Free Treasure of the Deep by Aiden James, J. R. Rain Page B

Nick!” she called out, embracing her son again as they boarded the boat together. The two of them waved to us, along with everyone else. A bon voyage that struck me as ironic when considering the initial hostile greeting we’d received from the ladies yesterday, and their sons that morning.
    “ What’s so funny, boss?” Ishi asked me, after the yacht pulled out of the cove and moved toward deeper water. I had been smiling, but now chuckled.
    “ Wonders never cease,” I said.
    In the absence of our attention, Badri’s men had removed the bonds from his hands, and the group of twenty-five seething miscreants stealthily approached us. But they misjudged Ishi’s prowess with a gun, and when he brandished the Beretta menacingly, all of them cowered back to their previous spot outside the tunnel entrance. No one wanted to chance an unlucky bullet.
    I took the opportunity to try and wash away the foulness from my hands and forearms in the cove’s shallow water. While standing in small waves up to my knees, I happened to notice a piece of parchment, one written upon long ago. It floated on the water near where the yacht had rested moments earlier.
    What in the...my treasure map?! No way!
    Keep in mind that I’d all but given up on the map’s verifiability after being duped by Badri’s fool’s gold in his imitation treasure room. Yet, why have such an elaborate ruse if there wasn’t a real horde of treasure resting somewhere on the island? After all, Badri had hinted at this possibility.
    “ Is that what I think it is?” asked Ishi. His eyes gleamed with excitement, after I lifted it from the water and brought it over to him. I carefully held it, knowing its exposure to the Indian Ocean would hasten its extinction. The paper was destined to separate soon, and so I studied the map’s content, refreshing my mind of its details as I sought to permanently commit them to memory. “And, here I thought Norema might have lost it at the lagoon when she pushed us off the cliff into the water!”
    At the mention of the lagoon, Badri’s downcast look suddenly lifted. Norema had told us that he was crafty, and I had sensed his intelligence from the moment we met. I could tell the wheels were turning.
    “And, the gun you’re holding was no doubt concealed on your person when you were pushed into the lagoon, no?” he asked, rising to his feet while motioning for his cohorts to rise with him.
    Oh shit!
    Badri said something excitedly to them, and the group converged on us. Fear of the Beretta was no more, and Ishi looked anxiously at me. His hand holding the gun lowered.
    “ What do we do now, boss?”
    “ Run,” I said, grabbing him by the arm once again. “Run like hell!”

 
     
    Chapter Fourteen
     
    We raced into the jungle, disregarding the fact we’d likely need a machete at some point. When Ishi turned to throw the worthless firearm at our furious pursuers, I wrested the pistol from his hand.
    “It won’t work!” he shouted angrily.
    “ Maybe not...but it might still come in handy!”
    We scurried past seemingly endless palm fronds until we encountered thicker brush from mangrove shrubs and trees. Meanwhile, I focused my mind on the map details, picturing them and reversing the images in my head since the map had been drawn from the other side of the island’s vantage point. It would be a trick to find the caves while moving through the jungle. But, banking on the fact they had to be fairly close, and that we’d already explored a significant portion of the island, I believed the caves would prove fairly easy to find.
    And why did I concern myself with the bullshit of finding the caves that supposedly held more fabled pirate treasure, especially at an inopportune time like this? Well, in addition to satisfying my curiosity, any rescue party would likely take a day or two to return for us. It meant there’d be plenty of time for Badri and his band of pissed-off pirates to concoct new ways to dispose of Ishi