Lunch was manic. Food was an aside. Gold was the word of the day—gold bricks of all shapes and gold coins that had been vacuumed up and separated from the debris through a steel mesh tray. True to his word, Pablo, usually more reserved, did a hat dance around the mesh tray used to bring up the treasure.
“Anyone see the irony here?” Nick said, sifting his fingers through coins as pristine as the day they’d sunk to the sea bottom. There were doubloons, ducats, coins of denominations even Remy hadn’t seen before. “It hardly seems right to store gold in plastic buckets.”
“The cost of progress,” Remy observed, in voice only—he couldn’t pull himself away from inspecting a long length of gold chain adorned with a flying mythological creature. “Extraordinary.”
“That must have been made for a princess or noblewoman.” Mara fingered the intricately designed creature. “Probably an ornate belt . . . definitely a museum piece.”
“En garde.” Stuart brandished a gilded sword hilt embedded with precious stones, swashbuckling with an unseen enemy.
“Since we seem to be sittin’ on the mother lode, how’s about we put all our manpower on salvagin’ what we can.”
Remy’s head shot up at Tex’s terminology. “Excavate, my dear man. Excavate. One piece at a time, taking meticulous records.”
Tex grimaced. “Tell you what, Prim. You write; I’ll excavate.”
Jeanne looked up from sorting through the debris in the mesh tray. “Remy is right, Tex. We have to do this scientifically. Even if it takes longer.”
Tex pointed to the compressor that ran the airlift, now blessedly quiet. While Jeanne did her turn on deck, she thought she’d go deaf. “That thing don’t know science from shinola.”
“Granted, it indiscriminately picks up the loose items on the sea floor, but what won’t fit in the hose needs to be documented,” she insisted.
“Keep him straight, sweet.”
Jeanne started as Gabe planted a quick kiss on the back of her neck in front of everyone. He’d been in rare form all morning, playful and joking, even with Remy.
“Whoa,” Stuart remarked, nothing less than worship on his sun-pinkened face. “Talk about brass.”
“Checking for fever,” Gabe answered smoothly.
“Hah,” Tex snorted. “If that’s the case, you might as well pucker up to all of us.”
“Now, that would be something for Ann’s documentary,” Jeanne piped up, eager to escape being the center of attention. She hadn’t had a fever—until now. “But I think Tex has a good point.” She tossed a gold finger-sized bar with Roman numerals into a nearby bucket. “Maybe we should spend the rest of this week working continuous shifts until this site is cleared and completely covered.”
“I agree,” Gabe said. “We can’t keep this under wraps forever. The best we can hope for is to finish out the week. I say get this site worked now. Artifacts don’t interest treasure hunters as much . . . and they will come in droves once the word is out.”
It was too dangerous to dig any further under the coral wall without risking its collapse. Since they knew now that the gold was under it—if not all, a large cache of it—the additional use of manpower to do so would be justified.
“Juan!” Gabe shouted to the brawny giant manhandling a one-hundred-pound chunk of coral as if it were Styrofoam. “Necesitamos esos músculos.” We need those muscles.
Laughing, Juan flexed his biceps for everyone’s benefit. They were bigger than her thighs, Jeanne observed. Who’d have guessed from that night at the cantina that Big Juan was a gentle bear of a man with a great sense of humor . . . when he wasn’t drinking tequila. Thankfully, the mission had been dry, at least as far as she knew. Diving was dehydrating enough without compounding the strain with alcohol.
So it went for the remainder of the week—the backbreaking work of removing the coral from atop the remains of the collapsed, sand-buried hull and the adrenaline high of uncovering the treasure. Each evening, alternating members of the group remained on the Angel to protect its precious cargo and the site, while the remainder returned to Punta Azul for a good night’s rest and fresh supplies. Thanks to Pablo and CEDAM’s request, the Mexican coast guard had added the site to their surveillance, patrolling twice a day.
And everyone remained mum. The movement of the buoys had driven home the need for silence. Someone out there was waiting and watching them, although no one had seen any sign of this person of interest. And aside from him, or her, the last thing Jeanne wanted was a media circus meeting them at the end of each day, when all the crew needed was a meal and sleep. To maintain a semblance of moderate success, they continued to bring buckets of artifacts and chunks of coral-encrusted ones to store in the warehouse, but as far as anyone else knew, no real treasure had been found.
Jeanne even called Blaine at the company with the news on her private cell phone, rather than risk an operator listening in. Mark had taken a leave of absence to stay home with Corinne and the new baby.
“Blaine, it’s a fortune. We’re keeping it stored on the Angel as we bring it up, to avoid drawing publicity until we’ve thoroughly worked the sites,” she told him from the privacy of her cottage.
“You can count on discretion at this end,” Blaine assured her. “If I were any prouder of you, sis, I’d burst. Whatever you’re doing, you must be doing it right.”
After Jeanne hung up, the glow of Blaine’s praise quickly faded. After all, she hadn’t been totally truthful with him. She hadn’t told him about the buoys being moved.
By the end of the day Friday, they’d removed the coral massif over the wreck by hand, exposing its skeletal ribs partially buried in sand. The site—and everyone who’d worked on it—was now exhausted. The Fallen Angel lay low in the water with its heavy load. The treasure had been inventoried, sorted, and stored anywhere it would fit. If it wasn’t gold, silver, or gems, it was transferred to the Margarita to store in the warehouse.
In his exhilaration, Gabe even found Remy more bearable. The professor had proved himself time and again, affirming that they had indeed found an early eighteenth-century Spanish galleon laden with artifacts and treasure consistent with that time period. Much as Gabe hated to admit that he was wrong, Jeanne had done well in bringing the professor along. A walking library on artifacts and preservation, he displayed the patience of Job when it came to extracting them from the coral intact.
But tonight, Remy treated captain and crew to Chicken Marengo, for which he’d again commissioned Lupita’s laundry pot—scalded, he’d assured them. “It was one of Napoleon’s favorite dishes,” he said, placing the pot on the charting table in the bridge.
Everything was a lecture when it came to Remy, even his cooking. The odd thing, Gabe thought, was that the man had become less of a nuisance and more interesting.
The professor went on to tell them how the emperor’s cook Dunand was caught away from supply lines and had to scavenge food to put together a feast fit for Napoleon. The result was a poached chicken with wine, tomato, onion, mushrooms and, strangely, eggs. Gabe could almost imagine Lupita’s reaction to that combination.
“Of course, Dunand served it with soldier’s biscuits,” the professor explained, “but we shall have to content ourselves with rice.”
Gabe was hungry enough to eat it with his fingers, straight from the pot. Neither he nor Manolo had had a hot meal since they’d anchored in the reef. And it was truly delicious. So much so, he went back for seconds.
“What about you, Manolo, my friend?” Remy asked. “Can’t have a hungry crew, now, can we?”
Gabe’s mate shook his head. “Gracias, no. I fill my plate already two times.”
The old boy was even softening on the edges, Gabe observed. Time was, Prim wouldn’t have been caught dead rubbing elbows with the natives, much less calling them friend. That wasn’t to say, though, that the pompous professor wasn’t still a royal pain in the buttocks.
“Prim, we’ve had our differences, but I’ll hire you on as cook any day,” Gabe said, adding a dollop of the well-seasoned broth to his rice.
As he turned from the pot, Gabe caught a glimpse of Nemo bounding up from below and heading straight for the table—and he knew before he saw that the dog had a pair of socks in his mouth. He paused, at a loss as to what to do with his bowl, but fortunately Stuart caught on to the animal’s intent in time to latch onto Nemo’s collar. The sock dropped . . . just short of the pot.
After the ensuing collective sigh of relief, Remy glowered at the dog, his voice shaking with indignation. “The first thing I shall do when I reach civilization again is to purchase that woman a good stew pot!”
Jeanne, Remy, and Big Juan had come prepared to spend the night, but the oversize Mexican opted out at the last minute, complaining of a stomach misery. Since Tex and Rico weren’t much better, Jeanne wondered if the water on the Margarita wasn’t contaminated. Unless it was heated in coffee, she’d instructed her crew from the beginning to drink only bottled water or mineral drinks.
“Good luck with the authorities, Pablo,” she called out to her friend as he boarded the Margarita.
Rather than having to leave the excavation to make the trip, Pablo hoped a call would suffice to make arrangements for the security to transport the treasure to the museum and preservation facilities at Mexico City. Equally reluctant to quit the site, Ann prepared some edited footage and pictures for the press release, which, through the miracles of technology, she’d send via the Internet. From this point on, the last days of the excavation would be under the scrutiny of news cameras.
“Milady,” Stuart said, making a sweeping bow as Nick helped Mara onto the rocking deck of the Margarita for their return to Punta Azul.
One of them could have stayed over, Jeanne supposed, but they’d get more rest in their cots than camped out on deck in sleeping bags. Gabe tossed Nick the line used to tie the two boats together. “No time for making eyes at Mara. All three of you need your sleep for tomorrow.”
“Yo, I can say the same to you, Cap’n,” Stuart countered.
“Fear not,” Remy assured the lad. “I assure you that everything will be as proper as conceivably possible aboard this dear little rust bucket.”
“Just remember, Prim, this isn’t the Hilton. I don’t want to hear you complaining about your back,” Gabe warned him.
“My dear captain, haven’t you heard? Gold has miraculous curative powers,” Remy snickered, overjoyed at his cleverness. “In fact, I haven’t even known that I have a back since that first brick was brought up.”
“Sooner or later that adrenaline will run out and we’ll have to pick him up off the deck.” Gabe exchanged an amused glance with Jeanne. “In the meantime, you may have the forward compartment for privacy.” At the lift of Remy’s brow, he added. “We’ll set up the dinette’s convertabed for you, Prim, and Manolo and I will take the bridge.”
“I don’t need to take up two beds,” Jeanne objected. “Let me take the bridge.”
“I have an inflatable mat for Manolo. I’ll take the sofa. No problem. Everyone should be comfy,” Gabe assured her. “And since hot water is limited”—he pointed to the hatchway—“ladies first.”
“I’d like to work awhile at sorting these coins anyway.” Remy got up and separated some stacked buckets. “I can’t imagine the value of what we have here.” His voice teetered on euphoria.
So did Jeanne. It was intoxicating. Their work was far from over, but this . . . this was all she’d imagined and then some.
“Thanks, but I’ll think I’ll help Remy while there’s still some daylight.”
“I’ll join you then, once I take Nemo for his walk.” Gabe petted the dog insistently nosing his leg.
“Walk?” Although she hadn’t thought about it till now, Nemo had been on the boat for days now.
“Doggie pads for the paper-trained,” Gabe explained, hopping up on the catwalk. “We keep them in a locker on the bow.”
Nemo followed the captain down the port side of the vessel, tail beating against the railing in anticipation.
Next to her, Remy muttered under his breath, “I still say the beast has no business here.”