by Ted Bell
“Well, good,” Congreve said finally, and opened the file. “You see, Ross, I suspect that the contents in this file and the map in that box are connected in some way.”
“A three-hundred-year-old map and a thirty-year-old murder case? Connected?”
“Yes, I rather think they are.”
He pushed the file across the table toward Sutherland.
“You’re free to read it in its entirety after we’re done here. You will see that the murders took place aboard a yacht moored in these very waters.”
“And the victims?”
“The mother and father of Alexander Hawke.”
“Good Lord,” Ross said, taking a deep breath. “Any witnesses?”
“Just one. A seven-year-old boy. Alex Hawke himself.”
Well after midnight, Congreve and Sutherland were still in the ship’s library.
Three meals had been brought in, served, and removed. The desk and two tables were piled with books, folios, maps, and satellite photographs of the region. Ross had ordered the sat photos printed on the bridge that morning and delivered down to the library.
Ross had also scanned the pirate’s crude drawing of the island into his computer, enhanced it, and had it blown up. It was now taped to the wall above Hawke’s desk. The sat photos, too, were taped to the wall, surrounding the computer’s version of the pirate’s drawing.
He had been on his feet for hours, poring over the photos with a magnifying glass, comparing them to the three-hundred-year-old drawing. So far, he’d seen nothing in the Exuma chain of islands that remotely resembled the island in the drawing. He was exhausted, but determined not to give up until he’d cracked it, a trait that had stood him in good stead at New Scotland Yard.
Congreve, meanwhile, had pulled up a chair next to the gas fire that was lit in the small fireplace. The cold front he’d seen on the satellite that morning had moved down through the Bahamas to the Exumas. The fresh salty breeze now flowing through the open portholes was actually chilly. Most refreshing, he thought. A welcome respite from the brutal heat he’d experienced since his arrival.
He was puffing contentedly on his old brier pipe, working his way through the voluminous notes relating to the search for the treasure. He was also combing a small stack of ancient and crumbling leather-bound ship’s logs and histories of the Caribbean. Occasionally, he would emit an “a-ha” or a “well, well, well,” but, to Sutherland’s frustration, he never elaborated on the source of these exclamations.
“Do you fancy some tea, Ross?” he asked as the ship’s clock on the mantelpiece struck one.
“Yes, please.”
Congreve pressed the button on the remote that summoned the steward and said “A-ha,” for perhaps the tenth time since supper. Ross sighed, put down the glass, and collapsed in the chair opposite Congreve.
“A-ha what exactly?” he asked.
“I am referring to this Spanish corsair that Blackhawke mentioned in his final message to his wife. This Andrés Manso de Herreras’ specifically,” Congreve said. “I was beginning to doubt his existence, but here he is all right. He’s mentioned by name in this ship’s log. Penned by a contemporary of de Herreras. A Captain Manolo Caracol who was then sailing for the Spanish crown.”
“A-ha,” Ross said, peering excitedly at the ancient book written in a fine Spanish hand. “Well, that’s quite good progress, isn’t it, Chief? And what does it say exactly?”
“Well, according to Manolo Caracol’s log, this fellow de Herreras wreaked a good deal of havoc in these waters. He was a Spanish privateer, born in Seville, who lurked about in the Windward Passage. His specialty was intercepting his colleagues, those headed for Spain loaded to the gunwales with gold. He’d relieve them of their cargo, slit a lot of throats, set them afire, and send them to the bottom.”
“Testy bloke,” Ross allowed, feeling some excitement for the first time that evening. “Suddenly, Captain Blackhawke’s letter appears to be more than the rum-sodden ramblings of a condemned man. The thing actually smacks of authenticity now, wouldn’t you agree?”
“Yes. Hmm. Let me quote this chap Caracol:
“On the seventh of September of this year of our Lord, 1705, the villainous Manso de Herreras sailed from Havana Bay, embarking on a voyage to the Isle of Brittania. I witnessed this myself. My bosun and I stood on our foredeck and watched his departure in wonder. The sun struck gold on his stern. It was a sign. His barque, the Santa Clara, was so full of gold, she was nearly foundering at the harbor mouth.”
Congreve paused and puffed thoughtfully on his pipe.
“Is that it?” Ross asked. “Read on, read on!”
“Yes, of course,” Congreve replied. “I was just thinking that if de Herreras was bound for England, why then would he—at any rate Caracol continues:
“My bosun, Angeles Ortiz, said de Herreras was bound for London Town, where he planned to deposit the vast quantities of his ill-gotten gold in the Bank of England. Still, we were glad of seeing his stern lights and all our ship’s officers raised a tumbler at table that night in hopes that we’d seen the last of him.”
“But,” said Sutherland, “according to Blackhawke’s document here, Manso de Herreras never made it to England. He was done unto as he had done unto others apparently.”
“Precisely.”
“And Blackhawke’s letter to his wife indicates he captured the de Herreras flagship and buried the plunder on something called Dog’s Island.”
“I’m not so sure of that,” Congreve said, rubbing his chin. “I was just thinking that, in his letter, Blackhawke claims to have encountered de Herreras’s Santa Clara off the island of Hispaniola, am I right?”
“Yes,” Sutherland said, sipping the tea the steward had brought in. “That’s right. And if the Spaniard was bound from Havana for England, fully loaded, his fastest route would be to head straight for the Straits of Florida. Or take the safer route through the Windward Passage. So, what was he doing down off Hispaniola?”
“According to the letter, it was September,” Congreve said, taking a sip of tea.
“Hurricane season.”
“Hmm. The Spanish ship could easily have been blown off course and ended up down there. And Blackhawke only encountered him by sheer luck.”
“And,” Sutherland said, “once Blackhawke had claimed this prize, he would be carrying an enormous amount of booty around with him. One would think he’d want to get it ashore and buried as quickly as possible.”
“Exactly my thinking, Sutherland,” Congreve said, rising from his chair and going to one of the maps taped above the desktop. He stood there with his back to Sutherland, small puffs of white smoke rising above his head like Indian smoke signals. He seemed to stand there for hours, puffing away, hmm-ing and a-ha-ing till Ross could stand it no longer.
“Find anything?” Sutherland asked his colleague’s back.
“Perhaps,” Congreve said. “Do you play much golf, Ross?”
“Golf?” Sutherland was dumbstruck. He knew his boss at the Yard hated any physical activity. Still, he was a fanatic about the sport of golf. Ross couldn’t imagine a less appropriate time to discuss it. “Complete duffer, but I do enjoy an occasional round, Chief.”
“Pity. Marvelous old game. I myself am somewhat obsessed with it, I’m afraid. Having never managed a hole in one at my age often keeps me awake at night. I dream about ... never mind. Come over here a second, will you?”
Sutherland went to stand beside Congreve. The chief was standing before the oversized printout of what historically had been the island of Hispaniola. Now, of course, the western end of the island was called Haiti. The eastern and much larger portion was the Dominican Republic.
“Alex, naturally enough, has been looking for a small island,” Congreve said, staring at the image on the wall. He had a small laser pointer in his hand.
“Yes, well, Dog Island would certainly lead one in that direction.”
“But I have a hunch we should be looking
for a big island. This very one, in fact,” Congreve said, and the red pinpoint of light moved across the map. “Here, to be exact. This bit of coastline on the island of Hispaniola.”
“But Blackhawke called it Dog’s Island,” Sutherland said. “Wouldn’t he have called it by its name at the time? Hispaniola?”
“One would assume,” Congreve said. “But look. A careful reading of the passage has him saying ‘that Dog’s island’ and referring to its teeth as being ‘sharp enough to rip you to bits’ if you try to get ashore. He even gives his wife a stern warning. Cave canem!”
“Sorry, my Latin’s a little rusty.”
“Beware of the dog,” Congreve said. “I wonder if the ‘dog’s teeth’ might not be the vicious outcroppings of jagged coral along this coast. Sharp enough to rip the bottom out of any boat attempting to land there.”
Pointing his finger at the southeastern tip of the Dominican Republic, Congreve said, “I’m talking about this bit of coastline here, Ross. There’s a town here called La Romana. It’s a sugar town. Thousands of acres of sugar cane. A huge refinery. Some thirty thousand employees in the fields. All owned by one family, the Hillo family.”
“I’ve heard of them, certainly, but what does all this—”
“Please. Patience,” Congreve said. “Two brothers control this vast sugar empire. The world’s largest, in fact. Pepe and Paquiero Hillo. Both world-class sportsmen. Polo, hunting, and game fishing. And, of course, golf.”
“Golf.”
“Yes, golf. And here, just east of La Romana, they built one of the most famous golf courses in the world. It takes its name from the name the ancients gave to the rocks that line this treacherous stretch of coastline.”
Congreve turned to Sutherland and smiled, raising his teacup to the bewildered man standing beside him.
“They named their golf course Dientes de Perro,” Congreve said.
“Which means?”
“Which means, my dear Inspector Sutherland, the Teeth of the Dog.”
He picked up a black marker and put a large X on the Hillos’ golf course.
“By God, I think you’re on to something,” Sutherland said with a broad smile.
“Might be,” Congreve said, puffing away, his blue eyes alight with satisfaction. “Just might be.”
20
Stokely Jones was waiting for Hawke just outside customs. Stoke, a former NYPD cop, had been with him ever since Hawke’s kidnapping five years ago. Gangsters from New Jersey had carjacked Hawke’s Bentley at a stoplight on Park Avenue, shot his chauffeur, and abducted Alex at gunpoint. Stoke had climbed six flights of burning stairs to rescue Hawke from where the kidnappers had left him to die. The top floor of an abandoned warehouse, a blazing inferno in the Greenpoint section of Brooklyn.
Thanks largely to Stoke’s determined police work, Hawke’s two kidnappers went off to spend life sentences in a maximum security New Jersey charm school, and the ten million in ransom was recovered from a motel room in Trenton.
Stoke was standing there, a huge grin on his broad face, holding up a sign that said “Dr. Brown.” It was their code at airports and hotels. “Dr. Brown” meant no immediate security issues.
“Dr. Brown has come to town!” Hawke said, dropping his small duffel bag and flinging an arm around the man’s massive shoulders. To say that Stoke was about the size of your average armoire would be an understatement.
Stoke had managed to have a fairly checkered career in his young life. A judge in the South Bronx had given him two choices. The slam on Riker’s Island or the U.S. Navy.
Stokely Jones had joined the latter, eventually winding up in San Diego at the Navy SEAL Training Center. Out on Santa Catalina, where the SEAL teams practiced using their munitions, he discovered a love of jumping out of airplanes, swimming huge distances underwater, and blowing things up. He became an expert in underwater demolition and search-and-seizure operations.
Stoke ended up as the legendary leader of the legendary SEAL Team Six. Six was the most elite and deadly of the SEAL teams, a top-secret counterterrorist unit founded by another Navy legend, the baddest of the bad, Richard Marcinko.
Needless to say, when Stoke left the Navy and joined the NYPD, he was one of the toughest rookies ever to walk a beat. He was still massive, and still took exceedingly good care of himself. He worked for Hawke, but in his heart, he was and always would be a Navy man.
“My man,” Stoke said, “look at you! Got yourself a tan! Why, you brown as a berry! What you been doin’ down in them islands?”
“Let’s just say that in the course of my current assignment, I was able to catch the occasional ray,” Hawke said, laughing. He picked up his bag and followed Stoke through the revolving doors.
“Well, get ready for changes in latitude, bossman,” Stoke said over his shoulder, “ ’cause you ’bout to freeze your skinny white ass off!”
He knew it might be a bit cool, still the sting of icy air took his breath away. December in Washington was usually just wet and chilly, but this was seriously cold weather. Under his flight suit, which had burned up in the fire, he’d been wearing nothing but khaki shorts, a Royal Navy T-shirt, and flip-flops. Mistake.
Flip-flops weren’t all that ideal for icy puddle-hopping, Hawke discovered following Stoke through the maze of snow-laden cars in the parking lot.
“So. Tell me. How was your flight, boss?”
“A little unexpected turbulence on the first leg. I’ll tell you all about it later.”
“So we going straight to the State Department,” Stoke said. “Conch called on the car phone and said it was urgent. Said bring your ass over there as soon as humanly possible.”
Stoke unlocked the doors to the beat-up black Hummer and climbed behind the wheel. For a Hummer, the car was deliberately unassuming. The fact that there was a turbocharged four-hundred-horsepower engine up front and that the entire body of the car was armor-plated was hidden by a disguise of dust and dents. The banged-up Virginia vanity plates on the Hummer read:
HUM THIS
Hawke opened the passenger side door and climbed in. He was hugging himself, shaking with cold. “Right, then. State Department,” he said, his words forming puffy white clouds of vapor that hung before his face. “And step on it.”
“You got it,” Stokely said, downshifting and roaring out of the parking lot.
“Any danger of getting some heat in here, Stoke?”
“Chill a minute, brother,” Stoke said.
“Oh, I am, I am chilling. I can assure you that much,” Hawke said, his teeth literally chattering.
“Hell happened to your arm?” Stoke asked, noticing the bandage.
“I cut myself shaving,” Hawke said, and Stokely just looked at him. Man said some crazy shit sometimes. Funny, but crazy.
“Good old Foggy Bottom, coming up,” Stoke said, stepping on the gas.
“Well,” Hawke said, settling back in his seat now that a blast of hot air was coming up from under the dashboard. “You look chipper, Stoke. Fine fettle, I must say.”
“Hell does that mean, ‘fine fettle’?”
“It means you look fit, Stoke, that’s all. In good form. Are the decorators all out of the new house?”
“Yeah, they out. None too soon for me, I’m telling you something. I ain’t had lots of experience with no decorators, but what I just had is plenty. Kinda shit we talk about at lunch? You ever heard of cerulean blue, boss? Me, either. But it’s serious blue. Nothing candy-ass like robin’s egg blue, you understand. Cerulean blue is darker, more like cobalt when it’s done. Anyway, that’s your bedroom.”
“Cerulean.”
“That’s it, boss. But this is one prime piece of real estate you got now. Man, wait till you see it. I still haven’t figured out all the security shit.”
“That’s reassuring. You being chief of security and all that.”
“No, man, I got most of it down. But this is some major high-tech shit you got goin’ on now. Hell, we got so many TV
monitors ’round that house, our monitors has monitors! Know how they call the house The Oaks?”
“That’s been its name for two hundred years.”
“Well, my thought is we oughta change it. We oughta call it The Monitors. Got a hell of a lot more monitors than we got oaks.”
“It’s a thought.”
“So. Whassup? We chillin’ ’round here tonight or you flyin’ back to the Bahamas or wherever?”
“Spending tonight here,” Hawke said. “First night in the new house. I hope Pelham has seen to the flowers. Vicky will probably be—joining me there tonight.”
“Vicky? You still messin’ with that chick? Man, you are something else.”
“In what sense?” Hawke asked as Stoke turned into the underground garage. At the security booth, the guard leaned into the car, saw Hawke holding up his pass, and, smiling, waved them in.
“In the sense that you don’t ever understand nothing about women.” Stoke pulled the Hummer into a space and shut it down. “For instance, you got a perfectly good woman upstairs waiting for you, totally in love with your ass. Now, you chasing around with Vicky.”
“So?”
“I don’t know. What’s going on with Conch?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, well, maybe you still working in there, too, is all I’m saying.”
“I’d never do that, Stoke,” Hawke said, reaching for the door handle. “It wouldn’t be chivalrous.”
“Chivalrous? Oh, yeah. I forgot. Wouldn’t be chivalrous.”
“Are you coming in?”
“No, I ain’t coming in that building. That place spooks me. All them chivalrous white people running around wearing them little polka-dot bow ties and shit. Place is spooky.”
“Matter of fact, I’m meeting a couple of spooks. That’s why I’m here,” Hawke said, smiling at Stokely. “I’ll be about an hour, if you want to go get yourself something to eat.”