Martel untied the longboat. “We salvage under their gun muzzles,” he said. “Prepare to dive where bullets can’t reach us.”
I didn’t have a better plan. Jubal and I pushed off toward Pelee and the buoy we’d set. Musket fire peppered the water, cannons crashed, but the French ketch had turned into the wind so close to Diamond Rock that the British couldn’t help but overshoot her. She dropped her mizzen and anchored, continuing to lob with her mortar while spraying the side of the rock with swivel guns. Her captain, a man named Augustus Brienne, was showing elan of his own.
“Come on, comrades!” I heard Antoine call.
I studied the crowd on board. Yes, there was Astiza, waving to me over the gunwale. Stay down, darling. Harry must be somewhere below. I also saw other Negro heads besides Antoine, assuring me that the French hadn’t betrayed Jubal’s men yet. There was still a chance.
Once we got to our submerged buoy we dove over the side of our longboat, eager to evacuate before British fire found it. The sea was inky below, its heave pulling and pushing below the surface. At night I could imagine a thousand hideous things coming at me from deep. But the surest way to get out of this mess was to retrieve what we’d come for, so I followed the buoy line to the bottom, groped by the longboat anchor, and seized slick metal.
Aztec gold!
I swam up, narrowly missing knocking my own head on the tethered launch. Then I kicked over to the ketch and hollered for a ladder. A rope-and-peg one uncurled down the side. The little ship was bouncing up and down in the seas like a coach on a potholed American road, the weather both screening us and making salvage difficult. I had to time my grab to avoid the scrape of barnacles that girded the vessel’s waterline. At last I climbed partway up and slapped what I’d grabbed-it was one of the gold necklaces, I saw-on deck. The French gaped.
“Get it in a strongbox,” I ordered. “There’s much more to come.”
Martel squeezed up beside me, crying for help to lift the golden alligator. “Yes, and don’t cut anchor until we’re all aboard,” he added. “Send the blacks to help.”
We dropped back into the sea, bullets whapping into the ketch’s hull and plunking into the water. Jubal swam by, hoisted his own piece of the hoard on deck, and shouted to his comrades. “Dive, freemen! The faster we fetch, the faster we leave!”
Men leaped from the ship and swam with us back to the buoy. Even Crow and Buzzard jumped in to help. Down we ducked like otters, groping for gold, and then swam gasping to Pelee ’s far side. The ship’s coughing mortar gave fits of illumination. British cannonballs kept arcing over us to fall harmlessly into the sea beyond, and their gunners swore like the sailors they were, frustrated they couldn’t depress their cannon barrels far enough and no doubt wondering what the devil we were doing down there.
Finally they tried just pitching a cannonball by hand. This, to a certain extent, worked: the sphere fell three hundred feet, hit an outcrop, and bounced outward toward our salvage operation. There was no good aim, but the ball made a disturbing impact when it splashed into the sea a few yards from where we swam.
Madness! But gold, too. I dove again.
With our team of bandits, the treasure was transferred quickly. We thrashed blindly-one poor lad got a handful of urchin spines-and it gradually became harder to find whatever was left. I could hear the plonk of ricocheting cannonballs as they struck the water, and finally thought we’d done a good night’s work. I’d decided to suggest this to Martel when there was another splash, different this time, and something bobbed on the dim surface. I dove and felt a last time for treasure.
Suddenly there was a thud, kick, and agony in my ears. I was punched sideways, and the surface of the sea erupted. Then a confusion of sounds and things hitting the water. I swam up, dazed. Other heads poked up around me, all of us rising and falling on the waves that pounded and thundered against Diamond Rock. Several ears bled. One man floated facedown and still.
Our longboat and buoy had disappeared.
Martel shouted something. My ears were ringing.
“What?”
He swam closer, looked at one ear, and then turned me to shout in the other. “Powder keg!”
Ah, the English had dropped a fused one with enough air to let it float, and the mine had gone off next to our precious longboat. Our buoy rope marking the treasure had slithered to the bottom.
“Time to leave!” Jubal shouted.
We didn’t have to be persuaded. Another barrel came down, and we swam for our lives. It erupted with fury and a huge fountain of spray as we scrambled up the side of Pelee like squirrels. One black took a splinter and fell with a cry back into the sea; we fished him out, blood running.
Something thumped our side. It was the diving bell, kicked out of our boat by the explosion. With more sentiment than sense, I insisted we haul it aboard. The leaded rum barrel thumped down, its little glass porthole intact.
Then I collapsed on deck, dripping and exhausted. An ax swung, the anchor cable parted, and a jib unreeled to catch the wind. The ketch’s bow swung as sharply as a wayward compass needle, cannonballs still crashing, and then we were off, flying from Diamond Rock.
A shout went up from the British side as they saw us sail through the range of their guns, but by now rain was beginning to fall, obscuring us further. Their cannon boomed, and a lucky shot might still have sunk us, but we had only a couple balls scream harmlessly through our rigging. We’d snatched one of the most fabulous treasures in history out from under English noses, and chances were they didn’t even know what we’d taken. When the storm abated, they’d probably clamber down and scratch their heads, evidence of our expedition churned away by the storm’s surf.
They might signal an English frigate, however, to hunt us down. So we hoisted more canvas, the overload pushing a rail into the sea, and were off like a racehorse, men scrabbling to catch treasure sliding on deck and carry it to storage below. I’d no doubt more than a few trinkets disappeared into trousers or shoes, but we had no time for inspection. The ship raced, bucking and pitching in the building waves with the sickening swoops of Cayley’s glider. Pelee was badly balanced with the mortar and rolled more than was normal.
Still, we’d recovered what the conquistadors had lost. The Sad Night of Cortes had been reversed.
I wearily sat against a mast and looked for Astiza. There she was in the stern as planned, exactly as I’d told her to be. I waved again, our smiles a flash in the night. The signal confirmed that Harry was tucked safe in a sail locker.
And that payback could soon begin.
Chapter 41
We sailed from the artificial thunder-and-lightning storm coming from the British output on Diamond Rock, a blind bombardment of artillery like bolts from Olympus. The monolith was finally lost behind us in rain and mist, spray flying from wave tops, stars hidden. The nearby mountains of Martinique were invisible. Now the only sign of the isle was the white glow of warning surf.
Had Martinique been a lee shore, wind blowing toward it, we’d have been hard-pressed to keep off its reefs. But the wind was boiling out of the southeast, pushing us northwestward into the open Caribbean.
“Hurricane coming!” Jubal shouted in my ear.
“Not this season,” I protested.
“This one is from Agwe. Or perhaps the god of Montezuma?”
“God should favor us. We’re putting treasure to liberty’s use.” The wind snatched my words away like leaves in a tempest.
“Only if we win.” My friend was looking at Martel.
The renegade policeman was snapping orders like an admiral. Sailors ran to the lines, looking apprehensively up at our rigging.
“My God,” I said, “he’s going to try to jibe in this wind. He’ll risk snapping the boom.”
“He wants to sail into Fort-de-France.”
We’d expected as much. Once under French guns, any chance of our keeping some treasure would be gone, regardless of the promises Martel made. My family would still be a
t his mercy. My black companions would be reenslaved. The scoundrel would return to Paris, triumphant with triangular toys. I rose from the mast and put my hand on a sailor’s arm. “No.” The man hesitated, his muscle jumping under my palm. “For your own safety, get to the rail.”
But then a sword point pricked the back of my shoulder. “It’s time for you to go below out of the weather, Monsieur Gage.” Martel had put on a greatcoat over wet clothes, its hem stuttering in the wind. “We’ll make you warm in the dungeons of Fort-de-France.”
“I thought we were partners, Leon.”
“Indeed, we were. But all partnerships must end.”
It was the betrayal we’d been waiting for, counting on. Martel’s squad of scoundrels had pistols out pointing at Jubal’s men, and swords in case guns didn’t fire in the tropic rain. They meant to take it all, not just the flying toys but every necklace, every idol, every golden alligator. Even the emerald again, if he held me captive long enough for my body to expel it. Or he’d slit me from arse to throat to get at it, if he knew where I’d put the jewel.
“Jibe in this wind, and you’ll risk the mainmast,” I warned.
“It’s our only chance to make Martinique. And I don’t believe you’re a sailor, Gage. Leave it to experts who are.”
I glanced at Captain Brienne at the helm, eyeing the booms and yards of the sails as nervously as a groom his approaching bride. “To Haiti, Martel, downwind,” I tried. “For a fair division as promised.”
He smiled. “Come, Gage. You knew it had to be this way from the beginning. We’re all pirates here. It was either me imprisoned in Haiti, or you imprisoned in Martinique. And I’m not a man to share. So
… down the hatch. You can say good-bye to your son a final time while we run for the harbor. Your wife and boy can hire as domestics, or she can work as a whore; she’d make good money at it. You’ll win delivery back to France in chains to answer to Napoleon. It’s an honor, to merit such trouble.”
“I’m Napoleon’s agent, you idiot.”
“Are you really that naive? Maybe they’ll give you L’Ouverture’s old cell, which I’m told was very large. I’m not a cruel man. Just
… determined.”
“And arrogant.”
“Only around my inferiors.” He motioned with the sword tip. “Go, go. I don’t want to stab you in front of your wife. I hate the sobs of women.”
Which was as good a cue as any. I looked beyond him to the stern of our ship. “Astiza?”
“Ready, Ethan.” There was a squeal of metal, and she pivoted a swivel gun on the stern rail and aimed its muzzle down the deck. Captain Brienne’s eyes went wide, and he ducked down.
“Packed with musket balls and waiting for hours,” I told Martel.
He considered my wife. The calm captive of Martinique had disappeared. Now Astiza looked the avenging banshee, her dress and coat shuddering in the howl of wind, wet hair loose and flying like a flag. A glowing match was sheltered in her hand.
“You must be joking,” Martel tried. “She’s a woman. A mother. Tell her to get away from that gun before she hurts herself.”
“She is a mother, and you took her cub,” I warned. “I advise you put your sword down. Partners, you said. It’s still not too late.”
“She’s bluffing,” he called to his men. “Use Gage as a shield!”
They shoved Jubal’s blacks, whom they’d surprised, toward me, everyone swaying and stumbling to the ungodly roll of the ship, bunching into a target.
We had just an instant before ropes clasped around us, but Antoine had drilled the men ashore. Training and timing is everything.
“Now,” I said.
Jubal and his blacks joined me in dropping flat to the deck.
“No!” Martel roared.
Astiza fired.
The swivel gun banged, and there was a sizzle as a cone of lead balls swept the deck like a wicked broom. French ruffians cried and toppled as bullets tore flesh. Balls pinged off the mortar on the foredeck, whining away or whapping into wood. Martel staggered from an impact, and I tripped him and leaped atop, hurling his sword overboard and holding his own knife to his throat. Jubal’s men were doing the same to the others. In an instant, the situation was reversed.
The sailors at the rigging had frozen, including the one I’d warned. Astiza had stepped from the stern to Captain Brienne at the wheel to hold a pistol to his body. “Stay your course, or you’ll have no backbone.”
Martel was gasping with pain. One ball had torn his belly, another his arm. “No woman would do that,” he complained. I could feel the stickiness of his blood.
“My woman would, to a man who stole her child.”
“Damn you.” He coughed wetly. “I watched everyone but her.”
“You’ve damned yourself.”
“Listen to the wind, Gage.” His voice was a bubbling wheeze. “It’s rising toward a hurricane. If we don’t make port now, we never will. Jibe for Fort-de-France, and I’ll parley with the governor and split fairly with you, I promise. If we don’t make port, we’re doomed.”
“Split what? You just lost your share of the treasure, including your foolish flying machines. That’s what comes of breaking an agreement.”
“Those models are the property of the French government!”
“I think they’re the property of the Haitian government, now. Or perhaps I’ll take them to London. You can explain your mistakes in a letter to Bonaparte.”
“Bonaparte will hunt you to the ends of the earth if you flee with this treasure. He’s expecting ancient secrets to help him conquer Britain. This isn’t about money: it’s about power. You’ve understood nothing from the beginning.”
“If Napoleon were here, he’d have less mercy on you than I will. The first consul is my patron. He’d be appalled that renegade French policemen have tortured, kidnapped, and betrayed.”
Martel groaned. “Fool.”
“You’re the fool, for assaulting my family.”
“Gage, do you think I have license to accost you in Paris, dally with Rochambeau, and be set up like a prince in Martinique?”
“You’ve a talent for roguery, I give you that.”
“It’s all been at the orders of Bonaparte. The theft of the emerald, the kidnapping of your son, the hunt for the legend. Napoleon’s not your patron. He’s your foe. He didn’t keep you in Paris for Louisiana, which was near bargained already. He flattered you to follow this treasure, manipulating you with the theft of your family. You’ve been his plaything from the beginning.”
“What?”
“Nitot told Josephine about the emerald, who told Napoleon, who told Fouche, who told me. You’ve been our puppet since Saint-Cloud. I’m merely an employee. It wasn’t I who stole your son and wife. It was Bonaparte, who knew you’d never volunteer to look for Aztec technology on your own. But he knew you might be tricked into it with the right incentive, such as a kidnapping, and that you have a knack for learning clues that elude ordinary men. Whether you explored for Dessalines, the British, or France hardly mattered. You’d come after your family, and when you did, Napoleon would get his due.”
“You’re lying.”
“The Corsican wants those flying machines and is perfectly willing to sacrifice a family to get them. He’ll sacrifice a million families for a chance at England. Your only hope, Gage, is to return to Fort-de-France and throw yourself on French mercy. Napoleon will forgive but never forget.”
“Napoleon forgive? For betraying my family?”
“That’s what the great do, to remain great. And the lesser accept their calculations for a moment’s favor. That’s all we can hope for. I’m amazed how naive you remain after all the treacheries you’ve endured.”
It’s true. I am by instinct good-natured and want to believe the best of people, except when I have to shoot or stab them. It’s a fault, I suppose. So now my mind reeled like the heave of the ship. Martel had been working for the same first consul who’d supposedly deputize
d me to work on the sale of Louisiana? And that master considered me entirely disposable? Of course Napoleon felt himself impregnable, in his own grand palaces.
“I don’t believe you.” But my tone betrayed me.
“You think an unemployed policeman can order a bomb ketch? Lambeau converted this ship on Napoleon’s orders, not mine.”
“Why didn’t Bonaparte hire me directly?”
“Because you kept insisting you’d quit.”
I felt dazed. A wash of seawater ran from side to side of the deck, mixed with blood from dead and wounded men. Now I had a choice of surrender to Martel’s government or a ride in a hurricane with a wounded crew at one another’s throats. “I only wanted to retire,” I said hollowly.
“You can only retire when the powerful say you can retire.”
“And you, Martel, wounded, wet, five thousand miles from home?”
“I’m a policeman. A soldier. I accept my fate.”
I glanced about, considering. Astiza still stood behind the helm and our captain as the ship surged on, surfing down growling swells. Brienne looked frightened at our course, but clung fatalistically to the wheel. Martel’s look was mocking, pitying, disdainful, proud, pained, as if he were the moral superior. So I had to jolt him into place. “Perhaps what you say is true. We’ll let Dessalines finish your interrogation to make sure.”
Finally he paled. “Monsieur, that is monstrous…”
“He has his own ideas of justice for slavery-loving Frenchmen.” I dragged the bleeding bastard to the hatch leading to the hold. “You’ve a gift for conversation. I’m sure you can persuade him.”
“You’re a traitor to your race if you give me up to Dessalines!”
“Don’t talk to me about treachery.”
“I warn you, Gage, I’ll never go! I’ll kill myself first!”
“You’re too much the villain to dare.” I dragged him down the ladder, bumping, and found that chains had been prepared for our own capture. So I snapped them in place around him and the other scoundrels and took the ring of keys. I almost let Martel bleed to death, but at the last moment wrapped rags around his wounds so we could save him for later torture.
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