Stay cool. Get in the airlock. Focus. Ben coached himself over and over in a numbing mantra of delay and denial that he had used hundreds of times on long sniper missions. How could his mind encompass the enormity of what he had just discovered? He would think about it, deal with it, later.
Then the mantras failed him, and the facts hit home in his gut like point-blank bullets. This was his father. Missing for so long, and so close to home, to reunion. Why the hell did Ben have to be the one to find him? And if this wreck and the drowned remains were only a few days old, where had his father been for the other fifteen years, presumed—what exactly—dead? Alive, but uncaring?
Pulling out more old tools from his days in the service, Ben mentally smashed this heavy slab of news into smaller fragments. Then he swept them behind a thick inner wall where a hundred other dead faces waited for resurrection and justice. With his mind freshly cleared and tightly tuned, he went to work.
Ben already knew the boxes with their space-age locks and metal skins would resist ordinary prying and bashing. Maybe he would lug them to his house to cut them open with his welding rig. Lord, no. That would draw too many questions.
Now that was something odd. Ben could not pinpoint the moment he decided this was night work. ‘Til now he had been a truthful and forthcoming man in all matters. To his surprise, this dark choice had come naturally, subconsciously. Perhaps it was his Smith Island heritage rearing up like a long-dormant gene. His people’s DNA was not only ready for hard work in honest sunlight, but was also steeled for bloody twilight jobs. This wreck and everything to do with it was for the shadows. He confirmed the decision. Without a doubt this matter was best handled away from prying eyes. Ben’s own certainty disturbed him. This path involved denying Pap the final rites he was due. No rush on that now. Worry about it later.
There had to be a key to these boxes. Ben rifled the pockets of the dead man’s field jacket. Just a nameless body, he told himself. Ben was simply gathering intel. Seeking assets. Nothing more than he had ever done in the service of his country. He found no key. There was something heavy weighing down the coat’s large side pocket, but Ben did not pull it out. He knew what he was looking for. He focused on hunting up the key.
He carefully patted the pants’ slash pockets, then lifted the flaps to the mid-thigh cargo pockets. Loose change, a small penknife. Where was that key? Not sure if he were girding himself for nausea, remorse, or both, Ben pushed the May West aside and reached beneath the shirt collar. He avoided looking at the face again. Felt a simple chain. Dog-tags? He lifted the chain over the head of the—thing. The not-Pap. The not-human. Not one, but two gray, flat metal plates dangled from the chain. They were as wide as a credit card, and as thick. They were several inches longer than the average MasterCard. There were no letters, nor any numbers. Just random-looking grooves and holes milled into both sides.
Without another look at the body, Ben slogged back to the wreck. More ice water leaked down his back to complement the chill in his heart. He pulled up the corner of the tarp he had freed before. More silt churned. Another infuriating wait for clearer water. He tried the first key. There was a scraping and ringing sound, metal on metal. The lock did not yield. Ben turned the key over. Slid it in again. Still nothing happened. His curiosity boiled. What the hell had Richard Willem Blackshaw died to bring home?
At that thought, Ben suddenly looked around him for his mother, Ida-Beth. He had good reason to believe she too might be close by. There was no sign of her. Thank God, and just as well. Ben wanted to remember her the way she was when he last saw her alive years ago, not decaying down here like his father.
Ben’s cold, stiff fingers fumbled as he tried the second key. Nothing budged. He flipped it over, and nervously scraped it around the opening before lining it up square and sticking it in again. Finally, he heard the dull pergaddus clank and thud of a deadbolt springing open. He heaved back the heavy lid with both hands.
Even on the floor of the Chesapeake, with the sun hidden above fifteen feet of turbid water and a scudding layer of gray cloud, there was absolutely no mistaking the radiant gleam. Ben’s eyes widened. He reached out. Oh my blessing! The box was jammed with gold.