The Girl Beneath the Sea (Underwater Investigation Unit #1)(55)

“So that house you broke into from the tunnel?” says George. “I did a little digging around while I was waiting to find out that you hadn’t been taken to the county jail. It belongs to Heinrich Gustafson. He’s an attaché to the Belgian ambassador or something like that. Anyway, he has diplomatic immunity. Which basically means you can’t search his property without pulling a ton of strings—especially because the on-paper owner of the house is a Dutch company, making it even more difficult. Long story short, Heinrich owed some money a while back. He had to pay back a bribe or something. Guess who gives him a loan? His friendly neighbor Bonaventure. Through a shell company, of course. As far as I can tell, Heinrich has never even been to the place since the remodel.”

“So, Bonaventure used that as his transfer point? Close, but not too close.” I remember something I spotted in the underground bay. “Hey, I almost forgot, there was a narrow tunnel made of plastic piping hidden in a wall. It went on forever. Do you think it led to Bonaventure’s estate?”

“Possibly. Did it look like a water pipe?”

“Yeah,” I reply.

“He could have had that installed with his irrigation system. On surface sonar, it’d probably look like plumbing. Great way to get things to and from his house, like a bank tube.”

There’s a long stretch of silence as we go over what’s in our heads. Finally, George says, “Tell me your working theory.”

“My theory?” I reply.

“What do you think happened so far? Don’t be afraid to fill in the blanks—just don’t get too attached to any particular part of it. Tell me what happened.”

I feel like this is a pop quiz. “Well . . .” I hate starting sentences with that word. I start over. “Right now, I believe that Bonaventure was using the Kraken to ship cash to and from his house. He may also have been using it to import drugs from a ship offshore. Maybe go all the way to South America and back.”

George interrupts me. “That far?”

“Dad would know the range better than me. But a small gasoline generator and a snorkel would let it recharge the batteries for silent mode when it was safe to sail near the surface.”

“Interesting. I hadn’t thought about that. That could mean there are more than one of them?”

“Possibly. I don’t know. It’s just a thought. Anyway, Bonaventure finds out the feds, not DIA, are about to raid him. So he empties everything that’s incriminating into the Kraken along with whatever he has on K-Group and sends it somewhere.”

“And where would that be?” asks George.

“I don’t know. It could have been some other secret location. But I don’t think it made it there.”

George glances over, seemingly surprised by this observation. “Go on . . .”

“I think it malfunctioned and sank with his blackmail material and drug-cartel money on board. Otherwise, if he had already moved the money, wouldn’t he have fled the country? I know K-Group could get him anywhere, but they might not want to if he was already gone and under threat of being arrested. But since he didn’t have the money, he needed to stick around.”

“And maybe make sure the money goes to who it’s supposed to—the Mendez cartel. They’re the ones K-Group propped up and Bonaventure was laundering money for. DIA might not care if Bonaventure is out of the country and out of reach, but the Mendezes want their money. They’re probably also not too thrilled about Bonaventure having their books.”

“So, we really could have a sunken submarine with a half billion somewhere in South Florida,” I say out loud. “Back on Dad’s boat, it sounded like another crazy rumor. Now? I get why everyone’s acting all nuts.”

“Our Kraken,” says George. “But where is it?”

“Somewhere between Bonaventure’s estate and . . . well, anywhere. I’d like to search the bay we were just in.”

“You think it could be there?”

“It’s a place to start.”

“I don’t know. K-Group knew about the sub. I’m sure the first thing they did was search around Turtle Isle,” George replies.

“Yeah, but they didn’t use the best living treasure hunter in the business to look for it. I’d like to at least take a pass.”

“We could also send you back for the body.”

“The body?” I convulse at the memory of the corpse, the rough fabric of its jeans. “I almost forgot about that.”

“And you didn’t tell DIA?”

“Hell, no. We should have called it in, though.”

“We will. After.”

“After?”

“After you go back in there and retrieve the body and we get a look at it.”

I stare at him in silence for a moment. “I know you live for this vigilante bullshit, but I got arrested back there and threatened with a lifetime sentence in a secret government loony bin where they execute you with medical malpractice once they’re sick of you. I’m not going back there.”

“And I’m not asking you to do anything illegal or without some kind of legal protection.”

“How does that work?”

“We’ll figure something out. Worst-case scenario, I go back in for it.”