David Leadbeater - Caribbean Gold

“Russo! Two feet dead right. Coming at you. Alicia, at your feet, rising now. Michael, take that fucker down!”

Crouch rolled and rolled, finally breaking Jensen’s hold. Though bruised and panting he wasted no time in recovery, just kicked out and rolled again. Still keeping hold of his flashlight, he shone the light straight into Jensen’s eyes.

The head whipped away, the goggles flaring. Crouch launched an attack faster than an RPG, crashing into Jensen’s midriff and taking him to the ground. Caitlyn whipped her head back to where Alicia and Russo struggled.

“Behind you, Alicia. Three, two, one… Russo — duck!”

With the ongoing instruction and the sure knowledge of what they fought, the soldiers soon showed their superiority. Alicia realized they faced local thugs high on something. But their blood flowed as well as any enemy’s. Russo finished his last opponent, winded and slashed, but went immediately over to where Crouch fought Jensen.

Alicia, maddened by the shadowy battle and uncertain source of it, annoyed with herself for succumbing to doubt, picked her final opponent up by the hair and launched him bodily at Russo.

“Here. Throw that in the bloody bin.”

Russo caught the human projectile, hefted and increased the momentum, flinging him across the room and into a ceiling-high, double-row of old barrels. Alicia watched them fly apart, timbers sparring away, as she jumped to Crouch’s aid.

Dark liquid flooded the cellar floor as the local thug groaned.

Crouch found a blow that struck under Jensen’s chin, snapping his head back and sending him to the floor. Caitlyn gathered up all the flashlights and made a double-sweep of the cellar.

“No more… Welsh fairies.”

Crouch pushed his body to its knees and crawled over to Jensen’s side, voice rasping. “Where?” he grated. “Where’s the goddamn treasure?”

“Dunno,” Jensen all but laughed. “We were waiting for you.”

Crouch’s head hit the floor. “Bollocks.”

Caitlyn passed night goggles out among the team. Everyone slipped a pair on and then sat back on their haunches. Truth be told, to Alicia, everything looked pretty much as she’d expected. No secret doors or hidden ledges, no suspicious veins in the rock. The floor looked solid, but she guessed they’d have to move everything aside to get a proper take.

Caitlyn’s voice was a whisper. “Guys.”

Crouch looked up, face creased, old and bloodied, eyes only for Jensen. “At least you will get all you deserve,” he said. “And a long time coming.”

“I escaped once…” Jensen rasped.

“Guys…” Caitlyn said a little louder.

Alicia reached out for Russo. “You okay there, Rob? Look a bit cut up.”

The big soldier held his arms out, streaked with blood. “One of those sneaky bastards got past me. Early on.” He added the last as if that explained the slip-up.

“Um, guys…”

The door at the top of the stairs opened. A man looked down, saw the figures and perhaps the blood in the flashlight beams. His next words: “I’m calling the police!” confirmed it.

“Thanks,” Crouch said and meant it.

“Fuck! Guys!” Caitlyn screamed so loudly now Alicia jumped a foot off the floor.

“What the hell is it?”

The researcher just pointed. Alicia followed her gesture and saw the unfortunate man Russo and she had thrown against the wall. And the stack of barrels. It was the barrels that drew the interest though. Destroyed, splintered and leaking a dark liquid Alicia could only guess to be rum, they revealed that which had been hiding behind their heavy bulk.

A door. Clear through the goggles, but invisible in half-light. Crouch stared hard at it.

“Could be,” he muttered excitedly. “Could be.”

Alicia felt hope but then Russo dashed it. “I find it hard to believe it’s been there four hundred years behind all those barrels.”

“So do I,” Crouch said with half a smile. “So ask yourself why all those hefty barrels are stood in front of it.”

Russo’s lips moved but nothing came out. Alicia pondered the rather interesting line of reasoning.

“Because when it became a pub the new owner checked behind it… and found nothing?”

Crouch nodded. “Let’s go see.”

They slogged through the spilt rum, finding it a little ironic considering in whose footsteps they were following, and wrenched open the locked door after finding a crowbar. They took Jensen with them, held by Russo. Crouch flung the door open and used the night-vision goggles to peer inside.

“Well, it’s a storage room, I guess. But small. So small you’d be hard-pressed to fit more than a few crates in here.”

Crouch sounded depressed. Alicia handed him the crowbar. “Dig around for a bit.”

Under the six-hundred-year-old pub, under the very earth that had once belonged to Captain Henry Morgan’s father; inside the dwelling where the young boy had grown and returned only once as a man and a condemned pirate, the Gold Team dug and pounded and searched. They gouged every wall, slammed every surface. They broke bricks apart, shattered stone. Crouch wedged the wrecking bar further and further into a hole he’d made and eventually found no more resistance.

“People,” he said. “I just found air.”

Air was good. It meant there was space beyond the broad wall that made up the back of the storage room.

“Six blocks thick.” He panted. “If I hadn’t been so bloody desperate I would never have kept going.”

The dark, old, untouched mortar came apart. The stones fell inward. Crouch passed them to the others, working hard and sweating profusely. Soon a space had been made large enough to fit his head and shoulders through. The boss then turned to Caitlyn.

“Would you like to do the honors? For Zack?”

She smiled and nodded, fitted her slender top-half into the hole and looked around. When she returned she took off the goggles and flashed a pair of eyes so bright they might light up the cellar.

“A tunnel,” she said as if it were a golden headdress. “Wide enough for all of us and descending slightly. Shall we?”

They dragged Jensen between them, forcing him into the gap though, in truth, the man appeared eager to tag along. Probably still looking for a chance to get free, Alicia knew. But then maybe he also wanted to see Henry Morgan’s treasure.

Far from the place he called home. Far from the place Morgan called home. How ironic. Alicia wondered how many times Morgan had pined for it, yearned for it as he sailed back and spent those years governing Jamaica. Maybe the man actually died of a broken heart.

The tunnel was hard on the palms and knees but spacious enough. It angled downward and grew warmer at first, then decidedly cold. Crouch thanked Jensen for the night-vision goggles. They certainly wouldn’t have been able to progress so quickly without them.

At length, they came to what could only be described as a chute. A wide passage down that was vertical enough to ask a whole lot of faith for any would-be explorer.

“Whoa,” Alicia eyed it doubtfully. “We should chuck the criminal in first.”

Jensen wriggled.

Crouch held a hand up. “As you said previously, Alicia, we’re in this because of me. Because of my lifelong search for long lost treasure. I’ll take the plunge.”

Nobody offered up any objections. Crouch maneuvered himself so that his legs dangled over the edge and then looked back. “Cross everything.”

“Good luck,” Alicia said and meant it.

The boss pushed himself away, falling down the chute and unable to stop a shriek escaping from his throat. Alicia glanced at Russo.

“You think that was a happy shriek? Or a fuck me, I’m dead, shriek?”