by Dave Gerard
But although the death case was won, David Marcum’s share of the Flor de la Mar was still in play. It wasn’t just about the money. It was about David’s rights. If Marcum had a deal, I wasn’t about to let Rockweiller screw him out of it in the grave. Marcum’s estate was my client, and I meant to collect, come hell or high water. All we needed was the contract.
The case was almost at its end. Judge Graves had gotten sidetracked with the sanctions hearings. But when those were done, Graves was going to finish the trial and render a decision on the Flor de la Mar. If we didn’t have the contract by then, I knew we wouldn’t get another chance.
So it was with a tingling sense of anticipation that I looked at the cold, gleaming rows of metal boxes in front of us, wondering if one of them held the answer that we sought.
Ashley consulted the piece of paper that the manager had given her. Then she slowly walked up to box number 352. David Marcum’s box. It was the size of a small mailbox, nothing more. I stepped back to give her some privacy.
I watched Ashley slip the small key into the lock and turn it. She opened the box slowly. Then she stopped and blinked. There was a surprised expression on her face.
“What is it?” I asked, barely able to contain myself. She beckoned me forward. I walked up to the box and looked inside.
It was empty.
Back in Texas, Cindy and Harder were waiting for us at the military airbase.
Cindy ran up and hugged me. “Jack!” she shouted. There were tears in her eyes. “You’re okay!” I hugged her back, patting her shoulder awkwardly. Then she ran up to Vijay, Ashley, and Schnizzel, embracing each of them in turn. They all warmly returned her affection.
Harder stepped forward self-consciously. I smiled and clapped him in a rough embrace. “Never thought I’d be so glad to see you,” I told him. He grinned at me unsteadily. “What the hell happened?” I demanded. “With the death memo? Did you really leak it?”
“Are you really asking him what happened?” Cindy said incredulously. “Don’t you think we should get to ask that first?”
“Fair enough,” I said with a laugh.
“But as long as we’re on the subject,” said Harder. “It wasn’t me that leaked it. It was actually Kathleen.”
“Kathleen Loudamire?” I said, shocked.
“Yep. She blew the whistle. A few days after you left for Malaysia. She filed the death memo with the court. She also filed an affidavit explaining what happened,” Harder said.
“What did happen?” I asked.
“It was as we suspected. Loudamire interviewed Thomas Barber before they got a chance to get their story straight. Barber told the truth. But nobody wanted to hear it. Later, Gunthum pressured Barber to change his tune. He threatened him, and said they would all go to prison if he didn’t. So it wasn’t Bock, for what that’s worth. But Bock didn’t question the discrepancy either. The new story was convenient for him. Loudamire had already written the memo by then, though. Bock was furious, but he couldn’t destroy it. That would have been spoliation of evidence.”
I found it ironic that Bock would adhere to the ethics rules about spoliation, given everything else his firm had done. But I guess his actions always had a thin veneer of legality.
“After Kathleen’s…attempt,” Harder said uncomfortably, “she spent some time in the hospital. I visited her. She said she had started to think about everything, and it didn’t sit well with her. She decided to say something, and told Judge Graves what had happened.”
“Wow. That took some guts. What’s going on in court?”
“Oh, man,” said Harder, shaking his head. “You can’t imagine. Graves is on a warpath. He ordered everyone involved in the case down to Galveston. I heard he threatened to send the U.S. Marshals to arrest the CEO after he refused to come. The guy backed down and showed up. There’s a big sanctions hearing going on right now. Graves is deciding how bad he’s going to give it to them.
“And that’s not all,” Harder continued. “The U.S. Attorney’s office is investigating too. After Loudamire’s confession, Thomas Barber recanted and told the truth about what happened. Got some kind of plea deal, maybe. Others might have flipped too. It’s all coming crashing down. Word is the feds are going to bring criminal charges. Gunthum and his crew have already been arrested.”
Ashley was speechless. I could see tears in the corner of her eyes.
“They really got arrested?” she whispered.
“Yep,” Harder confirmed. “I heard Gunthum fought it, and five guys had to kick his ass.”
“Good,” Ashley said fiercely. I laughed. Then she stepped toward me, snaking her arm around my waist and beckoning me to pull her into a hug. I did, and we stood that way for a long time. Cindy shot a questioning glance at Harder, but he didn’t say anything. I saw Vijay and Schnizzel standing in the background, smiling faintly.
Finally, I broke away from Ashley and turned back to Harder, although I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear the answer to my next question. “What about us?” I asked. “Are we…” I trailed off and looked at him carefully.
Harder’s face turned grim. “Judge Graves knows about what we did. Loudamire didn’t out us, actually. Not at first. But when Judge Graves called her to testify, he got it out of her. She said she was sorry. That we did the right thing. But I’m due for a sanctions hearing myself after Graves is done flaying Bock & Co.” I saw Harder’s haggard expression and tired eyes and understood. “You’ll be in for it too,” he said. I nodded. It was inevitable.
But right then I found it hard to care. We’d just escaped capture and maybe death by pirates in Malaysia. Rockweiller had gone belly up, and the case had been blown wide open. The wind was at our backs, and right then I couldn’t feel too down about sanctions. Let them string me up to high heaven tomorrow. Today was mine. My worries melted away as I smiled. Ashley caught on, and then everyone else did too. It felt glorious.
“Did you find it?” Cindy exclaimed, unable to hold it in any longer.
I smiled at her. “I’m afraid that’s privileged information, miss.” Her mouth described an “O”, but then I laughed and nodded, and she jumped up and down in circles, cheering. Then we all piled into Harder’s SUV, and Ashley, Vijay, Schnizzel, and I filled the others in on our crazy adventure as we drove home to Houston.
It was past dark when Harder dropped me off at my apartment. We had already dropped off Cindy, Ashley, and Vijay, and taken Schnizzel to a hotel.
“What now?” Harder asked, as he helped me unload my stuff. “I guess you’ll be able to settle the case. They’ll pay anything you want. Ten million, easy. They’re going to beg for it.” I nodded, and told him that they already had.
“Did you ever find the contract?” Harder asked. “Was there any sign of it?”
I shook my head. Harder nodded thoughtfully.
He didn’t have to say more. Though we might have won the death case, without the contract, we had no way to enforce Marcum’s share of the Flor de la Mar.
But I had a plan.
THIRTY-THREE
The press outside the federal courthouse in Galveston was insanity. Vijay and I walked toward the entrance, dressed in our best suits and ties, our shoes shined to mirror brightness. Ashley was with us, as was Jared’s brother Jacob.
It seemed like every news outlet in the world was there to cover our return. Reporters yelled questions at us faster than I could register, let alone answer them, even if I’d tried. There were so many camera flashes that I felt like I was in an old black-and-white movie. Our arrival galvanized the protestors around the courthouse, who started pushing and shoving and chanting their causes, whatever they might be.
I walked through the crush with my eyes fixed straight ahead, looking neither left nor right. Strangely, I barely felt the tension. After the kidnapping and Jared’s death in Sumatra, everything else felt like it had the
volume turned down. Maybe I was walking into the hangman’s noose with Judge Graves. But I couldn’t bring myself to care. The presence of Jacob, grim-faced and silent just like Jared would have been, reminded me of what had happened, and how lucky we were to be there at all.
But gradually, through my stoicism, I noticed that the tone of the chants had changed. None of the protestors were yelling slogans about Malaysia or the West or Portugal anymore. Instead, they were cheering. It took me a split second to realize it. They were cheering us.
A funny thing had happened during our absence. Somehow, David Marcum had become the hero of this story. The press had gradually picked up on it, abetted by subtle hints that Remington had dropped here and there in court filings.
The rumor was out that Marcum might have found the Flor de la Mar. The story was irresistible. A dashing, handsome young American adventurer, college dropout turned amateur treasure hunter, who had somehow found the greatest shipwreck in the world and was then killed for it by agents of a giant corporation on the high seas—it was too much. Our recent capture by and escape from the hands of pirates drove the story to a fever pitch. The media was boiling over, and so was the public. The newspapers wrote and speculated and conjectured about it freely, to the utmost of the wildest blogger’s imagination, although the accounts varied and most of them were dead wrong.
The loudest voice was Rufus Rockaway, who talked about the case non-stop on MNN, and alternated between interviewer and interviewee as everyone wanted to hear his story. Rockaway had abandoned all sense of journalistic objectivity, and he was David Marcum’s staunchest champion. The pirate ordeal had also given him a certain glamor, which I could see from the interest with which Katie Tyler now regarded him on their split-screens.
Bock & Co.’s public relations people tried to change the narrative. They highlighted Marcum’s criminal past, like Bock would try to do in court. But it didn’t work. The media brushed it off as youthful indiscretion, or adversity overcome. And once the death memo went public, all of Rockweiller’s deflections imploded under a tidal wave of public anger that swept over them.
All of this came with a flood of emotion for Ashley. “They’re cheering us,” she said in wonder. “They’re cheering my brother.” People cried out to us as we passed, and reached out to touch us and wish us luck. I saw tears streaming down Ashley’s cheeks as we pressed through. I knew she was crying because the world was finally able to see her brother for who he was. To see that he meant something to the world. That he mattered. The people had heard her story, and they believed her.
I was less sanguine. I knew that the media was fickle, and the narrative could change in a heartbeat. And more importantly, I knew that none of this would sway Judge Graves, who was the one who mattered. For that, we needed a different tactic.
Ashley said thank you to as many people as she could as we made our way through the crowd. In the end, Butch and the Marshals had to hustle us through, muscling people aside so we could get past.
Eventually, we made our way inside the courthouse and then into the courtroom itself. The courtroom was nearly empty. Judge Graves had sealed it for the hearing. Only the court staff, the marshals, and the primary attorneys were allowed in. The courtroom felt cool and quiet after the press of the crowd outside.
The mood in the courtroom was grim. Bock was sitting at the right-side counsel table, his customary arrogance gone. He looked like a man who had been beaten within an inch of his life. Cornelius Adipose and some other associates were with him, looking like so many lost boys dressed up in their fathers’ ties. Loudamire was absent. The lawyers and ambassadors for Malaysia, Indonesia, and Portugal were there, waiting.
Judge Graves himself sat on his high bench, wearing black robes and his blackest expression. He glared at me balefully as I walked in. His eyes swept the room, daring anyone to speak. No one did.
Everyone stood up as the clerk called the case. Then Judge Graves began. “Never in my thirty years on the bench have I seen conduct like this,” he said scathingly. “Never. And I have seen a lot.” He waited for anyone to say something, but no one answered.
Graves pointed a thick finger at Bock. “Your star witness murdered David Marcum. And lied about it under oath. I don’t know the full extent if your involvement yet. Or whether you suborned perjury. But believe me, I intend to find out.” His voice was chilling.
“Your Honor,” Bock said weakly, “I dispute the characterization of Mr. Gunthum’s actions as murder. Further, I had no definitive knowledge that he was being untruthful. I took Mr. Gunthum at his word—”
“Shut up!” thundered Graves. “If I hear another word out of you, I will have you arrested on the spot. I will personally call the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Texas and make sure you are charged tomorrow morning. Do you understand?” Bock nodded. There was no color in his face anymore.
“And you!” said Graves, turning his wrath on me. “You stole privileged materials from a woman dying by her own hand, to gain advantage in this litigation. That it has revealed Rockweiller Industries’ own sins does not elevate your act. I am certainly going to recommend ethics charges, and God knows what else.” I looked back at him neutrally and didn’t say a word. It was no more than I expected.
Graves then eyed the lawyers for Malaysia, Portugal, and Indonesia, looking for an excuse to rip into them too. But they only stood quietly. Jafaar was smart enough to know when to shut up. Graves turned back to Bock and me.
“I will deal with the both of you in due course,” he said ominously. “Count on that. But for the time being, I am going to adjourn to consider what to do with this royal mess that I have inherited from the sixteenth century, colloquially known as the Flor de la Mar. Does anyone have any last words before I do?” The question was obviously rhetorical, and Graves’ gavel was half raised, ready to bang down and make an end.
I stepped forward. “I do.” Everyone turned toward me, wondering what the hell I was doing.
Judge Graves’ eyes bored into me. “Do you indeed, Mr. Carver?” he said. I could see the hangman’s rope coiling in his gaze.
“Yes.”
“Is it a choice of prisons?” Graves said acidly. “If so, I would recommend Galveston County. Good Yelp reviews. If it is anything else, I would suggest you hold your tongue.”
“No. It’s a legal motion. I am moving to amend our complaint to add a claim regarding the Flor de la Mar.”
Some muttering broke out in Bock & Co.’s section, but Judge Graves silenced them with a look. Jafaar snapped out of his penitent pose and eyed me sharply.
“A claim regarding the Flor de la Mar?” Graves repeated, his eyes narrowing. “Do tell.”
“David Marcum found it,” I said simply.
“I am aware of that allegation, Mr. Carver. But insofar as I have seen, there is no proof.”
“There is now.”
With that, I reached into my pocket and drew out one of the gold coins we had recovered from the Nicobar Islands. I tossed it to Judge Graves, as casually as if I were flipping a quarter. Graves caught it with a start. He turned it over in his hands, bemused by its strange markings and golden glow.
“I recovered this coin from Flor de la Mar,” I said. “Personally.” This caused another round of muttering from the attorneys, louder this time. There were plenty of rumors flying around about what we had been doing in Malaysia. But this was the first time I’d confirmed it.
“I found the coin using David Marcum’s information,” I continued. “The same information that he gave Lloyd Gunthum and Rockweiller Industries. The same information he was later killed for.”
“And your evidence of this?” demanded Judge Graves.
“Is the coin itself.”
Judge Graves frowned in puzzlement. “Think about it, Your Honor,” I said with all the persuasiveness I could muster. “I was able to find the Flor de la Mar in a matter o
f weeks, using the same information that David Marcum did. What are the chances I could have done it if his information was wrong? When every one of the sophisticated, well-capitalized expeditions before me have failed? When all of the expeditions for the last five hundred years, for that matter, have come up empty handed? If I was able to find the Flor de la Mar with Marcum’s information, then that information must be true. I stand ready to provide the source of this information to the court in camera upon request.” In camera meant for the court’s eyes only. I wasn’t about to tell Bock and Jafaar about Manuel Roberto’s confession if they didn’t already know.
This made an impression. I could see Graves turning it over in his mind. “And how do I know this coin is from the Flor de la Mar?” Graves said absently, staring at the coin with fascination, his anger forgotten for a moment in the light of the gold.
I was ready for this. I opened my briefcase and pulled out some papers. “I have here an affidavit from Professor Jacob Schnizzel, maritime archaeology expert, attesting that everything I say is true. Professor Schnizzel has examined the coin and determined that it is nearly identical to the ones in the possession of David Marcum, Rockweiller Industries, and now this Court.”
I handed the affidavit to Judge Graves, and Vijay passed out copies to the other lawyers. “Professor Schnizzel is ready and able to testify to this. I can also provide the coins to the opposing experts for analysis.”
Judge Graves nodded slowly. “I see.” Graves remained silent for a while, thinking. I resisted the temptation to talk further, and just waited. “Tell me,” Graves said at last. “Supposing for a moment that this is all true. That this coin is in fact from the Flor de la Mar. And that David Marcum uncovered the information leading to the wreck. What right does that give Mr. Marcum to the ship?”
Graves leaned forward. “I know you say there was a contract, Mr. Carver. A contract which gave Mr. Marcum some type of finder’s fee. Rockweiller denies it. Although I am not inclined to believe anything they say.” He glared at Bock, who didn’t meet his eye. “I am certainly sympathetic to Mr. Marcum, given what I now know happened to him. You were right about that. I give you due credit. And believe me, the wrongdoers will be punished to the fullest extent of the law.
