Danger (9780545628136)
Page 9
She squinted at the winch, trying to size up the amount of cable wound around the wheel. Surely the basket wasn’t too far beneath the surface now.
As she climbed the metal ladder down to the dive platform, the words of her doctor resounded in her ears: “You must never dive again. Another case of the bends, and you will surely be in a wheelchair for life.”
Sorry, Doc, but this one’s a must.
And she jumped into the sea.
Her fears disappeared the instant the water closed over her. How could anything that felt so right do her harm? She held her breath, descending effortlessly along the winch cable. She kept her eyes open, almost enjoying the stinging salt. The ocean was clear and quite bright despite the fact that the sun had not yet burned off the morning mist.
At last, the basket came into view, hanging at about forty feet. Her heart nearly stopped at the sight of it.
Oh, my God! I knew they found treasure, but this is the mother lode!
Silver turned black; pearls and gems faded. But gold was always gold. It was spectacular — something out of a fairy tale.
She grabbed a solid-gold candlestick and reached for a rope of pearls to wrap around her neck.
Her hand froze. No. Just proof. Nothing more. She kicked for the surface.
When she climbed back aboard, her exhilaration was total. No pain, no stiffness. Star Ling was a diver again.
She was sitting on the platform, catching her breath, when the lift bag broke the waves right where she had been swimming seconds earlier. Shouting for Henri, she took a boat hook from the rack and fished the bobbing float out of the water.
She gawked. Fastened by waterproof tape was a simple sandwich bag. Inside the clear plastic was a torn piece of paper bearing the message: TEAM OK. RAISE BELL.
Her heart soared. They were alive! Only —
How are we supposed to raise the pot without electricity?
And then Cutter appeared out of the haze, piloting a Zodiac inflatable over to the Adventurer.
He called, “What can we do to help?”
* * *
When the diving bell finally broke the surface, English and the three interns were astonished to find themselves deposited not onto their own ship, but to the deck of the Ponce de Léon.
What was going on here? They had narrowly escaped Marina only to be delivered right into the hands of Cutter and Reardon.
Luckily, Star was there to explain the situation through the intercom. “I think Cutter’s our friend now, believe it or not. He’s a treasure hunter and a reef wrecker, but he didn’t know what Marina was doing. And when he found out, he warned us right away.”
“Marina didn’t make it,” Kaz said soberly. He offered no details. It would be a while before he would be ready to discuss this particular adventure.
“Anyway, Cutter’s giving us a ride over to the oil rig,” Star concluded. “Captain Bourassa will meet us there. He’s got to go slow over the reef because there’s about a zillion dollars hanging under the Adventurer.”
English glared at her through the small view port. “I hope you know this by inference only, mademoiselle with the wet hair, and not because you are foolish enough to dive there.”
They were about halfway to the Antilles platform when the helicopters began to arrive, filling the sky with their machine-gun rhythms.
Dante peered out at them. “Big doings at the oil rig.”
English laughed mirthlessly. “One billion dollars. Many zeroes attract many friends.”
Adriana gaped at the aircraft that filled the skies over Saint-Luc like circling hawks. “You mean all this is for us?”
“I believe you Americans have a saying about — hitting the fan?”
The decompression from seven hundred feet took four long days. By the time the divers stepped out of the chamber, the contents of the lift basket and even Star’s gold candlestick sat in the hold of a French warship that patrolled the waters over the wreck site at the edge of the Hidden Shoals.
Court claims on the treasure of Nuestra Señora de la Luz had been filed by Poseidon Oceanographic Institute, Antilles Oil, and three countries — France, England, and Spain.
Centuries after the days of the great treasure fleets, the same three governments were still bickering over Caribbean gold.
The claim filed on behalf of the four teenage interns, who had discovered not one but two seventeenth-century shipwrecks, was rejected by the International Maritime Commission.
Tad Cutter and Chris Reardon made no claim at all.
Kaz knocked on the door of the small cottage in the center of the village of Côte Saint-Luc.
English greeted the four interns and ushered them inside. “You leave tomorrow. This is what I hear, yes?”
Star grinned. “Poseidon has officially invited us to go home. Gallagher finally turned his back on the camera long enough to kick us out.”
“Yeah,” Dante said bitterly. “So he can hire lawyers to go after our billion dollars.”
“Ah, the money.” English dismissed this with a contemptuous shrug. “You are better off without it. It brings only complications.”
“And private jets,” Dante added feelingly.
“Two lives are lost,” English reminded him. “No treasure is worth that.”
“He knows,” Kaz said gently. “He just wants to sulk. It’s like therapy.”
“We brought you a going-away present,” Adriana announced.
English cast a disapproving glance at the enormous shopping bag that was being carried between Adriana and Star. “Then give it to someone who is going away. Me, I stay here.”
“This one you’re going to like,” Adriana promised. She tore the bag away, revealing the wooden object she had found buried with the treasure at the wreck site. “It was the only thing the government didn’t impound. They prefer gold, I guess.”
English examined it with mild interest. “It is a carving,” he observed. “Like the one I already have.” He picked up the figure and turned it over in his arms. “The body and hindquarters of an animal. The head is missing.”
“No, it isn’t.” Adriana was almost dancing with excitement. She crossed the small parlor and lifted the other piece from the fishnet hanging in the window. “The head is right here.”
The dive guide frowned. “But this is impossible. The head is a bird. The body is some kind of beast.”
“There’s a mythological animal with the head and wings of an eagle and the body of a lion,” Adriana explained. “It’s a griffin. This artifact comes from the wreck of a ship called the Griffin.”
Holding the eagle out in front of her, she walked up to English and lowered it on top of the carving in his arms. The jagged ends fit together like two puzzle pieces. One half was bleached by sun, the other blackened by centuries underwater. But there was no question that this had once been a single sculpture. Now it was whole again after more than three hundred years.
She stepped back and admired the effect. “This is the figurehead from the bow of the Griffin. If your ancestor floated ashore on part of it, then he was from that ship.” She looked at him long and hard. “The Griffin was English, which means you are, too. Your family legend — it’s all true.”
Menasce Gérard was not often overwhelmed, but this was one of those times. At last, he managed, “You American teenagers — ”
“I’m Canadian,” Kaz reminded him.
“You bring me my history,” the guide persisted. “I — I have no way to repay you.”
Star regarded him solemnly. “I think saving our lives a thousand times probably counts.”
English gazed at their faces as if committing each one to memory. “I will never forget you.” The giant stood there for a moment awkwardly, and then opened his arms.
There was room for all four of them.
09 September 1665
Samuel came awake with the piece of the wooden figurehead still clutched in his arms, and the gritty taste of sand in his mouth. He shook himself
and sat up, spitting and choking.
Alive! he thought. He had not expected to be so.
He took in his surroundings — a beach, palm trees, a pleasant floral scent on a tropical breeze.
An island.
Captain Blade was right about one thing, he thought. I am lucky.
He stood up, shaking with hunger and thirst, and spied a village just in from the beach. He could smell food cooking. Children played among the huts.
Now several people were heading his way. They resembled the natives Samuel had seen along the coastline around Portobelo. They reached him, exclaimed over him, brought him water.
“I’m English,” he tried to explain, pointing to himself. “English.”
They did not understand, nor could he make sense of their strange words. But the message of welcome was clear. The feeling that welled up inside him was something close to joy.
Samuel Higgins had never belonged anywhere. But this was a place where a young man could make a life for himself. Start a family.
Leave a legacy.
The X-ray machine at Martinique airport picked up the strange object in Star’s duffel bag. Security officers swarmed from all directions. Star and her three traveling companions were pulled aside into the restricted area, and a search of the luggage began.
The agent in charge rummaged around the bag and pulled out the carved whalebone handle that had once belonged to Captain James Blade of His Majesty’s privateer fleet.
“I totally forgot about that thing!” Star exclaimed.
And then the huge stone inset above the initials J.B. caught the light and flashed deep green fire at them. The interns stared at it, mouths agape. This was the first time they had seen it free of its encrustation of coral. It was magnificent.
A junior agent pointed urgently at the brilliant display. “Monsieur — regardez! The gem!”
With disinterested eyes, the inspector looked from the four teens in shorts to this huge garish stone.
“Do not be ridiculous,” he chided his subordinate. “It cannot be real. An emerald that size would be worth two million dollars!”
With a snort of disgust, he tossed the artifact back into Star’s duffel, and passed the interns through.
“Souvenir tourist junk!”
Copyright © 2003 by Gordon Korman.
All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Inc.
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First printing, August 2003
Photography: Kelly La Duke
Cover design: Ursula S. Albano
e-ISBN 978-0-545-62813-6
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