Deep Devil (The Deep Book 4)

by Nick Sullivan

“Uh, yeah, he’s here… just a tick, let me put you on speaker.” Em retreated to a far corner of the seawall-enclosed dining area and tapped the speaker icon. “Okay, we’re here.”

  “Mr. Fischer, this is Nicholas Othonos. Lyra owes her life to you, and my father would like to thank you personally. And Miss Durand… Emily… I believe I still owe you a tour of the Apollo. If you are free tomorrow, would you care to join us for an early brunch?”

  Em tapped the icon to switch the speaker off and held the phone against her chest, looking at Boone. “No dives tomorrow, posh yacht, grateful billionaires…”

  Boone grinned and gently took her wrist, lowering the phone and tapping the speaker icon. “Hey, this is Boone. I thought you were leaving tomorrow.”

  “Our itinerary had to be adjusted after the accident. And this morning’s trip to Chichén Itzá was cancelled due to rain, so we’ve rescheduled that for tomorrow as well.”

  “Well, in that case, we’d love to join you. What time and where?”

  “The ‘where’ is simple—just meet me at the pier alongside the Apollo. Shall we say 9:30 a.m.?”

  “We get to sleep in?” Emily gushed. “Count me in!”

  “Yeah, sounds good,” Boone said.

  “Excellent. I’ll text you a qr code that will allow you access to the terminal. And if you would be so kind as to bring your passports? Given our clientele, our security procedures are fairly strict.”

  “No problem. We’ll be there.”

  “Until tomorrow, then.”

  “Thank you, Nicholas! See you at the Apollo at half nine!” Em tapped the hang-up icon.

  “Nicholas? On the fokking Olympus fokking Cruises’ Apollo?” a heavily accented—and heavily drunk—voice asked, practically spitting the question.

  Boone turned to the outdoor table nearest them. A man across it was rising unsteadily to his feet. He wore a white shirt with gold-striped epaulettes on his shoulders. Upside down on the table—alongside an expanse of beer bottles—lay a captain’s hat. On the nearer side of the table, another crewman was hunched over with his back to Boone, head in his hands. He also wore a white shirt, with fewer stripes on his shoulder boards.

  The standing man forcibly blinked his eyes, bringing Boone into focus. “Nicholas fokking Othonos, já?”

  “Yes…?” Boone realized that the song had ended for the latter part of the speakerphone conversation. The No Name Bar was a crew bar… and from the look of this man’s uniform and the Scandinavian sound of his accent, Boone had a hunch. “Are you with the Nordic Starr?”

  “Já. For now. Tomorrow… who knows?” He tossed down a wad of pesos and turned from the table, paused, then reached back and grabbed a nearly empty Corona. Noticing he’d left his captain’s hat, he swept it up as well, slapping it on his head as he stood swaying. “Nicholas Othonos…” He spit into the sand. “May his urine burn.” He staggered away toward the lobby. “Gunnar! Come!”

  The figure on the near side of the table pounded a fist into the plastic surface, causing all of the bottles to jump in a multi-layered chorus of clinks. His dejected posture from before abruptly faded as he straightened in his chair. He planted his hands on the table and began to rise, his white shirt’s short sleeves ending in shockingly hairy forearms.

  Holy… I’m tall, but this guy is huge. Boone stepped back and moved Emily behind him.

  Still facing the table of empty beer bottles, his massive back to them, the giant boomed in a sing-song accent, “You know this… Nicholas?”

  “We’ve met…”

  The man turned, revealing a florid face, Neanderthal brow, and epic beard. He towered over Boone, his barrel chest straining the top buttons of his crisp uniform shirt. Over the left breast, a golden nametag read, “Gunnar Thorsson.”

  Boone’s brain screamed Viking warrior! He let out a breath, shifting his weight, beginning a gentle capoeira bounce. Here we go…

  Gunnar’s reddened face quivered and the huge man dissolved into blubbering tears. “Why did he do that? This job is my life…”

  Still alert, Boone allowed himself to relax ever so slightly. “Do what?”

  Gunnar shook his head, his tears increasing. “We have to leave. We cannot come back to Cozumel. It is one of our main ports of call.”

  “You dumped shite and worse into the water, and you’re surprised you’re getting kicked out?” Emily blurted. “You break the rules, you suffer the consequences. If the Marine Park bans you, then—”

  “The Marine Park didn’t ban us—that fokking Othonos rassgat did! Said if we didn’t leave, he would release underwater footage of our dumping and have our registry revoked!” The mountainous man turned and lurched after his captain. “I don’t want to go back to Iceland,” he sobbed, staggering away.

  “Now who is one sneaking out?” Tolstoy inquired as Angler and Stallion entered the suite. He was sprawled on the loveseat in the communal area, and Potluck was just settling into a nearby chair.

  “Something came up,” Angler growled. He made his way toward his bedroom to change but halted, looking from the Russian to the Wisconsinite. “What are you two grinning at?”

  Potluck waved the question away. “Nothing. Hey, you said something came up. Like what?”

  “Something you idiots would’ve handled if you didn’t dawdle coming back from the boat.”

  Stallion uttered one of his odd, braying laughs before speaking. “But Angler ’n’ me handled it all right.” He grabbed the room service menu. “Man, I worked up an appetite.”

  “Get changed first.” Angler stripped off the Olympus Cruises polo shirt and tossed it into his room. His body bore several old battle scars, and while there was nothing sculpted about his musculature, it was clear to anyone looking that what was there was hard as granite.

  “Is that blood on your slacks?” Tolstoy asked.

  Angler and Stallion both looked down, but it was the team leader that the Russian had been addressing. Angler licked a thumb and rubbed at the droplets. Damn. Getting sloppy. He went into his room and closed the door. The drive out to the island’s interior had gone well enough, but the shipboard dive shop operator had put up quite a fight when he realized what was about to happen to him. Angler took off the white slacks and went to the sink to run water over the bloodstain. He quickly gave up and keyed his mic. “Palantir, Angler. If you’re listening, I’ll need another pair of crew pants. Size thirty-four.” Signing off, he stared at his weathered face in the mirror for a moment. “What are you looking at?” he snarled. “An extra twenty percent… just means you can quit this line of work that much sooner.”

  The following morning, Boone and Emily took Brixton on an early morning walk, the potlicker dog dragging them from scent to scent. The walk would end at one of the last condos in the complex, where they’d arranged for a fellow dog owner to watch Brix for the day.

  “Y’know, we should invite Ricardo, too,” Boone said, handing Emily the leash and taking out his phone. “After all, he was right on top of us when we came up. Just as important in the rescue.”

  “Good point,” Em said. “But I think he and Lupe had something planned, yeah?”

  “Oh, right… they’re heading over to Playa for the day. Still… they might prefer some yacht time.” He tapped Ricardo’s contact.

  “Buenos días, Boone.”

  “Back at ya, Ricardo. Hey, where you at?”

  “On the ferry, heading to the mainland. Why?”

  “Oh, nothing… Wait! Your uncle Santiago with the Marine Park—when you spoke with him, you mentioned the dumping that the Nordic Starr was doing during the night dive, right?”

  “Yes. And to be on the lookout for a video of it. I haven’t spoken to him, though.”

  “Can you check with him? See if he ever heard anything about it?”

  “I’ll ask, but it probably doesn’t matter now.”
r />   “Why?”

  “Because the Nordic Starr left port this morning. We watched it sailing off to the north while we were boarding the early morning ferry.”

  Boone and Emily arrived at the Puerta Maya cruise ship terminal at a quarter past nine, having parked Emily’s car in the lot beside the shops that ringed the terminal like a walled fortress of consumerism. Passing under a thatched-roof entryway, Emily held up her phone to a bored security guard at the end. He scanned the qr code Nicholas had sent them and waved them in. As they made their way through the shops, they could see the pier ahead, the leftmost, southern side empty. The Nordic Starr had indeed departed. On the north side of the pier, the swept bow of the Apollo rose above the shops.

  Boone chortled, pointing. Affixed to the bow was a golden statue of the Greek god Apollo, clutching a lyre, his head wreathed by a halo of what looked to be sunbeams. “It’s got a figurehead! I don’t know how I missed that when she was coming in.”

  “Perhaps you were ogling another figure at the time,” Emily replied. “Cor, that’s a bit much, though, innit?”

  They reached the edge of the pier, where a young man in a royal blue polo shirt stood, holding a sign reading “Emily Durand and Boone Fischer.”

  Boone approached. “Hey. I’m Boone, this is Emily.”

  The man seemed startled, checking the front of the sign, before lighting up with a smile. “Welcome to the Apollo. Nicholas Othonos sends his apologies for not being here to greet you. I’m to take you to the brunch. Follow me, please?”

  “It would be our pleasure,” Emily said, peeking at the young man’s name tag. “Keith, is it?” When he nodded, she plowed ahead. “Lead on, good sir!”

  “Right this way.” He turned and headed up the pier toward the ship.

  “Nicholas mentioned this was a maiden voyage for the Apollo,” Boone remarked. “This your first cruise?”

  “Oh, no, I’ve worked on a number of cruise lines, but this is my first cruise aboard a luxury mega-yacht.”

  “What a coinky-dink, it’s my first too!” Em took the young man’s arm and leaned in conspiratorially. “So, what’s it like, working for them?”

  “Well… I just started… so… I don’t know.” He leaned down and whispered, “The passengers are really, really rich… so it can be hard to please some of them.”

  “Well, you’re doing a bang-up job for us,” Boone said, “so we’ll be sure to let Nicholas know.”

  Keith beamed. “Thank you! Although, I haven’t done very much.”

  “But that ‘not-much’ that you did do, was done with a smile,” Emily noted, with a bright smile of her own.

  Keith stepped beside a tower on wheels that was snugged up against the ship, with a security officer standing alongside. “Here we are.”

  Boone looked around. “What, no gangway ramp?”

  “We can deploy one when needed, but we have our own elevator. Although there is a little gangway when we reach the top.”

  Emily whistled. “That’s flash.”

  Keith nodded to the man beside the elevator, then turned back to Boone and Emily. “Did you bring your passports?”

  They handed them over and the security officer swiped the bar code of each through a reader before handing them back. “Miss Durand, Mr. Fischer, you’re good to go.” He pressed a button on the side of the tower and the doors opened.

  After they stepped inside, Emily looked around at the interior. “Where on earth do you keep this?”

  “It accordions down somewhat,” Keith said, as he swiped an id card on a lanyard across a panel and the doors closed. “The ship has a crane that lowers it into place once the ship is docked.”

  The elevator rose swiftly, and the opposite door opened into a short, enclosed gangway that led to the ship. Keith led them down a passageway covered in artwork and recessed lighting. He ascended a short flight of stairs to a door, where he again swiped his card. With a click, the door opened onto the end of a balcony that wrapped around the upper superstructure.

  “Just how big is this ship?” Boone asked.

  “The Apollo is 542 feet long, with a gross tonnage of 19,000 tons. A bit smaller than the Zeus and Poseidon, but larger than the Athena.”

  “Well, that’s sexist,” Emily muttered good-naturedly. “I don’t see all that many passengers.”

  “Olympus likes to keep the guest list on the low end, usually no more than 120 passengers, with roughly two and a half crew to every guest. And this being a special shakedown cruise, we’re only two-thirds booked.”

  Heading aft, the trio reached a broad expanse of polished teak decking under a retractable awning. A square, finely appointed table was set near the end, the white tablecloth gleaming in the mid-morning sun.

  “Boone!”

  Her face beaming, Lyra Othonos approached from the far end of the balcony, pausing to hand off a half-finished mimosa to a member of the waitstaff. Lyra’s black hair shone, her lithe figure draped in a diaphanous aqua caftan that fluttered gently in the tropical breeze.

  “Annnnnnd just like that, I’m underdressed,” Emily muttered.

  Boone glanced down at her, the lime green sundress fitting Em perfectly, its needle-thin straps accentuating her beautiful shoulders. “Not in my eyes.”

  “That’s ’cause your eyes don’t know a Versace when they see one.” Emily gazed up at him. “But thank you. And aren’t you now glad I talked you into shoes and socks?”

  Lyra reached them and delivered a pair of kisses to each of the divemasters. “Thank you so much for coming. Please, come meet my father.”

  “Lead the way,” Boone said.

  They followed Lyra to a sliding glass door that opened at their approach. Inside was a beautifully decorated room that looked to be an open-plan living space. The left side of the room was dominated by a long dinner table. Instead of place settings of dishes and cutlery, its polished mahogany surface held a number of leather binders and Montblanc pens atop leather desk blotters.

  A cough drew Boone’s attention to a corner of the room. In a wheelchair sat an elderly man with a luxurious mop of snow-white hair, attended by a nurse. The man brusquely waved away a proffered oxygen mask and manipulated a joystick on his armrest, nearly running over the nurse’s foot.

  “Welcome aboard. You must be the young divemasters who saved my daughter’s life.”

  Lyra kissed the man’s cheek. “Boone Fischer… Emily Durand… this is my father, Karras Othonos.”

  “Very pleased to meet you, sir,” Emily said, dipping a curtsy.

  “Oh, no need for that!” Karras said through a coughing laugh. “I’m not royalty. Descended from peasant stock and proud of it.”

  “Father was a truck driver and fisherman who built his business up from nothing,” Lyra added.

  “Well… not nothing,” Karras corrected. “My uncle had a few U.S. surplus Liberty Ships. After hauling fish from the docks for a few years, I wanted to join him, so I decided to enroll in the Merchant Marine Academy in Hydra.”

  “Such a lovely little island,” Lyra gushed. “It’s in the Aegean south of Athens. There are hardly any cars on the island… only donkeys.”

  “Sounds a bit like the way Grand Turk used to be,” Boone said.

  “That is in Turks and Caicos, yes?” Lyra asked. “I hear the diving there is very good. Have you worked there?”

  Boone smiled. “Not yet.”

  “Mr. Othonos, you went to an academy on this Isle of Donkeys…?” Emily prompted.

  “Yes. One of the oldest maritime colleges in the world. It’s been around since 1749.”

  “When it was named Saint Nikolaos,” a voice added. “Apparently I was named for it.”

  Nicholas Othonos spoke from the far end of the stately suite. Dressed in a lightweight, navy-blue blazer atop white slacks, he crossed the room to them. “Forgive
my tardiness. I had some business to attend to.”

  “Your business is still in your ear,” Emily said with a wink.

  “What?” Nicholas reached up and touched an earpiece. “Oh. Thank you.” He plucked it from his ear and pocketed it. “I am sorry I couldn’t personally meet you at the pier.”

  “Oh, yeah, before I forget,” Boone said, “the fella who guided us up here was very polite… good at his job.”

  “Young and eager go-getter,” Emily added. “Keith, his name was.”

  Nicholas gave a perfunctory nod and gestured toward the balcony. “I hope you two are hungry.”

  “Positively ravenous,” Em said. “We usually eat breakfast around sun-up.”

  Karras grunted with approval. “Everyone should start work with the sunrise.” He placed a hand on the controls atop his armrest and began a leisurely roll toward the opening. “I wish I could convince my eldest of that. Achilles has a tendency to stay up late and rise later.”

  “Speak of the devil,” Nicholas muttered.

  Achilles arrived from the side of the balcony, dressed casually in silk slacks and a pale-yellow shirt open nearly to the sternum. He sported a pair of sunglasses and a single gold chain with some sort of medallion on it. Fighting back a yawn, he made his way toward the brunch table.

  “Hung over, I expect.” Nicholas said.

  “Nicholas!” Karras spat with surprising vigor. “You will respect your elder brother, especially in front of guests.” His speech dissolved into a fit of coughing and Lyra leaned down to retrieve the oxygen mask.

  Nicholas sighed and gestured to Boone and Emily to follow him to the table. “He will be fine in a moment. Please, be seated.”

  The square table was arranged with two place settings on three of the sides, and a single setting on the nearest end, this one with no chair.

  “Boone… I know my sister would appreciate it if you sat beside her, here…” Nicholas tapped the back of a chair to starboard, then moved toward the portside of the table. “And Emily, I hope you’ll join—”

  “Emily! From the hospital!” Achilles strutted over to her and pulled out a chair next to the far, aft side of the table. “Come sit beside me.”