Deep Devil (The Deep Book 4)

by Nick Sullivan

  The manager paled. “Understood, sir. I’ll leave you to it.”

  “Thank you.” Nicholas closed the door and extracted his laptop from its bag. Setting it down at a small workstation, he booted it up. As the machine whirred to life, he pulled a usb cable from a pocket in the bag and attached the laptop to one of the servers. A few keystrokes later, he detached the cable, packed up, and left the room. Nodding to the bank manager, he headed for the exit.

  “I didn’t know shoes could cost that much,” Boone said, holding open the door for Emily.

  “And that was the least expensive pair… hey, look!” Bright yellow Manolo Blahnik bag in hand as she exited the shoe store, Emily spotted the youngest Othonos son exiting the Pantheon Bank, a laptop bag over his shoulder. “Oy, Nicholas!”

  The young man appeared startled, looking back at the bank before turning and spotting Emily. He fired up a smile. “Oh… Emily… so good to see you. And Boone, you look very sharp.”

  “Thanks. I owe it to your money and Em’s taste.” Boone nodded toward the bank. “No rest for the wicked, huh?”

  Nicholas’s smile faltered. “How do you mean?”

  “Well… I’m guessing this bank is part of your family business… and here you are having to work, while folks like us are enjoying a luxury cruise.”

  “Oh… yes,” Nicholas said, glancing furtively at an expensive-looking watch.

  “Say, Nick,” Em began, “you still owe me a tour. I’d love to see the bridge if you—”

  “I am terribly sorry, but I have rather a lot to do…”

  Emily nodded in understanding. “Gotta prepare for the birthday bash for Achilles, yeah?”

  Nicholas’s lip twitched and Boone thought a snarl was pushing at the corners of his smile—a smile that seemed more forced the longer the man kept it on. “Yes. My father always throws impressive parties for him.”

  “I bet! That’s why I dressed up raggedy Boone, here.” She lifted the yellow shopping bag. “And I’m all set.”

  “Yes, well… I’m sure you will look stunning,” he said.

  “Well, you’ll see for yourself, won’t you?” Em said brightly.

  Nicholas nodded, laughing. “Of course, of course. Forgive me, but I really must be going. Enjoy the cruise!” With that, he turned his back on them and headed for a bank of elevators.

  Boone watched the man go. He’s been talking about giving Em a tour for days, and now…

  Emily stepped into his field of view. “Bit out of sorts, that one.”

  “Yeah…”

  “Well, c’mon! Let’s check in on Brix. Then to the spa—that has got to happen,” Em started toward an alcove with a pair of restaurants. “Oh! And we should play one round of blackjack or roulette or something…”

  Boone remained rooted in place, watching Nicholas ascend toward the upper decks as the glass elevator rose above the shopping atrium before vanishing into the ceiling.

  Boone and Emily were thrilled with the dog sitter the ship employed and Brixton took to the woman immediately. Lucinda was from Grenada, and Boone wondered if her singsong speech pattern reminded the potlicker dog of some of the Garifuna voices he’d grown up with on Caye Caulker. Leaving the dog in the sitter’s care back at their room, they headed down to the inner concourse.

  “Glad that worked out,” Em said. “We’ve got a lot to do before the big dinner… and I think we’ll be in Grand Cayman by tomorrow morning, so best get cracking!”

  “Didn’t realize just how close Cozumel is to the Caymans,” Boone remarked.

  They continued walking for a moment before Emily stopped. “When you say something like that… you realize I’m waiting for you to fill in some numbers, yeah? And I saw you tapping away at that in-room touchscreen, looking at maps, so…”

  Boone laughed. “You know me too well. Cozumel to Grand Cayman… 324 nautical miles.”

  “Okay… and what’s the top speed on the Apollo?” Em crossed her arms. “I saw you looking at schematics too, Booney. Make with the stats—I know you’re dying to tell me.”

  “Top speed is twenty-seven knots. But the cruising speed they’ve chosen for the passage was showing eighteen knots. Guess what 324 nautical miles divided by eighteen is? Ms. Durand to the chalkboard… we’ll be there in how many hours?”

  “You know how much I hate maths.”

  “Eighteen hours! Cool, huh? We’ll hit Grand Cayman at four in the morning.”

  “You coulda just said that up front. Okay, now where is the spa…?”

  Boone fired up the Olympus app and led the way. “Should be right down… there it is!” He pointed.

  “Mud bath, here I come!”

  Boone gave her a look. “That’s what you’re going for? How about a massage?”

  Emily snorted. “I can get those from you. You have a supply of hot mud back at the condo? You holding out on me?”

  Boone came up short, backtracking to a storefront they’d passed. “Hold up. I bet this is the onboard dive shop the faulty gear came from.” He tried the door. “Locked.” Peering inside, he could make out dive gear on the walls and racks of wetsuits and rash guards.

  “Didn’t Achilles say the owner ran off?”

  “Yeah.” Boone stepped back, scanning the signs in the window. “Guess he’s still on Cozumel.”

  “Or maybe… he’s still hiding aboard,” Emily said, affecting a spooky voice. “Stalking the bowels of the ship like the Phantom of the Opera… except, well… except that he’s a dive shop owner. So… probably not as good with a pipe organ.”

  “Uh-huh…”

  “Oh, come on, Boone, that was gold!”

  Boone blinked, then smiled. “Sorry.” He tapped the window where a sign was taped to the glass inside, showing two boats. “The Apollo has its own dive boat aboard.”

  “Well, yeah, all cruise ships have lifeboats and expedition launches…”

  “True, but look at these! The Castor and Pollux.”

  “Wacky names.”

  “More Greek mythology, I’m guessing… but check them out. They’re not little dinghies. The Castor’s a ‘scout boat,’ outfitted for diving and fishing… and the Pollux is a ‘limo tender.’”

  “A tender that tends to limousines?”

  “A tender that is a limousine,” Boone corrected with a laugh.

  “That’s nice. Do they have mud baths?”

  Boone smiled, pulling up the Apollo’s schematic on the ship’s app. “Looks like they store them in a bay in the stern. Tell ya what, you go on ahead and pamper yourself. I want to check these out.”

  Em shrugged. “Fine by me. Let’s meet up in two hours.” She looked around and pointed back toward the central atrium. “Hey, there’s The Muse, that bar Keith said he plays piano at.” She rose up on her toes and gave Boone a peck on the cheek. “See you there at two.”

  Boone watched her go, then followed the map on his phone, heading back through the concourse and passing by a casino that dominated the area aft of the glass elevators. Taking the nearer portside passageway toward the stern, he found a stairwell that would take him down to the ship’s boats. Making his way down two flights, he approached a door to the launch bay.

  Locked. Taking out his room keycard, he swiped it in the keypad but received an unhappy beep and a red light in return. Boone peered inside the window in the door, but then turned at the sound of footsteps coming down the stairwell.

  “Oh, hey… sorry,” a man in mechanic’s coveralls said as he reached the last flight of stairs. “Usually it’s unlocked when we’re in there. We get a lot of guests wanting to look at the boats, so we try to keep the bay staffed.” He opened the door with a card. “You looking for a tour?”

  “Sure!” Boone followed him inside. “Whoa…”

  The internal boat launch spanned the width of the Apollo, with the limousine te
nder just to Boone’s right on the port side. Across the enormous room, the scout boat Castor sat opposite from the Pollux. Each boat was locked into its own track beside huge doors set into the hull on either side. Further amidships, jet skis and other smaller recreational equipment were stored alongside several orange, fully enclosed lifeboats.

  “Are you the only one who works down here?” Boone asked, looking around the expansive chamber and not seeing another soul.

  “No, no, there’s usually a staff of eight, but we got a call asking everyone to pop upstairs for a meeting. Kinda weird. No one was in the meeting room. Anyways, I just let the boys stay up top and grab some lunch.”

  Boone looked from one end of the bay to the other. “This is impressive.”

  “You should see the Zeus! They have a small submersible on that one. We’ve got a number of smaller vessels—lifeboats, jet skis, couple Zodiacs—but the main attractions are our two primary tenders,” the man said. A patch on his coveralls read “Rudy.” He swept a hand toward the two boats. “They’re stored as you see them, locked into these lifts, called ‘davits,’ that have rails that run up to the edge, where we lower them into the sea through those watertight doors.”

  “I’m guessing you can’t do that while underway,” Boone remarked, noting that the doors seemed to go down to the waterline.

  “In practice, we usually wait until we’re at anchor, or at very low speed in shallow water. There are drainage grates all along the interior of the doors that feed water overboard, so it’s possible to release them during transit, but the sea state has to be pretty calm for that.”

  Boone observed that the rails ran all the way across from port to starboard. “And if you’re at a pier… you can send both boats out the same side, if the other door is blocked?”

  Rudy nodded. “Yessir. Each davit can shift forward and back as well, if we need one out of the way.” He stepped up to the nearest vessel. “So, this shiny blue beauty next to us is the Pollux. She’s a thirty-three-foot limousine tender, full of luxury amenities. Here, step inside.”

  Boone looked around at the white leather seats and gleaming wooden railings. The rear interior was set lower, with a small, circular bar in one corner. Opposite the bar, an entryway led to an open area of seating at the stern. As one moved toward the cockpit, a single step led to a raised area beneath a two-piece retractable moonroof.

  “The Pollux is built for speed. Can hit up to forty-eight knots. And if we keep her down to about twenty, she’s got an impressive range.”

  “May I…?” Boone asked, pointing at the cockpit.

  “Sure, just don’t touch anything. I’ve got it open to the sky at the moment, but there is a roof that retracts.”

  Boone stepped into the open-air section around the wheel, looking at the high-tech instrumentation. As he turned to rejoin Rudy, movement caught his eye. “Hey, I thought you said you were the only one here.”

  “Yeah?”

  “There’s someone over on the other boat.”

  “Really? Maybe one of the fellas came back down.” Rudy exited the Pollux and Boone followed him across to the other boat. “This is the Castor. She’s for diving and fishing expeditions. Not quite as fast as the Pollux, but she’s got a better range and a more stable ride.”

  As they neared the midpoint of the bay, a burly man exited the cockpit of the Castor, making his way down a ladder that rose from a side of the lift to the nearside gunwale. He wore a blue polo, white slacks, and carried a small cooler.

  “One of your guys?” Boone asked.

  “No. But he’s wearing hospitality clothing.”

  The man held the cooler aloft, saying simply, “Restocking,” in a gravelly voice before turning and walking away, head down. He went to a stairwell door on the opposite side from where Boone had entered. As he stepped through the door, he threw a single glance Boone’s way before vanishing outside.

  Boone had seen those eyes before, for just a brief moment. And he recognized the rumbly voice, too. It was the hard-eyed man from the balcony, the one who had appeared at the corner to berate the goofy-looking guy with the bug eyes.

  “You want to see the Castor?” Rudy asked.

  “No, I better get back. Thank you so much for taking the time, Rudy. Say, can I get back upstairs that way?” he asked, pointing to the door the man from the balcony had just exited through.

  “Sure thing. It’s pretty much a mirror to the one you came down.”

  Boone walked as fast as he could without appearing unnatural, then picked up his pace when he reached the stairs. The man had been dressed in an outfit similar to the one Keith wore, but he hadn’t been wearing it on the balcony. And he didn’t exactly give off a hospitality vibe, Boone thought, as his long legs took the steps two at a time. Two flights up, at what he knew to be the main concourse level, he paused, listening for feet on the stairs above him. Glancing at a decal at the side of the door, he could see there were three more flights leading up. He had too much of a head start. Boone sighed, and headed out the door.

  Probably being paranoid, he thought. Just some guy delivering mini-bottles of champagne to a boat so rich folks could get drunk while catching wahoo off Grand Cayman. Boone relaxed a bit, strolling down the side passageway, looking at the smaller shops, but his mind kept returning to the man’s eyes. And Brix… Brix did not like that guy’s buddy.

  Emily had often remarked on Boone’s uncanny instincts for picking up on things that others missed. But not long ago, in Belize, Boone had disregarded several warning bells from his intuition, and nearly gotten the both of them killed. He’d vowed he wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss such feelings in the future.

  Reaching the atrium, he spied The Muse across the way. He still had an hour before he was supposed to meet Emily, but he decided he’d head over now. Maybe Keith will be there, playing the piano, Boone thought. And if so, maybe he knows this guy.

  Emily sighed and felt her entire body relax, letting the thick mud support her weight. She could almost picture the toxins being sucked out of her naked body by the mineral-rich clay. The sound of ocean waves susurrated from a noise machine in the corner, and the soft glow of the room lighting barely penetrated the slices of cucumber over her eyes.

  “Nice, huh?” a female voice asked from the adjoining alcove, the words echoing in the enclosed space.

  “Legendary,” Em moaned. “My fella don’t know what he’s missing. You floating in hot goo, too?”

  “You know it. You got cucumber slices on your eyes?”

  “I do indeed. Was feeling a bit peckish… wondering if I should eat one.”

  Emily’s neighbor laughed. “Getting it into your mouth with muddy fingers might be tricky. I’m Chloe, by the way.”

  “Pleased to meetcha, mud buddy. I’m Emily.”

  The two floated in contented silence for a while before Emily spoke again.

  “So, Chloe… what brings you aboard this nautical palace?”

  “Just a little R&R,” Chloe responded. “I’m here with my partner.”

  Em waited a moment before prodding for more. “Business partner, or…”

  Chloe laughed. “No, no… Lisa’s my special gal. I sold my business. I used to design security software and my little company was snapped up by a bigger company. So now I get to float in mud and travel the world. How about you?”

  “I’m a stowaway.”

  Chloe laughed again. “I’ll never tell.”

  “I’m a divemaster from Cozumel. My boyfriend and I…” Em was about to mention saving Lyra, but trailed off and course-corrected. “We took some of the owners diving. They had a jolly good time… and they had an empty cabin… bing bang boom.”

  “Wow, congratulations! Enjoy the cruise! Just don’t fall for the cryptocurrency pitch.”

  “The whoozawhat now?”

  “The Othonos family has their own line
of digital currency. Croesus Coin. Croesids, they call them. Terrible name. ‘Rich as Croesus,’ I think is what they were going for. Anyway, they have people approaching guests during the cruise to offer special rates on initial investments.” Chloe laughed, the sound not as playful as before. “Everything is so high-end here, but the whole thing struck me as one of those low-class timeshare pitches.”

  “Did you buy any?”

  “I did. Just a few units. Like I said, I design security software… and I was curious. I did a little digital snooping. I’ll admit, their system is well-designed, but…”

  Emily waited before blurting, “Don’t leave me hanging, sister of the clay!”

  “Well, uh… this part of the spa is a bit of an echo chamber. And it’s kind of sensitive. I’d come over there and whisper it to you, but I’m waaaaaay too comfortable.”

  “Same here. Well, that… and also I’m completely starkers. Tell ya what, after I hit the showers, I’m heading over to The Muse to meet my fellow stowaway at two, if you’d care to do your whispering there over a beverage.”

  “Sounds like fun,” Chloe said.

  “We can be all secret-agenty and talk in code, yeah?”

  “Don’t tell a programmer to talk in code, unless you want an earful of C++ and sql.”

  “No, I was thinking more like…” Emily put on an atrocious Russian accent, “The little cucumber enjoys the mud at midnight.”

  Chloe laughed. “See you at two.”

  “Sorry, Keith doesn’t play until the evening,” the bartender said. “Usually around eight.”

  “Okay, thanks.” Boone sat on a chrome stool at the polished bar at the back of The Muse. “I’m meeting someone here at two,” he said.

  “No problem. Can I offer you something to drink?”

  Boone didn’t like to drink alone, so he figured he’d wait for Emily before getting a beer. “You got any Ting?”