The Secret in the Lake

by Joseph Grant

conclusion

All fears dissipated when upon further investigation, Charlie peered in through the broken wooden window slats and saw a lamp against what had been the wall but was now the floor, blinking inexplicably like a haunted memory.

Nothing was as it appeared in this lost Atlantis, Charlie knew.

Mickey gestured that he was to explore the houses.

Charlie gestured that they should stick to their plan and stay together. By his watch they had already been down for an hour and did not have time to go off on side jobs, which, Charlie knew, could always wait.

Besides, he knew that the houses were deathtraps, probably even more so than when they were built as corporate housing for those who worked in Somerset and Princeton. He smiled at the thought.

He motioned to Mickey that this was a very bad idea. Any furniture, appliance, or any part of the house left behind in the immediacy of the evacuation could pose a serious danger to any diver, however seasoned.

He maneuvered along the lake bottom and ran the map in through his head again. What was he doing on First Street and Barranca Street? He was swimming too far. He had to keep his mind on the map in his head as he was going, or they both could be in serious danger. It was very easy to get lost down here, far too easy.

With a ship it was simple. He knew the inside and outside of every vessel, of every hatch and every hole. Ships were always built cookie-cutter style for the Navy. A town had houses, stores, sewers, telephone wires, trees, bridges and building with various floors, vents and stairwells and odd corners that may have all collapsed into unstable debris that would prove perilous to a diver.

He turned a corner to his right and glided back down Barranca Street until he hit Second Street again. He was thankful he had studied the various city maps and plans. What was left of the bank was unrecognizable from almost any other building in the area. It looked just like the collapsed Post Office across from it, as it looked like the crumbled legal office next to that.

Turning his searchlight towards the front entrance of the bank, he was met by a fortuitous sight. He would not need to break the thick glass of the front doors. The initial rush of the oncoming water from the burst dam had done it for him long ago. The only impediment between him and the safe was the displaced furniture that had smashed against the doors as the water pressure equalized. Fortunately, the furniture that blocked the entry could be moved with little more than a nudge.

The darkness enshrouded him as he noticed a change in the light from above and the temperature as he moved through the bank lobby. It was a thicker darkness on account of the lack of surface light. There were no emergency lights or blinking bulbs inside this building.

Remembrances of the former life of the building floated eerily by in the form of a calendar, a tickertape of what appeared to be cancelled checks, a pen still moored to the chain to a knocked-over counter, someone’s daily planner opened accordion-like as if some bizarre financial sea-creature were peering curiously out at him.

A woman’s red pocketbook also floated emptily by him, its contents long carried away by whatever current flowed this far down. He was happy that the water was not as dead as this town. As if to prove his thought, a carp darted out towards him, then away, both of them startling the other. He wondered what the carp was doing this far down.

The carp had kept a wary eye on him as it swam away. Charlie was glad for the company. “Show me the way to vault.” He said to himself with a laugh. “We can split it “Fifty/fifty.” He said and the revised it. “Eighty/twenty.” He smiled. “You can keep you and your family in worms and bait for the rest of your lives,” he joked. “All you have to do is show me the way. Swim towards it and I will follow you.”

The fish immediately darted into the abyss. “Fine, have it your way. I’ll take the whole enchilada.” He shook his head. At best, he was talking to himself. He had to; it kept him sane down here in the abject darkness. At worst he was talking to a fish, having already succumbed to insanity in the depths.

He wondered what had become of Mickey. He wondered if Mickey had indeed found anything or if he was trapped in some two-bedroom duplex. He also wondered if he and Frankie hadn’t already high-tailed it out of there, stealing his beat-up Nissan and the rest of his equipment. He shook his thoughts. He was not concentrating, and he knew he had to focus.

He swam on until he reached the bank of teller’s windows. He glided over them with ease and proceeded to empty their contents. This must be the easiest bank heist in history, he thought as he stuffed his diver’s bag with cold, wet cash.

He opened the rest of the teller’s drawers and filled his mesh bag. He quickly surmised that he had netted over tens of thousands of dollars in large and small bills and even some rolled coins. He was excited by his find, as excited as he had been when he had located a Russian sub for the Navy, one that had gone down in the Black Sea with all the men and nuclear arms still on board. He had never received an ounce of credit for it, as the Navy considered it top secret. He had been paid well, but mostly by the Russians.

He had squandered that money on the pet project to find Kidd’s Ship in the South Pacific. The dive had ruined his finances, as well as his reputation. It was an ill-fated from nearly the beginning, with that freak storm and fighting off the media, competitors, modern-day pirates and drug runners in the area. It was not long after that debacle that he sold off most of what he had left and put the rest in dry storage in the Navy Yard.

He hated to give up diving. You take away what a man loves best in this world and it destroys him. It makes him useless to all else and in the end, he is a dead man only he does not know he is dead. He goes on living a shadow existence, broken by the dusty and deserted dream that had once made his life tolerable and meaningful, but now had been replaced by other people’s stress-filled realities, whether they are his wife, his boss or his friends. All of them are dream killers. He begins to live miserably, and a life without any dreams is one not worth living.

Diving is like your first girl, Charlie thought with a devious smile. It’s slippery, it’s wet, it’s otherworldly, it’s scary and you wear lots of rubber. You do it once and you’re addicted. It takes the right body, like the right body of water to feel like you’re home again. They refer to hurricanes, water and the ships that sail as ‘she’. He agreed with his notion. He was home again in the depths.

He moved through the jungle of floating antique typewriters and old-fashioned adding machines and their wires that rooted them beneath the desks. He was careful not to catch himself in the intertwined vine of wires that spread through the office area.

Then he spotted it. The light reflected off the steel door. Good lord, he thought, the door’s open! His hand trembled as the light shone on the amount of cash and twinkling jewelry that littered the floor. The bulk of safety deposit boxes appeared untouched. On the floor alone, he was looking at an amount in the tens of thousands. His mouth went dry beneath all of this water at the prospect of what lay inside.

Paranoia crept into his mind, as well as some fatigue. He wondered if the vault was somehow booby-trapped, and he shone his light back and forth, looking for a trip wire. He craned his head for any cameras.

Stupid, he told himself. They didn’t have security cameras back then and besides, if they did, nothing would have survived that wall of water, even if precautions had been taken. It was defeatist thinking. This was no time to question or to have doubts. Everything he saw in front of him was his and his alone.

He did not know what happened to Mickey, nor did he care at this point. The jewels would no longer be considered hot, as their insurance companies would have settled with their owners long ago and the serial numbers on the currency would not be traceable and the bills would even be worth more, given their age and pristine condition. Any stocks and bonds would be his for the taking, he knew. Once he surfaced he would be set for life and then some.

This could be his private reserve. He could always come back later, without the two small-timers he was with now. For now, he would split the pitiful sum he had collected from the teller’s windows and explain that was all that he could see in the darkened waters. Their greed would be sated, and they would be clueless as to the rest.

He could not believe his luck, an entire bank vault virtually untouched. Career criminals dreamt of such opportunities. This was a king’s ransom. It was like winning the mega-lottery in every state. Best of all, his take would be 100% tax free. This would more than make up for the fact of not finding Kidd’s treasure. He floated nearer and nearer to the Art Deco style vault, savoring the moment. The cash lay unclaimed inches in front of his hand.

Something stopped him.

It made absolutely no sense. Confusedly, he felt all around him. There was nothing around him, but his momentum ceased. He could swim no further. Glass, he cursed. Bullet-proof glass! Damn, he muttered. The last person out of here must have touched off the security system. It must have been pretty high-tech then, he thought.

He started to search his equipment for the right tool. A crowbar would put a dent in the glass if he were above water; otherwise it was worthless down here. He could not pry, smash or break past this impediment. It was a standard bank vault, 3 to 10 inches in thickness, 34 inches wide and 78-1/2 inches high, but the glass was extraordinarily thick. Maybe glass polycarbonate about 1.185” thick, Charlie thought.

He had foreseen such a problem. He smiled. Underwater explosives had always come in handy on his dives before, and he had them and the blasting caps, too. He would have to be careful with this detonation, though. This area was less stable than a steel-encased hull.

Cautiously, he placed the underwater explosives in the glass in carefully spaced intervals. The explosives looked like gray chewing gum as he stuck them on the glass. He would let it set and in minutes, he would rich beyond anyone’s imagination. He swam to get behind the tellers’ bullet-proof windows, a perfect refuge. He pulled himself down and waited.

A slight implosion occurred, sending a tremor and a flash into the darkened water over him. He waited. Nothing. He looked at his watch and counted down again. A slightly larger flash and a quick pulse in the water, then all fell quiet. He swam up and over the window and pointed his light.

Where the explosives had been, there were some burnt hash marks, some half exploded and some that had not even worked. He wondered if the fresh water had something to do with the failure of the explosive or it had been the glass.

The glass should have not made much of a difference, he told himself. He’d seen these babies take out the deck of a sunken battle cruiser. He then figured why it had not worked. The explosive was too old, and its chemical integrity had been compromised by being kept in a storehouse at uneven temperatures for over two years.

He tested the glass again. It didn’t budge. He could not understand it. The cash was right there. The big diamond necklace was right there, the portraits of dead presidents almost glowering at him, mocking him alongside the huge diamond rings on the floor just beyond his grasp. It was all just inches on the other side of the glass within his reach, he cried to himself. How could fate cheat him like this? It was right there! It may have as well been on the moon, he cursed.

He remembered being a kid and reaching for the moon and how it always seemed so close. But then as now, reaching for the moon was out of his grasp. He slid down the glass that separated him; dejected.

As his darkest thoughts just about got the best of him, with thoughts of just pulling out his air hose and letting go once and for all; a brilliant thought occurred to him. He would put the charges in the ceiling and blow that apart, after all it was just a flimsy gathering of tile and blow it to smithereens.

Excitedly, he placed the only charges he had left around the reinforced ceiling and this time, he waited behind the teller’s windows for the shudder, a flash and voilà! Charlie was in! What awaited this down-and-out-loser was a cash-out of a gambler’s lifetime. Charlie was guarded in what he took, careful not to weigh himself down like Ishmaelo, with his legendary gold belt.

Loaded with as much as he could carry, Charlie greedily forgot all about taking only as much as he had found behind the teller’s window. The beauty of it was that he could always come back; he would just have to be careful at what he displayed to Frankie and Mickey.

His fears were short-lived. When he reached the surface, his truck, his extra tanks, as well as any signs of Mickey and Frankie were all gone. The s.o.b.’s had taken everything, even the clothes off his back.

The sun had disappeared too, behind the mountains around him. As darkness fell, he could see campfires glimmering in the woods. The stars shimmered above him and the moon was just beginning to rise. “This time I’ve got you,” he said as he looked at the moon with broad smile.

There would be many more trips to his personal bank account, he smiled knowingly. He would be able to start his salvage company, if he ever even felt like working again, he threw back his head with a laugh.

Unexpectedly, an explosion of gold spidered down over him, startling him for the moment. The gold reached out, touched at the moon and sputtered towards its own reflection in the black water. There were ooohs and ahhhs heard from across the water and another sputtering was heard trailing overhead. A blood red burst detonated and cascaded over him.

A single day can have more effect on a man’s life than an entire year, he thought with an ironic smile. It was the Fourth of July once more, and he saw and heard the fireworks all around him. But the war that had raged inside Charlie Fetter all these many years was finally and irrevocably over. The water and its tax-free plunder had washed it all away.

to Challenge 337...