The Oracle's Message (6 page)

When Annja woke a few hours later, rain continued to pelt the cabana. She’d left the veranda open again, welcoming the gusting winds. She looked out from the bed and watched as the waves battled one another beneath the dark clouds.

A quick glance at her watch told her that it was after five in the evening. Presumably, dinner would be served soon in the main pavilion. But before she ate another meal, Annja wanted to do some research.

She eased herself out from under Hans’s arm. He shifted, mumbling in his sleep. Annja looked down at him and smiled. He was handsome even with his eyes closed.

She took a quick shower and dressed, then eased out the door, running softly down the main path toward the administration building. She could have used her own computer, of course, but she wanted a little privacy, and since she had a guest with her, it seemed a better idea to do this without Hans looking over her shoulder.

She made it to the administration building without getting too wet. The rain seemed to be letting up some, but as soon as she thought that, another crash of thunder broke and the intensity of the rain kicked up another notch.

She stood in front of the main desk and looked at the smiling woman sitting there. “Do you have internet access here?”

“Of course. We have a bank of computers you can use.”

Annja smiled. Even in the remotest places on earth you could still manage to access Google.

The woman led her to a small room tucked away off the main corridor close to the dining pavilion. Annja entered and found the room was cooled with a small air conditioner. She welcomed the cool, dry feeling of the room, and sat down behind the computer.

She spent the better part of the next two hours researching everything from lost civilizations to rumors of giant oysters. What she found didn’t do much to refute Spier’s theories, but neither did it support them.

Rumors of lost civilizations were as plentiful as ever, but there was little proof to suggest that any had ever actually existed. Every few years someone seemed to come out with a new theory on their existence and why expeditions should be launched to discover if they were, in fact, real. But no one ever seemed to come back with any proof.

Giant oysters, on the other hand, were real enough, and Annja found several newspaper accounts of oysters reportedly three times the size of a man’s hand. Pacific oysters, especially, seemed to be something of a nuisance to mussels and some naturalists called the oyster a plague that was spreading throughout the world’s oceans.

Of course, whether any oyster or giant clam could produce a pearl the size of the one Spier was seeking was another question entirely. Annja did find mention of another large pearl, the Pearl of Allah, which had been located by a diver right in Palawan itself back in 1934. It measured an astonishing nine inches across, but didn’t resemble a stereotypical pearl at all. The Pearl of Allah was lumpy and misshapen. Of course, that didn’t mean it was worthless. Recent estimates had placed its value at around forty-two million dollars.

Annja leaned back. Maybe there was something to Spier’s story, after all. A giant pearl didn’t seem to be out of the realm of possibility. Even if they weren’t smooth and round and black like the one in Spier’s story.

Interesting.

Annja did a little more digging, this time on Spier himself. What she found didn’t do much to help build a story around him. From what she was able to dig up, Joachim Spier was a self-made man who had started building his fortune after he got involved with investing. Teaching himself to be a day trader, Spier made millions and then invested those proceeds further, exponentially increasing his net worth. It was rumored that he now possessed a net worth of roughly one billion dollars, making him one of Germany’s wealthiest individuals.

Prior to becoming an investment guru, Spier had served in the German military after World War II, eventually earning his parachute wings as one of the famed parachute commandos. There wasn’t much to Spier’s service record and several sections had been blacked out.

After his discharge from the military, Spier lived in Munich and married his high-school sweetheart. Spier’s wife died from cancer in the late 1970s. They never had children. Spier never remarried, but then became something of a recluse. He was generous in his charity work, though, especially to foundations devoted to prolonging life.

Annja sighed. Was Spier after some kind of fountain of youth?

But at eighty, why had he only started looking for the pearl now? If he was so concerned about his vitality, wouldn’t he have started looking for it long ago?

On a whim, she started to type in Hans’s name but then realized she didn’t know his last name. She switched her query and typed in news about German involvement in the Afghanistan war. She found a few articles detailing the friendly fire incidents that had caused so much political strife back in Germany. But there was one site that listed the extensive number of German casualties in the war. It seems they hadn’t all been pulled out, after all.

But she found nothing much about German special-operations units deployed to Afghanistan aside from several German media reports that claimed up to twelve members of a KSK unit, which Annja learned stood for
Kommando Spezialkräfte,
had been killed. Whether Hans’s teammates were included in that number, she wasn’t sure. But Annja had been around enough soldiers involved in special operations to know that what happened and what got reported were often at opposite points in their peculiar universe.

It was certainly reasonable to assume that Hans was telling her the truth about the failed operation. Certainly, other units had been bungled in their handling by higher-ups and bureaucrats before.

She switched off the computer and got up from the desk. She could have stayed in the cool room awhile longer. She was completely dry, but checking her watch, she also discovered she was ravenous.

Nothing like a lot of swimming to remind you how to eat, she thought.

Outside, the pavilion was largely subdued and the rain continued to fall steadily. Annja doubted that Spier would be able to get his night dive in tonight.

“And I thought I might have scared you off.”

Annja jumped a little and turned. Hans stood there grinning at her. He looked freshly showered and shaved.

Annja blushed. “No. I just needed to check some things out.”

He frowned. “You couldn’t check them out in your room?”

“You were sleeping so soundly, I didn’t want to disturb you.”

Hans grinned. “I apparently overexerted myself this afternoon.”

“Apparently.”

“You hungry?”

Annja nodded. “Famished.”

While they dined, other team members came in and sat with them. Annja watched the pounding surf and shook her head. “Feels like monsoon season around here today.”

Gottlieb, who hadn’t said much so far to Annja, nodded. “I hear from the weather report that this may continue into tomorrow morning.”

Hans sighed. “Not much chance of a night dive, it would appear.”

“Gut,”
Gottlieb said. “Then we can sleep in a little bit. I don’t know about you, but I’ve been quite tired.”

“I could do with an early night,” Annja said. When no one said anything, she attacked her salad with renewed interest.

“So, Annja, did you manage to find some time to do research?”

The new voice belonged to Spier. He held a plate in front of him and sat down at their table. Annja noted he had a large pile of food again. She nodded at his meal and smiled. “I wish I could eat that much without putting on any weight.”

Spier smiled. “It’s all in how you keep yourself active.”

Annja shook her head. “I don’t know many eighty-year-old men who can eat like you do, Joachim.”

He leaned closer. “I’d wager you don’t know many eighty-year-olds that are anything like me.”

“That’s true. You’re quite unique.”

Spier laughed. “Ha, always a pleasure to be an oddity, I suppose.” He bit into his steak. “So, tell me, what did you find out?”

“Nothing much on lost civilizations. Just that a lot of people I would probably label as crazy seem to believe in them.”

“I’m crazy now?”

“No, you seem sane enough.”

Hans chuckled. “That’s only because you don’t know him well yet.”

Gottlieb joined in the laughter and Spier seemed to revel in it. “He’s right, Annja. Once you get to know me, you’ll see I’m just as crazy as any of those people on the internet.”

Annja smiled. “Wonderful.”

“But seriously, did you find anything of interest?”

Annja shrugged. “Did you know about the Pearl of Allah?”

Spier smiled. “Ah, so you did find out something.”

“Nine inches across supposedly.”

Spier nodded. “It is indeed.”

“So finding a giant pearl isn’t necessarily out of the question.”

Spier leaned closer. “Did you read the description of the pearl?”

Annja nodded. “They said it was a misshapen mess. But it’s still worth forty-two million dollars.”

Spier sniffed. “Money. It always comes down to money. I wonder what sort of a world we would have if mankind had not invented the concept of such a thing.”

“You wouldn’t be worth almost a billion dollars, for starters,” Annja said.

Spier nodded. “True. But the world might be a better place. One devoted to the furthering of mankind’s intelligence.”

“Is that why you want the pearl?”

Spier took another bite of his steak and shrugged. “I have many ideas for why I want to find the pearl. Perhaps this is my last great hurrah. I’m old. Soon, I will most certainly pass on from this mortal place and begin my next great adventure. But maybe I want one last mighty event before I do that.”

Annja picked at her carrots. “The pearl we’re looking for is supposedly round, right?”

“Yes. Round and as black as the very night itself.” Spier pointed outside where the light was fading. “Or perhaps as dark as the weather here.”

“No diving tonight, I guess,” Annja said.

Spier sighed. “Alas, we are sometimes forced to accept Mother Nature’s influence on our worldly desires.”

They passed the remainder of the dinner talking about the pearl and what they expected to find out at the dive site. But as the hours passed and true night settled in, Annja found herself growing sleepy.

She could see that Hans was interested in spending more time with her, but Annja begged off.

“I think I’m going to call it a night,” she told him when they were done with dinner.

“Was it something I did?”

Annja smiled. “You’ve got nothing to worry about in that department. I think if anything you wore me out, is all.”

“See you tomorrow morning?”

“Absolutely.”

Hans nodded. “Joachim wants to get started early again providing the weather decides to cooperate, of course.”

“Call me if anything comes up.”

“I will.”

She watched Hans walk toward the other section of cabanas before turning and heading out through the rain. She smiled as she quickly grew soaked. The rain felt refreshing and she felt reenergized.

Annja passed her cabana and continued walking around the resort. No one was out on a night like this and every breeze blew more water over her.

She walked closer to the water’s edge and then over to where the dive master’s shack was situated.

Ahead of her, she thought she saw movement.

Annja squinted and then used her peripheral vision to scan the area.

Someone was moving in the shadows down by the dock.

Maybe it was Dr. Tiko keeping late hours at the medical clinic. Or maybe it was the dive master finishing up his work before calling it a day, she thought.

But a quick glance at both places showed Annja there were no lights on in either one.

And what’s more, the figure ahead of her seemed to be trying to keep his movements concealed.

Annja squatted on the path and watched as he moved from the dive master’s shack down to the dock and back again several times.

The realization came to her. Someone was planning to go diving tonight, regardless of the storm.

Without thinking about it, Annja moved down the path to get a better look.

The pounding rain concealed any noise Annja made as she stole her way down the path. She thought briefly about going back to get Hans, but then just as quickly disregarded the idea. She’d told him she was tired, after all, and if he thought she had blown him off in favor of a walk, then he might be hurt by it.

No, better to get a look at this herself.

She froze as the figure came back up the walkway and vanished again inside the dive shack. Annja watched as he dragged out what looked to be oxygen tanks and then stowed them aboard one of the resort sloops like the one she’d ridden on out to the dive site.

Who would be crazy enough to go diving in this weather? At night, no less? They’d need to be an expert navigator to get through the storm, and an even better diver if they hoped to find whatever they might have been looking for under the swirling waves.

The whole thing struck Annja as verging on suicidal.

Then again, anyone who had seen her go off on her own probably would have thought much the same thing.

Annja moved closer to the dock and paused behind a large tree. A crack of thunder made her wince. If the lightning flashed at the wrong time, she’d be visible to the shadowy figure in front of her.

But so would he.

He vanished into the dive shack and Annja made her way down to the boat. She was right. There were four oxygen tanks and multiple mouthpieces and regulators aboard. Masks and fins completed the gear.

She heard a noise behind her and had to sink down behind one of the pilings. The shadowy figure put down several bags and Annja saw what looked like high-powered lights going into the boat.

Was it possible that Spier was launching the dive, after all? She frowned. That didn’t make sense. Spier didn’t have any reason to keep the dive from Annja. Unless he wasn’t being entirely forthright with his reasons for wanting to find the pearl.

Still, it didn’t seem like something he would do. He’d invited her to dive in the first place. And then there was the matter of Hans. Would he go behind Annja’s back to do this? She mused about it for a moment and then decided that he probably would not. There was something there between them, she felt, and she doubted that he would spoil their blossoming relationship by being covert like this.

Of course, he had been in special operations. Stuff like this was what they did all the time. Maybe to Hans and the rest of the team it didn’t even seem duplicitous. Maybe they just thought of this as a normal night out.

But if that was the case, then where was everyone else?

The shadowy figure covered all the gear with a tarp and then vanished into the dive shack again. Annja took a breath and moved closer to the boat. She looked under the tarp and confirmed that there were lights there.

Whoever was in the dive shack was going for a little nocturnal exploration.

She heard the twig crack and whirled, seeing the shadow come down toward her. Annja had no time to hide and instead found herself sliding into the boat and concealing herself under the tarp.

Luckily, the waves in the tiny bay were already causing the boat to bob up and down. The shadow didn’t notice the commotion.

He stepped onto the boat.

Annja heard the roar of the engine and her heart jumped in her chest. She heard the rope as it was tossed onto the tarp that covered her and then felt the boat ease away from the dock. In this weather, the noise of the engine wouldn’t even penetrate the din. No one would know that the boat was gone.

And no one would miss Annja.

The boat bounced over the waves and Annja struggled to hold on to the sides of the boat without alerting the shadow. She could confront the person, of course, but she felt there had to be a good reason for why he was doing this in secret.

And she wanted to know why.

So she stayed put and let the motion of the boat move her about. The real task would be staying concealed when the shadow stopped the boat and prepared to dive.

That came sooner than she expected. A quick peek out from under the tarp revealed that the shadowy coastline in the distance appeared to put them in the same location that Annja had dived earlier with Spier and his team.

But what would bring someone else out here on a night like this?

The tarp shifted and Annja froze. She heard nothing that would indicate the identity of the shadow she shared the boat with, but judging from the motion of the boat, he was strapping on his diving gear.

A few moments later, Annja heard him go over the side.

She crept out from under the tarp. Rain still pelted her, and the cloudy sky overhead gave her very little ambient light to see anything.

She checked the equipment and found that one of the arc lights had gone over the side, as well.

As if on cue, a circle of light came from below the boat. Annja peered over the side and saw that the shadow had set up lights around the coral reef.

“What is he doing down there?”

She glanced back at the gear. There were enough oxygen tanks, she figured. Enough other gear, as well.

Before reason could prevail, Annja pulled her dress over her head and, in her bra and panties, started strapping into the diving gear. In a few minutes, she was ready.

Over the side she went.

The water embraced her and she slid into the dark liquid without being able to see anything except the light in front of her far down below.

There was a real danger, she knew, of running into another shark. They fed at night, and in the inky darkness of the sea she could easily be mistaken for food.

She sank deeper toward the light. That would be the safest place to be, she supposed.

At the bottom, she could see the shadowy figure working on another light rig. She didn’t think he’d brought much over the side with him, but she saw that there was a lot more gear down here than she’d expected.

Maybe this was his second trip out to the site?

She didn’t know. He could have been ferrying supplies out here all evening for all she knew. Another potential reason why this couldn’t possibly be Spier or his men.

Annja drifted slowly farther down, trying to remain just out of the light’s ambient pool. If the shadow turned and saw her, the jig would be up, of course. And Annja wanted to know what he was doing down here.

A dark shape shot past her in the dark. She winced, feeling the burst of adrenaline and fear flood her system. She was exposed, she knew, but she had little choice until the shadow moved again.

When he did, he crossed over the top of the reef to the other side.

Annja sank lower and wound her way slowly around to where she could spy on the shadow without him seeing her behind the coral. He wore a dark wet suit that covered his entire body. The mask he wore obscured his face and Annja had no idea who she might be diving with.

She smiled. But at least she wasn’t alone. The dive master would be so proud.

The shadow put another set of lights down near the base of the reef and flicked them on. Bright yellow light illuminated an area of the reef and the fish responded accordingly. Most of them backed into their tiny crevices, into the darkness.

But Annja saw that the larger fish crowded around the light as if to investigate this burning sun in their world. The shadow ignored them and immediately started focusing his attention on the various outcroppings nearby. With a silver-bladed knife, he pried into them.

Annja recognized the part of the reef as being where Hans had found the covered marble. But the shadow wasn’t near that. Was he looking for it?

Annja frowned and checked around her. Something about floating in the dark sea made her feel as though a thousand eyes were upon her.

She smirked. Of course there were. All of the life on the reef would know she was there.

Well, everyone except for the shadow.

Another dark shape on the edge of her vision darted past her. Annja whirled, kicking up a disturbance in the sand, but by the time she’d turned, the shape was gone.

Another shark?

She swallowed and fought against the rising tide of fear. She should leave, of course. The boat was above her.

Somewhere.

Provided she didn’t screw up too much, she would be able to find it again. But what then?

She peered around the edge of the reef and the shadow was gone.

Annja whirled around. Where did he go?

She crept around the edge of the reef, thinking he must have moved on to another section. She looked around trying to find his air bubble trail. If she could see that, then she could pinpoint his location without too much difficulty.

But she saw nothing.

It really was almost as if he had disappeared right off the coral reef.

Annja looked behind her into the depths but saw nothing there, either. He had to be around there some place, she thought.

But where?

She crept around to where she’d seen him last. She recognized where he’d scraped off a few barnacles, but the outcroppings yielded nothing that gave her a clue as to where he’d gone.

What were the chances that he’d been taken by a shark? She shook her head. No, there’d be some sort of evidence of an attack. His tanks would be lying on the ocean floor. His weight belt would have been shredded.

She frowned. Unless something even bigger than the fourteen-footer had simply taken him in its jaws and swam off.

Her stomach ached.

Annja’s mouth went dry and she glanced down at her oxygen gauge.

It was running close to empty.

Her mind whirled. The tanks should have been filled if they were going to be used for diving.

Why hadn’t this one been filled all the way?

She hadn’t been down that long!

She needed to get back to the boat. But in the next instant, she knew where the shadow had vanished to.

He’d resurfaced.

The boat engine roared overhead, its sound muffled through the water, but Annja glanced up and saw the white foam as the boat suddenly shot back the way they had come out.

Leaving Annja all alone in the dark ocean.

She glanced back down at the comforting lights surrounding the reef. He’d left them on, which had to mean he was coming back, right? Why would he leave them on otherwise? It didn’t make sense.

She had to get to the surface.

And that meant leaving the comfort of the light.

But Annja had no choice. She was already feeling the chill of the cooler water entering her body. She’d be hypothermic if that guy didn’t bring the boat back soon.

She guessed they were about a mile offshore.

She could swim for it.

But in the storm it would be a tough slog.

First things first, she thought. Let’s get to the surface. She watched the bubbles rise in front of her and made sure she ascended slower than they did.

Almost there.

She tasted the staleness of the air in her tank. It was almost gone.

The darkness around her seemed to expand and envelop her.

Annja fought for breath. She was twenty feet from the surface.

Fifteen.

Ten.

The darkness closed in as Annja took her last breath.

She broke the surface.

And then passed out, bobbing in the swells.