Danger (9780545628136)

by Korman, Gordon

  It was Tin Man, Poseidon’s one-atmosphere suit, capable of taking a diver to a depth of two thousand feet or more. Tad Cutter had signed it out at exactly 12:01 A.M. Saturday morning.

  “I don’t see why this couldn’t wait until we all got some sleep,” yawned Chris Reardon, guiding the huge suit into place for the ride to the wreck site. With a grunt, he added, “This thing weighs a ton.”

  “Half a ton,” corrected Marina.

  “We’ve only got it for a day, and I’m not taking the chance of coming up empty,” Cutter explained. “The kids are onto us. English is suspicious. It’s time to claim the treasure before somebody beats us to it.” He signaled to Captain Bill Hamilton in the wheelhouse. “Ready to go!”

  Thunder rumbled as the Ponce de Léon picked its way out of the harbor, and headed into open water. Distant lightning illuminated the overcast at the horizon.

  They had not yet made it to the wreck site when Captain Hamilton cut lights and power, and called his three passengers to the bridge. “There’s a ship ahead,” he informed them. “Looks like an old clunker. The oil company has a few still active.”

  “Did they see us?” asked Marina.

  “I don’t think so,” replied Hamilton. “I went dark as soon as they came up on radar. They wouldn’t have visual contact yet.”

  “You did the right thing,” Cutter approved. “Let’s stay here and play dead until they pass by.”

  “They won’t pass by,” Hamilton told him. “They’re anchored. In just about the exact coordinates we’re looking for.”

  “No way,” said Reardon in consternation. “There’s no oil on this side of the island.”

  “English!” breathed Marina. “The kids must have told him where the treasure is. And he’s put together a team of sat divers to go after it!”

  Cutter let fly a string of curses. “Those guys are pros! If there’s anything to find, they’ll find it.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” countered Marina. “If they’re diving sat, they’ve got days of decompression ahead of them. All we have to do is go down in Tin Man and get one piece of treasure. Then the International Maritime Commission declares the wreck is ours. It won’t make any difference if English and his pals pick that ship dry. They’ll just be saving us the trouble.”

  * * *

  Seven hundred feet below, the interns shrieked, sang, and sobbed out their celebration. They had been belittled, ignored, and deceived. Now, finally, they had their reward — gold, not at the end of the rainbow, but at the bottom of the sea.

  Gold, gold, and more gold!

  “What’s going on down there?” cried Star. “Are you guys all right?”

  “You — you won’t believe it — ” babbled Dante. “You gotta see it — ”

  “Will somebody tell me what’s going on?!”

  Kaz provided the answer. “Dante hit Fort Knox.”

  And the party spread to sea level.

  For three and a half centuries, the ocean had concealed this prize from armies of treasure hunters, oceanographic experts, and professional divers. Yet four kids on a summer program had managed to unravel the puzzle — with a little help from a West Indian Frenchman named English. And Captain Vanover, of course.

  The captain. It was the only melancholy note in this exultant symphony. Braden Vanover should have been here to share this triumph.

  Now came the business of recovering the spectacular find. Captain Bourassa repositioned the ship so that the bell and lift basket were directly over the shelf. The divers changed from flippers to weighted boots. Swimming was no longer required. A vast fortune was buried right here. It was simply a matter of digging it up.

  After eluding human hands for so long, the treasure of Nuestra Señora de la Luz seemed to give itself up in a single glittering moment. Kaz and Dante pulled hundreds of gold coins and ingots of all shapes and sizes out of the seabed. English yanked on what looked like a chain, only to come up with a rope of gold nine feet long. There turned out to be dozens of these. Beneath them, Adriana uncovered strings of pearls, and necklaces decorated with rubies, emeralds, and sapphires that made her mother’s expensive jewelry seem like dime-store junk.

  Gold and gems were easy to spot, but silver was another matter. Silver oxidizes over centuries underwater, so the valuable Spanish pieces of eight were now flat black discs. They littered the bottom like gravel.

  “We need a shovel,” panted Kaz. He had lost count of his armloads.

  “Or a bulldozer,” Dante added exultantly.

  Even English had trouble keeping the smile off his normally sour face. “Monsieur Cutter, he will — how do you say — have the cow.”

  “I’m having one myself,” put in Adriana. “And my uncle — ”

  “I wonder how long it’ll take to get the whole one-point-two billion,” mused Dante.

  “Yesterday you refused to dive,” put in Kaz. “Now you want to stay here forever?”

  “Dante,” Adriana explained patiently, “the treasure of a Spanish galleon would fill that basket fifty times.”

  Star cut in from topside. “I want you guys to come up as soon as you start to feel bushed. Don’t try to be heroes. Remember, it only takes one piece to put a claim on the whole wreck.”

  It was unreal — a scene straight out of some swashbuckling adventure story. The very mud under their boots glittered from the pounds of gold dust that had been dispersed by the whirlpool of the sinking ship. It seemed as if every square foot of bottom silt held something of great value — gemstone-encrusted medallions and crucifixes, silver cups and plates, solid-gold candlesticks, even hatbands and collars made with braided gold. Dante was disappointed when the jewelry box he pulled out of the mud turned out to be bronze. Then he opened the lid and realized that the thing was packed to the top with huge pearls.

  Adriana was on her knees, gathering loose gems, when she spied a strange shape half-buried in the sand. In surprise, she realized that it was wood — blackened and made rock-hard by the centuries at depth and pressure. Intrigued, she played her light over the carved contours and curves. The artifact had been broken on one end. She frowned. Why did the jagged angles of the crack seem so familiar?

  When the answer came to her, she nearly cried out in amazement. This, she realized, was the most amazing find of all. Her heavy boots sinking in the mud, she carried the piece to the lift basket and dropped it on top of the growing mountain of riches.

  When she looked up again, she saw the intruder.

  It was moving slowly but steadily toward them, emerging from the darkness into the cocoon of light cast by the bell. She stared at the armored contraption that was cruising in, powered by twin thrusters. For a moment, she toyed with the possibility that the depth had driven her to hallucinations. This looked like something from outer space!

  And then she recognized it. Tin Man, Poseidon’s one-atmosphere suit, sailing through the water like a humanoid submarine. Tad Cutter!

  She tried to call out a warning to the others, but she couldn’t make her mouth work. How would the treasure hunter react to the sight of the wealth of Nuestra Señora being loaded up by someone else? He had already committed one murder out of greed.

  The aluminum-plated suit cruised past the wreck site to the lift basket, not ten feet from Adriana. A bulky arm reached into the cage, and a mechanical claw hand closed on a small gold bar.

  Despite her terror, the theft puzzled Adriana. Sure, the ingot was valuable. But it was small change compared to the fortune in the basket.

  Star’s words came back to her: “It only takes one piece of treasure to put a claim on the whole wreck.”

  We could lose it all if we don’t stop him!

  Finding her helium-squeaky voice at last, she rasped a warning to the others: “Cutter!”

  But Tin Man was retreating from her, gliding steadily away from the shelf toward the cover of the ocean’s cloak.

  Kicking off his heavy boots for more speed, English dove for the suit like a linebacker. The
comm. system clearly broadcast his “oof!” as he made contact. He hung on, struggling to lock onto the metallic shell.

  “What’s going on?” came Star’s query from topside. “Did somebody say Cutter?”

  Adriana didn’t answer. She was already running in an awkward slow-motion gait, determined to help English, who was being tossed around like a rag doll by Tin Man’s hydraulics. The six-foot-five guide looked like a child next to the half-ton suit.

  “Help, you guys!” Adriana cried, launching herself into the battle. She grabbed on to the suit’s huge leg and hung on for dear life.

  “The bell!” English ordered in a strained voice. “Go to the bell! Vite!”

  “No!” Adriana shrieked. But his logic was clear. If English couldn’t handle this sea monster, what hope did a thirteen-year-old girl have?

  But I can’t just leave him to fight alone!

  With a superhuman effort, she scrambled up the fortresslike body. Now she could see Kaz and Dante plodding across the wreck site toward them, battling against the weights on their boots.

  Henri was yelling in French over the comm. system, adding volume every time he got no answer.

  English’s grunts were directed only at the interns. “Stay away! … go back! … the bell! …”

  Straining, Adriana pulled herself up higher, until she was looking into Tin Man’s Plexiglas bubble.

  A yelp of surprise escaped her.

  It was not Tad Cutter in there, attempting to steal their find. The face inside the one-atmosphere suit belonged to Marina Kappas.

  Aboard the RV Ponce de Léon, Chris Reardon crouched over the communications panel, flipping switches and pressing buttons.

  “Come in, Marina! Do you read me?”

  Cutter sat beside him at a small fold-down table, pounding the keyboard of Marina’s laptop. She had been trained on one-atmosphere suits in California. The technical manuals were saved on her computer.

  “I found everything about Tin Man except where to oil the hinges,” he complained, opening files at light speed. “As far as I can see, we’re doing everything right.”

  “Then she just stopped talking,” Reardon concluded. “I hope she’s all right.” He turned back to the microphone. “Say something, Marina. We’re getting nervous here.”

  Lightning flashed, followed by a crash of thunder. “Weather’s getting close,” Cutter observed. “Maybe that’s the problem.”

  Reardon frowned. “We won’t stay hidden forever. The storm will light us up.”

  Cutter said nothing. He was staring in wide-eyed horror at the computer screen.

  Reardon glanced at him. “What?”

  In answer, Cutter swiveled the laptop so that his companion could see the display. It was a schematic diagram of a deep-ocean submersible.

  “That’s not Tin Man,” Reardon pointed out.

  “It’s Deep Scout!” Cutter exclaimed.

  Reardon was confused. “Why would she need the specs of the sub? We never used it.”

  “The accident!” Cutter’s voice was trembling. “English said it was sabotage! I thought he was crazy. But look.” He paged down.

  Now the screen showed a close-up of the fiberglass plates that protected the temperature probe in the belly of the sub. “Those are the exact same plates that failed on Deep Scout.”

  “So?” Light dawned on Reardon. “You’re not saying that Marina rigged the sub? My God, Braden Vanover died in that accident!”

  Cutter looked pasty in the artificial light. “A submersible must have ten thousand parts. Marina has the drawing for only one of them. It can’t be a coincidence!”

  “Don’t you understand what this means? She’s a murderer!”

  Cutter was in a full panic. “And she’s down where there could be divers in the water! Maybe that’s why she isn’t answering us. Who knows what she could be doing?”

  Reardon was shaking now. “Tad, I’m just in this for the money. No one said anybody was going to get killed!”

  The decision tore Tad Cutter in two. A man was dead already, and more lives could be at stake. But if he warned the oil company’s ship, he would be giving up any chance whatsoever to recover the treasure of Nuestra Señora de la Luz, an operation he’d been planning for years.

  He hesitated. A billion dollars. A life’s dream.

  And then he pressed the intercom to Captain Hamilton in the wheelhouse. “Bill, hail the other boat.” He sighed. “And you’d better forget about buying that Ferrari.”

  * * *

  Far below, all four hard-hat divers were clamped onto Tin Man’s husk in a desperate attempt to wrest the gold bar from the iron grip of its mechanical claw.

  Star’s agitated voice burst into their helmets. “What’s going on down there? Has it got anything to do with Marina?”

  “She’s got some gold!” wheezed Dante. “And she’s wearing a U-boat!”

  “It’s a one-atmosphere suit,” Star said urgently. “Cutter just called to warn us. He thinks she’s dangerous!”

  Tin Man’s flailing arm dealt a tremendous blow to Kaz’s Rat Hat. The helmet protected him, but the collision with a thousand-pound piece of equipment knocked him senseless. The force of it sent him tumbling head over heels through the water, his umbilical trailing behind him. The silt cushioned his landing, but he felt nothing anyway. Everything went dark.

  English pulled a long knife from a scabbard on his weight belt.

  Adriana stared in disbelief. “That can’t break through metal!” she gasped.

  But that was not the dive guide’s plan. Instead, he jammed the blade into the grip of Tin Man’s mechanical claw. Using the weapon as a lever, he pried with all his might. The steel snapped, but the gold bar popped free. English dropped the hilt and snatched it up.

  “Topside!” he barked. “Raise the basket!”

  “Is everybody okay?” pleaded Star.

  “The basket!!”

  The cage began to rise silently, bearing its treasure trove toward the surface.

  The sight of this mountain of wealth being lifted out of her grasp drove Marina to rage. Both claws swiped at English, scissoring through the water. One of the pincers caught the shoulder of his dry suit, cutting through the heavy material like it was newsprint. Frigid water flooded the dive guide’s body.

  “Back to the bell!” he ordered, shivering.

  This time, Adriana and Dante didn’t argue. They let go of Tin Man, sinking to the shelf.

  Left alone against the armored suit, English was at a serious disadvantage. Marina smacked him across the chest with Tin Man’s elbow joint. Then the claw reached for his Rat Hat.

  Desperately, he ducked. It was the wrong thing to do. The pincers sliced through his umbilical lines, severing them all. A cascade of bubbles erupted from the heliox hose.

  Knowing he only had a few lungfuls of gas left in his helmet, English exploded into action. Bracing against Tin Man’s massive shoulders, he vaulted up to the suit’s lighting array. He reared back the gold ingot and, one by one, smashed the three floodlights.

  Marina grabbed for him again. English switched off his own light, disappearing into the dark ocean before her. She could see only the blinding illumination of the bell. More than a few feet away from that, everything faded to black.

  Holding his breath as the Rat Hat filled with water, English kicked for the bell. Adriana and Dante were right below the hatch, still plodding along in their boots. He streaked past them and burst through the open work-lock. One big breath, and he was down again, pulling them inside to safety.

  * * *

  The broad flat deck of the Adventurer tossed in the worsening storm. Heavy rain pelted the comm. station and gas shack. Forks of lightning carved up the angry sky. Thunder drowned out the roar of the winch as it labored to haul the lift basket full of treasure to the surface.

  Star and Henri hung on to bulkheads, still barking frantic queries down to the divers. So far, their only responses had been terrifying sounds of struggle and viole
nce.

  And then English’s voice: “You are all right? You are unhurt?”

  Henri let out a whoop. “They are back in the pot!” He leaned into the microphone. “This is topside. We raise the bell, yes?”

  “No!” shrilled Adriana. “We’re missing Kaz!”

  “Missing?” Star echoed. “What do you mean, missing?”

  “Marina hit him in the head!” Dante croaked. “He isn’t answering us! I think he’s unconscious!”

  “I will find him, me,” English vowed.

  “We’re going with you,” exclaimed Adriana.

  “No!” snapped the guide. “If you move from this bell, I will kill you myself! Entendu?”

  All at once, the boiling clouds lit up like day. Lightning hit with a shattering roar, turning the Adventurer’s antenna into a pyrotechnics display. The thunderclap was instant, coming with a shower of sparks. The strike traveled through every electrical system on the ship, frying lights, radar, sonar, comm. panels, and appliances. Even the microphone blew up in Star’s hand.

  The crane that controlled the basket of treasure ground to a halt. So did the heliox compressors.

  Henri was nothing short of frantic. “The backup generator!” With the compressors dead, there was no breathing gas going down to the divers.

  Grabbing flashlights from a rack of emergency equipment, he and Star raced into the gas shack. The backup generator looked like an ancient car engine, about the size of a dishwasher.

  Star stared at it in dismay. “Their lives depend on that?”

  Henri pulled out the choke handle and yanked a cord similar to the starter on a lawnmower. Like an old man with a chronic cough, the contraption sputtered twice, and then put-putted to life in a cloud of burning oil.

  They held their breath. A few seconds later, the compressors clamored back into operation.

  Star let out a long sigh of relief. “Now how do we get communication back?”