The Reef

hand.
    Suddenly fire exploded from it, a spear of violent heat and light that slammed him back like a blow. He watched in horror as the fire grew, in size and intensity, covering her in a sheath of flame. All he could see were her eyes, anguished and terrified.
    He couldn’t reach her. Though he fought and he struggled, the water that had been so calm and peaceful was a whirlwind of movement and sound. A tornado of sand funneled up, blinding him. He heard the lightning crack of the mast splitting, the seaquake roar that burst through the bed of sand and silt to tear through the hull of the ship like cannon fire.
    Through it he heard screams—hers, his own.
    Then it was gone, the flames, the sea, the wreck, the amulet. Tate. The sky was overhead, with its half disk of moon and splatter of stars. The sea was calm and ink-black, barely whispering against the boat.
    He was alone on the deck of the Sea Devil, dripping sweat and gasping for breath.

C HAPTER 4
    T ATE TOOK TWO dozen pictures of ballast and cannon as she and Matthew explored. He humored her by posing at the mouth of a corroded gun, or manned the camera himself to take shots of her among the rocks and patient fish. Together, they attached a crusted cannonball to a flotation and sent it up to the second team.
    Then, after a tug on the line, the work began.
    Maneuvering an airlift well requires skill, patience and teamwork. It was a simple tool, hardly more than a pipe, four inches in diameter and about ten feet long with an air hose. Pressurized air ran into the pipe, rising and creating suction that would vacuum water, sand and solid objects. It was as essential to a treasure hunter as a hammer to a carpenter. Used too quickly, or with too much power, it could destroy. Used too carelessly, the pipe would become clogged with conglomerate, shells, coral.
    While Matthew ran the airlift, Tate examined and collected its fallout that spewed from the top of the pipe. It was hard and tedious work on both sides. Sand and light debris swirled, obscuring vision in a dirty cloud downcurrent. It took a sharp eye and endless patience to search through the fallout, load the bits and pieces and chunks into buckets to be hauled to the surface.
    Matthew continued to make test holes with a steady, almost soothing rhythm. Stingrays basked in the fallout, apparently enjoying the massage of sand and small rock. Tate allowed herself to dream, imagining a slew of glinting gold bursting out of the pipe, like a jackpot in a slot machine.
    Fantasies aside, she gathered fused nails, bits of conglomerate and the shards of broken pottery. They were every bit as fascinating to her as gold bullion. Her college studies in the past year had accented her love of history and the fragments of culture buried in the shifting sea.
    Her long-term ambitions and goals were very clear. She would study, earn her degree, absorbing all the knowledge she could hold through books, lectures, and most of all, by doing. One day, she would join the ranks of scientists who sailed the oceans, plumbed the depths to discover and analyze the relics of doomed ships.
    Her name would make an impact, and her finds from doubloons to iron spikes would matter.
    Eventually, there would be a museum carrying the Beaumont name filled with artifacts.
    Now and again as she worked, she would catch herself falling behind because she’d paused to wonder over a broken cup. What had it held the last time someone sipped from it?
    When she nicked her finger on a sharp edge, she took it philosophically. The thin drip of blood washed away in the swirl.
    Matthew signaled her through the cloud. In the hole, perhaps a foot deep, she saw the iron spikes crossed like swords. Caught between their calcified tips was a platter of pewter.
    Forty feet of water didn’t prevent Tate from expressing her glee. She caught his hand and squeezed it, then blew him a kiss. Efficiently, she unhooked her camera from her belt and documented the find. Records, she knew, were essential to scientific discoveries. She might have spent some time examining it, gloating over it unscientifically, but Matthew was already moving off to dig another hole.
    There was more. Each time they transferred the airlift,they would uncover another discovery. A clump of spoons cemented in coral, a bowl that even with a third of it missing caused Tate’s heart to slam against her ribs.
    Time and fatigue ceased to exist. An audience of thousands watched the progress, small fish