The Emerald Quest (2 page)

CHAPTER TWO

NOT JUST ANY OLD SPYGLASS

“What is it?” Noah asked.

“Hold on.” Riley tipped her head in the direction of the
Explorer
. “Time to get on board, then I’ll tell you all about it.”

Frank and Riley Winter were treasure hunters. They searched for items lost at sea. Sometimes, insurance companies hired the Winters to locate lost valuables, other times a collector would pay them to find some lost artifact. Treasure hunting involved not only diving shipwrecks, but also researching clues in old documents like ship logs, which detail the cargo and passengers aboard a ship, and journals from surviving passengers or crew members.

Noah and his parents paddled slowly over to the
Explorer
. By the time they got to the boat, Noah was breathing heavily.

“Good workout, right?” Frank said as he climbed the ladder into the boat and took off his diving tanks. Noah nodded as his dad helped him out of the water.

“Hey boss, how did it go?” said a tall, lanky young man with dark hair and even darker eyes. Anthony Napolitano was the Winters’ assistant. He was twenty-three years old and just out of college. He had helped Frank and Riley on expeditions since he was eighteen, working with them when he wasn’t in school. Now that he’d graduated, he manned the boat and assisted with research. He also lived with the Winters and was like a big brother to Noah.

“Found the other piece,” Riley answered as she got into the boat.

“Awesome!” Anthony said.

“Can I look at it?” Noah asked as he peeled off his mask.

“Be careful.” Riley handed her prize to him. “Don’t drop it.”

Noah took the object from her. It was part of an old, brass spyglass, with two nested tubes, just like pirates used to use. Pieces of leather still covered part of the brass.  He drew the spyglass out to its full length, about twelve inches.

“It’s missing some tubing,” Riley said, pointing at the tubes. “We found some of the other pieces a few days ago. A typical spyglass would have three or four tapering tubes that slide into each other, so it could be as long as twenty-five or thirty inches.”

“It’s sorta like the one I have at home.” Noah put one end of the spyglass up to his eye and squinted into it, but all he saw was blue sky.

“Only yours is new.” Riley held out a hand and Noah gave the spyglass back to her.

“If we can find the rest of the pieces, it should point us to the De La Rosa emerald,” Frank said..

“How?” Noah asked.

“Get your gear off and I’ll tell you,” Frank smiled.

Riley handed the spyglass remnant to Frank. He carefully placed it in a felt-lined box where another brass piece lay.

Anthony helped Noah take off his regulator and oxygen tanks. “And what about you? Did you find anything?”

“Just part of an old flour sifter,” Noah said as he slipped out of his diving suit. “But I dropped it when a shark came out of the hole in the ship.”

Frank raised an eyebrow at his son. “What happened?”

“It’s nothing,” Noah said, then explained about the shark.

“You reacted well,” Riley said. “Don’t ever take a chance with a shark, even a smaller reef shark.”

“Can’t dive without running into a shark now and then.” Anthony tousled Noah’s bleach-blond hair.

“That’s right,” Frank said. “But you still need to be careful.”

Noah nodded as he helped stow away his gear. Then he took a towel and dried himself off. As he did, he looked inside the box at the pieces of the spyglass his mom had found. It was somewhat worn, but in surprisingly good shape.

“How is this going to help us find the treasure?” Noah asked, once Frank and Riley had stripped off their gear. Frank and Anthony put the equipment away as Noah and his mom talked.

“The De La Rosa Emerald,” Riley said with a smile. She wasn’t much taller than Noah, who was almost five and a half feet tall. But Riley was lean and muscular from many years of swimming and diving. She toweled off her shoulder-length brown hair as she talked. “You know a little about the gem, right?”

Noah nodded.

“I know that Juan Carlo De La Rosa has hired us to find the De La Rosa Emerald that belonged to his ancestor, Roberto De La Rosa,” Noah recited. “It’s from Central America; it’s shaped like a heart and supposed to be twice as big as a quarter.”

“But gemstones are weighed in carats, which measures how big it is, so a gem that size would be…” Riley paused.

Quizzing Noah about the treasures was a game Frank and Riley liked to play.

“Somewhere around 120 carats,” Noah completed Riley’s statement. “And it would be worth at least a few million dollars today.”

“And what happened to the jewel?” Riley kept quizzing him. “Do you remember?”

“In 1824, Roberto De La Rosa was going to return to Spain from the United States,” Noah continued reciting the facts he’d memorized. “But, he worried that pirates would steal the jewel so before he went home to Spain, he hid it somewhere in the Florida Keys. He created a secret map so he could find the emerald when he came back. Only he never came back. The secret map was passed down through the De La Rosa family for a long time to, uh…”

“Alfonso De La Rosa,” Frank said as he came back from the bridge. He sprawled on a cushioned bench. “In 1922, Alfonso sailed from Spain on the
San Isabel
to the United States, carrying the secret map with him, so he could find the hidden gem. But when the
San Isabel
sank, so did the spyglass.”

“What happened to Alfonso De La Rosa?” Noah asked.

“He survived,” Frank said. “But over time, the emerald was forgotten.”

 “Why?”

“Now that’s a tale in itself,” Riley said. As she talked, she frisked her hands through her hair to dry it. “Alfonso was obsessed with finding the emerald, so much so that he frequently neglected his family, including his son, Ernesto – ”

“Who is Juan Carlo’s grandfather,” Anthony said as he returned from the cabin below.

“Right,” Riley said. “So Alfonso journeyed to the United States to search for the map spyglass that would then lead him to the emerald.”

“But didn’t they know that the ship sunk, and the spyglass with it?” Noah asked.

“Yes, but that’s only part of the story. As your dad said, Alfonso survived the sinking, but he still was determined to find the spyglass. He searched the wreck site repeatedly. Keep in mind that, back in the 1920’s and 30’s, diving was without all the equipment we have now. It was very dangerous, and, sure enough, Alfonso died on one of those dives. Ernesto, his son, was so bitter about Alfonso’s fatal fascination with the emerald that he vowed never to talk about it again,” Riley continued. “And he kept that vow until he was an old man. Then, he began talking about the spyglass and the secret of the hidden emerald. He only told Juan Carlo about the spyglass a month ago.”

“And Juan Carlo hired you to find it,” Noah said.

“That’s right. And you can help me with some research tomorrow, as part of your schoolwork,” Riley said. Noah’s mom homeschooled him, and whenever possible, she combined their current expedition work into Noah’s studies.

Noah twisted his lip in thought. “So no one’s found the emerald before because no one knew about it. Wow.”

“Juan Carlo thinks the emerald is hidden somewhere on Key Largo,” Anthony interjected.

“Yes,” Frank answered. “That’s what his grandfather Ernesto told him, but it’s just a family rumor. And even if the rumor is correct, landmarks may change, so it could be impossible to locate with a map that’s so old.”

Noah sat down next to Frank and pointed to the spyglass pieces in the box. There was writing scrawled on the side of one of the tubes.

“What’s this writing?” he asked.

“That’s what told us we have the De La Rosa spyglass and not just any old spyglass,” Riley said. “The maker of this special spyglass put his own name where a manufacturer’s name usually would be.”

“I don’t understand how a spyglass will help us find the De La Rosa treasure,” Noah said. “It’s not a map.”

“Ah, but it is! This spyglass was specially made by a man who worked for Roberto De La Rosa,” Frank explained. “That’s the maker’s name on that piece,” he said, pointing to the writing. “Roberto had the fellow design a spyglass with special end-pieces made of etched glass. Those pieces were attached to the end of the spyglass. You rotate the pieces a certain way, and the tubing extends to a specific length. If you do it exactly right and then shine a light through the spyglass, a map is projected out onto a flat surface, like a piece of paper or a wall.”

“So what’s missing? Do you need the other pieces of tubing, and then you’ll be able to see the map?” Noah asked.

“No, we have all the tubing pieces,” Frank said. “What we’re still missing are the glass end-pieces.”

“They’ve got to be down there somewhere,” Riley stared out into the water. “But that’s only part of the hunt. Even if we can get the spyglass to project a map, we’ll still have to decipher that map in order to find the emerald.”

“You’ll figure it out,” Anthony grinned.

“Let’s get back to shore,” Frank said. “I want to examine the spyglass more closely.”

“And,” Riley turned back to them. “I think it’s time to celebrate!”

Noah beamed.

“Celebrate what?” Frank asked, a twinkle in his eyes.

“Dad,” Noah said, stretching out the word. “My birthday, remember?”

Frank frowned. “I wished you happy birthday this morning. Isn’t that enough?”

Anthony laughed and poked Noah. “He’s only kidding. Your mom’s got cake and ice cream at home.”

“What are we waiting for?” Noah said, pushing Anthony.

“Okay, okay.” Anthony went aft and soon Noah heard the low groan of the
Explorer
’s engine. He sat back in a chair and looked around. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and the water shimmered like a yellow kaleidoscope, which reminded Noah of the spyglass. It was a perfect day to be out on the waters off Key West. Noah closed his eyes, letting the late afternoon sun warm him. He soon drifted off to sleep.

***

“Time to get up.” His mom’s voice called to him.

Noah opened his eyes and squinted. The
Explorer
was docked at the Sunset Marina and Frank and Anthony were securing her to the berth. Noah helped stow the diving gear inside the cabin. Then he followed the others up the pier to a green SUV parked in a lot nearby. After loading up some backpacks and a cooler, Frank drove them home.

The island of Key West is only two miles wide and four miles long. The Winters lived in Midtown, in a large house just a couple of blocks from the beach. The house was made of concrete cinder blocks and had numerous windows with wood blinds that let in the ocean breezes. Palm trees towered over the house, pool, and gardens where Riley liked to work.

“Take a quick shower and change for dinner,” Riley instructed Noah as they entered the house from the garage.

Noah ran upstairs to the bathroom, stripped, and showered quickly. He could hardly wait for his birthday celebration. After he finished, he darted into his bedroom.