Clue by Clue

by Catherine Hapka

  “Wait, what?” Ivy exclaimed, while Zack snorted with laughter.

  Player spoke up. “Apparently that wasn’t a rare opinion among pirates back then,” he said. “I’m researching now, and a lot of pirate captains banned women and girls from their ships. But that doesn’t mean there were no female pirates—a few famous ones were out and proud about it, like Anne Bonny, who sailed with the famous pirate Calico Jack. But others may have disguised themselves as men to join their crews.”

  “Like Cal Cutlass, apparently. Or Callie, or whatever her real name was.” Carmen fingered the worn pages of the diary, imagining the girl-dressed-as-a-boy who’d written these words centuries ago. Somehow, knowing about Cal’s grand deception made her story seem much more interesting. As a master of disguise herself, Carmen could appreciate the attention to detail it must have taken for Cal to keep her secret from a ship full of her fellow pirates 24-7. Too bad Cal had wasted those skills on a life of piracy and wrongdoing . . .

  “Heads up, Red.” Player’s voice broke in to her thoughts. “Look outside—you’re there.”

  Carmen leaned over and peered out the plane window. Far below, nestled like a green jewel in a sparkling blue sea, lay the island of Jamaica.

  “Prepare for landing, guys,” she said, reaching for her seat belt. “It’s go time.”

  Chapter 9

  Heathrow Airport

  Devineaux was in line to board a plane at Heathrow Airport when his phone buzzed in his pocket. He growled with irritation when he saw that it was Julia Argent—again.

  “Yes?” he barked. “This is Devineaux.”

  “Oh, thank goodness, sir!” she exclaimed. “I’ve left you several messages—did you get them?”

  Devineaux had, though he hadn’t bothered to listen to any of them. He was sure she was calling merely to gloat about being asked to join the mysterious ACME only seconds after he’d received his own invitation.

  “Er, of course I got them.” He glanced toward the front of the line, where a stern-faced airline employee was poring over another passenger’s ticket. “But I’m short of time, Miss Argent. What do you want?”

  “I thought we should meet and discuss . . . well, you know . . . our new assignment?” She cleared her throat. “You left so quickly after they asked us to join that we didn’t have a chance to talk. And ACME wishes to meet with us again as soon as possible.”

  “They will have to wait,” he said. “You see, I received a new tip from one of our airport contacts that Carmen Sandiego flew out on a charter plane early this morning. I’m following up on it now.”

  “A tip?” Julia sounded a bit alarmed. “But you’re not technically with Interpol anymore, and we also haven’t technically started with ACME, so you really have no authority to . . . well . . . Wouldn’t it be better to wait?”

  “And let her slip through my grip yet again, only to cause yet more mischief and mayhem?” Devineaux barked out a dismissive laugh. “Nonsense. Besides, I haven’t yet reached a decision about whether to accept that job offer, which means I might not leave Interpol after all.”

  “What? But ACME said they’ve already taken care of our transfers, sir, and even if you’re still undecided, should you really be—”

  “Look, it is none of your concern.” Devineaux cut her off, annoyed by her goody-two-shoes attitude. It was always getting in his way! “If you prefer, Miss Argent, you can consider this my first freelance case.” He smirked, liking the sound of that. “I don’t need any help to bring down the notorious criminal Carmen Sandiego! Perhaps this is what I needed all along—to go rogue, just like her. It takes one to catch one, eh?”

  Just then the airport’s PA system crackled to life, announcing that the flight to Miami would be departing shortly, with connections to various stops in the Caribbean.

  “I must go,” Devineaux said abruptly. “Au revoir, Miss Argent. You can tell ACME that I’ll be in touch with my decision once Carmen Sandiego is in custody.”

  Without waiting for a response, he hung up.

  Chapter 10

  Off the Coast of Kingston, Jamaica

  “Can’t this thing go any faster?” Carmen asked Zack impatiently.

  “Sorry, Carm. It’s a beautiful morning, you know—all the better boats were rented out already.” Zack gunned the motor on the small, somewhat rickety motorboat. They’d rented it at a marina in Kingston. Jamaica’s bustling capital city hugged the shore on the southeastern coast of the island by Kingston Harbour, which Player had informed them was the world’s seventh largest natural harbor.

  “Yeah, this is the life.” Ivy leaned back on the boat’s rough wooden bench, her freckled face tipped up to catch the warm sunshine. “Why can’t all our capers be in the Caribbean, huh?”

  Carmen bit back a sigh. It really was a beautiful day in Jamaica. The sun glinted off the clear blue water of Kingston Harbour, a light breeze was blowing, and the temperature was perfect. Still, she couldn’t enjoy the setting knowing how much was at stake—and how long it was taking them to reach the site of the sunken pirate city. She was pretty sure she would have made better time swimming!

  But never mind—according to the coordinates Player had sent, they should be in the vicinity of old Port Royal by now. Up ahead, she could see the sandy strip of land called the Palisadoes, which separated Kingston Harbour from the Caribbean Sea. There was still a town called Port Royal there, though it was much smaller now.

  As if reading her mind, Player spoke up in Carmen’s ear. “If you’re wondering about the part of Port Royal that’s left, it’s a shadow of its former self,” he said. “Only about two thousand people live there, as opposed to eight thousand or so at the height of its reign as a pirate utopia.”

  “Well, we won’t need to get too close to today’s Port Royal—we should already be above the old pirate town,” Carmen said. She reached for her oxygen tank and flippers as Zack brought the boat to a stop and Ivy opened her eyes and sat up. “You guys wait here—I’ll dive down and see if I can get the lay of the land.”

  “Lay of the land—or lay of the water?” Ivy said with a grin.

  Player spoke up again. “Remember, the clue said, ‘Seek Morgan’s stone,’” he reminded Carmen. “Sir Henry Morgan was a pretty big deal in Port Royal back in the day, so maybe there’s a statue of him down there or something to mark where the treasure’s buried.”

  “I’ll see what I can find.” Within seconds, Carmen was suited up in her scuba gear. When she was ready, she gave Zack and Ivy a thumbs-up and then tipped herself backwards off the side of the boat.

  “Good thing Carm is the only one who knows how to scuba-dive, huh?” Ivy commented. “I sure wouldn’t wanna have to swim down there—there might be sharks!”

  “Don’t worry, Carm can handle anything—even sharks, I bet.” Zack leaned back in the driver’s seat and tucked his hands behind his head. “Might as well work on my tan while we wait.”

  “Tan?” Ivy let out a snort. “You know you burn like a lobster if you spend more than five seconds in the sun, bro!” She jammed a wide-brimmed hat onto his head. “Do us all a favor and wear this.”

  Zack flicked the brim out of his face. “I wish you guys had let me stop and pick up some food before we left,” he complained. “We walked right past at least three jerk-chicken stands back in Kingston!”

  Ivy ignored him, leaning over the side of the boat and peering into the water. It was clear and tranquil, but too deep for her to see where Carmen might be. “I wish we could see what Carm’s doing down there.”

  Zack grabbed a long tubular-shaped object from a compartment under the boat’s wheel. “Here, try this,” he said.

  “What is that thing?” Ivy took it and peeked into both ends. “A telescope?”

  “Pirates called it a spyglass—they used them for navigating and stuff,” Zack said. At his sister’s surprised look, he shrugged. “It was in that pirate show I saw.”

  Ivy peered through the spyglass. It didn’t help much wit
h seeing through the water. But when she raised it, she had a fantastic view of the area all around. She looked at the shoreline back in Kingston, able to see a fair bit of detail even though it was more than two miles away. “Hey, bro, I think I see one of those jerk-chicken shacks you were just talking about,” she said. “Long line—must be good.”

  “Aw, man!” Zack exclaimed hungrily.

  Then Ivy turned the glass in the other direction—and gasped. “Uh-oh,” she said.

  “What’s wrong?” Zack asked.

  Ivy gulped and handed him the spyglass. “Check it out. There’s this big yacht coming this way.”

  “So what?” Zack said. “They’ll have to go around us.”

  “Just take a look, bro.”

  Zack lifted the spyglass, focusing it on the white speck on the horizon. Through the lens, the speck turned into a big, beautiful yacht. He was admiring its clean lines and the way it sliced through the water when he noticed someone standing on the bow. Someone very familiar . . .

  “Uh-oh!” he blurted out.

  “Yeah,” Ivy said grimly. “Tigress is on that yacht! And she’s coming straight for us!”

  “Let’s get out of here.” Zack tossed aside the spyglass. He didn’t need it to get a good look at the yacht anymore, anyway—it was closing the distance between them like crazy! He sat up straight in the driver’s seat and gunned the motor.

  “What about Carm?” Ivy cried as the little motorboat lurched into motion.

  “We’ll come back for her later,” Zack called back. “Hold on, sis!”

  He spun the wheel, heading toward the shore of the nearby Palisadoes. Maybe he could get them to shallow water where that whale of a yacht couldn’t follow . . .

  “Faster, bro!” Ivy shouted, hanging on to the side of the boat. “They’re still gaining on us!”

  “Duh! That thing probably has, like, a thousand-horsepower engine,” Zack said, yanking the wheel sharply to the left to try to regain some distance. “And here we are in this bathtub toy . . .”

  Ivy cringed, hardly daring to look up at the yacht, which now seemed to tower above them. Zack turned to the right, aiming for an inlet in the Palisadoes, and for a second she thought he might actually make it . . .

  CLUNK! The small boat suddenly slowed down. A lot.

  “What was that?” Ivy cried.

  “Motor died,” Zack said. “Uh, anyone got a paddle?”

  “Real funny, bro.” Ivy turned to watch as the yacht glided to a stop just a few yards off the starboard side. Tigress wasn’t alone now—three other figures stood beside her.

  “Uh-oh,” Ivy said, recognizing the hulking shoulders and spiky hair of one of the figures. “There’s that El Topo guy.”

  “Yeah, and Le Chèvre, too,” Zack added, pointing to a taller, leaner figure. “Who’s the clown?”

  Ivy shrugged. “Maybe VILE’s doing birthday parties now.”

  On the yacht, the mystery clown guy with the white makeup and striped shirt was jumping around, waving his arms in the air. “What’s he doing?” Zack wondered.

  Tigress was close enough to hear him by now. She smiled smugly. “Allow me to translate,” she called out. “He’s saying, ‘Prepare to be boarded.’”

  Chapter 11

  Carmen kicked with her flippers, sending herself gliding through the murky undersea world. She was pretty deep here, probably almost forty feet down, but there was still just enough light filtering through from the surface to see pretty well.

  “So this is the lost pirate haven,” she said to Player, her voice sounding gurgly in her own head thanks to her facemask. She glanced around at the ghostly shapes of skeletal buildings. “After more than three hundred years underwater, there isn’t much left of old Port Royal.”

  “What can you see down there?” Player asked.

  “There are still some walls and streets and stuff. Not exactly the bustling city it used to be, though. It’s almost a little creepy.”

  She paused to admire the stonework on a doorframe. Then she swam on, looking for anything that might be a hint to her quest.

  “Can you see anything that might match up with those rock formations on the map?” Player asked. “Or any statues of Henry Morgan?”

  “Not yet.” Carmen kicked her flippers again, gliding over a crumbled stone wall covered in waving seaweed. “Just think, Cal Cutlass probably walked these streets before that earthquake sank them. I wonder what she thought of the place.”

  “Who knows,” Player said. “Supposedly it was known as the most dangerous and depraved city in the world back then.”

  Carmen grimaced. “Sounds a little like Vile Island.”

  She kicked again, still thinking about Cal Cutlass. How crazy was it that the notorious pirate was a girl—and that nobody had figured that out until now? It made Carmen want to finish reading that diary once this mission was over. Maybe find out what had made Cal betray the captain she seemed to admire so much by stealing his treasure. Was it merely ordinary greed—the same kind of greed that had led her to become a pirate in the first place? Or could something else have happened . . . ?

  Just then Carmen noticed several rows of rounded stones set into the sea floor ahead. They were covered in barnacles and worn down by hundreds of years of sea currents, but she was pretty sure she knew what they were.

  “Gravestones,” she blurted out.

  “What was that, Red?” Player asked.

  Carmen kicked down to the stones. “I found an old cemetery,” she said. “Do you happen to know where Henry Morgan is buried?”

  “Hang on, I’ll check . . .” Player was silent for only a few seconds. “Actually, his grave is in Palisadoes cemetery in Port Royal, Jamaica.” He sounded excited. “‘Seek Morgan’s stone . . .’”

  “As in his gravestone?” Carmen was already swimming from one ancient grave marker to the next, using a flashlight from her pack to try to make out the names carved into them, which had been worn down but not yet totally erased. “Maybe the treasure is buried in his grave!”

  “Ew—you up for some underwater grave digging, Red?”

  “Not really.” Carmen shone her light on another stone. “But a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta—found it!”

  She stared at the faded notation on a large stone: SIR HENRY MORGAN, 1635–1688.

  “It’s weird that the cemetery wasn’t on the map,” Player commented.

  “Yeah. Weird.” Carmen floated there for a moment, staring at the stone and thinking hard. “Something doesn’t make sense here, Player. Cal Cutlass created the clue we’re following. By the time she drew that map, she must have known that Port Royal was lost beneath the sea. So why would the map show a beach and trees and all the rest if the treasure site is underwater? And what does Henry Morgan’s gravestone have to do with it?”

  Player thought. “What if that clue isn’t leading to the treasure at all? What if it’s leading to . . .”

  “. . . another clue.” Carmen smiled and shook her head. “Of course! Cal Cutlass went to all that trouble to steal the treasure—she wasn’t going to make it easy to find, right?”

  “Makes sense. So do you see anything that might be another clue?”

  “Checking now.” She ran her hands over the face of the grave marker, searching for any indentation where something could be hidden. When she found nothing, she moved to the back.

  Finally her fingers found a grooved mark. But it wasn’t a niche or hidey-hole. It was a carved symbol! No—a whole series of them!

  “Found it!” Carmen’s heart pounded with excitement. “It’s carved into the back of the gravestone—another coded clue, I think. I’ll get some scans and send them to you when I’m back up top.”

  She pulled out her compact, clicking it open to reveal the optical scanner. She took several scans of the message, and close-ups of each symbol just to be safe. The names on the gravestones weren’t the only things that were fading. The sea had been wearing down Cal Cutlass’s carved symbols for hu
ndreds of years too—Carmen didn’t want to take any chances.

  “Think Tigress has already been there?” Player wondered.

  “No way of knowing,” Carmen said, snapping one last image. “It’s not exactly like she could take the gravestone with her.”

  “Ivy has the decoder, right? Get up there and see what we’ve got,” Player said.

  “On my way.” Carmen tucked away the compact and flashlight and kicked for the surface. “Hey, Player, did a storm roll in while I was down here?”

  “I don’t see anything on radar. Why?”

  “It got darker all of a sudden.” Carmen glanced up. A very large, very dark shadow was blocking the bright sky above the surface of the sea. A ship? She didn’t remember seeing any large vessels nearby when she’d started her dive. Then again, she’d swum a fair distance through the sunken city—she just hoped Zack and Ivy were keeping an eye out for her so she didn’t have to swim too far to meet them . . .

  Seconds later, she surfaced. Sure enough, she was in the shadow of an enormous yacht.

  “Nice boat,” she murmured, treading water.

  “Huh?” Player said.

  “Nothing.” Carmen pulled off her mask and squinted into the bright morning sunlight, scanning the horizon for Zack and Ivy’s little boat.

  She didn’t see it. But when she glanced up at the yacht, wondering if the little boat was hidden behind it, she gasped.

  “Red? What is it?” Player asked.

  “Tigress!” Carmen hissed. “She’s here—and she’s not alone! El Topo is with her, and Le Chèvre. Mime Bomb, too.”

  She was surprised to see so many operatives together. That wasn’t the usual VILE protocol. Sure, El Topo and Le Chèvre were friends and often worked together. And occasionally Professor Maelstrom would send other operatives out in pairs for a particular mission. But a whole crew of them?