Infernal Read online

  Although Tom had explained it to him, he’d needed to see it in action to appreciate the simplicity of using a stream of seawater to move undersea sand.

  Holding the hose at a low angle, Tom swept it back and forth in slow arcs, removing a thin layer, then stepping forward to repeat the process along the center of the sand hole’s long axis. Sort of like power washing a patio or walk, except that it exposed no clean surface, just more sand.

  Wondering how far down to the bottom of the sand, Jack hovered behind, checking the newly exposed layer for anything that might be man-made. It was slow going, and on their first pass they found nothing.

  So it was back to the upstream end for another try. This time, midway along the course, Jack felt a tap on his wet suit hood. He looked up to see Tom excitedly pointing at the sand.

  Just ahead lay the edge of a piece of wood, rotted and crumbling but still bearing unmistakable signs that it had been milled. This was no remnant of a sunken log. This had once been a plank.

  * * *

  4

  “We’ve found her!” Tom said as soon as they broke the surface.

  Their air tanks had been running low so they’d ascended to a depth of fifteen feet and hovered there, clinging to the anchor rope, for a brief decompression stop to clear excess nitrogen from their bloodstreams. They hadn’t been deep enough to worry much about the bends, but why take the chance?

  Well, Jack thought, we found something. Surprise, surprise. Too soon to tell if it was the Sombra. But he kept mum. No point in raining on Tom’s parade.

  They removed their fins and climbed the transom ladder to the deck. They decided on a beer break before strapping on fresh tanks.

  Tom seemed to be a different person. His eyes danced, his movements were full of energy, he couldn’t stop grinning.

  “Got to be the Sombra.” The mask had left a red ring across his forehead and around his cheeks. “Now we know where to concentrate.”

  Jack gave a noncommittal nod. His thoughts kept returning below, to the sand hole.

  “What’s up with the coral down there?”

  “Yeah, I noticed that. Looks dead. Could be a pollutant, could be a disease.”

  “But even then, wouldn’t you expect some algae or something to be growing there?”

  Tom shrugged. “Could be a lot of things. It’s a problem all over the world. They’ve got this starfish in the Pacific called the crown of thorns. A bunch of them can wipe out reef after reef.”

  “Okay, but no fish either. I didn’t see a single fish.”

  Another shrug, plus a grin. “Neither did I, but that should make you happy: No fish means no sharks.”

  Tom just didn’t get it.

  “Maybe I’m being oversensitive and paranoid, but consider this: For the whole time we were down, you and I were the only living things in that sand hole. Don’t you think that’s just a little strange?”

  Jack hoped nothing more than a blight or pollution was at work here.

  “Whatever,” Tom said, rising and starting to strap new tanks to the vests. He appeared to be vibrating with anticipation. Or was it greed? “Let’s get back down there before the sun gets too low.”

  * * *

  5

  Concentrating the water stream around the plank they’d found, they turned up more wood, all equally rotted, crumbling at the lightest touch. But no treasure chest, no coins or jewels. Just sand, sand, sand.

  With their tanks getting low and the light fading, Tom pointed to the surface. They were done for the day. Jack couldn’t say he was sorry. He was tired and he was bored. He realized what he liked most about diving was the sea life. None of that here. He couldn’t wait to get back to the surface.

  But before he did…

  Instead of hanging on the line with Tom for a decompression stop, he propelled himself to the rim of the sand hole and glided over the crest to see how far beyond the blight had spread.

  He stopped and floated, gaping. Color… movement… life. He felt like Dorothy opening the door to Oz:

  The area all around the sand hole teemed with darting, vibrant-hued fish, waving vegetation, and pastels of living coral. The die-off appeared to be confined to their sand hole. Whatever had killed all the sea life there hadn’t advanced beyond it. Since coral predators and pollutants wouldn’t have stopped at the lip of the hole, that removed them from the equation.

  Something confined to the hole had killed off—and was continuing to kill off—all the sea life in its immediate vicinity.

  And the only thing in the hole that wasn’t anywhere else on the reef was probably the Sombra.

  * * *

  THURSDAY

  1

  Jack was driving Tom crazy.

  He’d started yesterday as soon as they hit the surface after the second dive, yammering about how the coral die-off was limited to their sand hole, how every place else down there was teeming with life, going on and on and on about something being wrong, wrong, wrong.

  He’d persisted in his inchoate ramblings during the trip back to Hamilton and all through dinner. Tom didn’t think he’d ever been so happy to close a hotel room door behind him and collapse on a bed. Shutting off Jack’s voice had been part of it; the vodka had contributed too. But mostly it had been the crushing fatigue. He led a sedentary life and the day’s exertions had exacted their toll.

  Were still exacting a toll. He had muscle aches in places where he hadn’t known he had muscles.

  Jack didn’t seem to be bothered at all. They’d traded their empty air tanks for fresh this morning and he’d hefted them in and out of the truck bay as if yesterday had been just another day.

  No doubt about it, little brother was strong.

  And fast. Tom’s belly still hurt from that punch the other night. He hadn’t seen it coming, hadn’t seen it happen. Once second he was standing there, the next he was doubled over in pain. Even though it had hurt like hell, the scary part was that he sensed Jack had pulled the punch, hitting him just hard enough to make his point. If he’d put everything into it…

  Best to forget about it. He’d almost got them both killed. But who’d have believed they’d cross paths with a tanker? The odds were…

  Never mind. He’d fucked up and deserved the punch. But admit that to Jack? Never.

  Jack continued with his litany of doom this morning—like a woodchuck gnawing at his brainstem.

  “I’m telling you, Tom. We need to rethink this whole thing.”

  “Will you give it a rest? I’m begging you, Jack, give it a rest. You’re wearing me out with this shit.”

  Tom repressed an urge to tell him to talk about something else or not talk at all. He had to be careful. He needed Jack. He couldn’t do this alone.

  But he needed quiet too, so he could think. He couldn’t get the bank out of his mind. Half a million bucks and he couldn’t get to it!

  Which made finding something in the Sombra crucial.

  He clenched his jaw and tried to think as their pickup crawled through Paget with the rest of the traffic on South Road. He hadn’t driven a manual shift in ages; what a royal pain in the ass. But at least they had wheels. No such thing as Hertz or Avis here. Bermuda didn’t want tourists renting anything larger than a moped. That made the taxi drivers happy.

  But that didn’t prevent private rentals, and Tom had arranged a package deal for the truck and the pump.

  Forget the truck, forget the traffic. The bank… the bank… what if he offered Dawkes—?

  “Let’s just go back to the beginning,” Jack said.

  Jesus Christ, he’s like the paperboy in Better Off Deadl

  “Jack—”

  “No, hear me out. Let’s recap what you told me: This wreck we’re excavating ran the Cadiz-Cartagena route, right? But instead of naming it Santa Something, like every other Spanish ship I’ve ever heard of, the owner calls it Shadow. Doesn’t that make you wonder?”

  “Wonder about what?”

  “About his mind-set.”r />
  Tom sighed. “Jack, the guy, whoever he was, has been dead over four hundred years. Who cares about his mind-set? Where’s this going?”

  “Just bear with me. The ship is on this route between Spain and South America but is way off course when it hits the reef out there and sinks into a sand hole. Yet somebody survives who knows enough about navigation to map out the location of the hole. Why?”

  “Obviously because the ship was carrying a lot of valuables and he wanted to be able to locate it later for salvage.”

  “Who in the sixteenth century could salvage anything from a wreck forty feet down?”

  “Maybe they didn’t know how deep it was.”

  Jack shook his head. “You’re not seeing the big picture. You said Bermuda was uninhabited back then—not just uninhabited, avoided because of its dangerous reefs. The Sombra’s survivors were stranded with no hope of rescue. So I ask again: Why make a map?”

  “But they were rescued—obviously. Otherwise how could the map end up in a monastery in Spain?”

  “Right. Obviously rescued. But who picked them up? They were off the trade lanes with no radio to call for help.”

  “Who cares who picked them up? Who cares how the map got to Spain? The important thing is it got to me and yesterday we found proof that it isn’t a fake.”

  “Which worries me even more.”

  “Why?”

  I can’t wait to hear this.

  “What… what if the Sombra was meant to go down?”

  “What? Are you—?”

  “Hear me out, okay? What if the ship was scuttled because it was carrying something that someone wanted to get rid of, or hide forever in a place where no one would ever find it? The Isle of Devils would be the perfect spot: Everybody avoids it, and I’ll bet no one in those days ever conceived the possibility that it would one day be settled.”

  A wave of discomfort swept through Tom. Jack was blundering near the truth—at least part of it. He had to turn him in another direction.

  “That’s crazy.”

  “No, what’s crazy is the dead zone in that sand hole. Something that went down with that wreck is either killing or repelling every form of life around it. Who knows what’ll happen to us if we hang around it too much longer?”

  Tom forced a laugh. “You mean there’s something eeevil down there?”

  “Maybe not evil, but something strange, something best left alone.”

  He pushed another laugh. “Sounds like a bad movie where the explorer or scientist is warned against ‘delving into secrets man is not meant to know.’ Give me a break.”

  Jack crushed his empty coffee container and tossed it onto the floor of the cab. His expression was unreadable.

  “I know it sounds crazy, but things aren’t always what they seem. There’s more going on out there than we know.”

  “You mean in the sense of, ‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy’?”

  “Yeah. Call me Hamlet.”

  This was interesting. Tom had never experienced anything paranormal, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there. And now, considering what he hoped to find, he prayed it was.

  But he couldn’t let Jack get spooked.

  “Oh, come on. You don’t strike me as the kind who believes in mumbo jumbo.”

  “Who said anything about believing?”

  Tom glanced at his brother. “What are you trying to tell me?”

  “That I used to laugh off a lot of things. Now I’m very choosy about what I dismiss out of hand.”

  “And this is because…?”

  Jack stared straight ahead. “Experience is a great teacher.”

  “Wait-wait-wait. You’re not really telling me you’ve seen a ghost or spoken to God or had an out-of-body experience of something like that?” He laughed. “Come to think of it, I’ve had a few out-of-body experiences myself, usually with the help of a lot of Grey Goose.”

  He expected at least a courtesy grin from Jack. Instead, the haunted look in his brother’s eyes chilled him.

  “What are you saying, Jack?”

  “That things aren’t always what they seem.”

  “Hell, you think I don’t know that? Everybody knows that.”

  “No, I mean in the larger sense.” He swept his arm at the world beyond the windshield. “Ever get the idea that this is all a set, and the real action’s going on behind the scenery?”

  Another chill. Had Jack really experienced something paranormal? Tom hoped so. Because if there were inexplicable occurrences out there, events and objects linked to unknown powers or forces, then maybe what he’d learned about the Lilitongue was more than a madman’s delusion.

  “Care to elaborate?”

  Jack shook his head. “You’ll think I’m crazy.”

  Jack didn’t seem crazy, but Tom had run into clandestine nutcases before. They seem sane and anchored and sensible, and in ninety-nine percent of their lives they are. But touch the button that triggers their fragile one percent and it all comes out.

  Maybe Jack was one of those. If so, did Gia know?

  Gia… Tom had dreamed about her every night since he’d met her. He couldn’t get her out of his head.

  He’d been shocked to learn she was pregnant. She wasn’t showing much and so he hadn’t spotted it at Lucille’s. But at the wake it became obvious.

  So… Gia had Jack’s bun in the oven.

  Oddly enough, it didn’t matter. If anything, in some perverse way it made her even more attractive.

  Maybe he was kidding himself, but he felt he’d scored some points with her on the drive from New York down to the wake. He’d used the hour and a half to dazzle her with his knowledge of the ails. Mostly secondhand opinions, true, but Tom thought he’d managed to come off as witty, urbane, and cultured. If her little girl hadn’t kept interrupting, he was sure he’d have mesmerized Gia. Cute kid, that Vicky, but she talked too damn much.

  At first he’d wondered if she might belong to Jack, but soon learned that Vicky was a product of Gia’s first marriage. Divorce: One more thing Tom and Gia had in common.

  What kind of spell had she put on him?

  Spell… there it was again: the paranormal.

  He shook it off. Either way, crazy or sane, Tom needed Jack on board, lry me.

  Another head shake. “Too complicated, too far out. Maybe someday. Let’s just let it ride for now and suffice it to say we should drop this treasure hunt and go home.”

  “I can’t give it up, Jack.” The plaintive note in his voice wasn’t put on. “I’ve got no other options.”

  Jack was shaking his head. “No good’s gonna come of it. I’ve got this feeling in my gut—”

  “Can’t we just put all that aside and just look at the situation rationally? There isn’t a reef in the world that doesn’t have patches of dead coral; the sand hole we’re working just happens to be one of them. Isn’t that the simplest, most sensible approach? It doesn’t require dark supernatural forces at work to explain it. It’s just the way it is.”

  “Occam’s razor,” Jack said.

  “Exactly!”

  For a college dropout, Jack seemed pretty well read.

  “Yeah, well, I’ve discovered that old Occam’s razor isn’t anywhere near as sharp as people think.”

  “One more day, Jack. That’s all I’m asking. Besides, you promised two days.”

  Jack stayed silent awhile, then sighed. “Okay. One more day. Today and that’s it. Then we pack up and leave.”

  “You’ve got a deal!”

  Well, sort of. If they didn’t find the Lilitongue today, maybe he’d be able to squeeze an extra day out of Jack. After all, what was Jack’s alternative? Not as if he could just up and hop a plane back to the States.

  Jack was trapped.

  But not as trapped as Tom. Not with his Bermuda assets frozen. But… if he found what the map hinted was here…

  The Lilitongue of Gefreda—whatever it was—just m
ight save what was left of the rest of his life.

  * * *