Everything fell into place. No scientist would dynamite coral. But Tad Cutter was no scientist. It explained the magnetometer, and why Cutter kept his interns busy tagging caves when he took them out at all.
And it explained why he and his people had instantly recognized the Spanish coin for what it was.
Cutter, Marina, and Reardon may have worked for Poseidon, but they were treasure hunters!
A sweep of Adriana’s flipper stirred up the pebbles of shattered coral below them. Star caught sight of something else in the swirl of movement — something smooth rather than jagged, and stark white. She reached into the debris and picked it up — a hilt or handle, perhaps eight inches long. It was carved and polished — and definitely man-made.
A meaningful look passed between the two scuba masks. Had Dante and his sharp eyes inadvertently led Cutter and his team to exactly what they were looking for?
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
It was the first time Kaz had ever seen Marina Kappas angry.
“They had no right to dive! I ordered them aboard!”
“We couldn’t hear you,” Kaz called up to the Ponce de León.
“I want them now!” she exploded. “You go down there and get them. We have a schedule to keep.”
Kaz dipped his face mask in the water and popped right up again. “Cloudy today. Let’s go down the anchor line. It’ll be easier to stay together.”
He and Dante began to kick their way around the stern of the boat.
“Hurry!” Marina exclaimed peevishly. “We don’t have all day!”
A sharp ringing buzz cut the air. It took Kaz a few seconds to identify the sound — Chris Reardon’s unmanned fishing reel, playing out at light speed. Reardon’s special bait, squid parts mixed with cold pizza, had hooked something big.
It happened before Kaz could even bite down on his mouthpiece. The thousand-pound Mylar line wrapped around him, pinning his right arm to his body. He was dragged below the surface, keenly aware of a force many times his own strength.
Fighting off panic, he used his free hand to fumble his regulator into his mouth. He squinted through the murky water and got a bead on the dark shape at the end of the line. It was a huge grouper, four hundred pounds or more, hooked and fighting wildly. In the creature’s mad struggle for its life, it was pulling Kaz straight for the bottom, its desperate gyrations tugging the Mylar ever tighter around the helpless diver.
I’ll never fight it, he thought, the water rushing past him, the big fish just a blur. My only hope is to cut myself free.
His dive knife was in a scabbard on his right thigh. He could just reach it with his left hand. As his glove closed over the hilt, the big grouper abruptly changed direction. Kaz was yanked after it like a puppy on a leash. In agony, he felt the knife slip through his fingers. His last hope, swallowed by the churning sea.
No, he reminded himself. There’s still one chance. Something has to stop that grouper.
And something did. At first, Kaz thought it was a submarine — it had to be, something so big. But then the huge torpedo-like shape opened a gaping mouth. And when it snapped shut, half the grouper was gone.
The Mylar line went slack, but Kaz made no attempt to shrug himself loose. He was paralyzed with a fear that dated back to his very early childhood. For he knew, as surely as if the big fish had been wearing a neon name tag, that this was the eighteen-foot monster tiger shark the locals called Clarence.
Still sinking slowly, he watched the enormous jaws savage the grouper in a cloud of blood and tattered flesh. The blood looked green at this depth. The color red is filtered out by seawater…. His scuba instructor’s voice echoed in his head, repeating the words in an endless loop. Kaz was powerless to stop the lecture. His mind had shut down. Terror was in charge.
He had left home, family, hockey, everything that was familiar, to travel two thousand miles to the Caribbean — to die.
He barely noticed the moment that he bumped into the seabed. It was almost a comfort. A place to hide while the big shark circled overhead, snapping violently at the bloody scraps around it. To Clarence, blood in the water meant food. The predator already had no memory of the grouper it had just devoured. It never gave a thought to its last meal; its next one was the main concern.
Kaz huddled on the sandy bottom, trembling with dread. No plan was taking shape in his mind, no strategy for survival. Even the inescapable fact that his air supply wouldn’t last forever could not penetrate his overpowering compulsion to hide from nature’s perfect killing machine.
Dante broke the surface and spit out his regulator, gasping in the fresh air.
“Shark!” he tried to yell. It came out a high-pitched wheeze.
He looked around desperately. He was closer to the Ponce de León than the Cortés, but he instinctively began thrashing toward Vanover’s boat. When it was a matter of life and death, you went with the people you trusted.
Something bubbled up out of the water directly in his path, and he screamed in shock and fear.
Star pushed her mask aside. “Not so loud,” she warned. “Listen, we found out what Cutter’s—”
“Clarence!” Dante bellowed right in her face.
“Who?”
“The shark!”
Adriana hit the surface, and this time both Dante and Star recoiled.
“Where’s Kaz?” Star asked.
“He’s on the bottom and he’s not moving!” Dante wailed. “I couldn’t get to him! The shark—”
Star was already kicking for the Cortés, shouting, “Captain!”
Both Vanover and English were on the dive platform to pull the three out of the water.
“What’s going on?” the captain demanded. “Where’s Kaz?”
Chest heaving, Dante sobbed out a breathless explanation. “The shark didn’t bite him,” he babbled on, “but I think he’s too scared to come up!”
English was already strapping on a scuba tank.
“It sounds like old Clarence,” Vanover decided. “You’d better take the shark cage.”
The dive guide scowled. “I am not a canary, me.”
“The kid could be injured, even bleeding,” Vanover argued. “You’ll need the cage because of him.”
English grunted his agreement.
They spent precious minutes unfolding the titanium cage and attaching it to the Cortés’s electric winch. English climbed inside and pulled the door shut. The clang sounded like the closing of a prison cell.
Vanover swung the cage over the gunwale. “One tug for down, two for up, three for stop.” He hit the winch, and the guide disappeared into the sea.
Menasce Gérard was as much at home in the ocean as on land. In his commercial work with the oil rigs, he often descended to depths of a thousand feet or more — thirty atmospheres of pressure. He feared nothing down here and viewed the cage as an inconvenience, almost an embarrassment. Why was he surprised that those American teenagers had brought him to this?
The poor visibility was unexpected. But, alors, this made perfect sense. No single shark could disturb so much silt. But whatever had done it might very well attract a large predator like Clarence.
He peered through the bars, looking for the shark and the young diver, but there was no sign of either. When the cage hit bottom, he gave a triple yank on the signal rope, the sign for stop. Then he opened the steel door and ventured out.
He had no weight belt, so maintaining depth was a struggle. He could do it, but not forever, and the effort would surely deplete his air supply quickly. He had to find Kaz right now.