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The Bermuda Triangle

AuthorHouse

Chapter One

"He has seen but half the universe who never has been shown the house of Pain. As the salt sea covers more than two thirds of the surface of the globe, so sorrow encroaches in man on felicity. The conversation of men is a mixture of regrets and apprehensions. I do not know but the prevalent hue of things to the eye of leisure is melancholy. In the dark hours, our existence seems to be a defensive war, a struggle against the encroaching All, which threatens surely to engulf soon, and is impatient of our short reprieve." —Ralph Waldo Emerson

The ocean was dead calm as the bow of the schooner eased its way in a southeasterly direction out of the dense fog. In the east, the sun was coming up in a cloudless sky, and the temperature was a balmy eighty degrees. However, inside the vessel, the air was cool and damp, and an eerie silence permeated everything. It was as if a ghost ship had emerged from another time and place, with no one on board to tell the story. However, first impressions are sometimes misleading. In this case, there was someone on board to witness the strange events that had taken place. This witness, a small, lonely figure, crouched in the darkness in the aft compartment.

A hundred miles away, at a marina in Fort Lauderdale, an older man sat in front of his computer. He was trying to track a GPS locater. Wilbur Gordon had been following the object intermittently most of the evening, as he was anxious to see his five year old granddaughter, Emily. His son, daughter-in-law, and granddaughter were sailing back from Deadman's Cay, Long Island in the Bahamas. Around two o'clock in the morning, the blip he was observing disappeared from the screen. Not thinking much about the incident, Will settled back down in his bunk. He knew that the area where the sailboat was had a reputation for GPS anomalies, and that the locater would rejuvenate itself.

Wilbur Gordon was an experienced sailor who had circumnavigated the world four different times. He had sailed into ports that most wouldn't. He loved adventure and reveled in sailing off the beaten track, where tourists were a scarcity. His wife had left him when their young son, Jeremy, was only four years old. She didn't want anything to do with him or his son. Will and Jeremy had traveled the world together. Jeremy was homeschooled as they traveled, and he could speak five different languages. Will made a substantial living selling articles to Exotic Travel magazine, and every once in a while, an adventure novel (with him as the hero, of course) was published. Will was also a self-educated cosmologist. He had decided many years ago that the best place on earth to watch the stars with his telescope was while sailing out on the ocean. Seafarers had used the stars as a navigational tool for hundreds of years.

Will woke up with a start and glanced over at the computer anxiously. The screen had gone into sleep mode. "Damn technology," said Will as he tapped the keyboard to wake up the computer. The screen illuminated, and there was the GPS locater, but as Will noted the position of its target, there was a feeling of panic. "What in the hell is going on?" he said aloud. The sailboat that he was tracking was two hundred miles south of where it should be. He hadn't talked to Jeremy since about nine o'clock the evening before. He knew that they would try to get some sleep and the boat would be on autopilot with the radar activated. If the vessel changed course or any objects came within one hundred feet, an alarm would sound. Now it was time to make contact.

He picked up the mike and checked the frequency. "Flying Swan, Flying Swan—this is Papa Will. Over." There was no response. Will tried every five minutes for the next thirty and then said, "Screw this; I'm radioing the Coast Guard." When they answered, he was able to give them the exact coordinates of the Flying Swan in the Caribbean Sea.

Will was a tall, slender man in his sixties, but he could easily pass for being in his fifties. He had a full head of gray hair that was a little long for the current fashion. His facial skin was smooth, with laugh lines around the mouth and squint lines around his strikingly sky blue eyes. His friends often teased him about looking like Tom Selleck. Will was well known around the local marinas and had worked as a volunteer with the Coast Guard on many oceanic search and rescue missions. When he called, they didn't question his concern and immediately started the rescue mission process.

The small figure huddled in the back cabin of the schooner hadn't moved in hours. Her short blond hair was wet and clung to her small head. Her green eyes were wide open and stared into nothing. Emily was in total shock. Suddenly, she became aware of some sort of sea monster standing in the cabin door. Her young mind couldn't take any more, and her body went limp.

"I've found a small child in one of the cabins," radioed the Coast Guard rescuer to the chopper. Will had insisted on an immediate helicopter search because he knew in his heart that there was something terribly wrong. Jeremy was an excellent sailor. He had grown up on the sea, and there was no way that he could have accidentally gotten off course by two hundred miles. He knew it would take too long for a Coast Guard cutter to reach the Flying Swan, and he requested that a helicopter be dispatched immediately.

The rescuer picked up the limp child. Although she was breathing, she was not responding to his attempts to bring her back to consciousness. He put her in a rescue basket, and they pulled her up into the belly of the helicopter. The rescuer continued his search of the boat.

He was a strange-looking figure as he walked along the deck. When the helicopter first spotted the boat, the wind was blowing strong. The pilots realized that it would be impossible to drop the rescuer onto the deck because of the sails so they had dropped him into the ocean and he swam to the boat. He had removed his flippers, but the goggles were still sitting on his head, tanks were on his back, and he was loaded down with the standard paraphernalia. Josh had been in the rescue unit for years and had boarded many boats, but the strangeness of this situation gave him chills. They were in the middle of the Bermuda Triangle. Josh wasn't a believer, but this situation was a little too much.

He searched the boat swiftly and efficiently, knowing that the helicopter needed to get the small child back to Miami. Finally, he radioed to the crew that there were no other survivors. The helicopter pilot contacted the Miami base and requested a cutter to tow the schooner in. Josh would stay with the boat. Suddenly, a feeling of apprehension and loneliness washed over him. He was a tough guy, and these were new feelings. Quickly, he grappled for his radio and hollered out, "Hey, guys, why don't you lower Mike down so we can drop the sails before the cutter gets here? I don't think I can handle it alone." He surprised himself with this quick response, but he did not want to be left alone out in the middle of the Caribbean on the Flying Swan.

Josh and Mike again searched every nook and cranny in the boat. Josh was amazed at how well it was maintained—she was definitely loved. The brass was polished and there was just a...