The Solomon Curse (3 page)

Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands, present day

Three fiberglass skiffs tugged at the lines that secured their bows to palm trees as the cobalt blue water surrounding them sparkled in the afternoon sun. Sam and Remi Fargo sat in the shade of one of the palms, the fronds stirring in the light breeze. Remi shielded her eyes from the glare with a manicured hand and watched the heads of divers bob to the surface near a fourth boat ninety yards offshore.

Sam shifted and brushed his fingers through his medium brown hair and glanced at his wife and partner for life. Refined features bereft of makeup were framed by long auburn hair, and her smooth skin glowed from the sun's caress. His gaze traced down her athletic form, and he reached out a hand to her. She took it with a smile and sighed. Even after countless globe-trotting adventures in search of archaeological treasures, they were still inseparable, a testimony to the strength of their bond.

“I could get used to lying on this beach, Sam,” she said, closing her eyes.

“It's gorgeous, I'll give you that,” he agreed.

“If only they had a Bloomingdale's . . .”

“Or a decent dive shop.”

“To each their own.” Remi slipped a Valentino flip-flop off her heel and dangled it from her toe.

They hadn't been sure what to expect when they'd agreed to fly to Guadalcanal and were relieved to find themselves in a tropical paradise of warm water and blue sky.

A tall, lanky man in his fifties approached from down the spit of sand, with a face that was red from sunburn, a pair of battered steel-rimmed spectacles perched on his hawklike nose. His scuffed hiking boots threw up a cloud of white with each step. A group of islanders lounged nearby, watching the divers, laughing among themselves at some private joke. The man's shadow stretched long on the shore as he neared them. Sam looked up at the new arrival and a grin lit his ruggedly handsome face.

“Well, Leonid, what do you make of all this?” Sam asked.

“It's definitely unlike anything else on the island,” Leonid said in his slight Russian accent. “Looks man-made. But as I said on the phone, that's impossible. It's in eighty feet of water.”

“Maybe you found Atlantis,” Remi offered brightly, teasing Sam's longtime friend. “Although you're about five thousand miles off the mark, if the traditional accounts are to be believed.”

Leonid frowned, his expression conveying nothing but his usual disapproval of anything and everything. An academic on a three-year sabbatical from Moscow, Leonid Vasyev was an unhappy man even when freed from the Russian winter to roam the globe in search of lost civilizations—his passion—made possible by a grant from the Fargo Foundation.

When Sam and Remi had gotten his call about reports of a sunken
find in the Solomon Islands, they hadn't hesitated to travel halfway around the world to join him on his quest. They'd landed that morning, arriving too late to secure diving gear until the following day, and had contented themselves with reading the background matter he supplied while enjoying the tranquillity of the beach.

Two weeks earlier, a baffled teacher on Guadalcanal had called her former professor in Australia with an odd story. Her husband and son had registered unusual readings on their new fish finder and had turned to her for help. The Australian had been too busy with classes to do anything besides refer her to Leonid, a colleague she knew was footloose and fully funded.

After a series of long-distance discussions, the reluctant Russian had flown in to see for himself what the teacher was describing. Over the past few days, he'd grown increasingly puzzled by the formations his divers reported. The fishermen had thought that the irregularities might have been war wreckage, but they were mistaken. Their fish finder, one of the first on the island, had spotted something unexplainable—what appeared to be man-made structures jutting up from the bottom of the sea.

That was when Leonid decided to seek out reinforcements. He was an academic, not a deep-water diver, and he knew that he needed help. Since the Fargos were his benefactors and friends, he decided to go straight to the top, and after a long-distance conference call they'd agreed to come join him on Guadalcanal.

“Your underwater camera system could use some fine-tuning,” Sam said, eyeing a blurry photograph taken the prior day. “And couldn't you get some photo paper? This looks like someone spilled wine on a newspaper.”

“You're lucky I found a place with a color printer. In case you haven't noticed, Guadalcanal isn't La Jolla,” Leonid said drily. He considered the image Sam was studying. “Come on. What do you think?”

“It could be just about anything. We'll have to wait until I suit up
and dive. This might as well be a Rorschach test, for all the detail it's showing.”

“Do you see your mother's angry face?” Remi asked innocently.

Leonid eyed them like they were insects in a jar. “I see the infamous Fargo sense of humor hasn't melted in the heat. That's quite a relief.”

“Lighten up, Leonid. We're in paradise, and this seems like it might be exactly the kind of mystery we love. We'll get to the bottom of it,” Sam said. “Although Mom did look kind of annoyed in that last snapshot.” He looked over at the divers. “You sure I can't borrow some gear from one of the locals?”

Leonid shook his head. “I already asked. They're fiercely protective of their stuff. Sorry. We'll reserve some for tomorrow once we're back in town.” Because of the limited amount of equipment, during high season most of the island's reliable gear was already claimed by the local dive tour companies.

“That'll work,” Sam said.

“I'm going to check on what the divers found this time around,” Leonid said, wiping his brow with the back of his hand.

They watched him trudge down the beach, ungainly as a stork in his long khaki pants and tropical-weight long-sleeved shirt. Remi leaned in to Sam. “What do you make of this?”

Sam shook his head. “I have no clue. I'll reserve judgment until we know more. But it's definitely intriguing.”

“What baffles me is how anything could remain undiscovered this close to shore.”

Sam looked around the desolate bay. “Well, there isn't a lot going on here, is there?”

Remi nodded. “I think we agreed on that a few minutes ago.” She shook out her auburn hair, and Sam noted that she was already getting tanned. He eyed her reclining form and slid closer.

They watched Leonid bark at the lounging islanders, who reluctantly rose and pulled one of the skiffs to the beach so he could board.
A small wiry man wearing cutoffs and a dark brown T-shirt splashed to the stern and hoisted himself over the side. After three energetic pulls on the starter cord, the old motor roared to life, and they backed away from shore and cut a beeline to the dive boat.

Remi glanced down the beach to where several of the islanders were dozing in the shade near the water's edge and sighed.

“You have to admit the place is idyllic. I mean, blue sky, warm water, trade winds . . . What more could you ask for?”

Sam grinned. “Cold beer?”

“The one-track Fargo mind surfaces again.”

“Not entirely one-track,” Sam said.

Remi laughed. “We'll have to try out a track or two tonight.”

Leonid's boat returned several minutes later, and when he disembarked, the frown lines on his face were etched deeper than ever. He glared at the loafing natives and stomped back to where the Fargos were sitting. “They confirmed that there are a number of mounds covered with marine growth. They think they're structures.”

Remi's eyes narrowed. “Structures? What kind of structures?”

“They aren't sure, but they appear to be the ruins of buildings.”

Sam gazed off at a line of storm clouds on the horizon. “Curiouser and curiouser.”

“They have to be ancient,” Leonid said, and then glared at the boat. “Damned locals and their superstitions . . .”

Remi's brow furrowed. “Why do you say that?”

“Oh, the head of the local team's giving me problems. Says after this he doesn't want to dive on the site any longer. That he remembers his great-grandfather saying something about this bay being bad juju or some such idiocy.” Leonid snorted, and wiped his brow with a soiled red bandanna. “Trying to get more money out of me, the crook. Old gods indeed.”

“What did you tell him?”

“That if he wants to get paid at all, he'll finish out today's dives, and
then based on what he's able to find, I'll decide whether to hire him again. I won't be extorted. I'm already paying well over top dollar. That shut him up.”

Sam studied the Russian. “Leonid, while it warms my heart to see you so tightfisted with our budget, from what you've described, these guys are the only game in town, right? If you don't use them, what's plan B?”

“I'll get my own people to fly in.”

“With all their own gear?” Sam asked skeptically.

“Sure,” Leonid said, but his look conveyed less confidence than his words.

“If there are really ruins down there, maybe we should try to locate an expedition ship? Something self-contained that can go the long haul?” Remi suggested. “Who do we know in this part of the world?”

Sam thought for a moment. “Nobody springs to mind . . . Leonid?”

The Russian shook his head. “I can ask around.”

“We'll give Selma a call. She'll find someone.”

Remi nodded. “Too bad there's no handy cell tower nearby.”

Sam smiled. “Not a problem. I packed the sat phone,” he said, and rooted around in his backpack. He retrieved an old but reliable Iridium Extreme satellite phone, powered it on, and then checked the time. “She should be around.”

Leonid shifted from foot to foot, obviously antsy. Sam wandered to the waterline while he listened to the warbling ring, and Leonid returned to the nearest group of natives. After several seconds Selma picked up and her perky voice drifted over the line.

“Selma! Guess who?” Sam said.

“Collection agency?”

“Very funny. How are things in San Diego?”

“Same as they were two days ago when you left. Except Zoltán's eaten another hundred pounds of steak. And Lazlo's loitering around here, driving me nuts.”

“Sounds like you've got your hands full. Listen, we've identified something on preliminary dives and want to get a mother ship here. A vessel with all the bells and whistles. Sonar, dive gear, magnometer, the works. Think you can find something suitable?”

“Of course. It's just a question of time and money. When do you need it and for how long?”

“Open-ended on duration, yesterday for how soon.”

“So the typical leisurely schedule.”

“Never a dull moment, Selma.”

“Indeed. I'll get right on it. Probably out of Australia or New Zealand, I'd think.”

Sam nodded to himself. “That sounds about right. And could you also pull up anything you have on ancient civilizations in the region?”

“Of course. I'll send whatever I find to your e-mail?”

“That would be perfect, Selma. Good luck on locating a ship.”

“Budget constraints?”

“The usual.” Meaning none, within reason. The Fargo Foundation had more money than it could spend in ten lifetimes, with additional cash coming in every day from Sam's portfolio of intellectual property relating to his inventions, so expense wasn't an issue on their own expeditions.

“I'll call when I have someone qualified.”

“Very well, Selma. Thanks, and pet the bear for us.” Zoltán was a massive German shepherd Remi had adopted during an adventure in Hungary who resembled nothing so much as a grizzly walking on all fours.

“Sounds like a good way to lose some fingers, but anything for the cause,” Selma teased. Zoltán adored her and glued himself to Selma's side whenever the Fargos were out of town. For her part, she doted on the dog like the child she'd never had, coddling him at every opportunity and spoiling him worse than rotten.

Sam hung up and examined the battery indicator. Plenty of charge.
He returned to Remi and plopped down next to her. “Selma's on the hunt,” he reported.

“Good. No offense to Leonid, but a couple of questionable wet suits and a rowboat's probably not the right way to handle this,” Remi said.

“True, but I can see his logic. Why call in the cavalry before he knows whether he's found anything? For all he knows, it could have been a downed plane or a sunken landing craft. Don't forget that Guadalcanal was hotly contested during the war. A lot of junk's strewn around the islands.”

She nodded. “Some of it still explosive even after all these years.”

“Just like you.”

Remi ignored him and glanced at the dive boat. “What do you think this is?”

“Man-made structure at eighty feet? You got me.” He stretched his arms over his head and eyed Remi. “But we'll know soon enough.”

Remi ran her fingers through her hair and was about to reply when the stillness was shattered by a bloodcurdling scream.

Sam leapt to his feet, followed closely by Remi, and they raced to the grove of trees by the water, where the screams were now shrieks of pain. Sam stopped her with an outstretched arm as they neared the thicket and pointed to a long green reptilian tail thrashing out of the brush.

A gurgle and several wet thwacks sounded from the grove. The tail stiffened and lay still. Leonid's boots thumped on the sand behind them as he arrived with other islanders, two of whom were carrying machetes and one a fire axe.

Another agonized scream split the air. Sam stepped through the vegetation and moved next to the massive body of a male saltwater crocodile, now dead from three grisly axe wounds to the head. On the ground in front of it was one of the locals, clutching the mangled remains of his right leg. Five feet away, another islander stood with an ancient axe in his trembling hand, his eyes wide with shock and fear.

A bright stream of arterial blood sprayed from the victim's shredded thigh. Sam pulled his belt free as he knelt next to the victim. Remi closed the distance as he wound the makeshift tourniquet around the man's upper leg and pulled it tight.

The injured man moaned and lost consciousness.

“He's not going to make it unless he reaches a hospital fast,” Sam said, his voice tight.

Remi looked up at Leonid. “Let's get him onto one of the trucks. Seconds count,” she said.

Leonid was staring at the dead crocodile with saucered eyes, frozen in place, all the color drained from his face.

“Leonid. Come on,” Remi snapped, her tone hard.

The Russian spun around to the islanders, who were standing in a group several feet behind him, and ordered them to carry their unfortunate companion to the Land Rover. Nobody moved. Sam shook his head and slipped his arm under the bleeding man. “Get out of my way,” he said, and lifted the victim upright. Remi rushed to help him, and together they carried him to a vehicle parked near the trail that led from the main road.

They loaded him into the backseat in seconds, and Sam turned to Leonid, who was arguing with one of the locals near the water's edge. “Who's the best driver?” he demanded, but the men shook their heads.

Remi and Sam exchanged a glance, and Sam held out his hand. “Fine. Give me the keys. I don't know what's wrong with you people, but your friend here is dying and needs help. Who can show me where the nearest hospital is?”

Leonid fumbled in his pockets as the islanders muttered among themselves, and then a youth in his late teens stepped forward. “I'll go. That's my uncle Benji,” he said, his English thick with a pidgin accent.

“What's your name?” Remi asked as she climbed into the passenger seat.

“Ricky.”

Sam slid behind the wheel. Leonid moved to the door and handed him the keys. “I'll be right behind you in the orange truck.”

“Fine.” Sam looked at Ricky. “Get in the back with your uncle and make sure the belt stays tight. How far are we from the hospital?”

“Maybe forty-five minutes . . .” Ricky said doubtfully.

Sam frowned. “Buckle up. We'll see if we can make it in fifteen.”

Remi and Ricky strapped in as Sam cranked the engine. He dropped the transmission into gear and they roared off, bouncing down the track that was little more than a thinning passageway through the encroaching jungle. The big motor labored on the mushy terrain, and it took what seemed like forever to reach the ragged pavement strip of the coastal road that ringed the island. Once on the asphalt, Sam floored the gas, his gaze intent, his concentration absolute, and the SUV surged forward, tires screeching as he took the curves at double any sane speed.

Remi's knuckles whitened as she gripped the armrest. “It won't help him very much if they have to send an ambulance to scrape us off a rock.”

“Don't worry. I used to own a Ferrari.”

They drifted around a bend, all four tires protesting as they lost traction. Sam gunned the engine and downshifted to regain control. After a glance at Remi, he shrugged and slowed a few miles per hour, still pushing the limit of what the heavy vehicle could manage.

Remi twisted to look at the injured man, who was soaked in blood and laboring for breath. Ricky had his hand clenched on the belt, a frightened expression on his young face. His eyes met Remi's and he swallowed hard.

“You think he'll make it?” he asked.

“We'll do everything we can to see that he does. What's the hospital like? How advanced is it?” she asked.

He shook his head. “I guess it's okay. I've never been anywhere else, so I don't know what others are like.”

“Do they deal with a lot of injuries?”

“I think so.” He sounded doubtful.

Sam accelerated on a relatively straight stretch and called over his shoulder. “Are there many crocodile attacks here?”

Another shrug. “A few. Mostly, people just disappear, so we don't know for sure the crocs got them.” His tone was matter-of-fact, like he was describing the regular rainstorms or the onset of old age.

Remi fixed him with a hard stare. “Why didn't anyone help him?”

Ricky scowled. “They're superstitious. They were so busy talking about how the area is cursed, nobody could decide what to do. It's like that a lot when there's any sort of disagreement.”

“Cursed?” Remi repeated.

“One of the older divers was saying there were rumors that it's haunted. Damned. Like I said, superstition.” He regarded his uncle. “At least I think so.”

“That was a huge crocodile. Weighed at least a couple thousand pounds,” Sam said. “No superstition required, just a hungry croc and a couple of guys not watching what they were doing.”

“Is Leonid going to have a hard time getting anyone to help him now?” Remi asked.

Ricky looked away. “Not a lot of people want to push their luck in crocodile territory for a few dollars a day,” he explained.

Sam caught Remi's expression and dared a glance in the rearview mirror.

“No, I don't suppose they would.” It was obvious to everyone that Leonid's exploration had just hit a major obstacle, if not a wall. “I can't believe that nobody had a rifle if there are crocodiles around this area.”

Ricky shook his head. “Guns are illegal here. Ever since the Australian peacekeeping force took over.”

“That's a big win for the crocs, I suppose,” Remi said.

They rounded the westernmost point of the island and headed east toward the capital city of Honiara, where the only real hospital was
located, according to Ricky. By the time they pulled up to the emergency entrance, twenty-six minutes had elapsed, and Ricky's uncle was in desperate shape. Ricky darted from the car to get help, and moments later two islanders, accompanied by a handsome woman in a green medical smock, came running out with a gurney.

Remi's eyes locked with the woman's as she approached the car. She looked like an islander, but her hair was styled differently from the other locals they'd seen, and her bearing commanded immediate attention. This was clearly a woman in a position of authority, in spite of her smooth skin and relative youth. When she reached the victim, she glanced at Remi and Sam before focusing on his wounds.

“How long ago did this happen?” she asked, her English colored with a marked Australian accent.

“Half an hour ago. Crocodile on the east side of the island,” Remi said.

The woman took in the bleeding man with a glance. She eyed the butchered leg before turning to the orderlies and giving a rapid-fire order in pidgin. The men leaned into the vehicle and dragged out Benji's inert form. They placed him on the gurney, which looked like it had survived the Japanese occupation, and inspected the tourniquet. Seeming to intuit Sam and Remi's doubts about the care he was going to receive, the woman pursed her lips.

“Don't worry. The gear in the OR is in better shape than this relic.” She held out her hand. “Dr. Vanya. I'm the chief medical officer here.” Remi shook it, followed by Sam.

“Sam and Remi Fargo,” Sam said.

Dr. Vanya appraised them for a lingering moment and then turned to where the orderlies were wheeling Benji into the hospital. “If you'll excuse me, duty calls. You can wait in the emergency room. There's a bench and a ten-year-old copy of the
Times
. Oh, and nice work with the tourniquet.”

Before either of them could say anything, she disappeared into the
building. Sam eyed the smear of blood on the car seat, and his gaze drifted to his clothes, covered with rust-colored stains. They'd only been on the island for a few hours and already they'd helped save a man who was now battling for his life.

A troubling start to what should have been a low-key underwater exploration and an ugly omen for their time in the Solomons.