She was startled by her phone beeping loudly. Glancing at the caller I.D., she saw it was Troy.
“Hey you,” he said.
“Troy, listen,” —she was borderline hysterical— “you are not going to believe this.”
“Okay,” he said slowly, “what is it?”
“This stuff isn’t from the Señora de la Muerta.” She paused.
“Dangit!”
“No no,” she continued, “it’s even better than that.”
“Better than tons of silver and gold?”
“Yes.”
“Well…?”
“Troy, I don’t know how to tell you this,” —she could feel her heart pounding— “but you’ve found the wreck of the Santa Maria.”
For a long minute, he said nothing.
“The Santa Maria,” he said, “as in, Christopher Columbus’s ship that sailed the ocean blue in 1492.”
“Yup,” she answered, “that’s the one.”
“Wait, that can’t be right,” he finally said. “The Santa Maria didn’t go down there. She ran aground off the coast of Haiti. And besides that, most of the salvaged material from the ship was supposedly used to build a colony there.”
“I know that, but I’m telling you, Troy,” —she motioned toward the bell, though he couldn’t see it— “I’m looking at the inscription right now.”
“What does it say?”
“La Gallega,” she read, “and underneath that, Juan de la Cosa.”
“Okay… um, I’m lost.”
“Well, that’s the original name of the Santa Maria and her owner,” she said, laughing. “I can’t believe it. This is so much more important than anything we could have ever found on the Muerta!”
She could almost hear him shaking his head on the other end of the phone. “I still don’t get what it’s doing at the bottom of the gulf at Key West.”
“I don’t know either. Maybe a storm or current carried it here,” she said, “but it doesn’t really matter. Aren’t you excited?”
“Well, yeah. Yes, I am; that’s great news,” —he didn’t sound convinced— “but listen, stay right there, I’m on my way. Be there in an hour.”
“Troy, trust me. This is the wreck of the Santa Maria,” she said. “It doesn’t make any difference how it got here; you found it!”
“I guess you’re right,” he said. “I’m sure there’s some reason for it.”
He paused for a moment and she could tell he must’ve thought she was mistaken.
“Anyway, you just sit tight and wait for me.”
“I will… bye.”
She clicked her phone shut and turned to look at the bell. It was kind of odd for it to show up like this. She tilted it back upright and polished it gently. Funny how uniform these two holes are, she thought, and traced a finger along the melted portion of the edge of the bell. Melted portion?
The more she studied it, the more she became convinced this bell had seen some sort of battle: two holes from a musket or something, and a melted edge from some intense heat, maybe a fire.
But nothing like that ever happened on the Santa Maria, she thought.
“Or did it?” she muttered to herself. She turned back to her computer and clicked back to a few of the web pages she had opened.
“Cristóbal Colón,” Megan read to herself, “born in the Republic of Genoa, started sailing at ten, blah blah blah.”
She scrolled down to the details of the fateful voyage of 1492.
“Hmmm…” She traced her finger along the screen. “First petitioned John the Second, turned down. Second petitioned Henry the Seventh of England via his brother, turned down… already committed to Spain.”
She skipped down to the portion that revealed that Ferdinand the Second of Aragon and Isabella the First of Castile had finally awarded him the right to make the voyage, though it was mostly private financial backing that made it possible. He was to be made Admiral of the Seas and given an unusually large portion of the profits.
“Strange,” she muttered.
After reading further, she discovered that most scholars thought this large percentage of reward was probably given, thinking that he would never return from the voyage.
“Ah,” she said, nodding, “makes sense.”
She continued to read information about the ships and the first voyage. The Santa Maria was owned by Juan de la Cosa; she nodded toward the bell. The Niña and the Pinta were owned by Martín Alonso Pinzón and Vincente Yáñez Pinzón, who coincidentally captained these two ships on the voyage.
“Hmmm, brothers,” she said aloud, “I never knew that.”
She read further, and learned that most historians agreed the journeys of Columbus involving the Pinzón brothers were not happy ones. Many reports showed them to be mutinous, to the point of leaving Columbus and striking out on their own as they approached the New World. Martín Alonso Pinzón had apparently heard from a native guide that there was much gold on the island of Babeque, and left the convoy of ships without permission to find it.
“Never knew that either.”
The more she read, the more it became clear there was no love between the captains of the three famous ships.
She clicked open a new page and was stunned by what she read. “Fierce storms separated the ships on their return to Palos from the newly discovered lands. Each captain, Martín Alonso Pinzón and Christopher Columbus, believed the other to be lost at sea. Pinzón arrived shortly after Columbus to find that he was being hailed a hero. Pinzón, expecting to be similarly exalted, found the honor already proclaimed on Columbus. Bitterly angry and jealous, he died alone under mysterious circumstances just days later.”
She sat back in the chair at her desk. “Weird.”
Rubbing her eyes and stretching her arms over her head, she found herself amazed at how little she really knew about these incredibly famous ships and their captains.
She looked back at the bell. “So, we’ve got a couple of mutinous brothers on the Pinta and the Niña and a battle-scarred bell from the Santa Maria…”
She stopped short. Sitting up quickly she scrolled back to the webpage concerning their return from the New World.
She scrolled through the pages until she found the sentence she was looking for; he died alone under mysterious circumstances just days later.
On a hunch, she clicked back to Google and typed in Christopher Columbus’s body.
One million, eight hundred thousand results came back in less than two-tenths of a second. Of the first ten or so, all seemed to have the same theme. Apparently, Christopher Columbus’s body had been moved several times and its exact location was under much contention.
Spain claimed to have it and the Dominican Republic (or Hispaniola in Columbus’s day) also claimed to have his bones.
Megan Simons, whose mind was well suited for analyzing information of this nature, took out a pad of paper and jotted down the facts.
Three Ships leave Spain for the new world
Christopher Columbus captains the Santa Maria
Martín Alonso Pinzón captains the Pinta
Vincente Yáñez Pinzón captains the Niña
The Pinzón brothers are heavy investors in the voyage
The Pinzón brothers are widely regarded as mutinous
Two ships return from the New World; the Pinta and the Niña
Christopher Columbus’s bones might be in the Dominican Republic
“Three ships leave for the New World and only two come back,” she said aloud.
She looked at the broken, melted bell again. “They sunk her,” —she sat back slowly in her chair— “and probably killed Columbus and left his bones in the Dominican Republic.”
“Oh, my God,” she gasped. “What have we uncovered here?”
The conversation was meticulously recorded, saved and delivered via secure hard-line e-mail to the man sitting in a large office at the top of the glass tower. His computer pinged to let him know he’d received the communiqué. G
ently tapping the end of a lit cigar on the granite ashtray at the corner of his desk, he opened the file. He listened quietly as the two voices rose out of his computer speakers:
“Troy, I don’t know how to tell you this, but you’ve found the wreck of the Santa Maria.”
“The Santa Maria,” the male voice said, “As in, Christopher Columbus’s ship that sailed the ocean blue in 1492.”
“Yup, that’s the one.”
The man in the high-backed leather desk chair swiveled around and opened his cellphone. He scrolled down through the numbers and tapped out a message. He pressed the send button and waited. It wasn’t long before he had a response.
Part III
1492
“Following the light of the sun, we left the Old World.”
-Christopher Columbus
35
Between The Bars
“Woohooooo,” Troy Bodean howled as he held up two Coronas above his Outback Tea Stained Cowboy hat and winked at the girls dancing on the bar at Durty Harry’s on Duval Street. The Durt Bags (the house band) were on stage and growling out their best imitation of Poison, singing “Nothin’ but a Good Time.” The Jello shots were flowing and the beers were ice cold.
He almost never came up to this touristy area of the world-famous road in Key West, but tonight was a big night. His luck had finally turned over for the good and he was going to celebrate. He shimmed his way to a table near the stage and plunked the beers down in front of his friend. Captain Mel Barsoom looked at the beers through one squinted eye under impossibly bushy eyebrows.
“Corona?” he gruffed, “you bought me a goddamn Corona?”
“They were out of Yuengling, my friend,” Troy shouted over the band, stretching his hand out to take the beer back. “I’ll drink it if you don’t…”
Mel yanked it out of his fingers. He took a long swig and gave Troy a mean look.
“I guess it’ll do,” he sneered. “Reminds me of the swill I hadda drink back on the Yellow River.”
Troy inhaled deeply. He knew a famous Mel story was coming, and he had no escape.
“That bastard Somali fella had no idea what he was up against when they boarded our boat,” Mel said, launching into the tale.
Troy waved to the girl carrying the tray of green, blue, yellow and red Jello shots around the room. He held up four fingers and mouthed the words, one of each, to her. She happily slid four containers off and laid the tray on their table. She straddled Troy’s lap, un-holstered a can of whipped cream from her belt, shoved a shot into his mouth, and filled it up the rest of the way with the white, fluffy spray. This process continued until all four shots were gone. All the while, Mel rambled on in the background.
“Ya know, Troy,” he said and pointed a finger down on the table as if locating a spot on a map, “there’re places near Yan’an and the Hukou Waterfall that the river drops forty-nine feet!”
“Uh huh,” Troy mumbled through a mouth full of whipped cream.
Mel leaned his head back and cackled. “He pointed that AK-47 at me all the while we were floatin’ toward the falls. Had no clue where we were headin’.”
Troy surreptitiously made eye contact with the waitress behind the closest bar and gestured for two more beers.
“But I kept him occupied until the damn falls were roarin’ so loud he couldn’t hear me talkin’,” —Mel’s eyes took on a twinkle of glee— “bastard had to drop his gun to hold on to the rails!” He slapped the table and laughed hysterically.
Troy pretended to laugh right along with him. He turned back to the girl at the bar and changed his order to four more beers. An hour later, Mel was passed out with his head in a puddle of drool on the table. Troy’s head was spinning. He paid the tab with a generous tip, slapped the band guys’ shoulders and told them how great their last set was… even though he couldn’t remember it, then stumbled out to the corner and clambered onto his scooter. Fumbling around in his pocket, he found the key, turned it on, and rotated the throttle.
For about five feet, he was going at least ten miles an hour, until the bike chain snapped taut. He jerked over the handlebars and tumbled to the ground. Standing up, he dusted himself off, checked to see if his hat was still there, and said hello to the nice police officer in front of him.
“Dangit,” he mumbled as he realized he was going to the tank.
“Let’s go, buddy,” the officer said, ushering Troy into the back of his cruiser. “You’re lucky you had that chain on your scooter. I’m warning you, and letting you chill in the drunk tank rather than writing you up for a D.U.I.”
“Shanks, occifer,” Troy garbled as the ground began to wobble under his feet.
To this day, it is up for debate as to whether it was getting into the police car or out of it when Troy threw up on the officer. Either way, it made him feel a great deal better.
The next morning, a plate of cold scrambled eggs and a piece of stale toast was served to Troy in the tank. He chose not to eat it as his stomach still felt a little sour from the night before. He did sip the juice box hungrily and asked for another. The guard said they could only give out one to each person and shrugged his shoulders.
“There’s water in the sink,” he said and pointed to the bathroom.
Troy declined, but another guy sitting in the room with him said he’d trade him his juice for his eggs and toast. He quickly accepted the trade and ignored the ugly looks from the others watching this exchange.
He stood up and walked to the front of the cell and pressed his face against the bars. The cold metal soothed his head. He swore off drinking anything other than a light beer right then and there.
Almost snoozing again, a voice caught his attention and he perked up to eavesdrop.
“… but the bloodwork isn’t back yet?” the first voice asked.
“Not yet,” a second chimed in.
“Geezus crimminy,” the first guy complained, “it’s the twenty-first frickin’ century and they can’t get a D.N.A. sample tested in a coupla days?”
The second laughed sarcastically. “You know they can. It’s just that Key West P.D. isn’t exactly on the top of their list, Steve.”
First guy’s name is Steve. Doesn’t ring a bell.
“Joe, I swear,” Steve said, “I’m outta here so fast when I get something in Miami.”
Second guy’s name is Joe. Still nothing.
“Ha! Miami?” the guy named Joe blurted. “That’s worse than here.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Steve snorted, “but at least the women know how to dress properly up there. They ain’t all granola’d up, ya know?”
“I’ll take your word for it,” Joe said. “Now, read those notes on the Fort Jefferson murder back to me again.”
“You got it,” Steve said, shuffling some paper around. “Okay, here goes.”
Fort Jefferson murder? Troy turned his ear to position it between the bars and listened.
36
Droning On And On
Ryan Bodean ran his fingers through his floppy blonde hair. He leaned back in his office chair and yawned. Tropical Storm Daniel had all but killed his Tortuga Adventures business. There was nothing to do now but wait for the people to come back.
When the phone rang, he jumped up, throwing his feet off the desk. A pile of papers flew into the air and made a storm of paperwork confetti all around him.
“Shit,” he muttered as he picked up the phone. “Tortuga Adventures, your adventure to Fort Jefferson. This is R.B. speaking. How can I help you?”
He could hardly contain the excitement of a new call coming in and he felt his pulse racing.
“R.B.?” the voice asked.
“That’s me,” he made his voice smile.
“Where’s Troy?”
“Megan?”
“Yes, it’s me.”
R.B. struggled to hide the disappointment in his voice. “Oh, hey, Megan. He’s not here. Haven’t seen him all morning. But, there’s no one here to fly around, so, it’s not a
big deal. Why?”
“I’ve been calling him all day and it keeps going to voicemail,” she said
“Yeah, well,” R.B. started, “that’s not all that unusual.”
“Oh, okay.” She seemed unsatisfied with that answer. “It’s just that I’ve been checking out these things we brought up from the wreck… we’ve got to get back out there now that the weather has passed.”
R.B. laughed. “Yeah, right. I’m not going back out there and getting shot at again.”
“This is really, important,” she pleaded. “I need to get a hold of Troy.”
“Why don’t you just run over to his place?” R.B. asked. “My guess is, he’s passed out on the couch. He said he was going out last night. Something about celebrating.”
“Oh, geez,” she said. “Okay, I’ll head over there now. Thanks, R.B.”
“No worries,” he said, “and when you see him, tell him to give me a call.”
“I will.”
He hung up and leaned back in his chair. After a moment, he sat up and picked up the phone. He dialed Troy. It rang once and then the voicemail picked up. He didn’t leave a message.
Hanging up the phone, he felt a strange sensation that this was not the usual absence of Troy after a party night. His phone almost always rang the standard three or four times before the voicemail message came on. He jumped up and grabbed his keys. He’d decided to meet her at the houseboat and make sure everything was okay.
A few minutes later, R.B. was standing out on the deck of Troy’s houseboat with his cellphone up to his ear. His calls to his brother’s phone were still going straight to voicemail.
Megan Simons walked through the sliding glass doors. “Do you think we should call the police?”
“It hasn’t been twenty-four hours yet,” —R.B. disconnected the call— “they won’t even start looking until after that time has passed.”
The Complete Troy Bodean Tropical Thriller Collection Page 44