Devil and the Deep (The Deep Six)

by Julie Ann Walker

  Maddy smiled at their slender backs as they giggled and teased each other while making their way up the small, narrow beach in search of the perfect campsite. Whether it was fund-raising parties or research grants, Maddy was always proud of the work she did for the charitable side of her father’s business. But she felt a particular fondness for the scholarship fund and these three girls.

  She was still smiling when she turned back to discover the young ranger staring at her, once again wearing that look. The look. She wondered if she should suggest he make a trip to the nearest optometrist for a vision test.

  I mean, come on. She didn’t have cleavage—at least not much to speak of. And she certainly didn’t have big, fluffy Texas hair. In fact, she hardly had any hair, thanks to her impetuous nature and her ready-for-anything stylist. She’d told Eduardo she wanted “the Michelle Williams look,” but she was pretty sure he’d saddled her with a Justin Bieber ’do, circa 2009, instead. That belief was only compounded when her brothers started calling her a Belieber.

  Not that she was an ogre or anything. Her youngest brother assured her she was still “passable.” Gee, thanks. And she’d had her fair share of male admirers who called her “cute.” But the fact remained that she’d never been the kind of gal to inspire insta-love or even insta-lust, so what the heck was wrong with Ranger Rick that he—

  Now, hang on a cotton-pickin’ minute here! Don’t sell yourself short, sister. Did you forget about Bran Pallidino?

  And the answer to that question wasn’t just no, but H. E. to the double L hell no, she hadn’t forgotten him. Forgetting him would be impossible. For one thing, and to quote her dear paternal grandmother, he was handsome as a hatchet. With his wavy, mink-colored hair, flashing brown eyes, and pirate smile, Bran Pallidino could beat any of Hollywood’s hunks for the top spot on People magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive list.

  For another thing, he had saved her from the crazed terrorist who had hijacked her father’s yacht. Yessiree, Bob. So that happened.

  And lastly, in the months following the hijacking, he’d helped her deal with the onset of delayed shock, nightmares, and what some might diagnose as a mild case of PTSD. Through hundreds of emails and the occasional satellite phone call, he’d been her sounding board, her sympathetic ear, her support and her light when the memories threatened to get too heavy and dark.

  Yep. Bran Pallidino was many things. Brave. Funny. Sometimes taciturn. But one thing he was not was forgettable.

  He is also not here…

  She’d tried not to let the emptiness of her email account—the glaring, insolent, taunting emptiness of her email account—get to her. She’d tried telling herself he hadn’t responded because he was too busy hunting for the mighty Santa Cristina. But now that she was here, so close to Wayfarer Island, so close to him, she couldn’t help but wonder if the reason he hadn’t answered her invitation was because she’d read too much into their little online exchanges.

  Perhaps what she’d thought was a solid friendship—and what she’d hoped was a burgeoning romantic relationship—was, in fact, neither. Perhaps he’d simply helped her through a difficult time because he was Bran, heroic and gallant and unable to countenance the thought of a damsel in distress.

  Ugh. And here she’d planned this whole trip just to get close to him. Just to see him again.

  Oh, sure. She’d tried to convince herself she’d done it because the girls deserved something special to celebrate their scholarships. But even her father had seen through her ploy. When she’d told him about the trip, he’d rubbed his big, bushy Magnum PI mustache and said with a considering frown, “Is this really for the girls? Or are you doin’ this so you have an excuse to go see that treasure-huntin’ man your momma tells me you been emailin’?”

  Busted. I should have my philanthropist’s license revoked.

  “I know who your father is,” Rick said, seeming to read her thoughts. “I saw him on TV once. Some news special or something. He was talking about how he’d gone from roughneck to oil tycoon by relying on spit, grit, and a get’r’done attitude.” Rick’s lips twitched.

  “It was 60 Minutes.” Maddy shook her head with affection. It’d only taken her father ten minutes to have Morley Safer eating out of the palm of his hand. “And that’s not an act. My daddy still wears Wranglers with Skoal rings worn through the back pockets and his favorite sweat-stained Stetson to work every day. I guess you can take the man out of the oil fields, but you can’t take the oil fields out of the man.” And I wouldn’t have him any other way. She didn’t have to say that last part aloud; it was obvious in her tone.

  Still shielding her eyes against the last glowing rays of the sun, she watched the floatplane disappear over the horizon. And that’s when she felt it. The remoteness. The…aloneness. There was nothing around them but miles of waves that glinted silver in the dying light. No sounds except for the chatter of the girls and the waves lapping against the sand. The isolation was profound. Absolute. Scary and exciting and exhilarating all at once.

  Okay, so Bran or no Bran, she was going to make this experience a great one. For the girls. For herself. Because they deserved a vacation. An adventure. And, by God, after what she’d gone through three months ago, so did she.

  And maybe you can use this time unplugged from all your gadgets and away from your empty email account to reassess your feelings for one former Navy SEAL turned treasure hunter, her conscience whispered.

  Sure. Okay. That’s totally what she’d do, and—

  “Were you expecting company?” Rick asked.

  “Why? What’s…”

  She didn’t finish her question. When she turned in the direction the ranger was looking, she spotted a small deep-sea fishing vessel slowly sailing toward the island.

  Her heart leapt. Actually leapt. If it weren’t for her rib cage, she was pretty sure the thing would have burst from her chest Alien-style. One word, one name, seemed to whisper on the wind. Bran.

  So much for reassessing her feelings…

  * * *

  6:23 p.m.…

  “They’re on the island. My guys are in position, advancing slowly and waiting on your signal to go in strong,” Tony Scott told Gene Powers.

  Sitting on the sofa beside Gene on the small sixty-foot motor yacht they’d rented under a false name with false identification, Tony watched the older man try to swallow the lump in his throat. And not for the first time, he wondered if Gene had the stomach to go through with their plan.

  Just keep your shit together a little while longer, he thought, impatience gnawing on his backbone like a junkyard dog.

  “Once we cross this line, there’s no goin’ back.” There was a tremor in Gene’s voice. It matched the one in the man’s hands as he absently picked at the stitching on the edge of the blue pillow tossed into the corner of the molded seating area at the back of the vessel.

  Tony had always respected Gene for his courage and sense of adventure when it came to business—and to living life, for that matter—but the old fart was proving to lack the intestinal fortitude to get down and dirty when the occasion called for it. And this occasion definitely called for it.

  Which is where I come in.

  “I know there’s no going back.” He reached out to squeeze Gene’s wiry shoulder. “I’m ready. Are you?”

  “No,” Gene spat. “I can’t help but think there’s got to be another way.”

  Tony bit the inside of his cheek, girding himself to have the same argument they’d been having for the last week. As patiently as he could, he said, “Gene, we’ve been through this a million times. No venture capitalist will touch us. We’ve exhausted all our reserves and the reserves of our investors. We need cash.”

  “Maybe I could ask him again,” Gene said, something close to desperation in his eyes. They both knew to which him Gene was referring.

  “He’s already told
you no three times,” Tony reminded him. “He thinks it’s a bad investment. He’s grown risk averse over the years. Too risk averse. And he’s pushed you to this.”

  “No.” Gene shook his head. “It wasn’t him. It was OPEC. Goddamned OPEC!” Gene cursed, taking off his Stetson to run a hand through his gray hair. His droopy handlebar mustache quivered when he glanced out at the open ocean, hoping to see a way out. But Tony knew that nothing but endless, undulating waves surrounded the vessel. Certainly no other solution to their problem.

  If they wanted to save the oil business, this was it. A Hail Mary pass in the final minutes.

  “Goddamn OPEC,” Gene said again, pounding his fist on the arm of the molded fiberglass sofa before replacing his cowboy hat. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries—made up of the twelve most oil-rich and least American-friendly nations—was a cartel that kept a stranglehold on the world through its control of the majority of the earth’s crude oil reserves. And right now it had a stranglehold on their company. “I don’t know why we didn’t bomb the shit out of all of them when they first incorporated sixty-five years ago.”

  “We didn’t ‘bomb the shit out of all of them’ because leveling entire nations just to make sure they couldn’t profit from their own natural resources would’ve been frowned upon by…well…pretty much everyone,” Tony explained, noticing the time on his gold GMT-Master Rolex and getting increasingly antsy as the seconds ticked by.

  “Well, now they’re tryin’ to stop us from controllin’ and profitin’ from our natural resources,” Gene snarled. “How’s that fair?” Before Tony could respond, Gene answered his own question. “I’ll tell you how. Plain and simple, it ain’t.”

  “That’s why we have to see this through,” Tony said. “If we do this, we’ll have enough cash to get a couple of the new ventures up and running. Once they are, they’ll fund the rest. And then when everything is online and we’re pumping out hundreds of thousands of barrels of crude a day, the United States will be safer than it’s ever been. And that’ll be thanks to us. You and me, Gene. Just imagine it.”

  The only reason Gene had finally agreed to this scheme was because Tony had couched his arguments in a bunch of flag-waving hoopla. It had worked like a charm then. It worked liked a charm now.

  “You swear to me no one will get hurt,” Gene demanded. His bottom lip, visible beneath his ridiculous mustache, quivered.

  Oh, for God’s sake. If the man started crying, Tony would be hard-pressed not to slap his face.

  “My guys’ plan is sound and every scenario has been accounted for.”

  “Your guys.” Gene shook his head, sounding so much like Foghorn Leghorn that Tony was surprised he didn’t start his next sentence with I say, I say. “You keep callin’ them that. Where did you find them anyway?”

  “You’d be amazed at how many ex–armed forces types are willing to sell their services for the right price.”

  Gene grimaced.

  Poor Gene. Always thinking the best of people. It was genetic. Everyone in the Powers family suffered from the same affliction.

  “Come on, Gene.” Tony sighed. “It’s just three girls, one woman, and a wet-behind-the-ears park ranger. It’ll be a breeze.”

  “A breeze, huh?” Gene smoothed his mustache and wet his lips with his tongue. “Then tell me again why there are guns involved.”

  Tony smiled, but the expression held no humor. “Surely, since you’re a born-and-bred Texan, I don’t need to explain that to you.” When Gene scowled his impatience, Tony elaborated. “Shock and awe, my man. Shock and awe. Besides, we need to make this thing look legit if we want him to pony up the cash and do it quickly.”

  “Shock and awe better be all it’ll be.” Gene pressed a hand to his chest as if his heart was hurting. That’s all Tony needed, for the waffling old cuss to have a heart attack. Although, on second thought… If Gene keeled over with a coronary, Tony would be left at the helm. Which would make things so much easier.

  “If anything happens to Maddy,” Gene said, shaking his head, “I’ll never—”

  “Nothing is going to happen to her,” Tony assured him. When Gene searched his eyes, he made sure his expression reflected one-hundred-percent sincerity.

  Gene turned to stare out at the ocean again, a muscle ticking in his jaw. Tony simply sat and waited. Gene had donned his decision-making face, and Tony knew better than to intrude. Finally, Gene blew out a breath. “Okay. Let’s do this.”

  Tony flashed Gene a reassuring wink before lifting the satellite phone in his hand and barking two words: “Go time.”

  Chapter 3

  6:35 p.m.…

  “I don’t think I’m always right,” Mason said. “I just think I’m hyper-fuckin’-competent, which leads to a higher-than-usual occurrence of being right.”

  “Well, I guess you really put me in my place, didn’t you, Mr. Muscles McSmartypants?” Alex countered. “But I’m telling you, I heard somewhere that—”

  “And here comes the useless trivia.” Mason’s exasperation was evident to Bran, even though he was high above the deck of the catamaran in the captain’s chair, busy keeping the mainsail full of the warm wind blowing across Hawk Channel and trying to read the fast currents doing their best to pull the sailboat off course.

  “Just so we’re clear,” Alex huffed, crossing her arms and glaring at Mason, “I think I like you better when you aren’t speaking.”

  Bran frowned down at the two of them. They’d been trading insults since he weighed anchor and set sail for the Dry Tortugas. It was amazing how two people could take such extreme delight in rubbing each other the wrong way.

  Amazing and annoying. Definitely annoying.

  “Remind me again why you two are here?” he called to them. Then, on second thought… “Remind me again why I’m here?” There had to be a reason. Although, for the life of him, he couldn’t remember what it was.

  Alex turned and shaded her eyes against the glare of the running lights he’d clicked on after the sun sank slow and lazy into the sea to the west. The moment it had touched the water, however, it was as if something hungry was waiting for it there, sucking it down quickly and leaving nothing but a reddish-orange smear in its place. Stars were breaking through the darkening sky overhead, and the blue waters had turned a silvery gray in the deepening dusk.

  Bran loved being at sea. Out here he was so free and…removed. Out here he could forget who he really was.

  “You’re here because your pride wouldn’t let you back down when LT started making bok-bok noises at you after I told him about Madison Powers’s invitation,” Alex called to him, a grin kicking up the corners of her mouth.

  Roger that. Now he remembered. His best friend had always known how to goad him into doing things he didn’t want to do. The rat bastard.

  “I’m here because I’ve never been to the Dry Tortugas and the historian in me considered that a crying shame,” Alex continued. “Plus, there’s nothing any of us can do to prepare for the search dives tomorrow. And if I stayed around Wayfarer Island, I wouldn’t get any sleep. I’m too amped up.”

  Amped up. Because after carefully cleaning the hilt of the cutlass, they’d discovered markings that fit the description of a short sword belonging to none other than the great Captain Bartolome Vargas himself. Which meant Alex’s theory about the Santa Cristina having gone down in the waters around Wayfarer Island might actually prove correct.

  Bran should’ve been vibrating with excitement too. But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t get more than half his mind to focus on the amazing find. The other half remained stubbornly obsessed with the distance that separated Wayfarer Island and the Dry Tortugas. With the distance between him and the wonderful, wise-cracking, completely off-limits Maddy Powers.

  So close.

  And getting closer by the minute.

  He lifted a se
t of field glasses to his eyes. Through the magnified lenses, he could just make out the few spotlights on the seawall that separated the moat and Fort Jefferson from the gulf waters surrounding Garden Key. Now that the sun had set, a soft yellow glow flashed from the little lighthouse built atop the edge of the fort’s curtain wall, illuminating the white hull of what appeared to be a deep-sea fishing vessel that was in the process of anchoring itself a few dozen yards from the little beach that ran along one side of the islet.

  So damned close. And he hadn’t the first clue what he was going to say to her once they were actually face-to-face.

  Long time, no see was too flippant and trite considering the hell they’d been through together and all they’d since shared. Sorry I didn’t respond to your email; the satellite dish went down while technically correct still sounded like a big, fat excuse. So that left…what? The truth? I didn’t wanna come ’cause you scare the shit outta me. You make me want things I shouldn’t want and contemplate things I shouldn’t contemplate.

  Like that was going to happen.

  And damnit, now those ridiculous butterflies were back. He reached for the bottle of Gatorade in the cup holder near his elbow, determined to drown the fluttery little suckers. Again. But before he could lift the drink to his lips, he got distracted by the fact that Alex was still talking.

  “…so when you add all that up, it was pretty much a given I would tag along. But I have no idea why he’s here.” She hooked a thumb toward Mason. When Alex wrinkled her nose, the zinc oxide smeared across the bridge caught the running lights and glistened. She was the only person Bran knew who still used zinc oxide. “I say it’s because he couldn’t stand to be away from me,” she finished impishly.