“How long?”
“I’ll put Pete and Wendy to work as well, so if we’re lucky . . . How soon do you need it?”
“As usual, Selma.”
“So, yesterday?”
He smiled. “That might be a little late.”
“All right. I’ll get on it immediately.”
When he hung up, Remi was watching him expectantly. “Japanese, I presume?” she said.
He nodded. “Good guess. But it also makes tracking down any information harder.”
“History is written by the victors.”
“Correct. And that assumes that any record of a Japanese operation to recover sunken treasure is not going to be in the encyclopedias.”
“True. But if we’re lucky, we’ll pick up the scent.”
Sam looked at the sun glittering on the surface of the sea. “Imagine what that had to have been like. Diving, day after day, off an island during wartime, enemy attacks taking place constantly. With technology that predates scuba.
The old copper diving helmets . . . like something out of Jules Verne.”
“They were obviously successful. One look at the walls proves that,” Remi said.
Sam looked back at the monitor with a thoughtful expression. “No question.”
The rest of the day went by slowly even with the improvised suction pump. Leonid’s impatience created a palpable tension. When the dive teams finally called it a night, everyone gathered in the galley for dinner, the good-natured banter of the men lively and filled with laughter as they feasted on fresh fish.
Des tuned in to the local radio news for updates on the unrest, which appeared to have calmed somewhat over the course of the afternoon. According to the somber announcer, record numbers of police were on patrol and any disturbances were being met with a swift response from the authorities. Over twenty people had been arrested, but there was no mention of anything of significance in the hunt for the rebels. So for now, at least, it looked like they’d gotten away with murder.
The following morning, Sam used the satellite Internet to check his e-mail. There was a message from Selma with a file attached. He downloaded it and studied the pages as Remi lingered over another cup of coffee. By the time she was done, he’d skimmed the summary and zeroed in on a few promising threads.
“The Japanese had a hell of a time supplying their troops here. That was the main reason they ultimately evacuated. When the surviving soldiers made it to the ships, they were suffering from starvation. Some of the reports are grim. Dysentery, malnutrition, you name it.”
“How long did the Japanese have control of the island?”
“Only about seven months. From June 1942 until February 1943. And it was some of the bitterest fighting of the war.”
“Then there’s not a long time period for us to cover.”
“No, but there’s also very few records from the Japanese side.”
“Right, but since we know they found whatever treasure was here, the question is what happened to it? Why hasn’t it surfaced since the war?”
“You beat me to the punch. If you’d discovered gold, and who knows what else, what would you do? Remember, you’re in the middle of a battle zone with fighting going on every day, your side losing the battle, starvation setting in, heavy casualties, an uncertain future.”
“I’d want to get it off the island.”
“Right, but that’s easier said than done, with the Allies throwing everything they had at you.” Sam’s brow furrowed in thought. “And there’s another wrinkle. To dive that site, there had to have been a ship anchored over it for weeks. That would have naturally attracted unwanted Allied forces attention.”
“Then I think we can safely assume that the mother ship wasn’t an official Japanese vessel.”
Sam nodded. “It was probably a converted long-range fishing vessel or an innocuous, seemingly empty barge. It would have had to have been something that looked innocent or it would have been sunk by the Allies.”
Remi frowned. “And there’s no wreckage.” She sighed. “Are you saying that once the Japanese were done bringing the treasure to the surface, it just steamed out of here?”