Maroon Rising

by John H. Cunningham

  The colonel stood, followed by Nanny, then me. My mind was reeling. What could their information be—and where might the treasure be? Certainly not in Port Royal.

  I followed them toward the door. Before the colonel opened it, he turned back to face me.

  “Time is important here. These other people looking in Port Royal getting plenty frustrated. They might start throwing money around, maybe somebody talk.” His old dark eyes bored into mine. “Is it worth 10 percent of whatever is recovered for us to confide in you?”

  “Ten percent wouldn’t even cover—wait! How could I negotiate if I don’t have any details? Is the treasure supposed to be underwater? Buried somewhere—”

  “We won’t tell you nothing until we have an agreement, plain and simple.” He turned toward Nanny. “Take him back up to Oracabessa.” With that he pulled the door open.

  We stepped into the sun, which was blinding after being in his dark house—

  A sudden burst of noise caught me off guard. A large man had started yelling something—in an African dialect and at the top of his voice—at the colonel and Nanny, while pointing to me.

  The colonel flung his wrists at the man and hissed something back in the same dialect—just as angrily but not as loud. Nanny stepped toward the man and yelled at him. The man, who was muscular and not much older than thirty, had a sneer on his lips that exposed crooked teeth. Again he pointed at me.

  “And you got no business here! Stay out of our history. And you two”—this for the colonel and Nanny—“don’t you tell the likes of him nothing!”

  Other people peered up and down the dirt road at us. The colonel, to his credit, shook his head and spoke in a low tone, first in the dialect, then English.

  “You go ahead now, you don’t want no trouble. And you don’t tell me how to run our business.”

  The man looked into each of our faces, finishing with mine.

  “None of you got no right to the history.” His voice had lowered to a growl. He punctuated his statement with another hard glance at each of us, then turned and walked away, slowly.

  “Pay no attention to him.” But the colonel shuddered, which alarmed me.

  Whatever I had walked into here felt thick with danger. It was also far more intriguing—and promising—than the old letter that had directed us toward Port Royal.

  Hot damn.

  The sun set thirty minutes before we made it back to GoldenEye. Nanny turned down my offer to return her to her car at the Trident—she said she’d arranged a dinner for tonight at the resort, and a friend from Port Antonio would be coming to take her back afterwards.

  My questions about the man who had verbally attacked us were met with assurances that all was fine. She never mentioned the man’s name, but she did say he was from Accompong in the Cockpit Country, the western wilderness region of Jamaica.

  “He’s of the Leeward Maroons,” she said, “and there have been periodic … tensions between the Windward and Leeward factions.”

  “Weren’t all Maroons escaped slaves that fought and defeated Spanish and British colonists? What’s the issue?”

  “Jamaicans never forget, Buck. And Maroons never forgive.”

  “Forgive what?”

  She shifted in her seat. The darkness hid her expression, but I hadn’t been able to read her all day anyway. Hell, the only time I could ever read her was when she narrowed her eyes or smiled.

  “At the tail end of the Maroon independence wars, the Leewards had negotiated a peaceful ceasefire with the British before the Windwards had. They then began to work with the British to hunt down Spaniards and terrify them, often kill them. The British used them to scare and repel the Spanish, and it worked.”

  I waited, but she didn’t elaborate.

  “How did that create a divide with the Windwards?” I said.

  She looked straight at me, and while the darkness hid most of her features, I saw her eyes narrow.

  “Because they also helped the British to hunt down Windward Maroons. Only a few opportunists, really, bounty hunters, but it was Maroons selling out other Maroons.”

  I could easily imagine some, especially elders, who would still resent those betrayals, even though they happened three hundred years ago.

  “Are you really convinced Henry Morgan had a stash of treasure? Most historians have concluded that he was a straight-up privateer, operating on the orders of the British government. My research at e-Antiquity, however, was less conclusive. Aside, of course, from when he was recalled to London to face trial for his attack on Spanish Panama, which unwittingly coincided with a ceasefire between the countries.”

  “Yes, but he was pardoned, knighted, and returned to Jamaica as the lieutenant governor.”

  “Right, so when did he stash the treasure? You mentioned Panama, but could it have been after he sacked Portobello?” I said.

  “His most successful siege,” she said. “Silver pesos, gold coins, silver bars, and several chests of silver-plated goods. At the time it was worth 250,000 pesos—of course, that’s millions today.”

  “But all of the valuables were fully accounted for by officials who had accompanied them on the voyage. So then came his attack on Maracaibo.”

  Now I could see her smile. “That was perhaps the most brilliant strategy and attack he employed.”

  “Going in at night?” I said.

  “That, and his using logs on ships to make it look like he had additional cannons. And loading his troops on unarmed merchant ships and ferrying them to shore at night, where they emptied the enemy’s coffers and slipped past the long guns of the fort by drifting without sail during the same night.”

  “How much did he bring back from Maracaibo?”

  “Same mix of valuables, but only half the value. Estimates were 125,000 pesos.”

  I smiled, glanced over, and saw she was smiling too. The connection between archaeologists, whether for-profit or not, was undeniable. But never had I known such an attractive, and yes, sexy professor of archaeology. I wondered what she was thinking.

  “Sir Henry’s fleet was larger at Maracaibo, so the share per man was much less,” she said. “Sir Henry used his shares to buy over eight hundred acres of land to add to his holdings in the parish of Clarendon—it’s still called the Morgan Valley.”

  “Maybe that’s what he did with whatever treasure he stole, buy land—”

  “That’s not it.”

  I was again struck by her certainty, just like the colonel’s. Confident that the treasure existed, just not sure exactly where it was.

  “That leaves Panama, Morgan’s last major campaign.”

  She nodded and let out a sigh.

  “Again, an amazing strategy—a flawless attack spoiled by a lucky Spanish sentry. Nearly a thousand men sailed with Morgan—”

  “Not to mention a hundred and seventy five treasure-hauling mules.”

  “I’m impressed,” she said. “No wonder you were such a good treasure hunter.”

  My lips tugged in a tight smile. Information is power in any business, but detail is crucial when hunting antiquities.

  She said, “My favorite detail of his assault on Panama was that they sailed their fleet as far as they could go up the Chagres River to avoid the fort and embattlements. But when they ran out of depth, they continued on in dozens of hand-carved canoes.”

  “Amazing forethought, I agree. Were the canoes carved in Jamaica?”

  She shook her head. “Isla Vaca, off what’s now Haiti. Morgan commenced all his campaigns by gathering his privateers at Isla Vaca.”

  Could that be where he dropped off some of the treasure? I kept that thought to myself, and instantly felt guilty for it.

  “After all that planning and effort,” Nanny said, “they only walked away with thirty thousand pesos.”

  “There were no shortage of doubters that thought Morgan stashed the brunt of the wealth somewhere—”

  “His own crewman accused him of stealing from them,” she said. “Th
e shares per person that they brought home were nominal.”

  We turned off the main road to the coastal road, now only a few miles from GoldenEye. The time had flown by during the drive and I truly enjoyed the connection, formed from shared knowledge, mutual interest, and our physical proximity for most of the day.

  I didn’t want the day to end. I put out of mind for now the bizarre non-negotiation about whatever might be found if we ended up working together.

  “And you said former slaves sailed with Morgan’s fleet?”

  “Full-shared privateers, just like the rest.” She paused. “Historic archives state that over a hundred former slaves sailed with him to Panama.”

  “And that was what, 1681? Long before the Maroon wars, so ‘former’ slaves wouldn’t have been recognized by true government officials, correct?”

  She glanced over at me. “Morgan was no fool, they were Maroon warriors. The best fighters in the Caribbean.”

  Some facts clicked together in my mind. Maroon warriors wouldn’t just be mercenaries, they might have also been Morgan’s strategists.

  Another dime dropped.

  That explained why Colonel Grandy, Nanny, and even that asshole that chewed us out were so convinced about the treasure’s existence.

  They had solid insider’s knowledge—real evidence—not just a hunch or Maroon legend.

  “Listen, Nanny, I’m interested—very interested—in working with you on this project. You and the colonel approached me for good reason—nobody has found more missing antiquities in the past decade than me. But truth be told, I’m broke. Lost everything. Maybe I’ve learned from past mistakes, and I want to do things right, but I can’t afford to be taken advantage of, even for a good cause.”

  I stretched my fingers on the steering wheel.

  “I understand, Buck.” Nanny was now looking straight ahead. “Nobody’s trying to take advantage of you, but as Stanley—Colonel Grandy—said, if we’re successful in finding something of value, we want it to be for the Jamaican people—not the government, not for treasure hunters. And we have reason to believe the treasure could be substantial.”

  It didn’t sound like their demanding 90 percent was for self-enrichment. But what did that platitude about helping the Jamaican people mean? Helping them how? And not letting the government get any? Well, that was pure fantasy—unless the treasure wasn’t in Jamaica.

  She, or the colonel, possessed secret information I could help them resolve. If that led to the treasure, would 10 percent for me be fair? I swallowed. Depending on the value of the find, that could still be a hell of a lot of money, and without the overhead of mucking around out in the submerged ruins of Port Royal.

  Just how reformed was I?

  Dinner was an hour away and I’d been invited last-minute, so Nanny and I went our separate ways, then met in the bar at Bizot.

  “Blackwell Rum on the rocks for me,” I said just as she showed up.

  “I’ll have a club soda, please,” she told the bartender.

  “That’s all?” he said.

  “Add a twist of lime.”

  I spotted Chris Blackwell coming across the patio, a study in confidence. Since Nanny’s back was to him, she didn’t see him catch my eye and hold a finger to his lips. He snuck up behind her and slowly held his hands in front of her eyes.

  A smile big enough to show all those perfectly straight, perfectly white teeth spread across her face. She took his wrists, stood, then spun between his arms and placed them around her in a move that would make a ballerina proud. They hugged and giggled like schoolchildren.

  “Here I thought I’d scare you,” he said.

  “You might have, if I hadn’t been here with a man like Buck Reilly. Can’t imagine feeling unsafe with him around.”

  Chris pumped his eyebrows at me and I felt my cheeks heat up. Then he stepped back and took her in. Nanny looked as fresh now as she had when arriving at Trident this morning.

  “Where’s your friend?” he said.

  “Should be here any—”

  A roar sounded over our heads. I turned to see a sleek green helicopter settle onto an island just in front of the beach.

  “Speak of the devil,” Chris said.

  Nanny slapped him on the shoulder. I hadn’t asked but was suddenly very curious—who was joining us, and what was his or her relationship with Nanny?

  Moments later a stocky man in a suit and tie emerged from the darkness and moved toward us at a steady pace. I glanced at Nanny—who, of course, could read my face like a book.

  “Michael Portland, owner of the Trident,” she said.

  “Half the world,” Chris said under his breath.

  Michael Portland—the first Jamaican-born billionaire. Last I heard most of his enterprise was based in the United States.

  We all stood as he approached.

  Hugs for Nanny and Chris, then he turned his sharp eyes toward me.

  “You must be Buck Reilly.”

  I stuck my hand out. I’d known other billionaires—hell, I was pretty damned sure Harry Greenbaum was one—and had once been worth tens of millions myself, so wealth didn’t intimidate me. But I usually came more prepared when meeting them.

  Chris ushered us up the beach to a private dining room where waiters stood at the ready. Champagne waited on ice, candles provided intimate circles of light in the otherwise dark space. Chris’s and Michael’s small talk about the resort business led to forward-looking assessments of how Jamaica might benefit from new laws legalizing marijuana in the U.S. I was just happy the conversation hadn’t focused on me.

  I caught Nanny watching me. She immediately looked away, then looked back a second later with a smile. We’d shared a connection during the ride, or so I thought. And just now in that moment I’d gotten a new look—an intimate look?

  “So, Buck,” Michael said. “Or do you still go by King Buck?”

  If I had a dollar for every time someone used that line on me, I’d be a billionaire too, but I let it go.

  “It’s just Buck these days.”

  “Consider yourself lucky your opponent was selected to dig in the mud and stabilize sunken structures,” Michael said.

  “Couldn’t agree more,” I said. “Are you interested in missing treasure, Michael?”

  He pressed his lips together. His eyes were jovial when chatting amongst friends, but he was always ready to pounce, that much I could see. You don’t become a billionaire by being passive.

  “I’m interested in fairness for the Jamaican people. Too many of our national treasures have been squandered by civil servants who may mean well or more likely may be trying to line their pockets—let’s call it ‘aggressive touristization.’ It may provide some immediate benefits, but if not done thoughtfully it will hurt this country for generations to come.”

  I nodded.

  “I know what you proposed in your application for the Port Royal farce,” he said. “It would have been good for Jamaica—but less so for you.” He paused and leaned closer. “Did you let your competitor outbid you?”

  A laugh tickled my lips. “Do you really think I’m that calculating, Michael?”

  “Given everything I’d heard about your past? Possibly.” He smiled. “It’s how I would have played it.”

  “Seems like our sealed bids must have been printed in the Jamaican Gleaner.”

  “Nanny and the colonel shared with you that our interest is for the Jamaican people—”

  “Not self-enrichment?”

  He smiled, and I immediately felt foolish.

  “Do you think I need the money?” he said back. “I’ve already provided millions to help the Jamaican people, but this is different. This is our history. Using treasure from those who brought our forefathers here for something positive would be unlike any subsidy—ever. Can you imagine the sensation? The pride? The catharsis?”

  Each of them stared at me intently. There was no sympathy on Nanny’s face, and it hit me that we were picking up where we’d
left off with Colonel Grandy—except the qualifications of the negotiators had elevated significantly.

  I puckered my lips and pressed them between my teeth. If this was poker, I didn’t even have a face card.

  “If there was more in-depth information on the Morgan legacy than what led to the Port Royal excavation,” Nanny said, “and if we were willing to share it with you—”

  “But for only a fraction,” Michael said.

  “I’m going to speak with the chef,” Chris said. He sauntered back toward the kitchen.

  “Since I have no idea what you’re talking about, or whether it would infringe on the permit already issued to Jack—that is, SCG International—”

  “It doesn’t infringe on what they’re doing,” Nanny said.

  “We can handle the government and Heritage people,” Michael said. “They will ultimately see the logic in this effort.”

  With my elbows on the table, I pressed my palms together and held them against my chin. Butterflies—hell, vampire bats—swirled in my stomach. Clearly they were convinced that whatever information they had was significant. But even with the aid of the intelligent and beautiful professor from the University of the West Indies, they hadn’t been able to piece it together. They needed me.

  “In all my years of working with governments, museums, or universities, we never accepted less than 25 percent for our efforts—”

  “Weren’t you listening to me?” Michael said.

  “I don’t even know what information you have.”

  “And you won’t.”

  A deep breath filled my lungs. I was rusty at this. Facing off against a world-class billionaire negotiator like Michael Portland was futile. Time to tack.

  “So what’s it worth to you?”

  “Only a small—”

  I held up a hand. “To have King Buck, as you called me, on your team, connecting shreds of clues to discover long-lost antiquities and who-knows-how-valuable treasure? As one of my favorite philosophers once said, ‘15 percent of nothing is nothing.’ Is that what you want, nothing?”

  A wave of cold sweat ran over my brow. Why did I have to use that quote? I’d just dropped myself to 15 percent—thanks, Jimmy.