Quest (Dane Maddock Adventures) (16 page)

“I’m going to roll the dice here,” Sal said, his eyes boring into hers. “We need to go after Thornton, and quick. Assemble a team and be ready to move on my command. You have your choice of the agents. If Kennedy finds something, that is well and good. If not, use what information we have about Thornton and about Fawcett, and begin the search. We can’t put this off any longer.”

“Sir, are you saying…” She didn’t dare let herself believe it could be true.

“I’m putting you in charge. You might not have Kennedy’s experience, but you’re a hell of a lot smarter than him, and you haven’t screwed up… yet. Choose your agents, outfit your team, get down to Brazil, and await my instructions.”

Heart pounding, and dizzy with triumph, Tam stood and gravely nodded her head. “I won’t let you down, Salvatore.”

He rose to his full height, and looked down at her with a ghost of a smile on his lips. “I know you won’t,
figlia mia.”

Sea Foam
sliced through the gently rolling sea, its rising and falling barely noticeable. Dane sat on the bed in his below-deck cabin, scrolling through the latest report from his hacker friend, Jimmy Letson.

“The guy who attacked me works for a company named ScanoGen. Sound familiar?”

Kaylin shook her head. “No, why should it?”

“Because, according to Jimmy, they made a substantial transfer into Thomas’s bank account a few months before he left on his expedition.”

Kaylin’s entire posture changed. She sat ramrod-straight in her chair, her lips pursed. “He never said anything to me. Not about ScanoGen, and certainly not about any money.” Her shoulders sagged. “Of course, all of this came as a surprise. It’s hurtful to know that he had a whole part of his life that he wouldn’t let me into.” She suddenly looked right at Dane, and then something passed across her face, and she turned away.

When the two of them had been a couple, she had accused him of locking her out of various parts of his life—mostly memories of his time in the service, and of his deceased wife. That was probably what was on her mind now, but he was not about to go there with her. Not now, at least.

“I’m sure he had his reasons.” He tried to make his voice soothing, but his throat was dry, and his words lacked conviction. Trying to make an ex-girlfriend feel better about her current boyfriend was not his thing. The sadness in her eyes, however, convinced him to try again. “Look, he obviously knew these were dangerous people, and he wouldn’t have wanted you mixed up with them.”

“Well, I
am
mixed up in it, in case you didn’t notice.”

“Yeah, I think I noticed. I’m in the middle of it, too.” He held up a hand, forestalling her retort. “The guy tried to keep you safe. That’s what guys do for the women they care about. He probably figured he could do for ScanoGen whatever it was they wanted done without involving you, and then the two of you could enjoy the money he made off the venture.”

“He just… the lying…” She stood and began pacing the room, which only required a few steps, but she moved to-and-fro, fists clenched, until he couldn’t look at her without feeling dizzy.

“If you’re that upset with him, we can call this thing off if you like. You can lie low with us until ScanoGen gets off your case, and then you can go back to your life.”

Kaylin froze. Slowly, she turned to face him. The anger on her face melted, replaced by an amused smile.

“Right, Maddock. You’ve waded knee-deep into a mystery, and you’d just turn back and walk right out again without seeing it through to the end?”

He had to laugh. “Fine, you know me too well. Now shut up and let’s finish going over this.”

The ice broken, she plopped down beside him on the bed and leaned against him. The closeness should have been uncomfortable, but its familiarity was welcome and natural.

“ScanoGen is a bioengineering firm. Most of their money comes from military applications. That’s not a big surprise, considering the Amazon is believed to hold countless species of plant life that could have properties previously unknown. People have searched the rainforests for everything from recreational drugs to a cure for cancer.” For a moment, he was sadly reminded of their mutual friend, Franklin Meriwether, who had joined them on one of their adventures. Another place to which he didn’t want to let his thoughts drift.

Kaylin seemed to know what was on his mind, and she slid her arm around his waist and laid her head on his shoulder. “So Thomas found something, or believed he would find something, that ScanoGen wanted. It’s the whole Fawcett connection that doesn’t make sense to me. In all the research we’ve done, there hasn’t been any mention of Fawcett going after some super plant, or whatever it is they want.”

“You remember the story Wainwright told us. The young man had with him a plant that had some sort of great power.” Dane tried to ignore her closeness, the softness of her hair against his cheek. “That’s the only way I can see how a company like ScanoGen fits in.”

Kaylin looked up at him, her green eyes sparkling.

“What is it?” Dane dropped his papers on the bed and met her gaze.

“You know, you never would let me all the way in, Maddock, but when we were together, you were never dishonest with me.”

Before Dane could reply, her arms were around his neck and her lips pressed firmly against his. His surprise dissolved in the familiarity of the moment. It was as if the two of them had never broken apart. He returned her kiss, pulling her tightly against him.

“Ahem.”

They jerked away from each other like two teenagers caught parking. Kaylin smoothed her clothing and Dane sat up straight.

Bones leaned in the doorway, grinning. “Sorry to interrupt, but I thought you’d like to know, we’ve found
Quest
.”

Unable to contain his excitement, Dane bounded to his feet, offered Kaylin a hand, and followed Bones out of the cabin. Bones arched an eyebrow at him and grinned, but Dane ignored him.

Above deck, Willis was already suiting up. “It’s about time we got into the water. Man, I hate this searching stuff.”

Inside the cabin, Matt and Corey were looking at a small monitor.

“Uma’s down there right now,” Matt said, his eyes not leaving the screen. Uma was an unmanned submersible camera, so nicknamed by Bones, who was a big fan of Uma Thurman’s character in the movie
Pulp Fiction.
On the screen, the outline of
Quest
, blue-gray in the deep water, suddenly filled the screen. She had settled on her port side, the bow resting on a rocky formation on the seabed, and the ship’s distinctive profile made her easy to recognize.

“She’s in great condition,” Matt observed. “Smokestack’s still intact and everything.”

“According to Jimmy’s information, Fawcett’s cabin was most likely in the aft section on the starboard side,” Corey said, scrolling down through a document. “Take her in that direction and let’s see what we can see.”

“Are you going to send Uma inside the ship?” Kaylin asked, leaning forward to get a better look. She touched Dane’s arm, a detail not missed by Bones, who smirked.

“Not a good idea,” Dane said. “She could get tangled, or the ship’s hull might cause us to lose our signal. There’s higher-tech equipment out there, but Uma’s usually all we need for our work.”

“Maddock, take a look at this.” Matt sounded surprised, and not in a good way. He pointed at a dark spot on
Quest’s
hull. Growing larger as Uma came closer, the image resolved into a square hole cut in the ship’s side.”

“Sorry to state the obvious, but that’s not natural.” Bones said.

“Look at the edges. They’re sharp and clean. The cut is fresh, too.” Mat shook his head. “Somebody got here before us, and not too long ago.”

Dane stood up straight, clenching and unclenching his fists. “It has to be ScanoGen. As far as we know, they’re the only other player in this game, and I’m sure they have the resources to pull it off fast.”

“So what do we do?” Bones enunciated each word. When he spoke like that, he was right on the verge of breaking something or someone.

“We go through with the dive. Maybe they missed something. It would be crazy to come all the way here and not even take a look.”

“Then what?” Matt already sounded defeated.

“I’ve got something up my sleeve,” Dane said. “We’ll talk about it after the dive.” Really, all he had was a nugget of an idea buried deep in his mind. He didn’t know if it would pan out, but they’d find out soon enough.

Dane plunged into the water, letting the cool depths envelop him. Down here he could put thoughts of Kaylin and Jade out of his mind, and focus on the dive. This was the one place in the world that always felt right. Bones swam on his right, Willis his left. They glided through the water like three phantoms, slipping down into the semi-darkness. If only he had gills, he thought, he’d never leave the water. He’d felt that way since the first time his parents had taken him to the beach. Dane, just a toddler, had slipped his hand from his father’s grip and wobbled toward the surf as fast as his legs would carry him. He had two memories of that day: the salt spray on his face, and his parents’ laughter as they trotted alongside him. Smiling, he kicked harder, plunging toward the sunken
Quest
.

The hole in the ship’s hull was exactly as Matt described it. It had clearly been made very recently, and the clean, straight cut indicated the use of the modern tools. It was large enough for two men to swim abreast through it, but they took it one at a time, just to be safe.

Dane took the lead and found himself in a small room that fit the description of the cabin in which Fawcett had resided during his voyage on board
Quest
. He gritted his teeth. ScanoGen had done their homework, all right, and the likelihood of Dane and his crew finding the missing artifact, whatever it was, was now even smaller.

Bones and Willis followed him in, moving with caution, so as not to stir up too much silt. As planned, the two of them exited the room to explore other cabins in case Jimmy’s information had been incorrect.

Dane scanned the cabin. Though
Quest
lay on her side, one of the advantages to being underwater was that he could easily orient himself, creating the illusion that the ship still sat upright. Everything in the cabin had gradually slid to one corner, so he began his investigation there. A few items were scattered about, probably by ScanoGen’s divers. Dane sifted through the crumbling remains of what had once been personal items belonging to the legendary Fawcett. Aside from crumbling bits of furniture, most of what remained had been reduced to silt and muck, and was no longer recognizable, though he did find a broken mug, a few buttons, which he stashed in his dive bag, and a corroded spoon, which he also kept. He searched every inch of the cabin, but found nothing else of interest.

Discouraged, he checked his watch. Two minutes until time to head back to the surface. Bones and Willis would be returning any moment. With no time to check out any other section of the ship, he returned to the pile of accumulated detritus in the corner and slid his hand down below the pile of muck. He ran his fingers along the seam where the cabin floor met the wall and was rewarded when he felt something hard that had wedged into a crack.

Exercising care, he slowly worked the thing back-and-forth until it came free. Holding it close, he grinned as his dive light shone on a fragment of pottery. He’d seen enough of these to know what it was. Feeling a little bit more positive about things, he secured it in his bag as a glimmer of light appeared in the darkness beyond the cabin door, telling him that his friends were on their way back. Dane gave each of them the “thumbs up” sign as they passed through the cabin, indicating they should head back up top.

Back aboard
Sea Foam
, Dane wasted no time in showing the others what he had found.

“It’s a fragment of pottery, and it’s definitely Mediterranean in origin. This at least confirms part of Fawcett’s story.”