Unearthly Power (2 page)

“Here, let me help you with that,” Sean said with a charming smile as he assisted the only female member of their party with her gear.

When Alex came back on board, the other two passengers looked expectantly at him to help with their baggage. Catching himself before he could utter what would have been his standard acrimonious reply, he held his tongue, picked up what appeared to be the two lightest sacks, turned and said, “Follow me,” with a self-satisfying grin on his face, allowing them to carry the rest.

Work was scarce, bordering on non-existent, so they had to do what they could to keep from chasing off any repeat customers. Although it wasn’t likely these particular people would charter their services in the future, negative comments passed by word of mouth spread like cancer.   

Once their charter passengers were helped to their vehicle and the standard departing salutations were exchanged, Sean and Alex returned to the boat.

“That went well. We cleared nearly fourteen-hundred on that trip,” Sean said as he took his seat in the wheelhouse.

“Yeah, if we had one like that every day it’d be great.
The trouble is that it is the only one for the week,” he muttered in reply.

“You worry too much,” Sean said with his typical smile.

“Maybe you don’t worry enough.”

“Something will come up. We’ve charted enough wrecks and possible new dive sites th
at might just bring in that payday we need soon. One day we won’t have to worry about charters.”

“I hope you’re right. I didn’t care much for the Navy, but I ate a lot better with them than I do now,” Alex said.

Sean just smiled in return and Alex could do nothing but shrug his shoulders in acceptance. They’d become fast friends while in the Navy. They served together on the same ship for three years before separating briefly prior to being discharged. Sean had the ability to talk him into just about anything. Alex didn’t know what it was about Sean that gave him that kind of control over him. He had few friends in his life and was normally reserved in nature. Sean was as unpredictable as the weather and just as unstable. He always ‘landed on his feet’ no matter what he got them into and maybe that was enough for him to inspire trust. Alex thought it was more than that, but whatever it was, it was enough to find them both in their current situation.

“Your smile won’t pay the bills, my friend. It might work on me, for now, but something had better turn up soon,” Alex said
before walking out of the cabin to stow the rest of their gear. He knew better than to debate anything with his partner. Sean could talk a woman out of her virtue and have her apologize after the fact. If he was ever to get the last word in, he had to do so while walking away.

Sean sat in contemplation. He knew the seriousness of their circumstances.
Though he was concerned, his worry was kept in check by his natural tendency to not be too anxious over things he could not control. He could always fall back on his family as a last resort, but that was neither his way, nor his desire.

The third member of their little alliance was his younger sister Diedra. She was four years younger than Sean at twenty-seven. Like her brother, she was endowed with both good looks and a stunning figure. To say she ‘turned heads’ was an understatement. In addition to her physical gifts, she had an intellect to match. Apart from her aptitude for penny-pinching, she contributed to the exploratory nature of their business. She was fresh from graduate school where she’d majored in cultural history at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research was directed toward the undiscovered. It didn’t matter to her if it led to gold or relics; she was motivated by the prospect of discovery. They made the perfect team. But unless they found success, and soon, it would be a short-lived collaboration.

Diedra—Dee to her friends and family—stopped by their apartment later that evening.

“Hey Dee. What’s new?” Sean said when she walked in.

“How
did it go today?” she asked.

“Great. We found a few pieces of pottery; nothing of major value
, so I let them keep what they found. We have a few of the pieces I picked up for you to look at, and there is a good chance their check will clear,” Sean told her.

“Good. I’ll need to transfe
r some money out first thing in the morning.”

“How much is some?” Alex asked
, inserting himself into the conversation.

“Twelve-hundred.”

“Twelve-hundred? We’ll be lucky if that much is left after we fill up the tanks!” Alex complained.

“Yeah, well, I just got back from Miami and Mr. Zybinski—at the bank—said they are close to liquidating our assets if we don’t give them reason not to. Twelve-hundred will do little more than buy us a few days. If we were more accessible to them they would have probably already closed us down.”

“Why didn’t you turn on your charm, show him a little leg?” Sean said jokingly.

After giving him her best disapproving look she said, “First of all, I don’t think I’m his type. Second of all, this is serious, Sean. Unless we come up with something more substantial soon, we’ll go under.”

Her brother looked at her with an unreadable expression before she continued.

“I could always take some money out of my trust fund,” she offered.

“No,” he said immediately. “If mom and dad knew you did that, I’d never hear the end of it.”

“Then what?” she asked.

“I don’t know yet. Send in the money, buy us what time you can, and we’ll go from there.”

Alex and Dee both deferred to Sean when it came to making command decisions. In times past, things had always worked out. That was one of the reasons they continued to follow Sean’s lead. In this instance, the outcome was less auspicious. They kept their thoughts to themselves as Sean appeared to be lost in
his own musings. Dee walked into the kitchen to get something to drink while Alex started to consider a new line of work. He knew it was nothing more than a mental exercise. He would stay as long as Sean did. If they had nothing more than a row boat with one oar, he’d trust his best friend to come up with something.

The call came while they were doing minor repair and restoration work on the Cantankerous II. Alex complained about the much needed overhaul the engines required, while replacing necessary fluids in the hope of buying time. Sean often joked that somehow Alex and the boat were separated at birth, given their similar dispositions. Sean nodded his head in agreement as he always did when Alex got excited about one thing or another and then went into the cabin to answer the phone.

“Atlantic Treasures Unlimited,” he remembered to answer at the last
moment.

After a brie
f pause, and the telltale indication that the call had been transferred to another extension, a cultured voice asked, “Am I speaking to Sean Rylan?”

“You are,” Sean said, wondering what the call was about.

“Did you file a report on a possible newly discovered wreck three hundred and thirty nautical miles northeast of Nassau, Bahamas, five months ago?”

“That’s me,” he said in a friendly voice.

“Do you have any further information beyond what you filed?”

“Not much more than the depth and the fact that the underwater currents in the area were much too strong to execute an effective reconnaissance.”

The silence on the other end of the line continued for a brief moment before the older gentleman spoke again. “My name is Professor James, Kirby James. I’m the chair of the archaeology department at Bryn Mawr College. I’m calling on behalf of an interested party wishing to further investigate your discovery.”

“Mr. James, we found a ship down there, but
as I said, the conditions in the water are a bit hazardous for an effective dive,” Sean said, regretting the position of having to turn down work; even work that took two full days just to travel on-site.

Without further hesitation professor James asked, “How big is your boat?”

“Eighty-one by twenty-two,” he provided in automatic reflex.

“Would you have room for a nine foot submersible ROV, and the ability to launch such a craft?”

“What’s the weight?”

“Six-thousand pounds.”

Sean had to think about that for a moment.
If we removed the aluminum awning, cut out a section of the freeboard and reattached it with hinges, and rearranged a few things, it would work.
“Yeah, we could make it work. Our winch should handle that with no problem.”

“Are you interested?” the professor asked as if that was all that was left to discuss.

Since money had yet to be brought into the conversation, Sean instinctively thought it was not much of an issue to the caller and whoever he was representing. Sensing an opportunity, and plenty of work that went along with it, he decided to test his feelings. As if considering it for the first time, he rattled off a mental list of things necessary for the expedition.

“Let’s see, we’d need to do some fabrication work on the boat, make a stopover at Nassau for resupply, and spend no less than four days on site, depending on the amount of success and the degree of investigation you want done, for a minimum of nine days in total, including our stopover. We’re looking at a down payment of ten-thousand with an additional twenty-five hundred a day,” he finished while holding his breath in the process.

“If you’ll give me an account number, and the name of your financial institution, I’ll send a wire for the down payment right away,” Professor James said without hesitation.

Sean proceeded to give him the information over the phone. Before he completed the call he said, “When do you want to go and how many will be in your party?”

“In two weeks, if that is okay with you. July 6
th
. There will be five of us.”

“Okay Mr. James. As soon as I receive the deposit I’ll start the work on the boat and we’ll be ready to go.”

“Thank you very much Mr. Rylan,” he said before disconnecting the line.

Sean was less than efficient when it came to booking a job. Diedra normally handled the business side of things but she wasn’t here. He had no idea how they were supposed to pick up the submersible, what time of day they were leaving, if any of their group was dive qualified and would be joining him on the descent, and what they expected to find on an undocumented find that was worth the kind of money they were throwing around with so little information. These thoughts, among others, went through his mind while he left Alex behind to return to their apartment. He hadn’t mentioned anything to him about the conversation and was not planning to until he had more to go on than a semi-anonymous phone call.

If he returned empty handed, Alex was sure to throw a fit about being left alone to do all the work. The least he could do was put some lunch together to take back as a damper for that episode. Before he went to see what they had in the refrigerator that was still edible, he powered up and logged onto his computer. As he waited, his thoughts went back to the call and he was beginning to think he was wasting his time—it sounded too good to be true. When the screen indicated that it had finished going through its start-up, Sean clicked on the link to his bank and typed in his password. He then looked at the numbers in his checking account: ten-thousand, two-hundred and fifty-nine dollars; exactly ten thousand more than he had earlier that day. Now other things started to go through his mind:
Who was this guy and what was this about? Did he understand that even with the use of a submersible they may not be able to effectively dive the site?

Sean shrugged his shoulders and decided that if they had that kind of money to spend it probably meant a lot less to them than it did to him at the moment. He finished his drink and turned off the computer. He returned to the Cantankerous II ready to begin the necessary transformation, forgetting about the lunch he originally had in mind for his partner.

“There’s no way we can dive that wreck!” Alex said. “The currents are too strong.”

“I know,” Sean said agreeably.

“Then why in the hell are we doing all this?” he asked while pointing to the mess on the deck.

“Because we took a job and we are getting paid for it.”

“It’s still a waste of time,” Alex grumbled a little less enthusiastically before kicking
an empty water bottle across the deck.

“Maybe so, but it is our time and their money. We go, do our best,
and then get paid. It’s as simple as that. Besides,” he said waiting until he had his full attention, “now you get to overhaul the engines.”

Alex smiled for the first time since the conversation began. The boat was his baby. If anything failed to work on it to his expectations, he took it as a personal insult.

Alex was the easier of the two he needed to deal with. His sister would have to be handled differently. Fortunately, Dee only came by the boat, or the apartment, about once a week. She spent most of her time as a part-time teacher in Miami and the remaining free time doing research for her doctoral thesis. Sean decided to take care of the necessities before she became involved. After the modifications, engine work, and license renewal, they had nearly five-thousand dollars left for food, fuel, and personal items. The only other bill he paid in full was to the old man who ran the store where they purchased their diving supplies. Sean liked him and hated to run up too much on credit. Thirty-eight hundred was more than he anticipated paying, but if anyone made out on the venture it should be him. Sean got a free bottle of pop out of the transaction and a smile.