His light suddenly flashed on a reflection above him. He was approaching the surface, though he was still many hundreds of feet belowground. He also estimated that a person could swim from the niche to this point on a single held breath if the tide was low enough.

Juan rose slowly, his arms extended over his head to probe for any unseen obstructions above him. His head emerged in a bedroom-sized grotto with a ceiling about seven feet high. He realized that all of this had to be a natural rock formation, otherwise it would have taken years to excavate.

His light zigged and zagged across the dank stone until settling on an object hanging from the wall.

“What the hell is that?” Cabrillo asked aloud, his voice muffled by awe and the surrounding rock.

Just above the waterline was a plaque made of some metal. Bronze, he supposed. On it were lines of characters that looked to him like Chinese and the outline of a coast showing a deep bay. He had surmised since the Argentines had shown up at James Ronish’s house that the Treasure Pit had nothing to do with an eighteenth-century privateer, but he hadn’t expected this. What was Chinese writing doing in this place?

More important, why did anyone else care?

Cabrillo had always known to trust his instincts. They had served him well with the CIA and even better when he formed the Corporation. For reasons unknown, someone had gone to great lengths to hide the plaque and yet made it possible to be found. Their logic eluded him, and he could only hope that the writing would explain their motivations. Juan knew he was onto something, and, while he didn’t know what, he felt certain it went far beyond lost blimps and downed satellites.

With the fiber-optic severed, he couldn’t use video to record an image of the bronze plaque, so he pulled a small digital camera from a bag tied around his waist and removed it from its waterproof case. He snapped dozens of pictures, the flash searing his eyes after so much time in the pit.

He ducked back under the surface and followed his light as he retraced his way back to the main shaft. He had to force himself not to think about the enigma and concentrate on the dive i nstead.

Once he reached the big floating plug, Juan unclasped his weight belt and buckled it around the handle the—Chinese?—had left just for that purpose. The mystery of the Treasure Pit went back more than a hundred years, he thought. When had the Chinese been to Washington State long enough to reshape the cave system to suit their needs?

Concentrate, Juan.