The afternoon sun baked the wooden planks of the slips. Sean was glad to have shorts and sandals on. As he reached his boat, he realized someone else was nearby. He turned around quickly but his movement was too slow. The blonde woman and her two guards already had guns drawn and aimed right at Sean’s chest.
“It would be unwise for you to try anything, Mr. Wyatt,” she said through pouty lips. “Now get in the boat, slowly.”
“And if I say no?” he asked.
“I will shoot you in the knee and have them dump you in the boat. At some point, you will die a very painful death. Or, you can live and take us to the island.”
“You know about the island?” he asked, curious.
“Yes, Mr. Wyatt. But we don’t know where it is. All signs of the cave where the boat is hidden have been destroyed. It could be any of the hundreds of islands off the coast.”
Sean laughed to himself and shook his head. “The gold is gone. What are you going to do with an empty ship? Sell it for scrap?”
She raised an eyebrow. “Is that what you were told? That the ship is empty?” It was her turn to shake her head. “I believe you have been misinformed.”
“How do you know?” Sean’s voice was irritated.
“Because I have seen this?” she answered and flipped a gold coin to him.
He snatched it out of the air and examined the piece. It bore symbols of the Confederacy, and a picture of southern nation’s capital. He flipped it over twice just to be certain.
“Where did you get this?” he asked, holding the coin up.
“It turned up a few months ago at an auction house. I own the auction house. Getting the information about where it came from wasn’t a problem.”
Sean seemed dubious. “Yet you couldn’t find the island, huh.”
“Get in the boat, Mr. Wyatt. Don’t make me shoot you.” She ignored his statement and had one of her men aim at Sean’s knee.
“Okay,” he said. “We’ll do it your way. But I’m telling you, there’s no gold there.”
He stepped carefully into the boat, followed by the two men and the woman. One of the guards stood close to Sean while the other and his boss sat down at the front of the boat.
Sean started up the motor and steered the craft out into the choppy waters of the inlet. The crests of waves caused the twenty-foot boat to bounce dramatically. The man nearest Sean had to brace himself with one of the chrome rails, and once almost completely lost his balance.
The vessel made it’s way out beyond the sound and into the open waters of the Atlantic. Sean glanced down at the sheet of paper with the coordinates and then at the instrument panel. There were several islands in sight, just beyond the main coastline. None of them looked out of the ordinary, but he guided the boat in the prescribed direction, trusting the old man had given him the right location.
They’d been traveling for twenty minutes before Sean saw what he believed to be their destination up ahead. The Dutch woman noticed where he was going and yelled back at him over the wind. “Is that it?”
He shrugged. “I think so. Seems to match the description.”
Less than a mile away, a jagged, rocky island loomed. It couldn’t have been more than two square miles in size. At it’s highest point, a plain white lighthouse with black windows rose up from the rocks.
“They wouldn’t have hidden it at a lighthouse,” the woman argued. “That cannot be the place.”
“My source told me they built it long after the ship was hidden there,” his retort seemed to quiet her doubts for the moment. Though, she still seemed doubtful.
“I’m going to cruise around the perimeter,” Sean shouted at her. “See if we can see anything out of the ordinary.”
He steered the point of the island. His eyes scanned the surface of the rocks but couldn’t see anything that resembled what he was looking for. The face of the shore rose up like small cliffs, reaching sixty feet up to the base of the lighthouse.
“I don’t see anything,” Sean yelled after a fruitless few minutes of searching. “Going to pull up to the pier over there and go ashore. We’ll have to check it out from there.”
He turned the boat around and drove it to a small, rickety dock on the shore side of the island. There was an old, wooden staircase leading up from the water to the top of the island. When they arrived, one of the guards reached a rope out and hooked it to the pier. Sean did the same on the back.
The man nearest him kept the gun trained carefully, watching Sean’s every move. It was the skinny guy he’d humiliated the day before. Something told Sean that the man was still holding the grudge.
Sean led the group up the stairs and onto the wet, rocky earth. It appeared the lighthouse hadn’t been used in some time. There were signs of disrepair and unattended weathering on the paint, windows, and door.
“Would you like me to knock?” Sean asked sarcastically when they reached the entrance.
The blonde woman motioned to the larger guard who promptly kicked open the door. The doorframe splintered, giving way to the immense force of the man’s thick leg. Dust rolled through the empty room inside. To the left, stairs ascended up to the top of the building. Straight ahead, sunlight poured through a window onto old floors and a plain, wooden table. The man who had kicked the door in, stepped cautiously across the threshold, checking the corners with his weapon first.
The skinny guy poked Sean in the lower back with the barrel of his gun, prodding him forward. The group progressed slowly through the small space. They discovered a small kitchen with a gas stove, an empty white cabinet, and a bookshelf with a few random books occupying it. An old rocking chair sat, still, in the corner of the room next to a dingy burlap rug.
Sean walked over to the far window near the chair and looked out at the foamy sea. Behind him, he heard the hammer of a gun click.
“What is this? Are you trying to waste our time, Mr. Wyatt?” the Dutch woman asked. Sean turned around to see she had produced her own weapon and was pointing it threateningly in his direction. He didn’t flinch.
“Look, Lady. This is where I was told to go,” he said calmly.
“This can’t be it. There’s nothing here. Where is the ship? Where is the gold?” she demanded angrily. Her voice rose to the point of screaming.
He shrugged. “I have no idea. Maybe there wasn’t any gold to begin with. That’s kind of where I’m leaning at this point.”
She took a step towards him, holding the barrel at arm’s length. As she did, the floor clacked under her shoes. One step sounded different than the others.
“Stop!” he ordered her.
“What’s the matter, Mr. Wyatt? Afraid to die?” she asked, clearly not hearing what he’d heard.
“Trust me, Lady. That’s something that has never scared me,” his face was stoic. “But if you kill me, you might miss out on what you’re looking for.”
She shook her head once. “What are you talking about?”
He motioned towards the floor under her feet. “I think we may have just found what we were looking for. Would you mind lowering that gun for a second?” Sean held out a hand in a pleading gesture.
She seemed confused for a moment, the realized he was pointing at the floor. He got down on one knee and knocked on the wood in a few different places until he heard the hollow sound he’d heard before.
“See?” he asked. “There’s something different about the floor, right here.”
He looked around for a moment, scanning the floor for anything out of the ordinary. Then he had a thought. Sean reached down and pulled back the burlap rug. It was difficult to spot at first, but on closer examination, he found a seam that ran parallel to the wooden floor planks. He traced the seam all the way to the wall where he noticed a small notch in the floor. The little groove was just big enough to fit one finger.