Deep Shadow

carrying in coins and gold bars, but figure it out for yourself. This guy robbed the national treasury of an entire nation.”

When Perry said, “But Cuba’s an island, right, not a nation,” King told him, “Shut up and listen,” giving me his full attention.

I said, “I was down there. I saw what the plane was carrying—some of it, anyway. But the wreckage is lodged under a big limestone ledge and it collapsed after my friends and I finally managed to pry open the cargo door. That’s how my friends got trapped. They’re down there now. With the gold.”

Perry’s breathing had changed.

Softly, King asked, “How much in all, you think?”

Arlis said, “Don’t tell them any more. Shut your damn mouth! I’d rather die right here than let this spawn in on the deal!”

Perry snapped, “Shut up, Gramps, or you just might get your wish. Let the man talk.” He focused on me. “A guy like you would’a done a lot of research and stuff. What’s it say in the books you read? How much did the Cuban dude steal?”

I pretended to ignore Arlis and looked toward the trees. “He and his men loaded four cargo planes in Havana, but only one crashed. It’s impossible to say how much the plane was carrying because no one knows for sure. They didn’t keep a list.”

“You know what I’m asking you,” Perry said. “Answer the goddamn question. How much gold’s down there?”

I let the men watch me think about it before I nodded toward the truck. “There’s too much to carry it all in the bed of one pickup—that’s how much. It would take three or four loads.”

King said, “You’re shitting me. That can’t be true,” but the tone of his voice said he wanted to believe it.

I shrugged, my expression telling him Believe what you want, before saying, “I’d guess there’s at least half a ton in bars alone—they’re stacked in what were probably wooden cases. I didn’t see them all, but there’s got to be more.”

“You saw the stuff?”

“The wood’s rotted away. The coins are scattered all over the bottom, but the bars—the stacks I saw, anyway—mostly settled in one place. It looked like the bars were stacked two high, probably eight to a box, and I saw at least eight boxes of the things. What used to be boxes, anyway. So that’s at least forty-eight bars, but there’s bound to be more. And there’s definitely a lot more coins.”

Perry said to King, “How much is a bar of gold worth?”

King was blinking his eyes, possibly staggered by the fortune I had just described. He said to me, “Why didn’t you bring up a bar instead of just one shitty little coin?”

“I’m not going to stand here and argue with you. I saw what I saw.”

“You’re kinda touchy, aren’t you, Jock-o? What do you figure one of those bars weighs?”

“Standard mint is one kilogram, isn’t it? That’s what I would guess.” Perry said, “How much is that? I hate that European bullshit. In pounds—talk English, goddamn it.”

“A kilogram’s a little over two pounds,” King told him. “Sixteen ounces per pound, thirty-two ounces per bar, plus a little extra—say, forty ounces even, just to keep it simple. And you say there’s at least forty-eight bars?” King was calculating it in his head but still giving me his full attention.

“More probably, but that’s what I saw. You’re the expert. How much does gold sell for by the ounce?”

King was smiling as he looked at Perry. “Those bars would sell for about sixty grand each. Forty-eight bars, that’s . . .” He had to think about it. “That’s three or four million bucks. Plus the coins.”

“Jesus Christ,” Perry said, his voice soft. “And it’s just sitting down there. Waiting.”

I was wondering why King knew so much about gold prices, putting it together with the American gold eagles they’d mentioned and the five dead people in Winter Haven, as King asked me, “How many coins, you think? Coins’d be easier to carry. Easier to sell, too.”

“There’s more than enough to split six ways, that’s the point I’m making,” I replied. “You guys are on the run for some reason—that’s obvious. I don’t care why and I don’t want to know. But it kind of works out, you showing up. You need help, we need help. Look at it as purely business.”

Perry said to King, “How many pounds are in a ton? Just in case he’s telling the truth. I used to know, but —”

“Two thousand pounds,” King said. “Half a ton is a thousand. And that cowboy Cadillac over there is big enough”—he was measuring the truck’s bed with his eyes—“Jock-a-mo could be wrong about not being to haul it all out of here in one load. But good coins are worth more. That’s what we want, Jock-a-mo, the coins. But a couple dozen bars of gold, that’d be okay, too. We could walk out of here with a few million each, easy.” The man’s smile hardened as he stared at me. “Drive out, I mean.”

He was lying about splitting the take, of course. King wanted it all, I could see it.

I said, “The gold’s one thing, but my friends are part of the deal. You don’t get the keys until we get my friends.”

“You keep saying that.”

“They’re down there with the gold. A ledge collapsed and covered everything. I can’t do it by myself. We brought a jet dredge. I need it to blast the sand and rocks away. But the pump takes at least three men to run. Two in the water and one man on land to tend the generator and keep the intake filter clear.”

Perry asked, “What’s an intake filter?,” but King wasn’t interested in the details. He said, “If that’s what you’ve got to do, then get to work! You and Grandpa do the water part. We’ll stay on land and run the machine, or watch the filter—whatever it is you want us to do. But we’re also gonna keep the rifle handy in case you try something cute.”

I was shaking my head. “Captain Futch is in no condition to do anything. Look at him.”

Arlis’s face had gone pale. Sweat on his forehead was streaking the coagulating blood, but he was still willing. He snapped, “I can work, don’t you worry about that.”

Even if he’d been able, I didn’t want Arlis’s help. My brain had been assembling a workable scenario, and I knew how I wanted it to go—how it had to go—if Will, Tomlinson, Arlis and I were to get out of this mess alive.

I ignored Arlis and spoke to the men. “It was stupid what you did to him, but now we’re stuck with it. If you want the truck keys and a share of the gold, you two have to help me, not him.”

“A share,” King said, sarcastic. “Sure, we’ll be happy with a share. What do you want us to do?”

I was getting to my feet, already reaching for my BC. “First thing for you to do is push the truck closer to the water while I get ready. There’s a hundred feet of hose, and I’m going to need it all.”

The men were looking at the truck thirty yards down a grade parked beneath trees, their expressions reading You’ve got to be shitting me.

Talking fast, I continued, “I need one of you in the water—on the surface, in an inner tube, not with tanks. Not at first, anyway. We don’t have an extra wet suit, and there isn’t time for that, anyway. Which one of you is the best swimmer?”

Instantly, Perry said, “He’s the best swimmer. He’ll do it.”

King’s expression read Huh?

“King worked as a lifeguard someplace in Florida. That’s what he claims, anyway. Where’d you say it was?”

The way King stood fidgeting, not answering, reminded me of a child who’s been caught in a lie.

“It was in Palm Beach,” Perry added, “that’s where he worked. He was the head lifeguard on some rich beach, weren’t you, King?” Perry was skeptical, though. It was in his tone.

King answered, “Sure . . . I lifeguarded for a while, but—”

“He said he did scuba diving, speared fish, the whole works.” Perry was talking to me, now.

“Well . . . sure. Yeah. Goddamn right, I did, but the thing is—”

Perry interrupted, saying, “You ain’t backpedaling now. He’s a big shot—all the time, he’s got to be the big shot. Now’s his chance to prove it, for once.”

King started to say, “Without a wet suit? When I was lifeguarding, we had decent equipment—”

Perry interrupted. “Go naked, for all I care. I want some of that gold and I want those truck keys. I’ll help push the damn truck, but there ain’t no damn way I’m going in that water.”