Pirate Hunters

by Robert Kurson

  Not long afterward, Chatterton and Carla went to an event for an organization that introduced badly wounded and disabled veterans to scuba diving. The group would be exploring a shipwreck in the Caribbean. As a Vietnam combat veteran, Chatterton felt honored to contribute.

  On the dive boat, he geared up with the other veterans. He worried about how he might help them underwater and rehearsed rescue scenarios in his head. The group was led into the water by another dive instructor, Chatterton bringing up the rear. His attention soon turned to a young man, paralyzed below the waist, who strained with his arms to pull himself through the water. By the time he reached the wreck he was nearly exhausted. Chatterton signaled to ask if the diver wanted to return to the surface, but could see in the man’s eyes he didn’t want to give up, so Chatterton followed him inside the wreck.

  Unable to kick, the man reached for a piece of railing and began pulling himself along, and when he ran out of railing he grabbed pipes or door frames, and in this way he began to streak through the ship, free and powerful and faster than even Chatterton could swim. By using the wreck to propel himself, the man now darted through passageways and corridors. When Chatterton finally caught up to him, he saw pride in the young guy’s eyes, and he remembered what it felt like when a person found a way to do something that looked impossible to do.

  —

  IN SANTO DOMINGO, MATTERA booked new reservations for his dive center. Each transaction was pleasant—just a phone call, a date on the calendar, and a thanks. He took beach walks in the mornings, smoked Cohiba cigars in the afternoon, ate dinner with Carolina by candlelight. Not once did his fiancée lose her temper or curse Tracy Bowden or wish the entire country to be swallowed by the sea. Perhaps she didn’t realize the spectacular extent to which he and Chatterton were failing.

  Sometimes, Mattera’s thoughts drifted back to the galleons, and he wondered if he might have found treasure by now if he and Chatterton hadn’t detoured to go look for the pirate ship. One morning, he called Francisco, a dive instructor he knew, and invited him to the Santo Domingo harbor, just down the road from his apartment. For years, Mattera had heard stories about galleons that had sunk while tied up in the harbor. He’d even gone diving there once before. Now, on a whim, he went back to check the place out.

  At the mouth of the Ozama River, the men pulled on their wet suits. Just a few yards away, cars and trucks flew past on the Paseo Presidente Billini, horns blaring and lights flashing as drivers hurried to everywhere. As the vehicles passed, Mattera wondered how many of them might imagine a four-hundred-year-old galleon sunk here, silent for centuries under this city of fast-moving lives.

  Soon, he and Francisco had descended twenty feet to the bottom. Sand and particulate mushroomed up from the floor, making it impossible for either man to see more than a few yards in front of his mask. It took just a minute before they lost sight of each other.

  Mattera began to sweep his metal detector over the bottom, listening for the sounds of treasure. What might it be like, he wondered, to find a gold coin down here? Would he be able to read the date? Would it shine—

  Mattera stopped. Ahead, he could see the faint outline of a massive object, brownish and heavy, moving toward him, slowly but definitely, as if aimed. As the object drew closer it appeared to be an ancient wood timber of the kind he’d seen in his books about galleons. He swam toward the object and reached for it—here was his treasure—but when his hands arrived they took hold of a face, there was a face on this object and holes where there once had been eyes, and in a moment the thing crashed over Mattera, tearing the regulator from his mouth and sending him sprawling, and as he screamed into the water he could see that this wooden timber was really a horse, drowned and decomposing and floating out to the Caribbean Sea.

  When Mattera surfaced, his first instinct was to call Chatterton, who loved this kind of story, but he stopped himself. He worried that it would sound like he was drifting away from their pirate project, and worse, he worried that it was true.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  DROWNING

  When the men returned to Samaná in early January 2009, Chatterton learned that Mattera had booked more customers for the dive center. In a tone and volume Mattera didn’t appreciate, Chatterton accused him of losing focus on the only thing that mattered, the pirate wreck. But when Mattera asked for a better idea about how to make use of their time, Chatterton couldn’t answer.

  That afternoon, Mattera received a phone call from Kretschmer. A salvage boat belonging to Burt Webber, one of treasure hunting’s biggest names, was maneuvering off Cayo Levantado. It wasn’t clear what the vessel was doing there, but to Kretschmer it looked suspicious.

  Mattera collected Chatterton and Ehrenberg, and full-throttled it out to the island. They found Webber’s crew anchored over the same site that the archaeologist had provided to Cultura—the site they had just ruled out. It enraged both Chatterton and Mattera, but things got worse. As they drew closer, they could see divers in the water.

  “Let’s fucking ram their boat,” Chatterton said.

  Mattera wasn’t sure if he was kidding. Either way, it was clear to him that Webber’s men had arrived to claim that they’d found the Golden Fleece, or at least were close. That alone might prompt Cultura to wrest salvage rights from Bowden and award it to Webber, another old-time great who had deep pockets and a first-rate crew.

  Chatterton steered the boat closer to Webber’s. Drawing to within one hundred feet, he lined up a straight shot and reached for the throttle. He looked at Mattera. Then, slowly, he reached for a different weapon—his cell phone—and began shooting photographs. He emailed the pictures to Bowden, then followed up with a call. Bowden didn’t like what he heard. He told Chatterton he worried that Webber’s crew might be onto something at Cayo Levantado.

  “These are fugazi numbers,” Chatterton said. “The wreck’s not there.”

  But that left the matter of why Webber, or anyone else, might be anchored over the archaeologist’s site.

  To Chatterton, the answer was simple: buzz. Word was out that Bowden was hot after the Golden Fleece. Anyone who could make it look like they were contributing to finding the wreck might petition Cultura to award them some or even all of the salvage rights. If they found so much as a piece of shitty old wood—and there were mountains of them sunk around Cayo Levantado—their case would appear even stronger. If they had investors, even a rumor that they might get the Golden Fleece could bump their stock price.

  “I don’t know Webber’s motives,” Chatterton told Bowden. “Maybe his guys are just out for a swim and a suntan. But you need to get him the hell out of here.”

  Bowden called Cultura. Officials there said Webber had been granted permission to test equipment in the area. But when Bowden asked why Webber might be over the same spot where the archaeologist reported finding the Golden Fleece, his contact could only say he would look into it.

  That evening, Mattera drove to Santo Domingo to buy supplies. Chatterton went with Kretschmer and Ehrenberg for dinner at Tony’s. There, they saw several members of Webber’s crew at a table drinking beer. Just the sight of these men irked Chatterton; even his favorite local restaurant wasn’t off-limits to intruders.

  Chatterton sat down with his back to a wall, in a place where he could see the entire restaurant. One of Webber’s crew called out to Chatterton’s table.

  “Treasure pussies.”

  Chatterton just stared at the men. Another of Webber’s crew called to him.

  “What are you looking at, asshole?”

  “Fuck you,” Chatterton said.

  “I should come over and kick your fucking ass,” another one called out.

  “Come on over,” Chatterton said.

  He looked to Ehrenberg and Kretschmer. They were two of the smartest and most capable men he knew. They had options in life. They weren’t making much money here, and conditions were difficult. And they certainly weren’t bar fighters. But both of them clenched their
fists and pushed their chairs back from the table, ready to rumble. They were all in this together.

  “They’re drunk, we’re not,” Chatterton said. “We’re carrying guns. They’re holding their dicks. Seriously, who’s got the advantage here? If they make a move I’m going to beat the crap out of them with my Smith and Wesson.”

  And then it became clear to Chatterton. If the other crew provoked a fight, it gave them a claim against Bowden. He could hear them now, crying to Cultura: “Bowden’s rogues attacked me in a fine dining establishment!” So he and his guys could not be the ones to make the first move.

  “We’re gonna sit here and eat our dinner,” Chatterton told Kretschmer and Ehrenberg. “But if they come over, we gotta do what we gotta do.”

  But no one came over. Finally, Webber’s crew left, mumbling tough as they walked onto the street.

  “They talk like Popeye,” Chatterton said, “but inside they’re all Olive Oyl.”

  Everyone laughed. The crisis had been averted, but no one slept well that night. If Webber’s boat was still at Cayo Levantado the next morning, it would be a strong indication that Cultura had endorsed his presence and dismissed Bowden’s complaint. If it was gone, the area still belonged, however tenuously, to Bowden.

  The men went out at sunrise. Mattera steered while Chatterton stood at the rail on the side, binoculars in hand, looking for interlopers. He spotted a boat just off the western beach at Cayo Levantado.

  “Sonofabitch!” Mattera yelled.

  He gunned the engines.

  “You don’t come into another guy’s house and take his stuff…”

  Peering through binoculars, Chatterton put up his hand and called for Mattera to slow down.

  “It ain’t Webber,” he said.

  Mattera cut power. As the boat settled, Chatterton got a steadier view of the offender. She was a university vessel they knew, doing research on whales. Webber’s boat was gone.

  The men returned to their storage shed beneath the villa, doing maintenance and repairs, waiting for Bowden to come to his senses and finish salvaging the sugar wreck.

  The next morning, Mattera received a call from a fisherman friend, who reported that there was a new salvage boat anchored off the western beach at Cayo Levantado, one the locals hadn’t seen before.

  Mattera and the others rushed to the island. Anchored over the archaeologist’s site—and where Webber’s crew had just been working—was a vessel belonging to American salvors Bowden had put to work on a different wreck.

  Mattera cut hard to the left and maneuvered until his boat was cheek to cheek with the other. Standing on the bow, Chatterton called to their crew. To Mattera, he looked like a seventeenth-century pirate ready to board a merchant vessel.

  “What in the hell are you doing here?” Chatterton yelled.

  “We’re diving a wreck,” said one of the men.

  “I know you’re diving a wreck. The question is why are you diving a wreck in our area?”

  The captain stepped forward. Chatterton remembered being introduced to him by Bowden. And disliking him.

  “I am a citizen of the city of Samaná,” the man said, “and I can dive wherever I want. Besides, we have permission. You better talk to Bowden.”

  That statement slammed Chatterton. What if Bowden had sent this crew to search for the Golden Fleece? What if he’d told them to survey the area and find the pirate ship? If that was the case, Chatterton and Mattera were already out; Bowden just hadn’t told them yet.

  Mattera dialed Bowden by cell phone but got no answer. For now, he and Chatterton were helpless to do anything about this new crew; they were just diving and there was no law against that. Mattera dropped anchor and parked just off the invading boat’s bow, waiting to hear back from Bowden.

  When Bowden finally called back, Mattera told him about the new crew, and asked him straight out: Did you send these guys out here?

  “Let me take care of it,” Bowden said.

  “Did you send them?”

  “No. But I’ll take care of it.”

  Mattera ended the call. Chatterton asked if he thought Bowden was behind the new crew.

  “He said he wasn’t,” Mattera said. “But I don’t know.”

  Chatterton and Mattera could do little more than watch the rival divers. It was bad enough that these invaders wanted to cash in on others’ hard work. It was worse that they didn’t care anything about Bannister, a man who’d never have wanted to be found by men like them.

  The new vessel left a few hours later. Things were clear now. Word was out about the Golden Fleece, everyone wanted a piece, and more would be coming. If Bowden didn’t claim the pirate ship soon, it was just a matter of time before Cultura awarded rights to the wreck, or to the area, to one or more of these late intruders. But now it seemed obvious to them that Bowden wouldn’t budge. He wanted them to return to Cayo Levantado.

  And then, at dinner that night, Chatterton and Mattera conceived a simple and powerful solution to the entire problem. Rather than wait for Bowden to finish work on the sugar wreck, they would do it themselves, without asking, looking for any artifact that would prove the wreck to be the Golden Fleece. A smoking gun. Half the world already seemed to be looking for the pirate ship without permission. Why couldn’t the guys who actually put in the hard work and spent money and put their families on hold get an unimpeded shot at the wreck, too? They would go the next morning.

  But when they awoke, no one made a move for the boat. In their excitement, neither man had considered that Bowden might see this as mutiny, or that Cultura might consider it an affront, or, most of all, that it wasn’t an honorable thing to do.

  But they couldn’t return to Cayo Levantado, either. They tried to think of something constructive to do, something better than just wasting time. For a few days, they drove their boat around the bay, looking for nothing in particular. Then, one morning, they just didn’t go out. Fuel was too expensive, or another pump needed fixing, or it rained. Chatterton had business to do in the States. Mattera had his dive center to run. Ehrenberg needed a break. Kretschmer wanted to visit family. “See you guys soon,” they said to one another, but to each of them, it sounded like good-bye.

  —

  IN MAINE, CHATTERTON SPOKE to his friends in the television business, every project they discussed sounded promising. He checked his portfolio; he was already into his treasure-hunting adventure for several hundred thousand dollars, a serious dent to his net worth. He couldn’t keep burning money like this without earning income or seeing a return. Things were getting tight.

  On Staten Island, Mattera went to his internist, who warned that his blood pressure was dangerously high. When Garcia-Alecont called from Santo Domingo to tell Mattera there was talk of more treasure hunters descending on Cayo Levantado in search of the Golden Fleece, Mattera didn’t even ask questions.

  Carolina flew in a few days later to spend time with her fiancée. To her, Mattera looked more than just tired; he looked beaten. When she asked how he was doing with things—with Tracy, the Golden Fleece, John Chatterton—he told her a story.

  To hone his diving skills while in high school, he took jobs cleaning and changing propellers on boats at Great Kills Harbor, the nicest marina on Staten Island. The work sometimes required him to stay underwater for hours at a time, but the pay was good and the water shallow. One Saturday, while cleaning the last boat, he glanced at the air gauges for his tanks, and saw only five hundred pounds of air remaining, about eighteen minutes’ worth—not much, but enough to finish the job. He kept scrubbing, dreaming of ways to spend the four hundred dollars he would clear that day, a king’s ransom in 1980.

  Suddenly, shards of pain shot through his left arm and into his head, a burning so hot it buckled his knees. He jerked away but his arm wouldn’t move; a rusty two-inch bluefish hook had plunged all the way into his wrist. Blood flowed into the water, making ribbons of brown. Mattera knew better than to pull again—the hook was tied to fishing line ta
ngled around the propeller—so he reached for a knife to cut himself free, but no matter how hard he worked the line wouldn’t give, and he realized then that it was made not of monofilament but of stainless steel, used by fishermen to stop sharks and bluefish from biting clear through. He checked his air. At this rate, he had just a minute or two left to breathe.

  He looked up toward the surface. He was less than a foot underwater, yet could not move any higher. He tried to ease the hook out of his wrist, but the barbs on its shank had anchored next to a vein and he dared not pull it farther. He checked his tanks again. Near empty. Now he had to make a decision. He could rip the barbed hook out of his wrist, or he could use his remaining few breaths to try to untangle the line. If he chose the former, he might bleed to death. If he chose the latter, he risked running out of air and drowning just inches from the surface.

  Mattera grabbed the hook in his right hand, took a final deep breath, and pulled as hard as he could. Skin and veins tore, and the water exploded red around him. Now free, he kicked to the surface, throwing off his mask and regulator and gulping air. Bystanders converged, throwing him towels and offering to drive him to the hospital, but immortal at seventeen, he assured them he was okay.

  “Listen to me, honey,” a woman said. “If you’ve ever trusted anyone in your life, trust me now. You’re going to bleed to death if you don’t go to the hospital. You have to go.”

  He took a towel, wrapped it around his wrist, and ran to his car. At Staten Island Hospital, with Mattera still in his wet suit, doctors cauterized the vein, gave him a tetanus shot, and told him he was lucky to be alive. That night, he bought two pairs of professional pruning shears, European models that could cut through anything, and he brought them to every dive he made after that, the deep and the shallow, the routine and the impossible.

  Mattera fought a lump in his throat as he looked into Carolina’s eyes.

  “I’m drowning again,” he said. “We’re a week away from getting the Golden Fleece. But it’s not happening. I’m inches from the surface but I can’t pull the hook out.”