New Orleans, Louisiana:

Standing at the helm of the Drake family sailboat, Elena shifted her weight casually onto one hip as she deftly guided the craft around the tip of a small island and surveyed the familiar coastline. The tiny landmass lay about thirty minutes' sail from their house, and had become a regular destination for her and Nate's day sails mostly due to the isolated stretch of beach along one side of it that was perfect for, well…

Sighing contentedly, Elena turned her face up towards the warm sun. The things that beach had seen…

Her phone pinged a notification, and she checked the screen. "Oh, Nate," she rolled her eyes but couldn't help a small smirk at his habit of texting her from below deck. This time, it was a single word: beer?

Yes plz, Elena texted back. As she moved to put her phone down next to the wheel, her eyes caught on the picture she had set as her wallpaper and she paused, lingering on the image for a moment. It was a shot of her, Nate, and Cassie together during Cassie's last visit, almost a year ago now. In the picture the three of them were sitting on their porch and laughing- Cassie laughing the hardest- as Nate had recounted a story about Sully from their early days together. Sam had- in one of his increasingly common moments of sentimentality- snapped the photo and sent it to Elena the day after, while he was on a flight to his next job.

Her smile turned a little wistful, and she set the phone down as the cabin door opened and Nate appeared beside her with drinks in hand. "Such a gentleman!" Elena said with a flirty smile as she took hers.

Nate grinned at her, the corners of his eyes crinkling. "Only for you," he said. "Cheers!"

"Cheers," Elena replied, and they clinked bottles. They both took a long swig, and Elena draped her hands over the top of the wheel. "Do you ever wonder," she asked dreamily, "what Cassie's up to these days?"

Nate hummed but didn't answer right away, instead electing to move behind her and wrap his arms around her waist. "Let's see…" he said, lowering his face into the crook of her neck. "I bet in the three weeks since we've talked to her, she's solved world hunger, cured the common cold, and is running for the presidency of Portugal."

"A likely story," Elena said dryly, her brows knitting together over her sunglasses. "Has it really only been three weeks since we talked to her?"

Nate nodded as best he could with his chin pressed against her shoulder. "Somethin' like that."

He began to nibble at the skin of Elena's neck, planting kisses down it and onto her collarbone, and she giggled as the stubble on his chin tickled her. "Stop it, you!" She playfully tried to push him away, but Nate's grip around her waist was unyielding. "Realistically, she's probably causing trouble- like someone else I know."

Nate inhaled sharply in mock surprise and somehow ended up tickling Elena even more in the process. "Someone's causing trouble? For you?"

"You, Nate!" Elena said, trying and failing to sound serious. "You know this is right where the sand bar is! If you're not careful, you're going to-"

Nate's fingers brushed against the ties of her bikini top, and Elena shrieked before dissolving into laughter. "You are so bad!" she scolded him happily, and batted away his wandering hands. "Seriously, you're going to make me run aground and sink us!"

"Ah, then who would be the one causing trouble!" Nate said. "A good skipper would always keep their attention on their course, regardless of what's going on!" Elena hummed in appreciation as he planted another kiss in the dip of her shoulder. "It's not my fault you're easily distracted," he mumbled around her skin.

"Me?" Elena drew back, staring at him indignantly. "Me- easily distracted? I'll have you know I-"

"Sand bar!" Nate yelped, pointing at the digital chart on the console in front of them. As Elena hurriedly turned back to the wheel and gave it a spin, he added, "See who's causing trouble now. I guarantee you Cassie is not sinking any boats!"

Near the Ocelotl Base, Yucatán Peninsula:

Cassie pulled the plug in the bottom of the dinghy and watched the water rush in to fill the bilge. "So that's the second boat I've sunk this trip," she said to herself as she stepped over the side and waded up onto the beach. "I guess three, if it turns out Tristan's is at the bottom of the sea. But if it keeps the Jaguar creeps off my trail," she shrugged. "Small price to pay." Slowly but surely, the little lifeboat dipped below the surface of the water and out of sight as Cassie walked determinedly across the beach and towards the dense tree line. "Is there some sort of bad luck associated with sinking a boat?" she wondered aloud as she climbed over a fallen log and forged her way into the rainforest. With her hand resting on the rough bark of a Caribbean Pine, Cassie stopped to cast a glance over her shoulder back toward the beach. "It's… probably best not to think about it," she mused.

The forest was steamy, the tropical sun beating down on it relentlessly, and sweat was already streaming down Cassie's face and pooling on her skin beneath the all-too-insular wetsuit. "This outfit is just the worst for all this," she muttered as she pushed a low-hanging tree branch aside and let snap back behind her. "I hope I find Foss and the others before I die of heat exhaustion… or just freaking melt out here."

"I see some sort of structures up on the cliffs… stone construction… Looks old," Cutter lowered the binoculars, and his brow creased in thought. "Definitely pre-Columbian." Standing on the side deck of their borrowed vessel, he put the binoculars back to his eyes and used one finger to adjust the focus farther as he panned across the visible shoreline. "Aaaand… there's some smoke rising up the other side of that hill."

"Smoke? What's it from?" Ian asked, and gave the boat's wheel a spin.

"Dunno, mate," Cutter mumbled. "You may recall the aforementioned hill between us and it."

Ian rolled his eyes. "Right. Stupid question, I guess."

Feeling the weight of the unspoken concern that hung in the air- "Is Cassie in danger?"- Cutter glanced over at Ian. "Mmm, now that you mention it, it could be signals," he said, scratching the stubble on his chin. "I never got my Scout merit badge for that, but I think it says, 'Drake was here'."

Ian looked unimpressed.

Setting the binoculars down by the navigator's chair, Cutter rolled his shoulders and added, "Comedy routine aside, though, I can't imagine that the smoke doesn't have something to do with Cass, which means that wherever it is, that's probably where Tristan's base is."

On the other side of Ian, sitting on the edge of a milk crate full of assorted fishing gear, Solange looked up and nodded. "So, we stay on this side of the hill- out of sight- approach the base stealthily through the forest-"

"-then we find Cassie, and together we'll steal the treasure right out from under Tristan and his cat-boys," Cutter finished, pointing a finger pistol at her in affirmation.

Ian's lips pressed into a tight line. "Please never say 'Tristan and his cat-boys' again. It brings some… disturbing images to mind."

"Well, who's to say that's not exactly it?"

Solange rolled her eyes and loudly cleared her throat.

"Anyways," Ian grumbled, giving the wheel another spin. "We're coming up on a small inlet," he tapped the spot on the digital chart in front of him and then pointed to the corresponding point on the shore. "It should be a fairly out-of-sight place to hide the boat."

A few minutes later, Ian guided the small fishing vessel through the entrance to the cove and as close to the beach as safely possible. Killing the engines, he spun the wheel a few degrees to swing them parallel to the shore and flipped a switch to drop the anchor. As the chain rattled through the hawsehole into the sea, Cutter shook his head in exaggerated awe and said sagely, "My god that's seamanship."

Ian gave him a questioning look.

"What? It's a… you've never seen…?" Cutter looked deflated and scoffed in derision. "Right, I always forget with you kids I need to limit my references to boy bands and television series for you to understand them." He took a swig from his hip flask and headed out on deck. "Oi- let's get the bloody hell off this old banger and find Cass."

There were three splashes in short sequence as Cutter, Ian, and Solange all vaulted the railing into the water and then swam to shore. "Alright," Ian said as he waded up onto the beach. "Am I right in thinking that the plan at this point is basically to walk toward the smoke and try to stay out of sight?"

Cutter had his arms held out awkwardly at his sides as he looked down at his sopping wet jeans. "Try not to sound so enthusiastic," he muttered in vague irritation as he ran his hands down the front of his legs to try to squeeze the moisture out. "Bloody hell, I hate getting wet. Nothing like a march through the rainforest in wet trousers." He grabbed the front of his jeans and flapped them, his nose wrinkling up in disgust. "Come on, then- off we go!"

Ian exchanged a look with Solange and shrugged.

"If only we had a map," Solange commented as she pushed through the undergrowth. Then terrain was already rising steeply away from the ocean, and the humidity was oppressive. "I would feel a lot better. What do you think the chances are of us being able to remain undetected while we go in blind?"

"Well," Ian said, "to be fair- even if we had a detailed floor plan of the place, I'd put the odds of us getting in undetected at somewhere just north of winning the lottery."

Cutter waved his hand in front of him to clear away a spiderweb and then edged out onto a narrow ledge on the side of a bluff. "Here's the thing, mates: if you know that everything will go all pear-shaped at some point, then when it does it's technically happening all according to plan, right?"

On the other side of the was a rock shelf that was positioned almost directly above the inlet where they left the boat, and which also gave them a clear view past the trees in the direction the smoke was rising. As Ian and Solange caught up with Cutter, Ian pulled the binoculars from his waist pack and scanned the hill ahead. "No sign of Tristan or his goons yet," he said after a minute. "Let's get back into the woods before they-"

The sentence was cut short by the sound of a rush of wind and a crash, and the three treasure hunters turned just in time to see their boat erupt in a deafening explosion that shook the ground beneath them. They stared in stunned silence as the burning shrapnel thrown by the blast radiated out from what was left of the vessel, some of it crashing back into the water with a hiss, and some of it falling on the beach or even the edge of the woods.

"Huh," said Cutter, stone-faced, as he ran his tongue along the inside of his cheek. "So, I… did leave the oven on."

Ian looked up as the unmistakable roar of an airplane passed overhead. "Oh shit, they're bombing the place!" he yelled. "Run!"

Cluster bombs began dropping from the sky, raising clouds of sand and scree as the three adventurers ran towards the cover of the cliffs ahead. "Head for that ravine!" Ian screamed as they dove into the forest, then he immediately threw up his hands to cover his face as a bomblet exploded in a dry creek bed close by. He gritted his teeth and winced as shards of rock pelted his side, cutting through his polo shirt and biting into his skin.

Up ahead, Cutter and Solange were running neck-and-neck when an explosion went off only a dozen yards away, obliterating a stand of pines. Cutter was the first to see the tree falling towards them, and shoved Solange forward out of harm's way. "Get down!" he shouted. The massive log lodged in the gap between two boulders with a deafening crash, the fibrous wood splitting into jagged splinters that nearly impaled Cutter as he rolled beneath it. The Englishman's ears were ringing when he came out on the other side and was met by Solange's hand jutting out in his face. "Let's move!" the girl yelled at him. He grabbed her hand, and she yanked him to his feet.

"So this is all according to plan, I assume?" Solange asked between pants for air as they sprinted through the rainforest.

"Well, we knew it would all go wrong somewhere," Cutter called back, ducking his head into the crook of his shoulder as they were showered with soil from another blast. "So yes- all according to plan!"

Heaving herself over a rocky outcropping, Cassie dropped down into the mud on the other side and landed heavily before picking herself up and continuing. "Dear mom and dad," she said aloud, monologuing a letter that she figured she might write when she got back to wherever she called home. "Portugal is beautiful this time of year… or at least it was, before I went off chasing Spanish treasure. There was a shop that sold amazing mango gelato. Also a girl tried to rob me on the beach, so we had breakfast together, and the street markets were a real steal." She stooped and crawled through a thicket of brush that had sprung up in the shade of a fallen log and wiped the sweat from her brow as she came out on the other side. "On an unrelated note, is there any chance we're related to Henry Morgan? P.S.-" she unzipped the front of her diving suit a little to give it some ventilation, "neoprene doesn't breathe. Love, Cassie."

Cassie pushed her way through a thick patch of undergrowth and emerged at the foot of a bluff, the sheer rock face rising almost fifty feet in front of her. "Crap," she muttered, putting her hands on her hips. "I'll have to find another way around." She took a step back and scanned the bluff in both directions. "Looks like the forest thins a little that way- maybe I'll at least get a better view over there."

Hugging the narrow strip of clear ground at its base, Cassie followed the rock wall around to the left until it turned, abruptly bringing her to the edge of an inlet. As her eyes traced the slope of the land down to the water, Cassie froze when she saw a dock built at the edge of the shore and she instinctively ducked back. Dropping to a crouch behind a boulder, Cassie drew her pistol and quickly scanning the area for Ocelotl guards.

"It looks clear," she murmured after a few moment's surveyal, and stepped out again with her gun at the ready. Cassie cautiously crossed to the dock, keeping an eye out as she went, and took note of the apparent newness of its construction. The timbers out of which it was built were solid under her feet and they reeked of chemical treatment, while at the far end of the dock there was an industrial freight elevator that ran up the cliff to another station at the top. "Huh- looks like this must be one of the Ocelotl's access points for getting goods to their base," Cassie observed as she approached it. "This all seems new- like it was made within the last several years. I wonder if Tristan had this done?" The metal platform from which the elevator rose extended off the side of the dock out over the water and had a small outbuilding at the edge of it. Cassie carefully peeked through the building's sole window and discovered it to be a sort of small substation to power the lift.

Satisfied that none of Tristan's goons were present, Cassie holstered her pistol and hummed. "Nice of them to make an elevator. It probably saved me miles of hiking." Her footsteps clattered softly on the metal grating as she stepped into the cage-like lift and pulled the lever inside. A red light came on overhead and the door slid down, closing her in before the car lurched to life and began its ascent. As she was taken up above the ever-present, stifling atmosphere of the peninsula's rainforest, her horizons opened up to a breathtaking view over the tops of the pines and their lush, leafy canopy, to the white sandy beaches that bordered it, and the deep turquoise of the Caribbean Sea that stretched out beyond. "Whoa!" Cassie whispered in awestruck appreciation. "I see why mom used to bring her camera on these things- that's definitely some postcard material!"

Leaning her forearms against the steel mesh sides of the elevator as it slowly clattered and clanked its way up the bluff, Cassie smiled and stared indulgently at the gorgeous landscape, her gaze running slowly along the coast until she spied another picturesque inlet not far from her. "Hey, isn't that-" she leaned in closer to the side and squinted. "That's our boat- the one we borrowed from Georgie!" Cassie's smile widened. "I guess Ian and Cutter must have made it already. Now I just have to-"

Suddenly the boat violently exploded, spraying water and debris in all directions, and Cassie's eyes widened. "What the heck?" She had barely the time to react before another explosion shook the elevator with enough force that it nearly knocked her to the floor. The sides of the car rattled loudly as it jostled against the infrastructure surrounding it, and she felt it grind to a halt. Holding on tightly to keep her balance, Cassie looked up and her lips parted to give a cry of surprise, but before any sound could come out another blast- even closer than the previous one- threw her backwards. There was a loud crack followed by the sound of snapping metal cables, and Cassie yelped as, in an instant, the elevator car plummeted sickeningly downwards. A horrible, grating screech filled the air as the car slid down the inside of the steel beams that had formerly supported and guided it, sparks flying upward and showering Cassie as metal ground against metal. She wrapped her arms over her head and eyes to protect herself as the elevator hit the platform at the bottom and crashed through into the inlet below. Water rushed in, and Cassie only just managed to suck in a lungful of air before she was completely submerged. The car hit the bottom of the inlet, driving itself into the sandy bed with a muffled boom.

Shaking off the lingering shock, Cassie did a quick turn inside the elevator-turned-death trap and swam down to where the edge of the door met the base of the car. Bracing her feet against the floor, she threaded her fingers through the steel mesh and tried to lift it, but the electronic closer stubbornly resisted her. She could feel her effort already depleting the oxygen in her lungs and pushed backwards, looking for a service hatch or an override somewhere. Nothing, she thought grimly, and swallowed both her urge to breathe and the panic that was washing over her as- for the second time in as many days- she was faced with the very real possibility that she was about to drown if she didn't do something fast.