by David Wood
But Fabi remained unfazed. “Take a look at this. He sent me a package shortly before he died.” She set a simple bag on the table, looked up toward the entrance of the cafe once, and then removed from it a wooden cigar box.
Bones’ face lit up. “Hey, all right. I hear they make fantastic cigars down here. Maybe not quite as good as the Cubans, but damn good, right? Can we light up in here?”
Fabi pulled some papers out of the box and smoothed them out on the table. “Sorry, Bones. Maybe if you’re a good boy I’ll see if I can find you a cigar later.” She winked at him and Bones raised his eyebrows at Maddock, who leaned in closer to the papers.
“What do you have here?”
Her brow creased with concern. “This one here is a recent note from David saying he thinks someone is after the contents of the box and that they are dangerous. Looks like he was right. And he says what's in the box is very valuable.”
Maddock stared at the old papers on the table, the weathered box. “Why did your cousin send the box to you?”
Fabi sighed before looking up from the note. “David is...was... a gentle soul. Not much of a fighter. He knows I’m ex-Navy, knows I can take of myself, that I have a reputation for being a tough kid back in the day. And besides that, he trusts me. I’m family, I’m blood.”
“So what’s so valuable about what’s in the box?” Maddock pressed.
Fabi glanced down at the yellowed papers. “I don’t know the whole story, but I’m positive there’s something in these documents that will lead us to treasure.”
The gleam in Maddock’s eyes was undeniable, but he forced himself to stay focused on the details at hand. But it was Bones who Fabi turned to next.
“You used to tell me about your experiences hunting for underwater treasures with Maddock, so when I thought about who to call, you were at the top of my list.”
Maddock gave Bones a glance. “You do realize those were classified missions, right?”
The big Indian eyed Fabi. “All bets are off when trying to impress a beautiful girl.”
Maddock shrugged, also looking to Fabi. “So did that work?”
It was her turn to smile. “Once or twice.”
Maddock eyed the papers on the table. “I think we can help you with this.”
Chapter 7
Jacmel, Haiti
Odelin swore as he paced within the narrow confines of the office at the back of the church. He and his men had torn the place apart, top to bottom. His hopes had risen when they discovered a secret compartment in the floor chancel area behind the pulpit, but inside were only a pistol and some general survival items. He thought it likely that what he sought was once in that hiding place, but for now his hopes had been dashed.
Making matters worse, he had just received word from one of his men that the search of Abbe’s home had been completed and that effort, too, had produced no fruit. Odelin now had the most unenviable task indeed of reporting these developments to his boss. He dialed the desk phone in the church office and waited with the receiver to his ear. His superior came on the line and Odelin relayed the bad news.
His boss gave a sigh of exasperation. “How certain are you that this record even exists, or still exists?”
“One hundred percent certain. There can be no doubt. I have come across references to odd tales told by a priest long ago who died here while serving the church. The priest was never specific, but he referenced his journal and the ramblings of a sailor who confessed to him during an exorcism.”
A pause ensued during which his boss seemed to digest this information. While he waited, he eyed the old personal computer on the well-worn desk. His eyes traced the dial-up modem cable from the phone jack to the PC. Then his boss was back on the line.
“Well then, what could Abbe have done with these documents if they were not on his person, nor in his home or place of work?”
“At this point I am considering many possibilities.” Odelin wished he could give a better answer, but that was all he knew at this point.
“Do you think he might have turned them over to someone else, someone he trusted?”
Odelin sat down in front of the computer and saw that it was already powered on. He woke it from sleep mode and examined a few of the files on the system.
“Odelin, are you listening?” The tone was sharp. Odelin had become absorbed in looking at Abbe’s files and forgotten that a response was required.
“Yes. One moment please, I may have found something interesting on Abbe’s computer.”
“Hurry up.”
Odelin frowned as he found Abbe’s internet email account and saw that it required a login and password. “One minute...” He riffled through the files in the largest desk drawer and found nothing, but as he replaced them, he noticed a tiny address book. Inside the front cover he found two words written in all lowercase: david1984 and c@1vary.
“Calvary,” he whispered. “What better password for a priest?”
“What’s that?”
“Just another minute,” he said. He typed in the two words. Success! “I’m in the account. Let’s see what we’ve got here...”
Odelin scanned the list of email subjects, looking for anything that might tip them off to the contents having to do with the missing documents. He didn’t know exactly what he expected to find, but after scrolling through a lot of them he didn’t see anything that triggered recognition.
“Odelin? Is all of that keyboard tapping I’m hearing bearing fruit?”
He shifted from reading the subjects to looking at the sender and dates of the messages. He saw a number of emails from a Fabi Baptiste, recently received. He clicked on the SENT folder. There it was! He smiled.
“I’ve found exactly what we’re looking for!”
Chapter 8
Petit-Trou-de-Nippes, Haiti
Maddock, Bones and Willis sat at a table with Fabi in the home of one of her relatives, an uncle who was out of town on business. The residence was a nice one, not a shack, and featured modern amenities including electricity, running water and contemporary furniture.
Maddock considered the documents from Abbe’s cigar box which they had organized on the table, by date where possible, by similar paper type, and by language. All were old and appeared to have been cobbled together from different sources, perhaps torn from journals or logs of some kind.
“I think we’re going to need Fabi to do the lion’s share of the translation here, but I’m passable at reading French, so I’ll take a shot at some of these.” He indicated a stack of yellowed papers written in flowery longhand.
“I can deal with some Español,” Bones said, reaching for a document written in Spanish.
Willis, who appeared bored by this process, agreed to take down a few notes when something meaningful was translated. “Let’s just get this done. I signed up for treasure hunting, not paperwork.”
The group worked for a time in silence, poring over the various documents. After a while Maddock summed up what they were thinking.
“It’s difficult to see how these are connected, but from what I can tell so far, they reference different places on the island.” He turned to Fabi. “You make anything of it yet?”
She furrowed her brow and slowly lifted one of the papers from the table. “Listen to this. It's an entry torn from a priest's journal, 1715.” She squinted as she translated aloud in English:
The service of four sailors was required to hold the tormented sailor down. Possessed of inhuman strength, he could not be said to be of right mind, speaking as he was in odd tongues of living dead men and evil spirits unleashed into our dominion. In his cell in the old French fort, he had summoned extraordinary patience and will to carve strange things into the stone walls, symbols beyond our understanding should they contain meaning at all. My primary intention was to exorcise the spirits from his body responsible for his lunacy, but between my ministrations he exhibited moments of lucidity during which I could not help but take note of his fantastic ta
le.
The sailor recounted having been on a barrack that was part of a Spanish Crown treasure fleet of monumental value. Untimely storms separated the fleet, sank it and drove his ship far off course. They lost a mizzen mast and then a main and sailed blindly until they ended up on a reef somewhere off the shores of Hispaniola. He insists the storm was a punishment from God for the Spaniards’ greed and for stealing from the native savages. Despite this punishment, he claims God also sent demons to punish any who survived the storm, and that these demons now guard the treasure fiercely and without prejudice.
Despite being in the throes of madness and the fantastical elements of his tale notwithstanding, I am compelled to think that the treasure of which this sailor speaks is as true as the word of God.
Fabi looked up from the faded page, eyes wide.
Willis underlined something he wrote on his notepad with a flourish. “‘Priest says treasure is the real deal.’ Just in case we forget what that said.” He nodded to the document.
“Thanks, Willis.” Maddock rolled his eyes. “Let’s try to put this all together into something meaningful. Besides the passage Fabi just read, we know there are other entries that make mention of different points around the island. We also know for a fact that at least some of these entries are dated after that passage. That tells me that maybe this priest was going around the island, conducting his own hunt for a treasure he believed to be real.”
“So we need to figure out what some of those places are.” Bones eyed the mess of papers on the table dubiously.
Maddock went on. “Right, but we already have at least one solid clue from the page we just heard: he mentions an ‘old French fort’ where the sailor was kept prisoner.”
“If it was old then, in 1715,” Willis said, “it must be awful old now.”
Maddock looked to Fabi. “Any old forts on this island?”
She nodded. “Many. But I have an idea where to start. Look at this.”
She turned one of the papers around so the others could see. “The priest has written Saint Louis de Sud in the margin. I know there’s an old fort there. I think we should check it out.”
“Is it far?” Bones asked.
“It’s not exactly close. On the plus side, it’s on the Haiti side of the island of Hispaniola, which today, I’m sure you’re aware, is shared with the country of Dominican Republic.”
“But back in 1715 it was all known as Hispaniola,” Maddock clarified.
Fabi nodded. “That’s correct. Having to search on the Dominican side of the island would involve added complications.”
“Then let’s cross our fingers that this priest was on this side of the island.” Willis actually crossed his fingers and held them up, but Fabi’s face was downcast.
“What’s wrong?” Willis asked. He looked at his fingers. “This some kind of taboo gesture in Haiti or something?”
She shook her head. “No, it’s just that I haven’t had the best luck with priests lately.”
Chapter 9
Saint Louis de Sud, Haiti
They rode the dinghy up to the rickety dock and cut the engine. They secured their craft and climbed out, Bones going first to make sure the dock was sound. He tested the boards, then bounced on the balls of his feet a few times before giving them the thumbs-up.
“It’ll hold me, so Maddock and Fabi should be good to go. Willis looks like he’s been eating too much pizza lately, so he can go last.”
Willis shook his head and gestured for the others to lead the way.
“Fort Des Oliviers is up this way and to the right,” Fabi directed. They walked at a leisurely pace through the town, passing locals and tourists alike strolling on the sidewalks. Before long they found a sign to the fort. Maddock followed it until they spotted a crumbling stone facade on the edge of the Caribbean.
The four explorers approached the ruins. Stone walls, crumbling in spots, surrounded a flat, grassy area on which rusty cannons were spaced at regular intervals. Bones looked around. It wasn’t exactly crowded, but a few people looked around or snapped photos.
Maddock stood still for a few moments and surveyed the scene. “I don’t see anywhere up top that looks like somewhere a prisoner would be held. Is there a below ground section?”
“I haven’t been here before so I’m not familiar with it myself,” Fabi admitted. Some of the forts on the island do have subterranean chambers, but I don’t know if this one does.”
“Let’s have a look.” Bones took off toward the main grounds. The others fell into step behind him. As they walked they passed tourists having a look around, but the fact that many people had been here over the years, decades and centuries didn’t dampen their spirits. Maddock and Bones knew from experience that simply because a place had lots of traffic, even heavy traffic, over time, did not mean that its secrets had been divulged.
They walked to the crumbling structure, had a look through one broken section to the coral beach just outside, then began to move along the perimeter wall, which was itself nothing noteworthy. They came to a junction between two walls where a gap between them left an opening in the earth. A stone stairway led down. Maddock suggested that they check it out, as the rest of the ground level appeared, at first glance, anyway, to be much the same as they had already seen.
Voices echoed below them down wherever the steps led, so Maddock knew this wasn’t some secret passage, but it would help to get the lay of the land, so to speak. And who knew, he thought, producing a pocket flashlight, perhaps they could find something others had overlooked? They were, after all, looking for something specific as opposed to simply wandering around for the general experience.
Maddock stopped on the steps to closely examine the composition of the walls; as expected, they were fashioned of the same stone used on the fort’s ground level. Bones passed Maddock and was the first to reach the bottom.
“One way up ahead.” Bones waved an arm and started down a level corridor that left precious little clearance for his head. Willis and Fabi fell into step behind him and Maddock brought up the rear, pausing occasionally to examine a portion of floor, wall or ceiling with his mini-torch. After a hundred feet or so the passage jogged right.
Fabi’s voice echoed off the walls. “So far it appears to be mirroring the same pattern as the wall above ground.” The group continued along the passageway, which offered no branches or forks. At one point they had to squeeze by a couple standing in one spot fussing with a digital camera. Then they saw a flood of sunlight from above and came to what would be a dead end were it not for another stone staircase leading up.
Maddock scrutinized the walls and floor carefully before admitting that he saw nothing promising here, and then the group ascended the steps. They emerged back on the grassy quad area inside the perimeter walls.
“That was fun. Now what?” Willis wanted to know.
Maddock studied the grass area, nodding toward it. “With all this space here, you’d think there could be something underneath it, but from what we just saw the only digging they did here was on the perimeter tunnels.”
Fabi nodded and pointed to a couple of toppled rock slabs here and there on the grass. “It looks like there may once have been structures on the quad area, but they were above ground only.”
“It doesn’t seem like we’re missing anything here,” Maddock concurred. Fabi pointed to a local man wearing a uniform of some sort with a lanyard and ID card around his neck. “He’s a tour guide. Maybe he can fill in some blanks for us, make sure we haven’t overlooked anything.” She registered the nervous looks from the three ex-SEALs and then hastily added, “Without letting on what we’re looking for, of course.”
Maddock nodded and the four of them sauntered over to the guide, as if they were a casual group out for a lazy day trip. When they reached him, he was standing next to the perimeter wall with his hands behind his back, making himself available for questions but currently not helping anyone. They opted to let Fabi do the talking for them. Sh
e spoke to the guide in Creole, and he replied in the same.
“Good morning, sir. We’re wondering if you can tell us a little about a story we’ve heard connected to an old fort somewhere on Hispaniola. We thought it might be this one, but we’re not sure.”
The guide prompted her to tell him the story and so she relayed a simplified version of a stark raving mad sailor held prisoner in a fort. After listening attentively, the guide replied.
“To my knowledge, Fort Des Oliviers is not associated with any such prisoner. It was used more as a defensible installation against approaching ships.” He pointed out to the sea visible beyond the perimeter walls. “It featured heavy arms, lots of cannons, but was not used for holding prisoners.”
Fabi’s face fell upon hearing this, although Maddock and his fellow ex-SEALs remained impassive. The guide, seeming to sense Fabi’s disappointment, added, “But you might pay a visit to Fort des Anglais, on the little island out in the bay.” He pointed across the water, although the island could not be seen from their vantage point. “I believe that, due to its remote location, some prisoners were kept there, though I do not know about the sailor of which you speak.”
Fabi thanked the guide and they ambled away as a group, not wanting to appear so eager as to bolt right off to the other fort. When they were some distance away from the man, Maddock said to the others, “Let’s check it out.”
Chapter 10
Off the coast of Saint Louis de Sud
The Sea Foam settled back into the water as Maddock eased back on the throttle. Willis occupied the co-pilot seat while Fabi and Bones caught up on old times on the rear deck. Maddock had decided it was worth making the drive back to Petit-Trou-de-Nippes in order to take their own boat to the island instead of looking for a rental, which would raise their profile, not necessarily a desirable thing to do when looking for treasure in this part of the world.