PREDATOR ISLAND (Sea Lab Book 2)

CHAPTER 12

Jake started for the gold tinted object on the ocean floor, skirting the outer edge of the hammerhead highway. The meandering sharks barely acknowledged the presence of the divers in the water, but were more focused on the schools of fish circling above their wide airplane-like heads. With bulbous, dark eyes on each end of the hammer, the predators were gifted with a panoramic view of their environment. Jake, on the other hand, possessed a singular frame of vision with blinders on both sides. Everything else darkened around the outer edges like he was looking through a spyglass with his eye on the prize. The only thing that made him glance up was a ponytail, tinted burnt orange like autumn leaves.

He paused mid-swim and shot Sarah a glance and gave her a quick nod, which she returned, and then both of them kicked for the bottom with Dylan in tow, his camera held at arm's length out in front of him.

A hundred feet down would require a decompression stop on the way up to avoid nitrogen bubbles from building up in their blood stream. The ascent delay would avoid a life threatening condition otherwise known as The Bends. But that wouldn't deter them from this underwater adventure. Jake scissor kicked—his legs developed from years of underwater action—his toned calves swishing fins with powerful swipes through the aquatic world around them. Sarah caught up to him and passed him with graceful scissor kicks of her own. He was moving as fast as he could, and she passed him like it was nothing. He swore he saw her wink behind her dive mask. To add to the fact she was going to beat him to the gold; he thought he saw a hint of a smile on her lips, forming around her breathing regulator.

As she swam ahead of him, he imagined her as a beautiful mermaid that had the ability to swim off and leave him behind with ease. But either she slowed, or he sped up.

Jake drew even with her. He knew it was the fact she eased up, but he would have liked to have thought it was his drive and determination that tipped the scale. He sensed that was his ego talking.

Besides, what was he thinking? Was he in a race? Of course, he was. His competitive nature seemed to always get the best of him. He remembered a few weeks ago, speed walking up the steep incline of a highway, nonchalantly racing Tony to the top of the hill—their blue jeans and shirts torn and tattered, blood dripping from cuts on their elbows and knees—after they'd bailed from a car, and sent their kidnapper plunging to his death down an embankment near the Mooney Mooney Bridge in Australia. Even after barely surviving a life and death situation, he'd found himself in a competitive mood much like now.

Jake wagged his head and caught a glimpse of Dylan, twenty feet above them, snapping pictures as they descended. Most of the shots were of Sarah and Jake, but occasionally, he'd aim the camera at the mass of hammerheads and go-to-town with his finger mashing the button on the top of his camera. Who could blame him? Some of the hammerhead sharks were ten to fifteen feet in length, and weighed in excess of five hundred pounds. They liked to eat small fish, octopus and squid, and crustaceans, but the creatures had been known to attack humans if provoked.

Hopefully, Dylan knew that?

Jake neared the shiny reflection on the ocean floor, and halted within a hand's reach, hovering with his fins aimed toward the surface. Sarah did the same as both of them watched the meager sunlight play over the golden object. He gave her the okay hand signal, and she gestured the same back to him. She added a nod that suggested for him to proceed.

He dipped his fingers into the sand and lifted a rounded shape from the seabed. It was crusty around the edges, but the center of the object glimmered gold in the light from above.

Dylan drew near, his eyes as large as the coin Jake held in his hand. He snapped a photo. Jake grinned with an exhale of bubbles, a fraction of a second too late for his look of wonder to be caught on camera.

Sarah scraped away more sand, clawing at the bottom like a crab digging for a hole to hide inside. Jake watched her go at it with a childlike fascination, until her fingers struck something under the sand. She started raking at the ocean floor. Jake joined in with her as Dylan took more photos, chronicling the moment of discovery.

Jake felt the hard outline of a box. He wanted to tell Sarah and Dylan that if they kept digging, they'd probably find a trail of coins littering the bottom, some inches beneath the sand, others buried several feet down, carried to their final resting place as the chest, or whatever it was, plunged to the bottom. He assumed if they searched the surrounding area they might find the sunken remains of a Spanish galleon buried beneath mounds of silt and sand. In his mind, he envisioned the sinking ship, plummeting to the ocean floor.

Sarah removed the last remnants of debris and tried to open the lid.

If he had a comm system in his dive mask, he'd warn her that they'd have to float the box to the surface using an air tank and an underwater balloon. If the yacht had a wench, they could then get it aboard. Then and only then, with a crow bar could they crack it open and see what was inside the crusted barnacle-laden chest.

But Sarah couldn't hear his thoughts, so she ripped the lid open with her bare hands.

Jake's eyes widened. He swore he sighed underwater, but all he heard was an expulsion of air around his breathing regulator. Sarah had more strength than the average woman. The thought of finding out the results from her blood test wafted through his mind, but he cast the distraction aside and focused on the task before them.

Dylan probably failed to realize what she'd just done. He closed in from above, ready to take a photo of the loot of gold coins.

But inside the chest...was...nothing.

A big fat nothing.

Sarah's eyes lost their luster.

Jake's arms sagged at his side. He couldn't believe what he was seeing, or not seeing. Actually, he could. His gaze followed an imaginary trail of gold coins littering the ocean floor. If the galleon sank, or if the treasure chest tumbled overboard in a storm, the lid may have flung open and its contents spilled out as the heavy wooden and metal framed container came to rest. The gold could be everywhere...all around them. And without the proper equipment they might never find it.

Jake looked back at Dylan. He seemed disappointed too.

And then a shadow drifted above the photographer like a slow and ominous ghost from another world.

The shadow of a great white shark.