Kensies treasures, p.11
Kensie's Treasures, page 11
No good’s gonna come from this. “Get behind me,” Burke said quickly to Kensie, using his massive arm as a guide to ensure she followed his direction. She didn’t argue or even resist; at the moment being behind this massive man sounded like a good idea. “Stay close.” He took a few short steps to the conn and moved his right hand along the edge until he found a long leather sack secured to the side of the pedestal. She saw him unsnap the top flap and grip something inside it.
***
Burke heard Kensie gasp in surprise when she saw the metal and dark wood of the butt of his venerable pump-action shotgun. He neither had the time nor the inclination to remind her that this wasn’t the waters off the coast of Hilton Head or Montauk, with Coasties every mile. There were things far more dangerous than reckless boaters, especially this far out. Unlike the dead pirate they had just discussed, there were still real, living pirates, and boaters who went out without some sort of defense did so at their own peril.
In Burke’s experience, people approaching a boat at full power that had a diving flag out were either idiots who didn’t know the proper way to handle their craft or people with nefarious intentions. And this boat was coming in way too fast. People who knew boats understood that they didn’t just stop like a car on a paved road and planned accordingly, but these chuckle-heads didn’t have a clue. He started his engines and nudged the boat forward so he had a little bit of play with his anchor chains in case he needed to move, keeping his eyes locked on the speeding vessel. He was just about to slam the throttle in reverse when they cut the engines all at once, slowing and turning slightly until they were about 20 yards off the port quarter. They were still drifting closer, but at least they weren’t careening at Empire at breakneck speed.
The boat was a 30-foot Grady White cabin cruiser, and two men were visible. The one on the wheel was sporting a brand-new sunhat that looked like it had been bought yesterday at one of the tourist traps on the island. The other had his long, brown hair pulled up into one of those ridiculous man-buns that were not part of local culture at all. If that didn’t mark them as non-islanders, the sunburned shade of their skin surely did. Most discomforting of all, both of them were staring right at him and Kensie. They stared hard. Hard in a way that made him nervous, like they had something already in mind. Hard like dangerous men.
The man not on the helm suddenly and spastically waved, as if he had just become aware that he might be coming across as less than friendly. Burke glanced quickly at Kensie, who looked as concerned as he felt.
“Something I can help you with?” he yelled out, deliberately putting an edge on his voice.
“Hi,” Man-Bun said. “How’s it going?” He and his shipmate smiled like the proverbial Cheshire Cat, but one that was hopped up on speed.
“You roared over here at full throttle and got inside my diver flag radius to ask me how it’s going?” Burke said, putting his anger on full display. Whether they had dishonorable intentions or not, their stupidity had already pissed him off.
“Oh,” the helmsman said. “Sorry about that,” he said perfunctorily. Sorry about maybe killing someone with my props. “I didn’t see it.”
“It’s all right.” It wasn’t, but there was more to this situation. “What do you want?”
“We were over there a little ways and we noticed that you might have hauled something aboard. We were wondering what it was and hoped we could maybe see it.”
A little ways? There was no way anyone that far away would have seen any part of what had happened without high-powered binoculars pointed right at his boat. Burke didn’t know what these men were about, but he surely wasn’t going to invite them on board to view the artifacts that Kensie had brought up. He was about to make sure they understood that what he did on his boat was none of their fucking business when Kensie spoke up.
“They’re rock formations - greenschist laced with dolomite crystals that looked like they’ve condensed into basanite. Very, very rare. In fact, so rare that we might have just made a major scientific discovery. See, we’re marine geologists.” Burke tried hard to keep the amazement off his face. Nothing she had said made a bit of sense or was even vaguely scientifically sound, and of course she wasn’t a geologist. She’d just lied her ass off, something she was proving to be pretty good at and, in this case, quite beneficial. Good move, Kensie.
The smiles faded, as if the two men had been forced to take a path they didn’t know. “That sounds interesting,” Hat-Head responded after a second’s pause. “Can we see it?”
Kensie shook her head. “I can’t take it out of the fresh-water tank. Being exposed to the air might alter the strata formations in the rock, and I can’t risk that. It would make the piece unacceptable for scientific study.” More lies, but while these two idiots appeared to believe the gibberish, her explanations didn’t seem to dissuade them.
“Sure, that makes sense. Maybe we could hop on board and just look in the tank. It sounds really cool, and it would be awesome to say we saw something for the first time.” Hat-Head turned the wheel while Man-Bun moved to the gunwale, ostensibly to grab onto Julian’s Empire II.
“No,” Burke said firmly. “We don’t have time to be showing things. We’ve got to prep for additional dives and she’s got a lot of observations and stuff to write down.”
Hat-Head goosed the throttle slightly, and the other boat moved a bit more quickly towards his vessel. “C’mon,” he said, flashing his toothy grin once more. “We won’t be any trouble. We just want to look in the tank, that’s all.”
Burke squinted. They were definitely up to something – the way they spoke and their forced Disney theme-park happiness reminded him of the street gangs he encountered in his youth when he was dumb enough to venture off the Air Force base his father was stationed at, the way they grinned to keep you off-balance just long enough to get within attack range. These guys wanted to get on his boat – badly – and the only reasons they would want to do that had to be devious.
His voice rose a few decibels and grew deeper in the human equivalent of a dog baring his teeth. “No, I need you to heave off. I said we’re busy and we do not have time for visitors.” He moved his hand further into the pouch until he could feel the trigger guard of the shotgun. This time, he made his move more obvious.
The prospective boarders must have noticed his move based on the shift in their body language. “OK, man. Sorry, no worries. Not trying to be unfriendly. We don’t want any trouble.” The words were what Burke wanted to hear, but he noticed that Hat-Head had neither cut his throttle nor turned the wheel. His platitudes continued, but each word allowed the boats to get a few inches closer. In about 10 seconds, Man-Bun would be able to grasp Empire’s railing. He was already leaning over as if to do that, but kept his head up to watch Burke.
Burke’s concern turned to full-fledged alarm, and he yanked the Mossberg from the pouch and pointed it in the general direction of the other boat, being sure to aim slightly above their heads. “I said heave off! Now! I’ll blow a hole in that fuckin’ boat if you get any closer.” His voice sounded like rolling thunder.
That got the desired result. Hat-Head moved the throttle to reverse to counter his forward motion but, somewhat to his surprise, they didn’t duck down or try to avoid the weapon like any normal person would. These men were neither intimidated by nor unaccustomed to being on the wrong end of a 12-gauge shotgun. They just stared at him, like they were trying to assess just how serious Burke might be. Who the hell are these guys?
The boat came to a stop about 10 feet from Empire. Man-Bun glanced over at Hat-Head, his face a question, and Burke saw his shipmate shake his head discreetly. Man-Bun turned back with a twisted smile that carried no good wishes. Burke recognized that grin. It was the kind a punk used to indicate he wasn’t afraid.
“You really shouldn’t have done that,” Man-Bun said, his voice far more confident than it should have been given his exposure to such danger.
“You really shouldn’t have tried to board my boat, asshole,” Burke responded. “Get the fuck out of here.” He lowered the gun another couple of inches towards their heads to try and convince these men he was serious.
“We’ll see you soon,” he replied, and the stern swung and dipped as Hat-Head turned the wheel and applied power. In a few seconds Burke was looking at the name of the boat on the stern – Seas The Day – and that it was registered in Kingstown in St. Vincent as it motored off. That made it something they’d rented on the island, telling him a little more about them. Once it was clear they weren’t coming back immediately, he lowered the gun and blew out a breath.
“Jesus!” Kensie exclaimed, feeling as winded as he sounded. “What was that about?”
“Hell if I know,” Burke responded, putting the weapon back in the pouch. Now that the immediate danger was passed, Burke felt a surge of fear pass through him. The gun hadn’t even been loaded, and it would have taken far too long to get to the shells.
He picked up binoculars and trained them on the departing vessel. The men spoke animatedly to each other, looking back at Empire every few seconds. They turned on a course that would lead them back to St. Vincent. He watched them as they grew smaller until they disappeared over the horizon. If he couldn’t see them, he didn’t know if they stayed on course, and that meant they could be planning to come back from another direction. He decided that staying here, at anchor and exposed, was not a good plan. “Stow your gear and get everything else shipshape. We’re leaving.”
“But we have to go back down!” Kensie protested forcefully.
“Bad idea, Kensie. Those guys gave me the creeps. How about you?”
“Yeah,” she admitted. “Something was up with them.”
Burke started picking up the items scattered about the deck. “So you want to be 50 feet down, with me in the water covering you if they come back and board us?”
“No, I guess not. But I need to get back in the water!”
“Look, you have valid artifacts that point to your shipwreck, and you have the GPS coordinates locked in. I believe you found something. Your colleagues will believe it too.”
Kensie squeezed her lips together in frustration before turning away. Burke was exasperated; being persistent was one thing, but she seemed unnecessarily obsessed. She had real evidence and a precise position, and there was now a potential danger. “You don’t really need much more,” he declared, trying to get her to understand.
When she faced him once more, Kensie had an earnest, almost pleading expression. “We need something else.”
***
Kensie wondered if she had a chance in hell of convincing Burke to stay. He struck her as one of those men who, once he’d made a decision, wouldn’t be swayed. And he was the captain, which would only reinforce his decision. “It’s worth the risk.”
Burke glared. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“Nothing. I just told you the whole deal.”
“No you didn’t, not entirely. I’m not used to having sketchy men try to board my boat, and I have a funny feeling that I’m not the reason.”
“Are you saying I am?” Kensie asked with a hint of indignance, although she suspected he was right.
“Yup, at least whatever you’re up to. That whopper of a lie about those rocks wasn’t your first.”
“I just said we found rocks to throw them off the trail,” she explained. “What did you expect me to do?”
“No, I get that. But greenschist and dolomite turning into basanite? That’s a non-sensical line of crap and you know it. You’re pretty good at lying, Kensie, and that means you’re probably pretty good at omitting the truth too. What kind of ‘valuables’ are you talking about on that ship?” His eyes were hard and determined. Kensie wasn’t a very good poker player, but she could read this expression, and it told her that he would not be dissuaded.
“Hang on.” She disappeared into the v-berth for a second and emerged with a photograph that she handed to him. It showed a painting of a woman in late 18th-century clothing wearing some kind of silver mesh headdress with dollops of brilliant blues, greens, and reds scattered about it.
“What’s this?”
“That,” she said in a clipped, formal tone, “is the Couronne Ornèe de Joyaux des Anges, and this is one of very few paintings of it. It’s one of the Crown Jewels. In the most daring theft of his life, not to mention one of the boldest in history, the pirate Cyrus Buckwell stole this from the Tower of London and was making his getaway in the Aberaeron Fortune when he smashed the ship to pieces in a hurricane on what was then the tiny island of Fraunce’s Elbow. It was literally about two feet above sea level and probably a couple thousand square feet at the most. That island disappeared, either in that storm or another one, and it is now Fraunce’s Shoal. Based on what I just found, I’m confident that the ship – what’s left of it, anyway – and the Couronne are right below us this very second, and I wouldn’t be surprised if those men were hired by someone who thinks the same thing.”
Burke took a few minutes, alternately studying the photograph and then her face, as if to see how truthful she was being. “That’s explains a lot, Kensie. At first, I thought they were just punks looking for an easy mark, but then I keyed in. Those guys are pros, and they had a very specific task.”
Shit. Burke’s confirmation of her worst fears drove home the idea that they might be in real danger. “I made a pretty big stink at a conference in November where they ignored my ideas, big enough that I made an impression on more than a few people that day. When you’re talking about an artifact – a treasure – like this, people can get funny.”
Burke twisted his head as he caught the full import of Kensie’s words. “Tell me about it.”
“There are 195 gems on that headdress – diamonds, sapphires, rubies, emeralds, you name it. Almost a thousand karats total, gems of the highest quality. And the mesh is platinum. The metal alone weighed about 4 pounds, so you do the math.” Burke’s eyes moved back and forth rapidly as he tried to do exactly that, and when he finished he stared at her agape.
“That’s gotta be worth like $10 million dollars,” he almost whispered.
“That’s probably conservative. The jewels alone are worth ten times that, and if you include the historical value, estimates are more like $200 million.”
“Jesus H. Christ on a stick,” he mumbled before his voice became more firm. “But, if they think you know where it is, why would they send those shifty fuckers to take it? Why wouldn’t they just set up an expedition of their own?”
Kensie smiled, much in the way Burke had smiled at her when she had failed to make the leap that Buckwell might have stolen the quizzing glass. “Expeditions are expensive, and they take time to set up. Contrary to what you see in the movies, salvagers don’t fall for the ‘I’ll pay you when I find the treasure’ line. Hell, the expedition that was agreed to at the conference was a rush, and it still took seven weeks to get set up, and that was only because the National Archeological Society put their weight behind it.” She shrugged. “And, let’s be honest, scientists can be greedy too. We aren’t all super-ethical old men in bow ties doing everything for the benefit of society.”
“But they’re not going to be able to sell it at the corner pawn store. Are you trying to tell me this is two professors having a slap-fight to get their name in a textbook and maybe get some recognition from their colleagues, so they sent hired goons 2,000 miles to steal it from us? That’s hard to buy, to say the least.”
“No, I think someone at that conference thought I might be right and now they think they can have it all to themselves, so they hired the dirtbag brothers to do their dirty work. Then maybe they’ll charge an exorbitant ransom to sell it back to the Royal Family or auction it off to some uber-rich jerkoff and disappear with an absolute shitload of money.”
Burke paused. Clearly he hadn’t really considered that angle. Well, it shows that he’s got an honest streak. At least he did, but now that she’d introduced the concept of wealth beyond anyone’s wildest dreams…
“I suppose. But, if you’re right, I don’t see what we can really do about it right this second.”
Kensie pursed her lips indignantly. “What do you mean? We go back down for it! Now!”
Burke shook his head and let out a sigh. “I know you’re an experienced diver, but have you ever really searched for something underwater?”
“Kind of. I volunteered for a team that searched off the Florida coast for satellite parts that spilled off a barge during a storm.”
“Sounds interesting,” Burke allowed. “How many divers? How long did you search? And how deep were you?”
“Eight divers for five days, in about 50 feet.”
“Big pieces?”
“Some as small as a frying pan, some as big as a desk.”
“And how did that work out?” Burke asked, sounding like he knew the answer.
“We found 12 out of 73,” she responded sullenly.
“So, you spent 300-plus man-hours looking for things 20 times the size of this headgear that had been in the water for a couple weeks, and you had, what, a 15-or-so percent success rate? But somehow, now you think you’ll find your something smaller with one more dive after it’s been laying in shifting sand and tides for 200 years? I’d call that wildly optimistic.”
Kensie realized Burke was right, and that his earlier statements about having valid evidence were also true. “It is optimistic. But are you willing to risk that, as soon as we leave because they scared us away, that they won’t be back here sniffing around?”
“There’s no way we can really stop them.”
“Sure there is. We don’t leave!”
Burke looked at her like she was crazy. “You mean just sit here? For how long?”
“No, not just sit here. We keep diving. Even if we don’t find it, we can get more artifacts. The more things we find, the more data we have, and the stronger my case will be.”
“Number one, I’m not at all setup for night diving, so we won’t be able to search once we lose the light. Also, you realize we will run out of air pretty soon, right? Like by sundown. Sooner or later, we either have to go back in for air – unless you are really good at holding your breath – or we just sit here until we starve to death. I don’t have any fishing rods on board.” He retrieved the shotgun and a box of shells and started putting them in the tube magazine of the gun. "And that’s assuming that they don’t come back with guns of their own.” He worked the pump action and made sure the safety was on.
