by David Wood
“I will give you one last chance,” the man said, walking over to where Corey sat. He held the cigarette near Corey’s cheek. The computer whiz winced and turned his head away from the glowing ash.
“First,” the man said in a calm, conversational tone, “did you find the wreck of the Dourado?”
“Yes,” Bones replied. He saw no point in denying it since the man obviously already knew. Now, he needed to buy time until Willis could do something to help them. The two of them had been underwater when the attack came. Bones had surfaced only to find guns drawn on him. They hauled him aboard, relieved him of his dive knife, and tied him up. He cursed his own laxness. Things had proceeded so uneventfully up to this point that he had not insisted that Willis stand guard, convinced there was no danger.
“We found it two days ago. You can see the spot on the chart over there,” he nodded toward Corey’s instrument panel, above which a chart of the area between Bintan and Singapore was mapped. Straight pins were pressed into the map, marking the location of the Dourado, the probable site of the sinking, and places in between where they had successfully recovered artifacts from the ship. These had been few and far between.
The man glanced at the chart, then back at Bones. He seemed satisfied with the answer.
“What did you find?”
“Gold coins, a few statues, stuff that you’d expect to find on a ship.” Where was Willis? “The Dourado was salvaged years ago. There’s almost nothing left.”
The man thought about this for a minute as he took another long drag off his cigarette. He turned and blew the smoke in Corey’s face, then held the ash close to Corey’s neck. “You are certain?”
Bones nodded, his heart racing. If these people knew about the Dourado, then they had to know that the ship had been salvaged. That was part of the historical record. It was the other information, about the sword and the captain that he needed to protect.
“Can I at least know your name?” Bones asked. He had to stall as much as possible.
“I do not see the harm in revealing my name to a dead man. My name is Angelo.”
“Thanks, Angelo,” he said, feigning friendliness. “Good to know you. My name is...”
“Your name is Uriah Bonebrake. You work with Dane Maddock on the Sea Foam, along with Matthew Barnaby and Corey Dean. At present, you are working for Kaylin Maxwell.”
“Nice job,” Bones said. “I was never much for homework, myself. I just copied off of the cute girls.”
“Enough of this.” Angelo made a slashing motion with his hand. “After you finished your excavation of the wreck of the Dourado, what did you do next?”
Bones took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, trying to appear as if he were debating whether or not to answer the question. Anything to stall.
“We went to the spot you see marked on that chart. It’s the pin farthest to the northwest. That’s where we think the Dourado went down.”
“And then?” Angelo fixed him with an impatient glare, the cigarette dangling from his fingers burning down slowly.
“We started scanning and making short dives at places in between the site of the sinking and her present location.” Behind his back, he worked at the ropes. He had tensed his arms as much as he could while they were tying his hands together, but the bonds were on tight. He didn’t have much wiggle room.
“What have you found on these dives?” Angelo leaned toward him, an intense look in his eyes.
“Again, almost nothing. We figure the cargo gradually spilled out onto the seabed between the place the ship went down and the place it turned up off of Bintan several days later. Over time, the currents will have scattered it pretty wide.
Angelo, without changing expression, buried the cigarette into the exposed flesh of Corey’s upper arm. Corey screamed, as much in surprise, Bones supposed, as from pain.
“What the hell did you do that for?” Bones snarled, jerking in his bonds.
“I did not ask you what you think happened to the cargo. I asked what you found. You will answer me specifically and explicitly.” Angelo’s eyes now held a slightly demented look.
“Fine.” Bones pretended to rack his brain though their take had been so small that he could probably rattle off the list without a second thought. “Two statues, both in poor condition. Each of Middle Eastern origin.”
“What country?” Angelo snapped.
“Not my specialty.” Bones shrugged, using the motion to mask his struggling with his bonds. “We’ll have them checked out when we get back.”
“No. We will have them checked out when we return. You will not be returning.”
“Whatever,” Bones pretended to dismiss Angelo’s words with a shrug, using the motion to twist against the ropes around his wrist. He felt them give just a bit. “We also found a small, ornate wooden box that had probably contained someone’s personal papers once upon a time.”
“There were no papers?” Angelo leaned toward him again, frowning as he spoke. Suspicion dripped from his words. “You are absolutely certain of this? I caution you. No attempt to deceive me will work. You will succeed only in making your friend suffer.”
“It was a wooden box, genius,” Bones said. “It filled with water. Whatever was in there has pretty much dissolved into some mush in one of the corners. You’re welcome to scrape it off and try to read it if you like.”
For a moment, Bones thought that Angelo was going to punch him, or burn Corey again, but the dark-haired man relaxed visibly and nodded for him to continue.
“Seven coins… no, eight…no, it was seven.” He was running out of stalling tactics.
“Seven or eight. I do not care! Get on with it.”
“Sorry, you said to be explicit.” Bones had worked his wrists looser. He had to be careful to keep Angelo from noticing any movement. “Beyond that, we’ve found some dishes, a pistol, and a small cannon that might have been kept aboard the Dourado for defense, but we aren’t sure about that. We couldn’t have raised it, anyway. That’s everything.” Having finished his list, he stared at Angelo defiantly. “What else do you want to know?”
“What else?” The man seemed agitated now. He stamped his foot and crossed his arms in front of his chest.
“I told you, that’s everything,” Bones said. “Of course, we’re not finished with our search. Who knows what else we’ll find if you let us keep working?”
Angelo did not seem satisfied with the answer. He began pacing again. After a moment, he stopped and scrutinized the map on the wall. He dropped what was left of his cigarette on the floor, and put his finger on the site of the wreck. Silently he traced the path they had marked out on the map.
“Where is the rest of your crew?” He asked, almost nonchalantly. Bones did not know how to respond. Angelo didn’t wait long before he continued. “Come now. I know that you are missing both Mr. Maddock and Ms. Maxwell.”
Bones relaxed a bit. So they didn’t know about Willis. That was a point for their side.
“They went back to the states.” He wouldn’t be surprised if the guy had the resources to know where they had gone.
“Why did they go back?” His voice took on an impatient tone.
“There was a death. Someone in Kaylin’s family. I think it was maybe her cousin or somebody. Maddock went with her since she’s been attacked before.” He stared intensely at Angelo. “But I guess I don’t have to tell you that.”
“You are not being completely truthful with me, Mr. Bonebrake,” Angelo said. “Mr. Maddock and Ms. Maxwell left because you found what you were looking for, didn’t they?”
“What?” Bones didn’t know what else to say.
“You were left behind as a ruse, continuing the search so it would seem to outsiders that you had not found that for which you were searching.”
“We’re not looking for any one thing.” Bones’ searched for a way to stall Angelo further. “We’re just excavating the wreck. Kaylin’s father had researched it all of his life. It was his pet pro
ject, and she wanted to finish what he started.”
Angelo produced his own lighter, lit another cigarette and moved back to Corey’s side. He knelt down and held the burning end next to Corey’s left eye. He gripped Corey’s hair in the other hand.
“My patience is at an end. I will know what you found, or I will blind this man.”
“We didn’t find anything,” Corey grunted, trying to jerk his head away. “He’s telling you the truth. Everything we’ve found is on board the ship.”
Angelo thought this over. He did not, however, move the cigarette away from Corey’s head or loosen his grip. “For argument’s sake, let us say that I believe you. Answer this, Mr. Bonebrake; what is it you expected to find on this wreck? And no more lies about not looking for one specific thing. There was something special aboard the Dourado. Tell me what it was.”
Bones could tell that the time for stalling was at an end. As he watched Angelo push the hot ash of the cigarette ever closer to his friend’s eye, he hoped Willis had come up with a plan.
Chapter 14
“I can’t get in touch with any of them.” Maddock snapped his phone closed and slammed it down on the table. “I don’t know what’s going on!”
“We’ve notified the authorities in Singapore. There’s nothing else we can do,” Kaylin said. “Besides, if you smash your cell phone, they definitely won’t be calling you anytime soon.”
“I shouldn’t have left them,” he muttered, the feeling of helplessness was driving him crazy. Her assurances didn’t make him feel any better. He stood up and walked across the room they had rented under a false name in a rundown roadside inn. Reaching the far wall, he turned and stalked back to the window. “I need to do something. I can’t stand waiting around like this.”
“You’ve already done something. You found that tracking device under our bumper. It was a nice touch planting it on a police car. That’ll make a nice surprise for our new friend.”
Maddock tried to smile but managed only a grimace. “That doesn’t help Bones and the guys. I should be with them.”
“Well, you aren’t, and you’re not accomplishing anything by walking around the room. Sit down and help me with this letter.” She sat at a small table, rickety and badly stained, comparing the letter Maddock had found against a Portuguese-English dictionary they had picked up at a local bookstore.
“I don’t know any of that stuff,” he grumbled. He slumped down in the cheap, fake leather chair across from her, feeling every bump against his back. He folded his arms across his chest and stared. He knew he was acting childish, but the frustration he felt at being unable to help his friends, or even know what was wrong with them, was almost more than he could bear. But he also realized it was pointless to sit and complain about something over which he had no control.
“What do you want me to do?”
“Here. See what you can make of these.” Kaylin slid her notebook across the table to him.
He flipped it open to her copies of the sketches they had found in Covilha’s books. His eyes took them in with only moderate interest. He exhaled long and loud, sighing impatiently.
“I don’t know what we’re going to learn from these,” he complained. They were just doodles, after all.
“And you never will if you don’t shut up and get to work,” Kaylin snapped, not looking up at him.
“Fine.” She was right, but he did not like to be reminded of it. He looked them over again, this time more slowly. The sinking ship was probably the Dourado. But what to make of the others? A wrought iron fence, an old house, a river, an oak tree, a tombstone… He turned the page. There were more on this sheet, but nothing caught his eye as being of particular significance. What could they mean, if anything? And why were they all written on page one hundred twenty-five? After mulling it over for a few long, boring minutes, he flipped the notebook closed and pushed it back toward Kaylin.
“How’s your translation coming?” he asked, more to fill the silence than because he expected her to have discovered anything of significance so soon.
“Slowly,” she replied. “If I’ve got this right, it’s an unfinished letter to his mistress. He mentions someone named Domenic and talks about his regrets.”
“Maybe they had a son together?” Maddock asked.
“Could be. The mention of the Dourado isn’t of much significance. He just talks about how his life changed when the Dourado went down ‘on that January night.’” She bit her lip and looked up another word.
Something in her statement seemed to trip a switch in Maddock’s subconscious.
“Say that again.”
“What?” She looked at him with a blank expression.
“That last part about the Dourado,” he said, closing his eyes and pressing his hands to his temples. “Read it back to me.”
“All right. ‘I tell you, darling, my life was forever changed when the Dourado went down that dark January night.’”
“What date, exactly, did the Dourado sink?” His heart beat faster as a wave of adrenalin surged through him.
Kaylin picked up another notebook and turned to one of the first pages. “January twenty-fifth. Why do you ask?”
“That’s it!” He pounded his fist on the table. “January twenty-fifth! One-twenty-five.”
“Page one twenty-five!” she cried with delight. “You’re right. That’s got to be it!” She pushed the letter away, grabbed the notebook, and scooted her chair around the table so that she could look at the sketches along with him.
“Now that we’re fairly certain these symbols are tied in with the Dourado, we need to figure out what he was trying to tell us,” Maddock said, feeling confident for the first time since getting Corey’s cry for help.
“Could it be a cipher of some sort?” Kaylin asked.
“I don’t think so. There aren’t enough icons to cover much of the alphabet, and nothing repeats.”
“Perhaps it’s more complicated than that. Maybe we take the words for these different things, combine all the letters, and rearrange them to spell out a message?”
Maddock turned and stared at her, his eyes wrinkled in a frown. “How in the world do you think of these things?”
She shrugged. “Ciphers were common back then, and some of them were pretty complicated.”
“I hope that isn’t the deal,” Maddock said. “It would be hard enough to unscramble in English, but if he did the cipher in Portuguese…” He left the rest unsaid, as understanding dawned on her face.
“Does your friend have access to a computer program that could decrypt a message like this?”
“First of all, we aren’t sure that there is a message to decode.” He was growing frustrated again, and with the feeling came renewed concerns about Bones and the crew. He pushed away from the table. “I want to get out of here. Let’s get a drink.”
“I’m really not in the mood for a drink,” she said.
“Fine, you can watch me.” He grabbed his jacket and keys and left the room without waiting to see if she was following.
“Maddock, wait a minute!” she called.
Something in her voice, some underlying tone of revelation, made him turn around.
“What if we’re making this too complicated? What if it’s just a simple map?”
Maps he understood. Curious, he returned to the table and stood looking down over her shoulder.
“The sinking ship is probably the Dourado, so that’s most likely the first symbol in the sequence. Maybe these other images represent real places. Put the clues in the right order, they lead us to the sword!” Her eyes were bright, her face positively aglow. Maddock stared at her for a moment, admiring her fresh, youthful beauty.
“Are you still with me?” she said, waving her hand in front of his face.
“Oh, sorry, just thinking.” Maddock shook his head, trying to get his thoughts back to the subject at hand. Guilt soured in his stomach as he thought of Melissa. “If they’re real places, what is this thing?”
He pointed to a drawing of four arrows emerging at right angles to each other from a central point, pointing up, down, left, and right. Another smaller arrow pointed down and to the right at an odd angle.
“What’s the matter, sailor boy? Never seen a compass before?” She smiled up at him, and he grinned in spite of himself.
“Fine, you got me on that one.” He settled back into the chair he had vacated moments before. “The problem I see is that so many of these drawings are too generic. How many streams are around here? Or wrought iron fences? Where do we even start?”
“How about the house? It’s a little more detailed than the other images.”
Maddock looked at the sketch. It was certainly distinctive, with a large porch running across the front and wrapping around the right side. An odd, tower-like architectural feature graced the front left corner. Chimneys peeked up from either side of the steeply pitched roof. Two second-floor windows extruded Cape Cod-style from the front of the roof. Ornamentation had been sketched on the porch rails and posts. It might be possible to locate the house. It was as good a way as any to pass the time until he could find out what happened to Bones and the crew.
Chapter 15
Antonio stepped away from the door of the cabin. Angelo had everything under control inside while Louis and Vincent patrolled the deck. He pulled a brand new pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and slapped the bottom of the box a few times before removing the wrapper. It was a personal tradition of his; bring a new pack on the job and do not open it until the work is done.
This one had been too easy. The people on board had not been expecting anything out of the ordinary, and the diver who had been down at the time had not heard them coming. He was supposed to have been a SEAL, but their reputations must have been exaggerated; they had subdued him quickly. According to Angelo, two of the crew members were missing.
It would not have mattered if the entire crew had been there, Antonio thought, smiling. They had taken their victims completely by surprise.