‘‘That must be Derlagen,’’ said Finn.
‘‘I’ll tell him to go away,’’ said Billy. ‘‘We’ve got some renovating to do.’’ He paused at the secret doorway. ‘‘I wonder what time it is in Jakarta.’’
Read on for a special sneak preview
of the next Paul Christopher thriller
THE CORTEZ MASK
Coming from Signet in July 2008
Sunday, the Fifteenth of July, A.D. 1733
Cayo Hueso, Florida
Friar Bartolome de las Casas of the Ordo fratrum Praedicatorum, the Order of St. Dominic, heard the giant wave before he saw it. The surging breaker came out of the storm-racked darkness like a howling beast, a savage, climbing monster that suddenly appeared behind the treasure-laden galleon, Nuestra Señora de las Angustias, its belly black as the night around it, the wave’s huge, driving shoulders a livid sickly green, its ragged, curling head white and torn with ghostly tendrils of wind-whipped spume and spindrift.
It rose like a toppling wall above the stern of the groaning ship, pushing the galleon ahead of it like a chip of wood in a rain-swollen gutter, the seething wave rising until it could climb no more, filling the dark sky above the terrified monk, then reaching down like some malevolent screaming demon of the seas. Seeing it, Friar Bartolome knew without a doubt that his life was about to end.
He waited for death helplessly crouched in the waist of the vessel with the few other passengers who had come aboard in Havana, including Don Antonio de Escheverz y Zubiza, the governor’s son on his way home to Spain for the proper education appropriate to a young man of the nobility. Some of the crew were desperately trying to unship the Nuestra Señora’s small boats from the skidrails over the main hatch cover while the rest of the men huddled by the fo’c’sle deck. No one stayed below in such desperate weather—better to see fate approaching, no matter how terrible, than to seal yourself blindly within a leaking, unlit coffin.
Above them all the rain came down in torrents and the remains of the fore staysail and the foresail hammered in the terrible wind, the lines and rigging beating like hailstones on the drumheads of torn, ruined canvas. The rest of the sails had been ragged to tatters and the jibboom was gone entirely and the bowsprit splintered away.
There had to be a hole somewhere deep within the hull because the Nuestra Señora was moving more and more sluggishly with every passing momentand taking water in the stern, the missing sea anchor forcing them to run before the wind, any remnant of control long since vanished. The mainmast groaned and creaked, the hull moaned and the seas pounded mercilessly at the schooner’s flanks. Everyone knew the ship wouldn’t last the hour, let alone survive the night.
Turning his head in time to see the deadly, bludgeoning wave, Friar Bartolome had a single heartbeat of time to take some measure to save himself and his precious cargo. With barely a conscious thought, he dropped to the sodden deck and wrapped his arms tightly around the anchor chain that lay between the capstan and the bitt, holding on for dear life as the breaking monster pummeled down upon him.
The wave struck with a thundering roar and there was an even more terrible sound from within the belly of the ship: a deep, grating screech as the keel scraped along a hidden line of reef and then stuck fast, hard aground, wedged between two invisible clutching jaws of coral, stopping the Nuestra Señora dead in the water. There was an immense cracking sound and the mainmast toppled, carrying the yards and spars along with it into the raging sea.
The wave, unhindered, swept along the deck of the schooner, swallowing the cowering crew, demolishing the ships boats and burying Friar Bartolome beneath tons of suffocating water. The wave surged on, the suction pulling at his straining arms and heavy cassock but he managed to keep his grip long enough for the great green wall to pass. He came up for air and saw in an instant that he was the only one alive left on the deck. Everyone else was gone except Don Antonio, who lay broken like a child’s doll, tangled in the pins and rigging of the foremast fife rail, his head crushed, gray matter oozing wetly from beneath his cap, eyes wide and staring toward the dark heavens, seeing nothing. There would be no school in Spain after all.
Friar Bartolome looked back toward the stern but saw only the dark. Struggling to his knees, he began tearing at his cassock, realizing that if he was thrown into the water the drenched fabric would doom him, dragging him down to the bottom. He managed to relieve herself of the heavy robe and then the next wave struck with no warning at all.
Without the anchor chain to hold him, the monk was immediately swept up, turning head over heels and thrown toward the snarled rigging at the bow, striking his head on the rail and feeling a piercing tear at his throat as a splinter of wood slashed into him. Then he was overboard, pushed down so deeply within the wave that he felt the rough touch of the coral bottom as it smashed into his shoulders and back. Crushed by the huge weight of water, he felt the remains of his clothing torn away, and he tumbled helplessly within the wave across the seabed. He forced himself to hold his breath and pushed toward the surface, his arms windmilling underwater, his face upturned.
Finally he broke free of the wave’s terrible grip and gulped in huge, gasping lungfuls of air, retching seawater, feeling the tug of the next wave as he was swept forward and down again with barely enough time to take a breath before the deluge swallowed him again. Once more he was pressed down to the bottom, the rough sand and coral tearing at his skin, and once more, exhausted, he clawed his way to the surface for another retching breath.
A fourth wave took him, but this time, instead of coral, there was only sand on the sloping bottom, and he barely had to swim at all before he reached the surface. His feet stumbled and he threw himself forward with the last of his strength, staggering as the sea sucked back from the shore in a rushing rip current, strong enough to bring her to her knees. He crawled, rose to his feet again and plunged on, knees buckling, in despair because he knew in some distant corner of his mind that another wave as strong as the first could still steal his life away with salvation and survival so tantalizingly near.
He staggered again in the treacherous sand that dragged at his heels and almost toppled him over. He took another step and then another, blinking in the slanting, blinding rain. Ahead, farther up the broad strip of shining beach, was a darker line of trees, fan palms and coconuts, their trunks bent away from the howling wind and the lashing rain, unripe fruit torn away, crashing into the forest like cannonballs. His breath came in ragged gasps and his legs were like deadweights, but at least he was free of the mad, clutching surf that broke behind him like crashing thunder.
Struggling higher up the sandy slope he finally reached a point above the wreck and turned back to the sea, sinking down exhausted to his knees, naked except for the ragged remnants of his linen stockings and undershift, still badly frightened but weeping with relief as he stared into the shrieking night. By the grace of God, and by the continuing miracles of the most secret and terrible Hounds of God, he had survived.
Through the rain he could see the heaving broken line of frothing white that marked the reef they’d run aground on, but nothing more. Somewhere out there, invisible in the darkness the Nuestra Señora de las Angustias was dying, breaking apart on the teeth of the coral shore, her crew and captain gone to whatever their fate, leaving Friar Bartolome alone in this terrible place. Remembering suddenly he fumbled under his remaining clothing and felt the oilskin-wrapped parcel and its precious contents still strapped securely around his waist. The codex had survived, and the last and greatest secret left by the fiendish heretic and enemy of God, Hernán Cortéz, Marqués del Valle de Oaxaca, was safe.
(100%); -ms-filter: grayscale(100%); filter: grayscale(100%); " class="sharethis-inline-share-buttons">share
Rembrandt's Ghost Page 25