The Law of the Sea : A Legal Thriller

by Dave Gerard

  The offer went a long way to quieting the acrimony among the partners. Just a few weeks ago, they were jumping at the opportunity to take two or three million dollars. Now, by holding firm and staying the course, Remington had about tripled that. Kruckemeyer was thrilled, and even Wurlheiser was pleased. He apologized for doubting Remington. The partners wanted to take this offer too, but they didn’t push Remington this time, and deferred to his judgment.

  We put the offer to Ashley. She didn’t even think about taking it. She was determined to know what happened to her brother. And it seemed that we were finally on the verge of finding that out.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Dear Mr. Carver:

  I am in receipt of your request for David Marcum’s flight records. I apologize for the delay. Our office has been occupied with other matters.

  Having considered the interests of privacy versus the need for full and fair disclosure, the government has elected to provide you with the information you seek. Please find enclosed copies of Mr. David Marcum’s flight records for the last five years.

  Best,

  S. Patrick Oggenbotham

  I blinked. It was an email from the TSA. A response to the subpoena we had served months ago.

  I hadn’t actually expected the government to write back. The best I had hoped for was that they would tell us to pound sand, rather than ignore us completely. But here was a scrupulously polite letter from one S. Patrick Oggenbotham, Senior Counsel for the Transportation Security Administration, giving us everything we had asked for. I reflected that it was good to live in a country of laws.

  Unfortunately, the records came late. By now, we had received everything from the airlines already. Between that and the bank statements, we knew where David Marcum had gone during the last five years. But I clicked open the records anyway.

  It was Saturday, and I was sitting in my favorite coffee shop in Houston. It was a long weekend, and we had Monday off. For Columbus Day, ironically. No one took Columbus Day off anymore, except the courts. But for the time being, that included us, so we traveled back to Houston for the weekend. We ended up working the whole time, anyway. But at least we got a change of venue.

  The coffee shop I was at was called Mykonos. It was a quaint Greek establishment in the Montrose neighborhood. The same area that David Marcum had lived in. Mykonos had two floors. The interior was paneled in dark wood and scattered with antique furniture. It was near a college campus, and there was a bohemian mix of students reading textbooks, freelance artist-types on their MacBooks, and businesspeople quietly meeting over espresso. And there was me, sitting in a cozy room on the second floor and drinking Turkish coffee.

  I took a sip of coffee and scrolled through the TSA records. As I thought, they lined up with what we already knew. There were the ski trips to Colorado, the surf trips to California, the weekend jaunt to Mexico. The two flights to Malaysia. I saw no flights after that.

  I was about to close the records when I saw it.

  A month before David Marcum’s first trip to Malaysia, he had taken another flight. I had never seen this one before. I pulled up the airline records, but I couldn’t match up the dates with any of them. This was new.

  My heart started beating faster. The flight was on an airline called TAP. I didn’t recognize it. I checked the airport codes. The flight was from MIA to LIS. MIA was the code for Miami International Airport, I knew. LIS was unknown to me. I looked it up. When I saw what it was, my jaw fell open.

  LIS was the code for the airport in Lisbon, Portugal.

  I ripped out my phone and called Cindy.

  The phone rang a few times, and she answered with a yawn. “Hello?”

  “You’re not going to believe this,” I said urgently.

  “Let me guess. Seventh motion to strike? I thought this was our day off.”

  “I just got flight records from the government. David Marcum flew to Lisbon three months before he died.”

  There was a pause at the other end of the line as Cindy stopped whatever the hell she was doing and paid attention. I heard her lean closer into the phone.

  “Did you say Lisbon? Like Lisbon, Portugal?”

  “Yes. I’m sending the records now.” I forwarded her the documents from the TSA and then waited impatiently while she looked through them.

  “Oh my God,” she whispered. “You’re right.”

  I clasped my hands together fixedly, trying to think. “Why didn’t we see this in the banking records?” Cindy wondered. “TAP is the Portuguese national airline. We could have subpoenaed them like you did with American Airlines. Under the Hague Convention for…what is it again?”

  “Service Abroad of Judicial and Extrajudicial Documents in Civil or Commercial Matters,” I said absently.

  “Right. Always forget that one.”

  “I suspect we didn’t see this flight in the bank records because David Marcum bought it with cash. That way no one could trace where he’d gone.” I smiled. “Except for the deep state,” I said, thinking of Jared Diamond.

  “I can’t believe they actually sent us the records,” Cindy marveled. “The TSA subpoena was Harder’s idea. Remember? You said it would never work.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” I muttered. Harder was going to lord it over me for this.

  “What does this mean? What was David Marcum doing in Lisbon?”

  I ran my hand through my hair, thinking about it. “It’s got to be connected,” I decided. “It can’t be a coincidence that David Marcum flew to Portugal months before he found an ancient Portuguese shipwreck and died, right?”

  “When you put it that way…no.”

  I got up and started pacing around the small room. “This is how he found the information,” I said with growing excitement. “It must be. This is how he figured out where the Flor de la Mar was. We suspected that Marcum must have found new information about the ship. Something that no one else knew. That’s how he was able to locate it. Right?”

  “Right. I’m following you so far. And you think he found that information in Portugal?”

  “What else could it be?”

  “I don’t know. But what did he find there? And how do we figure out what it was?”

  Three hours later, the door to my little Greek war room opened, and Ashley walked in. “Cool spot,” she said, looking around in approval. “Way better than Starbucks.”

  “Agree,” I said. “Plus Starbucks coffee tastes burnt.”

  “Ha! My brother had a conspiracy theory about that. He said that Starbucks burned their coffee on purpose so people have to buy those bougie, five-dollar lattes instead of the two-dollar drip.”

  I laughed. “Brilliant. The more I learn about your brother, the more I like him.” She smiled.

  “So. Any luck figuring out what David might have been doing in Portugal?” she asked, sitting down next to me.

  “No,” blared the voice of Jacob Schnizzel from my speakerphone. He was so loud that the phone vibrated when he spoke. Ashley jumped, not realizing he was there.

  “Hello, Professor,” she said, recovering quickly.

  “Hello,” he said loudly. I grimaced apologetically and turned the volume down a few notches. “Your brother has outsmarted all of us maritime archaeologists, as far as I can tell. But I don’t know how he did it.”

  It was true. We had been racking our brains, but couldn’t figure out what David Marcum had been doing in Portugal. It was sheer luck that we got his flight records. Beyond that, we had nothing. I guessed that Marcum had kept a low profile and only used cash during his time there. That’s why his bank records didn’t show any charges.

  I had read every recent article I could find about the Flor de la Mar, hoping that some new detail would emerge and lead me to the truth. There were a lot of articles. But most were just clickbait that parroted information from other sources. That was the
state of the news business these days, unfortunately. There were a few in-depth articles by real journalists, including one by John Carreyrou at the Wall Street Journal, but they didn’t tell me anything that I didn’t already know. I also kept a close eye on Reddit, to see if it would answer the question for us. It did not.

  Schnizzel and I filled Ashley in on our progress. “My first thought was that your brother went to the Torre do Tombo National Archives in Portugal,” said Schnizzel. “That’s where I’d go. It’s a huge library with a lot of original information about that era. But if the answers were there, someone would have found them already. The library is old. And when I say old, I mean it was built in 1378.”

  “Wow.”

  “Right. If there was more information about the Flor de la Mar there, someone would have found it a few hundred years ago.”

  “What if it was something new?”

  “New? It’s a library. Nothing new happens at libraries. They only record old things that happen.”

  “Maybe a new publication? A book collection?”

  “We tried that. I keep tabs on that stuff. We checked their website and catalog, and I even reached out to some people I know. Nothing.”

  Ashley went downstairs to order a coffee. I recommended the Turkish, and she came back with two of them. I thanked her as she sat down and opened her laptop. The two of us and Schnizzel worked silently at our computers, tracing threads of thought through the interwebs.

  “What about this?” said Ashley after a while.

  She showed me her screen. It was a news article that said, “newly discovered documents at the Portuguese Royal Archives.”

  I was dumbfounded. “How did we not see that?” I tried to pull it up on my computer, but it didn’t appear.

  “What is it?” yelled Schnizzel.

  “An article about new documents in the Archives. It’s dated six months ago.”

  “Are you kidding me? Why don’t I see this?”

  “I bet I know why,” said Ashley. “I’m using the Portuguese version of Google. Google.pt. So I’m getting Portuguese results, which you wouldn’t see.”

  “Duh,” said Schnizzel. We heard an audible thwack as he hit himself on the head. “How could I be so thick? Well go on, what does it say?”

  Ashley clicked through the link, which lead to the Archives’ website. The entry was in Portuguese. She translated it for us.

  Newly discovered documents at the Portuguese National Archives.

  Portuguese archivists have stumbled upon a trove of new documents at the Torre do Tombo National Archives. These documents were found during a reconstruction project in the Archives’ east wing. A construction worker put his foot through a weakened floor, revealing a large cellar in which many old books and manuscripts had been stored.

  The cellar is thought to be very old. A curator said that it was likely buried in the Great Lisbon Earthquake of 1755, when a fire consumed the Archives. Amidst the collapse, the rubble, and the later rebuilding, the cellar was forgotten.

  The cellar was discovered approximately two years ago. But due to budget cuts and other priorities, the Archives’ staff have not been able to review the documents until recently. The documents are thought to be mostly old merchant records from the days of the Portuguese Empire.

  The curators have not yet reviewed all of the new documents. But they are being made available to the public on a strictly on-site basis, due to their age and sensitivity.

  I stared at the article for a while. Then I plugged it into Google translate so I could read it for myself. Then I read it again. Was this what David Marcum had gone to Portugal for? Was this how he had found the Flor de la Mar?

  Schnizzel was ranting. “It took them two years to tell anyone about this?” he yelled. “And they didn’t even post it in English? What kind third-rate library is this? Manuel de Maia would roll over in his grave.”

  I didn’t know who Manuel de Maia was, or much care. “Check the catalog,” I said to Ashley. “Let’s see if they have more information.”

  We browsed around the Archives’ website but found nothing more. The new materials were not online. Evidently they were only available in person, like the press release said. “What do you think?” Ashley asked me.

  “I think this is where your brother got his information.” Over the past few months, I had developed growing confidence in my instincts. They had led me in the right direction, even when others thought I was wrong. Now, my instincts told me this was it. This was how Marcum had found the Flor de la Mar. I was sure of it.

  It felt like things were finally starting to turn. First, there was the revelation at Gunthum’s deposition, and the desperate settlement offer from Badden & Bock. Our crime-fraud motion was pending a decision, and I was certain that we would get the death memo soon. And now, we had a real lead on how Marcum had found the Flor de la Mar. If we could just find the contract, we might be able to win everything. But I was getting ahead of myself.

  “I definitely think it’s worth investigating,” said Schnizzel. “But how are you going to do it?”

  I smiled, though he couldn’t see it through the phone. “Well that’s obvious, isn’t it?”

  Ashley and I took the next flight to Lisbon.

  The rest of the team could have easily been upset about this. We were in the midst of a trial, and I was going on an all-expenses-paid trip to Portugal while they were stuck holding the bag. But there was not a word of complaint. Everyone knew how important this was. If I could find something in Portugal, we would have a shot at bringing it all home. Remington said to find out what I could in Lisbon and get back as quickly as possible. We didn’t have a lot of time.

  We landed in Lisbon in the early afternoon, and took a cab straight from the airport to the National Archives.

  The Torre do Tombo National Archives were housed in a building that looked like two blocks supported by giant concrete T’s. It was modern, like all architecture seemed to be these days. The building reminded me of the Houston federal courthouse, albeit without the bomb shelter chic-style windows. The Archives were fronted by palm trees and an inviting green lawn. The day was sunny, and we crossed the warm grass and entered the building.

  The lobby was dark and cool. Few people were there. Our footsteps echoed loudly on the marble floor, the way they do in empty museums. Ashley walked up to the main desk to inquire about the new materials. I hung back and idly walked around the entrance room.

  I stopped at an old painting that showed a city being destroyed by some virulent natural calamity. It depicted buildings falling at crazy angles, and almost had the feel of a Van Gogh. Fire and smoke blotted out the sky. The plaque next to it read: Great Lisbon Earthquake of 1755.

  The rest of the plaque was in Portuguese, so I pulled out my phone and looked it up. I found an article called Recovery Amid Destruction: Manoel de Maya and the Lisbon Earthquake of 1755, by Luciana Lima and Russell Craig.

  In 1755, a massive earthquake and ensuing fire and tsunami consumed the Portuguese capital, Lisbon. The earthquake was one of the most powerful in history, estimated at between 8.6 and 9.0 on the Richter scale. It is alleged to have been the “first modern disaster…localized to a specific place and time…and international event.” In the aftermath of the earthquake, the actions of a remarkable eighty-three-year-old archivist, Manoel de Maya (later spelled Maia), were instrumental in preserving many of the archival and library records of Portugal. Maya’s actions made the task of developing a well-informed understanding of Portugal’s economic, commercial, social, and cultural history prior to 1755 a less complicated one.

  Lisbon had a population of nearly three hundred thousand people during the time of the earthquake. A third of them died in the disaster. It happened on the morning of All Saint’s Day, while people were attending mass. The seismic shock collapsed churches and cathedrals, killing the worshippers within. I
imagined they must have believed it was divine retribution.

  The Archives were badly damaged by the quake. Many historical documents were lost. This included accounts of Vasco da Gama and other early navigators, and records of the Portuguese East India Company. And perhaps, records about the Flor de la Mar.

  Ashley finished her inquiries and walked toward me quickly. Her eyes were blazing. I could tell she had found out something.

  “He was here,” she whispered excitedly. She motioned me to follow, and began walking across the lobby toward a large stairwell.

  “Your brother?”

  “Yes. Well, I don’t know for sure. But the receptionist remembered a handsome American man who matched his description. Said he’d asked about the same records. They’re in a special room, and you have to ask for a key to see them. Only about a dozen people have. She remembered.”

  “And you think it was him?”

  “How many handsome American men would be looking through newly discovered documents in the Portuguese Archives recently?”

  “Present company excluded?”

  She rolled her eyes at me. “Let’s go.”

  We descended three levels of stairs and walked through a hallway. Then we entered an older area of the Archives.

  This area didn’t have the modern flair of the lobby. It looked more like the old libraries I was used to in the U.S. Greenish fluorescent lighting, shelves crammed together uncomfortably, and a musty smell to the air. We passed an old man with a long white beard who was quietly reading a book. He looked up, seeming surprised to see anyone down there.

  We navigated our way between the narrow shelves. At the end of the aisles, along the far wall, we came to the room we were looking for. It was a simple space with a glass door. The interior was dark. Ashley took out the key that the librarian had given her. She unlocked the door and we walked in. The only things in the room were a desk, two wooden chairs, an old computer, and a projector. A single naked light bulb hung from the ceiling.

  “What’s this?” I asked, looking around in confusion.