Treasure of the Deep (4 page)

Chapter Seven

If you’ve seen one cave, then you’ve seen them all. Right?

Not necessarily true. Certainly not for the caverns on this god-forsaken, reef-remnant in the Indian Ocean. The cave passages were naturally formed, but in a strange combination of ancient sea sediment and volcanic rock. Some of the passages were filled with shallow water bearing the small luminous critters such subterranean locales are known for throughout the world.

Unlike our recent adventure in a certain Honduran cave, Norema assured us that we wouldn’t encounter any previously unknown dangerous predators. Still, I longed for my cherished Bowie knife. Especially, since I didn’t initially inquire about the
known
dangerous predators. My knife had always felt great in my hands, and would be a welcome pacifier, dressed as I was like a Hindi woman.

The Beretta might’ve made a difference if it hadn’t joined me in the lagoon. The cool metal had since dried along its casing, and maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea to hold it in my hand as we moved through the dark tunnels illuminated only by Norema’s torch and one other. Yet, unless a hostile creature understood what a working gun could do—namely, the guards Norema told us about—in the end it would likely prove useless. The more I thought about it, the more it seemed best to have let the damned thing fall to the bottom of the lagoon.

“It might still work again,” said Norema behind me.

I glanced back, shocked. Her eyes blazed brightly in the soft glow from her torch. Did she just read my thoughts? Nah...I’m sure it was just my wariness she noticed when we stepped past dark crevices along our path that would be favored by things such as eels and exotic, poisonous snakes and spiders. “One can hope,” I said.

“But, until we find ourselves in a situation where it can prove useful, please keep it hidden next to your...”

She didn’t finish. Had she not been as damned bossy and prone to threatening gestures, I would consider that a flirtatious slip. Ishi’s grin told me that he thought the same thing, and it did look as if our dictator guide’s face grew darker from embarrassment.

But then I heard the voices that her more sensitive ears had picked up on before the rest of us did.

“
Shh...we’re not far from the cavern that holds the sultan’s gold,” she advised, whispering harshly as she motioned for her armed companions to move toward the voices while we waited for advisement on what we should do next. I hated not having an idea of where we were in relation to the cave system as well as being clueless as to her plan of action. “Follow me...but we must wait for the guards to pass. There is a small room to keep us hidden in that cavern.”

“
I thought disguising us as women was supposed to take care of the guards,” I grumbled, barely keeping my voice to a whisper.

“
It would’ve worked and may still,” she replied, her voice low and filled with unease, unlike what we had seen so far from her. “But it will only work if we surprise them by arriving in their camp unnoticed. If they catch us back here in the caves sneaking around, they may kill us all.”

“
And, you never considered this sort of thing happening before depriving me of my beauty sleep?”

“
Quiet,
Nicholas!”
she hissed. “Come...follow me before you get us all killed.”

“
Me
get us killed? This was your crazy idea—”

“
Shh!”

The voices grew louder, closer. Definitely male voices, and these spoke in a language vastly different from English. Was it Bengali? Urdu? Hindi? Hell it could’ve been a mixture of all three for all I could tell.

Norema signaled with a soft bird-like whistle for the others to rejoin us, and then we stepped down into water that was colder than the lagoon. Where the previous watery passageways were home to some luminescent life forms, like worms and a small breed of blind fishes, our current course took us into pitch blackness that seemed to absorb almost all of Norema’s torch light. It was impossible to know what kind of critters shared this murky environment with us.

Ishi cursed under his breath when a sudden drop in the passageway brought the cold water up to his unprotected crotch. Without any of us speaking another word while we walked through the deepening water, Norema soon pointed her torch toward another deep void to our left. At least this next passageway appeared to be above the water level.

Leading the way again, she stepped up onto crumbling stone steps and the rest of us followed her lead, as quietly as possible. We were indeed on dry ground again, and the unsteady flame from her torch revealed a stone pathway that was in much better shape than the steps. In fact, a great deal of care had gone into the construction and maintenance of the path.

“
We are almost there,” she whispered excitedly. “The room is just a few more meters...And here we are!”

I would’ve expected a door or something to shelter what lay in abundance throughout the large room we stepped into. And, although many of the room’s tables and rows of chests were covered in dust and cobwebs, enough lay open to reveal their contents.

Precious gems, pearls, and even silver were visible. But the items in greatest abundance were what captivated my full attention and Ishi’s. All of these trinkets, coins, chains and ancient utensils appeared to be made from gold.

Chapter Eight

“
Come quickly...there is a room back here where we can hide!”

Norema urged us quietly to follow her to the very rear of the room, near a jeweled encrusted golden throne and an ancient altar also made of gold. By then, Ishi, unable to control himself, had grabbed a couple of handfuls of gold medallions and was about to grab what looked like a small candelabra when she stopped him. A stern look coerced him to put everything back for now, and I reminded him that without a canvas bag or at least sturdy pockets, he would likely lose it all before we made it back to the surface anyway.

A looter’s nightmare, to be sure.

Unfortunately, some of the medallions landed noisily on the room’s stone floor when they fell from his hand while trying to put them back inside the trunk he took them from. Almost immediately, the male voices from earlier shouted excitedly. Footsteps and splashing water announced the guards were headed our way.

Shit!

“
Damn it, Ishi!” I hissed, pulling him by the arm when he tried to pick up the gold pieces spinning like shimmering tops on the floor in Norema’s faint torchlight before she scurried toward the back of the room. “Forget about it—follow me and stay low!”

I felt two of the Winchester barrels in my back, but knew our female guardians wouldn’t shoot me with what sounded like a half-dozen excited Maldivian guards on the way. Meanwhile, Norema had reached the back of the room and motioned for all of us to hurry. No sooner had we reached what amounted to a small alcove when the first of several halogen flashlight beams appeared in the treasure room.

The recess we had crammed ourselves into barely contained all fifteen of us, and Ishi and I were left with our legs partially exposed in the main room. Of worse concern to me was the alluring scent worn by Norema that was also present on the bodies of the rest of the gals gathered near us. The cinnamon aroma was damned near overpowering, and if I was drowning in it, then certainly the armed men who just now stepped into the room could smell it, too.

There were five of these guards, and I only afforded myself a quick glance—but a good one. Dressed in white shirts and tan khakis, I was surprised they looked fairly clean-cut. They were Indian, like Norema and the rest of the villagers we had met. Clad in sandals, not a one of them looked older than twenty. If these were the guards to Badri’s horde of pirated goods, then he must have a GQ dress code where youth is served. It made no frigging sense—not to my eyes and definitely not to my brain. Then again, it might explain why the ladies in our group had taken such pains to get cleaned up for our little expedition. Sort of like an ice cream social, Maldivian island style, where the admission tickets were bullets and guns. I tried picturing these kids as the bloodthirsty pirates that had executed the men of Norema’s little village and then stolen the young children for enslavement.

At least, that was my initial impression. My second glance revealed the more sinister aspects of these kids, namely the weapons that each youngster carried. Hard to say if the guns were the latest models, but they favored the AK-47s used in the past by the Taliban. I recalled seeing pictures of some of the kids in that terrorist group last year. They looked squeaky-clean, too. Like the good-natured boys and girls that most of us have encountered in any of the world’s civilized neighborhoods selling cookie dough for school subsidies.

Two of our present visitors carried bullet-filled bandoliers around their waists and across their shoulders. They and the other three gunmen moved carefully around the room. It became my assumption that they had been in this room filled with riches before, or that they were fully aware of its existence beforehand. There were no vocal inflections that suggested admiration of the bounty lying around as they spoke to one another in hushed voices.

Suddenly, I heard one of them sniff the air. It was right after my third peek from the alcove, and by then the group was less than twenty feet away. This particular young man announced something that brought a horrified gasp, though slight, from Norema. Luckily, the torch had been extinguished before the invaders entered the room, and their flashlight beams had yet to get close enough for a useful refraction from a gold-framed mirror resting against a wall not far from where we hid.

The group continued to sniff and draw closer, their sandals brushing against the stone floor. I dared not look again, but I envisioned the five of them with their weapons pointed ahead and ready for use as they steadily eliminated hiding places among the trunks filled with gold and other treasures. I heard more excited voices after what sounded like one of them picking up a piece of metal from the floor, the slight noise coming from where Ishi had dropped the medallions.

There was no longer any doubt that these young men knew intruders had been here—and in all likelihood were
still
here, hiding. After all, Norema’s and Ishi’s voices had drawn them to this room in the first place.

More steps, quieter this time and drawing closer. More sniffs, too, and then I heard...nothing. It was as if the kids with guns had suddenly disappeared, although obviously they hadn’t.

The wait for what came next was maddening.

I especially hate moments like these...tense moments in closed, dark confines where somebody’s packing serious heat, like automatic rifles. Whether it comes in the form of games, movies, television or real life, it always brings me back to the night my parents were gunned down in cold blood. Like a haunting song or flavor from a bygone memory, my heart fills quickly with unbearable grief. No one’s tenderness has ever been able to touch the pain, though I’ve sought that ability in the women I’ve loved and poorly chosen. Nicotine helps, but alcohol becomes my dearest friend at times like this.

What a shitty deal to be stuck on a forgotten island and in a hidden cave with thirteen scared, and unpredictable, Maldivian women and a handful of teenage boys pretending to be modern-day pirates.

I really needed a smoke and a drink—
badly
—and not necessarily in that order.

One of the Winchesters behind me clicked, breaking the silence. It proved to be a regrettable move, and it wouldn’t have mattered if Ishi’s and my legs were visible when caught in the many flashlights’ redirected beams. Like radar-driven missiles, all of the light beams were pointed to our cramped hideout, and a moment later the AK-47 toting kids converged on our hideout.

We might’ve survived as a group if Oriya and Tamil hadn’t panicked in response to the threatening voices from the guys and taken the first shots. Two of the gunmen collapsed where they stood. But when their buddies responded in kind, all of the weapon-bearing girls in our group soon fell in a bloody heap. The only thing that saved the rest of us from joining the dead girls immediately was an impassioned plea from Norema in the same tongue used earlier by the gunmen.

An odd moment of recognition followed from one of the surviving young males, amid cries of grief rampant on both sides. Norema stepped over the dead, screaming as she ran over to one young man—the youngest, as it turned out. They embraced amid a scene of chaos and tragedy. Tears that might’ve flowed from a joyous reunion instead came from profound sorrow.

Chapter Nine

As dicey as things had looked beforehand, they were much worse now.

We certainly couldn’t stay where we were, and to linger would be to our detriment. From my count, there were seven dead bodies—two guys and five gals. Not a single one older than twenty, by my best guess. It tore at my heart. Yet, even before I heard other men coming—and these sounded much older than the boys sent to handle the initial investigation in the treasure cave—I knew the casualty list could soon double if Norema’s surviving villagers and Ishi and I were still present when the guard reinforcements arrived.

Norema had pulled herself away from the young man to attend to the girls who had valiantly died to protect her and the other women. Her sari and the rest of her clothing were stained by blood, as was her face as she tried in vain to revive the one named Oriya. The other women had moved out to comfort the young men who wept for their fallen comrades, sobbing just as hard. It took me a moment to comprehend that two of the women, who were near Norema’s age, were the mothers of these boys. And, it was Ishi who first came to the conclusion that the young man whom Norema ran to embrace just moments ago had to be her missing son, Aafreen.

He seemed stunned as Norema held him, and unable to get up when she did. But, standing again to get moving was the only option for those of us still among the living. The shouts echoing in the passageways outside the treasure room sounded angry, carrying the much deeper timbre of violent men who would be much more prone to revenge than mercy. We had at most a minute to get the hell out of this place.

“Norema...we can’t stay here,” I said, trying to be as gentle as possible while making sure she understood the urgency in my tone. She looked up at me in her tear-streaked gaze. I tried again: “Others are coming...you can hear them, I’m sure. They sound really angry.”

She looked anxiously toward the entrance. Even now, several new flashlight beams glanced against the walls just outside the room from the flooded passageway and not far from the entrance.

“You know and I know that we’ll never make it out of here before they arrive,” I continued, pulling her attention back to me. “Is there another exit out of this room?”

“
I don’t think so,” she said, sadly shaking her head. “There’s only one way into this place that I know of...”

Her voice trailed off as she glanced worriedly toward the entrance again. Meanwhile, the kid we had tentatively identified as Aafreen stood up, casting a brief look over his shoulder toward the doorway and then back at us.

“Mother,” he said, “there is another way. Kintu and I know a passageway that leads from here.”

Yes, it surprised the hell out of both Ishi and me that the kid spoke English. Then again, most moms will pass on the language skills they’re most comfortable with to their children at a young age. Not to mention, we never found out when exactly her son was taken from her...a bit of knowledge that would’ve come in handy, based on how things turned out.

Another young man pulled away from one of the other moms and pointed toward the far corner to our right. This one pulled his mother up with him and guided her past the chests, tables, and open crates that formed an obstacle course in the dimness. Aafreen joined him with his flashlight, which helped guide everyone else. I grabbed another flashlight lying on the floor while Ishi and I grabbed two of the assault rifles. Thankfully, despite their terrible grief, Norema and the other survivors moved quickly toward our new destination, pausing only to close the dead girls’ eyes.

For a moment, it looked as if we might escape the room unnoticed. We had reached the corner where the exit lay hidden beneath ornate furniture laden in gold and encrusted with jewels large enough to cause both my Tawankan pal and me to be momentarily distracted by their pristine sparkle in the flashlight beam’s glow. By then, Aafreen and the one he called Kintu had cleared away enough glittering debris to get to an old iron gate. But the sucker was locked, and there wasn’t sufficient time to pick the primitive padlock. Just as our latest treasure room guests arrived, Kintu used a small handgun to send a single bullet through its oxidized center, and the lock fell open.

“Nice shot, kiddo,” I said, admiringly. “Too bad you Maldivians don’t believe in silencers.”

The rabid mob behind us immediately responded to the gunshot. I moved to the rear while urging everyone else to step through the small entryway and into the even narrower tunnel beyond. Before I could rejoin them, I saw the first guard reinforcement emerge from the maze behind us. Though hard to say if the guy saw me pull the gate closed after I dove into the tunnel, doubtless he heard the noisy clank of the iron door against its rusted frame.

“Get moving, everyone!” I hissed.

I couldn’t believe they were just standing there, apparently waiting for me. If the ladies had seen the guy behind me, they wouldn’t be loitering around like young groupies backstage at a Kidd Rock concert. Unlike the three GQ lads with us, if the rest of our current pursuers looked anything like this dude, then we’d just discovered the real pirates belonging to the storied miscreant named Badri.

Even in the dimness, I could see the dingy clothing and glistening greasiness on the guy’s skin. His beard and hair were matted and uneven in growth beneath a soiled turban. Though still ten feet way, his pungent body odor indicated he hadn’t bathed in months. Obviously, there were two different hygiene standards in this thieving cave society.

But that wasn’t the worst...the worst aspect was the fact this guy had guns and sabers strapped to his shoulders and waist, and his predatory expression made it appear he enjoyed using them. Certainly we’d soon understand what this meant firsthand, if he caught up to us.

Our eyes met, and he smiled maliciously. Most of his teeth were gone, but the ones still there were capped in gold that was fringed with decay. How frigging lovely.

“
Hurry, Nick!” Ishi called to me, his voice a forced whisper. The cave amplified his alert and, as our new friend pulled his assault weapon and aimed it at me in the dimness, Ishi added, “There are boats in here, and I can’t hold on to one for us much longer!”

Boats? What in the hell?

As other shadows came up behind the man, I had to think fast and act even quicker. He prepared to take a shot as I backed deeper into the tunnel. Maybe it was the fact I needed to create the illusion that our small, undefined group was actually an armed army. Or, perhaps I just didn’t care much for his shit-eating grin. Whatever the inspiration, I raised the rifle I held and made sure the safety was off. Then I fired in his direction.

Bullet flares from missed shots glanced against the gate and tunnel walls, and then I scurried to rejoin everyone else. Yeah, I’m not the most accurate shot—even with prior practice. But, I’m certainly not foolish enough to stick around and see how such a risky proposition worked out. Thankfully, his retaliatory shots missed me, and I must’ve hit the asshole or at least caused him to reconsider pursuing us. I heard a pained howl behind us followed by excited voices...
extremely
excited voices.

I expected someone to immediately pursue us into the tunnel, but the tired, iron gate remained silent. The voices grew faint, as if the men were moving away. No more gunshots either. None of us heard another damned thing coming from behind us.

We were in the clear for now...at least until we moved deeper into the cave system, following another waterway in what would become a desperate struggle to escape.