Remi caught her husband Sam’s eye and pointed to the net bag, then gave him a thumbs-up. He held up what looked to her like a deer antler as though he were saluting her and nodded. Remi gave a couple of lazy kicks, and her slim, shapely body moved upward into a school of shiny bay anchovies that swirled around her like an ice storm. They left her, and she rose to the boat.

She broke the surface and instantly saw the other boat in the distance. She ducked under again, swam to the other side of the dive boat, and waited for Sam. She saw his bubbles coming up from beneath her, then his head and mask.

She took out her mouthpiece and breathed the air for a second. “They’re here again.”

Sam ducked under the surface and came up at the stern, keeping himself close to the outdrive so he remained part of the boat’s silhouette. “It’s them, all right—the same dive boat, a black hull and gray above.” He looked again. “The same five—no, six people.”

“It’s the third day in a row,” she said.

“They probably think we’ve found the city of Atlantis.”

“You make a joke out of it, but it could be true. Not about Atlantis, but they don’t know what we’re doing here. It’s the Louisiana coast. We could be diving on an old Spanish treasure ship that got blown here in a hurricane. Or a Civil War ship sunk in the blockade.”

“Or a 2003 Chevrolet that somebody drove off a bridge upriver. We’re in sixty feet of water. They were probably just out here drinking beer and rubbing suntan lotion on each other.”

Remi drifted against Sam and held on to his shoulder so she could see the other boat. “Thank you for your lack of curiosity, Mr. Jokester. They’re following us and watching what we do. Did you see that? A sun flash from a lens.”

“Must be paparazzi taking my picture.”

“Keep it up. But just remember, having strangers think we found something valuable could be just as dangerous as actually finding something valuable. Thieves attack you before they count your money.”

“Okay,” he said. “They’ve kept their distance for three days. If they come any closer, we’ll have a talk with them. Meanwhile, we’ve got to get that sunken village mapped. The past few weeks have been interesting, but I don’t feel like devoting the rest of my life to salvage archaeology.”

Sam and Remi Fargo always claimed their reputation as treasure hunters had come from catching the attention of a few imaginative reporters on a slow news day. They shared a strong interest in history and the urge to go out and see it for themselves. This spring they had volunteered to do some diving for the state of Louisiana. An archaeologist named Ray Holbert had been on the shore, looking at the coast for damage from the oil leaks after an oil-drilling platform had burned, when he had found some potsherds washed up from the Gulf onto the beach. They were clearly of native origin and quite old. He had asked for a grant from the oil company to salvage what had seemed to be a sunken village. When Sam and Remi had heard about the project, they had offered to pay their own expenses and help.