sam smiled and turned to Tom. “When is Genevieve back?”
Tom’s eyes lit up and he smiled at the name. “End of the week.”
“Do you think she’s going to be upset you got into all this fun without her. Not to mention risked your life in the process?”
Tom nodded. “Yeah, she’s going to be pissed.”
Sam grinned. “Then we’ll just have to make sure we’ve found the Senator’s kid, saved Virginia’s father, and found the Confederate gold before Genevieve gets back, won’t we?”
Chapter Thirty-Three
They dropped into the water approximately one mile to the South of the J.F. Johnson wreckage. After recognizing how easily Elise was able to obtain the satellite images of the diving charter boat, Superior Depth, stopping at roughly the same time every night above the location, Sam decided not to risk any chance that someone was tracking their movements. Particularly after the attack on Tom. This time they would put in farther away, and use a Sea Scooter, capable of running at 4.6 miles per hour for up to 1.5 hours to reach the J.F. Johnson.
On the icy surface of Lake Superior, Sam slowly deflated his buoyancy wing until he was negatively buoyant and started his descent. Like their previous dive, they descended quickly, free-falling 170 feet before leveling out.
He switched on the Sea Scooter’s electrics. The soft red glow of the machine’s instrument panel lit up like the dashboard on a motorcycle. “How are your gauges looking, Tom?”
“Good,” Tom confirmed. “Yours?”
“All good.” Sam checked his digital compass, setting a bearing for the J.F. Johnson. “All right, let’s go.”
The twin Sea Scooters whirred into life, quickly reaching their maximum speed of 4.6 miles per hour through the pitch-dark waters of Lake Superior’s seabed. Sam switched his headlights on for a moment to confirm there was nothing but cold water ahead of them, before switching it off again to conserve power. Riding in the dark, Sam turned his concentration to his sonar display, which gave a visual outline of the submerged seascape ahead of them.
Within minutes the large outline of the J.F. Johnson’s hull came into view. He altered his course another degree to the east, setting up to make a direct approach for the single opening on the portside of the listing pilothouse.
It took a total of fourteen minutes to reach the main hatchway at the base of the pilot house. Sam and Tom kept their headlights and flashlights switched off so they could see if anyone else was already on board the shipwreck. They both carried shark-sticks in case they ran into trouble, but their aim was to remain hidden if anyone came on board so they could see what they were shipping and where they were disappearing to over the twenty-four-hour period before the ship returned again.
Confident that they were alone, Sam switched on his flashlight. The entrance lit up beneath his beam, revealing the ascending stairs to the wheelhouse, the horizontal passage to the opposite end of the hull, and the open hatchway leading to the descending entrance to the lower decks. The same place where Tom had nearly drowned after his attacker merely closed the door.
Sam had no intention of repeating that incident this time round. He swept the beam of his flashlight across the hatchway, over the hinges, and all the way along the edge of the door. He was searching for any iron eyelets or latches, where the hatch could be permanently locked from the
outside. It’s one thing to be attacked or become temporarily lost once inside, but a totally different, and far more frightening event to be sealed within – to wait until their gas supply eventually ran out and they drowned.
No way I’m letting that happen.
Sam finished running his beam along the exterior edge of the entire hatch, confirming there was no way they could be locked inside the wreck, either by accident or by the divers from the Superior Deep.
He swung the door open and closed. The hinges were obviously new – certainly not original anyway – and the hatchway moved freely. Sam glanced at both sides of the door. The main latch was rusted in the open position. He studied the rest of the door. There was no other possible way to become stuck.
Sam slowly pulled himself through the opening, turned and proceeded with the same process on the opposite side of the door. The hatch appeared free of anything that could be locked, but a single rusted iron eyelet was welded to the heavy bulkhead to the right of the hatch.
With his gloved hand, he took the iron eyelet in his grip and pulled. Despite nearly nine decades of rust, the ring was solid. It would take a lot more than they had to break it if they needed to. He swept the flashlight beam from the eyelet back to the hatch. There was no sign of anything that could be used to lock the door onto it. Sam guessed the device might have once been used to hold the door in the open position, when the J.F. Johnson still sailed.
Sam fixed his beam on the eyelet. “What do you think of this?”
Tom ran his light across it. “I wouldn’t worry.”
“You don’t think it could be used to lock us inside?”
“No. It could be used to lock us inside, but then, whoever did so would be trapped here, too.”
Sam smiled. “I hadn’t thought of that. Good point.”
He removed a small device from a small pouch on the side of his diving vest. It was cylindrical in shape and small enough to fit comfortably in a single one of his gloved hands.
Sam switched it on and attached it to the bulkhead to the left of the hatch, somewhere low enough that any movement would conceal its view with silt. There were no little blue or green display lights to show that the device had been switched on. He gently pushed himself backward, until he could stare at the hatchway.
A small upward crease formed on his lips. The device was almost undetectable without knowing precisely where it had been placed. There was no way any diver would stumble across it and even if they did, it was even less likely that they would have any clue what it was.
The device was an underwater location beacon known as a ULB. It was a smaller version of the one used in aviation, fitted to flight recorders such as the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder so that crashed aircraft flying over water could be located. It transmitted an ultrasonic 10ms pulse once per second at 37.5 kHz. The sonar used on the Sea Scooters would pick up that pulse as it bounced around the interior hull, creating a visual map, the same way bats used echolocation.
As a consequence, despite any damage to the silt within the confined space of the inside hull, both of them would have a real-time map of how to return to the hatchway. Ideally, they would have laid out guidewires, but that would have given away their position to whoever might follow them inside.
“Are you picking up the signal, Tom?”
“Got it.” Tom calibrated his instrument panel toward the ULB. “Where do you want to begin?”
“You said you originally followed your attacker below decks, toward the aft storage compartment, before he turned and fled?”
“That’s right.”
“How about we start there, then.” Sam glanced at the dark outline of Tom’s face mask. “Do you think you can remember how to get there?”
“Sure. I found my way out of there in a total blackout, I’m sure that I can find my way back in now the water’s clear again.”
“Good man.”
Sam watched as Tom recalled the image of the interior hull that he’d mentally constructed the last time he entered the J.F. Johnson wreckage. Sam couldn’t help but admire Tom’s ability. He moved with the confidence of a dive master, leading a tour through a wreckage he’d been to a thousand times before. Despite nearly being killed there only three days earlier, the man dived without displaying any apprehension, let alone trepidation.
He switched off his own flashlight. In the darkness, Sam followed the haze of Tom’s light, as he led the way down the first two sets of metal stairs into the long passageway heading aft. Tom moved quickly, and Sam found himself having to work to keep up.
Using long, powerful strokes with his fins, Sam followed Tom to the end of the passageway. There, Tom swept the area with the beam of his flashlight. A metal door blocked any further progress into the ship.
Sam switched on his flashlight and shined the beam across the door. “It looks brand new.”
Tom gripped the aluminum handle. “No way this has been down here ninety years.”
“I bet whatever’s behind that door is worth a fortune.”
“Enough worth killing for, anyway.” Tom gripped the handle and sighed. “But we’re not going to find out any time soon.”
“Why not?”
“Because the door’s locked.”
Sam shined his light on the small circular hole, where a modern security key might be inserted. Inside his full-face mask, his lips curled upward in a wry grin, full of curiosity. Whatever’s behind that door, someone’s gone to extreme lengths to keep it protected. He looked at it, wondering whether the blast from one of their shark-sticks might be powerful enough to damage the lock.
The flicker of a beam of light swept across his back.
Sam switched his flashlight off and turned sharply.
A second light approached. “We’ve got company!”
Tom turned his light off. “Behind you, there’s an open alcove.”
Sam moved quickly into the alcove. His eyes focusing on the shimmer of light approaching. It was filtering down from the stairs at the end of the passageway. He held his breath, hoping that he spotted the light early enough that whoever was coming down hadn’t spotted theirs.
Sam gripped the handle of his shark-stick. “Did they see us?”
“I don’t think so.”
Sam stared at the light as it approached. Its beam focused on the locked door. Sam listened intently for the sound of expelling bubbles. There were none. The divers were using rebreathers, too. Deadly silent.
No wonder we didn’t see them coming.
The diver paused. His head turned to look straight at Sam and Tom. The man seemed to be staring vacantly through them. Sam watched the crease in the diver’s forehead deepen and the diver tense. If the diver hadn’t spotted them, one thing was certain, he felt uneasy about something as though he was being watched. There was always the possibility the diver routinely checked the alcove for other divers before opening the door. But if that was the case, why hadn’t the diver shined his flashlight on them?
Sam placed his trigger finger on the shark-stick.
The diver turned and faced the locked door again.
Sam expelled his breath of air.
The diver casually turned and started swimming back the way he came. He wasn’t racing, if anything, it was merely as though the diver had been practicing a wreck dive, reached the end and turned around.
Sam asked, “Where the hell’s he going?”
“Beats me,” Tom replied. “Maybe there’s a different door?”
“So why did he come all the way down here?”
“I don’t know. Let’s follow him.”
Sam waited another fifteen seconds and then moved out into the passageway. The faint glow of the diver’s flashlight dimmed.
“Where the hell’s he going?” Sam asked.
“He must have spotted us!” Tom said.
“Quick! After him. We can’t let him escape.”
Sam started to kick hard, racing toward the end of the passage. The diver swam up t
he twin stairs well ahead of them.
Clank!
The hatchway slammed shut and the diver’s light disappeared.
Sam switched on his own flashlight. He raced to the top of the stairs and then swore – because the closed hatchway was now locked shut.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Virginia checked her timer. Sam and Tom had been down for thirty-two minutes. Sam and Tom said they could be down there for as much as four hours if need be, still she remained vigilant, watching the radar for any signs of them surfacing.
The GPS showed her position to their location as two miles, give or take. The Annabelle May would close that gap quickly once Sam and Tom’s personal locator beacons indicated they were on the surface of Lake Superior again.
She took a sip of coffee and watched.
The radar screen blipped as another vessel came into the five-mile radius on the screen. She had a digital pin dropped on the screen at Sam and Tom’s co-ordinates where the J.F. Johnson was located, and watched as a mid-sized vessel made a beeline for the very same spot. A trickle of adrenaline tingled at the base of her spine as she turned for their position at a slow idle. All she could do was wait. The radar showed the boat stopped directly above Tom and Sam for about five minutes, and then retraced its path back toward the protected waters of Isle Royale. Again, she waited, while all the worst-case scenarios were being borne out in her imagination.
She thought about Sam’s hardened ability as a soldier and Tom’s size. From what he’d explained to her, fighting underwater was extremely difficult, and few people chose to attempt it. If there was a problem, it would be when they resurfaced.
Virginia glanced at the loaded Remington double barreled shotgun next to the Annabelle May’s helm and hoped she wouldn’t need to use it.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Sam stared at the door. The beam of his flashlight pointed at the iron eyelet. A thick steel chain had been fed through the side of the hatch and was now padlocked to the ring. He checked the door for any movement with his hand. There wasn’t any. The door was locked shut. His heart hammered in his throat. He’d suffered with claustrophobia since he was a child. Wreck diving and cave diving was his ultimate achievement in overcoming that fear. But it had never completely left him. Instead, he’d learned how to manage it. How to keep it at bay, hidden. But those fears were still there.
The Ironclad Covenant (Sam Reilly Book 10) Page 14
