The Coast Guard cutter intercepted him twelve minutes later, just ahead of the unmarked black boat that suddenly turned around and sped off when they saw the military colors.
The officers boarded Elias’s boat. When they saw the “clam” and the gold, the Lieutenant whistled low.
“Do you know what you found, son?” the older officer asked.
“Trouble?” Elias guessed.
[readalso]
“History,” the officer corrected. “This is the missing payout from the ’74 intercept. It was rumored a rogue agent tried to stash it for later retrieval but lost the coordinates.”
The gold was seized as government property. Elias didn’t get to keep the millions. But because he called it in, he was granted a “finder’s salvage fee.”
It wasn’t the whole fortune, but the check the government eventually sent him was enough to retire. Elias sold his boat the next day. He never went fishing again. He figured he’d used up all his luck on that one catch.
[readalso]