Coy opened the door. Only one voyage will you make without cost, he remembered. The Berber was there, quiet and threatening, blocking his way. The secretary peered with curiosity from her desk, and in the background, on his chair, Kiskoros was cleaning his fingernails as if none of it had anything to do with him. After consulting his boss, questioning and silent, the Berber stepped aside. As Coy walked out the door, the treasure hunter's last words echoed in his ears.
"You still don't believe me, do you? Well, ask her about the emeralds on the Dei Gloria. Asshole."
ACCORDING to navigation manuals, the reckoning point was when all the instruments on board failed, and there was no sextant, moon, or stars, and you had to find the ship's position by using the last known position along with the compass, speed, and miles sailed. Dick Sand, the fifteen-year-old captain created by Jules Verne, had used that method to steer the schooner Pilgrim during the course of its troubled voyage from Auckland to Valparaiso. But the traitor Negoro had put a sliver of iron in the compass, throwing off the needle, and so young Dick, in the midst of furious storms, had sailed past Cape Horn without seeing it and had mistaken Tristan da Cunha for Easter Island, finally running aground on the coast of Angola when he thought he was in Bolivia. An error of that magnitude had no equal in the annals of the sea, and Jules Verne, Coy had decided when he read the book as a young seaman, didn't know the first thing about navigation. But the distant memory of that story came to mind now with all the force of a warning. Sailing blind, basing everything on reckoning, did not present grave problems if a pilot was able to fix a position from distance traveled, drift, and deviation, and apply that information to the chart to establish the supposed position. The problem only became serious as you approached landfall. Sometimes ships were lost at sea, but much more often ships and men were lost on land. You touched pencil to chart, said I am here, and in fact you were there, on a shoal, on reefs, on a lee shore, and suddenly you heard the crunch of the hull splitting open beneath your feet. And that was the end of it.
Of course, there was a traitor on board. She had put a bit of iron in the compass, and once again he found he had badly processed the information available to him. But what once had been less important, and even lent emotion to the game, now, in the uncertainty of approaching land, seemed disturbing. All the alarms in Coy's maritime instincts were blinking red as he walked along the wood quay of Marina Bay. There was a breeze blowing across the isthmus, ringing the halyards of the sailboats against the masts, a background to Tanger's calm voice. She was talking with incredible serenity about emeralds, as cool as if it were something they'd alluded to many times. She had listened to Coy's recriminations in silence, not responding to the sarcastic remarks he had prepared during the walk from Nino Palermo's office to the marina where she was awaiting his report. Later, after he had exhausted his arguments and was standing looking at her, furious, barely able to contain himself, demanding an explanation that would keep him from tying up his bedroll and cutting out that minute, Tanger had begun talking about emeralds as if that were the most natural thing in the world to do, as if for days she had only been waiting for Coy's question to tell him everything. He wondered whether everything was everything this time.
"Emeralds," she had said by way of introduction, thoughtfully, as if the word reminded her of something. She had fallen silent, contemplating the waters of that very color that filled the semicircle of Algeciras Bay. Then, before Coy started cursing for the third time, she began her disquisition on the most precious and most delicate of stones. The most fragile, and the one in which it was most difficult to find the desired attributes combined—color, clarity, brilliance, and size. She'd even had time to explain that, along with the diamond, sapphire, and ruby, the emerald was one of the basic precious stones, and that like the others it was crystallized mineral. But while the diamond was white, the sapphire blue, and the ruby red, the color of the emerald was a green so extraordinary and unique that in order to describe it you had to fall back on its own name.
Coy stopped walking after this peroration, and that was when he blasphemed the third time. A sailor's curse, short and direct, that took the name of the Lord in vain.
'And you," he added, "are a fucking liar."
Tanger stared at him, unblinking. She seemed to weigh those six words one by one. Her eyes were hard again, not like the fragile stone she had just described with such sangfroid, but like the dark stone, sharp as a dagger, that lies hidden beneath the breakers.
Then she turned toward the end of the quay where the mast of the Carpanta rose among others, the mainsail carefully furled on the boom. When she turned back to Coy, her eyes were different. The breeze blew tendrils of hair across her face.
"The brigantine was carrying emeralds from mines the Jesuits controlled in the Colombian beds at Muzo and Coscuez____________ They were sent from Cartagena de Indias to Havana, and then taken on board with all secrecy."
Coy stared at his feet, then the wood planks of the quay, and paced nervously. He stopped and stared at the sea. The bows of the boats anchored in the bay swung slowly into the breeze from the Atlantic. He shook his head, as if denying something. He was so dumbfounded that he kept refusing to admit his own stupidity.
"The emerald," Tanger continued, "has two weaknesses: its softness, which makes it vulnerable as it's cut, and inclusions— opaque areas, spots of uncrystallized carbon sometimes trapped in the stone, spoiling its beauty. That means, for example, that a one-carat stone is more valuable than a two-carat one if the first has better attributes."
Now she was talking smoothly, almost sweetly. The way you explain something complicated to a slow child. A military plane took off from the nearby airport, the sound of its engines thundering in the air. For a few seconds the noise drowned out Tanger's words.
"... for the faceted cut made by specialized jewelers. That way, a twenty-carat emerald with no inclusions is one of the most valuable and sought-after gems." She paused, then added, 'It can be worth a quarter of a million dollars."
Coy's eyes were still focused on the sea, above which the airplane was gaining altitude. At the other end of the bay rose the smoke of the Algeciras refinery.
"The Dei Gloria," said Tanger, "was transporting two hundred perfect emeralds, from twenty to thirty carats each."
A new pause. She moved to stand facing Coy and looked him straight in the eye.
"Uncut emeralds," she insisted. "Big as walnuts."
Coy could have sworn that her voice trembled slightly this once. Big as walnuts. It was only a fleeting impression, because when he focused on her, he found her as self-controlled as ever. She was indifferent to his accusations, free of the need to utter a single word of apology. It was her game and she made the rules. It had been that way from the beginning, and she knew that Coy knew. I will lie to you and deceive you. On that island of knights and knaves, no one had promised the game would be clean.
"That cargo"—she was emphatic—"was worth a king's ransom. Or, to be more exact, the ransom of the Spanish Jesuits. Padre Escobar wanted to buy the Conde de Aranda. Maybe the cabinet of the Pesquisa Secreta as well. Perhaps the king himself."
Almost despite himself, Coy realized that curiosity was replacing his anger. He blurted out the question.
'And they're down there? On the bottom?"
"They may be."
"How do you know?"
"I don't know. We have to dive to the brigantine to find out." We have to. That plural felt like salve on a wound, and Coy was aware of that.
"I was going to tell you once we were there_____________ Can't you understand?"
"No. I don't understand."
"Listen. You know the risks. With all those people around, I didn't know how you might react. I still don't know. You can't blame me."
"Nino Palermo knows. Every bloody soul seems to know." "You're exaggerating."
"Bullshit I'm exaggerating. I'm the last to know, like a husband." "Palermo thinks there are emeralds, but he doesn't k
now how many. And he doesn't have any description of them or know why they were on the brigantine. He's only heard rumors."
"Well, to me he sounded very well informed."
"Look. I have spent years with that ship on my mind, even before I confirmed that it existed. Nobody, not even Palermo, knows what I know about the Dei Gloria. Do you want me to tell you my story?"
I don't want you to tell me another string of lies, Coy was about to say. But he didn't say it, because he wanted to hear. He needed more pieces, new notes that would score with greater precision the strange melody she was humming in silence. And so, standing there on the quay with the breeze blowing at his back, he prepared to listen to Tanger Soto's story.
THERE was a letter, she said. A simple yellowed sheet with writing on both sides. It had been sent from one Jesuit to another, and then, forgotten by everyone, had lain in a pile of papers seized at the time the Society of Jesus was dissolved. The letter was written in code, and came with a transcription, done by an anonymous hand, possibly a functionary charged with examining the confiscated documents. Along with many other letters on various subjects and with similar transcriptions, it had spent two centuries at the bottom of an archive catalogued as "Clergy/Jesuits/Various n° 356." She had come across it by accident doing research at the national historical archive while writing a thesis on the Machinada of Guipuzcoa in 1766. The letter was signed by Padre Nicolas Escobar, a name that at the time meant nothing to her, and was addressed to another Jesuit, Padre Isidro Lopez.
Esteemed Padre:
Divested of support, defamed before the King and the Holy Father, and object of the odium of fanatical persons whom you, Esteemed Padre, know but too well, we are come very close to the conscientiously intrigued
Catastrophe being elaborated with such stealth. The Ecclesiastics themselves, who feel enmity toward the Society, have no aversion to acting as couriers and procurers of the calumnies that circulate with such impunity. As a result we are being forced to fall back upon our own resources by those who believe any act is licit in achieving (heir ends and in capturing the will not only of Our Sovereign, who is suspicious of us by reason of bad advice, but also our former friends.
Everything, Esteemed Padre, presages a coup against our Order, to be effected in the ominous manner of the crime in France and in the Portugal of the impious Pombal. By safe and most direct conduct Abbot G. has confirmed the list known to your most esteemed person, that of the individuals who are plotting the maneuver and (he manner in which they are working to execute it. But in that vast enterprise cloaked as a Secret Inquiry, there remains a tiny glimmer of hope. I write you the present missive, which will reach you by safe-conduct along our habitual route, for the purpose of urging you to endure as we carry out the undertaking that may influence in our favor the will of the most powerful.
In previous consultation with our superiors, and with regard to the proposition of which you are already apprised, I am preparing to voyage with the hope that—Ad Maiorem Dei Gloriam (with that name and that refuge I prepare to embark)—the wind will blow from an auspicious quarter. Two hundred arguments in the form of untouched flames of green fire, perfect and large as walnuts (the Devils irises, the good abbot calls them), await in Cartagena de Indias in the care of Padre Josi Luis Tolosa, who is a dependable young man and well to be trusted. I shall be in Havana, be it God's will, toward the end of the month; and in the same manner expect to return to Our Port as quickly as possible, and with as much stealth, and as directly, as the privileges of the Society afford, avoiding dangerous intermediary calls in port. Our admired don P.P. has promised the abbot to wait, and despite all that has happened, and even in the face of his new dispositions and ambitions, we may still consider him sympathetic, for what he may find of benefit in this enterprise is very great.
I shall add, E.P., the happy news that yesterday I learned through our esteemed abbot that some close friends privy to the circle of the deeply mourned Queen Mother have remained amicable toward us, as is the worthy V. and also H.—although this latter cannot be entirely trusted because of his bent for intrigue. As for the abbot, he continues in the favor of royal persons and is plying to our benefit the threads of the enterprise, and he tells us that don P.P. remains very receptive to what occupies our concern. Until my return, therefore, nothing but Tacere et Fidere. And trust that Divine Providence will prevail.
Accept, Esteemed Padre, respectful greetings from your brother in ' Christ
Nicolas Escobar Marchamalo, S.J. In the port of Valencia, November 1 A.D. 1766
Over time, Tanger had identified all the people mentioned in the letter. Queen Mother Isabel Farnesio, very favorable to the Society of Jesus, had died six months before. The recipient of the letter was Padre Isidro Lopez, the most influential of the Spanish Jesuits, who enjoyed an excellent position in the court of Charles III and would die in Bologna eighteen years after the dissolution of the Society, without being allowed to return from exile. As for the initials, they presented no difficulty for someone accustomed to working with historical sources: P.P. was Pedro Pablo Abarca, Conde de Aranda. Behind the initial H. was a thinly veiled Lorenzo Hermoso, born in the New World but now located in Spain, an intriguer and conspirator who was involved in Esquilache's uprising, and who after the fall of the Jesuits was taken prisoner and exiled, although the prosecutor asked for tanquam in cadavere, severe corporal punishment. The person designated as V. was Luis Velazquez de Velasco, Marques de Valdeflores, a man of learning and intimate of the Society, who would pay for that friendship with ten years in the prisons of Alicante and Alhucemas. And the initial G. alluded to Abbot Gandara, known in the court of Charles III as the Jesuits' principal supporter within the circle of the king, whom he accompanied as gun bearer in his hunting parties. His real name was Miguel de la Gandara, and his misfortune may have inspired The Count of Monte Cristo or The Iron Mask. Taken prisoner shortly before the fall of the Order, he lived in prison the remaining eighteen years of his life, and died in the dungeon of Pamplona without anyone ever having established a clear cause for his incarceration.
The story of Abbot Gandara had fascinated Tanger, to the point that she ended up writing her thesis on him. That led her to examine all the papers relating to his trials and imprisonment, which were kept in the Grace and Justice section of the national archive in Simancas. She even determined the name of the Jesuit ship referred to only in veiled fashion in the letter—the Dei Gloria. Through her research she had ascertained that Padre Nicolas Escobar's farewell to Padre Lopez, in which he mentioned Gandara, was written one day before the latter's arrest, effected on November 2, 1766, the same day Escobar sailed for America aboard the brigantine on which, during the return voyage, he would disappear at sea. Tanger's thesis was tided "Abbot Gandara, Conspirator and Victim," and earned high marks for her master's degree in history. It was filled with facts about the abbot's long years in prison, his interrogations and judicial trials, and his imprisonment in Batres and then Pamplona, where he was secluded until his death. No one ever provided a reason for the zealous cruelty Aranda and others of Charles's ministers reserved for him—except perhaps his friendship with the Society of Jesus, whose members, among them the recipient of the letter, were arrested five months after the abbot and exiled to Italy, their Order disbanded. As for Padre Escobar's voyage to Havana, and those two hundred flames of green fire to which he cryptically alluded, he never received an answer from Gandara, although some of the interrogations referred to the subject. The secret of the Dei Gloria died with him.
Afterward life followed its course, and Tanger had other matters to occupy her. The competitive examinations for the Museo Naval and her work consumed her attention, and new interests took the forefront in her life. Until Nino Palermo appeared one day. In searching through books and catalogues, the treasure hunter had happened upon a reference to a report in the maritime section in Cartagena, dated 8 February 1767, regarding the loss of the Dei Gloria in battle with a corsair. The index referred t
o documents that had been sent to the Museo Naval in Madrid, so Palermo had gone there seeking information, and chance had set Tanger in his path. She was the person assigned to respond to the Gibraltarian's inquiries. He had approached the subject in the way of his trade, camouflaged with false scents and a studied lack of interest in his real purpose. But in the middle of their conversation, she had heard the name Dei Gloria. A brigantine lost, said Palermo, en route from Havana to Cadiz. That triggered Tanger's recollections, forming specific connections among what had until then been loose ends. She had hidden her excitement, dissembling as much as she was able. Later, after getting rid of the treasure hunter with vague promises, she verified that the document that interested him had been sent some time earlier to the general maritime archive in Viso del Marques. The next day she was there, and in the section on Privateering and Prizes she found the name of the ship: "Account of the loss of the brigantine Dei Gloria, 4 February, 1767, in combat with the xebec corsair presumed to be the Chergui..." There was everything officially known about the sinking, along with the statement of the only survivor. It was the answer to the mystery, the denouement of the adventure whose beginnings she had glimpsed years before in the Jesuit's letter. There was the reason the brigantine never reached port, and why the abbot Gandara was interrogated until his death in prison. There was clarified the fate of the two hundred flames of green fire that were intended to convince the members of the cabinet of the Pesquisa Secrete, and maybe the king himself, not to annul the Ignatian order.
She was dazed and fascinated, but also furious. She had all this right before her eyes years ago, and hadn't seen it. She hadn't been ready. But unexpectedly, as when you find the key piece to a complex jigsaw puzzle, everything fell into place. She went back to her notebooks and her old research notes, adding the new information. Now the tragedy of Abbot Gandara—which not even the papal nuncio could explain to the Pope in correspondence—was clear. The abbot knew what the Dei Gloria was transporting. His proximity to the king, his presence at court, made him the appropriate intermediary for the ambitious bribery scheme the Jesuits were weaving; he was the person charged with negotiating with the Conde de Aranda. But someone had wanted to forestall the maneuver, or to make off with the booty for himself, and Gandara was arrested and interrogated. Then the corsair Chergui sailed onto the scene, either by accident or by plan, and everything ended badly for everyone concerned. The Jesuits were expelled, the ship was sunk under hazy circumstances, and Gandara was the key to the entire affair. Which was why the authorities had kept him under lock and key for eighteen years. Now the clues scattered among the records of the various trials took on meaning. Until his death they were trying to get him to reveal what he knew about the brigan-tine. But he had kept silent, carrying the secret to the tomb. He lifted a corner of the veil only once, in an intercepted letter written by him in 1778, eleven years after the events, to the missionary Jesuit Sebastian de Mendiburu, who was exiled in Italy: "They ask about the large and perfect Devils irises, orbs clear as my conscience. But I say nothing, and though I am the tortured one, it is that which in their ambition tortures them."
The Nautical Chart Page 23