Caesar's Gold

By Eric Douglas

Jackson Pauley and his nephew Zach, an Afghan war veteran and double-amputee, happen upon a buried vault, with ties to Black Caesar, a pirate who sailed the waters of the Florida Keys 300 years before. Seeing the vault and discovering a journal left behind by the person who built the vault, they are intrigued by the prospects of gold treasure. When men threaten Zach, and an archaeologist called in to investigate the vault goes missing, they decide to solve the mystery before anyone else gets hurt.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Eric Douglas
• Release date: Nov 12, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310785702

Eric Douglas

Life is an adventure for Eric Douglas, above and below the water and wherever in the world he ends up. Eric received a degree in Journalism from Marshall University. After working in local newspapers, honing his skills as a story teller, and following a stint as a freelance journalist in the former Soviet Union, he became a dive instructor. The ocean and diving have factored into all of his fiction works since then.As a documentarian, Eric has worked in Russia, Honduras and most recently in his home state of West Virginia, featuring the oral histories of West Virginia war veterans in the documentary West Virginia Voices of War and the companion book Common Valor.Visit his website at: www.booksbyeric.com.Eric talks about adventure and taking time to be creative, along with diving and writing, on his blog at www.booksbyeric.com. He would love it if you dropped by to say hello.You can also follow him on Twitter, get in touch on Facebook or through Google+. Lastly, you can always send him an email: [e-mail]

Book preview

Caesar’s Gold

A Withrow Key Thriller Short Story

By Eric Douglas

Caesar’s Gold

By Eric Douglas

Second Edition September 2015 by Eric Douglas at Smashwords.

© First Edition, November 2013 by Eric Douglas. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of Visibility Press, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a newspaper, magazine or journal.

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

This is a Visibility Press original.

Copyright © 2015 Eric Douglas

All rights reserved.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

About Diveheart

About the Author

Chapter 1

Jackson Pauley smiled to himself as he sat on his boat watching bubbles rise to the surface, exhaled by the divers below. He spent most of his days taking divers diving or watching bubbles from tourists rise to the surface, but the bubbles from these divers were special. This time it was family.

Jackson’s nephew Zach was a fairly new diver, at least in the civilian world, but Jackson could tell he was a good one. His time as a Force Recon Marine serving in Afghanistan had given him the discipline and the mental toughness to take on any challenge. And the kid was fit, too. There was no doubt he caught his divemaster Lucy’s attention when he pulled his shirt off to get in the water. That was why he was watching bubbles while Lucy was diving. Jackson wasn’t playing matchmaker, but he knew after what his nephew had gone through, it would do him some good to hang out with someone his own age. And the fact that Lucy was tanned, fit and cute didn’t hurt matters at all.

Below him, the two young divers slowly surveyed the shipwreck, or rather an artificial reef made from a retired US Navy warship. The USS Beauregard was sunk intentionally off of Withrow Key in hopes of attracting divers and fisherman to the little island. And Jackson had to admit it had worked, eventually, after they cleaned up the mess the group sinking the ship made.

Zach and Lucy could see none of the ship’s problems in the past. All they saw was a majestic Navy destroyer, lying slightly on its port side in 100 feet of water, with its upper structure rising more than half the way back to the surface. Sea life surrounded the ship, with soft corals beginning to form on the structure and railings. Amberjacks and yellowtails were everywhere. Just inside the conn where the captain once took the warship into battle, a goliath grouper hovered patiently, showing off for divers with cameras. On the main deck, near the torpedo launchers, a moray eel hid in his holes, looking threatening as he opened and closed his mouth, pushing water across his gills.

Jackson could relate to what Zach had been through. For Jackson it was the terrorist attacks on 9/11 and responding to the calls from the Twin Towers