So they kept at it, coordinating their bursts of lifting power, pushing with their legs while their gloved hands raised the lip of the slab. After five grueling minutes, they had the slab three feet off the sea bottom. Hunt began to push forward instead of up, looking to his right while yelling, “Hey, look!” into his regulator. The words themselves were not really distinguishable, but the noise itself got his friends’ attention. They saw what he was doing and followed suit.
With the three divers straining, shoving and pushing, they were able to pivot the stone slab off of its resting place until it was clearly in a different position. They dropped it halfway on top of its neighboring stone and then sat in place, waiting for the swirling sand particles to dissipate so that they could see.
During this waiting period, Hunt checked his air gauge: he was down to about one-third of his supply remaining. Not yet critical, but definitely something to keep an eye on; it was easy to become distracted by exciting finds underwater and forget about things like how much air you had left. Knowing this, he tapped Maddy on the shoulder and pointed to her air gauge. How much left? She glanced at the gauge before handing it to him. Also one-third left. Hunt smiled behind his mask. They say that women have better air consumption than men, and it must be true in Maddy’s case, since she was much less an experienced diver than Hunt. But it was good news right now, and he was glad for it. He knew Jayden was experienced enough to keep track of his air supply, and that he would be about the same as him, so he didn’t bother asking him. The visibility was clearing now, and it was time to see what they had uncovered.
Hunt peered down at the space the block had uncovered, which was equal to about half of its length and width. Enough to see what it had been concealing, if anything. Hunt wished now that he had brought an underwater metal detector with him, to pass it over the sand the stone had been covering. But as he peered down at the uncovered area, his breath caught in surprise.
There was only water there.
How is that possible? His mind screamed, and yet, he was looking down into deep water. Particles of sand and detritus swirled around ten, twenty, thirty feet below him, removing all doubt. Hunt leaned down, sticking his head into the hole that had been revealed by uncapping the stone slab. As he suspected, the opening was the exact dimensions of the thin stone. He could see the undersides of the other road stones jutting down below around the opening.
Hunt could not see the bottom of the uncapped zone. He imagined it to be like a cenote, a natural geological formation that was essentially a deep hole in the Earth, on land, filled with fresh water. In the ocean, a hole in the seafloor was known as a “blue hole.” Hunt himself had dove one before, in the coral reefs of Belize in Central America. They were well known features of the Caribbean, and even in the Bahamas. But he had never heard of one in connection with the Bimini Road.
Jayden and Maddy swam over beside him and also peered down into the newly revealed passage. Hunt knew that he and Jayden, at least — probably Maddy, too, out of professional curiosity — were dying to go in there. But he didn’t want to literally die by going in there. Glancing at his air gauge, he knew it was time to return to the surface. They had an extra set of fresh scuba tanks in the plane. They could switch them out for the dry ones and return to explore the new area.
That would have been the prudent thing to do, he knew. But staring down into the that unknown void, it beckoned, pulled at him with a siren song all its own. It was a lure he had heard before from shipwreck divers exploring passages of famous wrecks like the Andrea Doria or a newly discovered German U-Boat from World War II. The allure was so hard to resist that it became dangerous.
Hunt just wanted one look at what it was like down there right now. Just a little taste, to see what they were getting into. Maybe see how deep it was. A couple of minutes’ look-see, at the most. Then he’d swim right back up out of there and they’d get back to the plane, swap the tanks and come back properly equipped. Proper dive lights would be good too, since it looked dark down there, but he had a small back up light clipped to his vest. It would have to do for now.
He signaled for Jayden to wait at the opening with Maddy while he checked it out, tapping his dive watch and holding up two fingers. Two minutes — be right back.
Then Hunt positioned his body and swam head first into the hole.
He swam down into the inky void, making sure he dove below the protruding road stones before moving laterally. There he floated, dangling in the open void, allowing his eyes to adjust to the dim light after the dazzling, sunlit shallow bottom of white sand.
Geez, it’s deep, he thought. He could not see the bottom. He knew that some blue holes were several hundred, even a thousand feet deep. He really had no idea what to expect here, but he was only a little ways below the opening, so he swam down some more. When his depth gauge read one hundred feet, he stopped and floated in the water column. One hundred feet meant that he was eighty feet down into the hole, since the seabed where the stones lay was already at twenty feet deep.
He glanced at his air pressure gauge, now in the red. It was reckless to remain any longer. He was about to press the button to add air into his buoyancy vest to aid his ascent, when he caught something in his vision, far below.
The bottom! But wait, he realized, it wasn’t the bottom, because it only occupied a narrow part of the hole, in the center. More like a pinnacle. Some kind of rock formation, stalagmites, perhaps. He unclipped is tiny backup flashlight from his vest and turned it on.
Just a little further. Hunt dropped down deeper into the hole, feet first now, since he didn’t want to hit his head on anything now that he knew something was down there. Down he went, ten, twenty, thirty more feet. That’s it, absolutely no more, he told himself, knowing that nitrogen narcosis, a narcotic effect from nitrogen caused by breathing compressed air at depth, would be setting in any second now if it hadn’t already. It affected a diver’s judgment, much like having too many alcoholic drinks.
Let’s see what it looks like now…He aimed his puny flashlight beam down toward the pinnacle he’d seen…
And felt a numbing chill envelope his entire body.
Chapter 19
The sleek mega-yacht plowed along at a sedate pace across the azure waters. With state-of-the-art automation permitting a crew that would have been considered skeletal only a decade earlier, the few passengers who were aboard enjoyed extreme privacy and plenty of luxurious space while at sea.
Daedalus lounged by a swimming pool — one of two aboard — that overlooked the diving platform off the ship’s stern. A thirty-six foot speedboat hung from davits over the stern rail, and above, forward of the pool, a small passenger helicopter sat waiting on a pad. Having just emerged from the pool, Daedalus reclined in a chaise lounge wearing a plush robe with the stylized letter ‘H’, short for the yacht’s name, the Historica.
In his hands he held a tablet computer that allowed him to see the ship’s navigation information — its current position on a chart — as well as to communicate with the crew and captain, and even to control the ship directly if need be. Presently another man, also of Greek descent, walked over to Daedalus but remained standing. Phillipo, carrying a tablet identical to the one his older brother used, removed his Costa del Mar sunglasses in order to make eye contact with Daedalus.
“The thieves’ exact location is unknown at this time, but we have strong reason to believe they are somewhere on or near the Bimini Road formation. Do you want me to take up the helicopter?”