Chapter Four
NEPTUNE’S FOLLY — five miles off the coast of Devil’s Island, Australia.
Scott brought the boat to a halt then looked at his older brother. ‘Alright, this is it.’
‘You sure?’ Paul said, standing at the stern and peering into the sun-dappled waters.
Scott double checked the coordinates. ‘Yeah. This is it.’
‘You better not be wasting my fucking time, Scotty.’
‘You think I’d go this far on a prank?’
‘No, I suppose not. Come on, let’s suit up.’
Paul was Scott’s sibling, and at thirty-one, was older than him by seven years. The last five of those years he had spent in jail for hiding a friend who had committed an armed robbery in his house. One of the bank tellers had been shot in the robbery, and although he made it to the hospital, died later. Paul didn’t realise it was a murder his friend was wanted for until it was too late, and so got caught up in the fallout. He met some bad people when he was locked up and had come out a tougher, more cynical man than when he went in. It had also ruined his potential career in engineering. With a criminal record, work was impossible to come by which increased the bitterness he felt towards society. Where Scott was slender and athletic with well-defined muscles and an even tan, Paul was shorter and more muscular, his arms like concrete, his neck a tree trunk. For their physical differences, the two brothers had come together united by the one thing that was the curse of mankind and the cause of countless problems around the globe.
Money.
Scott had told him of the discovery he had made, about the legend and the gold. To his surprise, Paul knew of the legend. He said kids used to call it the Devil’s Triangle when he was younger but had always assumed it was another urban legend like the Samsonite scarecrows, the supermarket run by vampires, or the story about the Slenderman. With no job and no prospects, it hadn’t taken Scott much convincing to get his brother to go with him to the spot to take a look. Scott wanted to come back at night under cover of darkness, but Paul had refused, saying it would look suspicious if they were out there at night. It was better, he said, to go during the day so that if anyone did query them, they could say they were just enjoying the sun and doing a little snorkelling.
Scott moved to the stern, helping Paul unpack the bag he had brought on board.
‘What are these for again?’ he asked as he pulled the heavy plastic out of the bag.
‘Flotation balloons. If there is gold down there, it’s going to be too hard to carry.’
‘There is gold down there and it is heavy,’ Scott said as they lay the contents of the bag out on the rear deck.
‘Relax, Scotty. I wasn’t doubting you. I’m here, aren’t I?
‘Yeah, sorry, I just… this could change our lives, you know?’
‘Yeah, it could,’ Paul said, looking out over the gloriously crisp blue waters. ‘Anyway, to finish answering your question, these flotation balloons will be how we get the haul to the surface. They’re weighted and go down with us deflated like this. There’s a net underneath that we put our haul into on the seabed. All we do then is activate the inflator here.’ He pointed to a pulley on the side of the deflated red bag. ‘The unit then auto-inflates and floats our haul to the surface. We follow it up all the way. Easy.’
Scott nodded. ‘Alright, I can get on board with that.’
‘Good. Then help me get everything ready so we can stop wasting daylight and get down there.’
II
Half an hour later, the two brothers were in the water. They had already sunk the flotation balloons, dropping them overboard and watching them sink into the ocean depths. They now followed, swimming in tandem. Scott had neglected to tell his brother about the uneasy feeling he’d had in the boat graveyard, and supposed that if he was aware of the legend, then he knew what was said to be down there. Fortunately for Scott, the entire scene felt a lot less intimidating in full daylight. The visibility was superb, the sun filtering through in undulating golden shafts, reminding Scott of the joys of this secret world beneath the waves. Schools of multi-coloured fish swam around them, moving to accommodate the much bigger lifeforms as they descended into the dark. It was only when they had descended beyond the reach of the sun’s rays and had to activate their head-mounted underwater lamps did the joy Scott had felt transform back into the creeping sense of dread and the unshakable feeling that something was watching them from the periphery of their vision. There was something below them. Scott saw it and pointed. It looked like blood, like something had been attacked below. Scenarios raced through Scott’s mind about the truth behind the legend and how they were about to become part of it forever. He could imagine years from now people sitting around a camp fire discussing urban legends and asking if anyone had heard the story of the two treasure-hunting brothers who had met their end diving for gold in Devil’s Triangle and were never to be seen again. It was only as he fully allowed his light to shine on it that he realized it wasn’t blood, but the flotation balloon they had sunk. It was half-folded over in the debris field, the waterproof material swaying in the currents, the air canisters on their side on the seabed. He gestured to Scott and pointed, and the two dived for the balloon. As they neared the seabed, the graveyard of ships bones became visible. Barnacle-encrusted relics scattered across a much wider area than Scott had first thought during his last dive. He immediately recognized the overturned fishing vessel on its side. They had come in at a slightly different angle to the one he had on his last dive, and he was able to see the upper structure of the boat half-buried in the sand. He was amazed to see that despite the damaged caused during its sinking, some of the wheelhouse windows were unbroken, reflecting his torch beam as he passed it over the hull. He motioned for Paul to follow, heading back to the area where he had found the gold bar. As before, there were no fish that he could see. They were in a void, a wide open expanse of water in which they appeared to be the only living creatures. Pushing it aside and thinking of the end goal, he approached the hull, relieved to see his torch where he had left it, its battery dead. He also saw the gold bar beside it. He increased his speed, excited to show his brother that his find was real. He picked up the bar and turned to face Paul, who was lagging behind and dragging the flotation balloon behind him. Elated, Scott held up the bar. Paul swam over and took it from him, turning the heavy bar over in his hands. They eyes met, the thrill and excitement of what would be a life-changing experience shared between them. Paul put the bar in the net under the flotation balloons then started to sift through the debris on the ocean floor. Following the lead of his brother, Scott did the same. Moving aside broken wood and scrabbling through the loose sand in an effort to uncover whatever treasures lurked beneath. He moved a splintered sheet of carbon fibre hull aside and was about to search beneath it when he flicked his head towards the darkness of the ocean beyond. He had sensed something moving. More than that, he had felt it. A current tugging against him as something big moved close by. He let the sheet of carbon fibre fall back to the ocean floor and stared out into the void, once again filled with that same sense of being watched or worse — stalked. He looked to his brother, wishing he could shout to him or suggest they leave, but Paul was focused on searching for more gold, tossing aside wreckage in his efforts to better his life. Scott was watching him, wondering how to communicate that he wanted to surface when he saw it. At first, he thought it was a submarine coming towards them, then he saw the curvature of the snout as the creature came from the dark heading straight for Paul. He had seen sharks before, of course. They had seen them in the aquarium where they swam around the sunken Perspex tunnels. Nothing comparable to the behemoth that came towards them. Scott tried to put it into context, to compare it to something he had seen in the real world to give some kind of rationality to how big it was and could think of nothing. It was almost leisurely as it came out of the darkness, a flick of the tail moving it within ten feet of Paul who was so preoccupied with his search he hadn’t seen it. Its skin was the color of slate and pocked with scars, old and new. Black emotionless dolls eyes the size of a basketball watched its prey, mouth partially open to allow the water to flow through, the tips of its twelve inch serrated teeth visible. An old harpoon was embedded in its side, trailing a frayed trail of rope behind it, the skin around the wound healed and making the harpoon part of the giant shark’s anatomy. It was at this point, as Scott looked on unable to move, that Paul saw it. He lurched back as the shark approached, kicking up loose sand from the sea floor. Scott was sure the shark was going to attack, but instead it circled Paul, dump truck-sized head swaying back and forth as it assessed this new creature which had encroached on its territory. As it moved around his brother, Scott could see the full scale of the behemoth. Paul watched, knowing he was powerless to do anything but wait and see what would happen next. The creature moved closer and Scott was sure they were about to die, but the shark seemed uncertain, and backed away, continuing to circle Paul. Scott knew he had to do something to distract the shark and help his brother. His eyes went to the flotation balloon which was ten feet away from him and a further twenty feet away from the huge shark circling his brother. Although every instinct screamed at him and told him he was crazy, he moved towards the balloon, keeping low and close to the seabed. Still the shark circled, trying to decide if such small prey was worth bothering with. Scott reached the flotation balloon, looking at the cylinders of gas. The device was simple enough to use. There was a chord attached to the tanks which would break the interior seal and fill the balloons with air and send it on its slow ascent to the surface. He hoped it would distract the shark into giving chase so he and his brother could escape. For Scott, the gold could stay in the graveyard of boats. He didn’t care anymore. Now all he wanted was to survive. Hands trembling, he waited for the shark to circle away from him then pulled the chord. The balloons inflated a pneumatic hiss as the air was released into them sending a torrent of bubbles towards the surface. Scott swam to the hull of the nearest overturned vessel, pressing himself against it as the balloons started to ascend. The shark changed course to investigate, circling the balloons as they rose. Scott watched it go, unable to take in the size of it. He turned his attention to Paul, hoping to signal for him that they should leave, but Paul was already swimming, angling up and away from the shark back towards the boat. For a while, Scott didn’t think he would be able to follow. He was so terrified that he couldn’t move. It was only the idea of the shark coming back and crushing him in its massive jaws that made him move. He followed his brother, closing the distance between them. On the surface, his brother’s bulk helped him. Underwater, Scott’s smaller, more athletic frame was better for moving through the water. He closed the distance, looking for the shark but unable to see it. The two siblings swam in tandem, the water growing lighter as they neared the surface and the dark shadow of the boat, desperate for the safety it would provide. Paul was starting to slow, and Scott moved ahead. He checked behind him and saw Paul still coming, his eyes wide and filled with something Scott had never seen before.