Unrestricted Access: New and Classic Short Fiction Page 12

  As they reached the shallows, Gray could make out figures atop the sand, not far from where the Trident had run aground. The ship loomed above the small group, revealing a huge crack in its hull. A trio of wooden chests stood nearby. From the drag marks in the sand, it appeared the boxes had been hauled from the ship’s broken hold.

  Gray didn’t doubt what they contained.

  The Trident’s lost treasure.

  Ignoring the wealth stored in those chests, he concentrated on the watery image of the three mercenaries standing guard over the treasure—and one lone girl.

  Kelly knelt in the sand, her shoulders slumped, her face despondent.

  One of the men had a pistol casually pointed at the back of her head, clearly awaiting the order to dispatch this witness. The other two were similarly armed. Their abandoned spear guns were propped on boulders behind them. It seemed the crew must have packed in additional weapons in waterproof cases.

  Gray cursed their preparedness, but there was nothing he could do about it. His team was committed now. He curled his body and got his legs under him. He glanced right and left to make sure the others were ready.

  In his head, a countdown had been running, matching the timer he had set on the demolition charge. Moments ago, he’d attached his remaining device to the far side of the Trident’s hull. He even added the leftover plastic explosive from the earlier charge.

  As the countdown reached zero, he burst out of the water.

  At the same time, the explosion rocked the cavern with a deafening blast. Water and broken planks flumed high into the air behind him.

  Gray already had his stolen spear gun at his shoulder. He fixed his aim and squeezed the trigger. The steel spear shot through the air and struck the gunman looming over Kelly in the eye. The bolt pierced his skull and threw his body backward.

  To his left, Seichan whipped her arm and deftly sent her dive knife flying from her fingertips. No one was deadlier with a blade than her. Her dagger impaled her target in his Adam’s apple, dropping him into a gurgling heap.

  With a knife in hand, Ben barreled out of the water to Gray’s right. He aimed for the third assailant, who stood closest to the water’s edge. The enemy—stunned by the blast and the sudden attack—still managed to swing his pistol toward Ben.

  Before he could fire, Kelly lunged up from the sand and knocked his arm high. The pistol cracked brightly, but the shot went wild. Ben crashed hard into the gunman, which threw off his attack. His initial knife jab was blocked by an elbow.

  Still, Ben was not done.

  With a hard shove, the Aussie sent his target stumbling backward—straight into one of the spear guns propped against a boulder behind the man. The impact drove the loaded bolt through his back and out his chest. The man sank to his rear, his mouth opening and closing, gasping like a beached fish, before he finally sagged and fell on his side.

  Before anyone could speak, a thunderous groan drew all their attentions to the lake. In slow motion, the glowing bulk of the Trident tipped sideways, falling toward the water, collapsing on the side blown out by Gray’s charge. Its masts shook and its deck canted.

  “Look!” Kelly yelled.

  Two figures—one thin-limbed and spry, the other bulky with muscle—leaped over the rails on the far side and dove toward the lake. They hit the water together and vanished into the dark depths. Gray imagined these last two men must’ve been scouring the Trident for any last treasures.

  “No, no, no . . .” Kelly said.

  Gray turned to her, noting the bright terror in her face.

  “That was the leader of these bastards,” she explained. “And Dr. Hoffmeister.”

  The traitor.

  “They won’t get far,” Ben assured her. “We’ll find them.”

  “No, you don’t understand,” Kelly said. “Hoffmeister has the transmitter for the demolition charges.”

  Gray understood. “He’ll blow this place behind him once he’s safely clear.”

  Ben pointed to where a few brighter lines of sunlight pierced the glowing roof, marking the presence of cracks. “It could bring this whole place crashing down.”

  Knowing this to be true and with no time to spare, Gray stripped his body of nonessential weight, grabbed one of the spear guns, and sprinted into the water.

  Seichan followed his example and dove alongside him.

  They swam in tandem after the fleeing men. With the enemy already having a significant lead, it was likely a futile chase. Still, Gray refused to give up.

  He glanced over to Seichan.

  Behind her shoulders, the Trident sank into the depths, its bulk still aglow as it finally met its doom.

  As he turned back around, something silvery flashed past his nose.

  A spear.

  The bolt shot between the two of them.

  Ahead, a shadow rose from behind a ridge of a reef. It was the mercenary leader. He was already raising a second spear gun. Beyond the man, a small iota of light bobbled in the darkness.

  Hoffmeister.

  He was getting away.

  10:55 a.m.

  Seichan knew they had only one chance.

  She lifted her spear gun with one arm and kicked hard. As she passed Gray, she shoved her free hand into his shoulder. “Go! I’ll deal with this bastard.”

  Gray didn’t hesitate or balk. It was one of the reasons she loved him. As exasperating as he could be at times, he trusted her fully. He did not suffer from some overinflated conceit of male bravado. Instead, they were a team. They knew each other’s strengths and weaknesses—and Gray was the better swimmer.

  Proving this, he twisted to the side and swam off. He vanished almost immediately as he circled around the threat.

  Seichan continued on a straight path.

  She lifted her spear gun.

  The enemy did the same.

  Let’s do this.

  When only yards separated them, they both fired. Spears flashed through the dark waters. Seichan twisted to the side, but the bolt grazed the length of her thigh, slicing her wet suit and leaving a line of fire down her leg.

  Her aim was better. But at the last moment, the mercenary leader deflected the bolt with the steel butt of his gun, sending the spear careening to the side.

  So be it.

  She closed the distance between them. She had suspected all along this battle would end in a knife fight.

  She reached for the sheath at her waist—but her fingers came up empty.

  Cursing silently, she pictured the blade impaled in the throat of her target on the beach. In her haste to depart, she had never collected it.

  Her enemy was not so ill prepared.

  He bared a foot-long dagger.

  10:58 a.m.

  Across the lake, Gray continued his chase after the fleeing light. It was a beacon in the darkness and became his sole focus as he kicked and swept his arms. He used it to distract him from his worry about Seichan.

  Slowly the luminous speck grew before him, offering both encouragement and hope. He still had his spear gun over one shoulder.

  If I can get close enough . . .

  Then suddenly the light vanished ahead of him, blinking out entirely. Caught by surprise, he momentarily slowed—then realized what the loss implied.

  Hoffmeister had reached the tunnel.

  I’m out of time.

  11:01 a.m.

  Unarmed, Seichan fled from her assailant.

  Like Gray, she was practical. She knew her limitations and recognized the skill of her adversary. Her only hope was to keep ahead of his muscular bulk. With that goal in mind, she headed back toward the sandbar, following the path the team had used earlier.

  Her brutal training as an assassin had taught her always to memorize her surroundings, to weigh every variable at hand.

  So she headed unerringly along their prior path.

  She pictured the dive knife abandoned on the sandbar.

  It was a stupid lapse.

  One I’ll not make a
gain.

  But first she had to live.

  She was already slowing, both from exhaustion and from the blood trailing from her sliced leg. It was becoming harder to kick with her wounded limb. Still, if nothing else, her injury drew her attacker onward, like a dog after a wounded bird.

  A glance over her shoulder revealed the man was almost on top of her.

  Good.

  She slowed even further as she neared the location fixed in her mind’s eye, a spot that had drawn her attention earlier on the way to the sandbar, enough to draw her away from Gray briefly.

  She crested over a coral ridge and dove down to a stretch of bare sand.

  She had noted a weapon here earlier.

  One of those many variables.

  With her gloved fingers, she reached for it—just as a shadow loomed over her.

  Following Ben’s warning from earlier in the day, she grabbed the weapon by its tail. She whipped around as the mercenary plunged his dagger toward her back. She easily avoided the strike, taking advantage of the man’s overconfidence.

  She swung and struck the stonefish into the man’s neck. Spines pierced his flesh. Venom pumped. The effect was instantaneous. His body stiffened. He dropped his dagger and pawed at his neck, knocking the impaled fish away—but the damage was done.

  His body thrashed in the water. The pain so maddened him that he ripped off his mask and regulator. Fingernails clawed at his face. Then his limbs slackened, falling away leadenly. He hung in the water. His blind eyes stared back at her. She didn’t know if the pain had killed him, or the poison, or if he’d simply drowned.

  She knew only one certainty, picturing the ravaged body of Kelly’s father.

  Good riddance.

  11:05 a.m.

  Gray scrambled along the rope as it wound a serpentine course through the old rockslide. He hauled with arms and kicked off purchases with his feet. His shoulders remained hunched by his ears. At any moment, he expected the charges hidden along the passageway to explode, to send the pile crashing down atop him.

  His only hope was that Hoffmeister would wait until he was well clear of the coastal cliffs before he risked using his transmitter. The oceanographer must know the blasts could cast off massive boulders that would pound into the water around him.

  But would the panicked bastard be that cautious?

  Gray grabbed the rope with both hands and yanked his body around another turn in the tunnel. As he continued, the line suddenly went slack. The next pull only drew the rope toward him.

  Gray cursed, knowing what this meant.

  Hoffmeister had cut the safety line.

  Gray took care not to pull on the rope. He needed its draped length to lead him out of here. Still, the stirred-up silt made it hard to see the line. He had to proceed with greater care—which slowed him down considerably.

  I’ll never make it now.

  But then, impossibly, a light appeared out of the murk ahead.

  Daylight.

  He hurried again, rushing the last of the distance. As he burst out of the tunnel, he found Hoffmeister only ten yards away. He was crouched low to the seabed.

  Gray was shocked to find the man so near. He quickly hauled the spear gun from his shoulder.

  Hoffmeister had nowhere to flee.

  Gray was wrong.

  From the seabed, a yellow torpedo shot upward, jetting away from the oceanographer.

  It was the ANFOG glider.

  Suddenly, Hoffmeister was torn off his feet. His body flew after the glider, dragged in its wake. The man had clipped and tethered himself to the glider by a length of cable. He plainly intended to escape using his own tool, likely manually setting the glider’s motor to maximum power a moment ago.

  Gray fired after his retreating form, but his shot didn’t come close.

  He even tried to swim after the bastard but quickly recognized the futility. In less than a minute, Hoffmeister would be far enough out into open water to use his detonator.

  It’s over.

  But as Gray watched, the yellow torpedo suddenly made a sharp left turn, banking quickly. It rolled Hoffmeister like a rag doll through the water.

  Confused, Gray swam out farther to follow its trajectory.

  The glider aimed for the wreck of the catamaran—and the frenzy of bull sharks drawn by the blood of Hoffmeister’s murdered colleague. The oceanographer must have sensed the threat, even more so when the glider began to slow as it neared the wreckage.

  Hoffmeister frantically tried to unclip his line from the glider before it dragged him into the sharks. As the torpedo decelerated, the oceanographer finally broke free and fought his way from the danger.

  But sharks were not the only predators hunting these waters.

  From the wreck below, a dark shape shot upward, jaws impossibly wide. Yellow teeth clamped on Hoffmeister’s left arm and shoulder. A thick armored tail whipped in a circle, sending the crocodile’s half-ton mass into a wrenching spiral.

  Hoffmeister’s body went flying away—minus his entire left arm.

  Still, the man lived. With blood pouring from his shoulder, he kicked and pawed with his one arm. Then a bull shark swept down, snatched him up, and with a whisk of its powerful tail, vanished into the sea.

  Aghast, Gray retreated toward the sea tunnel. He glanced to the passageway. He suddenly suspected the source for the glider’s deadly turn.

  Hoffmeister wasn’t the only one who knew how to operate the glider.

  So did a certain lowly graduate student.

  11:11 a.m.

  Poor girl . . .

  Seichan watched Kelly drop the glider’s control unit to the sand. Gray had left the device here before diving into the waters after Hoffmeister. It was Ben who had suggested the girl use her past experience with the underwater drones to monitor the seas beyond the cave.

  Little did the Aussie know how fortuitous such a suggestion would prove to be.

  Kelly remained on her knees. Ben was beside her. He hooked an arm around her shoulders and pulled her to his chest.

  “Nicely done, Kelly . . . nicely done.”

  The only response from the girl was the shaking of her thin shoulders as she sobbed silently into Ben’s chest. Though Kelly had exacted her revenge, it would not bring back her father.

  Seichan stepped toward the water, leaving the girl to her mourning, knowing there were no words to ease that pain.

  Instead, she stared up at the glowing stars, trying to find meaning. Long ago, greed had led a mutinous crew to a tragic end here in this cavern. And centuries later, it was greed again that led to more bloodshed and death.

  Were some places simply cursed?

  She remembered Captain Cook’s name for this corner of the world.

  Cape Tribulation.

  She shook her head.

  Maybe this place wasn’t cursed, but it had certainly lived up to that name.

  7:56 p.m.

  A low groan drew Gray’s attention to the left. He lifted his face from the padded doughnut of the massage table and stared over at the source of the complaint.

  Seichan lay on the neighboring table. She was naked, covered only by a modesty towel over her buttocks and a row of steaming stones along her spine. He stared at the line of Steri-Strips closing the shallow laceration down her upper thigh.

  “You okay?”

  “More than okay,” she said with contented sigh. “Like I said earlier, this is more than enough of an adventure for me.”

  He grinned and settled back to his table.

  A heated stone was gently placed on the center of his lower back.

  It was his turn to groan.

  He allowed himself to drift in the pleasure of the attention. Earlier, Ben had facilitated their escape from Cape Tribulation, keeping them out of the ensuing limelight. Ben had also promised to protect Kelly in the weeks ahead, determined that the recognition for the discovery of the Trident go to her and her father—along with the gold.

  In turn, Kelly intende
d that the treasure be used to finance her father’s passion.

  Protecting the reefs.

  It would be the perfect way to honor the man’s sacrifice.

  Seichan made another noise—this time more thoughtful.

  He glanced over again. “What now?”

  She rested her cheek on the table, staring back at him. “I was just thinking about where we should go next.”

  “Any ideas?”

  “Somewhere that’s still warm and tropical.” She lifted her cheek, staring pointedly at him. “But without box jellyfish, saltwater crocodiles, or stonefish.”

  “Like where.”

  “I was thinking Hawaii . . . maybe Maui.”

  “Really? Aren’t those islands too tame and boring for you?”

  She shrugged. “I’ve never been there. And right about now, boring sounds perfect.”

  “Then a Hawaiian vacation it is.” He settled his face back into his doughnut. “Surely nothing can go wrong there.”

  Author’s Note

  What’s True, What’s Not

  At the end of my full-length novels, I love to spell out what’s real and what’s fiction in my stories. I thought I’d briefly do the same here.

  Cape Tribulation. I was lucky enough to spend some time in this area near Port Douglas in Queensland and always wanted to set a story here. It’s truly a magical place, where the rain forest meets the Coral Sea. I also took a horseback ride to the beach featured in this story, where I watched a huge saltwater crocodile saunter across the sand and into the surf. While there, I also became enamored with the history of the region. The site was indeed named by Captain Cook after his fateful accident on the nearby reefs. So I thought it would be fun to tell a story of a ship that suffered a similar, if more tragic, fate.

  The Trident. While the ship featured in this short story is purely fictional, I based its fateful tale on the histories of two real convict ships: the Success and the Hive. Their combined stories involved mutiny, gold, and lost shipwrecks. So I borrowed their tales for this adventure.

  The Great Barrier Reef. As I was setting this story here, I couldn’t help but mention the tragic bleaching that is currently affecting two-thirds of the reef’s coral, covering a swath almost nine hundred miles long. The reef is home to many endangered species, along with four hundred types of coral and fifteen hundred species of fish. It’s an invaluable habitat, one that three hundred million people rely on for food, employment, and livelihood. So let’s not lose it.