Passionate Choice

Chapter 4.5

   The truck trundled on, swerving violently when a pot-hole yawned suddenly in the rough surface of the road. They passed a few native houses, some obviously new and built in a contemporary bungalow style, some little more than wooden shacks, their timbers grey with age, their window-frames sagging. In a garden beside one of the bungalows, two people were weeding between rows of vegetables, a man and a woman. Hearing the truck, they straightened up and waved, their black-skinned arms shining in the sunlight, their white teeth flashing in dark faces. Keith and Selena waved back.

   "You've told me. What makes you think I won't tell him?" asked Selena.

   "You can do what you like with the information, he replied coolly. "But I'm not saying anything to him until I've been in touch with John. He paused for a moment then went on, "I've got this gut feeling there's something very fishy about the Langdon-Hunt underwater exploration." His grin flashed briefly. "And I don't mean to make a pun."

   "So what do you mean?" she asked, turning the musket ball between her hands.

   "I mean that I think neither Professor Hunt nor Heather Langdon are being entirely straightforward. I think they haven't leveled with you or me about what they hope to find in the crevasse under that freighter. They probably haven't leveled with the local government or the archeological museums in England either."

   "I'm afraid I don't understand what you're getting at," she said defensively.

   "OK. I'll put it more bluntly. I'm guessing that they hope to find treasure and when it is found, by Hunt, of course, they won't tell us or the government but will share it between themselves."

   "But you said yourself the other night that we wouldn't find much in the way of valuables because the Santiago had been looted before she sank," she argued.

   "Maybe it wasn't the Santiago that was wrecked on this particular reef. Maybe it was the Pelican. That would account for the name of the peninsula of land and the resort, wouldn't it? The island could have been where old Dan Walker used to hang out, lurking in the cove behind the reef to pounce on passing ships. The island is situated on one of the main routes from the Atlantic and Europe." He paused again as if waiting for her to make a comment, but when she didn't, continued, "If it was the Pelican that was wrecked, there would be treasure to be found, wouldn't there?"

   "But Professor Langdon was quite sure it was the Santiago," she argued. "In his notes, he stated quite definitely, he'd found timbers belonging to it."

   "How do we know he wasn't lying when he made those noted?" replied Keith. "How do we know he didn't lie about the position of the wreck? He could have made the suggestion that he had found the remains of a looted galleon so as to hide the fact that he had discovered the wreck of the privateer, the master and crew of which had done the looting, hidden in an entirely different place."

   Selena was silent, horrified by what he was suggesting. She rolled the musket ball in her hands. The road swung to the left and the bay came into view, water shimmering in the bright sunlight.

   "I suppose you're going to tell John Claes that you suspect Heather and Ben are in a conspiracy together to find treasure and keep it to themselves without declaring it," she said at last.

   "I am."