by Matthew Rief
Frank sighed. “Well, I don’t know what he did at first. But a few months later, he set sail again for the Americas, this time on a newly constructed English schooner called the Crescent.”
Frank then continued, reading a portion of a letter sent from the governor of Jamaica, informing the crown that Taylor had taken control of the Crescent and turned to piracy.
“It was around this time that Taylor changed his name to one more well known in modern times. John Shadow.”
The three of us glanced up at each other, a combination of excitement and disbelief overtaking our facial expressions. John “Blood” Shadow was right up there with Blackbeard and Henry Morgan as one of the most ruthless and notorious pirates ever to set sail. I’d read about him growing up and was amazed to hear Frank mention his name.
Frank continued. “During the Golden Age of Piracy, it was said that Shadow had raided over thirty Spanish and English ships, accumulating a massive fortune. But the history books conflict when it comes to what exactly happened to Shadow and his treasure. Some scholars believe he ran away with his crew to a secret port in South America. Others that he was murdered by his own crew, and his treasure was taken and split amongst them. But no one knows for sure.”
“What do you think happened?” Jack asked.
Frank’s voice grew more excited as he said, “Well, here’s where the story gets really interesting. In 1672, after years of his raiding Spanish galleons and English merchant ships, the English crown finally grew sick of Shadow and decided to take swift action. They sent the Valiant, a massive forty-gun frigate, and put it under the command of Captain William Gray, an English officer who rose to become the crown’s most successful pirate hunter. Later that year, the Valiant and Captain Gray confronted the Crescent, and the two ships engaged in a battle that eventually resulted in the sinking of the Crescent and the death of John Shadow.”
“Wait,” Ange said. “So if this Captain Gray sank the Crescent, didn’t he recover Shadow’s treasure as well?”
I could hear Frank’s breathing through the phone, and after a few seconds, he said, “That’s the thing. Gray supposedly searched the wreck but never found any treasure aboard. Which means that Shadow must have hidden it away somewhere.”
The story was fascinating, and I hung eagerly on each word that came out of Frank’s mouth. But there was something that didn’t make sense, a key part of the story that didn’t fit.
“So if Gray killed Shadow and sank the Crescent, why is there a historical debate about what happened to the pirate?” I asked. “I mean, that sounds pretty official to me.”
“It’s because of Gray’s character,” Frank replied. “It came into question once it was discovered that he’d lied about the location of the Crescent’s wreck site in order to keep the treasure all to himself. Historians believe that if he lied about the location, he and his crew could have easily lied about a lot more. There are simply too many flaws in Gray’s character to use him as an entirely reliable source. But the dagger you’ve got was found in Florida Bay, and I have no doubt that it belonged to Shadow. The fact remains that you guys could be close to discovering a notorious lost pirate ship, and solving one of the Caribbean’s greatest mysteries.”
TEN
After talking with us on the phone for well over an hour, Frank ended the call by informing us that he was catching a morning flight back to Florida and that he should be back in the Keys the following evening. Once the line went dead, we sat in silence for a moment, taking in everything he’d said. After half a minute, I broke the silence when I leaned back into the cushioned seat and laughed.
Grabbing the dagger from the table in front of me, I held it up to the cockpit lighting. “This dagger belonged to Captain John ‘Blood’ Shadow.”
“That’s crazy to think, bro,” Jack said. “Maybe if we find the wreck, we can figure out where his treasure is as well.”
We all thought it over for a few minutes, still amazed how we’d managed to find ourselves in the current situation.
Suddenly, Jack smiled, stood up and said, “You know what? You both have had your turns picking a hit to explore.” He slid the laptop monitor to face him, then looked over the map we’d created and added, “I’m feeling sufficiently excited about this venture after that talk. I think it’s my turn.”
Ange laughed. “Little late, isn’t it?”
By way of an answer, Jack grabbed his dive flashlight.
I glanced over at his empty glass, then laughed. “I think I saw a ‘don’t drink and swim’ sign while we cruised past Fleming Key.”
“That’s only for landlubbers,” Jack said with a grin. “I swim better with a little buzz. Besides, that’s my lucky tequila I was drinking.”
I raised my hands in the air. “Fine,” I said. “Where are we headed?”
“This one,” Jack said, pointing at a hit on the screen.
It wasn’t the biggest one, but it was surrounded by a bunch of other similar-sized hits. Jack stepped over to the helm and started up the engines, and within a few minutes he had us floating right over his selected spot. After taking one more look at the map, he slid on his mask, switched on his dive flashlight, and dove over the starboard gunwale.
“We didn’t make a bet,” I said as I stepped over and looked down into the dark water, watching as his flashlight scanned along the seafloor below.
Ange laughed, and before she could reply, Jack had already returned to the surface. He was empty-handed, but a big smile materialized on his face after he let out his breath.
“What is it?” I asked, eyeing him skeptically.
“Grab me your crowbar, would ya?”
I looked at my old friend, confused, but just shrugged and moved into the salon, where I kept my crowbar in a storage closet. Returning a moment later, I handed it to Jack, who gripped it tightly, took in a breath, and dropped back down beneath the waves without another word.
“Well, I’ll give him this,” Ange said, no longer able to contain her curiosity as she stood up and moved beside me, “he sure has a flair for the dramatic sometimes.”
A little over a minute after he reached the bottom, I saw him grab an object and kick towards the surface. Whatever it was, I knew that it was heavy. He was barely able to bring it all the way up as I leaned over the gunwale and wrapped my arms around its hard, barnacle-covered exterior. It only took a few seconds for Ange and me to realize what it was.
“You have got to be kidding me,” Ange said, staring at it with awe.
Jack popped up out of the water, a big smile still on his face as I hauled it up and set it on the swim platform.
“What did I tell you, bro?” Jack said as he pushed down his mask, swam around to the stern, then pulled himself up and sat next to the cannonball he’d just brought up from the seafloor. “I think it’s a six-pounder. But it’s heavier with all this crap caked all over it.”
After scraping and scrubbing almost all of the barnacles and grime from its surface, we were able to see that it had a distinct symbol carved into it that looked like an arrow. Jack told me that he thought it was the mark of the Royal Navy but didn’t know for sure. I moved over to the laptop and marked our location as a potential wreck site.
Glancing over at the bottle of liquor resting beside me, I said, “Man, that’s some lucky tequila.”
Ange laughed, and Jack grinned from ear to hear, looking back and forth between the cannonball and his bottle.
We snacked on leftover fish and lobster as we planned out the following day’s search. We’d managed to meg over half of our search area already and had accumulated over fifty hits, ranging in size from as small as a bottle cap to large enough to be a cannon or ballast stone. With Jack finding the cannonball, none of us had ever been more excited for daybreak to come so we could jump back into the water and see what else there was to find.
It was well after ten o’clock by the time we finished, and the sky was dark, the sun having disappeared long before. Since it was a calm
evening with very little wind, we cruised just a few miles away into a small bay near the Dolphin Research Center on Vaca Key and dropped anchor for the night.
I switched off the outside lights and turned on my security system before following Ange and Jack down into the lounge, locking the door behind me. Jack crashed in the guest cabin, and Ange and I headed for the main cabin. We pulled off our clothes and collapsed onto the king-sized bed, tired after the long day of searching. I lay on my back with Ange draped over me, her blond hair smelling of wildflowers and the ocean as it rested on my right pec.
“It’s such a sad story, Logan,” she said, not moving her head in the slightest. “I wish Taylor had sailed away with her. Just sneak off in the middle of the night, elope, and live on their own.”
I smiled. “It’s crazy to think that he would do something so radical as turn pirate. And that he’d be able to convince most of the crew to do the same.”
“People do crazy things sometimes when they hit rock bottom,” Ange said. “Plus, did you hear what Frank said? How Taylor had worked his ass off for years but never got the promotions he deserved because of his family? Then the love of his life dies. That would push anyone off the edge. Hell, I’d have probably turned pirate too.”
I grimaced. “You would’ve made one hell of a pirate, Ange.”
She laughed, and within a few minutes we were both passed out, lulled to sleep by the gentle rocking of the Baia.
What felt like only a few seconds later, my eyes sprang open and I listened intently, my instincts taking over. I sat still for a moment, not knowing for sure why I’d woken up. I must have heard something, I thought as I slowly lifted my head up off the feather pillow. Keeping my body still and my breathing quiet, I felt a subtle but unnatural sway of the boat and realized that somebody was moving aboard the Baia.
I sat up on the bed, then listened for any sound, expecting to hear Jack shuffling quietly about in the salon. Instead, my eyes grew wide as I heard the sound of the door leading out to the cockpit rattle softly, then hinge open.
I pulled off the white comforter, slid out of bed, and reached for my Sig resting on the nightstand. I was wearing only a pair of gray workout shorts as I moved barefoot towards the main cabin door. Ange woke up suddenly, her blue eyes bursting open and her upper body pulling herself up instinctively.
“What’s going on?” she asked quietly. She was fully alert, her body and mind managing to shake off her deep sleep instantly.
By way of an answer, I placed a finger against my lips, then pointed aft where faint footsteps could be heard stepping down into the salon. Before I could blink, she climbed out of bed, pulled one of my tee shirts over her naked body and grabbed hold of her Glock 26 9mm handgun, grasping it with both hands.
Turning away from Ange, I took a step aft and brought my head just a few inches away from the cabin door. The sounds were closer now. It sounded like two people, moving quietly towards our location. I didn’t have time to wonder why my security system hadn’t gone off or how whoever it was had managed to break the lock.
Gripping my Sig tightly in my right hand, I nodded to Ange, who stood just a few paces behind me, and jerked open the door. Before whoever it was even knew that I was there, I was through the door, my Sig raised chest height as I stepped towards their two shadowy figures.
The guy closest to me held something in his hands, and by the faint light of the moon trickling through the still-open salon door behind them, I saw it glisten and realized that it was a pistol.
“Drop it!” I yelled, but before the words had escaped my lips, he raised the firearm towards me.
Without hesitating, I pulled the trigger, putting a bullet in his left shoulder. The sound rattled the air like thunder in the tight confines of my boat. His body twisted and he let go of his handgun, sending it rattling to the deck.
The second guy, seeing his buddy wailing in pain, didn’t try anything. Instead, he turned on his heels and almost tripped as he climbed up the stairs, heading back out into the cockpit. The first guy, having learned his lesson, stumbled as he turned around. Just as he took the first step, Ange switched on the salon lights, allowing me to see him clearly for the first time. He had dark skin and was wearing basketball shorts, a white cutoff tee shirt, and a backward ballcap.
I lunged after him as he took the steps as fast as he could, his blood dripping onto the white fiberglass below. I reached him just as he took the final step, swiping his right ankle and causing him to tumble over, his face slamming hard between the console and the dinette.
It took me all of half a second to race up the stairs, and as the guy tried to get to his feet, I hit him with a hard front kick to his face. His nose crunched and his head jerked back, hitting the deck with a loud thud that knocked him unconscious.
Moving past the bloodied guy on the deck, I watched the second guy, who was dressed in a pair of dark jeans and a black tee shirt, just as he climbed into a small inflatable dinghy. I sprinted towards him. He frantically untied the nylon rope attaching his small inflatable to the Baia, but he must have been stupid to think he could escape me without an outboard.
Sprinting for the stern, I jumped down past the transom onto the swim platform and hurled my body through the air, crashing into the thug. I slammed him across the face with my elbow, causing him to jerk his head sideways and send a spray of spit and blood through the air as we tumbled against the starboard pontoon of the inflatable. As I fought to hold him down, he hit me with a strong kick to the chest that sent my body falling backward, and I almost tumbled into the water at the forward part of the dinghy.
I regained my balance, and as the thug came at me, I snatched an oar from the deck, reared it back, and slammed it against the side of his face. The oar broke in half and the thug grunted in pain as his body flipped over the side of the dinghy and into the water with a splash.
I dropped the broken half of the oar still clutched in my right hand, then moved towards the guy as he gagged and struggled in the water. Just as I was about to rip him out of the water and put him to sleep, I heard the sound of two powerful outboard engines come to life in the distant darkness.
“Logan!” Ange yelled, her voice booming from the deck of the Baia.
I turned to glance in her direction and saw her standing alongside Jack up against the transom. They were both armed, Ange with her Glock and Jack with his compact Desert Eagle. As I looked at Ange, I saw that she was pointing in the direction where the engine sounds were coming from. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw the faint blurry white hull of a boat as it rocketed straight towards us, leaving a silvery streak of rippling moonlight in its wake.
I looked back at the guy who was still thrashing wildly in the water. Bending over the pontoon, I grabbed hold of his soaked black tee shirt with one hand and tightly gripped his left arm with the other. In a quick motion, I pulled him out of the water, grabbed my holstered Sig, and slammed the handgrip against his temple, knocking him unconscious.
With the guy out of commission, I drew my attention back to the approaching boat, which was now within a quarter of a mile from the Baia.
“There’s at least three of them, and they’re armed with AK-47s!” Ange said in a powerful and serious tone as she stared at the approaching boat through the optics of my night vision monocular.
I could see them too, standing aboard what looked like a twenty-four-foot Proline center-console, their weapons glistening faintly as the engines shot them through the water. It was clear that these guys weren’t looking to have a friendly chat and though I had no idea who they were or what they wanted from us, I knew our only choice was to fight them off somehow. The only problem was that we were outgunned.
My mind drifted momentarily to the stockpile of weaponry I had locked away in the main cabin safe, wishing I had enough time to run in there and saddle up with something a little more effective than my Sig. But I knew that the boat would be on us in just a few seconds.
I faced the approaching boat, grip
ped my Sig with two hands, and took aim towards the windscreen. In my peripheral vision, I saw Ange and Jack do the same. As the boat turned slightly, giving me a good view of one of the thugs beside the pilot, I pulled the trigger in a smooth, repetitive motion, sending a succession of 9mm rounds straight towards the thugs.
Ange and Jack fired as well, and our combined efforts sent a barrage of bullets towards our unknown assailants. One of the shadowy figures flew back and dropped out of sight right away, and the rest quickly took cover behind the gunwale and bow, escaping the storm of gunfire before they too met a painful, bloody end.
We stopped firing as they disappeared from view, knowing that our bullets would have little success at stopping or even slowing the boat if we fired at the hull. Within seconds, the boat cruised within a few hundred feet of the Baia. I kept my Sig raised, my vision narrowed, and my finger ready on the trigger. In an instant, and just as the boat was right on top of us, two of the thugs came back into view, springing up from their hiding places and aiming their shouldered AK-47s straight towards us.
“Take cover!” I yelled.
I fired a few rounds, but seeing that the two of them were already firing automatic streaks of bullets my direction, I had no choice but to dive headfirst into the water. Kicking my feet as hard as I could and dragging myself down with my arms, I narrowly avoided a few bullets as they torpedoed through the water and broke apart around me.
Glancing up through the inky blackness, I watched as the boat cruised by and heard the loud propellers as they crashed through the water in a powerful white vortex just overhead. As the boat passed, and when the bullets stopped exploding into the water around me, I quickly kicked for the surface.
Breaking out of the dark water into the open air above, I heard the hissing of air coming from the inflatable beside me and the shuffling of feet aboard the Baia. I instantly drew my gaze to the thugs on the boat, who’d stopped firing and were hauling ass away from us.
With my Sig still clutched in my right hand, I brought it out of the water, took aim, and fired off round after round towards the thugs. Though they’d already cruised over a few hundred feet away and were increasing that gap with every second, I managed to hit one of them in the back, causing his body to lurch forward and collapse to the deck beside the pilot.