Absolute Pressure (7 page)

It was Friday night. Judd knew that Uncle Gord would be going out in the dive boat tonight. Judd was probably going to follow them. Maybe even go on board the dive boat. There was plenty of room to hide on it.

There were two ways to find out if I was right.

I could tell Uncle Gord. He and his three friends from Miami, whoever they were, could watch for Judd. But if they stopped him, it would be easy for Judd to come up with an excuse for being near the dive boat. Worse, if I was wrong about Judd, I'd look stupid.

Or I could keep my mouth shut and follow Judd myself. If he really was doing something wrong, I'd know it by watching him. I'd already waited behind the dive shop
too long to know where he had gone. How could I catch up to him?

I slapped my forehead. If Judd was going to spy on Uncle Gord tonight, there was only one place Judd would go. To the
GypSea
.

The sun was almost ready to set. It wouldn't be too long before Uncle Gord and his friends would be on the dive boat, getting ready to leave. If Judd was following them, he'd be there too.

But I still had a little time. I ran to the beach house that Uncle Gord rented. My stuff was still in a suitcase in the truck. But I'd be able to fit into Uncle Gord's clothes. All I needed to do was find dark clothes.

Then I would be ready to hunt the hunter.

I reached the docks just before sunset. I had on a dark summer jacket and a pair of dark track pants.

I stood still and looked around. The smell of salt water filled the air. Pelicans stood on the dock posts. There were dozens of boats tied to the long dock. A lot of people were walking around. None of them were Judd or Uncle Gord or his friends from Miami.

Past the docks, the sun had almost dropped to the place where ocean met sky.
It was orange, a postcard kind of sunset. In less than half an hour, most of the light would be gone.

I already knew where I would wait and watch. I carried a gym bag in one hand. I had a fishing pole in my other hand. I had a ballcap pulled low over my eyes. I was going to sit at the end of the dock, where I could keep an eye on the
GypSea.

It was the fourth boat down, bobbing in the wake of passing boats.

I walked onto the dock. The
GypSea
was empty as I passed it. Fifty yards down, I reached the end of the dock. I sat and dropped a fishing line into the water. I held the fishing pole as if I was waiting for a fish to take the bait. With a slight turn of my head, I kept an eye on the
GypSea
. Most of my face was hidden by my ballcap.

Ten minutes later, Judd Warner walked onto the dock.

I ducked my head down even more. I didn't think he would give me a second look, not if he was worried about getting onto Uncle Gord's boat.

He hopped onto the
GypSea
as if he owned it. A second later, he had moved into the front of the boat. It was a big boat. There were a lot of places he could hide. A few seconds later, he was out of sight.

My heart began to race. I had guessed right!

I waited a few more minutes. Once Judd was hidden, he wouldn't be able to see me get on the boat. As I waited, I went over my plan again. At this point, I could change my mind. I could wait for Uncle Gord and his friends to get to the boat. I could tell them about Judd. They could find him.

But then they would never know what he really meant to do. No, I told myself, the best way was to wait to see what Judd wanted. I would stick to my plan.

I stood and picked up the gym bag. I walked down to the
GypSea
. Front to back, it was sixty feet long. More than twenty good-sized steps. It had a couple of cabins beneath the top deck. Judd was hiding in there somewhere.

I stepped onto the boat as lightly as I could. I didn't want him to hear me or feel the boat rock.

The sun had dropped out of sight, and the last rays of light made long shadows on the deck. I knew of a place where no one would see me when it was light out. It would be that much safer at night. I tiptoed to my hiding spot.

It was a wide upright locker where we stored wet suits that we rented to divers. I pulled it open, moved inside and pushed myself among the wet suits. They smelled of salt water.

There was just enough room inside for me to set my gym bag at my feet. I reached out for the door and closed it almost all the way, leaving a few inches to give me a crack to see out.

Then I reached down to my gym bag again. I pulled out a speargun.

After all, Judd had a pistol. I needed to be armed too.

At nine o'clock, it was completely dark. I heard voices as Uncle Gord and his friends stepped onto the boat. I heard clanking as they set down their scuba tanks and the rest of their gear.

I didn't need to see them to know what they looked like. I had seen them a couple of other times. All three looked like football players. They had short hair and square faces. I remembered seeing them
and thinking lawyers like that would be good for scaring judges.

I wasn't worried that they might open the locker I was hiding in. They wouldn't need any of the rental wet suits. All of them had their own wet suits. People who dive a lot don't like using rental wet suits. Why? It sounds gross, but there are no toilets underwater. Sometimes divers have to go so bad, they go in their wet suits and let the water wash it away.

The four of them moved around the boat. They didn't talk much. There were other sounds: the slapping of water against the boat; laughter from parties on other boats. But on Uncle Gord's boat, all I could hear was my own breathing.

Then I heard Uncle Gord's footsteps as he walked to the controls. He started the engine blowers. Boat engines are beneath the deck. Air doesn't move much under there. If there are any gasoline fumes around the engines, the fumes could explode when the engines start.
A blower fans the old air out to make it safe.

A few minutes later, Uncle Gord started both engines. They roared as he gave them gas. Once they were warm, he let them drop to a steady chug. He yelled out instructions to the three guys to untie the ropes that held the boat to the dock.

Then he backed the boat from the dock. He turned it and slowly pulled out of the marina. The boat rocked a little in the smooth water.

It took a few minutes to get to open water. Finally, he was able to give the engines some gas and take the boat to full speed. It bounced harder against the waves. The wet suits slapped me as the boat moved up and down.

Uncle Gord ran the engines hard for another twenty minutes. Then he shut them down, and the boat slowed to a stop.

I heard clanking. Uncle Gord had hit the switch to drop the anchor. There was
a small motor that unwound the anchor chain. The motor whined, and the chain clanked as the anchor fell through the water. I counted the seconds. When the clanking stopped, I guessed we were in about eighty feet of water.

Through the crack of the open door, I saw the beams of flashlights as they got their equipment ready. I wondered why Uncle Gord didn't turn on any lights to help them.

Then I noticed I didn't see any of the small running lights that were supposed to let other boaters know where we were. In a way, it was unsafe. But in another way, no problem. As long as they were alert to the lights of other craft on the water, they could stay invisible and avoid a collision.

At first, though, even this small risk seemed strange. Uncle Gord always does things the safe way.

Then I figured it out. They were here to look for three hundred million
dollars in pirates' gold. They had spent every weekend searching in secret. They didn't
want
anyone to know where they were. So why should this weekend be any different?

But it was.

Two people were on board the boat who didn't belong there.

I nearly fell asleep. I was standing in the locker, but the wet suits pressing against me kept me from falling. Nothing had happened for at least an hour.

It was weird. None of them had even gone into the water yet. The boat just sat in darkness. The four of them just sat without talking. If this was a search for treasure, why weren't they underwater?

Were the four of them waiting? If so, for what?

Judd Warner had been just as quiet as the rest of us. Wherever he was hidden, he was deciding to wait too.

I nodded off. My face hit a wet suit. It woke me.

I heard the faint sound of another engine.

A boat?

A few minutes later, I decided it was an airplane.

The sound grew louder.

I decided to risk poking my head out of the locker.

Suddenly, the boat's lights flashed on.

Then off.

Then on.

Then off. This time, the lights stayed off.

The airplane passed over us low and loud. It kept going.

I didn't get it. What had just happened?

Whatever it was, it meant action. When I heard scrapes of movement on the deck, I pulled my head back into the locker. Good thing. The three lawyers from Miami were
moving around to get geared up. One of them passed so close to the locker I heard his breathing through the crack in the open door.

Then they were gone again. I heard splashing. One splash. Two splashes. Three. They had all just entered the water.

I pushed open the locker door just enough to see the dark shadow of Uncle Gord standing at the edge of the boat. Far away were the faint lights of the shoreline.

What was happening?

I opened the door a little further. Uncle Gord had his back to me and was looking out over the water. I tried to see past him to figure out what he was waiting for.

I saw another dark shadow move quietly behind Uncle Gord.

Judd Warner! With his pistol pointed at Uncle Gord.

I slowly pushed open the locker door.

It was all in front of me. The deck of the boat. Judd Warner standing behind Uncle Gord. Uncle Gord looking into the water. And the black, black ocean beyond.

“Hands behind your back,” Judd said in a low voice.

Uncle Gord started to move.

Judd stepped forward and pressed his pistol against Uncle Gord's back.

“Hands behind your back or I pull the trigger.”

Slowly, Uncle Gord put his hands behind him.

Slowly, I stepped out of the locker. With the loaded speargun in my hand.

“Good,” Judd Warner said to Uncle Gord. “It's a lot easier taking you before those three gorillas get back on the boat.”

I heard a click. Judd Warner had just handcuffed Uncle Gord's wrists together.

I raised my speargun. The safety was still on, but Judd didn't have to know that. I was afraid I might trigger the spear by accident.

“Drop your gun,” I said in a shaky voice. “I've got a speargun, and I'll shoot if I have to.”

“You don't know what you're doing, Ian,” Judd said. “You're making a mistake.”

“I'm going to count to three. Then I shoot. One...two...”

Judd bent over and set the gun on the deck.

“Now unlock the handcuffs,” I said.

“If you'll listen to me,” Judd said. “You would know that—”

“One...two...”

Judd reached into his pocket. I watched carefully to make sure he wasn't going for
a knife. A few seconds later, he unlocked Uncle Gord.

Uncle Gord turned around.

“Ian?”

“I followed him,” I explained. “I didn't want to tell you until I knew what was happening.”

“I owe you one,” Uncle Gord said. “Keep him covered while I get the gun.”

I pointed the speargun at Judd's chest. Judd kept still. I couldn't see his face in the dark. Just the outline of his body.

When Uncle Gord had the pistol in his hand, he handcuffed Judd Warner and put the key in his pocket.

“We can relax now, Ian,” Uncle Gord said, stepping away from Judd. “This guy won't be able to do anything to us.”

“What is all of this about?” I asked. “It doesn't look like a treasure hunt.”

“You're smart, Ian,” Uncle Gord said. “That's what I've always liked about you.”

Uncle Gord was backing away from Judd as he spoke. He kept the pistol pointed at Judd as he moved beside me.

“You want to know what this is about?” Uncle Gord said.

“Yeah,” I said. “All of this is weird. And what is Judd doing?”

“I'll tell you in a second,” Uncle Gord said. He turned to me and in a single movement pressed the pistol against my head. “First, I want you to throw the speargun overboard.”

“Huh?”

“I'm not joking. Throw your speargun into the water behind you. Or I'll put a neat little hole into your head.”

I was frozen with disbelief.

I heard the pistol click as Uncle Gord brought the hammer back.

I threw the speargun behind me. It splashed into the darkness a second later.

“See,” Uncle Gord said. “You are smart. Now stand beside Judd where I can watch both of you.”

This wasn't real, I told myself. It felt like I was walking through waist-deep glue as I moved to stand beside Judd.

“Look behind you,” Uncle Gord said. “That's your answer.”

At first, I saw nothing but black. It hurt my eyes, I was looking so hard. Finally, I thought I saw something. For a moment, I wondered if it was my imagination. It seemed like a speck of light on the water.

A few seconds later, I knew my eyes were not playing tricks on me. The speck of light glowed brighter and brighter. It was heading right toward the boat.

Then, in a flash, I put it all together. The boat sitting in the dark for an hour. Waiting for an airplane to pass overhead. Lights flashing to let the airplane know the boat was there. Something in the water, marked by a glowing light.

I didn't want to believe it, but it couldn't be anything else. It was a safe guess that Uncle Gord wasn't searching for treasure on his Friday and Saturday nights.