by David Wood
They swam to the stern and made a careful inspection. The rudder had definitely been broken off. Maddock ran his hand along the back of the ship, moving it down toward the ocean floor. There it was! He took out his dive knife and gently scraped at the barnacles that coated the ship’s exterior. Where the ship disappeared in the silt, a jagged hole gaped like the mouth of an angry leviathan. It was just as Rienzi had described in his journal. He looked at Bones, who nodded his understanding.
Together, they swam toward the gaping hole in the deck. Bones, ever vigilant, peered into the hole, letting his light play around the hold in search of unwelcoming hosts. He gave Maddock the “all clear” signal and let his body drift down into the boat. Maddock followed behind.
This was the most dangerous part of a dive. The fine layer of silt that collected on the inside of a sunken vessel could easily be turned into a swirling maelstrom by an incautious flip of a swim fin. A diver could get lost inside an unfamiliar ship, blinded by the blizzard of dirt particles suspended in the water. Maddock was not worried, though. He and Bones knew how to take care of themselves.
He looked around at the interior of the ancient ship, but there was little to be seen. Random bumps and bulges beneath the surface of the silt indicated that a few items might remain inside the hold. If this was the Dourado, he did not expect to find much inside the ship, given that items had apparently been salvaged from it at the time of its sinking. Still, he wished he could find something, anything to confirm the ship’s identity.
Bones waved to him. Maddock looked over and saw his friend gesturing for him to exit the wreck. He trusted his partner enough not to question his judgment. Maddock carefully turned and swam out through the hole in the deck. When he reached the outside, he turned about and peered back into the hold.
Bones was looking at something covered in silt. Occasionally he would look up toward Maddock, as if fixing his location, then look back down at the spot on the ocean floor. Finally, he began digging in the fine dirt. A massive cloud of silt erupted, spreading as if in slow motion to fill the hold. Maddock caught a glimpse of Bones scooping something up before the other diver vanished from sight. He held his position, keeping an eye out for his friend. Moments later, he made his appearance, bursting forth from the cloud that poured out of the ship, his fine mesh dive bag clutched in his hand. He held up the bag for Maddock to see. Coins! Maddock gave his friend the thumbs up, and they headed for the surface.
Breaking the surface, Maddock swam to the side of the Queen’s Ransom, where Willis offered him a helping hand. The muscular, ebony-skinned man lifted him from the water with ease. Bones clambered aboard with help from Kaylin, who wore the expression of an expectant parent.
“Well?” she asked.
“Let’s clean those up first,” Maddock nodded toward Bones’ bag of coins. “They ought to tell us a great deal.” He tried to suppress his excitement. He had learned a long time ago not to get his hopes up, but right now he had a good feeling.
Retiring to the cabin, Maddock and Bones set to cleaning the coins. Patiently they scoured away two hundred years of tarnish and grime. Glints of gold began to peek out from the black circles. Soon, thereafter, details appeared: writing, numbers and images. Forty minutes later, a small pile of gold coins lay gleaming dully in a bowl of preservative solution. Maddock fished one out gingerly, held it up to the light and inspected it carefully, turning it around in his fingers.
“Portuguese,” he announced. He could feel the grin spreading across his face.
“And the date?” Bones asked, leaning forward, his pearl-white teeth glowing in the sun.
“Hmm…” Maddock stalled, letting the tension build. “It’s hard to say, but I’m pretty sure…”
“Oh, just tell us, Maddock!” Kaylin scolded.
“Fine,” he said, chuckling. “The year of our Lord, 1824.”
The room erupted in shouts of joy. Kaylin threw her arms around Maddock’s neck and gave him a squeeze. Willis, still standing guard on the deck, pumped his fist and smiled.
Bones scooped another coin out of the bowl and examined it. His smile widened. “Portugal, 1821.” He raised his clenched fist in triumph.
They repeated the ritual, taking turns examining the coins until they had inspected each one. The final tally was eleven coins: seven Portuguese, three Spanish and one French. All were dated four years or more prior to the sinking of the Dourado.
“Gentlemen,” Maddock began, “and lady,” he added, “I believe we have found our ship.”
Chapter 10
The Dourado had definitely been salvaged though they went through the motions of excavating the wreck, carefully sifting through everything bit by bit. By the end of the day, they had found only a few more coins, a statuette, and a few pieces of china. The statuette, in Kaylin's opinion, was further proof that this was, in fact, the Dourado.
“It's definitely Middle-Eastern,” she said. “It's very likely something that would have been found in Rienzi's collection.”
The following morning, they mapped out their plan to search for the remaining artifacts. Utilizing the same program with which he had predicted the location of the Dourado, Jimmy had provided them with a chart that plotted the probable location of the remaining artifacts from the Dourado’s cargo. The search area was a crescent-shaped swath that swept down in an east-southeast arc from the initial wreck site to the spot where the ship had come to rest.
Maddock inspected the chart and shook his head. It was a large area to cover, with artifacts possibly spread thin across the sea floor. He was beginning to feel discouraged, but knew that a negative attitude would kill morale.
“We'll make our way to the wreck site keeping to the center of the target zone.” His finger traced a path through the middle of the shaded area, up to Pedra Branca. “We'll run both the side scan sonar and the wave spectrometer, which ought to give us a unique signature for the different objects on the bottom. Once we get to Pedra Branca, we'll take stock of the readings we took along the way and start our grid in the most promising place.”
“Let's do it,” Corey said enthusiastically. He was still excited over their success the previous day in locating the wreck.
The others nodded their heads, but Maddock could read the skepticism in their faces: skepticism that he shared.
Maddock looked out at the rocks of Pedra Branca, so named because of the massive quantities of seagull guano that had colored them permanently white. These very same rocks had claimed the Dourado. Somewhere between this spot and the ship's watery grave, he hoped, lay the sword of Goliath.
The readouts they had taken along the way had not painted a hopeful picture. Admittedly, it was only a narrow strip in a wide swath of search area, but the lack of positive hits was worrisome. His cell phone buzzed against his thigh, and he answered it with an annoyed voice.
“Yeah?” he snapped.
“Maddock, how's the fishing?” Jimmy asked.
“Haven't caught a thing.”
“Want to know why? Because I know.” The hacker’s voice had an odd lilt to it, almost as if Jimmy were taunting him.
Maddock closed his eyes, took a deep breath, exhaled and forced himself to relax. Jimmy could be annoying. A byproduct, Maddock supposed, of spending too much time at a computer terminal. “Jim, I'm tired and more than a bit hacked off right now.”
“Fine, I'll start making sense. When you asked me to do some checking on the Dourado, I spread out the parameters of the search a bit. You remember how the captain claimed that there was half a million dollars on board?”
“Yes,” Maddock said.
“Well, I checked on the colonial governor who reported the finding of the Dourado off the shore of Bintan. Seems that not long after the salvage efforts came up short, he found himself a quarter of a million dollars richer and living high on the hog back in England.”
Maddock perked up. This was starting to get interesting.
Jimmy went on. “Next, I followed up on the capt
ain, a Francisco Covilha. He retired to America, a rich man. Settled in New York, and became a benefactor to several museums. Guess what he donated?”
“Artifacts from the Holy Land,” Maddock groaned. “The son of a gun was in on it with the governor. They hoodwinked Rienzi and made off with everything.”
“That's the bad news. The good news is, I can't find any record of a Middle-Eastern sword turning up in the collections of any of the museums he supported.”
“So either he held on to it,” Maddock mused, “or it's still somewhere on the bottom of the ocean.”
“Want to hear the weirdest part of all?”
“Not really.” Maddock didn't think he could take any more of Jimmy's weird news.
“Just for a lark, I ran his name through Nexus, and I got a hit.”
Maddock felt as if he had been plunged into an icy bath. He sat down clumsily on the deck. His legs were suddenly too weak to support him. “But, Nexus searches current periodicals. For Covilha's name to show up in Nexus means…” He paused, trying to get a handle on his thoughts. “Where did his name turn up?”
“In a small item buried in the New York Post. Someone robbed his grave.”
After Jimmy had given him the details, Maddock gathered the group and relayed this new information.
“So, you think we’re on the wrong track here?” Bones asked. “I can’t say I disagree. The dive hasn’t turned up much though we’ve got more ground to cover.”
“I can’t say with any certainty that the sword isn’t here,” Maddock said. “All we know is that it hasn’t turned up, so there’s a possibility it’s still down there somewhere.” He paused, weighing their options. “I think we need to explore all the angles and fast. We have to assume that whoever else is after the sword will find the same article Jimmy found, which means they’ll be headed for New York. I want to to get there first if I can.”
“I’ll go,” Kaylin said. “I’m of no use here, but I can help you with any searching or research you do in New York.”
“It’s settled then,” Maddock said. “Bones, you’re in charge here. Keep up the search. Kaylin and I will get ourselves to New York as quickly as we can.”
He only hoped they would get there in time.
Chapter 11
Maddock gritted his teeth as he weaved the rental car through the snarl of traffic coming out of LaGuardia. He felt he had made the correct decision the previous day to leave Bones and the crew behind to finish the search while the two of them pursued Jimmy's lead, but he hated splitting the group in the present circumstances.
“It says that the police apprehended the man who dug up the grave just as he was opening the coffin,” Kaylin read from the article Jimmy had forwarded to them. “He was a local drug addict and trouble maker. He said that a guy he had never met before had paid him a hundred bucks, and promised him a thousand more if he would bring him whatever he found in the coffin.” She turned and looked directly at Maddock. “Obviously, he didn't have a chance to take anything out of the coffin. That's good news, Maddock.” Since their uncomfortable exchange on board the Queen's Ransom, she had taken to calling him only by his last name.
“I know,” he muttered. “I just...”
“You're just a cynic,” she completed the sentence for him. “How did you get that way, anyhow?”
Maddock was not about to tell her the truth. He shrugged and went on with his previous train of thought. “I just worry that this is a sign that whoever has been after you has gotten ahead of us. They knew about the captain before we did.”
“Look at it this way. The grave was robbed last week. That means that, as of that time, the sword had not yet been located. Given that they were already working on the captain angle, we can safely eliminate the museum collections, or anything from his estate that might have been on record anywhere. That eliminates a lot of dead-end investigating on our part.”
“And leaves us where? What new lead do we have to follow up on? If you're correct, the bad guys have already checked them all out.”
“Have faith, my friend.” She patted him on the shoulder, a gesture of condescension more than companionship. “My dad used to tell me there’s always a stone unturned if you’ll only look in the right place.”
The problem they faced, Maddock thought, though he kept it to himself, was finding the right place. He glanced in the rear-view mirror and something immediately caught his attention.
“That’s one serious expression you’ve got there. What is it?” Kaylin glanced in the passenger side mirror.
“It’s probably nothing, but I swear the SUV back there is following us.” He felt foolish saying it considering the number of vehicles on the highway, but this one had remained two cars behind him since they’d left the airport, matched his every lane change.
“Men in a dark SUV tailing us? Isn’t that a bit cliché?”
“Someone was following us in Charleston. Is it really that big a stretch?”
Kaylin pursed her lips and gazed harder into the mirror. “I don’t know. I guess you could make a few random turns and see if they follow.”
“Already on it.” He took the next exit. Sure enough, the SUV followed.
“Here they come.” Kaylin’s voice trembled.
“Stop staring at them. I don’t want them to know we’re onto them.”
“Aren’t you going to try and get away?”
“Definitely, but maybe not in the way you think.” The heavy traffic made outdistancing their pursuers impossible. He took a couple of turns at random just to confirm his suspicions. Sure enough, the men followed. He quickly considered his options. It had been a while since his last visit to New York, but he quickly formed a plan.
As they cruised across the Brooklyn Bridge, he outlined his plan to Kaylin.
“You’re sure it will work?”
“Nope. Not sure at all, but I think it’s worth a try.”
They parked in a public lot on Liberty Street. As instructed, Kaylin retrieved her camera and a notebook from her luggage and they made the short walk to Battery Park.
“Did they take the bait?” Kaylin whispered.
“We’ll see. Give me the camera and strike a pose for me.”
Kaylin did as instructed. Pretending to line up a shot, Maddock scanned the crowd behind her. Two athletically built men loitered about forty feet back, looking at nothing in particular.
“I think so. Let’s go.” They passed through the park, enjoying the breeze blowing in off the Hudson River and sparing a few minutes to admire the Statue of Liberty. Maddock snapped another picture of Kaylin and spotted the same two men a short distance away.
“Still on our tail. Let’s keep going.” His heart raced as they moved away from the heavy crowd and into a less-crowded part of the park. Clearly, the men who followed them were after information. If they planned on kidnapping him and Kaylin in order to learn what they knew, they would likely make their move as soon as there were no witnesses around. Maddock hoped he had found a way around that.
They paused at the water’s edge and Maddock pointed to a statue at the end of a pier. Depicting four sailors aboard a sinking ship, the American Merchant Mariners’ Memorial stood on a stone breakwater just off the shore and memorialized the thousands of merchant mariners who had died at sea over the course of American history. Based on a photograph from an actual sinking, it was a disturbingly realistic representation of an American ship sinking after a U-boat attack. One mariner lay on the deck, clutching the hand of a comrade who had fallen into the water.
“It’s kind of disturbing,” Kaylin said, “but the artistry is exquisite.”
“When the tide comes in, the man in the water is submerged,” Maddock said. “It’s powerful.” The image brought back memories of his time in the Navy and comrades he had lost over the years. He shook his head and returned his thoughts to the present. “Okay, time for the show.”
He raised the camera and began snapping photographs of the monument from various ang
les. Meanwhile, Kaylin opened her notebook and began scribbling notes. She too moved from side-to-side, scrutinizing the sculpture from different viewpoints. Out of the corner of his eye, Maddock watched as the men who had been following them moved ever closer, finally stopping on the other side of a tree no more than ten paces away. To his relief, they too produced a camera and feigned interest in the surroundings. Time for act two.
“Any ideas?” he asked Kaylin in a voice intended to travel.
“I’m not sure,” she said. “I think we’ll have to go out there and examine it closely. My guess is the head comes off of one of the men. That would make the most sense. You could make it so it twists off. The seam would be easy to conceal. And if one of those guys is hollow, there will be plenty of room to hide something inside.”
“And you’re sure it’s hidden in there?” Maddock said, continuing their planned charade.
“Dad spent years researching it, and that’s the conclusion he came to.” A shadow seemed to pass over Kaylin as she spoke of her father. That wound was still raw.
“I suppose it makes sense.” Maddock scratched his chin and stared out at the memorial. “The sinking of the Dourado was perhaps the singular moment in his life. A memorial to drowning sailors would be fitting.”
“So what’s the plan?” Kaylin asked.
“We can’t go out there in broad daylight. I say we come back at midnight when no one’s around.”
Kaylin nodded. “I hate to wait that long when we’re so close, but I guess we have no choice. Let’s find something to eat.”
They headed back to their car, walking at a leisurely pace. It was not until they were once again on the road that Maddock breathed a sigh of relief.
“I think it worked. As soon as we left, one of them made a call.”
“And they aren’t following us.” Kaylin laughed. “Those guys must be idiots. That sculpture was installed in the early 1990s. How could it possibly be connected?”
“As someone who has been Bones’ best friend for more years than I care to count, believe me when I say a conspiracy nut will believe almost anything. Or at least give it serious consideration.”