"There is an old wreck located somewhere off the Tiger Reef," I blurted. "I've been hired to find it."
"Tiger Reef covers a lot of territory, mon."
"I talked to Mookie last night. He said Crompton was hired to help some white guy find a ship off the reef."
"Crompton is good, mon." It was Queet's way of telling me to get on with my story.
"According to Mookie, Crompton was gone for a while, then he showed up with tons of green, paid off his debts, did a lot of talking… and disappeared again. The only thing Mookie remembered was the name of the ship. It was the same one I'm looking for."
When Queet leaned forward this time, all trace of the big smile was gone. "So you want to talk to Crompton. No problem. We sit here and wait. Sooner or later he'll be back." He turned his attention to the batallion of bare-breasted beauties dotting the white sand and heaved a heavy sigh. "If a mon has got to be someplace, it might as well be here."
"Wrong! I'm on a tight schedule. We can't wait around for Crompton."
"Must be something big on that wreck, mon. What is it?"
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," I muttered.
4
It was late afternoon by the time the reef came into view. The Sloe Gin was slicing her way through churning waters on the backside of the big island; the winds were out of the west at a steady 15 knots, and on occasion 20 knot gusts were recorded. It was vintage Big Doobacque, exactly the way I remembered it. A layer of heavy gray clouds sulked over the desolate chunk of coral and rock, and a dank mist blanketed its hostile shoreline. It struck me now much as it had the first time I laid eyes on it — on a day long ago with Papa Coop at the helm and Gibby and Mary Mary tucked safely down in the cabin making girl talk. It struck me as a place that might be a good setting for a novel, but not necessarily a place I was willing to spend the time researching in order to capture its true essence. It struck me then, as it did now, as a place I didn't want to know intimately.
Both Queet and Sargent were on the bridge with me. Hannah was below working on our diving gear. Huntington had, when the seas turned choppy, retired to the sanctity of his bunk. Maggie, after several trips topside to comment on the weather, the beauty and the excitement of our mission, had likewise wrapped herself in the cocoon of the galley when the seas turned choppy.
Sarge was the first to spot the reef and the big island behind it. Queet's reaction was a little different, his face rapidly deteriorating into a deep frown. It was obvious that Big Doobacque didn't inspire either of the men. The reef itself was some 1500 yards off of the bow when Sarge brought the creaking old ship around to starboard.
Our plan was simple, and despite the lateness of the hour, we were determined to at least get started. Hannah had rigged up two ANGMQ sonar trailing units, one device set for vertical inclination and one for horizontal reference. The bounce-back pattern on the former would give us a good picture of the ocean floor, while the latter sketched in everything in the primary circumference. Between the two, Hannah figured we would get an almost instantaneous reading on anything that wasn't indigenous to the reef itself. The first pass was some 1500 yards on the windward side of the reef. According to Hannah's charts, the barrier floored out at roughly 80 meters with variations at midpoint of the seven-mile-long outcropping as deep as 200 meters but running as shallow as 50 meters at the northwest tip of the reef. With an effective horizontal range of 500 meters, we could be reasonably certain that we had a pretty good look at the windward side after three passes. The only question was the element of risk in the third pass. At 500 meters off the windward side of the reef, the draft of the Sloe Gin was a question mark.
We weren't playing our hunches yet, but I had one. I was convinced that the Garl had probably gone down inside the reef, while she was seeking safety from the storms that reportedly had sunk her in the first place. Maggie had a second theory that blended in nicely with my hunch. She theorized that since the Garl was clearly on what could be called a clandestine mission, the captain was keeping her as inconspicuous as possible. Taking to the leeward of Tiger Reef would have afforded it protection from the swarms of Nazi bounty hunters that abounded at the time.
Adding further credence to Maggie's theory was the knowledge that Mookie had actually used the name of the Garl and that Crompton had been instrumental in locating it. Coupling that with the fact that Crompton's expertise was in shallower waters, it only made sense to me that when we found the Garl, it would be on the leeward side and, since the reef was crescent-shaped, probably in what could be classified as shallow waters.
But since Bearing Schuster was paying the tab and the team seemed committed to giving the old boy what he had paid for, we started with the less than likely sweeps off of the windward side.
After two passes at 1500 yards and one at something less than 1000, we hadn't generated much more than an anemic shadow blip which Hannah quickly interpreted as something big, lumbering and of no particular interest to us. When I inquired as to what the lady had in mind, she informed me that it was probably a big shark. It was the first time I actually caught Hannah in an out-and-out wrong assumption. If there were sharks down there big enough to blip the ANGMQ, I damn sure wanted to know about it.
The sun was just about to do its disappearing act in the waters to the west when Sarge did a classic double take and brought the Sloe Gin back around to port. He turned the wheel over to Queet, snatched up a pair of binoculars and shimmied up to the top of the wheelhouse. "Bring her around again."
Queet maneuvered the bow toward the reef.
"There," Sarge pointed excitedly, "at the north end of the reef. See it? Tucked back in by the rocks."
It took a bit of straining but eventually Hannah spotted it, then Maggie and finally me. There, barely visible, squatting in the cloak of the gray mist, was the silhouette of a ship. It appeared to be some sort of barge, darkness and mist and craggy rocks all but enveloping it.
"She's sitting awful low in the water, mon," Queet grumbled.
"Can you make anything out?" I yelled up at Sarge.
"Looks like a salvage barge."
"Do you suppose it's one of Zercher's?" Hannah asked.
Both Queet and Sarge came back with the classic Jamaican hunch of the shoulders.
"It looks like the Bay Foreman," Sarge called down. "Twin booms on the stern. It's the only one I know like that around these waters; belongs to Markland Dredging out of Port Royal."
"What the hell would a dredging barge be doing out here?" Hannah wondered.
"Maybe they're looking for the same thing we are."
Sarge jumped down and took over the wheel. Out of the side of his mouth he whispered, "I don't like the looks of this, mon. Something ain't right. No lights. No sign of life." He cranked the
Sloe Gin
around and pointed her up the reef. "Want me to take her in so we can get a better look?"
Sargent was a master. He maneuvered into position less than 50 yards of the bow of the Bay Foreman , shut off the engines and studied the scene. The old barge was listing slightly to port, and I figured she might be hung up on the reef. Like Sarge said, she looked dead — no lights, no sounds, no sign of life.
"Where the hell did the crew go?" I muttered.
"How do you read it, Elliott?"
"It looks strange, real strange. It's not like we're sitting in the middle of some busy harbor. This isn't the kind of place where they pull the crew off at night."