FRANK PAYNE AND THE MYSTERIOUS CAVE

-- Chapter 12 -- The Mariana's Trench

Mark, who had just kicked over a dumpster, scattering food scraps through the streets of Chamorro Village and eliciting laughter from his friends and henchmen Mountain and Hugodzilla, stopped short, ducking so as not to be seen by the foreign couple. Yes, it was the same losers who knocked him to the ground by smearing ice cream all over his face.

"What are they doing here, inside a stall selling the handicrafts of the losers of the tribe of Inarajan? I'm sure that the rabble Emily Cruz is helping them get to know the place. But who are they? Or better yet, who do they think they're meddling like that on my island?" thought the boy.

He asked the pair of friends to wait for him there without breathing, in fact, to wait for him there without moving, as it was highly likely that the two fools stopped breathing because he had asked. Mark remained crouched, not caring what others might say about him, and hid near the tent where he could hear the conversation between the two strangers.

"But, Frank, are you sure that notes you found on the submarine was your father's?" asked Barbara.

"Of course, I'm more and more sure every time."

"So, he was the one who was here on the island five years ago and got into trouble with the navy! Who would have thought, his beloved father tried as a thief by the Rear Admiral? But also, with the upbringing he gave his son, the admiral must not be a good person."

"Yeah, but tomorrow we'll draw our conclusions as soon as we get to that trench. I'm sure my father didn't die, and we'll know the truth there," Frank pondered. "I feel he's still alive!"

"I'm glad we found this submarine. I'm so looking forward to getting into the early hours of the morning and traveling to the Mariana Trench. I can't wait to get to know the bottom of our ocean, especially the deepest point, in the Challenger Deep depression," said the girl with a twinkle in her eyes and a smile that made Frank's heart flutter.

"Hmm," thought Mark, "it all makes sense now." He tried to call his father to explain that the thief's son was in Guam, but he had already left on his mission and must not have a signal on his cell phone. He decided to return home, put some clothes in his backpack, a flashlight and a canteen, as he was going to investigate this submarine that was in Inarajan and which they would use for travel.

He knew that the dance of the "losers", as he called them, should end around 10:30 pm and until they got all their things and arrived in Inarajan it would take about an hour, so they would have enough time to get to village, explore the submarine and see if he could find any evidence to incriminate the thief and his gang, including the people of the south of the island, who must also be involved in the crime of the past. He imagined receiving the honors with the resolution of this case, who knows, finally, he would be able to prove to the Rear Admiral all his worth as a future naval officer.

He arrived at the village around 11:00 pm, half an hour before the group was expected to arrive. He figured that a submarine must be hidden close to the shore where there was little visibility for someone on the sands of the bay and headed for it without thinking twice. Surely, he would be there, between two rocks on a makeshift pier.

He saw when some Chamorros locked the vessel and returned to the village. Now it was his chance, he ran to the pier and bent to see through the cabin glass, discovering it to be a different submersible than the ones docked at the Guam naval base. In fact, he remembered a project that his father had shown him remarkably like what he was seeing.

Thomas Wolf had asked to build according to the design developed by him and US Navy engineers. Now he was sure, they had stolen the navy submarine and were about to flee, it was all he needed to frame them for life. Mark pulled out his ultramodern cell phone to take pictures of the vessel when he heard voices close.