Lost Fleet

by Chris Niles

Genres: Action & Adventure; Sea Adventures; Thrillers

Synopsis

A shocking secret lies at the bottom of the Caribbean Sea.

When her journalism mentor is killed in a horrific plane crash, Kate Kingsbury travels to New York to lay him to rest. There, she discovers his quest to prove a Chinese fleet arrived in the Caribbean nearly a hundred years before the Europeans. As she follows his leads, she meets the charming Brian Yim, whose uncle -- a powerful Chinese oil magnate -- is searching for the fleet, too.

Is Brian seeking truth, or is he a mole for his uncle? And will Kate live long enough to find out?

Release date: May 18, 2020

Print pages: 442

Sample

Prologue

Late Summer, 1422

Admiral Zheng He braced against the thick port rail and stared into the widening black clouds on the southern horizon. As the huge ship rocked and rolled on the high waves, his crew fought to keep their stations. They scrambled to adjust the ship’s nine square sails in the hot, shifting winds.

His first officer shouted over the roaring sea. “Admiral, we can’t maintain this course much longer. The winds are too strong.”

Zheng He glared down at the younger man. “Do you question my leadership? There are over a hundred men down there who would gladly take your place and follow my orders without question.”

“I would never question you, my Admiral. I’m only trying to tell you that the men are fighting the storm, but they are losing. The land that lay to our port side can’t be seen even from the top of the highest mast. Yesterday, we had favorable winds, but now they’re gusty and swirling from the southwest. We are being pushed to the north. You as well as any of the men can see this storm is bigger than anything we’ve ever experienced.

“And Admiral, even if this vessel could survive, the smaller ships in the fleet cannot. We’ve already lost two, and another signaled us they’ve lost two masts. They’re turning back to shelter on the north coast of the mountainous island where we stopped for provisions.” The first mate trembled as he met his Admiral’s stare. “I’m not questioning your leadership, sir. I’m recommending we turn around and guide the whole fleet to safety. We can resume this course after the storm has passed.”

A massive wave crashed against the flat bow. Zheng He fell to the foredeck then grasped the rail. As he clambered to his feet, he looked to the main deck below. Countless crew members struggled with lines and pulleys, trying to hold the sails in place. Countless more vomited over the starboard rail.

“Admiral, the crew are all ill. They take turns holding the sails and vomiting. Sometimes they don’t make it. For the sake of the fleet, we have to turn back.”

“Turning back would be dishonorable.”

“Sir, protecting the lives of your crew is the highest honor.”

Zheng He shielded his eyes and gazed at the horizon. “The divine light has followed me here and protected my journeys. My god would not lead all these people to their deaths.”

“Perhaps your god has led you here to show your crew your mercy and wisdom.”

The ship’s bow lurched toward the sky, riding up the crest of a massive swell then plunging back down toward the depths. Saltwater gushed across the main deck as another rogue wave crashed into the ship’s starboard side. Shouts collided on the wind as crew members fought to hold their stations.

The admiral finally nodded. “Make a course to the southeast, find shelter for the fleet, then we can proceed when the cyclone has passed.”

 

For three days, the storm ravaged the cove where the fleet sheltered, with only a few hours respite where the winds became calm as the center of the swirling storm passed over them. When clear skies returned and the ships lay again on glassy turquoise water, Zheng He called his officers to the foredeck. His gaze landed on his first mate. “Report.”

“Sir. Your decision to seek shelter saved many lives. The men are grateful to you and will speak of your honor and wisdom.”

Zheng He nodded.

“But not all of the fleet bears good news. A patrol ship was crushed by a rogue wave, her entire crew lost. And one of the equine ships filled with supplies and tribute gifts was blown off course. The last man to see her said her sails were torn to rags and her crew was scuttling cargo, but she was still being dragged further north. We’ve not heard from her since.”

The officers bowed their heads in unison, their hands clasped before them in solemn respect for the lost men.

After a moment, Zheng He clicked his heels together. “They await their resurrection. Now, send a scout east to prepare a way for the fleet and take the news back to your men. We will meet up for repairs, then I will issue new orders. We are explorers. Men of the sea, who come to establish tributaries. To expand the Ming to the edges of the earth. No storm, no matter its wrath, will stop the reach of our Emperor.”

 

Chapter 1

Present Day

Kate Kingsbury hovered a few feet above the rocky bottom, her hands lightly clasped at her waist. Her body rose a few inches as she sipped a breath, and it sank ever so slightly as she blew a steady stream of tiny bubbles out through the regulator in her mouth. She twitched her ankle, propelling herself a few feet around the huge reef, keeping watch on her client while still giving him his space to feel alone in the water.

She finned closer to the coral and slowed her breath to hover motionless while a tiny cleaner shrimp made its way across the rock. A movement at the corner of her eye startled her. In a split second, even before her body could begin to react, the shrimp darted into a hole, feathery Christmas tree worms retreated into their sheaths, and the whole rock, alive with activity just a second before, now appeared barren and dead. A few yards down the reef, her client thrashed, a thick column of bubbles streaming toward the surface.

Kate kicked hard. The man’s mask sat askew near the top of his forehead, half filled with salt water. His second stage dangled over his shoulder, its mouthpiece tipped upward and free flowing air from his tank into the open ocean. His arms flailed around his face.

At forty feet beneath the surface, a panic attack could drown a man in seconds.

Kate gave her buoyancy compensator’s air dump a tiny tug, and she dropped two feet. Then she clenched her own second stage tight between her teeth and sucked her lungs full of air. Her body rose back to the man’s level. She kicked hard and swam up behind him. Slipped her arms between his. Swept them away from his face. Wrapped her legs around his waist and pinned his arms down to his sides. She spun him around and tried to make eye contact with the man, but his eyes were squeezed tight. She grabbed his mouthpiece, flipping it to stop the free-flow of air, then she jammed it into his mouth and pinched his nose with her fingers to force his breath through his mouth.

She dumped the air from his BC, and they both dropped the short distance to the ocean floor. When he’d finally taken three strong breaths, she relaxed her hold on his arms and helped him adjust his mask then clear it.

The two divers knelt on the ocean floor, eyes locked, while his breathing slowed and his heart rate dropped back to normal. Kate glanced at his pressure gauge. Nine hundred pounds of air. Her own gauge read almost eighteen hundred. He’d lost a lot to the free-flow.

She held her left hand flat and touched her right thumb to its palm — the signal to ascend to the surface. He shook his head, pointing back to the reef. Raising the pressure gauge in front of his mask, Kate pointed to the reading and repeated the sign with a little more force.

He pointed to her gauge, then to the bright yellow octopus strapped to the left side of her chest and shrugged.

She shook her head, grabbed his inflator, and squeezed two puffs of air into his vest. She pulled him up from the bottom then pointed toward the bottom of the boat forty feet above them.

In the half hour since they’d dropped into the water, the bright sunlight at the surface had faded to a pale glow. Kate guided her client to the mooring line, and he started up, glaring at her through his foggy mask. Every few feet, Kate tugged the air release at the bottom of his BC, dumping air to slow his ascent. At fifteen feet, she gripped the mooring line with one hand and his vest with the other, forcing him into a three-minute safety stop to allow the nitrogen that built up in their systems while they were in deeper water to filter out as they exhaled.

One minute into their stop, Kate noticed him straining to breathe. She grabbed his console and shook her head as she dropped it back at his side. Pulling the yellow octopus from her chest, she handed it to him, counting the seconds until her timer beeped so she could drag this schlub to the surface and get him off her tank.

Ten minutes later, Kate had rinsed and stowed all their gear. After handing her client two bottles of water, she settled him into a deck chair.

He waved his phone high above his head.

“Don’t hurt your shoulder. We’re too far out.” Kate fought to keep the sharp tone out of her voice.

As he opened his photo app, she dragged Captain Steve Welch down into the salon of his dive boat, the Island Hopper Too.

“Did you know?”

Steve cocked his head to one side, looking just a little too ignorant to be genuine. “Know?”

“He couldn’t even clear his mask. He ran out of air. He has no business being underwater. I’m not taking him down again.”

Kate reached for a folder on the counter, but Steve snatched it up before she could grasp it. He flopped into the banquette. “Fine. I’ll call off the last dive. He’s probably not ready for a night dive.”

“Ya think?” She snarled. “Did you not even ask him about his experience?”

Steve looked around the room, clearly avoiding Kate’s stare. “I may have suspected his questionnaire was not entirely complete and he’d need more than just a few simple checkout dives.” He sighed as his gaze finally rested on Kate. “I knew he’d be more than Justin is ready to handle. So, yes, I’ll admit I tricked you into taking this charter.”

Kate glared at her friend.

“You’re a great dive instructor. You’re great at everything you touch. But you keep avoiding touching things.”

“Why waste my magic on mediocrity like him?” She pointed out the window to the man waving his phone in the air again.

“Kate, you saved that guy from drowning.”

“Maybe he wouldn’t have panicked if he’d been with Justin.”

“Or maybe Justin would have been down there and had no idea what to do.”

Kate raised her eyebrow.

“Look, you’re great at this, but that’s not all. You need the work. Danny’s pension doesn’t get you far enough. The only reason Serenity runs is because Chuck forced you to let him rebuild her engine. The only way you eat the last week of every month is because Babette makes you plates and comes up with excuses as to why they’re on the house. You won’t take what you’ve earned. You’re broke, you’re starting to piss off your friends, and I’m tired of tricking you into doing something you’re great at.” Steve pushed himself up, grabbed two water bottles from the galley fridge, then climbed the ladder to the cockpit.

“At least I don’t walk out in the middle of a conversation …” she muttered at his feet disappearing through the hatch. Kate scrambled up onto the deck then trailed him to the helm, where she pointed out a cluster of thunderstorms off to the south. “Those look like they’re headed this way, don’t they?”

Steve fired up the Garmin and tapped the weather radar icon, then called to their passenger. “Buddy, we’ve got weather coming at us. We can’t stay for your third dive.”

“But I need a night dive for my advanced certification.”

“You got your boat and deep specialties today. You’re in town all of spring break, right? Maybe if the weather clears up, you can go out later in the week.”

“I paid you for a night dive. I bought a light.”

Steve’s shoulders sank. “I can’t control the weather, man. I’ll make it right when we get back, but right now, we need to get going. How about you two watch sunset from the bow, and Kate, can you pull us off the buoy while you’re up there?”

Kate rolled her eyes. “Always trying to make work sound like fun.” She dropped her arm around his shoulder and whispered in his ear. “But seriously, thank you. I know I’m a pain in the butt, but I do appreciate you and Chuck and everyone. I’m still trying to figure all this out. Thanks for being patient with me.”

“We’re all trying to figure things out, Kate.” He took a long pull off his water.

After she squeezed his shoulder, she slipped along the railing then leaned over the wide bow to draw in the mooring line. As she stretched the hook toward the buoy, a thick streak above the northern horizon caught her eye. She dropped back to the deck.

“Steve!” Her stomach heaved as she pointed. In the distant sky, the setting sun glinted off the fuselage of a bright yellow and blue airliner. A trail of black smoke marked its path, its nose pointed toward the sea in a slow deadly spiral.

Ten minutes later, the Hopper Too flew northeast across the surface of the ocean, its hull bouncing on the light chop. A soft vibration at Kate’s wrist heralded their return to civilization.

Almost immediately, the solo diver’s phone began to whistle and ping as the text messages that had queued throughout the afternoon bounced off satellites in space and back down to his phone. The man sprawled on a low bench in the Too’s cockpit, his thumbs flying across the small screen.

Kate pulled her own phone from her pocket.

Nicholas Lewis

1 Message

Kate pressed her thumb to the bottom edge of the phone, and the message unfurled on the screen.

Surprise! Hope you’re not busy tonight. Landing at 7:15 on AzureAir 3782. Drinks? Let’s catch up.

The clock at the top of her screen read 7:23. Kate’s breath stopped. Her phone clattered to the sole as she stared at the black smoke billowing from the horizon over their port gunwale.

 

Chapter 2

A late spring breeze raised goosebumps on Kate’s skin. She rubbed her arms before opening them wide then wrapping them around the tiny, elderly woman standing beside a three-quarter-ton diesel pickup truck in the parking lot of Shark Key Campground and Marina.

“Miss Marilynn, it’s not going to be the same around here without you.”

“Or my homemade toffee.” The woman pulled Kate tighter into the hug. “We’ll miss you too, dear. But we’ll be back in time for Thanksgiving.”

Whiskey nudged between the two women, pressing Marilynn back on her heels.

Kate caught the little woman’s elbow to steady her. “Whiskey, quit it. Be nice.”

But Marilynn bent and hugged the seventy-pound German Shepherd. When she stood, she was covered in black and tan fur. She giggled as she brushed off her jacket. Then she patted Kate’s arm once more. “Goodbye, dear. Have a good summer. Keep these men in line.” She waved across the deck to where Steve sat across the table from Shark Key’s owner, Chuck Miller, and her neighbor, captain of the catamaran Knot Dead Yet, William Jenkins. “And stay out of trouble.”

With that, the woman climbed up into the passenger seat of the rumbling pickup truck. Her husband John waved from behind the wheel. As Marilynn buckled in, the truck eased forward, the fifth-wheel trailer they called home crunching behind them across the crushed coral parking lot.

Kate stood at the edge of the deck and watched the last of her snowbird friends leave Shark Key for the summer. Chuck eased up beside her and rested his arm on her shoulder. “Sweet couple, eh?”

Kate felt her head nodding, floating in the vast sky. Her hand drifted down and absently patted Whiskey’s head. “Yeah, they—” her voice caught in her throat, and she coughed to cover the emotion. After turning around in a haze, she took a step toward her friends’ table then stopped.

“The man on the plane.” Chuck took her hand. “He was more than just a friend from work, wasn’t he?” With his leathery skin and wild, sun-bleached hair shot through with gray, dirt under his fingernails, and the constant cologne of gas and oil, her friend looked older than his fifty-seven years, and he seemed every bit the rough, simple native Conch he was. But under the salty crust hid a heart much more perceptive than Kate liked. At least when it was directed at her.

She quietly nodded, and they drifted back toward the table. She found herself in a chair she didn’t remember sitting in. “I met him the first day of my internship at Verity.”

“You worked for Verity?” William asked as he pulled out a seat for his wife. His deep voice pulled Kate back into focus.

“Got the internship the summer before my junior year at Columbia. My dad was furious. He’d pulled some strings to get me a spot running coffee for the talking heads in the studio at Fox News, but I wanted to earn my way and get out into the field. Real journalism, you know?”

Whiskey rested his head across her thighs.

“The correspondents were testing all of us, sending us on errands and pitting us against each other to research obscure facts, picking favorites and weeding out the ones who were only there because of some connection. Nicholas pulled me to the side …”

His voice echoed in her memory. Let’s not play these games, okay? I don’t need an audition, I just need someone I can count on.

“We were a team from the start.”

Michelle waggled her eyebrows from the opposite end of the table. “I bet you were.”

“It wasn’t like that. At least not at first. He didn’t have the ego of the other guys. Always willing to share the byline as long as we got the story and got it right, ya know?”

“Oh, honey. He had the ego. They all do.”

All three men started to protest.

Michelle waved them off. “Don’t even try, boys. Take you two …” she waved at Steve and her husband, William, sitting side by side. “The UPS guy knows you both by name.”

“It’s not a competition.” Steve playfully nudged the friend at his side. “I’m just trying to get the Hopper Too outfitted to be the best private dive charter in the Lower Keys.”

Michelle grinned. “Well, stop it. He’s trying to keep up, and we’re running out of things to buy for the Knot.”

Kate felt her lips pull up into a smile as she joined in. “Yeah, Bradley down at West Marine asked me if you two were okay the other day. Said neither of you had been in for three days, and he was afraid something was wrong.”

“You don’t see me getting in the middle of that.” Chuck popped a French fry into his mouth.

Kate smacked his shoulder. “Of course you’re not in the middle, Charles. They’re both trying to keep up with you. Ever since we brought up your grandfather’s loot, you’ve been in upgrade heaven. Redoing the docks, dredging the west cove, new washers and dryers in the laundry room. Even the new engine in my boat. Everything you’ve done around here is for someone else, sure, but you’re still at the head of the pack, my friend.”

As Chuck glanced around the table with flushed cheeks, Babette Wilcox arrived at the table with another bucket of cold drinks and a tray piled high with food.

“I found a bag of lionfish tucked in the back of the freezer. It’s the last of it until the Derby this summer, unless one of you can drag your butt out before dawn to bring a bunch more in for me.” She spread four red baskets of fried lionfish nuggets around the table then dropped a squeeze bottle of her homemade island tartar sauce in the center. Then she plopped down beside Chuck. “It already feels too quiet around here, but it’s nice to be able to sit down and eat again.”

Babette had lived and worked at Shark Key since she had arrived more than ten years ago. Her white and blue fifth wheel hadn’t moved from its site halfway down the narrow key in all that time. Good chance the wheels were irreparably frozen in place.

“So, Kate, spill it. Tell us about this hot-shot adventure-man of yours.” Babette had a way of finding the lighter side of everything.

Kate finally felt the smile as she remembered. “Nick is” — she caught herself, took a deep breath — “was always all-in on whatever story we were chasing. He never held back. Didn’t matter if we were in the tropical jungle of Brazil or the concrete jungle of Brownsville.

“My internship was only supposed to be for the summer, but he demanded they keep me. When classes started in the fall, I moved in with him, and we worked on everything together. My professors cut me a lot of slack. As long as I got my papers turned in and kept getting bylines at Verity, they were fine with me missing half their classes. I followed him everywhere.”

“Where was the most exotic place you two went?” Michelle brushed a mosquito from her shoulder.

Kate’s eyes brightened. “This one time, we were in the Amazon working on an exposé about an American company he thought he could tie to illegal slash-and-burning in the rainforest. Anyway, we’d hired a guide. Nick was trying to sort through his notes as we traveled down the river, and the dude turned really fast to avoid a log in the water. Nick’s bag full of notes flew off his lap and into the water. A crocodile tried to eat it. Didn’t take it long to realize that the leather wasn’t the skin of a live animal anymore, so it finally gave up and slithered back to shore. We were able to hook the bag and pull it back on board, but all our notes were soaked and torn up with teeth marks.”

Babette gasped and glanced across the parking lot toward the tip of the lagoon that lay in the center of the long, narrow island. “We’ve had to trap a couple of crocs in there.”

“Yeah, it’s not so good for business when you’re putting up ‘Don’t walk your dogs by the lagoon’ signs everywhere,” Chuck winked.

Kate patted Whiskey’s head. He pushed up to his feet, stretched, then wandered to the seagrape hedge lining the edge of the deck. “So, for Christmas that year, I picked up a bunch of extra freelance work to buy him this waterproof messenger bag. Didn’t sleep for a month. It was a hideous lime green, but it was the most indestructible one I could find. When he opened it, he kissed me on the nose and told me it was the most thoughtful gift he’d ever received.”

“I never figured you for a gift-whisperer.”

Kate spun at the sound of a deep, lilting voice with a faint Latin accent. Kara Alvaro wrapped her in a warm hug then grabbed a chair from a nearby table.

“I have my moments.” Kate smiled. “Anyway, right after graduation, Verity hired me on full time. I already had more pieces published with them than a lot of the staff reporters. Nick wanted to do an anthropological piece on a tribe living on the side of a volcano in the Andes. He took me and a photographer — Jamie. Sweetest guy. Always had something kind to say. Anyway, we’d been down there for two months when the volcano erupted. The tribe refused to evacuate, so we stayed, too. Jamie was getting some great images of the lava flows, but he got too close.” Kate fell silent.

“I wanted to go home after that. It was too much. But Nick wanted to stay. We’d been drifting apart for a while, anyway, so … yeah.” She looked up into the perfectly clear, cool sky. “I’m actually kind of surprised he made it this long. He was like those missionaries who tried to live with cannibal tribes even when they knew they’d get killed. He ran toward danger every chance he got.”

Heads turned toward a rustle at the edge of the deck. Kate spotted Whiskey’s rump sticking out of the hedge, his tail thwacking wildly against the thick, waxy leaves. A moment later, he wiggled backwards, extracting himself from the tangle of branches. A small orange and green iguana dangled by its tail from his long snout.

“Whiskey! Drop it. Now.” Kate shoved her chair back and scrambled toward him, swatting at him to release the poor reptile.

The dog dropped his prize, then glared at her as he watched it scramble back into the bushes.

She returned to the table then opened a fresh beer. “It’s been twelve years. I haven’t talked to him since I climbed onto that plane in Peru. I don’t even know how he knew where to find me. Or why he’d want to.”

Michelle rested her hand on Kate’s elbow. “Are you going up for the service?”

Kate’s vision blurred. She heard Steve’s voice from across the table, but it sounded so much further away. “Of course she is. You never get over your first love.” The clatter of ice as he stuffed an empty water bottle into the bucket in front of him pulled Kate’s attention back to the table.

William wrapped his long fingers around Michelle’s hand, and the group stared awkwardly until Kara broke the silence. “Ain’t that the truth? My first love was Reynaldo Cruz. He was a Dominican singer who was a sensation when I was about thirteen. All the girls were in love with him, and all the boys — except me — wanted to be him. I won the school talent show with a Reynaldo Cruz song. I think I still remember it.” She pushed her chair back, pulled an empty beer bottle out, and held it up like a microphone.

“God, no. Please, no!” the others begged as Kara began to gyrate her hips like a Latin pop star.

She erupted with a deep laugh and plopped her massive form back into the chair. Taking a long gulp of water, Kara softened her voice. “Kate, honey. It’s okay. I’ll go up with you. It’s the least I can do after what you did for me last fall.”

Kate pulled her focus back to the group of loyal friends. “Thanks, Kara, but I think I need to do this one on my own.”