Wood's Fury

by Steven Becker

  “Care to disclose our final destination?” Sloan asked.

  On the chartplotter, Mac had ended their route at the fort. He wasn’t sure what kept him from entering the final coordinates for The Tongue, the area Van Doren and his crew had dropped the dive bell in an effort to escape Lafitte’s ships. Whether it was conscious or subconscious, he didn’t trust Sloan. But there was little choice but to continue if Mac intended to dive the area tonight. With another captain, he might have discouraged the drinking, but with Sloan, he readily allowed it, even encouraged it, hoping it would fuzzy the man’s memory. In any case, Mac intended to trip the breaker and disable the electronics as soon as they arrived.

  Delaying the inevitable, he checked the conditions, then when he could fabricate no other excuse, he reluctantly leaned over the screen and zoomed in on the area. Van Doren, without the aid of GPS and depth finders, had chosen an easily recognizable but hard-to-access location to ditch the treasure. Mac had spotted the dark, coral mass that Van Doren had named The Tongue from the deck of Ghost Runner. From the mast of a nineteenth-century ship it would have been easily visible. He studied the screen, trying to figure out the sequence of events that had led to the destruction of Lafitte’s ships. Van Doren’s journal had described how one ship had sunk after striking the chain boom that his crew had set, and the other, forced to change course by the wreck ahead, was forced into a nearby shoal. Van Doren and his crew had fled the scene, then outfitted and repaired their boat in Cuba before returning to salvage the diving bell, only to find a Spanish ship stationed on the site and two frigates ready to ambush him.

  If he were to guess which ship still held her secrets, Mac chose the one the boom had taken down. Van Doren’s crew had stretched the anchor chain across the narrow channel just past The Tongue. By securing it to the gold-filled diving bell on one end and their ship on the other, Lafitte’s vessel would have sunk in thirty feet of water—too deep for the Spanish to salvage. The location of the boom was apparent. On Mac’s last dive, he had found the chain, and from the direction it lay he had plotted a course in his head to where the wreck should have settled. Mac knew that his calculations were far from a slam dunk. In the salvage business, should have usually meant you had no idea.

  The direction and strength of the current on the day it happened would have affected the resting place of the ship, to say nothing of the two hundred years of storms that had swept the area since then.

  Mac moved the cursor on the chartplotter to a spot in the sand. “We’ll try here first.” If Ned were here, he might have had a better suggestion, but Mac needed to start somewhere. He’d left the journal pages behind, thinking he knew them well enough and not wanting to risk the chance of Sloan seeing them. Now, he wished he’d brought them.

  What was happening below the sea, as well as above, was a four-dimensional puzzle. Add into that a captain’s decisions while under duress and anything could have happened. One insignificant detail might provide an answer.

  Treasure hunting was a needle-in-a-haystack kind of business, and Mac knew from experience how to manage his expectations. He had already dived the immediate area around The Tongue, finding nothing there except the diving bell and anchor chain. There was a good chance the wreck was gone, swept to sea by storms and currents or buried underneath several feet of sand.

  The pitch of the engine changed as the autopilot adjusted course. Sloan stood awkwardly, clearly affected by whatever liquid the stainless-steel walls of his insulated cup held, and peered through the windshield.

  Recognizing several landmarks, Mac realized they were within a few minutes of the waypoint. Whether he trusted Sloan or not in the long-term, Mac understood that whatever game Sloan was playing wouldn’t start until the treasure was found. Until then, he would be cooperative to a fault.

  “You need help with the anchor or does this thing do it for you?” Mac asked. He had been engrossed with the push-button controls he had been using to sail the boat.

  “If you could release the safety on the anchor, I’ll handle the rest.”

  They changed places. Mac went forward while Sloan crept up on the waypoint. Looking down into the crystal-clear water, he could see the tip of The Tongue pass below the bowsprit. Looking back to see if Sloan noticed, Mac was relieved to see that he was focused ahead. At least for now, the location of Van Doren’s diving bell would remain a secret. Mac released the safety cable and moved back to the cockpit. He had already scoped out the storage areas and knew where the dive equipment was located. With the sun hanging low in the sky, he wanted to be in the water as soon as they anchored.

  With the anchor set fifty feet off The Tongue, Mac pulled the buoyancy compensator and regulator from the storage box, setting them beside the fins and mask. There were two wetsuits there as well, but the man’s would be too small, and the woman’s even smaller. Though the water was close to eighty degrees, he would have liked the neoprene for protection. Calculating his buoyancy without the suit, he added a four-pound weight to each pocket of the BC and slid the harness over the tank. By the time he had the regulator affixed to the valve and the hoses sorted out, Sloan had cut the engines.

  The rattling of the anchor chain told Mac it was time to go, and he moved to the tailgate transom. Pressing a concealed button on the starboard side, he waited while the transom lowered to the water. When it stopped, Mac guessed it added around thirty square feet to the deck. With the tank sitting on the deck and the dive platform created by the drop-down transom all at the same level, Mac sat with his feet over the edge, and worked his arms through the BC straps. Once secure, he slid the fins on his feet and gathered the regulator by sweeping his right arm low around his back. Checking the gauges one last time, he set the mask on his head and slid off the edge of the platform.

  The first thing he noticed on entry was how relaxed he was. Depending on the style of the boat, entering the water was often the most taxing thing about a dive, and many divers were already panting, breathing hard through their regulators, and sucking the precious bottled air before the dive even started. The flush deck and transom of the Surfari had allowed Mac to suit up and enter the water with little effort.

  Mac wasted no time sightseeing and, clearing his ears every few feet, dove straight for the bottom. The area was all sand, making assisted navigation a necessity, and he checked his compass before finning to the east in the direction of the anchor. Finding the rode, he followed it to the bottom and started exploring.

  A large grouper flashed in front of his mask and he recalled the incident with the bull shark the last time he had dived these waters. He had dispatched that one with a 12-gauge shell from his bang stick. Sloan had no such weapons aboard, at least of the underwater variety. Without even a speargun for protection, Mac followed the ripples in the sand thinking they would lead him to the channel itself. He could tell he was on the right track by the contour of the bottom, carved out through years of tidal water running back and forth through the narrow pass. Staying close to the thickest ripples, he fought against the strengthening current until he saw coral encroaching on both sides, bringing the width of the pass from a comfortable fifty feet to a skinny twenty. Here, he guessed, Lafitte’s ship had sunk.

  The ripples also told him it was not going to be easy to find the wreck. Their crests and valleys were tightly packed and steep, indicating that the current ran hard through the feature. From his experience, whenever this much water was moving, the bottom was constantly changing. Mac knew the wreck might be buried by tons of sand accumulated over centuries. As he cruised, first down the center of the cut, then to the eastern end where the coral infringed on the pass, he tried to remember Van Doren’s recollection of the water depth, again regretting not bringing the journal. The clue he needed could well be sitting on the table at Ned’s house. He only hoped the wreck had been protected by the coral; otherwise, the chances of finding it without equipment and more time, both of which would attract unwanted attention, were slim.

  Mac appr
oached the western coral mass. Reaching to within a few feet of the surface, he could easily see it tearing out the hull of a passing ship. He ascended to within a few feet from its top and started examining each section. His experience diving on wrecks told him that when looking for something two hundred years old, the minutia wouldn’t matter. Depending on the species, coral slowly grew at a rate of between one and six inches per year; over a few hundred years, the reef could encompass a wreck.

  Mac had seen wrecks populated by coral within days of sinking. The older wrecks were often found by looking at the big picture from some distance away. He was looking for straight lines and shapes that didn’t appear in nature, but didn’t see any here.

  Checking his air gauge, he saw there was still two-thousand PSI remaining in his tank. The red needle showing the maximum depth for the dive showed thirty feet on the depth gauge. Mac didn’t need a computer to know there were no issues with decompression sickness on this single dive. He calculated he had another thirty minutes of air before he had to return to the boat, enough time to check the eastern reef.

  Turning away from the outcropping, Mac swam over the sand with his arm extended, compass in hand. When he thought he was near the center of the channel, he looked up and saw the aqua-colored hull of the Surfari. As well-thought-out as the sailboat’s deck and rigging were, the same attention to detail was found in the design of the hull. Instead of a fixed keel, the retractable-bulb style the designers had chosen was sleek and could be raised several feet. Aft of the keel, Mac saw the dual shafts coming from the engines. The propellers were folded back now, another performance feature that reduced drag while under sail. Toward the stern, instead of a single rudder, Mac saw dual rudders that would allow steerage while the hull was heeled over.

  There was something about seeing the bottom of your boat while underwater that comforted divers, especially when it was where you expected to find it. Reassured, Mac turned his focus back to the water ahead and finned toward the dark area ahead. Even from this distance he could see the reef structure was different than the western side, which had a more consistent look with only a few types of coral.

  As he approached the eastern reef, Mac started to get excited. He’d not seen the staghorn and elkhorn coral, whose tentacles reached toward the surface, on the other reef. This told Mac there was a structure there for coral to anchor to and grow. He didn’t want to say the words, even to himself, but it was a typical growth structure often found on wrecks. The next goal was to look for straight lines which usually meant cannon. The wooden masts and rigging would be long gone, having decayed or been eaten by the wood-seeking teredo worm.

  Mac swam twenty feet away, trying to visualize what lay beneath the coral. In his mind, he pictured a ship coming from the north, hitting the boom, and sinking. With the orientation clear in his head, Mac swam around the structure, becoming frustrated when it wouldn’t reveal its secrets. Checking his gauges, he saw there was less than five-hundred PSI of air remaining. He needed to return to the boat.

  As he swam back to the aqua hull, he tried to reassure himself. Puzzles were solved not only by making discoveries, but also by the process of elimination.

  Just before surfacing he heard the sound of an engine.

  Thirty

  Mac had to wait until the other boat stopped before it would be safe to surface. In an effort to keep their exploration a secret, he had decided against using a dive flag. That meant the boat coming toward him had no indication that there was a diver in the water.

  Mac dropped twenty feet to the bottom to wait, figuring he could both conserve his air and avoid the dangerous propeller of the approaching boat. Checking his gauge, he saw the needle had dropped into the red. He had to squint to see there was only a hundred PSI left in the tank—ten minutes tops at this depth if he didn’t exert himself. But the current was getting stronger as it was funneled through the narrow pass, forcing him to fin to stay in place. The time limit brought another fear. They were within the boundaries of the Dry Tortugas National Park. If the approaching boat belonged to the park service, he could be in more trouble than just running out of air. After his last adventure here, he would be surprised if his picture wasn’t posted on the office wall.

  With nothing to do except try to conserve his limited air, the underwater world claimed Mac’s attention. After countless dives, probably in the thousands if he were asked, he was still as fascinated as a novice diver on their first checkout dive. Even from the middle of the channel, the two coral formations to the east and west were still visible. The low light cast them in shadows and a chill ran up his spine. Though the water was just shy of eighty degrees, he had been under for almost an hour, and the heat had slowly drained from his body. It was hard to believe that a person could become hypothermic in tropical waters, but Mac knew firsthand that it only took a little over an hour to start losing dexterity. Then, between two and twelve hours into a dive, depending on a host of conditions, exhaustion would set in, followed by a loss of consciousness.

  Having lived on and in the water for thirty years, Mac had a clock built into his brain. Like most who made their living from the water, he didn’t need to look at the tide or solunar charts. The rising and setting of the moon and its phase, and that effect on the oceans, was indelibly etched in his mind. But that timetable was for Marathon, over a hundred miles away. Besides the distance, the Dry Tortugas were the tail end of the line of demarcation between the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean. This caused the tides to be variable, depending on how far down the chain of islands you were.

  When he had entered the water, Mac had no idea of the tide. He had observed the current was slack from the surface, but that wasn’t always indicative of what was going on beneath the water. Over the course of the dive, he noticed the pull had shifted from the east to west, indicating a tide change. The ripples on the bottom were a sure sign of its swiftness, but Mac didn’t need that indicator now.

  When he saw a shadow cruising in front of the eastern reef, it wasn’t just hypothermia that had sent the chill up his spine. The current, now noticeably stronger—carried him toward a pair of sharks cruising the reef. The increased water movement and the low light were both optimal conditions for the apex predators to hunt, and as Mac drifted across the sand, he saw the lead shark turn toward him. With nothing to grab onto, Mac was faced with two choices: Either fin into the current which would deplete his already dangerously low air supply, or surface and risk being made into shark bait by the propeller of the approaching boat.

  He knew his best bet, although the harder choice, was to stay on the bottom. While watching the sharks, he had stopped paying attention to the engine. He could still hear it, but the sound had dropped in pitch. Mac tore his eyes away from the sharks and looked up at the surface. Seeing only the aqua hull of the Surfari, Mac turned back to the sharks.

  They had both turned toward him, having either seen or sensed him. Though the bull sharks common to these waters were braver than the more common blacktips and reef sharks, lone sharks of any species were usually shy around divers, but with a pair hunting together, Mac knew he faced a problem.

  The current had brought him close to the east reef, and within easy striking distance of the sharks. Mac searched the coral structure looking for anything to protect him. To his left, a huge brain coral rose ten feet from the reef. Mac had taken enough lobster from this kind of structure to know it was hollow and would have a hole underneath. With the current now smoking, it was all he could do to grab for an exposed edge. His hand slipped at first, and he struggled to find purchase. Mac felt his fingers abrade across the rough surface of the coral as the current pulled him. A thin stream of his blood floated toward the sharks. In seconds they would smell it. Mac fought harder, and finally pulled himself into the shadow of a small coral formation that blocked the current.

  Eels and other predators often used the cover of large brain coral to stalk their prey, but Mac didn’t have enough time to check the void. The shar
ks had picked up his scent and, as if they were talking to each other, their heads turned, and two sets of eyes found him. Hugging the coral in front of him, Mac slid his body back into the hole. Using his fins to gauge the size of the opening and to scare any lurking predators out, and soon his legs were fully inside.

  The tip of his fins met resistance just as his torso entered the cavity. He could go no further. Hugging the coral in front of him, he stayed low, hoping the reef would hide him. The sharks split up, but that gave Mac little relief. The beasts had a primitive intelligence. Maybe it defied science, but Mac had seen sharks communicate with each other when they hunted. Not the smaller blacktips or other reef sharks, whose hunting patterns seemed to be frantic and disorganized, but he’d seen bulls hunt together in an almost human way.

  Though the predators preferred murky water, the fast current, low light, and easy prey on the isolated reefs surrounding The Tongue made these productive hunting grounds. As Mac hugged the bottom, he realized he was still bleeding. It didn’t matter how well he hid himself, the myopic sharks had a keen sense of smell and could locate him by the blood alone.

  A quick examination showed a deep cut to his right hand. Sticking his hand into his BC, hoping the cavernous pocket would contain the blood until the sharks either lost his scent or found another target, his fingers found the secondary regulator he had stuffed there before the dive. Generally, he dove with a single regulator, finding the longer extra hose connecting the secondary octopus to the first stage on the tank to be cumbersome. Rather than remove it, which required a special wrench and a plug, Mac had coiled the bright-yellow hose and stuck it and the regulator in the pocket. Now, finding it, his thoughts flashed from the sharks to his air supply.

  Sliding onto his side, he was able to expose the air gauge, which not surprisingly showed zero PSI. The needle hovered less than a sixteenth of an inch above the peg that established the bottom limit. It told him, though the tank was almost empty, that there was still a minuscule amount of air left.