by Dave Gerard
“We don’t have the contract.”
I looked confused. “Yeah. But Riker can testify about it. At least he can prove it existed. Right?”
“How?” said Remington. “It’s hearsay.”
Hearsay is secondhand information. Something that you hear from someone else. You can’t use hearsay to prove things in court. It’s too unreliable. People would make up all kinds of things and try to pass them off as the truth. Because Riker hadn’t seen or heard anything directly, his testimony would be hearsay and inadmissible in court.
“Even if it wasn’t hearsay, I doubt Riker would volunteer to testify,” Remington added. “And good luck subpoenaing him from across the Atlantic.” I opened my mouth to argue with this but couldn’t think of anything to say.
“Finally,” concluded Remington, “we don’t even know what the contract says. If there is one. The finder’s fee could be one percent. It could be fifty percent. Or it could be nothing. We don’t know the terms, and we don’t know who signed it. In short, a hearsay statement about a contract that we don’t have, that we’re not sure even exists, isn’t going to cut it.”
We all looked down, pondering these seemingly intractable problems. “Do you believe Riker?” I asked Remington eventually. “Do you think there was a contract?”
“Yes.”
Cindy looked surprised. “Why? Riker doesn’t seem like the most trustworthy character. He may have just told us what we wanted to hear to get fifteen grand.”
Remington nodded. “Maybe. But I’ve been wondering what David Marcum was doing mixed up with these guys. This explanation makes sense. And I’ll tell you this: if there’s a contract, I guarantee it was in writing, and Marcum kept a copy of it somewhere.”
“What? How do you know that?”
“Think about it,” he explained. “Everything we know about David Marcum suggests he’s a smart cookie. He covers his tracks. He found, who the hell knows how, a five-hundred-year-old treasure, which has eluded the most experienced, well-informed treasure hunters for centuries. Even if Marcum trusts this Gunthum character, what are the odds that he gives out the location of the Flor de la Mar without a written contract to back it up?”
I sat back. “The odds are not good.”
“So where is the contract?” Cindy interjected. “Shouldn’t Rockweiller have given it to us in discovery?”
“They may be hiding it or withholding it in some clever scheme. But my guess is if there was a contract, only Gunthum had it. And he may not have given it to his bosses, or even told them about it at all.”
We thought about that for a while. “Then we need to figure out where David Marcum would have kept the contract,” I said. “But how?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do we do now?” Cindy asked.
“Three things,” said Remington, ticking them off on his fingers. “First, we need to figure out some way around this Odyssey Marine ruling in Florida. If we don’t do that, Marcum is never going to get his piece of the Flor de la Mar, whether there’s a contract or no. Second, we need to find this contract, if it exists. And finally, we need to figure out how the hell David Marcum found the Flor de la Mar.”
We all nodded thoughtfully as we considered the scope of these tasks.
Then, for some reason, I started to grin. “Is that it?” I asked Remington. He looked surprised, but then caught my attitude and grinned back at me. “All we have to do is find a way around the law, and beat out one of the biggest oil companies on the planet? Not to mention a sovereign nation of like, what, twenty million people?”
“Ten million!” Cindy interjected.
I scoffed. “Only ten? Piece of cake.”
My energy was infectious, and pretty soon everyone else was grinning too. I could feel a fierce energy building around the table. We were going to do this, I thought. We were going to go for it.
“And don’t forget,” added Harder, “we also have to figure out how David Marcum solved one of the greatest mysteries of all time.”
“Pshhaw!” said Kruckemeyer with a flamboyant wave of his hand. “No problem. Like taking Mongolian barbeque from a baby. Right, Jack?”
I laughed. “Exactly right!”
“A walk in the park,” said Harder with bravado.
“And if we can do of all that?” said Cindy. “Then what?”
“If we can do all of that,” Remington answered, “then we’ve got a snowball’s chance of hell at claiming David Marcum’s share of the Flor de la Mar.”
Over the next few weeks, we scrambled madly to answer Remington’s questions. Cindy, Harder, and I pulled every Florida case for the last twenty years that had anything to do with shipwrecks. We pored over them, hoping to find some exception to the Eleventh Circuit’s ruling in Odyssey Marine. We read every treatise about maritime law we could lay our hands on, determined to find something that would help. The rancor between Harder and me was gone now, and we worked together for the good of the case.
We also scoured the rules for procedural tactics. In the famous Pennzoil v. Texaco case, Joe Jamail’s team had exploited a loophole to get the case out of Delaware, where they were sure to lose, and into Texas, where they eventually went on to win the biggest judgment of all time. To do that, they used an obscure procedural rule that allowed them to withdraw the lawsuit if the other side hadn’t filed an answer, which is a routine pleading in a case. Texaco had neglected to file an answer in the rush of the litigation. So Jamail was able to yank the suit and re-file it in Texas. But I wasn’t as brilliant as Jamail’s brain trust, and I couldn’t think of anything.
While we did all that, Ashley and I racked our brains trying to think where David Marcum might have kept the contract. The obvious answer was that he’d saved a copy in his email, or on his phone or computer. But we couldn’t get access to those. And anyway, I doubted Marcum would put his faith in servers that could get hacked. Nor did I think he would leave a copy with a lawyer, like I might have. I suspected he would have used a more old-school method.
My most brilliant idea was to check Marcum’s old room at the Aqua Ray dive resort with a magnetometer. We called Trevor Thompson and asked him to do it. I thought Marcum might have hidden more gold coins there, and maybe the contract as well. Thompson was happy to help. He rustled up Jared Diamond and they went in there while we stayed on the phone. I heard some shouting as Thompson evicted the occupant of the room, who sounded like a middle-aged white guy. The guy asked what the hell Thompson was doing in his room at 7:30 in the morning, and Thompson roared back that this was a dive shop and not a bed-and-breakfast, and that he ought to be out diving anyway instead of eating a ham soufflé. Another five-star review, no doubt. But although Thompson and Diamond searched every inch of the room, they found nothing.
Finally, we still had no idea how Marcum had located the Flor de la Mar in the first place. That was when I decided to study up on the matter.
TWENTY-ONE
I spread out a set of dusty old tomes in the firm library. No one used the library anymore now that legal research was online. The place was an anachronism. But it was quiet and spacious, and I liked to work there sometimes. The only inhabitant was Lyle, who waved at me as I walked in, and then silently returned to his work.
To figure out how David Marcum had found the Flor de la Mar, I resolved to learn everything I could about the ship myself. But real information about the wreck proved scarce. Online, I found little more than bits and pieces cobbled together in random articles and web pages. Some of it was consistent, and some of it was not.
To sort out truth from fiction, I turned to the source material. I had Lyle track down a copy of the Commentaries of the Great Afonso Dalboquerque, Second Viceroy of India. The Commentaries were Albuquerque’s firsthand account of his exploits in Asia and the Orient, published in 1576 by his son, Braz. They were taken from Albuquerque’s own letters
and dispatches to King Don Manuel of Portugal. In them, Albuquerque described the capture of Malacca and the sinking of the Flor de la Mar. The Commentaries were the primary source for much of what was known about the ship, and Schnizzel had recommended I start there.
The following facts were known: Albuquerque had set sail on the Flor de la Mar in late 1511. With him were three other ships: the Trinidad, the Enxobregas, and an unnamed junk, a type of Chinese vessel. A few days into the voyage, on the night of November 20, a terrible typhoon struck the fleet. The ships made for the coast, hoping to find safe harbor. But the Flor de la Mar struck some dangerous underwater shoals and foundered. Her hull split in two, and she sank to the bottom. Albuquerque wrote of the sinking:
…the Pilots of Afonso Dalboquerque’s ship not being on their guard concerning certain shallows which were situated off that part of the coast of Çamatra, just opposite to the kingdom of Darú, ran the ship Flor-de-la-Mar ashore upon them in the night, and the vessel, being by this time very old, broke up into two parts directly she struck. . . .
Afonso Dalboquerque gave the order that a raft should be prepared with boards placed upon some timbers, and he got upon it, clad in a grey jacket, and lashed to the raft with a rope, lest the waves should sweep him off, and two mariners with him, who with oars improvised out of some pieces of boards, rowed the raft: and so in this plight, and by these means, and also by help of ropes which by Pero Dalpoem’s orders were thrown out, tied to buckets, with infinite difficulty he reached the ship Trindade.
The men who were left in the wreck of the Flor-de-la-Mar, seeing themselves already come to the last day of their lives, began with loud cries and complaints to shout after Afonso Dalboquerque, who was making way on the raft, and he, touched with profound pity at the sight of them in this sad state of misery, told them not to be alarmed, but to put all their trust in our Lord, for he would promise them that he would not desert them, even if he ventured to lose his own life and the other ship and all her company in saving them; and he desired them, in the meantime, to construct another raft, for he would come back without delay for them.3
Albuquerque never came back for the crew. Whether he was unable or unwilling, I couldn’t say. The ship Enxobregas went down with the Flor de la Mar. As for the junk, the Javanese natives aboard mutinied and killed the Portuguese. The junk then sailed off to sea, never to be seen again.
The Flor de la Mar carried eighty tons of intricately worked golden objects taken from Malacca. These included gilded birds and animals, furniture, ingots, and coins worth millions upon millions of crowns. The ship also carried more than two hundred chests full of diamonds, emeralds, sapphires, rubies, pearls, and every kind of precious stone. Sadly, the Flor de la Mar had carried human cargo as well. As Albuquerque wrote:
In this ship, Flor-de-la-mar, and in the junk which mutinied against us, there were lost the richest spoils that ever were seen since India had been discovered until that moment; and besides this, many women who were greatly skilled workers in embroidery, and many young girls and youths of noble family from all those countries which extend from the Cape of Comorim to the eastward, whom Afonso Dalboquerque was carrying to the Queen D. Maria. They lost the castles of woodwork, ornamented with brocades, which the King of Malaca used to carry upon his elephants, and very rich palanquins for his personal use, all plated with gold, a marvellous thing to behold, and great store of jewellery of good and precious stones which he was carrying with him in order to send it as a present to the King D . Manuel. And they lost a table with its feet all overlaid with plates of gold, which Milrrhao presented to Afonso Dalboquerque for the king, when the lands of Goa were delivered up to him . . . . nothing was saved except the sword and crown of gold, and the ruby ring which the king of Sião sent to the King D. Manuel; but that which Afonso Dalboquerque grieved for most of all in this loss was the bracelet which had been found upon Naodabegea , for he brought it with great estimation in order to send it to the king, because the efficacy of it was so very admirable. So also he felt very much the loss of the lions, which he brought because they were found on certain ancient sepulchres of the kings of Malaca, and he took them with the intention of placing them on his own tomb in Goa as a memorial of the achievement of taking Malaca; and, of all the spoils which were then taken, he reserved only these two things ( the bracelet and lions ) for himself, for as they were of iron they were [ not ] of great value.
All of this was widely agreed upon. Where things started to get hazy was where the Flor de la Mar sank. All of the sources said that it went down in the Strait of Malacca. But just where in the Strait, no one was sure.
The Commentaries said that the ship ran aground on some shallows just opposite the Kingdom of Daru. Another source said the ship sank off Timia Point. The problem was that no one knew for certain where these places were anymore. Many of the countries and kingdoms that existed in 1511 no longer existed, and coastlines had moved over the centuries. In the early days of exploration, locations were approximate, and maps and accounts were often inaccurate. Although there were many theories about where the ship had gone down, no one had managed to find it.
The Flor de la Mar wasn’t the only ship to have disappeared in the Strait of Malacca. There were some dark legends surrounding the place. One was the SS Ourang Medan, a Dutch vessel that disappeared in the Strait in the 1940s. The last message it sent was “all officers including the captain are dead, lying in chartroom and bridge. Possibly whole crew dead … I die.” A nearby ship responded to the distress call and found corpses everywhere on board the ship, with eyeballs popped out and eyes agape, but no sign of what caused it. An assistant to Director of the CIA at the time wrote that he felt “sure that the SS Ourang Medan holds the answer to many of these aeroplane accidents and unsolved mysteries of the sea.”
It was easy to dismiss the Ourang Medan as a ghost story. But there had been modern disappearances in the Strait of Malacca too. Perhaps the most well known was Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which disappeared in 2014. It was last caught on radar going north up the Strait before vanishing just past Sumatra. I remembered how it had boggled my mind that, in the modern era, with the whole world looking for something as big as an entire airplane that went down in a known area, it was never found. If Malaysia Flight 370 could be lost in the Strait, it seemed plausible that a ship as famous as the Flor de la Mar could be lost there as well.
People had searched for, and even claimed to have found, the Flor de la Mar many times. Including recently.
In 1989, Southeast Asia Salvage (SEAS) mounted an expedition to find the ship. They based their search on the sources saying that the ship was lost near the Kingdom of Daru, that survivors managed to reach the river Pacem (which did not exist on modern maps), and that the wreck sank within cannon-shot of the shore. Believing that they knew where these places where, SEAS spent several years and millions of dollars looking. But they didn’t find it.
In 1992, a well-known American treasure hunter named Bob Marx announced that he had found the Flor de la Mar with the aid of an old nautical chart. But the find proved inconclusive, and little treasure was recovered. It was also rumored that the former President of Indonesia, Suharto, had spent millions of his own personal fortune to search for the ship. He didn’t find it either.
We believed that Excel and Rockweiller paid SEAS and Suharto’s foundation for their knowledge. That was what the consulting contracts were for. Anything that would help Rockweiller to find, verify, and salvage the Flor de la Mar would have been worth it to them.
After five hundred years, there had never been a confirmed find of the Flor de la Mar, and its whereabouts remained a mystery. The reasons for this were debated. Some said that the old maps were off, and that everyone was looking in the wrong place. Others said that the maps were right, but the ship was long since buried by the tides and sands. Still others maintained that the Sumatran natives had scavenged the treasure long ago, and nothing remained
. I read a supposed eyewitness account that said the Flor de la Mar had sunk by the beach in four fathoms of water, which would have been within scavenging distance. Albuquerque himself thought this might have been the case, as he said in a letter to King Don Manuel after an attempted return to the wreck site. However, this didn’t explain why there was no evidence that the ship sank there.
Some of the wildest theories about the Flor de la Mar were on internet message boards like Reddit. One user named Conquistador85 claimed that Alfonso de Albuquerque had faked the sinking of the Flor de la Mar and stolen the treasure for himself. Another user, ConspiracyOfFools, said this was hogwash, and that the Flor de la Mar was actually a ghost ship that had never really existed at all. Someone once told me that all the truths in the world can be found on Reddit. But apparently not this one.
Scholars said there might have been more information about the Flor de la Mar in the Portuguese Royal Archives. The Archives were a library in Lisbon that dated back to the fourteenth century. But the Archives had been destroyed in the Great Lisbon Earthquake of 1755. Many histories of the early Portuguese explorers were lost with them, and some said the truth of the Flor de la Mar was lost as well.
I had a theory of my own. I wondered if one of the many expeditions had been successful, but never told anyone. Knowing the way that these wrecks were fought over, why would they? Better to keep it quiet. Maybe even now someone was sitting atop eighty tons of gold on a private island in Indonesia, master of a great fortune the world thought lost long ago.
I took a break from my readings to eat lunch. I ordered a salad from the local deli. I was trying to watch my weight, especially with all the late nights and junk food. Unfortunately, I was hungry right after I finished the salad, and ended up raiding the vending machine for Fritos.
After finishing two bags of Fritos and the Commentaries, I stopped to learn a little about the author himself.
Alfonso de Albuquerque had been one of the great explorers and conquerors of the age. In those days, the line between navigator, general, and statesman was blurred. The King of Portugal granted Viceregal powers to his admirals, giving them carte blanche to sail the world and subjugate it in his name. Albuquerque gained fame for subduing Goa, India, which became the foundation of the Portuguese Empire in the East.
