Maybe this plan, this battle of stamina between two kinds of sea vessels, would work after all.
“There's something up ahead!” one of the crew shouted from toward the bow of the boat. “Something in the distance!”
Purdue peaked up with Aya at the horizon ahead of them, being sure to keep their heads low as they looked. There was something far away—land. It was an island, alright, and not a large one. It was probably the same size of land mass as what was shown on the map, as the shape that was crossed out with that telltale X.
Most likely their destination, and the resting place of Admiral Ogden's treasure.
Just as Purdue feared, Luka and the rest of Siad's pirates were still following. They either needed to pull away from the island and go in a different direction, somehow beat the pirates right there and then, or in the worst case scenario, try and face them on the island. Whatever they chose, they had to choose it soon.
“Should we keep going forward?” Aya asked, cautiously reaching up toward the ship's controls. “Or do we veer away.”
If they kept trying to take them on in the water, they wouldn't be able to fight them off. They were already outgunned and outnumbered. They would be overrun if they kept this up. On land, they at least had a chance to fight on even grounds rather than their enemy being able to outmaneuver them. They would still be outnumbered and outgunned but they could fight back on land rather than sit there hoping not to get shot like they had been doing on the boat.
“Stay on course,” Purdue said. “Let's get to that damn island already.”
“Bring them to the treasure?” Alton called over from where he was crouched down. “Have you lost your mind?”
“No,” Purdue said. “We won't let them get that far. I'm counting on you and Oniel to make sure of that.”
The twins looked at one another and both seemed to be filled with a newfound excitement. They loved a good fight, and best of all, they were good at it. Hopefully, they would be the deciding factor in their victory. They may not have the numbers, but Purdue felt like they had the ingenuity to overcome the disadvantages they had.
Purdue looked at the island drawing closer and then leaned back and peeked at the boats that were still on their trail. They seemed to be speeding up, no doubt concluding that their prey were heading to land. “Once we get close, we all need to get off the ship as quickly as possible to ambush those bastards. If we can't surprise them, then they won't have any trouble just gunning us down.”
The island was fast approaching and Aya slowed the ship down with a pull of the throttle as they approached the shore. There was a rocking beneath him of the keel touching shallower waters and as it slowed, the whole crew hurried across the deck, climbing down and splashing down onto the rocky beach of the island.
Purdue was the last off of the boat, and ran across the deck. He turned to check on the pirates' location and was met by flashing gunfire rocketing toward them in the water. He ducked for cover and then jumped off the boat.
His feet touched down on the shoreline, and a feeling swept over him.
This was it. The place that could make him rich again.
Admiral Ogden missed the ocean. He missed the vast openness that he was able to explore while sailing the seas. He missed the ability to potentially go anywhere in the world, to explore faraway places to his heart's content. He missed his freedom.
Now, all he had was a cramped and dark dungeon cell, awaiting his sentence. He knew what his punishment would be. He was a pirate after all, and there was only one real way the crown dealt with pirates. They had to be made examples of. Their rebelliousness and lawlessness had to be purged from the world. A pirate wouldn't just rot away in a dungeon forever. No. A pirate would become a hanging carcass for the whole world to see, a warning to the people to never consider becoming one. That was Ogden's fate, and he had come to accept it. Now he just wanted to get it over with.
He sat on the cold floor of his cell, picking at the stone wall because there was nothing better to do. He had to find some way to pass the time. Who knew how long it would be until they could finally just get on with it?
The door down the corridor opened and he heard some guards stationed there speaking to someone. Ogden waited patiently as footsteps came down the hall, out of sight. It could have just been another arrest and someone was going to be thrown into another cage, but it kept coming closer. He was certain his was the last cell in the chamber so they couldn't be going past him. When the door to his holding cell opened, two guards were flanking a young woman who Ogden recognized.
The lady from the tavern during that hurricane—Victoria.
“Are you sound about this, miss?”
“I am,” she said to the guards. “Thank you.”
The two guards looked hesitant to leave and one of them turned his attention to his prisoner. “Don't try anything, admiral. We will be just outside.”
“Thank you,” Victoria said again and the guards respectfully stepped out, closing the door and leaving Ogden alone with the woman he barely knew. She regarded him just like she had at the dinner table, with keen interest like she was observing some kind of wild animal that she didn't fully understand. From what he remembered, she came from wealth and had been pampered her whole life. Piracy itself confounded her. She couldn't grasp why anyone would be commit crimes to try and improve their lives.
Ogden didn't stand to greet her. He barely had enough strength to, but even if he did, he would have remained sitting lazily against the wall. At this point in the fleeting time he had left, manners were some of the least of his concerns.
“I remember you,” Ogden said from the floor.
“And I you,” she replied with a curtsy. “It is nice to see you again, Admiral Ogden.”
“Is it?” Ogden snorted. “Must be great to see me awaiting the gallows. Not that it isn't a pleasure to see you again, but what exactly is it you're doing here? Came to see the show?”
“I had to see you again before...”
“Before my neck breaks and the stench of my rotting corpse starts spreading all over the streets of London?”
She looked hurt by his insinuation that she would take any pleasure in his death, but frankly, he was baffled that she was even there. There didn't seem to be any sensible reason why she would want to visit him. They had one mildly interesting conversation once and suddenly she was here, to have one more before he died?
A thought occurred to him and it seemed like the only possibility that made sense. Morrow had been there that night, drinking in the tavern with the rest of the crew. He had seen Ogden speaking with Victoria for quite some time, maybe even surmised that the conversation had been more than just a passing distraction.
“Did Morrow send you here to convince me to give up the treasure's location?”
She raised a brow and looked completely confused by the question. “No, who is Morrow?”
“Jacob Morrow. Former first mate of the Scarlet Wing. Current captain of the Iron Horn. A proud privateer who sold his soul to the king. A disloyal weasel who turned against all of his brothers and is the sole reason that I am stuck in this dry cave instead of being out in the open sea. That is Morrow. Did he ask you to come speak with me?”
“No,” Victoria insisted. “No, I'm afraid I've never even met the man.”
She looked sincere enough, but Ogden was still reeling from the hard lesson he learned about lies and trust. Her denials could just be her trying to preserve the innocent facade while she tried to coax the location of the treasure out of him. If that was the case, it wasn't going to work on him. Morrow would have to try harder if he really wanted to find it.
“Then what do you want?” He asked, more aggressively than he intended.
Victoria took a step away, back toward the door. She looked ready to leave, probably regretting that she had ever come at all but she took a breath and didn't retreat any further.
“You always fascinated me,” she said.
Ogden reme
mbered that much. Victoria had loved the tall tales people talked about; she believed them even. The stories that he coated his sails in blood or commanded an absurd amount of men in his pirate navy. She had painted a particularly grandiose picture of him in her imagination and that night at the tavern, she discovered that pirates were people. They were human beings who were desperate, looking for purpose, and often times just cruel, but people nonetheless. He left that conversation hoping that she could now see reality a little more clearly.
“And even now, you fascinate me still,” she took a surprising step forward. “I had to beg my father to use his influence to allow me to come visit you. He never understood my interest in pirates. He never saw what I do. He never stopped to wonder about that fact that all of you, you pirates, always know that your actions could bring you to this place. You know that you can end right up here, having to face a horrible death in front of an audience ... but you still break the laws anyway.”
“Why let something as trivial as law and order stop you from living your best life, hmm?” Ogden said rather nonchalantly.
“I just want to understand,” Victoria said.
“You never will,” Ogden said bluntly. “Look at you. You have a good life, a safe life. You have never been at the bottom. Down there, you are treated like you are nothing. You've never had your superiors act like your life is disposable. I, like all of the late members of my destroyed fleet, understood that and that is why they sailed with me. We all wanted something more, and we wanted to get it without anyone being able to tell us that we couldn't. To live without restraint is true freedom. That is what the sea brings. That is how we have lived.”
Victoria was silent, now staring at the gray floor of the cell. “Was it worth it?”
Ogden laughed and unsteadily got to his feet. He limped over to her and gently touched her chin, tilting her head upward so her gaze was brought from the floor to his eyes. He wanted her to see his own eyes and just how serious he was about his answer. “Absolutely. I got everything I wanted.”
“You did?”
“I thought I wanted more. I tried to get more. But in the end ... that's what got me caught. That's why I am in this damn cell. I had acquired more wealth than I knew what to do with, and I somehow still wanted more. Enough wasn't enough for me. If I had been more content with what I already had...” He stopped, and felt foolish to be regretting anything. Regret wouldn't do him any good at all. He changed the course of his thoughts. “The point is, I hate that I was caught and I hate how it happened, but I don't for a moment hate the lifestyle I chose. If you ask me, in this age, it is the only way to live truly free.”
“I'm sorry,” Victoria said after a long moment. “I'm sorry that you're going to die.”
“Don't be,” Ogden said with a shrug. “It is what it is. Death was bound to happen someday. And perhaps you will hear even better tales about my death. Maybe they will say that I didn't die on the hangman's noose, not until they had to tear my head from my body completely. Or perhaps they will say that the man who will be executed wasn't me at all, a clever decoy while the real Admiral Ogden is still out there, ravaging the high seas. Who knows? Maybe I am a decoy.”
“You're not,” she laughed.
“Are you sure? All you have to go on is the word of a pirate,” Ogden snickered. “I could have lied to you in that tavern. This all could have been an elaborate ruse.”
“Perhaps,” Victoria conceded, still laughing. An uneasy tension returned as the impending execution loomed over them. “If the real Admiral Ogden is out there, then I hope to meet him at some point ... but if, as I suspect, you are indeed the true admiral, then I am glad to have met you. I'm glad to have had these conversations, no matter how brief they were. They might all say you're a monster, but please know that I don't think that anymore.”
“I appreciate that,” Ogden said. “At least there will be one person who doesn't spit on my swaying body. Are you ... are you going to watch the execution? Or are proper young women not allowed to view such a show?”
“I don't want to see it,” Victoria said. “But I will. I will be there for you in those last moments.”
“Thank you,” Ogden said. “It was a pleasure speaking with you, Victoria.”
“It was a pleasure to speak to you as well, Admiral Ogden.”
She turned to leave and he called after her. “You never did ask about the gold.”
Victoria swung back around and looked at him again with confusion. “Was I supposed to?”
“I'm sure it's what most people will be interested in after my death. I supposed that you would be just as curious about it.”
“Your treasure does not interest me nearly as much as the man who collected it.” She smiled at him and he unconsciously returned his own smile. She really hadn't been sent by Morrow. Her visit wasn't a trick; she genuinely cared. She lingered for a moment longer, her lips still stretched into the pleasant smile he first saw in that tavern. “Goodbye.”
After she left, Ogden found himself alone in complete isolation in the dungeon again. He still longed for the sea and all of its luxuries and thrills. He still dreaded his oncoming execution, of course, but something was different now. He felt a comfort that he hadn't felt since losing his crew. As lonely as he felt in the dungeon, at least he knew he wouldn't be alone when he died. Someone would mourn him. That was a comfort, if only a little one.
9
THE DESTINATION
They made it—the small island from the map. The one bearing the only true X on those charts. The supposed resting place of one of the largest hoards of treasure ever collected in one place. Although, that depended on if Purdue was right and he had been able to actually decipher the map, and not just notice a mistake that Admiral Ogden made. They would find out soon enough, but he couldn't shake the feeling that this was the right place to be if he needed to improve his finances.
First, they had murderous modern-day pirates to deal with.
“To the trees!” Aya yelled out and everyone followed her toward the line of tree trunks leading to a jungle.
They were sprinting as fast as they could, no one daring to see the progress Luka and his pirates were making for their landing. Once under the cover of the trees, everyone took positions behind the trunks, or climbed up into the branches to see where their enemy was. The pirates had already made their landing, their speedboats sliding right onto the rocky shore, and they were hopping out of their vehicles, moving toward the jungle with their machine guns raised. It reminded Purdue of some sort of criminal D-Day, and unfortunately for him and his crew, they weren't able to bombard the invaders on the shore with gunfire and missiles. Instead, they were going to have to rely on their wits and the crucial element of surprise to seize victory.
The most important thing to Purdue was staying alive. He didn't come all this way and find this godforsaken island just to die; he couldn't let that happen, not when he was so close. That treasure could be mere steps away. They had to see this through. The appearance of these pirates couldn't derail everything. It just needed to be another obstacle that he could overcome, just like the museum and the unpredictability of the twins. They needed to beat these pirates before Luka and his boys had a chance to kill them first.
The pirates were nearly upon them. Purdue was pinned against the backside of a thick trunk, out of view from the oncoming enemies. Everyone else had just as effective hiding spots and Purdue glanced at Alton who was crouching behind a nearby brush. They locked eyes and Purdue nodded to him. Without words, they both knew they were thinking the same thought—the second these pirates crossed the tree line ... that would be the time to jump them. In the close quarters of the jungle, and with all of the trees in the way, their AK-47's might lose some of their usefulness ... at least, that was Purdue's hope.
Many had armed themselves with whatever they could find. Some picked up rocks from the ground and cupped them in their hands. Others like Purdue found thick branches to use as weapons. Oniel wa
s the only one with an actual weapon, having held onto the knife that he stabbed that Nassau police officer with. While Purdue still objected to that killing, he wouldn't be so against Oniel putting his killer instincts to work in the same of defending all of them.
The footsteps were getting closer and out of the corner of his eye, a barrel of a machine gun moved right past Purdue's face from the other side of the tree. A man followed the weapon and then a man came from Purdue's other side, and then more entered the jungle.
If they jumped out too soon, the remaining pirates would remain at the tree line and just riddle the jungle with bullets. They needed to let enough of them inside to make for an effective ambush. Luckily, the pirates didn't seem to expect that Purdue and his crew were waiting and instead moved straight through without a second look. They thought Purdue and the others were fleeing through the jungle, not waiting for them.
This was their chance—and Purdue took it.
After letting a fourth man pass, Purdue launched the fight into motion by swinging his branch into the next man's face. The moment that wood made contact with the man's dark face and knocked him over, chaos exploded throughout the trees. All of Purdue's allies pounced on the pirates who didn't even have a moment to react to the sudden attack. It turned into a catastrophic brawl. A few gunshots rang out but most of the pirates didn't even have a chance to fire their machine guns. They were being swarmed and beaten down.
Luka retreated backward, fear in his eyes, and he yelled out orders to his men. They couldn't hear him. They were too busy getting their teeth kicked in by Purdue and his crew. Unlike his men, Luka wasn't armed with an AK-47, and Purdue was especially thankful for that. If Luka wanted to survive, he'd either have to run, fight them hand to hand, or try and get one of his men's guns, putting himself at risk. To their luck, he chose the last option and sprinted into the fray, hoping to pick up one of the dropped weapons. He managed to get a hold of one of his fallen brothers' guns and turned it in the direction of the fight. He looked ready to gun down everyone, including his own men, but Purdue was already upon him.
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