by Sean Blaise
He picked up his dirty coffee mug and walked through the watertight door to the galley. There was a shuffle up forward as the kids were hastily packing their bags, trying to flee the stench of murder and death on the ship. The kids’ bus was already waiting to take them to their parents at the hotel. The school was bringing along a grief counselor to help the students cope with the crisis. John hoped it helped.
John saw Monica, sitting quietly at the galley table, barely moving. He wondered if the weight of it all was just too much for her to handle. She had been catatonic since Greg’s arrest. John thought he should say something to her, reassure her she would be OK. It was the least he could do.
“Monica. Are you OK?” John asked.
Monica who was deathly still, just endlessly moving her hands. In her hands, was a rope. She made and unmade the bowline loop, almost by heart.
John felt a cold chill make its way down his spine as he slid into the chair across from her. Tears streaked her face, and she kept making the knot over and over again.
“I guess it wasn’t her fault, after all,” Monica said softly, as she looked up at John and dropped the rope onto the table. “Wasn’t her that was my problem, it was him.”
“What are you talking about?”
Monica’s face turned cold; her eyes grew clouded with anger.
“I saw them you know, on St. Helena having sex in a field. It reminded me of three years ago when he’d fucked me the same way. I had nothing back then, none of these,” she said gesturing at her breasts.
“You and Greg?”
“Back in Norfolk. I was at a summer camp. He was working maintenance at the camp. I’d never had the attention of a boy, let alone an older boy who was so handsome. I didn’t even pretend to make him wait. All summer long we made love. I felt so alive, I felt like a woman. It was amazing being desired like that. But all that seed he pumped into me had a result. He got me pregnant. I told him about the baby, and then he said it wasn’t his. He said that I was probably sleeping with other boys too. He quit the job and I didn’t see him again. He never even bothered to contact me.”
John said nothing, stunned, and not believing what he was hearing.
“My parents are nightmares. They would have disowned me for having that child; I would have lost everything. So, I had to get rid of it, by myself at sixteen. I tried to kill myself after. I still live with it today. Then I started following him online. When I saw that Greg was coming here, I signed up too. I thought with this body now,” she swept her hands over her voluptuous physique, “he would see what he had lost. He would take me back; we could be together. We could have a child. But when I arrived, he only cared about her. He acted like he barely remembered me, while he doted on her. He never treated me like that.”
“What did you do Monica?” John asked quietly reaching into his pocket for his phone and turning on the recording app. He held it in his lap, face up.
“Jennifer was in my way. I was lying in my bunk when Smith dropped off the test. Said if Jennifer needed to talk, she was available. I knew then that it was a pregnancy test. And I knew my chance to get back with Greg would be over if he found out. He would stay with her. If she was gone, I would be here to reap his love again. But if she was pregnant, she would never get out of my way. She was the only obstacle.”
“Monica, tell me what you did.”
Monica made the bowline knot again with expertise, created a loop and dropped it over her own head, and pulled. John slumped back in his chair. His mind was reeling.
“Monica you’re not saying this to save Greg, I hope. Were you a part of?”
“What happened on Saint Helena? No. I have no idea what they were doing. No, seeing them having sex destroyed me. I confronted him on St. Helena. Told him I would tell Jennifer about us, our history and our baby. And then he had the balls to leave me a note on my bunk, “Keep quiet or else!” What could he do to me that he hadn’t already done? I ran back here and spent the day in my cabin, crying. Then, I got angry. I just had to remove her from the equation, to get my man back.”
John realized with horror that the threatening note he had so confidently given the Brazilian authorities as proof of Greg’s threat against Jennifer was not even meant for her. It must have fallen from Monica’s bunk above onto Jennifer’s bunk below.
Monica wiped her eyes and looked shockingly normal. She smiled.
“What now, Captain?”
Chapter 81
John sat on the back deck of the Beagle, looking at the shanty town of Fortaleza. It was so bleak. He could almost feel the desperation. A large man walked down the dock, looking for something. When he spotted the ship he stopped. The man tried to put on a friendly face, but it was wolfish.
“Hey bru, you happen to have a crew member named Lubnazi?
“I did.”
“Can you point me in the direction he went?”
“Junior, I doubt you will find him in this big world.”
Junior stopped, unsure of what to say. “So, he told you about me?”
John nodded. “I think he fooled you and me a like.”
“I tried calling the SAT phone but got nothing. I figured he was avoiding me.”
“My comms were all sabotaged.”
“That’s sounds like Lubanzi, alright.”
John looked confused. He had always assumed it was Wayland.
“Why do you say that?”
“That’s his specialty, electronics. He’s got a skillset.”
Junior looked around, unsure of what to do next.
“He went north, if that’s any help.”
“Nah mate, there’s a point at which you must cut your losses. I doubt I will ever see him again.”
“Me too. Junior?”
“Yeah bru?”
“There was a revolver. It was used in a crime on board, and I think you know about its history in South Africa. The Brazilians are running tests. If I were you, I would be gone before they get the results.”
Junior turned without another word and walked away.
Chapter 82
John sat on his bunk. The ship was empty. Smith was gone to handle liaising with the kids and parents at the hotel. She was no doubt trying to save the school's reputation.
Charlie was asleep in his cabin and Bill was already on leave. John doubted he would be back; his tenured professorship must look pretty good right now.
Monica was now in custody, charged with the murder of Jennifer. He still couldn’t believe she had done it. At first, he was concerned that her obsession with Greg would make her take the fall to save him. But when she had spoken, there was no doubt. She had killed Jennifer.
In the end, love had killed Jennifer. The irony of that stung John even harder. The ship's cell phone thrilled on the bunk next to him. The last thing he wanted to do was talk to anyone, but there was so much going on with the student's arrests, he had no choice.
“Captain Otter, speaking.”
“Captain this is Shelia, Jennifer's mother,” an elderly woman sobbed into the phone. John sat bolt upright.
“Ma’m, I don’t have the words.”
“Captain, it’s not your fault. I just wanted to call you and let you know that.”
“I feel responsible.”
“Jennifer respected you so much. She called us after that first storm when she got so sick. She said you had saved her life. She wrote to us constantly, and always said she owed you her life. I know her murder wasn’t your fault, and you need to know that.”
Tears began flowing down John’s face. He couldn’t stop the sob that escaped his lips.
“I’m so sorry. So, so sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you, Captain Otter, for bringing her back to us. Now she can rest at home.”
“Can I ask? Was she?”
“Pregnant?” Shelia paused as if grasping for the right words. “No, she wasn’t. It’s a small comfort.”
The phone clicked dead. John slid back in his bunk, his chest heaving
with sobs. He knew it wasn’t his fault, there was nothing he could have done. But he felt the loss. He felt the loss for all of the kids. The 14-year-old on St. Helena. The four lives ruined on board. And for what?
John rolled onto his side and faced the wall of his bunk. He just wanted to be alone for a very long time. John reached to turn off his bunk light when his eyes noticed a small block of paper peeking out from behind the Med-Save bags. He swore it wasn’t there before.
John pulled out the paper and unfolded the perfectly folded note when another paper fell from the middle of the note. He put it aside and read the crisp, detailed handwriting that looked so familiar.
“Captain Otter, I wanted to explain what happened on St. Helena in case anything happens to me. Greg has become so unpredictable I don’t know what he might do to me. If you are reading this, it means I am unable to tell you myself. But my conscience is killing me, and I need to come clean.
Greg, Wayland, Jack, and I raided the Tomb of Napoleon Bonaparte on St. Helena. That’s what we all came to do. It was my idea, and I am sorry for my part in it.
At University, we discovered a legend about Napoleon. It appears that when he was exiled to St. Helena by the English, Bonaparte had his loyalists fill a ship with France’s gold. Priceless paintings, and huge amounts of treasure were hidden to fund his escape and return to power.
The ship sailed on to Devil’s Island in French Guiana where the treasure was apparently buried. The crew who buried it, were killed on the sail back to France when they encountered a hurricane, and their ship sank. The only map of where the treasure was buried, was in Napoleon’s possession at Longwood House on St. Helena.
Upon getting sick and realizing his death was near, Napoleon gave his most entrusted servant the map. He said it should never fall into the hands of the English, who were bound to go through his every artifact upon his death. Instead, it should be preserved to fund a revolution in France in the future. When Napoleon died, his servant buried the map under the south corner of his tomb on St. Helena.
The servant was shipped back to France by the English after Bonaparte’s death, and he vowed to return for the map to see Napoleon’s vision through. He never did. Instead, he contracted cholera, almost immediately upon returning home to France.
On his deathbed, he told the story of the treasure map to the priest who was reading his last rights. The priest took it as the delirious ramblings of a dying man. Napoleon’s treasure? It was ludicrous. But the priest recorded the event in the church’s records. That’s where we found it.
While we were raiding the tomb, a local boy discovered us. Jack was startled and swung the shovel at that boy’s face. I have never heard a sound like that. He fell forward and struck his head on the corner of the gravesite. I don’t know what killed him the shovel or the tomb, but he didn’t move again. We tried to resuscitate him, but he was dead. I wanted to get help, but Greg forbade it. He said what was done was done. It was Jack’s idea to hide the body.
Even though I didn’t swing the shovel, I feel responsible for the boy’s death. I was supposed to be the lookout, but I left my post. If I had stayed on watch, I could have seen the boy, distracted him, or shouted a warning to the others.
If I had just stayed on that hill, that boy would still be alive. I live with that truth every day. It was also my actions that put this whole thing in motion, and I am forever guilty of the results.
We used the shovels to dig a grave in the woods not far from Napoleon’s tomb and we dumped the boy there. Jack said if we said anything, we would all be ruined so we kept our mouths shut. But the guilt ate me up inside.
I’m sorry for what I’ve done. It was never supposed to be this way. Attached you will find the map of Napoleon’s Treasure.
Do what you will with it. But beware, it's brought me nothing but misery. And thank you for saving my life. I will miss you.
Jennifer
John looked down at the treasure map. A small drawing of an island was all it had, with a point off the coast of the island sporting an x.
What the hell do I do with this? John thought.
An excerpt from the next John Otter Novel
THE
TAHITIAN PEARL
Book 2
Chapter 1
"Load your weapons. If they start shooting, let them have it," Faris whispered quickly to the Sheikh's men in the back of the old Mercedes.
Abdul leaned back against the hood of the car and surveyed his surroundings. The tip of his cigarette glowed sharply, almost matching the sunrise that was beginning to show its face behind him. Somalia was a beautiful country at dawn. Just enough light to instill the surroundings with a warm glow, but not enough light to see what a shithole it really was.
Abdul could almost feel the palpable hopelessness of his surroundings. He had traveled to nearly every war zone in the world at one point or another. They all felt like that. Large empty voids, filled with nothing but the lost dreams of their people.
Abdul felt a cold shiver as he remembered his own experience growing up as a young boy in Nigeria. His childhood was marked by constant war, followed by famine. He was recruited at age 11 to become a child soldier for the local militia. They were nothing but thieves robbing poor people of what little they had.
Abdul had finally escaped at age fifteen with an Egyptian diamond merchant who liked to color outside the lines of the law. Had he not gotten out of Nigeria; Abdul had no doubt he would be dead already. And for what? A strip of mud? Abdul had decided long ago, that he would rather die for money.
Abdul heard a low rumble coming from the bay. It was still too dark to see the source of the sound clearly. Out of the darkness, a thirty-foot black boat approached slowly towards the dock. Abdul could see that the boat was filled to the brim with armed young boys, in ragtag clothes, clutching rusty AK-47s.
Faris opened the car door and stepped out. Abdul dropped what was left of his cigarette on the ground and stamped it out with his combat boot. Faris was wider and taller than Abdul, and Abdul always worried that, maybe, this made him look weak when Faris was next to him. He shoved that thought aside.
Abdul was glad to have Faris with him. He and Faris were practically brothers and he trusted him implicitly. As a mercenary, having someone watching your back who wouldn't put a bullet in it was as comforting as a nice, warm blanket. Besides, the other three men with Abdul were all the Sheikh's men, and they were fanatics. Abdul hated fanatics.
The black speedboat approached the rickety-looking wooden pier slowly until the young Somali thugs were able to jump out of the boat and onto the creaking dock. They approached Abdul and Faris with guns drawn and the cold, slack, faces of killers.
The Somali boys couldn't have been more than in their early teens, thought Abdul. Had they been born anywhere else in the world they would have just been going to the 7th or 8th grade and would have started to wonder why they were suddenly noticing girls. But, in a cruel twist of fate, these boys had been born in the ghettos of the world's greatest toilet. Born in the slums and garbage dumps of a place that nobody cared about; and that no one ever would. These boys, for all their criminal malice and murderous intent, were merely making the best of their very bad situations.
One of the boys who looked a year or so older than his comrades made his way up to Abdul. He had the arrogance of a man with many kills under his fake Nike belt. He looked angry. This wasn't a good start, thought Abdul.
“Idiot, where fuck you been?" the boys’ leader yelled to Abdul in broken and hard to understand English.
"Here, where we said we would meet."
"No, fuck, we said the other one, asshole," he said pointing across the bay.
It seemed the boy thought that the more he cursed the better his English sounded. Abdul needed to diffuse the situation fast.
"OK, OK, our mistake, can we make the deal?"
The boy suddenly moved closer to Abdul. So close that his putrid breath exploded hotly into Abdul's face. Abdul's left ha
nd went to the dagger beneath his shirt. Double-edged and heavy, the Jambiya dagger was a long-curved blade. It was perfect for shoving into the soft stomach of an overly arrogant kid. The boy finally took a step back, but his black, icy eyes never wavered from Abdul's.
"We make deal. Now you pay extra."
Abdul dropped his hand from the dagger and sighed. He hated when he was right. Abdul had seen this coming and had brought another ten grand just in case. These thugs were all the same. Once they found a money machine, they would shake it for every last penny they could get. And the difference in price just might mean your life, so he had come prepared. But he wouldn't let the boy know that.
"How much more?" Abdul asked.
"Two thousand."
This was odd, Abdul thought. He had expected the boy to ask for a lot more than two thousand dollars. Then Abdul realized the reason he hadn't. If the boy had asked for more than that, Abdul might get angry and call Yusuf, the warlord who this boy worked for, and complain. That would probably get the boy a one-way ticket to a gutter somewhere with two shots to the back of his head for cheating his boss. After all, it wasn't hard in Somalia to find another drugged-out boy with an AK-47 and a Napoleon complex. No matter, thought Abdul. This didn't change his plans at all.
"Deal," Abdul said.
Abdul glanced over at Faris, who pulled out the brushed Aluminum Haliburton briefcase from the trunk of the Mercedes. Faris opened the briefcase, which was stuffed to the brim with cash. Inside were neatly stacked bills, U.S. of course. Even though they were halfway around the world, in a pit like Somalia, cash talked. And only one kind: American. The funny thing was that most people in this part of the world despised the United States; but if you tried to pay in any other currency you were quite simply, fucked. Green was king to every warlord in the world.