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 OffDeadl

"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."

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.