“In 1978, he set his sights on Pine Island, and spent four months excavating the Treasure Pit. They had a massive pumping capacity and built a coffer dam to prevent water from seeping into it from a nearby lagoon, but they could never drain it properly. Divers did find Donald Ronish’s skeletal remains, which were later buried, and they hauled out a lot of debris. But then a worker was killed when they were refueling one of the pumps. He had left it running—it spilled gasoline and went up in flames. A day or so later, one of the divers got the bends and had to be airlifted back to shore. That was when Sullivan shut down operations.”

“That’s right,” Juan exclaimed. “I remember now. He said something like, ‘No mystery is worth a man’s life.’ ”

Eric took a pull off a can of energy drink. “That’s it exactly. But here’s what Mark and I think. After the war, the brothers went back to Pine Island and cracked the pit. There wasn’t any treasure there, or maybe enough to buy the blimp, though I can’t imagine the Navy asked much for them back then. Anyway, they found something down there that led them to South America—a map or carvings.”

“They crashed before they found it,” Murph added.

“What about the youngest brother?” Max asked. “What ever happened to him?”

“James Ronish was wounded in Korea. Never married, he still lives in the house his parents left him when they moved from the Coast, and he still owns Pine Island. We have his phone number and address.”

“As well as his financials.” Mark glanced down at a piece of paper. “As of noon today, he has one thousand two hundred dollars in a savings account. Four hundred in checking, and a credit-card balance of nearly a grand. He’s two payments behind on his taxes but current on a mortgage he took out on the house seven years ago.”

“Doesn’t sound like a guy whose family found pirate loot.”

“Nope. Just an old man marking his calendar until it’s time to take a dirt nap,” Murph said. “We found something in the local newspaper’s online database. A contractor in the area reported that he and Ronish were forming a partnership to make another attempt on the pit. This was five years ago. The contractor was going to put up the money and equipment, but then nothing ever came of it.”

Juan thought for a second, sipping from his tequila. “I’m getting the feeling that whenever Mr. Ronish is short on funds, he opens up his island for exploration.”

“Sounds about right,” Eric replied. “I can track down the contractor to find out what happened to give him cold feet.”

Murph leaned closer to the webcam. “I’ll hack into his bank again and see what kind of money trouble Ronish had when the deal was announced.”