Blue Moon (12 page)

CHAPTER TEN

Jeanne could hardly contain herself. At last the
Fallen Angel
would head out to Isla Codo—after Father Ortega, the village priest, blessed the mission. Moved by the tradition established by early CEDAM founders, she'd also asked the local Protestant minister to pray over the expedition that morning at breakfast. Now she, Reverend Hanks, and the others participated in Don Pablo's ceremony.

Having brought a small statue of the Virgin of Guadalupe from Mexico City, Don Pablo handed it over to the priest.

“Talk about being blessed to the hilt,” Gabe muttered under his breath, as Father Ortega and Don Pablo took the lead of the small procession and headed across the central plaza toward the cathedral where it was to be placed.

“We
all
need blessing,” Jeanne replied without looking at him. “Some of us more than others.”

She quelled a pang of guilt. No, it wasn't her place to judge, but aside from his paranoia and having it in for Remy, the man was moodier than a Kansas sky in tornado season. And he'd been in an ominous funk since the diving incident. Opting out of last night's supper, he and Manolo had remained on the boat and filled the small harbor with strains of jazz from a CD player that reached a volume loud enough to be heard in Cancún.

“We'll be lucky to get in a good half day's worth of work,” Gabe grumbled after the prayers were said, candles lit, and the Virgin's statue installed in one of the tiny chapels that lined the cathedral. He folded his long frame into the back of the Suburban and leaned forward, massaging his temples with a tender touch that suggested a night on the bottle.

“Feeling under the weather, are we?” Remy asked, more vigor in his voice than Jeanne had ever heard.

“I'll be fine with a little sea air.” Gabe hit the button to put down the window.

“For heaven's sake, Avery, let us enjoy the cool while we may.” From the front console, Remy put the window up.

Jeanne glanced at Don Pablo and rolled her eyes upward as a short battle of the buttons ensued. “Children, please!” she said when she could tolerate it no longer. Shifting in her seat against Mara, who rode between Jeanne and Remy on the front bench, she pointed a scolding finger at Gabe.

“You! Leave the window alone. Your discomfort is self-imposed. Remy's allergies are not.”

To her astonishment, instead of taking offense, Gabe flashed a mischievous grin. “I love a woman who knows her mind. If only man could fathom it.”

Jeanne opened her mouth to speak, but was dumbfounded by his outright flirtation. The man was incorrigible. Sandwiched between broad-shouldered Gabe and broad-bellied Pablo, Ann sniggered, snapping Jeanne out of her stupor.

“Allow me to enlighten you, Captain. I am lamenting that two
seemingly
mature men reduce each other to bickering adolescents over absolutely nothing.”

Remy sniffed as he steered the vehicle to a halt next to the dock. “I resent that, Jeanne. I really do.” He slammed the gear into park and cut the engine. “I'd rather think of it as a clash of minds, my civilized, pitted against his . . . well . . . childish one.” With that the professor threw open the door and climbed out of the vehicle.

“I think someone's got his knickers in a twist.” Gabe unfolded his long legs from their crunch in the second row to get out.

Before Jeanne could gather her backpack from the floor, he opened her door and gave her a sweeping bow. “Milady, your ship awaits.”

Scalding him with a look, she exited. At this rate, it was going to be a long, long project.

“Reminds me of a film I made of two big-horned sheep during mating season,” Ann observed as Gabe fired up the engine to leave the dock a bit later.

Gabe looked up from fiddling with the GPS as Ann gave Jeanne a playful jab, spurring her down the hatchway toward the galley to prepare a midmorning brace of the strong, rich Mexican coffee.

Jeanne turned on her friend once out of sight in the galley. “That is ridiculous. Remy and I are just friends and colleagues.”

“Oh, puh-leez, I've seen the way he fawns over you.” Ann lifted her chin, mimicking Remy's lofty tilt of the chin and Bostonian accent. “‘Would you like some tea, dear? This Mexican coffee will singe the lining of your stomach, given half the chance.'”

“You are evil.” Jeanne giggled. “That's just his way. He's very thoughtful.”

“He didn't ask me if I wanted tea this morning, and
I
was sitting next to him.”

“Ann, you nurse black coffee like a baby at its mother's breast. No one in his right mind would offer you tea.”

Ann drew water from the tap while Jeanne dumped used grounds from the metal basket of the stainless coffeepot. The
Angel
was outfitted with a water purification system that, when necessary, made salt water suitable for consumption, while generators provided current away from the docks.

“Well, regardless of his intentions,” Anne said, “Remy brings out the ram in Gabe Avery. And don't tell me you haven't noticed our captain.”

A fresh wave of heat shot to Jeanne's face as she yielded the basket to the coffee queen, who guesstimated the right amount of fresh grounds. Coffee making had never been Jeanne's strong point, which was why she leaned toward premeasured teabags.

At that moment, Mara came down the hatchway. “Need any help?” She had no idea.

“Absolutely,” Jeanne answered, eager to escape further pursuit of her discussion with Ann. The fact was, she
had
noticed the captain. Whether in the flesh or in thought, he'd sneaked up on her like static from a wool carpet, jolting her into an unsettling awareness of him.

“If you'll give Ann a hand, I'll go topside. I'd like to take another look at our overlays on the chart.”

As Jeanne started up the steps, Ann's “
Chicken!
” followed by raucous laughter echoed after her.

Pablo sat on the sofa, studying the charts when she emerged on the deck. Affording Gabe a cursory smile, she took the seat next to the cartographer.

“Just look at that sky,” Jeanne exclaimed. “Hardly a cloud in it.”

“Already our prayers are being answered,” Pablo replied.

“I checked with the weather service last night,” Gabe piped up from the wheel. “It was going to be good even before it was blessed.” Catching Pablo's disturbed glance at Jeanne, he softened. “But the prayer and ceremony was a nice touch for the cameras.”

Ann had documented the initiation of the
Luna Azul
expedition on both still and video cameras, just in case
World Geographic
decided to make it one of their television features.

“It was more than a nice touch when my friends were excavating the
Mantanceros
not very far from here,” Pablo told him, as Ann and Mara came up with the coffee. “Lives might have been lost, but for God's protection.”

“What do you mean?” Nick asked from the charting table where he and Stuart readied to man the magnetometer.

Mara handed Pablo a cup of coffee—black. “Yeah, I read about that . . . the blessing of the church, right?”

Pablo nodded. “First, one of the cargo planes crashed in the jungle as the rest of the team loaded the
Cozumel
—the fishing schooner CEDAM hired,” he explained. “Miraculously, all five of the passengers were unharmed.”

“But you lost all the equipment,” Gabe pointed out.

“
Precisamente
,” Pablo said. “In such twisted, charred wreckage, it was a miracle that anyone survived. But just before the crash, all of the men made the sign of the cross and were saved.”

“Whoa,” Stuart murmured.

Mara rubbed her arms. “Gives me goose bumps.”

“And at the end of the expedition, one of the helicopters struck a pontoon on a coral rock and exploded.” Pablo nodded with conviction. “Once again, by God's grace, all survived.”

Jeanne cut her attention toward Gabe, who by now seemed robbed of objection to Pablo's claims. Had his faith soured as his failures—falling short of his doctorate, not to mention numerous fruitless treasure hunt expeditions—mounted, she wondered, or had he never been particularly faithful? Was Gabe Avery the
Fallen
Angel
he'd implied on their earlier meeting?

“And by God's grace we'll find the
Luna Azul
off Isla Codo,” she announced with a cheerful conviction.

“Amen to that,” Stuart said, giving Nick two high fives with a slap of each of his hands.

“It could even be today,” she said, growing bolder.

“Now, that's a real leap of faith,” Gabe snorted.

Pablo shrugged. “All things are possible . . . Not
likely
,” he acknowledged, “but possible.”

It was true. Finding a wreck based on clues put together from records in Seville and from private accounts could take as long as the mapping and excavation itself. With the interference of storms and tides, a single wreck could be spread out for miles. The obvious finds often suggested a place to
start
looking.

She observed the crew seated around the bridge on the ratty canvas-covered sofa and padded equipment locker, realizing for the first time that the professor was missing. “Where's Remy?”

“Went below as soon he came aboard,” Nick answered.

Ann grimaced. “I think he has a slight case of Montezuma's revenge. He came out of the head and sat at the dinette, watched us pour two cups of coffee, and went forward again.”

First yesterday's disaster, now this. Jeanne checked Gabe's expression, anticipating at the least a satisfied smile, but the captain's attention was focused on a marker in the distance.

“Poor—” Jeanne broke off as Remy appeared in the companionway.

Looking far worse than Gabe had earlier, Remy crossed the bridge. Plopping down on the diving bench, he slumped against the bulkhead with a venomous proclamation.

“I
hate
Mexico.”

Two hours later, Isla Codo rose from the sea, a low green mound of equatorial flora and fauna fringed with a narrow ledge of white sand. Coconut palms marked the divider between the sand and inner jungle. According to the fishermen at Punta Azul, the small islet served more as a bird and lizard sanctuary than anything else, too small to sustain larger wildlife. With one eye glued to the Fathometer, Gabe backed down the engines as they approached the rougher patch of sea near the reef.

Based on the aerial pictures that Pablo had superimposed on their chart, the reef was a typical atoll with a dip, or a lagoon, in its midst. The historical scenario put the
Luna Azul
on the reef, where it was broken apart by the tempest that kept its captain and crew from finishing its salvage. At best, the ship slipped off the outer rim of the coral and into deeper water. At worst, it was lifted by the higher tides and cast into the lagoon, a shallower but more treacherous place to excavate . . .
if
they could even get to it. But between Jeanne's
where there's a will, there's a way
determination and her faith, it was as Pablo said earlier:
all things were possible
.

Since they'd lost time that morning with the blessing ceremony, it was decided to start making sweeps, dragging the
fish,
or metal detector, over the first area that Jeanne, Remy, and Pablo had mapped out on the overlay, the southern tip of the reef.

“All set?” Gabe asked Stuart, who sat on a stool in front of the magnetometer with its LED display.

“I'm ready to find some cannon, man,” the blond-haired student shouted, fist raised in a challenge to the fates that the instrument would soon detect the ship's guns—usually one of the first indications of the presence of a wreck on the sea floor.

Ann emerged from the hatchway to the galley with a tray of tortilla wraps. “Ready for lunch?” she asked, setting it on the charting table.

“I'll just have a lime drink,” Remy said from his tentative seat on the padded equipment bench. The poor fellow had worn a path back and forth from the bridge to the head.

Gabe revved up the engines and turned the wheel over the Manolo. “Be back in a flash.”

After disappearing below for a few minutes, he reappeared with a box and handed it to Remy. Leaving the professor intent on reading every detail of print available, Gabe snagged one of the south-of-the-border sandwiches and a soda.

“I'll take two to go,” he said, helping himself to another wrap. “One for me and one for my
amigo
.”

“What's that you gave Remy?” Jeanne asked, voice lowered.

Wickedness gathered in Gabe's countenance, underscoring her concern. “Loperamide-something,” he answered. “Don't want anyone dehydrating on my watch. Keep pumping those mineral drinks in him, will you?”

So the brooding captain was more bark than bite after all. Jeanne let out a sigh of relief, moving him back up a notch on the character scale.