“You were right, it is Mandarin, but an older form. It reminded me of having to read Shakespeare back in high school.”
“So what is it?”
“Are you familiar with Admiral Zheng He?”
“Some kind of Chinese explorer in the 1400s. He sailed as far west as Africa and as far south as Australia.”
“New Zealand, actually. He went on seven voyages between 1405 and 1433 in what would be the largest ships built until the eighteenth century. He had over two hundred of them in what they called the Treasure Fleet, and twenty-eight thousand men.”
“Are you saying that the Chinese discovered America seventy years before Columbus?”
“No. Zheng didn’t place that writing in the pit. But the Admiral who did had been inspired by Zheng and embarked on a remarkable voyage of his own. There were three ships, and they left China in 1495 headed east. In command was Tsai Song. Admiral Tsai had been commissioned by the Emperor to trade as far and wide as he could. And because Zheng had found a continent to the west, Africa, he was convinced the earth had symmetry and there would be another to the east.”
“So they reached North America, but it was already a couple of years after Columbus did,” Max said, relieved that they wouldn’t have to rewrite the history books.
“Actually, from what I can tell, they landed in South America first. But there was a problem. As Tsai writes, one of the ships was cursed while they were in a ‘hellishly cold cove.’ I assume Tierra del Fuego.”
“What happened?”
“The crew was overcome by evil. That’s what Tsai writes. An evil so powerful that he felt it necessary to order the vessel destroyed and the stricken crew left to die. They sank it with an explosive charge placed against the hull.”
Hanley asked, “How big were these ships?”
“Over three hundred feet, with a crew of four hundred.”
Max gave a low whistle, impressed with medieval Chinese naval architecture.
“Does he say the nature of this evil?”
“No. The whole purpose of the pit, though, was to give a clue as to the ship’s location. He wrote that the evil surrounding it should never be approached, but he was also a pragmatist. There were untold riches aboard her, treasure they had planned to barter with any natives they came across.
“Tsai left two markers, one honoring the gods of the underworld—the one in the pit—and another to honor the gods in heaven.”
“Something underground and something above,” Juan mused aloud. “What is the second marker?”
“Tsai only writes that it can be seen from the heavens. And that they left it two hundred days from the Treasure Pit.”
“Two hundred days?” Max groused. “What the hell is that?”
“I assume,” Eddie said evenly, ignoring Max’s sarcasm, “that it means two hundred days’ sailing south of Pine Island. Obviously, the Ronish brothers thought it was around the twenty-fifth parallel.”
“Hold on a second,” Juan said. “If they were looking for a marker left by a Chinese Admiral, what were they doing so far inland? Whatever the marker was, surely it would be near the coast.”
“I don’t know.”
“We need to work on those papers you found at the crash site,” Max suggested. “The answer could be in their log.”
“We need to learn more about this Admiral Tsai.” This came from Eric Stone, who had been sitting at the helm station but had walked around the op center so that he stood behind Eddie. “And what was aboard his ship. This could be a significant archaeological find.”
“Actually,” Max said, “we need to ask ourselves if this is worth pursuing further. What’s this to us, anyway?”
“I think the answer is pretty clear,” Stone replied. “This is something of interest to the Argentine government, a regime currently at odds with the United States. Whatever their agenda, it can’t be good.”
“I agree,” the Chairman said. “The Generalissimos have an interest in this thing, and until we know their angle we should keep at it. What about the drawing of that cove or inlet?”
“That is the outline of the area where their ship was sunk, and, before you ask, I’ve already got Eric here running a computer match of South America’s coastline, including all couple hundred islands that make up Tierra del Fuego. It’s going to take some time.”
“Okay. What’s the latest on Linda and her team?”
“They’re still in the snowcat. You’re not going to believe what they found. What was supposed to be a small Argentine research station turns out to be a full-blown oil field.”
“A what?”
“You heard me. They’re drilling for oil off the Antarctic Peninsula.”
The news rocked Cabrillo, and he blurted stupidly, “But that’s illegal.”
“Well, yeah. Apparently they don’t care.”
“Have you reported this to Overholt?”
“Not yet. Linda said she snapped some pictures. She wants to include them with her report.”
“This is getting weirder and weirder,” Max said. “They’re taking a hell of a risk pulling a stunt like that.”
“Not really,” Eric Stone countered. “They’re already an international pariah, so what’s a little more bad will?”
“Bad will, my butt. The U.S. is going to send an armada down there. It’ll be like the Falklands War all over again.”
“Are you sure?” Stone asked, one eyebrow arched.
Hanley opened his mouth to reply but thought better of it because he wasn’t sure. With the U.S. military spread thin around the world and the current occupant of the White House more focused on domestic issues, it was possible that the government’s response would be weak protests and another round of UN sanctions.
“Now we have to ask ourselves if a six-hundred-year-old Chinese ship has anything to do with current global events,” Eric said.
“If things hold true to form,” Juan replied, “we can count on it.”
Eddie asked, “What do you want us to do once Linda returns? Should we stay down here or start heading north?”
Cabrillo considered the options and came to a quick decision. “Get the ship out of there. We have no idea what the Argentines are planning in Antarctica, but if the balloon goes up and war breaks out I want the Oregon clear. Also, we need to get into position for the Kuwaiti Emir’s visit to South Africa. He’s hired us as additional security, and that’s one lucrative contract.”
“You got it,” Eddie said. “They should be back in a couple of hours and then we’ll head northward again.”
“Call me when they’re back. I want to hear Linda’s full report.”
Juan killed the connection and brought up his electronic Rolodex. There were more than a thousand names listed, from the direct lines of heads of state to some of the most shadowy characters in the world. He thought it ironic that when listed alphabetically, Langston Overholt’s entry was next to a French pimp who also trafficked in information.
It was three hours earlier on the East Coast, so he wasn’t worried about the time difference. A deep baritone answered on the second ring. “Hello?”
“Mr. Perlmutter, this is Juan Cabrillo.”
“The infamous Chairman. How are you?”
Though the two had never met and had spoken on the phone only once, each was well aware of the other’s reputation. St. Julian Perlmutter was a living encyclopedia of all things maritime and owned the largest private collection of books, manuscripts, and folios about the history of ships and shipping. His Georgetown home was quite literally packed to the rafters with his well-thumbed trove.
It had been one of Perlmutter’s research projects a few months back that eventually sent the crew of the Oregon to Libya and led to the rescue of the Secretary of State, Fiona Katamora.
“Fine, sir. Yourself?”
“A bit peckish, as the Brits might say. Dinner’s still in the oven, and the aroma is mouthwatering.” Perlmutter’s second-greatest love was food, and to meet him o
ne could see he dined with gusto. “Tell me you’re here in the States, and I can finally get a tour of your ship.”
“Max Hanley and I are here, as a matter of fact, but the Oregon’s at sea.” There was no reason not to tell Perlmutter where the ship was other than that Juan didn’t know if the other man’s phones were clean. “I was wondering if I could pick your brain.”
“Good God, man, you’re starting to sound like Dirk. All he ever calls for is information. At least his kids have the decency to bring me a little something when they come to pump their old uncle St. Julian for his knowledge.”
“Max and I are in Washington State, we’ll send you some of their famous apples.”
“Make it Dungeness crab instead, and you have a deal. What do you need to know?”
“The Chinese Treasure Fleet.”
“Ah, Admiral Zheng. What about it?”
“Actually, I’m talking about Admiral Tsai Song.”
“I’m afraid that’s a myth,” Perlmutter started, and then stopped speaking for a moment. “Did you find evidence that he really existed? He’s real?”
“Are you familiar with the Pine Island Treasure Pit?”
“Yes, of course,” Perlmutter’s voice suddenly shot up a couple of octaves. “My God. That was Tsai?”
“There’s a secret chamber off the main shaft. He left a plaque there, giving a hint to where they abandoned one of their other ships.”
“So it wasn’t pirate loot at all. I never believed it was, but this is fantastic. Tsai Song’s voyage was thought to be nothing more than a story, most likely invented in the eighteenth century as a way of claiming national pride when China was in the throes of unrest due to British meddling.”
“Kind of ‘Look at us, we once had an empire bigger than yours.’ ”
“Exactly. Listen, Captain Cabrillo—”
“Juan, please.”
“Juan, I’m not really the person you need to be speaking with. All I know is that there was a claim that Tsai sailed to America and back sometime around the end of the 1400s. I am going to put you in touch with Tamara Wright. She’s a Chinese history scholar who wrote an excellent book about Admiral Zheng’s voyage to India and Africa and has pieced together a history of the Admiral Tsai legend. Can I call you in ten minutes?”
“Sure.” Juan gave him his cell number and glanced at Max. “You just witnessed history, my friend. Dirk Pitt told me that in all the years he’s known Perlmutter, he’s never been able to stump the man.”
Not knowing St. Julian, Hanley was underwhelmed. “I’ll mention it next time I’m at NUMA.”
Juan’s phone trilled a few minutes later. “Bad news, I’m afraid. Tamara’s on vacation and won’t be back to her office at Dartmouth until next Monday.”
“For reasons I can’t discuss,” Juan said, “time might be of the essence. We only need a couple of minutes of her time.”
“That’s just it. She’s unavailable. The grad student who answered at her office said Tamara left her cell phone behind.”
“Do you know where she’s vacationing? Maybe there’s a way we can track her down.”
“Is it really that important?” Perlmutter asked, and then spoke again before Juan could reply, “Of course it is or you wouldn’t have asked. She’s on a Mississippi River jazz cruise aboard the Natchez Belle. I have no idea where they are right now, but you can probably get that information from the cruise line.”
“I’m already logging on to their website,” Cabrillo said. “Thank you, Mr. Perlmutter.”
“You can forget my crab and send me a translation of that plaque, and we’ll call it even.”
“Done and done.”
“So?” Max asked.
Juan spun the laptop so Hanley could see. The image on the screen was a beautiful white paddle wheeler with smoke coming from her two skinny stacks and people waving from her three wedding-cake-like decks. In the background was the famous St. Louis Arch, one of her usual ports of call.
“Up for a little riverboat gambling?”
“I left my derringer at the safe house.” Max shot his cuffs. “But I should be able to find a few spare aces. Where is she now?”
“We can catch her in Vicksburg and get back off again in Natchez, Mississippi,” Juan said, taking back the computer to book them on the overnight trip and make the flight arrangements to get them there. “After that, we’ll hook up with the Oregon again in Rio and either head to the assignment in South Africa or see where the Fates blow us.”
“You’re having fun, aren’t you?” Max was pleased.
“Apart from getting shot at and left at the bottom of a two-hundred-foot pit for a while, yeah, I am.”
Hanley chuckled. “You liked those parts, too.”
Juan just grinned.
SEVENTEEN
The closest large airport to Vicksburg was in Jackson, Mississippi, fifty miles to the east. The wall of humidity Cabrillo walked into when he stepped out of the terminal made him think he was back in the Amazon. The air shimmered with heat, and he couldn’t seem to fill his lungs. Beads of sweat popped up on the dome of Max’s balding head, and he had to mop his brow with a bandanna.
“My God,” he said. “What is this place, like, ten miles from the sun?”
“Eighteen,” Juan replied. “I read that in the airline magazine.”
What made it worse is that both men had donned jackets after retrieving their pistols from the checked baggage.
Rather than bother with the formalities of renting another car, they opted to take a cab instead. Once they found a driver and agreed on a price, the bags went into the trunk and the men settled in the arctic comfort of the taxi’s air-conditioning.
With traffic, it took a little over an hour to reach their destination, but they arrived in plenty of time. The Natchez Belle wouldn’t leave for its namesake city for another forty minutes.
She was moored behind a structure made up to look like a side-wheel steamer that housed one of the casinos in the shadow of the Vicksburg Bridges, a pair of skeletal steel spans that stretched across the muddy Mississippi. Her boarding gantry was lowered right onto the parking lot. A white tent had been set up nearby, and the brassy beat of jazz music carried to where the men stood, as the cabbie headed back home again. Dozens of people milled around with plates of hors d’oeuvres and drinks in their hands. A few of the boat’s staff were in attendance, dressed in period costumes.
“What do you know, more gambling.” Max no longer noticed the heat.
“Forget it, you lost enough in Vegas. You know, it doesn’t seem right to me. Vicksburg’s the site of one of the most famous battles of the Civil War. I have a hard time putting casinos here. It’s like if they put Euro Disney on the Normandy beaches.”
“A lot of locals agree, I’m sure, but a lot more are grateful for the revenue and jobs.”
Juan conceded the point with a nod. “It just occurred to me. I have no idea what Tamara Wright looks like.” He was reaching for his phone to call Perlmutter when it started to ring.
“Chairman, St. Julian here.”
“Your ears must have been buzzing because I was just reaching for my phone to call you. We don’t know what Professor Wright looks like.”
“She’s tall, I’d say six feet, and a light-skinned African American. Her hair was straight the last time I saw her, but that was several years ago. The best way to spot her is she always wears a gold Tijitu pendant.
“A what?”
“It’s the Taoist symbol for yin and yang. One half black, the other white. Listen, that’s not important. Her grad student just called me again. She says she had another call last night from a man asking about Tamara. She just thought to call me now.”
Juan’s gut tightened. “What did she tell this man?”
“Everything. She didn’t think she was breaking any confidences.”
“Did the man identify himself?”
“Yes, he said he was a fellow scholar visiting from Argentina and wanted to set up
a meeting with Tamara.”
The tightness spread to Cabrillo’s chest. He started looking around the small parking lot, expecting to see the Argentine Major at any second.
Perlmutter continued, “This isn’t good, is it?”
“No. No, it isn’t. It means Professor Wright’s life is in danger.”
At hearing this Max Hanley also started scanning faces.
“Thanks for the warning, St. Julian,” Cabrillo said, and folded his phone.
“Persistent buggers, aren’t they?” Max said.
“They’ve been an hour behind us the whole way.”
“How do you think they found out about Professor Wright?”
“The same way we would have if I didn’t know Perlmutter. I Googled her last night after you went to bed. She’s world renowned for her knowledge of ancient Chinese shipping and commerce. If I wanted to learn more about Admiral Tsai, she’s the person I’d want to talk to.”
“I guess this means that rubbing you threw into the kitchen at Ronish’s house survived the fire,” Max remarked.
“What can I say? It was a lousy toss. Come on, let’s go check in, then find Dr. Wright. I feel like I’ve got a target pinned to my back, standing out here.”
Despite her antebellum look, the Natchez Belle was a modern ship built with every conceivable amenity for the seventy passengers she could handle at a time as she made her way back and forth between St. Louis and New Orleans. Her two tall, spindly stacks were for show, as was the massive red stern wheel that churned the waters rhythmically. Propellers under her fantail would actually move the vessel.
The interior was as decorative and ornate as the outside. Woodwork gleamed under countless rounds of hand polishing, and all the brass looked as bright as gold. The carpet under their feet, as they stepped to the reception desk, was as plush as any aboard the Oregon.
The duo checked in. Juan was down to his last fake identification thanks to the need to burn their rental in Washington. He asked about Dr. Tamara Wright, but the receptionist, in her hoop-skirt and tight bodice, said they didn’t give out information on other passengers. They would have to find her themselves.
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