After what seemed some very long, slow minutes of following the coral ridge back up through the ten-story depth of the dark water, Gannon finally hauled himself back aboard his boat.
After he pulled himself up through the dive door, instead of sitting on one of the benches, he spit out the regulator and knelt and lay facedown on the deck in the sluice of the water.
He’d shrugged out of his clanging tanks and was still light-headed with the ebullient joy of breathing through his nose and being alive when he finally stood a long minute later.
And still, there is no rescue effort! he thought as he looked over the wreckage to the now-dark horizon.
Nothing. Not a boat. Not an aircraft. Not even a light anywhere in sight.
The boat pitched hard port to starboard in a swell as he peeled off his dripping gloves. As it baby cradled back and forth, he turned to the left and saw that the floating rear tail section of the shattered jet was lower than it had been. It had foundered to one side a tad, its pale cruciform tail fin slightly tilted.
In a moment, it would sink, too, Gannon thought, shaking his head at the absurdity of the whole crazy thing. In an hour, the dark Atlantic would swallow it like it had swallowed the first half of it. And but for Gannon’s memory, it would be as if the plane had never existed at all.
Gannon had just pulled up the dive rope and was clacking up the dive ladder a minute later when the boat pitched again, and he heard the clatter to starboard.
He walked over and looked over the gunwale and saw some luggage there in the water, bumping up against the side of his boat.
The first piece Gannon brought aboard with the help of his gaff was a little dark green hard case that looked like something you’d put a camera in. He laid it on the deck and went and got a penlight. He clicked the light on, put it in his mouth, undid the case’s clasps and flipped up the lid.
Inside of the case, sunk into the hard gray packing foam, was a gun. He could tell by its distinctive shape and black matte texture that it was a polymer Glock pistol. There were some large magazines and a suppressor half-buried in the packing material beside it. He peered at the length of the magazines then tilted the light at the pistol barrel. A thin number 18 was engraved along the side.
A Glock 18? Gannon thought with a whistle.
He’d heard of them. They looked like a regular pistol but they were actually small yet extremely powerful handheld machine guns with a rate of fire twice that of an Uzi.
A fully automatic machine gun pistol, he thought, looking at it curiously. But weren’t only people in law enforcement or the military allowed to legally possess those?
He was still staring down at it with a hand to the back of his wet mind-boggled head a full minute later when he heard some more knocking and clacking against the boat.
The second hard case he pulled aboard was silver and far heavier than the first. He actually had to gaff it around to the diving door and almost threw out his back as he lugged it up over the lip. It had to be about seventy pounds or more, he thought as he brought it over and thumped it onto the deck next to the gun case.
He stood, chewing at his lower lip as he stared at it. Then he finally knelt down and opened it up.
And felt his breath exit his lungs in a mad-dash rush.
Gannon tracked the columns and rows. Right to left and up and down. And then he did it again.
The case was jammed tight with money. They were all hundreds. Packets and packets and packets of United States of America Benjamin Franklin one-hundred-dollar bills.
They were wrapped tight in red rubber bands. He edged one out. He thumbed at the cloth-like paper. He held it up to his face and smelled it and riffled its soft edge against his wrist.
“Seventy pounds,” Gannon whispered as he stared.
But that’s not all, came a TV game show host voice from somewhere in Gannon’s mind as he noticed a huge lump in the cloth webbing on the underside of the case’s lid.
Inside the flap, there was a big butter-soft black leather bag about the size of a laptop case. The word Cross was embossed along its bottom. He lifted it out and unzipped it and unfolded it on top of the pallet of money.
He was no jeweler, but inside of the leather bag was what appeared to be rough uncut diamonds. Some were grayish and some had a yellow tinge, but most of them were as colorless and clear as broken car glass.
They had been separated into clear plastic sleeves by size. A grouping of about ten of them in one sleeve section along the left side of the sheet particularly captured his attention.
He’d seen diamonds before. Just never ones the size of Jolly Rancher hard candies.
There were about enough diamonds to fill a cereal bowl, Gannon thought, shaking the bag. Hell, more. Several bowls. He bit at his lower lip some more as he began nodding idiotically. He was staring down at the damn entire box of cornflakes, wasn’t he?
Seventy pounds of worn US hundred-dollar bills plus a fat satchel of uncut diamonds, he thought as he stood. Plus a fully automatic law enforcement–only machine gun pistol.
He glanced back at the sinking tail section.
Plus six dead men in a multimillion-dollar crashed luxury Gulfstream jet.
He knew what it was now. He had thought it already, but now he knew.
It was a drug deal. Some kind of crazy high-level drug deal. Down in South America. In Colombia or Bolivia or somewhere with the cartels. But it had gone super loco apparently.
Gannon blinked at the piled treasure.
He looked up at the dark vault of the sky, the first faint silver sprinkling of stars that could be seen there.
The opportunity he had here. All that money. Like a Powerball hit.
Only the kind you could never tell anyone about.
He slowly passed a hand over his scruffy jaw. He looked at the water, turned in every direction. All still dark. Still nobody coming. He looked at the cross of the listing tail section about to sink.
What would the Bahamian government do with it? Gannon thought. Lower the tax rate? Give it to the poor?
Sure they would, he thought as he took a deep breath.
Then he decided.
Was it even a decision at all? he thought as he went and found his gloves again and pulled them on.
Gannon hurried up to the bow and clicked on the electric anchor winch. As the chain began to chatter against the bow roll, he came back and dumped the money out onto the deck and tossed the bag of diamonds on top of it. He wiped down the empty suitcase with a wet towel before he brought it back to the diving platform and filled it with water and made it sink.
He thought about keeping the gun before he closed its lid and wiped its case down and heaved it into the sea from whence it came.
He tossed the diamonds and money into a dirty blanket he used as a pad when doing engine repairs and locked it in the head before he went forward and secured the anchor.
Gannon could feel butterflies in his stomach and his heart pounding crazily in his chest as he came back and climbed the ladder up into the dark flying bridge.
“Caught something after all,” he said to himself with a crazy laugh as he turned off the running lights and slammed the twin diesels to full reverse, keeping his eyes on the dark horizon.