Most of the local sharks were nurse and reef sharks three or four feet long — pretty harmless, if you didn’t make them mad. But Kaz knew that larger, more aggressive cousins — bulls, hammerheads, makos — also prowled these waters. And somewhere lurked Clarence, the eighteen-foot monster tiger shark with a gullet large enough to swallow a filing cabinet whole.
Suppressing his unease, Kaz started down the ladder. “I’ll go first,” he mumbled, then bit his mouthpiece and let the water swallow him up.
The headlamp in his dive hood created a zone of illumination around him, a funnel-shaped cocoon of light in the great dark sea. He finned away from the station’s bulk, adjusting his buoyancy with the B.C. valve. The reef’s rush hour was over. But he soon realized that the water was just as crowded with different, smaller creatures. The ocean was alive with millions of undulating blue larvae, each one just a few millimeters long. They hung there, absolutely defenseless, as they were attacked by the thousands by tiny, round, tentacled predators —
Polyps! Kaz thought in sudden understanding. At night, coral polyps dislodge from the reef and go hunting! He was witnessing the very bottom of a food chain that extended all the way to Clarence, wherever he was.
Far away, I hope.
The other interns floated around him now, taking in the night scene. Following Star’s lead, they switched off their headlamps. The ocean seemed pitch-black at first, yet as Kaz’s eyes adjusted, he began to see the glow of the moon, penetrating through sixty-five feet of water. Light and color shone all around them from the bodies of fish. It was bioluminescence — the emission of light from living creatures. Like a large moving mushroom, a jellyfish glowed pale pink as it pulsed by. Even the plankton was bioluminescent, causing the water itself to sparkle like glitter makeup.
They switched their headlamps back on, and Star led the way to the wreck site, navigating by the compass on her watch. It gave Kaz a giddy feeling of power to outrace the fish, many of which appeared to be asleep. Some hung motionless in the water; others had attached themselves to kelp and sea fans. There were even a few “sleepwalkers.”
Sleep-swimmers, Kaz corrected himself.
The wreck site was difficult to find. They would have missed it completely if the water hadn’t still been a little cloudy from the use of the airlift hours earlier. With their DPVs set on low, they circled the area, spiraling gradually inward, until at last Dante’s sharp eyes fell on the coral ditch that was Cutter’s excavation.
Adriana emptied her B.C. to lessen her buoyancy. Setting down her scooter, she planted herself on her knees on the bottom and began to sift through the limestone rubble. She worked alone for a few moments while the others hung back, uncertain what to do. Then, noticing their inactivity, she gestured impatiently for them to join her.
Kaz settled himself beside her and began to sort debris. The operation reminded him of the time he was eight when the phone company had busted up the Kaczinski driveway to repair a broken wire. The neighborhood kids had spent days “mining” the blocks of blacktop. It had been a good time, made doubly precious to Kaz by the fact that he was constantly being whisked off to some hockey practice while everybody else had fun.
But here — two thousand miles, sixty-five vertical feet, and two atmospheres of pressure from his home in Toronto — there was an immediacy, a truth to this moment. This was a real shipwreck, pursued by real treasure hunters. And the treasure, if it was there, would be worth real money — millions, probably.
Enough to change our lives forever.
It was theirs for the taking — or losing, if they stood by and let Cutter’s people have their way. He dug faster.
Gold fever. He remembered the term from a social studies unit on the Klondike gold rush. He could feel himself coming down with the disease. The oppressive click and hiss of his own breathing was amplified by the scuba gear. It was accelerating, and so was his heartbeat. The moment when he would push aside a block of coral to reveal gleaming treasure underneath seemed so close he could almost taste it. And the compulsion to keep digging overpowered everything, even fatigue.
He could see it in the urgent actions of his fellow divers as well. It was especially obvious in Dante’s intense, almost crazed eyes, magnified by the prescription lens of his mask.
They worked tirelessly, moving blocks that would have been far too heavy to handle on land. The increased effort ate up their air supplies, and soon it was time to switch to the backup tanks.
Kaz hurriedly snapped the hose back into place. His first breath drew a mouthful of burning salt water into his lungs. Choking, he fumbled with the connection, desperate to restore the flow of air. He finally got it right, but each convulsive hack drew in more water, causing a chain reaction of coughing.
Star grabbed him by the shoulders. “Are you all right?” she shouted into her mouthpiece.
Kaz tried to signal okay with his thumb and forefinger, but he could not get his breathing back under control. With effort, he narrowed his focus to the bowl-shaped debris field below them. The less he thought about the constant tickle in his throat, the less he was likely to cough. But the search was becoming frustrating. There was nothing here but a pile of rocks.
He frowned. This couldn’t be right. The shattered coral was jagged, random. But these rocks were round, and mostly smooth, like quarry stones. What were they doing at the bottom of the Caribbean?
He cast a perplexed look at Adriana. It was hard to read the expression behind her mask, but her eyes were alight with excitement. She pulled her dive slate from the pocket of her vest and wrote: BALLAST.
Of course! She had told them about this. Old wooden ships carried tons of ballast rocks to prevent them from keeling over in rough seas.
This is it! The ship itself, locked in coral for more than three hundred years!
Then, as if his realization had opened the floodgates, the artifacts began to come. First, Star pulled out what looked like a lump on a stick. Upon closer inspection, it was a pewter spoon, its bone handle imprisoned in coral. Next, Dante’s sharp eyes fell on a fragment of a dinner plate. A brass crucifix was Adriana’s first find, followed by a handful of lead musket balls. More cutlery followed — they stuffed dozens of spoons and knives in their mesh dive bags. Dante pulled out another plate, this one intact except for a small wedge-shaped nick in the edging. Star came up with a small glass bottle in perfect condition.
Dante scribbled TREASURE?! on his slate. Adriana shook her head impatiently, digging with both gloved hands. Her face glowed with purpose.
Kaz latched onto a round coral fragment and brought it into the beam of his headlamp. The light flickered, then stabilized, giving him his first good look at the object before him.
A scream was torn from his throat, dispatching a cloud of bubbles to the surface.
There, partially encased in coral, was a human skull.
The skull slipped from his grip and settled back on the shattered reef. The others gawked in revulsion.
Calm down, Kaz told himself. People die in shipwrecks. You know that. This is no great shock.
But it was a shock. He was here to dive, not to come face-to-face with death.
It happened three hundred years ago! This is no different from the mummy exhibit at the museum!
Star was more concerned about Kaz’s flickering headlamp. Equipment failure could be even more devastating on a night dive. She checked her air supply. The gauge read 1600 psi, but the others were inexperienced divers, and probably had less. It was a good idea to head home.