* * *
They surfaced beside the Brownie and held on, rolling with the choppy seas.
Dante was already shouting as he spat out his mouthpiece. “Are you okay?”
“Don’t tell anybody what happened!” Star ordered. “Not Cutter — nobody!”
“What did happen?” asked Adriana. “It looked like you got stuck in that plane.”
“If they don’t trust our diving, they’ll ground us in a heartbeat!” Star persisted. “Promise!”
Kaz was thunderstruck. “Is that all you’ve got to say? You could be dead right now!”
“I got in a jam and my partner helped me out of it,” Star insisted. “That’s how the buddy system’s supposed to work.”
“This is only my fourth dive!” Kaz sputtered. “My second in the ocean! What if I messed up? They don’t teach that in scuba class, Star! What if I didn’t know what to do? I’d have to live with that!” The image of Drew Christiansen, lying prostrate on the ice, came to him, and he fell silent. How much guilt could fit on one conscience?
“Don’t you realize what we just saw?” cried Star. “People dive their whole lives and never find a wreck!” She turned to Dante. “That’s some set of eagle eyes you’ve got! Maybe we’re all crazy and water really is purple.”
“I just” — he paused, uncomfortable — “got lucky.”
“A German plane!” exclaimed Adriana. “Maybe it’s from one of the famous bombing runs on Curaçao. It’s a real find for the historical community.”
“It’s a real find for us,” Star corrected sharply. She unzipped the pouch on her dive belt and came up with the handful of bullets. “And we’ve got the artifacts to prove it. I can’t wait to rub these in Cutter’s face. Let’s see if he treats us like a bunch of tadpoles now!”
Since the Ponce de León was combing the reef with its sonar tow, the four had to wait on the floating Brownie for the research vessel to pass by. Dante spotted it almost immediately, a tiny blip in the heat shimmer on the horizon. Twenty minutes later, the ship was pulling alongside them.
Kaz saw Chris Reardon first, half asleep in the stern, a fishing rod in his hand, trawling for tuna over the gunwale. “Hey, Chris!” he called.
Reardon let out a loud belch, but otherwise gave no indication he’d heard.
“Get that rod out of the water!” a sharp voice ordered him. “You’ll skewer one of the kids!”
Marina was rushing down to the dive platform to help them aboard. She frowned at the two marker buoys bobbing in the waves. “I know there are a lot more caves than that.”
“Dante found a wreck!” Star panted.
The researcher’s eyes were instantly alert. “A wreck?”
“A World War II airplane,” Adriana supplied.
“Look!” Star thrust a fistful of coral-encrusted bullets in Marina’s face.
Marina stared for a moment, and then her supermodel’s features relaxed into an amused grin. “Star, that’s not — ”
But Star was already limping toward the main companionway, calling, “Tad!” The others followed her, wet suits dripping.
Tad Cutter was seated at the foldaway table in the galley, poring over an endless data printout on continuous form paper.
“There’s a plane down there,” Star told him excitedly. “A German bomber.” She slammed the machine gun bullets onto the computer.
Cutter looked from the bullets to their earnest faces and laughed — full-throated guffaws that filled the salon.
“Hey!” Star was insulted. “You may think we’re a bunch of pests to be ignored, but we know what a plane looks like!”
“No!” the team leader managed, struggling to regain his control. “You guys are right. There’s a plane down there. But it’s not from World War II.”
“Yes, it is,” Adriana insisted. “A Messerschmidt bomber, propeller driven, with a swastika and German cross markings. The Nazis used them in the Caribbean against Allied oil-drilling operations.”
“And that’s exactly what the movie was about — a German bomber that crashed into the sea,” Cutter informed them. “The studio folks built an exact model of a Messerschmidt, towed it out here, and sank it on the reef. That’s what you found. Not a wreck — a Hollywood set.”
Star’s face fell the distance between an undiscovered wreck and an underwater phony. The others looked on in dismay. A minute ago it seemed as if they had earned the respect of Cutter and his crew. Now they were nobodies again.
The blond man picked up one of the bullets. “This isn’t nearly enough coral growth for an artifact from World War II. After sixty years, the whole shell casing would be covered, most likely. This looks about right for three years on the reef — the time since that movie got made.”
Marina appeared at the companionway. “Don’t take it so hard. You’re not the first divers to find that plane and think it was something special. I doubt you’ll be the last.” She smiled. “There are a lot of caves down there. We’ll need you back in the water as soon as possible. Use the oxygen to help you outgas. It’s topside — the tanks with the green labels.”
Since the body absorbs some of the nitrogen from compressed air at depth, it was important to expel that nitrogen before diving again the same day. Breathing pure oxygen sped up the whole process.
On deck, Dante pulled a tank from the rack, struggling under its weight.
Kaz frowned at the other boy. “She said green labels.”
“Yeah?”
“These are red.”
“Oh — right.” Embarrassed, Dante fumbled with the cylinder and dropped it. Kaz got his foot out of the way a split second before the heavy metal hit the deck.
Dante grimaced. “Sorry.” That was becoming a pretty useful word for him. Sorry for nearly shattering your toe; sorry for handing you a tank of God-knows-what that might have poisoned you; sorry for spotting the plane that almost became Star’s tomb. There was no question about it. He stank at this internship. And not just the diving part. Everything he did around here turned out to be wrong.
Kaz hauled out four of the oxygen cylinders and the divers divided them up. He placed the clear plastic mask over his mouth and nose and turned on the valve. “It isn’t so bad, right?” he asked, his voice muffled. “I mean, we look like idiots, but they still want us to tag caves for them. At least we didn’t lose our jobs.”
“I still say something’s fishy about that,” put in Star. “We’ve got two markers in the water. Have any of those guys even bothered to record their positions?”
In answer, a loud snore came from the stern of the boat, as Reardon continued his hunt for a prizewinning tuna.
Adriana placed the mask over her face and then withdrew it, licking her dry lips thoughtfully. “The only thing that bothers me is that they’re supposed to be doing a sonar scan, right? Mapping the reef. But the data Cutter’s studying isn’t sonar data.”
Kaz snapped to attention. “It isn’t?”
“One summer, the British Museum had a team searching for ancient Roman artifacts in the Thames River — shields, helmets, armor. They used a side-scan magnetometer to pick up signs of metal underwater. Well, the data from that scan is exactly like the data on Cutter’s table.”
Star snapped her fingers. “They’re looking for something in the ocean. Something metal.”
Dante was confused. “Then why do they want us down there marking caves?”
All at once, a wide smile of understanding appeared on the slight girl’s face. “It’s bell work!”
“Bell work?” repeated Adriana.
“When I was in fifth grade,” Star explained, “my teacher always put a few math problems on the board for when we came in after the bell. It wasn’t stuff we had to know — not on any test or anything. It was just supposed to keep us busy while she finished her coffee in the faculty room. That’s what this cave thing is all about — they’re keeping us busy while they’re searching!”
The four divers exchanged solemn glances. Could it r
eally be true? They knew Cutter and his team had little respect for them, but could the researchers be manipulating them this way?
Kaz broke the uneasy silence. “Okay, let’s say both you guys are right. They’re jerking us around, keeping us busy doing nothing, while they’re scanning the Hidden Shoals for metal. That still doesn’t answer the biggest question — why all this secrecy? These people are scientists working for a top institute. Why can’t they just admit what they’re after?”
Adriana flipped her wet hair out of her face. “It seems to me,” she said slowly, “that there must be something very special about their work.”
Dante raised an eyebrow. “A government contract? Maybe top secret?”
“Maybe,” she said. “But whatever it is, we’re mixed up in it now.”
03 July 1665
At first, Samuel blamed the stink of the Griffin on the port of Liverpool. But as they sailed farther, in fair seas or rough, the overpowering stench was still with them. Worse, it seemed to be growing in intensity. It was a mixture of bilge water, cooking fires, the rotting food stores, and livestock smells from the goats, pigs, and chickens that were raised on board to keep up a supply of fresh milk, eggs, and meat for the captain and crew.
Mostly, though, it was the reek of people — two and eighty unwashed men on a long journey under a relentless sun. The acrid odor of seasickness could never be fully swabbed away. And as the barque was tossed by malevolent waves, even the most seasoned sailor would lose control of his stomach. Captain Blade himself was not immune. One time during a spell of rough weather, Samuel barged in on him on the floor of his quarters, retching into his chamber pot.
He leaped to his feet, scorching Samuel with eyes of fire. “You’ll not speak of this to anyone, boy, or I’ll have you flogged!”
It was not an idle threat. There were floggings almost daily on the crew deck of the Griffin. Captain Blade insisted on performing these himself, with his bone-handled snake whip.
“Ah, it feels good to stretch the old muscles,” he would grin as his victim sobbed in a pool of his own blood, his back crisscrossed with angry red stripes. “A man needs some physical activity.”
A regular recipient of Blade’s brand of “physical activity” was old Evans, the sail maker. The overpowering wind gusts of the Atlantic crossing relentlessly shredded the barque’s many sails. Though the silver-haired man labored night and day, sewing until he could barely see his stiff fingers before his failing eyes, he could not keep up with the damage.
“I’ll hang your courtly self if I don’t see the mizzen in its place before the boy brings my supper!” the captain roared. “Courtly” was the ultimate insult on shipboard. A courtly seaman was a landlubber.
In Evans’s case it was the truth. He was a farmer by trade. His landlord had evicted him from the potato fields that provided his meager living. Evans had grown too weak to work the property profitably, and he had no sons to help him. Going to sea was his only chance to provide for his wife and daughters.
In spite of their age difference, Samuel felt a bond with the much older man. Both were non-sailors who had been forced by poverty to the Griffin and its merciless captain. The ship’s boy spent most of his free time in the sail maker’s cabin, stitching canvas until his hands bled, substituting his young eyes for the old man’s dim ones.
Although Evans appreciated the help, he must have at first suspected that Samuel was the captain’s spy. The old man was always saying things like, “Captain James Blade is a right gentleman. Lucky we are to have such a fine master on the Griffin.”
Even after a brutal flogging, he had nothing but praise for the instrument of his agony. As Samuel poured seawater over the man’s whip-scarred back to prevent infection, Evans would whimper, “’Tis a fine captain who takes such a personal interest in the affairs of his crew.”
Samuel said nothing. He had never known his own father, and longed for the moment that Evans would trust him with his true thoughts.
Late one night, as the two struggled to darn a foresail so pockmarked by mending that it resembled a ragamuffin’s wardrobe, the moment finally came. By the dim flicker of a waterlogged oil lamp, Evans said in a matter-of-fact tone, “He’s a proper lunatic, that captain of ours. I hate him, I do.”
“Shhh!” Samuel hissed, glancing nervously over his shoulder. Then, in a whisper, “I hate him too. Every time I touch his filthy chamber pot, I want to throw it in his face.”
“That whip — I see it in my sleep!” All at once, the old man’s moist, haunted eyes took on a faraway look. “In my dream, it’s wrapped around Blade’s white throat. I’m pulling it tighter, tighter. He screams, but I don’t stop pulling, squeezing — ”
“That’s mutiny!” Samuel breathed in horror. “It’s a hanging offense!”
“And then I think of my girls,” the old man finished, visibly deflated, “and I remember I have to avoid the noose for their sakes.” He added earnestly, “But this old body is not strong enough to survive another flogging. I’m telling you true, Samuel. I’ll die under James Blade’s lash.”
* * *
The weather continued wild and dangerous. Two and a half months into the perilous crossing, a storm sank the Viscount, an eighteen-gun brigantine in their small fleet. The Griffin picked up four and thirty hapless sailors, adrift in the rough seas. The rest simply slipped beneath the waves and were seen no more. Captain Blade clung to the ratlines through the entire operation, cracking his whip into the wind and rain and hurling abuse at rescuers and survivors alike.
There were now more than one hundred souls packed onto the barque. Conditions were more than cramped; they were unsafe. Fever spread like wildfire through the seething mass of humanity. Six men had already died, including the ship’s carpenter, whose responsibilities included replacing damaged or rotten wood in the leaky hull. The Griffin sat low in the water. Samuel was ordered away from the sail maker’s cabin to join the army of pumpers in the unbreathable air of the reeking bilge.
He was returning, bowed down with fatigue, from several hours below, when he heard the distant cry: “Sail, ho!”
It was Evans, perched high in the rigging, where he had been struggling to mend a tear in the square topsail at the tip of the mainmast. From that vantage point, he had spied another ship on the horizon.
Captain Blade poked his head out of his quarters. “One of ours?” he called.
Evans squinted. “I can’t tell, sir!”
Blade stormed down to the main deck. “Are you a seaman or a gooseberry, mister? Is it one of our fleet?”
Samuel tried to jump to the old man’s defense. “He doesn’t know ships, sir! He’s just a farmer who went to —”
Thwack! The big emerald flashed in the sun as the captain brought the bone handle of his whip down hard on Samuel’s forehead. He collapsed to his knees, seeing stars.
“You’ll earn yourself a flogging if I have to come up there!” Blade bellowed at his sail maker.
But Evans was paralyzed. His pale, nearsighted eyes could not recognize the distant vessel, and his fear of the captain prevented him from guessing.
“You’ll be right sorry you troubled me!” Blade strode to the ratlines and began to climb, not quickly, but with the authority and balance that comes from decades spent on shipboard.
It was a nightmare, Samuel reflected, watching the captain close in on the quaking sail maker. His friend’s words came back to him: “This old body isn’t strong enough to survive another flogging….”
He flung himself at the ratlines, scrambling like a spider, shocked at first at how fast and good he was at it. The chimneys, he thought, arms and legs working efficiently. If I can make it up Sewell’s chimneys, I can make it up anything!
The captain bellowed with rage as he pulled level with Evans. “Why, you worthless maggot, don’t you recognize your own flagship? I’ll flog you till there’s nothing left but a handful of your rotting teeth!”
The angry green of the emerald flashed in the
sun. At first, Samuel thought Blade was going to lash the poor farmer right there on the ratlines. It was a horrifying prospect. Surely Evans would lose his grip and fall. Then he realized that it was the old sail maker who had snatched up the whip, and was attempting to wrap it around Blade’s neck.
“No!” Samuel cried, but he knew it was already too late. Under maritime law, even touching the captain was a capital crime. No matter what happened now, poor Evans would hang.
“Mutinous — scum — ” With great strength, Blade managed to pull himself free. He brought down his clasped hands full force on the sail maker’s crown. Evans went rigid for a moment, and then let go of the rope. Horrified, Samuel watched his only friend plunge to his death one hundred feet to the deck below.
The effort of the savage blow had overbalanced the captain, and, with a terrified scream, he too lost his purchase on the ratlines.
I’ll not help him, Samuel resolved as his master plummeted toward him. I’ll not save the murdering —
Yet the action was pure instinct. As the captain fell, pawing desperately at the rigging, Samuel reached out and grabbed his belt. He would not have been able to hold on, but he slowed the acceleration of the drop just enough for Blade to snatch the webbing of rope. The cruel captain hung on, gasping for breath and whimpering with panic, as crewmen surrounded the sail maker’s broken body beneath them.
It should be you, Captain, lying down there dead, and Evans up here with me, consigning your black soul to the devil! Samuel thought, biting back tears. Aloud, he just said, “You all right, sir?”
Gingerly, Blade hoisted himself up to regard his cabin boy. “You’re my lucky angel, boy,” he groaned wearily. “Aye, you’re a lucky one, Samuel Higgins.”
Slowly but surely, Kaz, Adriana, Dante, and Star began to fit into the routine at Poseidon Oceanographic Institute. They continued to dive with Cutter and his crew aboard the Ponce de León, tagging underwater caves and trying to keep a low profile while they snooped.