Lost Empire

by Cussler, Clive;Grant Blackwood

  “Consider it said, then.”

  “I can tell you this: The bell we found doesn’t belong to the Ophelia.”

  “You’ll forgive me if I don’t take your word for it.”

  “Will I?” Sam asked.

  “I’d like to inspect the bell myself.”

  “The same bell you and your men would have killed us for had we been aboard our boat? I’m going to have to decline.”

  “I’ve been authorized to offer you a finder’s fee should the bell turn out to be the one we’re looking for.”

  “No, thanks. We’ve got all the money we can use.”

  “Take me to the bell, let me inspect it, and my employer will donate fifty thousand dollars to a charity of your choosing.”

  “No.”

  Rivera’s eyes turned cold, and he let out muffled growl. “Mr. Fargo, you’re making me angry.”

  “They have pills for that.”

  “I prefer a different approach.” Rivera lifted his shirttail to expose the butt of a pistol, a Heckler & Koch P30—just like the one they took off Yaotl, Sam saw.

  “We’re leaving now,” Rivera muttered. “Don’t make a scene or I’ll shoot you dead. We’ll be gone before the police are even notified.”

  “The police,” Sam repeated. “As in the police in that station house across the road behind us?”

  Rivera glanced over Sam’s shoulder. His mouth tightened, the muscles of his jaw pulsated.

  Sam said, “You should have done your homework. I realize it’s an old schoolhouse, but how hard would it have been to check? I’m sure this is embarrassing for you.”

  “¡Cabrón!”

  Sam’s grasp of Spanish slang was slim, but he suspected Rivera had just called his parentage into question. He said, “If you look a little closer, you’ll see a man and woman sitting on a bench near the station’s steps.”

  “I see them.”

  Sam pulled out his phone, hit Speed Dial, let it ring twice, then hung up. A moment later Remi Fargo turned on the bench, faced the cricket grounds, and gave a single wave.

  “The man she’s talking to is a Tanzanian police superintendent from Dar es Salaam.”

  “Police can be bought. Just as naval officers can be bought.”

  “Not this one. He happens to be a close personal friend of the FBI’s legal attaché in the U.S. Embassy.”

  “You’re bluffing.”

  “Right now my wife may or may not be telling the superintendent about a man named Yaotl who tried to break into our vacation home last night. He was armed with a gun identical to the one you’re carrying and had no passport.”

  Rivera’s brows knitted together. “The accident . . . the raft. That wasn’t Yaotl.”

  Sam shook his head.

  “How did you do it?”

  “I took a few theater classes in college.”

  “It doesn’t matter. He won’t talk. Even if he does, he knows nothing.”

  “Just your name and appearance.”

  “Both of those can be changed. Give me the bell and return my man to me, and you’ll never be troubled again.”

  “Let me think about it. I’ll call you by day’s end tomorrow. If you bother us before then, I’ll call our superintendent friend. Care to tell me where you’re staying?”

  Rivera smiled grimly and shook his head. “No, I would not.” He recited his phone number. “I expect to hear good news.”

  Sam stood up. “You can expect anything you like.”

  He turned and walked away.

  SAM WALKED across the street to the police station. Remi wrapped up her conversation with the superintendent with a warm handshake and a thank-you. The man gave Sam a nod and a smile, then strode away.

  “Lovely man, Huru,” Remi said. “Told us to give his regards to Rube.”

  “What did you tell him?” Sam asked, sitting down beside her.

  “That we thought someone had tried to break into our house last night. He said to call him personally if we have any more trouble. How did your chat with the human skeleton go?”

  “As can be expected. He claims he’s been working for some deep pockets who’ve been looking for the Ophelia for years. Problem is, he claims to know almost nothing about her pedigree.”

  “He tried to wing it,” Remi said. “He thought he could bluff you.”

  Anyone who spends even a modicum of time chasing shipwrecks finds themselves well versed in every facet of a vessel’s history. That Rivera feigned ignorance about the Ophelia told Sam and Remi that the ship was vitally important to Rivera and his employer.

  “Did he mention the hidden engraving?”

  “No. That could be telling. It’s another thing an experienced hunter would know. He didn’t mention it because he’s hoping we missed it.”

  “Any hint as to what specifically they’re after?”

  “He implied it was something in the Ophelia’s hold. Treasure of some kind. Even offered us a finder’s fee.”

  “How very kind of him. Where does this leave us?”

  “Rivera claimed he had salvage experience, which may or may not be true, but he also claimed his patrons have been actively looking for the Ophelia.”

  In the world of treasure hunting, an active search is a specific beast that involves mounting expeditions—getting wet and dirty while laying out grids, doing magnetometer passes, picking through muck and slime. Not to mention the dry but no less daunting research work: interviewing relatives, scouting locations, and sitting in dusty old libraries looking for the slightest clue as to the target’s possible location.

  “If Rivera’s been at it that long,” Remi said, “there’ll be public records, news stories, permits . . .”

  “My thought exactly. We find those, we get a better idea of what Rivera and his people are really after.”

  THEY SAT UNDER the shade trees outside the police station for ten minutes as Sam watched Rivera and his partner leave the cricket grounds parking lot, then overtly make a circuit around the police station. Sam and Remi gave them a parting wave on the last pass.

  Once sure they weren’t returning, Sam and Remi walked east to an open-air market, where they gathered food and necessities and walked the labyrinthine alleys while watching for signs of pursuit. Finding none, they walked three blocks north to a rental-car agency. Their reservation, a 2007 Toyota Land Cruiser, was waiting for them. Forty minutes later they were back at their Uroa beach villa.

  Sam’s phone trilled as they were walking up the driveway. Remi gestured for the bag of groceries he was carrying and continued into the villa. Sam checked the caller ID: Rube.

  “Morning, Rube.”

  “Early, early morning. How did your meeting go?”

  “Fine. Huru told us to say hello.”

  “A good man, Huru. Did you turn your guest over to him?”

  “Not yet,” Sam replied, then recounted his conversation with Rivera. “We already called Selma. She’s working on shipwreck databases for the area. Tomorrow we’re going over to the university for a little homework.”

  “Well, I know I already said this once, but be damned careful. I did some digging into Itzli Rivera. The military stuff you already know, but he was also in their defense department’s intelligence section. He retired about eight years ago and went private. Here’s the kicker: According to the chief of station in Mexico City, Rivera’s been arrested six times by the Policía Federal but never indicted.”

  “What charges?”

  “Burglary, bribery, blackmail, murder, kidnapping . . . And all related to national-level politics.”

  “So he’s a hatchet man.”

  “A militarily trained hatchet man. It’s a distinction to keep in mind. Nobody can pin down who he works for.”

  “How’d he beat all the charges?”

  “The usual: witness recantation either by change of mind or change in corporeal status, as in sudden and unexpected death.”

  Sam chuckled. “Yes, Rube, I get it.”

  “The
rest is pretty standard stuff: mislaid evidence, technicalities, etcetera.”

  “Safe to say Rivera’s got a heavyweight in his corner.”

  “A heavyweight with a fetish for shipwreck artifacts. What’re you going to do with the bell?”

  “We haven’t decided yet. The truth is, I don’t think they really care about the bell itself. Whether they’re after the Ophelia or the ship belonging to the mystery engraving, it doesn’t change where we found the thing. That’s what’s got them worried . . . Well, that and the fact that we aren’t willing to leave it alone.”

  “Maybe it’s not about something they’re looking for,” Rube said, “but rather something they don’t want anyone else to find.”

  “Interesting,” Sam said.

  Rube continued: “That charitable donation business . . . He wanted you and Remi and the bell together in one place. Why not just accept an e-mailed picture of the bell? And if all they wanted was to find the Ophelia, why not hire you? Everyone knows how the Fargos work: A large percentage of the find goes to charity and nothing to you personally. Sam, I think this is about hiding something, not finding something.”

  CHAPTER 11

  UNIVERSITY OF DAR ES SALAAM

  THE UNIVERSITY’S CENTRAL CAMPUS SAT NORTHWEST OF THE CITY center on a hill. Having called ahead, Sam and Remi found the library’s director, Amidah Kilembe, a beautiful black woman in a fern-green pantsuit, waiting to greet them on the steps.

  “Good morning, Mr. and Mrs. Fargo. Welcome to our facility.”

  Pleasantries were exchanged as Ms. Kilembe took them up the steps and through the main doors, at which point she gave them a walking tour of the building, which eventually took them to the third-floor reference area. The décor was a mixture of Old World colonial and traditional African: dark furniture and paneling that glowed from decades of polishing surrounded by splashes of colorful Tanzanian art and artifacts. Save a few of the library staff, the building was empty. “It’s a school holiday,” Ms. Kilembe explained.

  “We’re sorry,” Sam said. “We thought—”

  “Oh, no, no. For the staff it is a regular workday. In fact, as chance would have it, you’ve chosen the perfect day to visit. I myself will be assisting you.”

  “We don’t want to impose,” Remi said. “I’m sure you have other . . .”

  Ms. Kilembe smiled broadly. “Not at all. I have read of, and enjoyed, several of your exploits. I will, of course, keep my silence about what we discuss here today.” She touched an index finger to her lips and winked. “If you’ll follow me, I have a quiet room set aside for you.”

  They followed her to a glass-enclosed room, in the center of which sat a long walnut table and two padded chairs. Before each chair sat a twenty-inch Apple iMac computer.

  Ms. Kilembe saw their surprised expressions and chuckled. “Three years ago Mr. Steve Jobs himself visited the campus. He saw that we had very few computers and all of them old, so he made a generous donation. We now have forty of these wonderful machines. And broadband Internet!

  “Very well. I will let you get started. First, I will bring you coffee. I have you both set up with guest log-ins for the catalogues. Most of our materials have been digitized back to 1970. Those that have not been will be in our basement archives area. You tell me what you need, and I will bring it. So, good hunting!”

  And then Ms. Kilembe was gone, pulling the door shut behind her.

  “Where do we start?” Sam wondered aloud.

  “Let’s check in with Selma.”

  Sam double-clicked the iChat icon on the screen and typed in Selma’s address. The computer’s iSight camera turned green and in ten seconds Selma’s face appeared on the screen.

  “Where are you?” she asked.

  “University of Dar es Salaam.”

  Behind Selma, Pete and Wendy were sitting at the worktable. They waved.

  Remi said, “We’re getting ready to dig in. Do you have anything for us?”

  “The last search is finishing now.”

  On-screen, Pete walked across to a computer workstation, tapped the keyboard a couple times, then called, “Coming over to you, Selma.” Sam and Remi watched as Selma studied the document, her eyes darting across the screen.

  At last she said, “Not much there. We checked all the major shipwreck databases and found only eighteen sites in the waters around Zanzibar. We even extended the grid fifty miles on all compass points. Of the eighteen, fourteen are identified, and only one of those comes even remotely close to the assumed same time frame as the Ophelia.”

  “Go on.”

  “The Glasgow. Commissioned in 1877 after the Sultan of Zanzibar lost his ‘fleet’ to the 1872 storm. It was delivered in the summer of 1878, but the Sultan was unimpressed, so it sat abandoned and unused at anchor off Zanzibar until the Anglo-Zanzibar War of 1896, when the British sunk her with naval gunfire.

  “In 1912 the wreck was reduced to her bottom frames by a salvage company, and the majority of the pieces dumped at sea. In the seventies, the Glasgow’s engine block, propeller shaft, some crockery, and a few nine-pound shells were found on the site.”

  “Where’s the site?” Remi asked.

  “About two hundred yards off the Stone Town beach. In fact, you were within sight of it at the restaurant the other night.”

  “So about fifteen crow’s miles from where we found the Ophelia’s bell,” Sam said. “So scratch the Glasgow. What else?”

  “Four of the wrecks in the database are unidentified. One is sitting in the Pangani River thirty-five miles to the north; the next two are in Tanga Bay fifty miles to the north; the last one is sitting off Bongoyo Island in Dar es Salaam’s Msasani Bay. As far as I can tell, none of them is any deeper than thirty feet.”

  “Thirty feet of clear water,” Sam added. “We’ll check with area dive shops. Chances are, someone’s identified them but never bothered to say anything. Probably nothing more than dive attractions now.”

  “Sorry I came up empty,” Selma said.

  “You didn’t,” Remi replied. “Ruling out is just as important as ruling in.”

  “Two other things. Mrs. Fargo, you were right about those names, they are Nahuatl, traditional Aztec names. For what it’s worth, it’s been something of a trend in Mexico City for the last few years—”

  “The Mexica Tenochca Party,” Remi finished. She saw Sam’s confused expression, then added, “The current president is an übernationalist, a pre-Spanish invasion nationalist. Aztec names, history courses taught in schools, religious observances, art . . .”

  “In addition to everything else, Rivera and his pals are political zealots,” Sam replied drily. “Just what we need.”

  “What else, Selma?”

  “I studied the pictures of the bell you sent. I assume you noticed the clapper?”

  “You mean that it’s missing?” Sam asked. “We noticed.”

  Sam disconnected, then turned to Remi. “So, newspapers?”

  She nodded. “Newspapers.”

  SAM AND REMI WERE believers in the pyramid theory of research: Start with the top of the pyramid, the specific, and work your way down to the base, the general. The first search terms they tried were “Ophelia,” “wreck,” and “discovered.” Not surprisingly, all they got were stories Selma had covered. Next they tried “famous,” “shipwrecks,” and “Zanzibar” and got the expected results: fluff stories about the Glasgow and the El Majidi, another ship belonging to the Sultan of Zanzibar that had been lost during the 1872 hurricane, and the HMS Pegasus, sunk in 1914 following a surprise attack by the German cruiser Königsberg.

  Ms. Kilembe returned with a carafe of coffee and two mugs, asked if they needed anything, then disappeared again.

  Remi said, “We forgot Chumbe Island, Sam. We’re assuming the BBC interview brought Rivera here . . .”

  “Right.” Sam combined the previous search terms with “Chumbe Island” and got zero hits. He tried again with the terms “diving,” “artifact,” and “dis
covery.” He scrolled through the stories, then stopped. “Huh,” he muttered.

  “What?”

  “Probably nothing, but it’s curious. Two months ago a British woman named Sylvie Radford was found murdered in Stone Town. An apparent mugging gone wrong. She’d come to do some diving off Chumbe. Listen to this: ‘According to the woman’s parents, Ms. Radford had been having a wonderful diving vacation, having already found several artifacts, including what she thought might be part of a Roman-style sword.’”

  “‘A Roman-style sword,’” Remi repeated. “Interesting. Her words or the reporter’s, do you think?”

  “I don’t know. Either way, it’s a pretty specific description. Most laypeople would just say ‘sword.’”

  Remi leaned closer to the screen, then jotted down the reporter’s name. “It might be in her notes.”

  Sam started tapping the keyboard again, this time with some urgency. Into the search box he entered “southern,” “Zanzibar,” “diving,” and “death” and set the time frame from present day to ten years earlier. Dozens of stories appeared on the screen.

  “Let’s split them up,” Remi said, then typed the terms into her own search box. “Start with the oldest?”

  Sam nodded.

  In years ten through eight, four deaths were linked to their search terms. In each case, however, independent eyewitness reports confirmed they were accidental: one shark bite, one diving mishap, and two vehicle accidents, both involving alcohol.

  “Here,” Remi said. “Seven years ago. Two people, both tourists on diving vacations.”

  “Where exactly?”

  “It just says the southwest coast of Zanzibar. One of them was killed by a hit-and-run driver. The other one fell down some steps in Stone Town. No alcohol involved, no witnesses.”

  “Six years ago,” Sam said, reading from the screen, “two dead. One suicide, one drowning. Again, no witnesses.”

  And so it went with year five up to the present day: tourist divers, most of them spending time near or around Chumbe Island, dying in strange accidents or muggings gone wrong.