He said, “So, your trip back down south is put on hold.”
“Yeah, guess it is. I want to be on the boat when the Welcome Wagon arrives.”
“Don’t do anything foolish,” he admonished. “One wrong step in this situation could land you in jail or worse. I know you guys are armed and prepared to repel all boarders, but any gunplay or use of force with these officials would be disastrous.”
“I hear you,” I said. “I just need to make sure the rest of the team understands that. I do have a few hotheads to contend with.”
“That’s putting it mildly… Good luck, I’ll stay in touch.” With that, the line went dead, and I contacted the rest of the team. A few hours later, those of us on land met at the new Lair and connected with Gus on the Falcon and Fitz and O’Reilly in Bithlo on our encrypted video link.
The conversation started with trying to figure out what this visit was going to be about. David Kensington, Esq., our on-site maritime legal eagle from the law firm in Atlanta, joined us. The firm that David worked for had come to us through a Fitz connection. As it turned out, Dave was not only an expert in maritime law, but he was also a good guy and fit in nicely with the rest of the team. He had been down here the last five weeks working with Lawrence on our legal standing in the salvage operations. Also joining us was Tim Robinson, our Nautical Archaeology specialist. I had hired him a few months back when we went legit with our salvage of the galleon. He was a graduate of Texas A & M’s archaeology program, had a master’s degree, and was a sharp cookie. There had been some run-ins with the faculty, and he decided to break out of academe. He had been looking for a little more adventure in the world of underwater archaeology, and my job offer was just the ticket. Once things settled down, Dave took the lead on the discussion.
“I think we can assume this will be the beginning of the legal battle we have been preparing for,” he said.
Lawrence, who was going to be his number two, agreed. “I think you’re right. We’ve known something was going to happen sooner or later; I guess that’s now. But why is the state requesting the Coast Guard be involved?”
“My guess would be as law enforcement back-up. I get the feeling that this may be more than just a serving of papers,” Dave added.
“What do you mean?” Dimitri asked.
Dave spoke up, “They may be planning on serving a Cease-and-Desist order on your recovery and might be worried you will protest. I’ve seen it happen before.”
A spontaneous chorus erupted, and Dimitri, Gus, and Joe responded, “Hell yeah, we’ll protest… with extreme prejudice.”
Here we go, I thought. “All right, guys, I know how you feel, but we have to tread very lightly with this. If we get crazy now, we could lose everything, and I mean everything.” I had to keep things from spiraling out of control.
“Colt’s right,” Doc said. “Now is the time to be smart with our response, especially when dealing with the state. No matter how we feel inside, we have to maintain our cool.”
“And let’s not jump the gun here,” Dave said, “We’re not even sure what this visit’s about. My comment was only a guess, one possibility out of many.”
“True,” Fitz interjected, “But you need to have contingencies in place for a worst-case scenario. I’ve made a couple of calls, working some back channels, but haven’t heard back.”
“Thanks, Fitz,” I said. “Appreciate the help. However, until we have the meeting, we have no idea what we’re up against. Good thing playing it by ear is one of our strong suits.” That got a disgruntled laugh from everyone. Fitz signed off, and we continued our meeting. I told Gus we needed to off-load any treasure they currently had on board and be ready to close up shop if need be. I told Nils I wanted him to take his boat The Mistress and make the run out to the Falcon and pick it up in the morning. I asked Dave and Lawrence to put their heads together and get ready for any imaginable scenario. They agreed. I knew I would have to keep Dimitri and Joe on a short leash during this thing and wasn’t looking forward to that. My plan was for us to be on-site with the Lisa B. Gus said he would let his crew know what was going on and signed off.
We finished our formal discussions and sat around for a while, having beers and unwinding somewhat. As I drove home that night, my mind swirled with possibilities and outcomes for the upcoming meeting. We had been doing well for the past couple of years, and now we were about to face possibly our biggest challenge so far. I thought back to the comment Lawrence had made months ago about the potential for an upcoming court battle, “Hey, all we’ll be fighting over is chump change.” He was right; we had already taken almost 4 billion dollars in treasure off the wreck before we officially “discovered” it and began our legal salvage. My furrowed brow finally loosened up, and a grin replaced the frown I had been wearing. “It’s a pirate’s life for me. Yo, Ho, Ho, and a bottle of rum,” I thought. I didn’t sleep well that night, but I did sleep.
The next day, our plan kicked into high gear. Nils made the run to the Falcon, and Dave and Lawrence gathered our legal paperwork and lease info together and spent the day reviewing it and any other relevant information they could find.
Tim had our site survey and
