by Matthew Rief
“When people try to kill me, Jane, my first instinct isn’t to call 9-1-1. I don’t sit tight and wait for help. Just not the way I am. I defend myself, and I defend those I care about. I use whatever means necessary. You know all this well enough, Jane. This isn’t the first time I’ve been caught up in trouble around here.”
“Got that damn right,” she said. She paused a moment, then added, “You guys alright?”
I nodded. “What have you found on the guys we took down?”
“We haven’t been able to identify them yet. But it’s only a matter of time. It’s clear that none of them were here legally.”
“What makes you think that?”
“No passports or IDs of any kind.”
“I recommend calling the ATCs over at the Key West and Miami airports. Those guys must have arrived recently. You might be able to figure out what plane they were on.”
“Who are they, Logan?”
I took in a deep breath and let it out.
“All I know is that they’re Albanian mafia,” I said. “And that they’re led by a woman named Valmira Gallani.”
“How do you know all this? What’s going on?”
“It’s a long story. They’re after an old friend of Pete’s, and they want a rare artifact that we’re looking for.”
She crossed her arms, looking out over the water.
“My job is to keep the people here safe, Logan. Can we expect any more confrontations with these guys?”
“Most likely,” I said. “But we’re the ones they’re after. And we can handle them. That is, if we haven’t scared them off already.”
She shrugged.
“Just trying to do my job. If you get any tips or feel the need to maybe ask for some help sometime, the arm of the law is here to do what it does best.”
“Thanks, Jane,” I said.
She paused, clenched her jaw, then turned around and disappeared down the dock. I headed down into the main cabin. Ange had already passed out, and I lay down beside her. Staring up through the hatch, I thought about the words engraved in the side of the chest, and about this Valmira Gallani. Soon my eyelids grew heavy, and I dozed off to the gentle rocking of the boat.
TWENTY-THREE
The next morning, after calling ahead to make sure that Frank was there, we drove over to the Florida Keys Community College located on the northern end of Stock Island. Ever since I’d first stepped foot on the campus a year earlier, I’d decided that if I’d ever gone to college, it would have been there. The white-washed buildings and freshly manicured lawns are located right on the water. It has an Olympic-sized pool, an impressive curriculum of dive programs, and a private beachfront for dropping beneath the waves for training just beyond the front door of the classrooms.
Frank Murchison was about as fitting for a community college professor as Stephen Hawking would be. Having taught for over twenty years at Harvard, he’d traded in the freezing white winters in Cambridge for the temperate white beaches of the Keys. “Traded deep pockets for sandy pockets,” as my good friend and the former sheriff of Key West, Charles Wilkes, used to say.
I’d first met Frank back in February, just after he’d finished up a lecture at Tennessee Williams Theatre. I’d been drawn to his passion, energy, and the smooth, articulate way in which he spoke. He was also one of the smartest guys I’d ever met. He’d been a great friend and asset during our various searches and endeavors throughout the Keys.
Frank could be found at Pete’s at least once a week when he was in town, though he was often off on various expeditions around the world. Fortunately, we’d caught him while he was home. There wouldn’t be a man in the Keys better suited for figuring out how to get into the chest than him.
Despite Walt’s protestations that he was fine, Pete had driven the stubborn treasure hunter over to the Lower Keys Medical Center to get his forearm taken care of. The hospital was right across the street from the college, so we’d told Pete we’d meet him there.
His red ’69 Camaro with black racing stripes was idling in the visitor lot when we arrived. Jack pulled his blue Wrangler into the space beside it, then we hopped out and greeted them.
“Looks like you got a new accessory, man,” Jack said, motioning toward the dark blue cast around his left forearm.
Walt laughed. “Yeah, I’ve got your driving to thank for it.”
“It’s a good thing we went in,” Pete said. “Doc Patel said it was one of the most impressive wrist fractures he’d ever seen. You guys should have seen the X-ray.”
Moving through the parking lot, we headed up onto one of the sidewalks leading toward the back of the campus. Frank’s office wasn’t in the same building as the other faculty offices. Instead, it was on the second floor of the Diving and Underwater Technology Building. He told us not to bother with knocking since he’d be working on a project when we got there, so we opened the door and shuffled inside.
His office was big, probably close to a thousand square feet. It consisted of two adjoining rooms filled with shelves of texts, tables with artifacts from around the world, and various archeological equipment. It was like Indiana Jones’s and Dirk Pitt’s offices combined.
Just as the door shut behind us, he called us from the adjoining room.
“Come on in,” he said in his smooth English accent, not even bothering to see who it was. “You guys make yourselves comfortable. I’ll be right out.”
Curious what had garnered his attention, I stepped through the propped open door. He was sitting on a roller stool, hunched over a fish tank and looking through a magnifying lens at a corroded artifact that was bubbling and slowly ridding itself of its black crust. He had alligator clips connecting the object, as well as a piece of steel that was also in the murky water, to a power source.
Frank was in his mid-fifties, with thinning dark hair and sun-tanned skin. He had a long, lean frame and wore a pair of brown slacks and a gray button-up shirt with rolled-up sleeves. He was also wearing a pair of black rubber gloves as well as an apron.
“Electrolysis,” I said, nodding my head toward his work.
It was the same technique I’d used while salvaging the remnants of the Valiant wreck in Florida Bay. It's simple and regarded as one of the best ways to clean metal that has been lost to the seas for years.
“Just cleaning a pistol a student of mine found while we were in Palau,” he said. “It was found near a sunken Japanese Zero. You recognize what kind it is, Logan?”
I stepped closer and leaned in. It was still covered in grime, but that didn’t matter. The design was distinct.
“It’s a Nambu,” I said.
The Nambu was the most popular sidearm used by the Japanese Army during World War II, similar to a German Luger in both appearance and function.
“I’d recommend adding some lime juice,” Walt said, looking over my shoulder. “It helps yield better results.”
Frank paused a moment and looked Walt up and down.
“You know, you look very familiar.”
“Walt Grissom,” he said, stepping toward the professor and extending a hand. “I used to motor around these islands with a rusty metal detector back in the seventies.”
Frank smiled.
“Your reputation precedes you. I’ve heard that you found more than just old bottle caps with that rusted metal detector.”
“I’ve had my share of luck, that’s for sure.”
Frank narrowed his gaze and looked over toward the blind-covered window, looking deep in thought.
“Mark Twain,” he finally said. “Yeah, I believe it was good old Sam Clemens himself that said, ‘The harder I work, the luckier I get.’”
Walt smiled and nodded.
Frank looked over at the rest of our group. Ange, Jack, and Pete were in the main room of his office. They were walking along the edges, looking at his many photographs and relics from around the world.
“I see you brought the whole gang today,” he said. He removed the gloves and apr
on and rolled back from the fish tank. “Well, I need to let this settle. What can I do for you?”
Walt and I exchanged glances. I turned back to Frank and was about to reply when he beat me to it.
“Well, I recognize that look, Logan,” he said. “And that means I’m officially intrigued.” His eyes rested on Ange, who’d stepped into the doorway. “Does this have anything to do with the box your beautiful wife is holding?”
We followed Frank into the main section of his office and sat around a small table. Ange set the box on the table, opened the flaps, and slowly lifted out the chest. Frank’s reaction was just as I’d hoped. His eyes grew wide at first, then narrowed with intense intrigue.
Ange set it in front of him, and he inspected it with the precision of a surgeon just before making the first cut.
“Where did you get this?” he asked, never letting his eyes drift from their careful scanning of every inch.
“It was buried at the downtown lighthouse site,” I said.
“That chest belonged to Alfred Hastings,” Pete said. The mention of the name got Frank’s full attention. “We believe it could be linked to his hiding of the Florentine Diamond.”
“Do you know the story?” Ange said.
He paused a moment, then nodded.
“Not very well. I just know that this Hastings character supposedly came into possession of the rare stone, hid it, then created a scavenger hunt of sorts that led to its whereabouts.” His lips contorted into a smile. “I was told, however, that it was only a legend. Pure fiction and nothing more.”
“We were too,” Pete said. “Until Walt helped us find the compass.”
Walt removed the golden compass from his pocket and handed it over to Frank.
“Extraordinary,” he said. “These words here—they seem to be some kind of riddle.” He paused a moment and looked up. “It led you to this chest, I assume?”
The five of us looked at each other and smiled. Frank was as sharp as they come. We’d sure come to the right guy.
“Right,” I said.
He set the compass on the table and turned his attention back to the chest. Rising to his feet, he stepped over to his desk and grabbed a magnifying glass from the top drawer. He leaned in close, examining the edges of the chest even closer.
“There are words here,” he said. We let him continue without saying anything. We wanted him to come to his own conclusions without regard to our own. “French here. Italian. German. And this last one’s Devanagari script.” He’d rotated the chest in a full 360, then paused a moment and stroked his chin. “Very interesting. And these dials here at the centers. Looks like they’re supposed to be lined up with the appropriate symbols.” He counted the symbols around each dial, then added, “Four dials. Twelve positions on each one.” He grabbed a calculator and punched in a few numbers. “That means there are over twenty thousand possible combinations. It would take a week to go through them all.”
“That is, if we can’t figure out what the words mean,” Pete said.
He nodded, examined the chest again, then looked off into space. After a few seconds, he smiled.
“It’s a timeline,” he whispered in a tone that was just barely loud enough for us to hear.
“A timeline?” Pete said.
Frank nodded. I could see that his mind was hard at work. The silence in the room seemed to drag on forever, the suspense growing with every passing second.
“In order to understand this chest,” he said finally, “we need to understand the history of the diamond.” He grinned and shook his head. “This guy Hastings was smart, that much is clear.”
“What do you mean, we need to understand the history of the diamond?” Ange said.
Frank cleared his throat.
“Each of these languages corresponds to a point in the diamond’s history,” he said. “Beginning with Devanagari, the written script for Hindi which is the official language of India. My knowledge of the Florentine Diamond is minimal. But I do know that it is believed to have been originally found in India. You see, India was the source of almost all diamonds of the ancient world. In fact, until the 1700s, the only diamond mines in the world were located in India.”
Without a word, he stepped off into one of the adjoining rooms and came back moments later carrying a stack of old textbooks. Setting them on the table, he also grabbed his laptop and brought up an online search engine.
“From there,” he continued, “I believe the diamond fell into the hands of Charles the Bold, the Duke of Burgundy. He liked to wear his most precious jewels into battle. And during the battle of”—he paused a moment, grabbed his laptop, and performed a quick search, reading and nodding—“the Battle of Nancy in 1477, he was struck down by the Swiss, and the diamond was lost on the battlefield.”
He continued reading, then performed a few more quick searches.
“From there, the diamond’s history is unknown until the early 1600s, when the Medici family came into possession of it.”
“Italian,” Ange said.
“Right,” Frank replied, spinning the chest around to reveal the side with the Italian text. “And the famous family of Florence owned the diamond until their line came to an end in 1743. At which time it fell into the hands of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Francis I.”
“Wait a second,” Ange said. “Wasn’t his wife Maria Theresa?”
Frank smiled. “You certainly know your European history. That’s correct.” He grabbed one of the textbooks, leafed through to a page, then set it open on the table in front of us. There was a picture of a woman at the top of the page. She had a pale face, rosy red cheeks, and wore an elegant dress along with an impressive tiara.
“This is Maria Theresa,” Frank said. “A woman who held many titles, including that of Holy Roman Empress. She was also the mother of Marie Antoinette.”
“And what did she do with the diamond?” Walt asked.
“The diamond was put on display in Hofburg Palace, in Vienna. And from there the trail runs cold. Some believe that the diamond was smuggled to Switzerland at the onset of World War I and then sold. Some believe it was sold before that and taken to South America. Others claim that it was cut down and sold off in secret.” He took in a deep breath and let it out. “But it’s all speculation. No one knows for sure. All we know is that the largest yellow diamond ever discovered disappeared in the early 1900s and that it hasn’t been seen since.”
Frank leaned back into his chair and smiled. The man had such a passion and enthusiasm for history that it was always an experience to watch him in action.
“So how does the history tie in?” I said. “How can we use the words and the symbols to open the chest?”
Frank nodded and spun the chest around so that the Hindi side was facing him.
“Well, let’s start with the beginning,” he said. “My Hindi is far from perfect, but I can verify with a translating program just to be sure.” He examined the text carefully with the magnifying glass and read the words aloud. “From mud and water. Blood, sweat, and tears. The grand nativity of the stone.”
We fell silent for a moment, thinking over the words.
“So, what does that all mean?” Pete said.
Frank read it a few more times, then wrote it down on a notepad. I leaned in close and looked over the side of the chest. Above the text was the dial along with twelve distinct symbols. I recognized a few of them, including a trident, a six-pointed star, and even a swastika.
“They’re Hindu symbols,” Frank said. “They each represent something different. For example, the swastika. Now generally regarded as evil, the symbol wasn’t created by Hitler and the Nazi party. No, the symbol dates back thousands of years. To the Hindus, it represents happiness and good fortune.”
“More than a little ironic,” Jack said.
Frank nodded and continued, going over each of the symbols. When he got to one that looked like a flower, he paused.
“Wait,” he said. “That’s it! The lo
tus flower.” He grabbed his laptop, punched a few keys, then smiled. “The lotus flower emerges from a dirty flower, blossoming pure and unblemished. It represents strength, purity, and resurrection.”
“The nativity,” Ange said.
That caused something to click in my mind.
“The birth,” I said. Turning to Frank, I added, “You said the diamond originated in India.”
“And going from a dirty flower to a pure, unblemished flower sounds an awful lot like how a diamond is formed from coal,” Frank said with a smile. “I think we have the first key to this fascinating lock.”
He grabbed the dial, spun it slowly until the arrow pointed at the image of the lotus flower.
“Only three more to go,” Jack said with a smile.
Frank spun the chest, revealing the French side. Ange had already been able to translate it the previous day, so she said the words aloud, then wrote them down on the notepad.
“I couldn’t talk. I couldn’t walk. Life had only just begun.”
Frank examined the symbols around the dial.
“We thought they looked like family crests,” I said.
Frank nodded.
“That’s exactly what they are,” he said. “Coats of arms. Trademarks of the medieval rich and powerful.”
“What do you make of the riddle?” Walt said.
Frank paused a moment, then said, “Well, since it was Charles the Bold who had the diamond at this time, we can infer that Hastings was referring to him. Sounds like it’s talking about his first few years of life.”
We fell silent as we looked over the family crests. Frank went to work, searching to find matching crests online.
“So, this guy was born into royalty or something?” Walt said.
“One of the richest families in the world at the time,” Frank answered, not looking up from the computer.
“So, I’m guessing a kid like that would’ve had a title at birth, right?” Walt continued.
“Undoubtedly.”
“Before he could walk,” Walt said slowly. “Before he could talk.”
We all stopped and turned our gazes to him. It’s like when you’re looking for something, and someone tells you where it is. It makes you wonder how you’d manage to miss it all along.