by Alex Archer
I urge you, therefore, to make haste and put to sea as quickly as possible. My representatives, Father Alvarez and his assistant, Father Blanco, are familiar with those at your destination and will help smooth your passage once you reach Mexico.
Godspeed and God bless.
Viceroy José de la Serna
When he finished reading it, Thompson carefully folded the letter and then fed it to the flame of a nearby candle until the heat got too close and he tossed it into a nearby bowl to burn itself out. If Cochrane did catch him, he wanted no proof of his collusion with de la Serna left on hand.
“Thank you for delivering that, Father,” he said to Alverez.
The older priest smiled. “Good news, I hope?”
Thompson shrugged. “Too soon to tell, I fear, but one can always hope.”
“We will pray for it to be so,” Alvarez replied, which threatened to pull an explosion of laughter out of Thompson before he got a handle on it.
“I’d appreciate that, Father,” he told the other man instead. With a straight face, no less. He glanced over the priest’s shoulder and nodded at Jones.
“Jones here—” indicating the first mate “—will show you to your cabins, gentlemen.”
Ruiz spoke up for the first time. “My men and I will bunk down in the hold to keep watch on the cargo.”
“As you wish, Sergeant. I can have Jones arrange some bread, meat and cheese for supper, if you’d like.”
The old veteran nodded. “That would be appreciated. Thank you, Captain.”
“My pleasure,” Thompson said. “Now, if you gentlemen will excuse me, I have a voyage to plan.”
* * *
ONE HOUR LATER the ship got under way with a minimum of fuss. The harbormaster would normally have given them some grief about leaving at this hour of the night, but with rumors of the city’s fall swirling about like smoke around a campfire, he didn’t begrudge those who wanted to get out before the hammer came down and let them go with nary a word.
Thompson had given orders that they head north for several kilometers and that was precisely what they did, cutting through the darkness like a knife through butter as a decent breeze filled their sails and guided them forward on their journey. Satisfied that the pilot had things under control, Thompson turned the ship over to him and retired to his cabin.
Half an hour after he’d left the deck, the door to his cabin opened and Jones slipped inside.
Thompson looked up from the charts he was studying. “Well?” he asked.
Jones gestured behind him and two of Thompson’s other crew members stepped into the captain’s cabin. Between them they carried a large sea chest, and from the way they were handling it, it was clear that it was rather heavy.
“Bring it here, boys,” Thompson told them, indicating they should put it on the table before him, and then, once they had, dismissed them back to their other duties.
He glanced inquiringly at Jones once the others had left the room.
“We swapped one of ours for one of theirs during the loading process.”
It was a standard sea chest made of iron-banded wood, with a lock built into the lid itself—not like that was going to stop Thompson, however. He drew the dirk from his belt, inserted the blade between the lid and the chest itself just an inch or so away from the lock, then pushed down sharply on the hilt.
There was a moment of silence, as force fought with metal, and then a sharp ping sounded through the room as the interior of the lock gave way and the lid popped open.
Both men stared at the sea of gold coins that filled the chest.
“That devious son of a...”
Now the viceroy’s willingness to meet his price made sense to Thompson. He had no doubt that the rest of the cargo was equally valuable. He’d seen the wagons weighted down under the load and knew that the other chests probably contained as much gold, if not more, than this one did.
“Sweet Jesu, there’s a fortune in that one chest alone!” Jones whispered, awed by thoughts of just how much treasure they might be carrying.
Thompson barely heard him, his mind whirling with the possibilities that had suddenly presented themselves. De la Serna was trying to move the treasury out from under the nose of General San Martín. That was clear. What was equally clear was the fact that the viceroy would need to keep the operation secret: the more who knew, the greater chance that word would reach San Martín and the treasure would be intercepted by the rebels. De la Serna hadn’t even been willing to tell him what was in the shipment and it was his ship that was carrying it!
If the shipment were to conveniently disappear, Thompson thought, only a handful of people would know it had ever gone missing in the first place.
With the exception of de la Serna himself, most of those people were right here on this very vessel.
Temptation reared its head and Thompson embraced it eagerly. A plan coalesced fully formed in his head.
Turning to Jones, he explained to his first mate exactly what they were going to do to ensure that they would be set with riches for the rest of their lives.
Jones eagerly agreed.
After that it was a simple matter of waiting for their guests, priests and soldiers alike, to fall asleep before sending men to slit their throats while they slept. Once they were dead, the bodies were hauled to the side of the ship and tossed overboard as food for the sharks.
With the spies out of the way, Thompson, Jones and four handpicked men returned to the hold to determine the extent of their booty.
It was an impressive haul, by anyone’s standards. After all the chests had been broken into and their contents cataloged, Thompson stared at the list with something approaching wonder.
113 gold statues, all of a religious nature
200 chests of jewels, including rubies, cornelians, topazes and emeralds
1,000 cut diamonds
273 swords and daggers, all with jeweled hilts
150 gold chalices
4,000 Spanish doubloons
5,000 Mexican crowns
4,265 uncut gemstones
2 gold reliquaries
2 life-size statues of the Virgin Mary and child cast in solid gold, her clothing decorated with jewels
All of which was currently sitting in the hold of his ship, waiting for him to decide what to do with it.
They couldn’t keep it aboard, that was for certain. The Mary Dear was a simple two-masted brig: it wouldn’t stand a chance against the man-of-wars lurking in these waters if de la Serna had him declared a pirate. No, they needed to get the treasure off the ship and stored somewhere safe for the time being and then lay low until after the revolution was over. At that point, they could return and cart off the treasure in small chunks with no one the wiser.
The question was, where? Where could a man hide millions in gold?
After a few moments of thought, he realized he knew just the place.
It was perfect!
“Jones, tell the pilot to set course for Cocos Island.”
“Aye, Captain!”
3
Costa Rica
Present day
Annja Creed fell into darkness.
Down.
Down.
Down she fell.
Deeper and deeper with every passing second, until it seemed that the only thing she’d ever known was this darkness, pressing in on her from all sides.
She could feel
her eyes straining to see something, anything, even the slightest glimmer of light, but finding nothing but this total darkness. She could feel her heartbeat speeding up, her pulse accelerating, and she told herself to relax; there was nothing to worry about.
Nothing but what might be lurking out there in the dark.
As she was telling the voice in the back of her head to shut up and be quiet, her feet touched bottom. She bent her legs to absorb the impact, what little there was, and then stood up straight again. The weight belt around her waist would keep her anchored, but still, she was careful not to push off with her legs as she did so.
She took a deep breath off her regulator...and hit the switch on the high-powered handheld spotlight that she was holding.
The grotto directly ahead of her lit up spectacularly, just as Manuel had said it would, and she was caught in spellbinding wonder as brilliantly colored stalactites hanging from the ceiling of the grotto were revealed. A dozen shades of red, blue and yellow hues danced in the light, transforming the underwater cavern into a cathedral of color. It was breathtaking and Annja felt her pulse quicken in admiration.
The cenote she was diving in had been formed thousands of years before when the naturally acidic groundwater seeped through cracks in the limestone bedrock, gradually wearing away the softer stone beneath, creating a pocketlike chamber with a thin limestone roof. At some point in the far past that roof collapsed and the empty chamber gradually filled with the groundwater seeping in through the surrounding soil. The result was a natural well hundreds of feet deep.
Even better in Annja’s eyes was that fact that this particular cenote connected with a series of caverns extending more than a mile underground, making it a perfect dive location through which to experience Costa Rica’s subterranean world.
The cable television show that Annja worked for, Chasing History’s Monsters, was devoted to exactly what its name suggested. For the past week she’d been here in Costa Rica filming segments on one of the more notorious Portuguese pirates of the 1800s. Benito “Bloody Sword” Bonito had raided shipping and seaside towns up and down the west coast of the Americas for a number of years before being captured and hanged by the British. According to legend, his ghost still haunted the Spanish Main, complete with spectral pirate vessel, and that was more than enough for her producer, Doug Morrell, to send her here to chase down those who claimed to have seen it and perhaps get lucky enough to see it for herself.
Normally Annja might have objected to such ridiculousness—she was an archaeologist by training and preferred the episodes she hosted to have a bit more of a factual basis, but a week enjoying the green jungles and gorgeous beaches of Costa Rica was something she just couldn’t pass up. When the crew had called it a wrap two days ago, she’d phoned Doug and let him know she was taking a few days of vacation to relax in the sun and enjoy herself for a change. She’d even changed rooms to mentally mark the difference between the time she spent here for work and the time she was taking for herself. It was silly, yes, but it made her feel better and that was all that mattered.
She’d gotten to know the resort dive instructor, Manuel Fernando, pretty well during the course of their shoot and enjoyed spending time with him, so when he’d invited her along on the dive expedition earlier that morning she’d readily agreed. There were three other resort guests on the dive, all beginners. Due to her previous diving experience, Manuel had let her go down ahead of the others so that she’d have the chance to view the grotto uninterrupted, just as he had the first time he’d dived the well. Gazing at it now, she was thankful that he had; it was a glorious sight!
Other lights broke the gloom above her and she knew the rest of the divers were on their way down. She moved closer to the side wall, noting the stronger current along the cenote’s edge as she did so, and waited for the others to reach her. The guests came first—Julie and Steve, a couple in their mid-twenties spending their honeymoon in Costa Rica, and Rick, a heavyset male in his early forties here on a business trip—with Manuel following directly behind them to be certain they made the descent without problem. The three guests had completed a weeklong dive-instruction course just the day before and today’s dive was sort of their graduation exercise. Annja remembered her first time making a major dive and felt a slight thread of envy; for the three of them, it was all new territory, and boy, did that feel good.
Once they were all gathered together on the bottom, Manuel checked with each of them to be sure that they were okay. Annja gave them a thumbs-up when his attention turned to her. His eyes smiled at her through his mask. Bear with us, he seemed to be saying, and she smiled inwardly in return. She’d noticed Manuel eyeing her when he thought she wasn’t looking and she was pretty sure that he was working up the nerve to make a pass at her, something she wouldn’t mind in the least. Fact was, if he didn’t get up the nerve relatively soon, she’d probably make a pass of her own. Not only was he fun to be around, but he was damned good-looking, too, with raffish good looks and a body to rival that of a professional fitness instructor. It was all that swimming, she knew. Gave him abs to die for.
She chided herself. The sun, sand and sea were starting to get to her, it seemed. It was hard being alone in the midst of so much beauty and it was only natural that she’d want a little male companionship given her surroundings, wasn’t it?
Damn straight.
At five feet ten inches tall, with chestnut hair, amber-green eyes and an athlete’s share of smooth, rounded muscle, Annja got more than her fair share of male interest, but her schedule normally didn’t allow her to take advantage of it. She was always jetting off somewhere new, following the latest mystery, searching for the answers to some age-old puzzle, and her social life was practically nonexistent as a result. It took a vacation to remind her that life shouldn’t be lived alone. Or, at least, not all the time.
She shook off thoughts of Manuel and concentrated on the grotto into which he was taking them, letting them drift among the rock formations and marveling at the uniqueness of each stalactite and stalagmite that hung down from the ceiling above their heads or grew upward from the floor beneath their feet.
Annja was about to take a look down one of the adjoining passages that led deeper into the cave system leading off the cenote proper when she was struck by an overwhelming sense of impending danger. It was so strong that she literally spun about in a circle, certain that an enemy was looming nearby and that she was about to come under attack, but aside from her dive companions, she was alone.
What on earth?
On the heels of that thought came another.
Get out of here. Now!
Annja had learned to trust her instincts. She didn’t question them. She didn’t second-guess herself. She just turned herself about, searching for Manuel and pointing frantically upward, knowing that whatever was coming wasn’t going to be good.
Unfortunately, she and the rest of the dive group had far less time than she thought. She’d barely given the signal to ascend to Manuel when a thundering groan filled their ears and in the next second they were struck by a massive pressure wave that rolled inexorably over them, shaking them about like corks in a stream, tossed and turned in the grip of its power, before leaving them abandoned in its wake.
For a moment, it was all they could do to hang there in the water and get their bearings. Annja recovered first, moving to where Steve and Julie clung to a nearby stalagmite. She used hand signals to confirm that they were both okay. Once she had, she looked about and saw that Manuel was doing the same with the other guest, Rick. They were all shook up, and no doubt scared, but fortunately none of them had been seriously injured, thanks in part to the fact that their position in the grotto had partially shielded them from the full force of the earthquake.
That was what it had been, an earthquake; Annja was certain of it. Costa Rica had more than its fair share of quakes and she’d been through e
nough of them to recognize the phenomena, even this far underwater. She also knew that there would likely be more to come, if only from the series of aftershocks that were likely to follow. In fact, they had a limited window in which to get out of the danger zone before the ground betrayed them a second time.
It was time to get out of there.
Annja caught Steve’s and Julie’s attention and signaled for them to head for the surface. Thankfully, they did as they were told, grabbing hands and kicking hard for the sunlight high above. She nodded approvingly as she watched them go; they stayed in the center of the shaft and rose quickly but carefully.
The newlyweds had risen about a hundred feet toward the surface when the first of the aftershocks hit. The frenetic shaking of the cenote’s walls carved off chunks of limestone that fell downward into the water below like unguided missiles. Annja watched one such projectile fall toward her and just managed to get out of its way; it might not strike with bone-breaking force because of the resistance of the water, but it would certainly be heavy enough to carry her to the bottom and pin her there if she were unlucky enough to be trapped beneath it.
Seeing her charges continuing upward in the wake of the aftershock, Annja turned her attention back to her own level, wondering why Manuel and Rick hadn’t joined her yet. She saw the answer quickly enough; the aftershock had apparently spooked Rick into action and he was now headed for one of the tunnels rather than back up the main shaft toward the surface.
As Annja looked on, Manuel went after him, catching up with him before Rick could get more than a few feet down the length of the tunnel. The dive instructor got his charge turned around in the right direction and followed in his wake, headed back to the main shaft of the cenote where Annja waited.
That was when the second aftershock hit.
The world bounced and shook and careened around her, the pressure wave throwing her against the wall of the cenote with bruising force. To Annja, it seemed that this aftershock was stronger than the first by a factor of two or more; it was nearly as strong as the initial quake itself. Debris thundered down around her, rocks the size of softballs competing for space with those the size of refrigerators.
