Buccaneer (Dane Maddock Adventures)

by David Wood

“Yahtzee!” Bones exclaimed.

  “You did it, Maddock,” Avery whispered.

  Dane leapt down and looked down at the base of the tomb on the side facing away from the street. The entire side of the tomb had sunk into the ground, revealing an empty space below. They had found it!

  Chapter 24

  Corey sighed and opened the last sub-folder. His search had been utterly fruitless, and now it was closing time. He wondered if Willis had fared any better. Considering how long he’d spent in the museum, he’d better have found something. If Willis had been browsing museum displays while Corey worked his butt off, they would have a talk later.

  This folder contained footage from the security camera in the delivery area. He quickly scrolled through the clips, as the museum apparently didn’t get many deliveries. One clip after another, all showing an empty loading bay, rolled by. He was ready to give up, but figured he might as well keep going, at least until Willis showed up, which ought to be any minute now.

  The most recent clip was from this afternoon, and ended shortly before they’d arrived. For no particular reason, he skipped down to it and double-clicked. This clip began the same as the others, footage of an empty room, but it soon grew interesting.

  On the screen, a heavy-set man with a pistol on his hip opened the bay door and a black sedan with tinted windows rolled in. Another man, short and dark, also armed, stepped out. The two spoke for a minute, then moved off screen. Two minutes later, they returned, supporting a figure in jeans and a t-shirt.

  It was Angel.

  She could barely stand, as if she was under the influence of some sort of drug. She also might have been injured, and unable to walk on her own, but he didn’t want to consider that. Her hands were cuffed in front of her and ankles shackled. They weren’t taking any chances with her.

  They put her into the back seat and the big guy got in after her, while the dark-skinned man took the wheel. A minute later, a lean, tawny-haired man climbed into the passenger seat and they drove away. Corey scrolled through the rest of the clip, but the car did not return.

  Angel was gone. They had missed her by a matter of minutes.

  Corey reached for his cell phone, then thought the better of it. They had agreed Corey would not call Willis, in case his phone should ring at an inopportune time, but Willis would call Corey if he needed help.

  When they weren’t certain anything was amiss at the museum, he hadn’t been too concerned about Willis, but now things had changed. What if the guys he’d seen leaving in the car weren’t the only armed, dangerous men on the premises? Willis should know that Angel was gone and there was nothing more he could do in there, but how could Corey let him know? He supposed he could go in after him, but the very thought made his stomach threaten to heave up. He was a computer guy, not a soldier. Besides, what if he walked into a trap and they both wound up...

  He dismissed the line of thought with a shake of his head. Willis had been in worse situations than this plenty of times. He’d be okay.

  Willis checked his watch. Thirty minutes since he’d heard so much as a footstep down below. Hoping Shears and the rest of the museum staff had gone, he crawled to the bow of the pirate ship and peered over the edge.

  Down below him, the museum was empty. He watched for another five minutes before deciding it was safe to come out. But how to get down? He scanned the deck and his eyes fell on a coil of rope in the stern. Unlike most of the ship, which was constructed from new materials, this appeared to be an authentic rope from an old sailing ship. It looked dry and brittle, but he had no choice.

  He lashed the rope to the stern and tossed it over the edge. It was too short, ending about ten feet above the floor, but it would have to do. Not willing to waste time fretting over something beyond his control, he took hold of the rope, climbed over the rail, and shimmied down.

  The coarse rope scoured his already scraped hands, but he worked his way down in a controlled slide.

  Halfway to the floor, he heard a snap and the rope gave an inch.

  “Oh hell.” He dared a look down. Twenty feet was too far to fall.

  Another snap as strands of the aged rope began to break under the strain of his weight. And another.

  He slid a little faster, bracing himself for the fall that now seemed inevitable as, far above him, the rope frayed and, fiber by fiber, fell apart. He was twelve feet up when it finally gave way.

  He hit the ground hard, landing skydiver style, but the impact on the hard floor jolted him all the way up his spine. He grimaced as pain lanced through his knees, and he wondered if he’d torn something. It didn’t matter, though. He had a job to do.

  One positive was that he didn’t have to leave a length of rope dangling from the stern of the ship where it could draw unwanted attention. He coiled up the fallen rope and carried it with him to the closed exhibit where he hid it beneath the fallen pirate figure. He paused to listen in case anyone was still here and had heard his fall, but the museum was silent as a tomb. Figuring it was time to move on, he took a deep breath and stepped through the door at the back of the exhibit.

  He found himself in a spartan hallway that ran along the back of the exhibit hall. Doors on either side provided access to the various exhibits. In front of him, a stairwell led down to a lower level, and he spotted another smudged, bloody footprint a few steps down. Hand resting on his Beretta, he made his way down into the darkness.

  He found himself in a poorly-lit basement area. He spotted more footprints and followed them past doors labeled according to what was stored inside them, to a small room, perhaps a large janitor’s closet. Inside, he found a folding chair and a stainless steel table.

  And a great deal of blood.

  A dark spatter slashed across the wall to his right, and more spots trailed down to the floor, where more dark, dry patches spotted the gray surface. Trembling with rage, he gave the room a once-over, in case he’d missed an important detail. A small wastebasket was shoved into the corner on his left. At first, he thought it was empty, but then he spied a glint of silver. He knelt and fished it out. It was a broken necklace with a turquoise and silver Kokopelli pendant. He recognized it as Angel’s. This definitive proof she had been here.

  “I’m gonna kill somebody,” he muttered, pocketing the necklace.

  “Not today, my friend,” someone said from behind him. Damn! He’d let his anger distract him, and someone had crept up behind him. “Very slowly take that gun out of the holster.”

  “Hey man, I was just looking for the john. Is it anywhere around here?”

  “If you don’t want a hole in your head, do what I say, and do it now.”

  He did as instructed, slipping his Beretta out of the holster with two fingers, making it clear he was not reaching for the trigger, and setting it on the ground.

  “Good. Now turn around slowly.”

  Still squatting down, Willis turned to see Shears pointing a gun at him. The man smiled, clearly pleased with himself.

  “Slide the gun over to me.”

  Willis did as he was told. He gave the Beretta a shove, sliding it toward Shears’ gun hand with enough force that it slid past him.

  Shears took his eyes off of Willis for only a split second, but that was all Willis needed. He whipped his Recon knife from his belt, hurled it at Shears, and dove into a forward roll as a bullet pinged off the ceiling. He came to his feet ready to wrestle the gun from Shears, but there was no need. Willis’ aim had been true, and the hilt of his knife protruded from Shears’ chest. He’d gotten him in the heart.

  Willis retrieved his knife and his Beretta, and dragged Shears’ lifeless body into the room where Angel had been held. He regretted taking the man’s life, not because he placed any particular value on it, but because he would have liked to question him. As it was, he had no clue as to Angel’s whereabouts. He only knew she had been here. He guessed that would have to be enough.

  The space beneath Hamilton’s tomb was a tight box, but deep enough that e
ven Bones could stand up straight. A round seal was carved in the center of each wall: the Templar cross, an Eagle clutching a spear in its talons, and the familiar temple seal and two knights seal.

  Dane moved immediately to the two knights on horseback, as it was the one drawn in the corner of the map. He ran the beam of his flashlight back and forth across the carving. It didn’t take long to realize what made this seal different from the traditional rendering. In most versions of the seal, each knight carried a lance. In this carving, the two lances were carved as one thick lance with a prominent point. Closer scrutiny revealed a fine seam running around the top half of the lance. Dane blew the dust away from the edges.

  “This looks like a button,” Avery said. “May I?”

  “Sure.” Dane stepped back and watched as she gingerly pressed on the top half of the lance. It sank into the stone with a hushed click, and the seal slowly rolled to the side, vanishing into the wall and revealing a dark shaft with handholds in the side leading deeper into the ground.

  “Maybe you should stay here.” Dane looked at Avery. “I don’t know how far down we’ll have to climb. It could be dangerous.”

  “Are you stupid?” Avery looked scandalized. “This is Dad’s quest and we’re going to finish it together. Besides, despite what our first meeting might have indicated, I can climb a little.” With that, she clambered through the hole, ignoring Dane’s urges for her to exercise caution, and began her descent.

  “Sisters,” Bones said. “You gotta’ love ‘em.” He grinned. “I’ll make sure she doesn’t get into trouble.” He followed Avery into the shaft, and Dane went last.

  At the bottom of the shaft, a doorway opened onto a dark chamber, with steps leading down into the bottom. Dane and Bones played their lights around the room. It was another Templar church. Like the church beneath Oak Island, the walls were adorned with ornate carvings but, instead of scenes showing knights in combat, the images told the story of the crucifixion. Directly in front of them, behind a simple stone altar, the image of the centurion piercing Jesus’ side looked down upon them. The agony on Jesus’ face was almost palpable.

  “This is amazing!” Avery took out a camera and began snapping pictures. “A Templar church beneath New York City. Hard to believe.” She paused, lowering the camera. “Wait a minute. This had to be here long before the Hamilton tomb was constructed. So that means...”

  “Someone was in on the secret and built the tomb specifically as a cover-up,” Bones finished.

  “The Freemasons?” Avery asked.

  “I think it was Elvis and The Colonel, but that’s just me.”

  “You’re useless.” Avery looked around, and her eyes suddenly widened. “But if someone or some group knew about this place, what if they took whatever was hidden here? I don’t see anything.”

  “If it’s like the church under Oak Island, and I think it is, this place hasn’t revealed all its secrets.” Dane pointed to a spot high on the wall and the symbol of six crosses in a circle, identical to that in the Oak Island church. “If my guess is right, the map to this temple didn’t include everything someone would need to know. Bones, a boost?”

  Bones chuckled and hunched down against the wall below the crosses and served as a ladder for Dane to climb. Bones stood up straight, then took Dane by his feet and lifted him up until Dane reached a ledge beneath the crosses.

  “Maddock, you have got to lay off the bacon cheeseburgers,” Bones grunted. “You’re too fat for me to keep doing this.”

  “Quit whining.” Dane hoisted himself up onto the ledge and cautiously climbed to his feet. The ledge was narrow and the drop was far enough that he didn’t want to risk a fall.

  “Careful,” Avery warned.

  He smiled down at her, then reached up to the topmost cross, took hold, and turned it in the same way Bones had turned its counterpart in the Oak Island church. It didn’t budge at first, but then, slowly, it moved. Gradually, he rolled the circle back into the wall, and climbed through.

  The space here was much like the one beneath Oak Island— a domed, turret-like chamber with the same double-line of symbols spiraling from ceiling to floor and the same wedge-shaped pattern in the ceiling’s center, and a stone altar off to one side. In this chamber, however, there was no wooden casket atop the altar, but a long wooden cylinder. He took a minute to make a photographic record of the chamber before moving to the altar.

  He was tempted to crack open the cylinder right then and there and see what was inside, but common sense won out. He hefted the cylinder and carried it back to the entrance.

  “Hey Bones, can you catch this?” he called.

  “Only if you don’t throw like a girl.”

  Dane chuckled and tossed it down to Bones, who managed to snag it in both arms before it hit the ground.

  “What’s inside?” He turned it over, giving it a close look.

  “Don’t know. We’ll see when we open it.”

  Chapter 25

  “What do you think it is?” Matt asked. “It’s really long.”

  “That’s what she said,” Bones jibed. He elbowed Avery, who gave an exasperated sigh and shook her head.

  They were back on board Sea Foam, docked, and waiting for Corey and Willis to return. There was no word from them, and he didn’t know how to interpret that, though he kept his hopes up.

  “Let’s find out.” The cylinder was a good five feet long, and capped on each end. The caps were held in place by resin. Dane needed only a few minutes to work one end free. He twisted the cap off and pulled out a handful of coconut fibers.

  “I see it,” Avery whispered.

  A brass circle gleamed beneath the stark light. Dane took hold of it and drew forth a spear. The shaft featured the same spiral band he had seen on the walls of the two chambers. The oversized spearhead was made of the same mottled metal as Carnwennan and, like the dagger, a deep channel ran down one side of the blade. The head was held in place by a band of the now familiar white stone. As he held the spear out for the others to inspect, lights began to swirl deep in the stone.

  “It’s Rhongomnyiad. King Arthur’s spear. It’s got to be,” Avery said. “It’s clearly a mate to the dagger.”

  “Is it a cloaking device too?” Bones asked.

  “There’s no legend of invisibility surrounding the spear. In fact, there aren’t many legends about it at all.” Avery looked thoughtful. “The only one I can think of says it could take a life with a single touch. But the same story claimed that it carries life within it.”

  “So, who wants to be the one to touch the big, scary spear?” Bones asked. No one volunteered. “Let me see that thing.” Bones took the spear from Dane and looked it up and down. “Do you think the butt turns it on, sort of like the dagger?” Before anyone cold object, he pressed on the bronze butt and the spearhead flickered. “Sweet. I wonder...”

  “Bones, don’t...”

  Before Dane could finish the sentence, Bones prodded a metal folding chair with the spear. Avery screamed and everyone covered their faces as, with a loud crack, the spear sent up a shower of blue sparks and the chair flew across the cabin and clattered to the floor. Bones hurried over and picked it up so everyone could see the smoking hole the spear had burned through it.

  “Well, now we know what it does.” He grinned. “Who’s next?”

  “Bones, give me the spear before you sink us.” Dane took the spear back and held it loosely by his side. He turned to share a pained smile with Avery, and was surprised to see her gaping at him.

  “Maddock,” Bones said, “your butt is glowing.”

  Dane looked down and saw that the dagger, which he had tucked into his belt, and the stone band around the spear, had begun to shine. The closer together he held them the brighter they shone.

  “This is crazy.” Avery said. “How can you guys be so calm about this?”

  “Like we said before, we’ve seen this phenomenon a couple of times.” Dane drew Carnwennan and held it next to Rhongomny
iad. The white stones glowed like small suns, though they produced no heat. Strangely, he felt a tingling down his arms, and decided he shouldn’t toy with forces he did not understand.

  “Stones like this are unheard of.” Avery took the spear from Dane for a closer look. “So, what are they? Did you study them?”

  “We’ve never actually been able to do that. We sort of keep losing them.”

  Just then, Dane’s phone vibrated, sparing him of further questions. The number was unfamiliar.

  “Hello?”

  “We each have something the other wants.”

  He’d only heard the voice once before, but he recognized it instantly. It could only be one person.

  “Locke.” He couldn’t keep the growl from his voice. Silence fell in the cabin as everyone stared.

  “One and the same. Now, time is short, so I shall keep this simple. I want what you found on the island...”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Mister Maddock, I assure you I have no attachment to this girl. In fact, I find her crass and tiresome. The only value she has to me is as an object for trade. If you do not have what I want, rather, if you insist on pretending so, she will no longer be of use to me, and I shall dispose of her. Now, shall we begin again?” He took Dane’s silence as assent, and continued. “I want what you found on the island, and I want the map you recovered from Saint Paul’s.”

  Dane’s mind worked furiously. As he’d predicted, Locke knew about the map, but assumed it led to somewhere else entirely. That was good.

  “What do you want with the map? It was right here in New York all this time, right under your nose. Why didn’t you take it?”

  “Yes, disappointing, that. You beat my men there, literally and figuratively, by minutes.”

  “We have a bad habit of doing both those things.”

  Locke ignored him.

  “For your convenience, we will make the exchange in Baltimore. I believe you are already headed in that direction. Don’t bother with the Poe House. My people will be there before you.”