It took most of the morning for Gabe and Tex to survey the reef plateau and strategically place the charges intended to remove the coral blocking the Fallen Angel’s access to the underwater lagoon where the wreck lay buried beneath the coral bed. Pablo, Remy, Nick, and Stuart set out in the rubber launch to mark the channel beyond the natural wall enclosing the submerged lagoon. A well-defined passage guaranteed a safe retreat in the event of a sudden storm or an emergency.
Just before noon everyone regrouped aboard the Fallen Angel for the big bang. Jeanne held her breath as Tex counted down to zero. Nothing happened.
“Don’t fret, little lady,” the explosives expert assured her. “Them acid timers aren’t always to the—”
A tremendous thud struck the bottom of the boat, cutting Tex off. Even though she’d expected it, it was unnerving, as were the subsequent vibrations beneath her feet.
“Whoa . . .” Stuart trailed off as circular swell of water spread from the reef. Simultaneously, a geyser shot up from its center.
“Awesome,” Nick exclaimed, snapping pictures with a digital camera while Ann captured the spectacle on video.
“Look at the water!” Mara pointed to the muddy swirl of sediment and debris spreading toward them. “And the poor fish.”
Over the reef in the distance, fish bobbed to the surface, side up. Jeanne suppressed a pang of guilt at the damage to the marine life, but this was a last resort.
“Those close to the explosion are dead, but the others are just stunned,” Gabe told Mara.
Remy crossed his arms with a smug snort. “Thank your lucky stars that Greenpeace isn’t about.”
Gabe nailed him with a dour look. “The same stars are shining on you, Prim, and I don’t exactly hear you complaining. Although if any thanks are to be given, mine go to Pablo.”
Jeanne gave Pablo a thankful grimace of a smile for his making the right contacts in the government to obtain permission for the blast. Having a man on the inside was definitely an advantage. Not only were Isla Codo’s excavation rights assigned solely to the Angel and her crew, but Pablo had obtained quick permission from the powers-that-be for the blasting as well.
“For now, I vote we have lunch,” Tex suggested. “It’ll take a little while for the water to clear. We can eat while the predators clean up.”
Remy’s head snapped up. “Predators?”
“Sharks,” Gabe said, grinning at Remy’s shock.
“How long should we wait?” Jeanne asked.
“Till tomorrow, I should think,” Remy declared. “I don’t think it’s worth the risk to dive today.”
“Never been in the water with sharks, Prim?” Gabe challenged.
“Not if I could help it.” Remy looked from Tex to Gabe as if trying to decide which of the two was the greater fool.
Pressing his advantage, Gabe went in for the kill. “Fess up, Prim. You’re no more an experienced diver than I am an expert on relics and preservation.”
“Which makes both of you equally valuable to me,” Jeanne declared, hoping to head off another confrontation. She glared at Gabe, hoping he’d remember his promise to avoid provoking Remy.
But it was too late. Remy’s indignation shot up like a geyser at the affront. “It’s been years since I’ve been in the water, Captain. That said, I will admit that I am more comfortable topside.”
Gabe considered Remy a moment, the challenge in his mercurial features lifting, a twinkle claiming its place. “Good,” he said, shocking the wary professor even further with a hearty clap on the back. “I respect a man who knows his limitations and isn’t afraid to admit them. And we need able men above the water as well as below it, right, boss?”
The unsettling wink Gabe shot Jeanne’s way penetrated her shock over his sudden shift from foe to friend. “Y-yes, exactly what I was trying to say.”
Heavenly Father! Dare I believe my eyes and ears? Has Gabe just said something positive about Remy?
“Well,” Tex drawled. He slapped his knees with the palms of his hands and shoved up from his seat. “Now that we all know how important we are, can we get a mouthful to eat or what?”
Lord, I’m not sure what just happened, but thanks.
At the top of the steps, Jeanne turned. She didn’t know why; she just did. Her eyes collided with Gabe’s and caught his observation of her retreat. The knowledge worked its way through her from head to toe until Remy broke the spell with his “Did you forget something, Jeanne?”
Jeanne extracted her attention from Gabe. “No, I—I just had a second thought. But it was nothing.” She retreated down the remaining steps in a rush. When Gabe looked at her like that, the whole world went away and took her ability to think with it. All that was left was a body full of unaccustomed feelings and a mind that had no clue what to do with them.
Tex regaled the crew with colorful stories of past adventures over lunch, and having been along on some of them, Gabe knew that the Texan had embellished more than a few of the details. But the grad students and his gullible Jeanne were completely spellbound by the older adventurer, while Prim was intrigued, and Pablo amused.
His gullible Jeanne? Gabe had never been inclined to think of any woman as his. At least not in the context of permanence. And even if this wasn’t simply a rambling notion, what could he offer her? A life running a fishing tour business on the Angel ? She was the product of a close-knit family and was a budding name in her field. Gabe had left all that behind. While he called on holidays to check on them, he hadn’t visited his parents in five years. The calls were painful enough, what with them imploring him to come back to Bermuda to finish his doctorate and pursue a career in marine biology.
“Yep,” Tex said with a toothy grin. “Findin’ a wreck right off the bat was unheard of . . . till I met this golden gal here.”
Jeanne shrugged. “And who knows, maybe we’ll find out if this is really the Luna Azul today.”
“Dream on, dream girl,” Gabe told her.
“No,” she objected, not the least daunted by his skepticism. “I’ve said from the beginning, this is a God thing. We found the wreck. We couldn’t reach it. You found Tex. Now we can. For every bump in the road, God has smoothed the way over it.”
Gabe put his arm around her shoulders and shook her playfully. “That’s what I love about you, sweet. That eternal optimism.”
Jeanne opened her mouth to speak, but whatever she was about to say stalled there. Gabe studied the confusion brewing in her expression. Gradually he realized it was due to his compliment. Utterly charming, he thought, fascinated as she regrouped, adapting a mischievous smirk that zeroed his attention on her lips.
“Watch out,” she warned. “This fallen angel”—she tapped him on the chest—“just might catch it.”
“Like I said,” Gabe countered. “Dream on.” His comeback was smooth, but her words left ripples of awareness within—self-awareness.
Confound it, he was, by admission, a fallen angel . . . and quite content to be one, he told himself as he suited up again to check out the results of the surgical demolition. That was just one more reason why Jeanne could never be his. Her cockeyed religious optimism was cute, but sooner or later it would cease to amuse and would instead stick like a thorn in his cynical side.
And that prospect continued to stick in Gabe’s side after he was in the water. Shelving it in the far reaches of his mind, Gabe focused on the reef below. The water had cleared enough for him to see the success, or lack thereof, of their earlier efforts. It was also clear enough to see the barracuda and reef sharks that feasted on the windfall of fresh fish floating overhead. The barracuda were more intimidating in look than dangerous to humans, as long as one left them alone. One might tail a diver, but the moment the diver turned, it would swim off.
The reef sharks could be a little more trouble, but usually it was nothing that couldn’t be handled by a good tap on the nose with an instrument. Aside from one black-tip shark that swam within a few yards of them, Gabe and Tex proceeded without attracting interest.
In the grays and blues of the deeper water, Gabe flutter-kicked deeper toward an opening in a hedge of staghorn and branch coral that ranged an average of thirty feet high from the plateau that hosted the lagoon. His light revealed the debris on the bottom from the blast that had brought the section down. As he and Tex approached it, smaller fish, scampering about feeding on the plant and animal life that had been dislodged from the rock-hard and razor-sharp habitat by the blast.
Gabe slowed in appreciation. Parrot fish, surgeonfish, red Myripristis, striped Fissilabrus, some small Chromis . . . Marine life never ceased to thrill him, even though that chapter of his life was closed. And the coral . . . It pained him to see even this small bit destroyed when it was not only integral to the underwater ecosystem, but held such promise of medicinal value of mankind too.
Feeling a nudge on his arm, Gabe turned toward Tex. He reminded Gabe of a muscular teddy bear in a wet suit—round in the belly, but hard as iron. Beaming, he gave Gabe a proud thumbs-up. If that bushy grin of his were any broader, the ornery coot would have lost his respirator. Tex was one of the best, and he knew it.
Gabe thought that the opening appeared wide enough for the Fallen Angel to get through, but knowing how water distorted distance perception, he’d brought along a measuring tape to be sure. Gabe brandished it from his belt in response.
There was just enough to give the Angel a little over five feet on either side. Beyond the breach there was swing, or maneuvering room. It was a go.
The moment Gabe’s head broke free of the water by the swim platform of his boat, he spat the respirator from his mouth.
“Manolo!” he shouted to his deckhand. “Fire up the engines; we’re going in!”
Nick let out a loud whoop as Gabe hauled himself up on the platform, no easy task with forty pounds of gear strapped to his back. “It’s about time. All this charting and plotting has nearly bored me to death.”
“Yeah,” Stuart said. “I was starting to wish I was on that fishing boat I saw earlier.”
“Listen to ’em crow,” Tex said, a bit breathless from the exertion as he came aboard behind Gabe. “I’ll bet you a piece of eight them guppies’ll be beggin’ for rest before the week’s out.”
Jeanne looped an arm over the shoulders of each of the frolicking lads.
“I don’t know,” she countered. “Sometimes I think waiting is just as hard as—”
“What fishing boat?” Gabe interrupted her.
The balloon of his elation pricked by alarm, he crawled to his feet, abandoning the gear he’d unfastened, and inspected the horizon.
“Manolo, did you see anything?” he called out as Nemo came forward to greet him. The deckhand shrugged from the sliding door overlooking the back deck. “A fishing boat, nada más.”
Nothing more. Gabe hoped that’s all it was. But he trusted Manolo, who knew the likes of Arnauld and his cronies.
Jeanne propped her hands on her hips. “You’re not going to go paranoid on us again, are you?”
Gabe silenced the warning bell in the back of his mind. He probably was being overly cautious. But as the old adage went, once burned . . .
He brandished a false grin. “No. Just being cautious.”
Remy’s voice sounded from the bridge. “That’s rich, coming from someone who swims with sharks.”
Biting his tongue, Gabe handed his tanks over to Nick. Surely the author of love thy neighbor had never met Remington Primston.