Their bags full of artifacts, they returned to their scooters for the ride back to PUSH. Unlike the trip over, Kaz barely noticed the nocturnal life of the reef that was all around him. The horror-movie image of the skull hung before him like a totem of doom. How must it have felt to drown in these waters? Especially for a European sailor, so far from anything familiar?
We look at that wreck as an underwater ATM, he thought. But it’s also a mass grave.
He felt the weight of the items in his goody bag tethered to his belt. Stealing from the dead. Well, not exactly. Nobody from that long-lost ship could have any use for this stuff now. But it didn’t feel right.
Dr. Ocasek was still shut away in the decompression chamber, so it was pretty easy for the interns to smuggle their dive bags into the main lock. Adriana spread a towel over the stainless steel counter, and they placed their dripping artifacts across it.
Kaz stared intently at the coral-encrusted objects as if expecting some hidden discovery to burst upon him like a sunrise. Then he turned to Adriana. “Am I excited about this?”
“Of course,” she replied with a frown. “All this stuff is consistent with the seventeenth century. The cutlery handles are made of bone or wood. And the workmanship looks a lot like things I’ve seen at the museum from the same time period.”
“But you’re not smiling,” Star pointed out.
“It’s Spanish.” She pointed. “Crucifixes, Catholic religious medallions. See that helmet? Only Spain used that design — there were soldiers on the galleons, separate from the crew. The seamen couldn’t fight, and the soldiers couldn’t sail.”
“Then it’s definite!” cried Dante. “That’s a real treasure ship! I just hope Cutter hasn’t already boosted all the money.”
“But the JB hilt is from England,” Adriana reminded him. “My uncle identified it, and he’s an antiquities expert. What was it doing on a Spanish galleon?”
Kaz shrugged. “Some Spanish guy bought an English walking stick. Or a whip, or whatever that handle is from.”
“Or he could have stolen it,” added Star.
“Maybe,” Adriana admitted grudgingly. “But in those days you couldn’t just go on the Internet and order stuff from around the world. And Spanish colonials were barred from buying foreign goods. An English artifact on a Spanish ship — I don’t know. It sounds kind of fishy to me. There’s something here we’re not seeing….”
30 August 1665
The settlement of Portobelo was ablaze. The bodies of its soldiers and citizens lay strewn about its ruined streets.
Samuel wandered through the bloody chaos, the blade of his sword striking sparks as he dragged it across the cobblestones. He did not have the strength to heft it, and certainly not the will. Samuel Higgins had been kidnapped from his family at the age of six, and had lived a life of privation and torment. Yet this was the lowest he had ever sunk in misery. He had not known the true mission of the Griffin when he had signed on. Even upon learning the truth, he could never have imagined this frenzied rampage of torture and murder.
Sick at heart, he walked away from the mayhem and started back to the beach. He had no definite plan. Perhaps he would sit on the sand and wait for this nightmare to be over. But he had not ruled out walking straight into the sea until the blue water swallowed him forever.
And then his back exploded with pain, and he fell to the street, waiting for death. Surely, this was a musket ball that had struck him down. He turned, expecting to see a Spanish soldier reloading his weapon. Instead, it was the tall figure of Captain James Blade, furling the leather of his whip. Set in the handle, an emerald the size of a robin’s egg gleamed cruelly in the sun.
“Going somewhere, boy?”
The true extent of his predicament brought Samuel out of his daze. Walking away in the middle of a battle was desertion — a hanging offense.
“Captain,” he said beseechingly, “what use have you for me in this fight — a boy who cannot even lift his sword?”
“I’ll kill you myself if you turn your back on your duty again!” Blade threatened. He reached down, grabbed a handful of Samuel’s unruly brown hair, and drew the boy to his feet. “These foul maggots call you Lucky. Be they right or be they wrong, they take heart when they see you. And you will be seen!”
So Samuel dragged himself and his sword back to the battle.
Musket fire was heard in the alleyway behind the merchants’ houses. A lead ball ripped into the stone wall of the church, missing Samuel by inches. Terrified, he ran around the corner of the building and stopped short. There in front of him stood a captain of the Spanish garrison.
The officer reared back a double-edged broad-sword, preparing to deliver a blow that would slice the cabin boy in half. Samuel raised his own sword in a feeble attempt to ward off the attack. He closed his eyes, waiting for it all to end.
Suddenly, distant drums resounded through the burning town, beating out the cease-fire. It was the garrison at Santiago, signaling the Spanish surrender.
Portobelo was won.
And young Samuel Higgins was still lucky.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Breakfast the next day was powdered milk and peanut butter on toast. After passing a serving through the airlock to Dr. Ocasek in the chamber, the interns suited up and headed back to the wreck site.
This time, they were careful to maintain a safe distance. As soon as the water turned murky and they could hear the airlift’s roar, they retreated to a hiding place behind a coral ridge. There they waited, observing nothing but swirling clouds of silt until their air ran low.
Back at PUSH, the four found Dr. Ocasek out of decompression and all packed up for his return to the surface. “I just talked to topside,” he told them. “Jennifer Delal will be coming down in a couple of hours. She’s collecting algae samples from the reef.”
“We got you a going-away present,” said Star. From her mesh bag, she pulled an enormous conch shell nearly two feet long.
“Something to make popcorn in,” Kaz supplied. “Just in case you get hungry topside.”
The scientist was impressed. “Wow, that’s a beauty! I’m going to miss you guys.”
They watched through the viewing port as he exited the wet porch. The shell under his arm was larger than the waterproof bag that held all his belongings from a two-week stay. He tossed one final piece of sandwich to his “pet” moray, and disappeared up the tether line. A boat waited at the PUSH life-support buoy to whisk him off to deal with the wreckage of his workspace and his exploded experiments.
On the station, the time dragged. Sick of peanut butter, they tried to make a freeze-dried beef Stroganoff dinner from the pantry. But Kaz forgot to add water before heating. Gray smoke billowed from the microwave, setting off the topside monitoring sensors.
“Don’t worry,” came the amused voice of the technician over the emergency wall speaker. “The habitat has air scrubbers that’ll take out the smoke automatically. Just don’t cook any more duck à l’orange, okay?”
“It was beef Stroganoff,” Kaz admitted.
“Listen, nobody comes to PUSH for the fine cuisine,” the man assured them. “Just sit tight until Dr. Delal gets there, got it?” He severed the connection.
“What about fish?” asked Dante. “That’s food, right? We’re choking on peanut butter, and right outside our window is the ultimate seafood buffet.”