Repairman Jack [09]-Infernal (24 page)

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.”

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 might save what was left of the rest of his life.

2

Yesterday’s excitement at finding and starting to exhume a four-hundred-year-old wreck quickly devolved to drudgery on day two.

Jack found the routine of sifting the newly exposed sand in the wake of Tom’s water stream deadly dull. So dull that he’d all but forgotten about the lifeless coral walls around them.

They were on their second tanks and had found nothing besides scraps of rotten wood ranging in length from a finger to an arm. The ship must have shattered when it hit the reef. Centuries in salt water had done the rest: The larger remnants crumbled under the slightest pressure.

A colossal waste of time.

But Jack held up his end, hugging the bottom, digging his gloved fingers into the sand, pulling free anything he found. He spotted the corner of another board, got a grip, and pulled. A big chunk broke off. Small fragments and dustlike particles floated away downstream.

He turned it over in his hands. Just like the rest. At first he’d wondered why no worm holes, then realized that whatever had killed the coral had probably killed the worms as well. He tossed it aside and gripped the rest of the board. As he hauled it free he caught a reflection of sunlight just below it, then sand refilled the cavity.

Metal?

He tapped Tom on the leg and pointed to the spot. Tom directed the stream into the depression. Sand billowed and sprayed while Jack worked his hands deeper. More flashes of yellow reflection. Gold?

His earlier apathy vanished. Something down there… something more than rotted wood. Despite all his misgivings about this wreck, he couldn’t deny a surge of excitement. They might be uncovering something that no human eyes had seen for centuries.

There—metal. A bright yellow band, curved across a curving surface… a surface that resembled carved wood…
lacquered
wood.

But how…?

Tom had seen it too and was working the hose nozzle back, forth, and around in a seeming frenzy. Didn’t take too long to realize they’d discovered a small sea chest wrapped in rusty links of heavy chain.

Tom knelt and concentrated the stream along the left end of the chest with one hand while working his free hand deeper and deeper until he found a handle. He leaned back, pulling upward while playing the hose back and forth across the surface.

As the top was revealed Jack saw that it was a camelback style chest with a convex top crossed by three brass bands. He’d seen lots of them—even owned one, though nowhere near as ornate—but had never seen one this shape: square, running maybe two feet on each side. The most startling thing about it was its cherry condition. The chain around it had wasted to a rusted skeleton of its former self. But the chest… no rot, no oxidation of the brass, no dulling of the lacquer finish.

And that was wrong. The rest of the
Sombra
wasn’t fit for a beach bonfire, but this thing looked as if it could have fallen off a passing boat ten minutes ago.