Chapter 59 Mallory Plantation—Tavis #2
“Wait a minute.” Tavis paused, his expression shifting as a memory surfaced.
“I was Googling significant Chicago events during July 1927. On Thursday, July 28, a small excursion steamer cruising from Lincoln Park to Municipal Pier capsized half a mile off North Avenue in a sudden squall. The boat dipped, water surged over the deck, and it flipped. William Hofnauer, a millionaire yachtsman whose own boat was nearby, became a hero and rescued many of the fifty survivors. Unfortunately, twenty-seven souls perished, and sixteen of them were children.”
Tavis’s fingers flew across the keyboard of a standalone computer at the refreshment center, a nervous energy thrumming through him as he read more about the accident.
A plan unfurled that just might work. “According to this article, lifeguards and professional swimmers aided the recovery effort, including, get this, Johnny Weissmuller.”
Clay raised an eyebrow, a flicker of genuine curiosity cutting through his usual reserve. “Who’s he?”
“Seriously? You don’t know who he is.” Tavis couldn’t hide his astonishment. “He was a world-renowned swimmer and the original Tarzan.”
“Still don’t,” Clay said flatly, his gaze fixed on Tavis.
“Before he took to the big screen, he had a worldwide reputation as the King of Swimmers. Haven’t you ever watched the early Tarzan movies?”
“Can’t say I have. When did the movies come out? In the seventies?” Clay asked.
“Seventies? Are you shitting me?” Rick interjected. “It was the thirties and forties, man.”
“How would I know that? It was a hundred years ago,” Clay retorted, a spark of playful defiance in his eyes.
“Because you’re supposed to be”—Rick emphasized the air quotes with a flourish—“a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist.”
“Sorry, not sorry,” Clay said, his tone softening, a private smile just for Tavis. “I’ve never had to investigate Tarzan.”
“Get back to the plan, lads,” Elliott’s voice, a steadying presence, cut through their banter. “Ye can have a movie night later.”
“I can be in the water at the location of the capsized boat in time to rescue Alistair,” Tavis said, his gaze serious now.
“According to the article you quoted, twenty-seven died, and sixteen of them were children,” Clay said, his voice quiet, the gravity of the situation hanging heavy in the air between them. “How could you be in the water and let that happen?”
The thought tightened painfully in his chest. “I couldn’t. I’d try to save as many as possible.”
“If you save them, they’ll have lives they shouldn’t have, and they could change history,” Clay said, his argument logical, yet his eyes reflected deep empathy. “But how many people did Kit save after cholera hit the wagon train in 1852?”
“What Kit did wasn’t just help—it was a miracle, a defiance of fate,” Braham said. “She saved more than just the twenty-seven souls lost when that boat capsized.”
“And as far as anyone in that time knows, nothing happened because people lived,” Rick added. “Right? The timeline’s clean?”
“Clean?” Braham scoffed softly. “There’s no way to know without diving back into the past, tracing the bloodlines of every single traveler, and finding their descendants in our time.”
“That will never happen,” Elliott interjected. “Tavis will have to make the call when the moment comes. But remember this, lads. Ye’ll be wearing scuba gear light-years ahead of anything available in 1927.”
“Wait a minute,” Clay said, eyes narrowing in sharp focus as he accessed his mental database.
“In 1925, Yves Le Prieur and Maurice Fernez designed and patented the first open-circuit scuba system. A year later, the Fernez-Le Prieur device had its debut in a Paris swimming pool. So, if anyone glimpses Tavis, they won’t think alien.
They’ll assume the diver was simply using that experimental Fernez-Le Prieur device. ”
“Ye’ll have to trust your gut when ye’re there.
That’s all we can offer,” Elliott replied, his gaze intense.
“But if they don’t recover Alistair’s body from the wreckage, won’t Skye’s grief just fester into a refusal to accept his death?
And what the hell was he even doing on a boat so soon after Sheena died?
And how would anyone know Alistair was a passenger in the first place? ”
“Why?” Rick exploded, running a hand through his hair in frustration.
“Because he needed some air, goddammit! I don’t know his motive, but if he dives in, saves children from the churning water, and then drowns, the survivors will remember him—a hero’s memory burned into history.
He just needs to talk to as many passengers as possible before that squall hits. ”
“Skye will insist the rescuers continue to keep looking for Alistair long after hope is gone,” Tavis stated, the true emotional cost settling over him.
“How long did it actually take them to find all the bodies, anyway?” He returned to the computer to read more of the article.
“According to the archival news report, they lifted the capsized craft seven hours after the sinking and found the final five bodies then. They’ll wonder why Alistair wasn’t among them. ”
“Yep. And here’s another situation to be aware of,” Clay said, his brow tightening into a hard line. “They converted the beach into a sprawling, two-mile-wide emergency triage unit. Making landfall anywhere near the capsized vessel is not just impossible, it’s a death wish.”
“Swim to the other side,” Braham said, his voice clipped and decisive.
“The other side?” Clay let out a humorless exhale. “Lake Michigan spans over a hundred miles of open water. You’ll be navigating a graveyard, swimming past those makeshift hospitals.”
“You’re right, Clay,” Tavis said. “The report’s vague—doesn’t specify if it’s two miles in one direction or a mile in two.
Either way, we’ll be facing a brutal swim through a squall the boat’s captain swore was the fiercest he’d encountered in two decades of sailing this lake,” Tavis added quietly, the gravity of their mission settling in the room.
“The surface conditions could be unpredictable,” Tavis continued. “We might have to fight a current strong enough to tear us apart. Depth, breathing rate, sheer exertion—these are critical factors when calculating how much air we’ll have left to find Alistair and make it back.”
“Isn’t a squall, by definition, a brief, violent tempest lasting only thirty to sixty minutes?” Clay asked.
“Yeah, brief,” Tavis agreed, the word cold in the air. “But during those thirty minutes, most of those people died.” He paused. “If this recovery operation is going to succeed, I need Jetboots.”
“What are those?” Braham asked.
“They’re a hands-free diver propulsion system—small, powerful, battery-powered thrusters strapped right onto a diver’s legs. They grant divers enhanced speed and extended range underwater. Can you source them?”
Braham checked the time. “I can get anything at any time. They might have some at Naval Station Norfolk.”
“You have contacts there, too?” Tavis asked.
“I have contacts with the private companies that supply the Naval Station with their high-end gear,” Braham corrected smoothly. “Getting them delivered tonight might present a slight complication. How many do ye need?”
“Four. But if you can only secure one set, I’ll adapt.”
“Does this mean we’re postponing our departure tonight?” Clay asked, the question hanging like a physical weight in the air.
“It means we’ll be delayed a couple of hours,” Tavis said. “Let’s gather our gear to be ready to go. Then we’ll converge in the conference room down the hall and map out where that boat met its end and where, in the frigid water, we’ll need to be when it goes under.”
“For the record, you’re not going in alone,” Rick said. “You can be in the water. I’ll be on board the vessel, ready to grab Alistair before that deck pitches. We’ll go into the water together. I’ll have my wetsuit on and the rest of our gear crammed into a duffel.”
“No, that’s a fool’s gambit, far more dangerous than already being in the water,” Tavis shot back. “You could get trapped, and even with your gear, we could lose you both.”
“Those are logistical nightmares we’ll sort out when we check out the boat and the location,” Rick stated. “How many souls are we attempting to pull from the water?”
“There’s no manifest, just an estimate of approximately seventy-five people having been aboard,” Clay said. “It’ll be a desperate struggle, near impossible to find anybody once the boat capsizes and the wreckage scatters.”
“Before we can save Alistair, we have to know for sure if he’s involved with the Illuminati,” Rick said, his expression hardening. “If he’s clean, we’ll share the plan. If he’s one of them, we seal his fate. We won’t intervene.”
“That’s cold,” Clay said, visibly recoiling.
“If he is a member of that organization, we can’t bring him back here, not even if he agrees to leave the Illuminati,” Rick said. “We could never trust him. We’ll pack up, come home, and let whatever fate awaits him happen.”
“That’s very philosophical,” Tavis said.
“I don’t want the mental and emotional exhaustion of worrying about his future. Do you?” Rick asked.
“Is this turning into another mental juggling discussion?” Tavis asked with a weary sigh escaping him.
Clay made a time-out signal with his hands, the gesture a lighthearted attempt to defuse the gathering tension. “What was the other one?”
“It was very esoteric. Does a Cajun’s belief in joie de vivre make it easier to adjust to hardships like losing a leg or testicle?”
“I grew up a happy kid, especially when I was with Archibald. If I lost either my leg or one of my balls, I wouldn’t adjust well at all.” His expression tightened, a flash of vulnerability crossing his features before it vanished.
“That’s why I said it was an esoteric discussion,” Tavis said.