by Hep Aldridge
As he surveyed the new space with an approving look, he said, "Ms. O’Reilly is the official pilot of record for CES. And yes, there is a chopper available with the CES logo on it. We'll keep it at my place, but it will be available when you need it. Give us as much notice as you can. We can be here in less than 20 minutes if we push it."
"That’s great" I said.
"I see you have a nice large parking lot out back we can use as a pad for the bird.”
“Yes,” I replied, “I think it will be perfect.”
Ms. O’Reilly smiled and looked at Fitz, then me, and said, "Fifteen minutes tops, from the time we get your call to touchdown."
Fitz shook his head. "Lead-foot"…. She smiled and gave me a wink as we headed toward the conference room.
Once we all had beverages and got settled around the big table, I slid a brown paper bag to Fitz containing one hundred thousand dollars. He opened it and looked at me questioningly.
"Your first installment from Risky Business," I said.
He laughed and said, "You know I don’t need this, don’t you?"
I said, "Fine, then just consider it a repayment of your investment, with interest."
He nodded. “If that’s what you want, then it's fine by me,” he said as he closed the bag and passed it to Ms. O’Reilly, saying, "Have this put into the CES account as a donation from an environmentally concerned anonymous source."
She said, "Will do Colonel." We had moved the ten gold bars from Dimitri’s gun safe along with the cash from my dirty laundry hamper, how à propos, I thought with a chuckle, to the new safe. I had held out the one hundred thousand dollars and two more gold bars also in a brown paper bag and slid it to Fitz.
"I believe you stated you could help us with this sometime later in the week?"
As he took the bag without looking into it, he said "Should be able to have something for you by Friday.”
“Excellent,” I replied, “but I need to ask you a question."
"Shoot," he said.
“I know what we're doing is… questionable,” I said. "I don’t want to know any more details concerning your transactions than you feel Comfortable letting us in on. But I am slightly concerned where the gold is winding up and what it’s being used for."
Now, he laughed out loud with one of his deep from the belly roars. "Colt, you are the master of understatements. Questionable? Hell, man, we’re so far beyond that, the light from questionable doesn’t even reach us!" We all laughed. “But to set your mind at ease, it never leaves these good old United States, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
Actually, it was exactly what worried me, I thought.
“Since we will be involved in more questionable activities” he said with a laugh, “the people I am dealing with are longtime associates of mine. Suffice to say, they are American patriots who are fed up with the corruption within our political system and many of its so-called agencies. They are doing what they can to mitigate the negative impact it is having on our nation. They're not radicals or nut jobs, no taking over the government or anything. They have their own substantial resources. They just happen to be willing to help people who have the balls to put their asses on the line."
"Really?” I said, "Did you tell them about us, who we were?"
"Some," he said "only what I thought they needed to know, but they are very smart people. They know how to fill in the blanks." He paused and then said, "They sent you a message which I didn’t think I would deliver."
Now, I was really interested, "What was it?"
He paused again and with a laugh said, “They said to tell you they thought you guys had some pretty big balls to be doing what you’re doing and to keep up the good work! The world could use a few good pirates." Now, it was my turn to laugh; I had no idea who these people were. With any luck, I would never know.
But to have earned that level of, I guess you would call it respect from them was very much a surprise.
As everyone was having a good laugh over this, I mumbled a “thank you and said that we planned on keeping up the good work.”
"Oh," he said "there’ll be no charge for any additional conversions we do. It will be at whatever the going market rate is for gold from now on. These people must like you guy’s,” he said with another chuckle.
After our interlude of laughter, I got down to business again. I told the group I would like to have Gus brought in as often as he could make himself available to these meetings, at least once a month. No one objected; in fact, all agreed that would be a good idea. The next order of business was Fitz presenting us with copies of contracts and approval documents from NOAA, EPA, and other Federal offices approving our work on determining the impact of past rocket launches from the cape on sea life offshore. Including but not limited to the retrieval of debris or any objects we deemed unsafe to the aquatic environment. They described our physical area of investigation in the paperwork and included the area identified by Tony’s algorithm.
I looked at him in amazement. “Are these legit?” I asked.
“Mostly” he replied, “they will stand up to scrutiny by any local and state agencies. Should it get to the Federal level, they are buried in so much red tape it would take years of digging for anyone to find out the particulars behind their validity, like I said, my people are very good at what they do."
We talked over a few more details and decided that we should wait four or five days before moving the Falcon to the shoal site. Lawrence would handle getting our papers to the proper port authorities and the Coast Guard and we would have additional CES signs made for both the Falcon and Lisa B. Something to the effect this vessel is under contract to CES, etc. to add to our cover. Junkyard said we should probably have some “official” shirts printed up with the CES logo and that he had a source for those. So, by 3:45, having accomplished quite a lot, we concluded our business and Fitz and O’Reilly headed west. The rest of us grabbed another beverage and sat around the CES van parked in the open bay area taking in our new facility.
After a bit Dimitri spoke up, “I think this should be the Risky Business Lair.”
“What?” I said. “Where the hell did that Come from? This isn’t a lair.”
"Yes, it is.” he responded defensively, “it is definitely a lair.”
Joe asked why he would want to call it a lair. Dimitri stood and, in what I can only call a theatrical oratory, said, “Batman had the Bat Cave, his lair; Superman had the Fortress of Solitude, that was his lair; and it’s where they kept all their secrets hidden and cool stuff. So, I think we should have our own lair. For short, we can call it the RBL.”
“So now you’re equating us with fictional super heroes?” Lawrence asked.
“Why not?” Dimitri said, “Those guys called us good pirates, didn’t they? So, we deserve our own lair; pirates always had hiding places for their treasure.”
Doc spoke up then, “Dimitri, do you even know what a lair is?”
Dimitri looked a little puzzled and said “Yeah, I told you a place to keep all our cool stuff hidden.”
“No,” Doc said “a lair by definition is the habitation of wild animals."
Dimitri frowned slightly as he digested Docs information and then with one of his grins said, “Well, hell Doc, that works too."
I turned and headed to the fridge for another beer, shaking my head and mumbled “Whatever."
Dimitri jumped at the opening I had unknowingly given him and said, “See, Colt agrees, so I hereby declare this place the official Risky Business Lair! A toast.” As he raised his drink, we all just looked at one another and finally raised our drinks.
Joe said, “Sure what the hell?” and in that instant, it was sealed; we had our own “Lair.”
As I sat back down, I said, “Dimitri, your mind must be one interesting place to live.”
He replied, “Yeah, pretty cool… Huh?” Once again, we all broke into laughter, not sure at what exactly, but a healthy round of laughter none-the-less. Dimitr
i and his damned theatrics… Crazy Cossack!
The next few days were rather uneventful, considering the past couple of weeks. We purchased a small rigid-hull inflatable Zodiac and suspended it from davits on the stern of the Falcon. Gus got things wrapped up on board. Joe had the additional surveillance cameras up and running at our new facility. Tony got the secure up/down link set up with the “Lair’s” Computer system. All our security measures were in place and operating optimally. We picked up the signs for the boats and got them installed, and Lawrence got all the official paperwork on file with the officials at the port. Now, we could make departure plans for the Falcon. We got together on the back deck of the Lisa B on Friday afternoon after receiving our package from Fitz, as promised and securing it in our new vault. This was more of a social gathering than anything official, but our discussions soon turned to the upcoming project at the shoal.
After some general discussion I said to the group, “Something has been bouncing around in the back of my head ever since Doc gave us the information on the longboat and I think it’s worth mentioning."
Junkyard said, "What’s on your mind Colt?"
"Consider this,” I said, "You’re the captain of a sinking ship that probably has quite a few tons of gold on board. You realize your ship is in peril, so you send out one longboat, in the middle of a hurricane with ten crates of something. You give orders to the men on board that it must get to the king. Now from where I stand that just doesn’t make sense. Ten crates of gold are not going to help the King of Spain that much and a small boat would have very little chance of surviving, so why send it out in the middle of a hurricane?" Everyone sat staring at me. "I’m just saying, it doesn’t add up."
Joe finally asked "Could there have been something else in the crates? I mean we know there’s gold but what else could there be that would be that valuable or important?"
"Hell if I know," I replied. “Doc, do you have any ideas?"
“Actually, no, but that’s a good question. If the captain was as experienced as we think he was he must have had a good reason to do what he did."
"You see what I’m getting at,” I said. “Why would he do that? If he were just trying to save the treasure, he would have put more boats in the water with more of the gold on board.” It wasn’t making sense. Now the discussion buzzed, all kinds of ideas were being thrown around but none of them really answered the question. We all finally fell into thoughtful silence with puzzled looks on our faces… time for more beer! We left that evening no closer to an answer than when I brought it up. It was confounding and gave us food for thought for days to Come.
We decided that weather permitting, Monday would be the day we would send out the Falcon. It had been almost two weeks since our encounter with the Carrie Ann. Junkyard reported no interesting chatter Coming from his contacts at the port. Although he mentioned that they had hauled the Carrie Ann, and it was in the boatyard for hull and engine repairs. Nice, I thought, one less bother to contend with.
I met with Gus over the weekend and he and his crew were set to spend at least two weeks on site for starters; I planned on sending Joe out with them. I thought it best if they dropped anchor away from the shoal and slowly, over a few days, worked their way towards our site. Joe and Wild Bill could make some preliminary dives and record anything of interest that might be in the area. That would also help us with our cover should it Come into question. Gus had volunteered Wild Bill. He had said, “He is a first-class underwater operator and would be perfect as Joe’s dive buddy.” During the previous week, we had purchased four diver propulsion units to help us cover more area while on the bottom. Battery operated, they pulled the diver along saving on physical exertion and air while allowing the diver to cover a large search zone visually. Since we were still looking for the actual location of the ship, they could use their dive time to scan the area for any possible clues. Dimitri, Tony, and Junkyard had work or other Commitments they had been putting off attending to and wouldn’t be available till the weekend. So, Lawrence and I would join the Falcon in the Lisa B on Thursday and continue moving slowly toward our treasure site, the shoal. The weather was looking good, our gear was stowed on both boats, and the team was eager to get started.
The Falcon anchored south of the shoal by a couple of miles with no incidents. By the time Lawrence and I got to them in the Lisa B, they had worked their way to within a half mile of the shoal and had covered the bottom pretty thoroughly in that area. They had even identified and marked old cape rocket debris on the bottom and plotted it on the chart on board the Falcon. “Nice touch,” I told them; our cover was Coming together. Lucky for us they had done that because the next day we had an unexpected visit from the Coast Guard. It was nothing special, just a cursory visit and general vessel safety inspection, which we passed easily.
They checked our papers and looked over the chart with the notations on it and seemed pleased with what they saw. As they left, they said if we needed anything, just give them a call. We said we would and with that our first “official” inspection was passed. We all breathed a little easier after they had left, and got back to work.
We spent the night on anchor near the Falcon. The next morning, Joe and Wild Bill continued with their diving as we went over the equipment that Junkyard had put together for sand removal. It wasn’t pretty, but he guaranteed it would do the job. The plan was to get back to our site the next day, Saturday, and do our first excavation that afternoon. We would follow the same drill on the Falcon that we did on our first dives. She would anchor parallel to the shoal, and they would put the sand removal rig over the seaward side hidden from view from the west by the cabin and mostly from the east by the Lisa B anchored there. We would head back to port that afternoon and pick up the rest of the guys and bring them out Saturday morning to help with diving, and with luck, the recovery of the two crates we had left hidden in the sand.
By Saturday morning, as we gathered, the air was electric; we were all wired to the max. As the Lisa B left the port and turned north for her rendezvous with the Falcon, the guys were checking and re-checking gear, looking over the radar and sonar screens, and generally pacing around the whole deck of the boat. If I weren’t as wrought up as they were, I would have been laughing my ass off at them, but I was having trouble staying at the helm and not joining them in their nervously excited antics. We got to the Falcon by 8 a.m., staying clear of the large orange buoys with the dive flags attached to them that they had set out, denoting the current search area and divers down. We dropped anchor and Dimitri, followed by Tony and Doc, immediately went over the side and swam to the Falcon. I figured they had planned this little swim on our way out. Junkyard, Lawrence, and I waited for the dingy to arrive and shuttle us over. Gus and Smitty greeted us as we arrived and said Joe and Wild Bill had gone down about 15 minutes ago. The three mad swimmers were already getting into wet suits and pulling out scuba tanks and gear we had stowed on the Falcon as we came aboard. The seas were calm with a very mild swell and what looked like good visibility. As had been planned, the guys went over the side to meet up with the other two divers on the bottom and get to the location of our hidden crates. They had already dropped a small buoy marking the location based on our GPS numbers.
Once they definitely located the site, they would move the marker, return to the surface for the rest of the gear, and get busy with the recovery. The rest of us would stand by on board to launch the inflatable and man the Coms. It took about 15 minutes to find the exact location and uncover the undercut in the shoal by hand. We listened to the conversation going on below between the divers and could tell by their voices when they had uncovered the open crate. I heard Wild Bill's awed voice over the Coms as he saw the gold bars lying in the crate for the first time. “Holy Shit, Master Chief!”
Chapter Eleven
The moment got a little chaotic as Wild Bill and Joe viewed the treasure for the first time. Everyone wanted to speak at once. I finally got their attention and instructed Jo
e and Bill to return to the surface for the excavation gear. Since they were using two of the re-breathers, they didn’t have to worry about limited air supply as the others did using Scuba tanks. They surfaced a few minutes later, and we offloaded the device for clearing sand and three of the new 1,000-pound lift bags. Once they were all on the bottom, the excavation began in earnest. The lift was 20 feet of lightweight PVC pipe with an air nozzle inserted in it about 12 inches from the suction end.
The nozzle was pointed toward the far end of the pipe and had an airline from one of our scuba tanks hooked to it. The exhaust end of the pipe had a small bit of floatation material hooked to it and a weight so when the air was turned on the pipe floated at about a 30 to 40-degree angle. As the Compressed air entered and rose up the pipe it expanded and pushed the water inside out the end thus creating a vacuum at the mouth of the pipe which sucked sand and more water in, then spit it out at the exhaust end. We had rigged a catch net for the exhaust of the pipe to retrieve any small artifacts that might get picked up by the suction.
All in all, it was a very clever, efficient, and cheap way to remove the bottom sand. Although it was a little clumsy to handle, it got the job done. I could see the brown cloud forming in the water below us as the sand was lifted from the bottom of the shoal and deposited about 20 feet away by the lift. The larger the cloud, the more material being moved; luckily, the cloudy water could only be seen close-up or from the air. I wasn’t too worried about anyone seeing our operation. If spotted, it would be easy to identify as a dredge in use, and that wouldn’t be a good thing. In a few minutes, we got word from the divers that they had uncovered the second crate about four feet deep in the sand and were turning off the lift to start loading the lift bags. If I thought they sounded excited before, this was like kids on Christmas morning. With our cover in place, we didn’t have to worry about using the deck-mounted hoist anymore. Once the lift bags reached the surface, Smitty, who was in the water waiting, floated them over to the winches’ hook/net and we lifted the bags out of the water, rotated the hoist, and placed them on the deck. The first bag contained the remainder of gold from the first crate, 24 bars. When we lowered it to the deck, we gathered around it and stared.
