The Girl Beneath the Sea (Underwater Investigation Unit #1)(44)

“That was a report for school, Mom. I’ve told you this a hundred times.”

“Your brothers never gave me as much trouble as you,” she replies.

“But they’re not nearly as interesting.”

This makes Mom smile, and she walks over and hugs me. “That’s my little Sloan. Beating up the boys. Causing a fuss. Not taking any shit.”

I glance over at Solar. “Have you ever seen this much dysfunction in one night?”

“Yeah, but it was on reality TV.”

Mom lets go of me. “Oh, we almost did one of those. Real Treasure Hunters of Miami or The Marauding McPhersons. I forget.” Shrug. “It never happened.”

“Cable television’s loss,” Solar says dryly.

“All right, I’ll let you dig through those,” says Mom, without even asking what we’re looking for.

After she leaves, Solar says, “Have you entertained the idea I may have done your uncle a favor?”

I start pulling boxes down. “It’s crossed my mind.”

A few minutes later, we find number forty-four. Inside is a collection of folders. Some of them are clipped articles about potential treasure locations. Others are magazine articles about new scientific gear and discoveries.

Dad was always looking for an angle, from an unexplored wreck to an improved way to detect sunken treasure. I divide the articles into piles as we pull them from the box.

We each take a pile, looking for some clue as to what Dad was hinting at. Nothing stands out until Solar pulls out a folder and whistles.

He shows me the label, which reads, OCEAN TECH YARD.

Winston’s company.

Below it are two words printed in a futuristic font: Project Kraken.

“Oh snap!” I blurt out.

“You know what this is?”

“Yeah. It was some crazy thing Dad and Winston cooked up. It was a robotic explorer. Something they could just let run for months at a time searching the seafloor. They even talked some people into seed funding.”

“What happened?”

“I think it was battery power or a sensor issue. Maybe both. This was the nineties. Batteries didn’t last long enough. I don’t think they could keep a computer running for long underwater. That’s all different now. My daughter plays with stuff in school that could do it,” I explain.

Solar spreads the contents of the folder on the floor of the garage. There are lots of electrical schematics and component-design diagrams. He unfolds a blueprint and lays it flat.

It shows a flat submarine that looks like a manta ray. Instead of being cylindrical, it’s spread out, designed to skim along the bottom of the ocean.

Solar and I stare at the same number on the diagram—total height of the craft: thirty-six inches. Short enough to glide through the canals we’ve been looking at but large enough to carry significant cargo.

Solar reads the interior dimensions. “Pretty big inside for just one or two people.”

“They wanted it to carry salvage to the surface. I wonder if Winston found a new purpose for it . . .”

Solar scrutinizes the image. “I’m confused. Where does the pilot go?”

“There is none. It’s automated. Oh man!” I pull the transceiver from my pocket. “This!”

“That’s a radio component. What good is a radio if there’s nobody to talk to?”

“Very good if it’s a modem. Remember what Albert said? This lets one computer talk to another. Data transmission.”

“A remote control?” he asks.

“Or a way to load a new program.” I stab the diagram with my finger. “Either way, I’ll bet you anything this is what K-Group’s looking for.”

“An underwater narco drone . . .” Solar’s voice goes quiet as he thinks it over. “This is serious.”

“No kidding.”

“I mean real, real serious. Narco subs are costly to build and operate. A fleet of these?”

“They can’t cost more than a few million,” I reply.

“And no pilot. I’d love to see one.”

“There’s one out there. Somewhere at the bottom of a canal.” I add silently, With a half-billion dollars inside . . .

Jackie and I could go anywhere. Really anywhere. She might protest, but not so much if I bought her a pony farm in New Zealand.

Slow down, Sloan. We’re the good guys . . . but what does that even mean anymore?

“I think I just saw your father in your eyes,” says Solar.

“No shit,” I say bluntly. “Before we decide to go rogue, we need to figure out where to look.”

“If Bonaventure used this to smuggle the money and files, then our starting point is his estate. But that’s being surveilled by the DIA.”

“Hmm . . . But do they know what they’re looking for?”

“Do we?” asks Solar. “Are you really positive that this Kraken’s real?”

“No. But there’s a quick way to find out.”





CHAPTER THIRTY

RUMRUNNERS

All this talk of drug dealers got me thinking about the gangsters who used to smuggle booze through South Florida. With more than a thousand miles of coastline, Florida has always served as both an entry and an exit for illicit goods. Trying to stop it has been an ongoing effort for almost five hundred years.