Treasure of the Deep (7 page)

Chapter Fourteen

We raced into the jungle, disregarding the fact we’d likely need a machete at some point. When Ishi turned to throw the worthless firearm at our furious pursuers, I wrested the pistol from his hand.

“It won’t work!” he shouted angrily.

“
Maybe not...but it might still come in handy!”

We scurried past seemingly endless palm fronds until we encountered thicker brush from mangrove shrubs and trees. Meanwhile, I focused my mind on the map details, picturing them and reversing the images in my head since the map had been drawn from the other side of the island’s vantage point. It would be a trick to find the caves while moving through the jungle. But, banking on the fact they had to be fairly close, and that we’d already explored a significant portion of the island, I believed the caves would prove fairly easy to find.

And why did I concern myself with the bullshit of finding the caves that supposedly held more fabled pirate treasure, especially at an inopportune time like this? Well, in addition to satisfying my curiosity, any rescue party would likely take a day or two to return for us. It meant there’d be plenty of time for Badri and his band of pissed-off pirates to concoct new ways to dispose of Ishi and me if they caught up to us. Since we couldn’t run forever, we needed to find shelter. Caves were best suited for that. Besides, Badri’s men had obviously discovered our previous camp and knew every other place we’d visited. The only viable option left was to find someplace either unknown or largely forgotten. The trick was getting to the caves before they caught up to us.

To protect ourselves from the late morning sun, we discarded every article of clothing except our cholis. Throwing everything a good distance from where we ran, I urged Ishi to pick up his pace with me. We moved into what looked like the densest part of the jungle. The travel brochures we read on the plane said there were no mammals on the islands other than rats, bats, and transplanted domesticated animals. So, that was good...no jaguars this time.

We pushed on harder, despite our growing thirst. The pirates were losing ground, but then I happened to see them separate into two units. Half of the assholes continued after us, while the other half took a less encumbered route. Before long, we no longer heard any of them; apparently, the entire lot had fallen far behind us, or so I hoped.

Exhausted, we continued through the steamy jungle depths for what seemed like a quarter of a mile or so, and when the bushes and trees finally thinned, the caves depicted on the map were visible ahead of us. Oh, yeah. Five oblong holes along a small mound, they sat on the other side of a large clearing.

I felt re-energized and inspired by the fact the caves were real. We had nearly reached our destination...and yet, I felt dismayed while studying the clearing. It would be a perilous jaunt to try and cross the wide-open, grass field without being noticed.

Ishi saw my hesitation. “We can wait here until night, kemosabe.”

“No, Ishi, I don’t think so.”

My buddy was still trying to catch his breath while crouched by the tree line. We had already waited for nearly ten minutes. Neither of us heard anything from the others...however, my gut told me that we’d be discovered soon if we stayed put. The safest option was to follow the tree line for another hundred feet, and then sprint to the cave closest to us. It wasn’t the sexy cave marked by an ‘X’ on the map, but it was only two cave entrances down from it.

“The third cave from the right is the one marked on the map,” I said, keeping my voice to a hushed whisper. “We’ll work our way over to it once we have a better vantage point of what’s going on around us. Are you ready?”

Ishi remained hesitant, but soon ran after me as I hustled through the protective canopy for as far as it sheltered us, thankful that the only dangerous critters we’d seen were a large black snake slithering away from us and a large brown spider tending to its thick web nestled inside a short palm. Then, after taking one last cautionary look around us, I moved into the open.

I had planned to cautiously amble through the waist-high grass, but soon found myself sprinting to the mouth of the cave. To my surprise, Ishi caught up and beat me to it. He was the first to duck inside the small opening, and I felt immediate relief that the tiny room was empty. Not even a fruit bat, or Ishi’s favorite nemesis...tarantulas. Yet, the room was not enclosed completely, as a hole in the cave’s ceiling allowed the afternoon’s sunlight inside.

We had just settled in to watch the hole when we heard the sound of voices coming toward us from outside the cave entrance. I sighed. A looter’s work was never done.

Then we saw the bastards. Badri and his men had emerged from both sides of the clearing and had rejoined as a long line sifting through the tall grass. Their stealthy approach would soon bring them to the caves.

We were trapped, and the only plan that came to mind was to wait until the men were almost here, and then climb out through the opening in the cave’s ceiling. To make sure the hole was large enough to allow us both to escape, I moved over to investigate...and nearly fell into a deep hole below. Jesus. Ishi joined me, offering his hand to help me regain my balance. Together we glanced down into the chasm below—and together we gasped.

Gleaming in a beam of sunlight angling down from above was a large pile of gold coins.

“
Sweet mama,” said Ishi.

I swore. “Figures we’d finally find something and have no immediate way of getting to it,” I said, shaking my head at the sad irony here. “How close are Badri and the others?”

Ishi looked around me. “Maybe fifty feet away, boss, but moving cautiously. Maybe two...three minutes tops before they get here.”

Great. Plenty of time to come up with a plan for escape, and find out a little more about what lay below us. Yes, sarcasm beats the hell out of wishful thinking.

“We need to get ready to leave,” I said, pointing toward the hole above the chasm. “I’m not sure if both of us can get out of here...but you’re going first. Then, run like hell back to our camp.”

“
No, boss. We leave together.”

I shook my head.
“We do that, and neither of us will get out of here alive,” I said, trying to remain calm. But precious seconds were ticking away from our two to three minute window. “Now, get your ass over here before it’s too...aw, shit!”

I lost my balance, and started to fall into the gleaming pit. Waving my arms to steady myself didn’t help until I tossed the Beretta toward Ishi...or where Ishi had been before he ran over to try and save my ass again. I got a momentary look at the enormous cavern beneath us. A cavern filled with more gold artifacts than Badri’s pretend treasure room had contained...and one that flew in the face of his earlier taunts. Two of the other caves appeared to also lead into the cavern, as several more streams of sunlight helped illuminate the entire room. For lack of a better description, it was
breathtaking!

Only in a fantasy adventure movie, you asshole? Well, you can kiss my choli-clad ass!

I started to smile, when suddenly a familiar voice sneered sardonically just outside the cave entrance.

“
Well, well, well...what have we here?”

Speak of the devil. Badri and his foul, surly companions peered into our cave behind us. An odious moment of victory for them, it was a deflating one for Ishi and me.

“It appears you’ve finally reached your end, Mr. Caine,” he said, chuckling meanly. “Fate, so it seems, has left you lacking in both fags and second chances.”

Chapter Fifteen

Some might assume round two with this fiend would be a tortuously drawn out version of our first encounter. Right? Well, not at all. It was more like how scores were settled in the old west at high noon, or even on the playground when Tuggy Smith wanted to beat me to a pulp for sticking up for a new girl who’d joined our home room class, back in fifth grade.

Badri motioned for his men to stand guard outside while he and another of his prized daggers entered the tiny cave. I made sure that Ishi stayed clear of our nemesis’s reach and then prepared for the hand-to-hand combat I’d unfortunately been destined for. I have experience at such things, and can readily handle myself...provided the fight is fair and I was up against someone roughly my size. This fight promised to be neither, as I was unarmed, and Badri bettered me by four inches and at least thirty pounds.

It was a middleweight boxer versus a heavyweight allowed to bring his weapon of choice. Not to mention, this particular bigger guy carried more malice and rage than I did. Such disparity would normally spell big trouble, but my years of perpetual struggle against long odds had given me one helluva determined will to survive.

Badri lunged at me. This dagger seemed longer and sharper than the earlier one, and it gleamed from errant sunrays seeping into the mini-cave. His first few thrusts failed to come close to my body, but he managed to push me back to where another inch would take me down into the treasure-filled chasm below.

“
Careful, Nick!” Ishi cried out behind me. I heard my little friend take a step toward me.

“
No, Ishi! Stay back, damn it!” I said. “This is just between him and me!”

“
Oh, and how can you be so sure?” sneered my nemesis. “Once I’m done with you, I intend to filet your little friend and serve him up for dinner to my mates!”

His mates, who were standing behind him, nodded. At least, the ones who spoke English nodded. Either way, Badri sounded as if he meant it, and I tried not to picture Ishi or me being tied to a rotisserie while these barbarians salivated in anticipation of fresh Ishi-and-Nick-kabobs.

Meanwhile, Badri gave me a head fake and then suddenly dove at my feet, swinging the knife madly in obvious hopes of either crippling me or, more likely, sending me down into the pit that he’d just noticed. I got the feeling he wasn’t previously aware of the twenty to thirty foot drop, nor the pile of gold coins one of us was likely to land on in a moment.

If I were to let him get back to his feet, the advantage would be entirely his. I jumped on him and reached for his dagger. But being much bigger and stronger than me, in one smooth move he flipped me over and sat upon my chest. My arms and legs were pinned beneath his powerful frame, and he brought the dagger dangerously close to my left eye. Playtime, ala Hannibal Lecter style, was about to begin.

“Maybe your friend would like to share a taste of you with us...the eye of any mammal, human or not, is quite tasty!” taunted Badri, bringing the blade closer. I instinctively flinched, and the dagger’s tip grazed my bottom eyelid, delivering a painful sting. “Maybe we all can share your eyes and then decide what to take next from your body for dinner!”

“
Ishi! Use the gun!”

“
The gun doesn’t work—”

“
We don’t know that for sure, Ishi—quit screwing around and
do
something, goddammit!”

I shrieked this last part. Though it wasn’t exactly girlish, what came out wasn’t manly, either. Badri’s wicked smile grew wider. He had me where he wanted. Whether or not he truly intended to pluck out my eyes is difficult to say. His look of smug satisfaction brought with it a new game plan, and he lowered the knife, dragging the serrated blade down my nose, across my lips, and down my chin...on down until it rested upon my Adam’s apple.

“Since we have a full agenda this evening, plundering a cruise ship that should reach our cape in the next few hours, we will be better served slicing off your handsome head and putting it on ice until we can all enjoy a piece of it later on,” he said, emotionless.

The blade sliced through the outer layer of skin, and a pair of small rivers coursed down each side of my neck. My life was over, and I prepared for the worst. He moved his face close to mine, and it seemed as if he might kiss me. Or, maybe he sought a bird’s eye view of my inner light fading from my eyes as I died—the flight of the soul.

A surprised shout from one of the pirates followed a loud pop coming from where I last saw Ishi standing. When I looked up, Badri stared at me in frozen surprise. It took me a moment to realize he was dead, until I noticed the tip of a bullet lodged in the lower corner of his left eye.

*  *  *

Events have a funny way of either speeding up or slowing down in the midst of trauma. Sometimes both instances happen, as was the case for Ishi and me in that tiny cave of death and pirate’s gold.

I’m not sure what motivated me to push Badri’s corpse down into the chasm. He landed on the pile of coins with a thud strong enough to send a handful of coins flying up into our cave. Then with renewed confidence, Ishi and I pushed our way past the thugs eyeing the Beretta warily. Once back in the sunlight, I thought Badri’s brood of disenfranchised pirates would flee in every direction, like bees without a queen. After all, their leader was dead. But it wasn’t the case.

No sooner had we stepped back into the clearing, than three of the cutthroats stepped onto the mound and produced short sabers and machetes from their belts. We had been so worried about assault guns earlier that we’d forgotten the likelihood they were all armed with knives of one sort or another. They now raised a war cry, uttering a rush of half-swallowed gutturals, semi-hisses, clucks and pops—what linguists call
uvular fricatives
—and then pointed their weapons at us.

And just like that, we were on the run again.

With nowhere else to hide, Ishi and I raced toward the jungle in the direction of our original campsite. I reclaimed the handgun from Ishi, and on two separate occasions fired warning shots above the heads of our pursuers to slow them down. Then we ran as hard and fast as possible, all the while getting weaker from lack of food and water. But spurred on by adrenaline, we reached our campsite. Our ravaged and destroyed campsite, I should say.

“
Now...now what do we do?”

Ishi fell to his knees from exhaustion. It was the same for me, and maybe I would’ve joined him like that on the beach, just beyond the reach of ocean waves that carried salt water unsuitable for survival. From one hellish trial to another and another...Yet, when our pursuers’ battle cries emerged from the jungle, we had to keep moving.

If it became necessary, we’d move out into the shallow water. Ishi and I could swim, and maybe most of the angry mob couldn’t stay afloat. I began considering our final options in our race to survive, when all at once the sound of a helicopter erupted from nearby. A late-model military-style chopper emerged over the taller mangroves and palm trees and then raced toward us as it hovered close to the beach. The helicopter looked aggressive, and when the pirates yelled excitedly while waving at it, Ishi and I took off running once more. More like staggered through the sand, as our wheels were entirely spent.

Our saber-bearing nuisances stopped chasing us, preferring to remain at our forlorn campsite while we continued to try and escape the speeding chopper. I assumed whoever was in the air behind us were friends of the island’s despicable seamen, and might even be the secretive assassins Badri had mentioned earlier. They’d certainly kill us if they caught us. They’d...

“Nick! Ishi! Stop running!!” shouted a familiar voice, barely audible above the helicopter blades.

Huh?!

“Look, Nick!” said Ishi, pointing to the open cargo door on the side of the helicopter. “She’s back!”

“
Who’s...what in the hell?”

I couldn’t believe it. Not until after the helicopter gently landed on the beach not far from us. But, damn it was
her
...Marie. Marie Da Vinci had come back, and motioned hurriedly for us to join her inside the expensive looking chopper.

Was this part of her inheritance from Daddy or Uncle Leo, I wondered? A thousand thoughts and images—most of them unflattering—raced through my head as we hurried over to her and climbed aboard. If not for the angry mob sprinting toward us with renewed zeal, I might’ve shared them all with her right then.

“Where in the hell have you been?!” I held her in my angry gaze as I sat down next to Ishi.

“
Hello, Nick...my love,” she said, smiling demurely. She closed the cargo door and motioned for the pilot to lift off. A handful of carving knives, machetes, and one gleaming saber glanced harmlessly off the helicopter’s side as it turned around and headed north. “I had to take care of a few things that couldn’t wait...things that had to be handled on my own. I’m incredibly sorry you couldn’t be there with me, darling. When you hear the good news, perhaps you’ll forgive me. The important thing is I have come back for you, and I’ll never, ever leave you again.”