Odelin shook his head slowly, taking on a pained expression as though saddened by what he had just heard. “Fabiola… I will ask you one more time. One Haitian to another. Where. Is. The. Treasure?”
“I’m sorry, but I’m running out of ways to say the same thing over and over. I don’t know anything about any treasure, much less where it might be.” She perked up as if receiving a new thought. “In the ocean. How about that. It’s in the ocean.”
Her captor appeared unfazed. “Where in the ocean?”
“I have no idea.”
He looked to one of the men holding a gun and nodded. The guard promptly returned the nod without a word and left the room, leaving one armed man behind.
“We’ll see about that.”
Chapter 33
Willis finished patching up Maddock’s leg wound with the Sea Foam’s first aid kit. “You’re good to go. In the future try to avoid pointy metal things.”
Maddock shot him a look and picked up a pair of binoculars. He skulked about the deck of the Sea Foam, keeping watch for any approaching vessels that might signal reinforcements from their attackers. He scoured the sea in all directions, but so far they were alone on the ocean.
Bones had spread the contents of their treasure bags on a table and now gazed at the small assortment of pricey baubles, eyes glazing over as he imagined how much more they had to leave behind.
“Hey Maddock, you think there’s any way we can get back through that archway you demolished to reach the rest of the treasure or what?”
Maddock let the binoculars drop around his neck as he, too, mentally relived the harrowing dive into the labyrinthine chasm. “Doesn’t look too promising.”
Bones looked up from the small amount of recovered treasures. “There’s gotta be another way in there. Around that archway, or somewhere else, maybe?”
Discussion about whether or not the archway was the only way in or out of the treasure lair continued until Maddock’s cellular phone rang. He picked it up and eyeballed the number on screen with curiosity.
Bones grinned. “Who is it? You finally find a female who wants to go out with you?”
Maddock shrugged. “Haiti number. Maybe it’s Fabi.” He raised his eyebrows at Bones before accepting the call and putting the phone to his ear.
But the new voice in his ear was male, and he was surprised to recognize the name the caller identified himself as: Dr. Ricardo Avila. Maddock recalled Fabi mentioning him as the director of the local health clinics she worked for. Bones was making noise about letting him talk to “her” and Maddock almost missed it.
“Hold on. He says he has Fabi.”
“Let me talk to her, will you?”
Maddock cupped his hand over the phone’s microphone. “Bones,” he hissed, “I don’t mean he has her like he has her on the line, waiting to talk to us. I mean, he has her, as in, kidnapped, holding her prisoner. Let me talk.”
Bones’ expression darkened instantly and Willis stepped closer so as to overhear the call.
Maddock spoke into the phone. “Say again, please, Dr. Avila. I had some background noise. You are with Fabi?” He put the phone on speaker mode while Bones and Willis leaned in.
“Fabi is with me for now, Mr. Maddock. But her time is limited. I know what you and your friends are doing in Haiti with your boat.”
“We came to console our friend and former Navy colleague, Fabi, after the death of her relative, and to do some diving while here.”
“Diving for treasure, Mr. Maddock. Do not take me for a fool and try to make it sound as though you are on a routine vacation. You will listen to me now if you want to ever see Fabi again, is that clear?”
Bones nodded reflexively while Maddock responded. “Yes, that is clear Dr. Avila. Go ahead, I’m listening.”
The voice carried a trace of the local island accent. “In return for Fabiola’s safe return, I want you to deliver me the treasure of the 1715 fleet.”
Maddock made no attempt to disguise his reactionary spitting sound. “With all due respect, Dr. Avila, that’s ridiculous. I have no idea where that treasure is. If I did, I’d be a rich man on some megayacht in St. Martins or somewhere nice, not here on my old scow in dangerous places like Haiti.” He waited for Avila to respond while eyeing the sunlight glinting off the table of treasures.
“No excuses, Mr. Maddock. Haiti is, as you say, a ‘dangerous place’, and no one will bat an eye at the disappearance of yet another pretty girl. You have three days. You may reach me at the number you now have on your phone. If I do not have the bulk of that treasure in my possession in the next seventy-two hours, Fabi is a dead woman.”
The connection clicked off and Maddock was left to stare at the phone screen while Bones and Willis stared at each other. At length, Maddock broke the stunned silence by pointing to the table that was sparsely covered with treasures. “You think he’d be happy with those?”
Bones shook his head while Willils said, “Probably just make him even meaner. He’d know we know where the treasure is if we show him those. You were telling him you have no idea.”
Maddock nodded. “I thought that was the route that would give us the most options at this point. We could always tell him we found those later if we need to stall for more time. Like we’re getting closer.”
“What about actually getting the rest of it?” Bones stared over the boat’s gunwale into the deep waters with an uncertain look on his face.
Maddock sighed heavily and shook his head. “Bones… there’s just no way. Not in three days, anyhow. Not only has there been a collapse of the only known route into the treasure cave, but the place is already known to Avila’s men, obviously. He just wants us to do all the work. He sent those divers after us. Those guys probably saw some of the same gold we did down there.”
“If they survive to talk about it.” Willis surveyed the waters around the boat. “I don’t see any air bubbles coming up. We’d have seen them if they surfaced.”
A grim moment of silence ensued after which Maddock said, “They probably have a vessel of some kind nearby, probably on the other side of Alto Velo somewhere, with at least one man on it. When and if the divers don’t return, they’ll assume we were behind it and then Avila will view this site with added significance.”
Willis looked at Bones. “I know she means a whole lot to you, man, and I definitely don’t want any harm to come to her either, but even without Avila’s men down there, Maddock is right. It was unstable enough before he toppled that arch. Think of the operation it would be to clear a path back down there, excavate all that gold and get it back up. We’re talking dozens of dives, if we can get through at all. I bet our decompression time alone would be a whole day if we added it all up.”
Maddock nodded in silent agreement. “That doesn’t mean there’s nothing we can do, though.”
Bones eyed him doubtfully. “Please don’t say ‘go to the cops’.”
“I’m guessing Avila’s got at least a few local law enforcement officers on his underground payroll,” Willis added.
Maddock shook his head, his gray eyes hardening with resolve. “No cops. I’m talking about going after Fabi ourselves.”
Chapter 34