The Silent Sea (Oregon Files 7)

“You’re getting soft in your dotage.”

“Bah!”

The computer came online. Juan double-checked the security protocols and called up the Oregon. Instantly, a picture of Eric and Mark popped onto the screen. He could tell by the giant video display behind them that they were in Eric’s cabin. Stoney was an Annapolis graduate who had come to the Corporation after fulfilling his minimum time in uniform. It wasn’t that he disliked the service, but a commander of his who had served in Vietnam with Max thought the bright young officer would better serve his nation by joining up with the Chairman’s crew. It was Eric who suggested his friend Mark Murphy join, too. They had gotten to know each other while working on a secret missile program, where Murph was a designer for one of the big defense contractors.

Eric didn’t have the look of a Navy veteran. He had soft brown eyes and an almost gentle demeanor. Where Murph cultivated a cyberpunk ethos with an in-your-face style of dress, Eric was more buttoned-down and serious. He wore a white oxford shirt opened at the collar. Mark had on a T-shirt adorned with a cyclopic smiley face. Both looked too excited to stay still.

“Howdy, boys,” Juan greeted. “How’s it going?”

“We’re running hard, boss man,” Eric replied. “Linda has us up to thirty-eight knots, and with so few countries trading with Argentina there’s virtually no ship traffic for us to avoid.”

“What’s your ETA at Wilson/George?”

“A tick over three days, provided we don’t hit ice.”

“Encounter ice,” Max corrected. “One encounters ice, one must never hit ice. Bad for the ship.”

“Thanks for the tip, E.J.,” Mark said, using the first two initials of the ill-fated Titanic’s captain.

“So what have you found?” Cabrillo asked.

“You’re not going to believe who those guys were,” Eric said excitedly. “They were the Ronish brothers. Their family owns Pine Island off Washington State.”

Juan blinked in surprise. As a West Coast native, he knew all about Pine Island and its infamous Treasure Pit. It was a story that fascinated him as a boy, as it did all his friends. “You’re sure?”

“No doubt,” Mark replied. “And what do you bet they found a clue in the Teasure Pit that sent them off looking for something hidden in the Amazon rain forest?”

“Hold on. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Tell it to me from the top.”

“There were five brothers. One of them”—Eric glanced down at his notes—“Donald, was killed, get this, on December seventh, 1941, when they tried to reach the bottom of the pit. Right afterward, the three eldest joined the military. The fifth brother was too young. Nick Ronish became one of the most decorated Marines in Corps history. He took part in three island assaults, including being on the first wave at Iwo Jima. Another brother was a paratrooper in the Eighty-first. Ronald was his name. He went in on D-day, and fought all the way to Berlin. The last one, Kevin, joine

d the Navy, where he became a spotter on blimps flying patrols off the coast of California—”

Mark interrupted, adding, “A couple of years after the war, they bought a surplus blimp, which Kevin had gotten himself licensed to fly, and they headed off to South America.”

“Is there any indication that they found anything on Pine Island?” Juan asked. “I seem to recall a big expedition there in the 1970s.”

“There was. James Ronish, the surviving brother, was reportedly paid a hundred thousand dollars by Dewayne Sullivan to allow him to excavate on the island. Sullivan was like the Richard Branson of his day. He made a ton of money in oil and spent it on all kinds of crazy adventures, like yachting solo around the world or skydiving from a weather balloon from eighty thousand feet.

“In 1978, he set his sights on Pine Island, and spent four months excavating the Treasure Pit. They had a massive pumping capacity and built a coffer dam to prevent water from seeping into it from a nearby lagoon, but they could never drain it properly. Divers did find Donald Ronish’s skeletal remains, which were later buried, and they hauled out a lot of debris. But then a worker was killed when they were refueling one of the pumps. He had left it running—it spilled gasoline and went up in flames. A day or so later, one of the divers got the bends and had to be airlifted back to shore. That was when Sullivan shut down operations.”

“That’s right,” Juan exclaimed. “I remember now. He said something like, ‘No mystery is worth a man’s life.’ ”

Eric took a pull off a can of energy drink. “That’s it exactly. But here’s what Mark and I think. After the war, the brothers went back to Pine Island and cracked the pit. There wasn’t any treasure there, or maybe enough to buy the blimp, though I can’t imagine the Navy asked much for them back then. Anyway, they found something down there that led them to South America—a map or carvings.”

“They crashed before they found it,” Murph added.

“What about the youngest brother?” Max asked. “What ever happened to him?”

“James Ronish was wounded in Korea. Never married, he still lives in the house his parents left him when they moved from the Coast, and he still owns Pine Island. We have his phone number and address.”

“As well as his financials.” Mark glanced down at a piece of paper. “As of noon today, he has one thousand two hundred dollars in a savings account. Four hundred in checking, and a credit-card balance of nearly a grand. He’s two payments behind on his taxes but current on a mortgage he took out on the house seven years ago.”

“Doesn’t sound like a guy whose family found pirate loot.”

“Nope. Just an old man marking his calendar until it’s time to take a dirt nap,” Murph said. “We found something in the local newspaper’s online database. A contractor in the area reported that he and Ronish were forming a partnership to make another attempt on the pit. This was five years ago. The contractor was going to put up the money and equipment, but then nothing ever came of it.”

Juan thought for a second, sipping from his tequila. “I’m getting the feeling that whenever Mr. Ronish is short on funds, he opens up his island for exploration.”