“The message Maddock found beneath Dunstaffnage… the message you and Maddock found, that is,” she added hurriedly, “contains almost all the letters in the alphabet. There are only seven for which I don’t have symbols. Avoiding those letters, I’ve put together a new message. I’ve also made a slight alteration to the vowels. Not enough, hopefully, that it will stump Meikle, but sufficient to make it seem like we believe this to be a new code.”
“Let’s hear it,” Grizzly said.
“The worthy must brave the demon of Borthwick to claim the treasure.”
Grizzly scratched his head. “What is a Borthwick?”
“It’s a haunted castle southwest of Edinburgh.”
“I thought we agreed to send them to Morar,” Grizzly said. “That would be more believable since they have their own lake monster, Morag.”
“No, you wanted to send them there. There are two problems with Morag. The first is that it’s too close to Loch Ness. We want their attention focused on somewhere far away.”
“What’s the second issue?”
She rubbed her temples, trying to fend off the oncoming headache. “Morag is the problem. The strong association with a lake monster legend means there’s a chance we could end up searching there.”
“Gotcha. Sounds like you’ve got it under control.”
“I think so. The message itself is solid. It’s the image I’m going to send him that worries me.”
Grizzly stood and moved behind her chair. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”
She grimaced. Increasingly, she found the man’s presence discomfiting. Perhaps it was the contrast to Maddock, whom she found a steadying presence. And then there was Bones, who could be a pain in his own way, but he seemed to be reliable, and Maddock trusted him utterly.
“It’s my photo manipulation I’m worried about. I’m going to tell Meikle we found a cave near the well and that this was carved on a stone there. The problem is the quality of some of Maddock’s photos.” She clicked on one of the photographs. “See how the flash partially obscures this symbol? I think it’s a combination of the moisture and the shape of the stone. If I plug this bit in, it’s going to look wrong.”
“I took a few pics with my phone. Maybe some of mine are better.” A few seconds later, Grizzly handed her his phone. Sure enough, he had a crystal clear image of the problematic section.
“This is perfect,” she said. “I’ll just…” Her voice trailed off as she realized what she was looking at.
“Something wrong?”
“It’s the photo you took,” she said. “There are more symbols here.” She grinned. “Jimmy didn’t have the entire clue.”
Chapter 24
The murky waters of Loch Ness seemed to close in around Maddock as he swam in the darkness. The peat particles that filled the loch limited visibility to a few feet in front of him. It reminded him uncomfortably of clouds of silt that could blind a diver inside a sunken ship or underwater cavern. He’d long been aware of the challenges inherent in diving in the loch, but experiencing it firsthand was something else entirely. Now, as he propelled himself through the murky depths, he could easily understand how a creature could go undiscovered within these waters.
He swam along, his headlamp fighting a losing battle against the darkness that enveloped them. Something shot past them, a large silvery fish, a salmon perhaps. He didn’t startle easy, but this strange place had him unnerved. Visions of the tooth he’d recovered from the U-boat kept flashing through his mind. What if the legends were true? What if they were swimming into the creature’s den?
He and Bones hugged the steep, rocky side of the loch and relied on GPS to track their movements. When they’d reached the area below Urquhart Castle, he signaled to Bones, and they began their search.
Careful to shield their lamps, they began just below the surface of the lake, and quickly worked their way down. Maddock swam back and forth, his eyes searching the shadows, looking for anything that might indicate a passageway leading beneath the castle.
Fifteen minutes later, their search hadn’t turned up anything. Bones gave a shake of his head and turned his thumb down. He hated thorough searches. If luck didn’t lead him to the prize in short order, he grew impatient and annoying, though he stuck to the task until the end.
Maddock checked his dive watch and held up ten fingers. If they didn’t find anything within ten minutes, they’d give it up. Bones nodded and they continued their search.
As they swam, Maddock found his thoughts drifting. If this dive proved fruitless, what would they do next? Call it quits? No, he couldn’t do that. He wasn’t one to give up on a treasure hunt, and he couldn’t let Isla down. She’d confided in him how important this treasure hunt was to her. Her family… Stop thinking about Isla, he chided himself.
He didn’t think about the beautiful journalist for long. As he swam into a dark crevasse, a serpentine head suddenly filled his vision. Dark, jagged teeth gleamed in the light of his headlamp.
Maddock immediately changed directions. He drew his knife and slashed at the creature, and felt his blade strike something solid — harder than flesh.
He froze, his heart pounding double-time, and took a long look at the monster’s head that loomed before him.
It was a carving about the size of a football. Silt and peat clung to it, obscuring the eyes and nostrils, but the toothy jaws shone in the lamplight. He reached out, still a little creeped out, and brushed it clean.
The years had robbed it of some of its fine detail, but it was still a remarkable piece. What was it doing down here? It hadn’t simply been tossed into the water. Instead, it was affixed to a sheer rock wall a good twenty meters below the surface. It had to have been put here for a reason.
He took hold of it and pulled.
Nothing.
He tried again. Same result. He considered the problem for a few seconds.
Maybe it’s a doorknob.
He tried turning it clockwise, but it held fast. One possibility remained. This time he turned it to the left.
Little by little, it moved a quarter turn and then stuck. Maddock heard a dull clacking sound, but nothing happened. He tried again to turn the sea serpent’s head, but it wouldn’t budge. It was time to get some added muscle.
He swam out of the crevasse, got Bones’ attention, and guided him back to the serpent head. He made a quick rotating motion with his hands to show his friend what he had in mind. They set to work and this time, the serpent’s head turned a full circle. Gears ground somewhere in the darkness, and then the rock wall before them slowly swung backward, revealing a wide, natural passageway running straight back in the direction of the castle. Wide enough, Maddock thought, for a prehistoric sea creature to swim through.
As usual, Bones didn’t hesitate. He surged ahead like a torpedo, leaving Maddock to play catch-up.
It would serve you right if I held back and let the monster make you his midnight snack, Maddock thought. Then again, Bones would probably be an entree, and Maddock the main course.
The channel ran about fifty meters straight back, terminating in a large underground cavern. Maddock and Bones broke the surface to see two stone doors, each as large as the one through which they’d passed minutes before, standing open. They climbed out of the water and moved in for a closer look. The air was dank but breathable.
Rusted iron bars, as thick as Maddock’s wrist, ran vertically through a broad slit in the door on the left. Broken chains lay strewn about, rust pitting the black links.
“Look at the bar on this thing.” He pointed to the thick metal shaft, held in place by iron bands. “You slide that sucker into the wall and that door’s not coming open easily.”