Hell Ship (13 page)

“Hancock talked about a secret treasure that survived the destruc
tion of the order. Could that be that true?”

Professor
shrugged. “Anything could be true. The Templars were very wealthy before their dissolution, and not all of that wealth has been accounted for. There is a rather persistent story about a hay wagon that left the Templars’ Paris headquarters shortly before their leaders were arrested, so it is possible that that some of that wealth might have been spirited away. But I’m skeptical about a secret society of underground Templars lurking in the shadows for six hundred years.”

“That chapel looked awfully authentic,” said
Alex.

“Don’t get me wrong.
I think it’s entirely possible that this guy Hancock believes he is a real Templar. Everything he says might be true, up to a point. Trevor Hancock might really have a medallion screwed to his skull. Maybe this thing has been in their family for several generations. Secret societies were all the rage in the eighteenth and nineteenth century, especially among nobility. They were easy pickings for con artists.”

“But no treasure?”

“If you knew how to find a treasure like that, would you just sit on the information? Keep it a secret as part of some big mythical plan?” Professor shook his head. “I wouldn’t. And I don’t think the old Templars would have either. They would have either invested it in a comeback, or more likely spent it all just trying to stay one step ahead of their enemies.”

Dane wasn’t ready to give up until he’d turned over every rock.
“What if it’s more than just treasure? What if we are talking about the Holy Grail or the Ark? Or some source of power that can change the world?”

“Or destroy it,” added
Alex.

“Hey, I’m just the trivia expert.
Like I said, I don’t know what’s true. But if I had to bet money on it, I’d say that if there was a Templar treasure, it’s long gone.”

They sat in silence for several minutes, drinking their Scurvy and munching on chips sprinkled with salt and malt vinegar.
Finally Alex spoke up. “Someone in Allied Command was a Templar. Had to be. That’s the only explanation. They knew what Hancock was carrying and couldn’t risk the Japanese finding it. Don’t you think that’s significant?”

Dane looked at
Professor. “She makes a good point.”

He didn’t add that there was also the matter of their bogus search for the
Awa Maru
, personally ordered by the current Secretary of the Navy. It wasn’t hard to dismiss Edward Hancock and his cronies as a group of self-deluded dilettantes, playacting at being Templars, but that didn’t explain why the United States Navy had been so intent on making Trevor Hancock disappear during World War II, or why they wanted him found now.

“So what’s our next move?”

There was only one answer. “We head back to that shipwreck. This won’t be over until we find the mysterious missing Lord Hancock.”

Nagata Maru
wreck site

It didn’t take
long at all for Bones to determine that allowing Gabby to join the crew had been the right decision, and not just because she was a lot more fun to hang out with than Willis. Her skill with the ROV meant that the two men would be able to focus their attention on watching both the radar screen and the horizon for the approach of hostiles, although, after two days on the site, without so much as a blip, he was beginning to wonder if he had misjudged the opposition.

He had expected them to show up in greater force—more shooters and bigger guns—and had planned accordingly by procuring a small arsenal, enough to fend off anything short of a guided missile frigate.
Now, he was wondering if they had decided instead to let the crew of the
Jacinta
do the heavy lifting, hit them on the way back when they had the prize in hand.

They’ll be waiting a while
, he thought irritably. The search of the wreck had been equally uneventful.

He stretched, working the stiffness of inactivity from his muscles and joints, and swiveled his chair to look over Gabby’s shoulder.
Her pixie face was lit up by the glow from the small color monitor screen, her eyes moving back and forth as she used a joystick controller to manipulate the ROV’s utility arm to gently pick through the nest of crumbling bones in what had once been the ballroom of a small ocean liner.

They had cleared hundreds of skeletons, retrieving dog tags as they checked each skull for the metal plate Scalpel had described.
So far nothing, and with each set of remains they cleared, the likelihood of finding anything seemed to diminish.

“You know,” Gabby said, without looking away from her task.
“He might not have been in the ballroom. There could be other compartments. Or he might have jumped overboard before she went down.”

“
I thought all the pessimism left with Maddock. Are you saying we’re out of luck?”

“Not necessarily.
We can search the area around the wreck with the metal detector.”

He frowned.
Two days of searching this haystack, and now he was being told that the needle might be in another field. “How long will that take?”

“As long as it takes.”

“You wouldn’t just be trying to run up the meter?”

She laughed and brought her gaze up to meet his.
“Not on your life. The sooner we find this guy that you’re looking for, the sooner I get that celebration you promised.”

Bones had to admit that he was in need of a good celebration, but before he could tell her that, a familiar electronic chirp cut him off.

Gabby’s brow wrinkled. “You’ve got cell phone service out here?”

“It’s an Iridium satellite phone.
It works everywhere.” He didn’t add that the service was almost prohibitively expensive, and he only had it because it had been provided for him, but simply hit a button to receive the call. “Bones, here.”

There was an unusually long delay.
“
It’s Maddock. Sitrep
?”

“Not much
sit
to
rep
. We’ve almost cleared the wreck. After that, we’ll start sweeping the surrounding area. Got to say though, it’s not looking good.”

There was a long silence, far too long for simple satellite lag, and Bones thought the call might have dropped, but finally
Maddock spoke again. “
Keep at it. We’ve got to find him. Anything else worth mentioning? Any unwanted visitors?
”

“
Nope. Of course, they might be watching and waiting to see what we turn up.”

“
Could be. Watch your six. We’re on our way back there. Should be on the ground in Manila by tomorrow afternoon
.”

“Want us to come collect you?”

“
Negative. I’ll charter another boat and meet you on site. I’ll call again with ETA.”

“Roger.”

“
Also, try and stay out of trouble until I get there, Bones. Maddock, out
.”

Bones clicked off and returned the phone to his pocket.

“Who was that?” asked Gabby.

“My boss.”

She stuck out her lower lip in a fake pout. “I thought you were the boss.”

Bones grinned.
“Well, we’re more like partners really. Business partners, that is. Maddock’s a great guy…well, actually he’s kind of a stick-in-the-mud. Not much of a sense of humor. You’ll see when you meet him.”

“When will that be?”

“Day after tomorrow, maybe. He’s coming here.”

“No fair,” she said, pouting again.
“I don’t want to work for anyone but you.”

“Well then, what do you say we find what we’re looking for before he gets here?”

Manila, Philippines

Scalpel gripped the
padded armrests of the wheelchair and pushed off, standing erect on his own for the first time in three days. Although the doctor has assured him that two days in hyperbaric oxygen chamber had purged every trace of nitrogen from his tissues, he could still feel it. His joints felt as if they were about to burst.

“That’s more like it,” cheered the man standing behind the wheelchair
. “When the horse throws you, you’ve got to get back on.”

Scalpel grimaced.
His first impulse was to tell the man what he could do with his horse, but it didn’t pay to aggravate the boss, especially not when the boss was someone like John Lee Ray.

Ray was a handsome man, with the physique of an athlete and the face of a movie star.
The first attribute was the product of an almost religious regimen of physical conditioning, the second was the result of a lot of cosmetic surgery. He was in his early-fifties, but was often told that he looked like he was in his late twenties, which pleased him tremendously. Ray cared a great deal about such things; he had not been born into wealth and power, but he was ambitious, and knew that appearances mattered a great deal to the wealthy and powerful men whom he served.

John Lee Ray was in the security business, providing personal protection, investigative services and “
threat management,” which was his euphemism for pre-emptive assassinations, only to the wealthiest of the wealthy—men who could afford to hire their own army, which was exactly what Ray’s organization was. A former US Army Special Forces officer, Ray had the training, experience, and most importantly, the international contacts to be very good at his chosen profession. He had started out as a single operator, but had quickly gathered a cadre of professionals with a similar background in black ops, to form a multi-million dollar agency. Scalpel, who had been a member of Ray’s SF team—it had been Ray that had given him his operational nickname—had been one of the first to sign up.

“
Steady now.” Ray’s voice was accented by a faint South Carolina drawl, which only seemed to add to his charisma. “I can wheel you closer.”

“No,” Scalpel gritted his teeth.
“I’ve got this.”

Ray n
odded and stepped aside to let a hospital orderly take the wheelchair back into the main lobby. He said nothing more until they were both in the back seat of a heavily armored SUV, one of a fleet of such vehicles that Ray had at his disposal.

When they were on the move, Ray turned to him.
“If you’re not ready for duty, I need to know.”

“I can handle it,” said Scalpel, mustering as much confidence as he could.
“I need to be in on this, John Lee.”

“You need?
Oh, yes. Payback.”

“He left me to die down there.
The doctors say this pain might never go away.”

Ray shook his head.
“I need you to be focused. The mission comes first.”

Scalpel nodded.
“Always.”

“This is important to me.”
Ray gripped his subordinate’s hand.

“I know,” Scalpel assured him.
And he did know. As part of Ray’s inner circle, he was intimately familiar with the man’s obsession with the Templars. “And making sure that Dane Maddock dies screaming is important to me. So let’s kill two birds with one stone, all right?”

“
‘Kill two birds.’ That’s what I like about you. Always looking for ways to maximize our efficiency.” A smile creased Ray’s handsome face, but then he was all business again. “Listen, I didn’t come halfway around the world just to wish you a speedy recovery. I’m personally overseeing this operation now. I can’t afford any more mistakes.”

Scalpel bit back the reply that was already on his tongue.
Ray didn’t abide excuses, and the simple truth of the matter was that Scalpel had made mistakes, not the least of which was underestimating Dane Maddock. He chose a different tack. “All I’m asking is for a chance to make this right.”

“You’ll get it,”
answered Ray in an easy voice. “But the situation has remained fluid during your convalescence; a lot has happened. Maddock split his team. His crew is back on the site, but he lit out for England to pay a visit to the current Lord Hancock.”

“
You said that was a dead end.”

“And so it is, for us at least.
Maddock may not have learned anything that we don’t already know, but he’s clearly up to speed now because he’s on his way back. And he’s got company; that loose end you failed to tie off in DC.”

Scalpel did his best to ignore the rebuke.
“She’s with Maddock?”

“She is.
I’ll admit, when this began I did not anticipate she would be anything more than an annoyance. Now, I’m less certain as to her role in this entire affair.”

“Three birds, then.”

“Quite. But I have changed our tactics. Subtlety instead of blunt force. I have been monitoring Maddock’s team. They haven’t found the Hancock medallion yet, and frankly I’m not certain that they will.”