Читать книгу Treasure - Helen Brenna - Страница 9

“WHY DID YOU PULL IN all four survey ships?” Jake Rawlings strode into Oceanic Exploration’s largest corner office and slammed the door behind him.

Harold Puttlim, OEI’s head honcho, glanced up from the maps and surveys strewn in front of him. “You tell me, Jake.” He tossed his pen aside and leaned back in his chair, folding his bent, arthritic fingers over the small paunch of his stomach. “For two months you’ve been running all four ships practically nonstop looking for the Concha. What have you got for me?” He nailed Jake with his characteristic show-me-the-money gaze. “Are you any closer to finding it than you were two years ago? Ten years ago?”

No. Jake couldn’t truthfully make that claim. But then neither could anyone else. Treasure hunters had been climbing all over themselves looking for the shipwrecked Spanish galleon Concha since it went down in a hurricane off the coast of Florida almost four hundred years ago. With a main cargo hold loaded with enough gold, silver and gems to fetch close to a billion dollars, no shipwreck was more coveted, none more elusive.

“I made a promise,” Jake said evenly. “Don’t stand in my way.”

Harold seemed to chew on that, his cool gray eyes warming with sentiment. “Your dad and I were partners long before you owned your first set of flippers. I know how much he wanted the Concha.” He paused, all trace of emotion draining away. “But a personal promise made on a death bed holds no place in business.”

He knew Harold was right. Still, there was the little matter of that smile on his dad’s grizzled face after Jake had sworn he’d find the Concha. The glint of pride in the old man’s eyes as he lay in that hospital wasting away had stuck with Jake like barnacles on the hull of an old wooden boat.

“We were close this time.” Jake resisted the urge to slam his fist against the antique mahogany desk. “I know it.”

“How do you know?”

“Trust me, Harold. I know. The way a man knows his best friend just slept with his wife.”

Harold raised his bushy white eyebrows. “Considering that happens to be your area of expertise and not mine, it doesn’t do me much good, now, does it?”

Jake bit back a nasty comeback and walked across the plush gray carpet to the wall of windows, keeping his gait as normal as possible. His ankle was aching to high heaven today, but he wasn’t about to show any manner of weakness to Harold, or anyone else for that matter.

“The fact is you’ve exhausted your crews,” Harold continued. “Pissed off everyone from cook to captain. Spent millions this summer. And all you’ve got to show for it is a feeling you’re close.”

Flipping back his baseball cap, Jake said quietly, “I never said this search would be cheap or easy.”

“You did commit to finding it this diving season. With that tropical storm brewing and another one right behind it, you’re running out of time.”

“I’m doing everything I can.” Since his dad had died, responsibility for OEI and its employees nipped at Jake’s heels like sharks after bloody prey. He’d pumped most of his savings into the company and quit taking a salary months ago, but the debt continued growing. They had to find the Concha. Soon.

Several seagulls fighting over a washed-up fish carcass distracted him for a welcome moment. Although this time of year the surf still rolled gently onto the sand, it was already the end of August, well into hurricane season. They were diving on borrowed time.

“If my survey crews chart for four hours—” Jake paced, edgy to get back on the Mañana. To do something, rather than talk “—I chart for six. If my divers are under for six, I’m under for eight. What more do you want from me?”

“I want you to open up that hard head of yours and consider another approach.” Harold rested his knobby fingers on the desktop. “The right on-board marine archaeologist, someone with a history background, might help locate the Concha.”

So that’s what this was about.

Jake stopped in the middle of the room. “We’ve been having this discussion for years. Archaeologists do nothing but slow down operations. They want you to document everything. Pick up everything. Pottery, utensils, wooden planks, every piece of crap. I can’t afford to waste time salvaging anything that doesn’t pay the salaries at this company. We’re looking for gold, silver, gems. Period.”

“Well, I got news for you. Milly and I agree on this one. Period.”

Jake couldn’t believe his mother agreed with the old coot about anything, much less planned on marrying him. Jake’s dad hadn’t been gone that long.

Harold threw his pencil onto the desk. “You think you’ve got to prove something since Sam died—”

“Don’t,” Jake said, thrusting out his hand, “bring Sam into this.” At the mention of his younger brother, the pain in his foot turned to all out throbbing.

Now it was Harold’s turn to sigh. “I miss him as much as you, Jake, but you’d better hose down the fire in your belly, or it’s going to burn right through you and everybody else in its path.” He picked up his phone, dialed an internal extension and said, “Come on in here and bring your stuff.”

“You’ve already hired somebody?” Jake asked.

“Three days ago.”

“Great.” Jake ran his hands over the stubble on his cheeks. “Just great.”

If Sam were here, he’d have old Harold sweet-talked out of this archaeologist nonsense in the time it took to form a simple hitch knot. Sam had been the charmer in the family. Charismatic and easygoing, men, women, young and old, had followed him around like puppies eager for a scratch behind the ears. He’d been the star, the risk-taker and, although it had been unspoken, the one expected to find the Concha.

Jake, on the other hand, had always been OEI’s backbone. A responsible, if not boring, workaholic by most people’s standards, he was known for his calculated precision and clocking long, hard hours. And that was before the accident. Since then, no one seemed to understand the forces driving him. He worked hard…so what? The way he saw it, he merely did what he said he was going to do, and said what was on his mind, straight up, no embellishments, no sugarcoating.

With Jake, you always knew where you stood. With Sam, you’d have liked standing where he put you.

Sam. Oh, Sam.

A soft tapping sounded on the door, yanking Jake back from his thoughts. The archaeologist in question walked into the office, carrying an armload of oversized charts and other documents.

“Annie, come on in.” Harold stood and smiled in a fatherly kind of way, surprising Jake. Harold never smiled at anyone. Except Jake’s mother and occasionally Claire, Sam’s widow. “Jake Rawlings, meet Dr. Annie Miller.” The old man’s gruff voice mellowed a notch.

“Hello, Jake.” She reshuffled her load and extended a hand.

Jake considered ignoring her. There was no point in making nicey-nice. OEI couldn’t afford her salary let alone the time she’d cost them. But then base-level manners took over, and he shook her hand.

When she turned to Harold, Jake took the opportunity to size her up. Mousy-brown, shoulder-length hair. Tortoiseshell reading glasses perched on the end of her nose. Short-sleeved white linen shirt and black pants. No earrings, no necklace. Only a barely noticeable silver bracelet on her right wrist and a serviceable watch on her left.

Annie Miller, hell. Annie Hall was more like it. Except for those lips. They belonged on a Victoria’s Secret model. As for the rest of her, he couldn’t tell exactly what form hid beneath the baggy clothing, but with the way she moved, the way the fabric slipped over her skin, he had the distinct impression she’d be a killer in a bikini. With all those hormones in such close quarters, no doubt she’d wreak havoc aboard his boat.

Harold cleared his throat and said, “While Annie was a curator at the Field Museum in Chicago—”

“The Field Museum?” Jake snapped his head back toward Harold. “What do they have to do with marine exploration?”

“I know it isn’t the typical route—”

“Not typical? That place’s about as far away from marine life as an archaeologist can get.” The last thing Jake needed was an inexperienced woman on his boat during hurricane season. “Harold, we need to talk about this. In private.”

“Anything you need to say can be said in front of Annie.”

Jake hesitated. “Find someone else.”

“Dr. Miller’s perfect for your crew. She has degrees in both marine archaeology and Spanish history.”

“I don’t care if she can hold her breath under water for ten minutes a shot,” Jake said. “Give me a week and I’ll find an experienced archaeologist.”

“No, you won’t. Not with this kind of research.”

Annie dropped her armload onto Harold’s desk. “Can I say something?”

“No!” They both turned on her in unison.

“Look!” She faced Jake. “I have no problem with making my employment provisional. Give me two weeks. If I don’t succeed in enhancing your operations within that time frame, you can deliver me to the nearest island, and I’ll secure my own way home.”

Damn. She not only looked the stuffy museum curator part, she talked it. In spite of himself, he gave her credit for standing her ground.

“That’s reasonable, isn’t it?” she asked.

Whoever said he was reasonable?

“Jake…” Harold prompted.

“Fine, Harold. You want to throw Annie Hall here into the shark’s den, I’m not saving her. Just remember it was your idea.”

“Annie,” Harold said. “Show Jake what you showed me the other day.”

She spread maps and charts on top of Harold’s desk. “There were six ships in the Concha’s flotilla, and all except the Concha have been found within this vicinity.” She leaned over and pointed at a spot near the Florida coast. “You’ve been performing magnetometric surveys in a ten-mile radius surrounding this area. Correct?”

He walked to the desk and stood next to her, close enough to feel the heat emanating from her pale skin. At this very moment Jake’s four crews sat idle in the harbor, waiting for him. “If you got a point, make it.”

Turning toward him, she rested her hands on her hips, as femininely defiant a gesture as he’d ever seen. “You haven’t located the Concha because it didn’t sink with the rest of the flotilla. You’re off the mark in excess of a hundred miles—”

“Impossible,” he interrupted. “Historical eyewitness accounts state that all six ships, including the Concha, went down in 1622 in a hurricane off the coast of Florida.”

“If you’d give me a minute, I could explain.”

Jake closed his eyes for a moment and used every ounce of his badly worn patience to speak calmly. “The combined experience involved in laying out this search adds up to more than one hundred and fifty years. Harold here was in the treasure-hunting business before Jacques Cousteau invented scuba equipment. What makes you think you know better?”

“Research.”

Dang, but she riled him. “That the thing ya’ll do with books and them things called computers?”

“Jake…” Harold cautioned.

Jake folded his arms across his chest. “Look, Dr. Annie, research only goes so far, then you’re forced to rely on actual diving experience. Quirky stuff about past wrecks you’ve found. Ocean currents and past storms. The fact the Concha carried a significantly heavier load accounts for why we haven’t found it closer to the other five ships. That alone wouldn’t take it out of this search area.”

“What if the eyewitnesses were wrong?” Her calm green eyes turned animated. Cute little dimples carved excitement onto her cheeks.

She’d gone from frumpy Annie Hall to energized beauty in seconds. He flashed a look at Harold to see if the old man noticed the change. No reaction. Jake had to have imagined it.

“It was a hurricane,” she continued. “They couldn’t see clearly. They saw masses of wood and sails floundering in high winds. In order to appease the Spanish salvage officials, the eyewitnesses told them exactly what they wanted to hear. That the six ships from Veracruz were still together when the hurricane hit.”

“Your archaeologist is jumping to conclusions, Harold. Time-consuming, expensive ones.”

“She has her doctorate in Spanish history.” Harold rested his chin in his hands. “Hear her out.”

“The Concha’s captain was a man named Molinero,” Annie continued. “By all accounts he was a maverick. A man with his own agenda. And a man in dire financial straits. I have copies of letters he sent to his wife back in Spain, explaining he had plans to rectify everything.

“He knows he’ll be traveling during hurricane season. He knows his ship is carrying more treasure than any in Spanish history. He also knows if he makes it back to Spain when no one else in the flotilla does, he gets rewarded. Handsomely. Then again, maybe he planned on hijacking the ship himself. I don’t really know. But if that isn’t enough,” she said, her refined features turning suddenly serious, all trace of her earlier enthusiasm immediately dissipating, “there’s always the curse of the Santidad Cross.”

Jake had never considered himself superstitious. Still, more than once he’d wondered if their inability to find the Concha had anything to do with that cross. Since the day the ship had left the port of Veracruz hundreds of years ago, supposedly with the Santidad Cross aboard, it’d been rumored a curse would forever follow the cross, the Concha and its entire flotilla. Some natives had even claimed the entire country of Spain would go down with that curse.

“You don’t honestly believe that crap?” he said, frowning.

“Whether I believe or not is immaterial.” Her eyes remained carefully shuttered. “What matters is what Molinero thought. If he gave any credence at all to the curse, it may have affected his course of action. He could easily have broken from the flotilla and taken cover from the high winds on the leeward side of any of these islands.” She pointed to the Bahamas.

“None of these islands would have afforded much cover from a hurricane.”

“I have research substantiating the possibility.” She pointed at the stack of papers she’d set on Harold’s desk. “I have copies of documents claiming the Concha sunk with its entire flotilla. They’re sketchy and ambiguous. I also have copies of eyewitness accounts claiming a ship the approximate size and design of the Concha was seen near Andros Island in the Bahamas.”

Jake glanced at the pile of papers and wondered what a Chicago Field Museum curator was doing with this level of maritime research. It didn’t make sense. He reached for the top paper.

In an oddly protective gesture, she put her hand over it. “Don’t worry. It’s all here.”

“Mighty big stack of research. You didn’t put that together in the last three days.”

She shrugged. “I’ve been contemplating this for some time.”

“How long?”

“Long enough.”

Man, she didn’t give much away. “Okay. Let’s assume you’re right. Andros is still the biggest island in the Bahamas. We could spend years surveying the outlying areas. And if the Concha fell off the reef on the east side, into the Tongue of the Ocean, forget it. There’s no point in looking. We’d never find it.”

“Based on historical accounts, I believe the ship stayed on the island’s north side and away from the Tongue. I’ve narrowed our search to the most probable wreck spots. Harold had one of your pilots fly out there and take aerial surveys. I think we should check out these sites, starting with this one.” She pointed at a spot on the photographs.

Jake eyed the location. Even if he had time to pour over her research in order to argue her logic, he couldn’t dispute the possibility in the aerials. “You’ve looked at all of this, Harold? Read all of her research?”

“Only some of it. It would take me weeks to go through all this. Besides, what she says makes sense.”

“It’s already August,” Jake argued. “If this turns out to be a wild-goose chase, I’ll never have time to finish our surveys. Another year goes by without finding the Concha.”

“You check out Andros,” Harold said. “I’ll send out the other three survey ships to pick up where you left off.” Sighing heavily, he leaned way back in his chair. “I can’t help thinking this is a gamble worth taking.”

Jake could almost hear Sam’s deep, lazy voice urging him on. Go for it, man. What have you got to lose?

Dr. Annie turned toward him. “How about you, Jake?”

He stuffed his hands into his shorts’ pockets and fiddled with the seventeenth-century gold coin he carried everywhere. His first real find, the coin had always seemed to help him center and refocus his priorities. Turning the coin over and over between his fingers, he contemplated the aerials and the stack of research she’d accumulated. The idea of a landlocked museum curator putting together pieces of a puzzle that had stumped hundreds of men for hundreds of years was absurd.

She had a secret. He glanced at her face. Eyes that sparkled with mischief. Features that grew prettier every time he looked at them. Most likely, she was another amateur treasure hunter with big dreams who’d somehow managed to tow old Harold along in her wake.

A stranger, an archaeologist, a woman. And those lips… With her fair skin they stood out like fire coral against white Aruba sand. He’d be crazy to bring her onto his boat. Then again, for a chance at the Concha, he’d be crazy not to.

The coin warmed in his hand. This one was for Dad. And Sam. “When can you be ready to head out?”