“So were you!”
“I was lonely, Buck—I’m not a suburban housewife type, you knew that. I’d go to your office and wait to hear from you. Because you never called—”
“No cell reception in jungles—”
“Jack was always there, he listened to me, cared about my career, my dreams, my needs … Buck, you can’t understand—”
“Oh, I understand, all right.”
“Buck—”
“Spare me the tears, Heather. You vanished while I was fighting to stay out of jail, my parents got killed—and now I find out you were off with him?” My finger stabbed Jack in the shoulder. He brushed it away, still calm and in control. Fucking accountant. “You cleaned out our bank account—took everything that wasn’t bolted down—and fucking disappeared!”
Jack shoved me away.
“Back off, Buck.”
“Don’t tell me to back off, partner! And you were pissed at me for not visiting you in jail? Are you fucking kidding me? You were banging my wife!”
I felt the eyes of Jack’s crew on us. Mine were now aimed at Heather.
A twinge of guilt stabbed at me. I had been gone a lot. I remembered our discussing it at one point, but there was always the next treasure waiting to be found…
“And what about your billionaire husband—the one you married before the ink was dry on our divorce papers?” Spittle shot from my mouth and made Heather wince. “What the hell was that about?”
“I didn’t … When I went to see Jack, I realized I didn’t love Barry, and—”
“Now you’re with Jack, he has Betty, and he’s using the fruits of my time in those jungles to take what should have been ours!”
The sound of laughter brought a cold numbness over me. Gunner must be loving this.
My breathing settled. My heart rate became steady and my vision intense, as if I were seeing the teak deck of the fishing boat through the most sophisticated of camera lenses—reminding me that Jack still had money he’d hidden from the investigators after our bankruptcy, while I’d mostly lived like a pauper ever since filing Chapter 11.
Jack got the girl—my girl. He got the salvage contract—the one my research led to. That last thought made me smile. I waved and the fishing boat idling a hundred feet off the port side instantly accelerated, its Yamaha motor the only sound. Again I smiled.
They looked at each other then back at me, confused.
“Maybe there’s justice after all,” I said. “Your salvage efforts—sorry, your archaeological reconstruction project—has been nothing but a dry hole. What have you spent, Jack? Couple million? More?” I smiled again. “And this one here?” I tipped my head toward Heather. “You’d better damned well find some treasure—and a lot of it. Between the two of you, you’ll need it.”
The gray concrete skyline of Kingston grew close as the captain took me to shore. I caught a taxi back to the airport to check on the Beast. Thom had needed to head up to the north coast, Oracabessa, and I planned to fly to the airport near Ocho Rios, now called Ian Fleming International. I was surprised to find Thom sitting in the lounge at the General Aviation terminal when I arrived at Norman Manley Airport.
“Thought you rented a car,” I said.
“Was about to, then I found out how long it would take to get all the way up there, so I decided to wait around for you. Truth be told I was also a little worried, as pissed as you were when you left. You kick some ass?”
A long exhale was all I could muster. Thom read the signal and didn’t ask any more questions.
It only took twenty minutes to file my flight plan and get squared away to head north. The afternoon sun hit hard as we stepped out onto the tarmac. Thom carried his suitcase and guitar, and once to the Beast, I let him inside to air her out while I inspected the holes in the port wingtip. Unbelievable. There were only six inches separating the closest hole and the edge of the 110-gallon fuel tank, and miraculously, the bullets hadn’t hit the flap or the vacuum lines that control the flaps. I pushed my finger into the holes, one by one, to feel around for anything sharp, wet, any kind of damage invisible to the naked eye.
The holes felt clean, though I’d have felt better about them if Ray were here.
I spotted Thom watching me from the cockpit window. Back at the open hatch, I leaned inside.
“Do me a favor and grab the roll of duct tape in the file box next to my seat,” I said. I heard him rooting around.
“This gonna work?” he said when he held it out to me.
“I’m not planning any water landings, and there isn’t any internal damage, so yeah. It’ll help preserve the aerodynamics at least.”
I rolled up little pieces of duct tape, stuffed them in the holes, then covered each hole with a strip and rubbed it smooth. Ten minutes later I’d done a preflight check, confirmed we still had plenty of fuel, and closed the hatch.
Should I take the Beast getting shot as a bad omen, drop Thom off, and head home? Probably. Was I going to do that?
Hell no.
“What time’s your meeting with the record producer?”
“We’re having dinner.”
I completed the preflight inspection, paying careful attention to the flaps and the vacuum system, which seemed fine. I turned on the fuel valves, moved the mixture control to idle cutoff, pumped the throttles, hit the ignition switch, and engaged the starters. Once the warm-up was done, I checked the oil and fuel pressures and waited for word from Air Traffic Control. Once it was our turn we taxied out, cranked up the manifold pressure, and lit off down the runaway.
As we climbed over the azure bay between Kingston to the north, with Port Royal to the south, I didn’t so much as glance at Jack’s armada for the big Merritt where I’d found him and Heather. I kicked the starboard pedal instead and banked hard over Kingston, another place I had no desire to gaze down upon. The recollection of the HARC selection meeting at Hibbert House was still an irritant.
Dry hole or not, I hated to lose.
“Wow,” Thom said.
Out his side window were the Blue Mountains, some of the tallest in the Caribbean. Our passage, which ATC instructed us to maintain at seven thousand feet, kept us eye to eye with the highest peak to our east. The interior of Jamaica is rugged, green, and full of surprises.
The flight took only fifteen minutes before I hurried through the landing checklist, circled the airport once as we descended, then announced our final leg and approach onto runway 9, the lone 4,700-foot asphalt strip that ran parallel to the sea.
Once we came to a stop and shut everything down, I removed my headset and saw a big grin on Thom’s face.
“I really appreciate you bringing me down here, Buck. Sorry we ran into trouble there in Kingston, but man, I can’t tell you how excited I am to meet with Chris Blackwell.”
“How you getting there?”
“Taxi. I got you a room at GoldenEye, too, man.”
I nodded my appreciation. I hadn’t really given any thought to where I’d stay, and I had yet to contact Nanny Adou or Johnny Blake to let them know I was here. So might as well spend the night at Ian Fleming’s old digs and see whatever inspired him to write thirteen James Bond novels and launch the most successful franchise of spy movies in history.
That, and get a belly full of Appleton’s Rum.
Goldeneye was nestled into a private lagoon on one side, Low Cay beach on another, and the ocean on yet another. Private villas tucked into mature vegetation blended earth tones with the brilliant blue water and crashing white surf. It was peaceful, private, isolated: just what I didn’t need, given my highly agitated state of mind. After dropping my bag in the lagoon view single villa, I opted to try and swim off some anger rather than heading straight to the bar.
The warm water welcomed me, and I could see clearly even without goggles as I swam around the large oval-shaped lagoon and the perimeter of the green island in the center. After an hour of semi-mindless freestyle swimming at as strong a pace as I could maintain, I lost track of how
many times I’d circled the island.
I climbed out by the water sports station and crossed over the big pedestrian bridge, illuminated with large multicolored lights reminiscent of holiday festivities. I sat in the gin-clear water by Low Cay Beach, where I watched the few guests snoozing, drinking, and reading in colorful chaise lounges scattered along the sand. Daylight faded to oranges and pinks, and I could picture the amazing sunset visible from Negril on the western end of Jamaica.
My marriage had ended over five years ago. Knowing Heather to be shallow, narcissistic, and spoiled, her disappearing when I filed for bankruptcy had not come as a surprise. Or when she married the elderly oil tycoon less than a year later. By recognizing the inevitability of her need for wealth and the good life, I could justify losing her, and even marrying her. If the entire relationship had been based on a mirage, I could tell myself I hadn’t really lost anything.
But seeing her today, for that split second before my brain connected the dots, I’d felt my heart shudder. It sickened me to face it, but of course I’d married her because I loved her. My trophy wife and I had been the toast of the town, young, beautiful, successful. The world had been ours for the taking. And oh, the fun we’d had.
It was easy to now see that I’d not only been a fool, but a blind, ignorant, self-centered fool. My darling wife and my business partner had found each other while I was out killing myself in third-world shit holes, bribing academics, digging through jungles, negotiating with criminals—all the while seeing myself as a real-life Indiana Jones.
I’d been good at it, too. I’d found incalculably valuable lost antiquities, treasures worth hundreds of millions of dollars, even helped to connect missing gaps of world history for cultures that had vanished centuries ago.
While Jack and Heather had been left alone in Virginia.
Back at my room, on the bed there was an envelope with a handwritten note requesting my company for dinner tonight with Chris Blackwell and Thom Shepherd at Blackwell’s private villa. A quick glance at my ancient Rolex Submariner made me skip a shave and dash into the shower. Cocktails would be served in twenty minutes in the Bizot Bar, at the far end of the beach.
Bizot was an open-air structure overlooking Low Cay Beach. As I walked through the white sand I saw torches burning, candles flickering, and heard laughter filter through the foliage that separated the beach from the villas. Underneath the covered patio was a bar supported by columns entirely wallpapered in photographs, pictures, stories, and album covers from Blackwell’s friends and clients back in the days of Island Records. On the corner seat of the bar was a tall man in a cowboy hat with his back to me.
Chris Blackwell had a casual elegance: gray hair almost as long as mine and a trim beard, open collar, linen slacks, a deep tan from a lifetime in the Jamaican sun. Thom introduced me.
“Buck Reilly, welcome to GoldenEye.” Chris shook my hand with a firm grip that belied his seventy-plus years.
“It’s a pleasure to meet the man who introduced reggae to the rest of the world,” I said.
Blackwell gave a brief nod. “And equally, a man who has cut such a romantic and dashing swath as a treasure hunter.” This said in a British accent undiluted after his many years in Jamaica.
“It seems those days are long past,” I said.
“Not so long.” He smiled. “I’m quite familiar with the Port Royal salvage project you pursued.”
I suspected a lot of people recognized my name from coverage in the local press.
“A brief attempt to revisit past successes,” I said.
“Harry Greenbaum is an old friend,” he said. “An investor, in fact, in the early days of Island Records.”
“Really? He’s never mentioned that, but given Harry’s prolific portfolio I’m not surprised.”
The bartender handed me a Black and Stormy, Blackwell’s own version of a dark and stormy using his brand of rum.
“Your competitor has been luckless in Port Royal.”
I managed a brief smile. “At this point I’m glad Last Resort wasn’t selected.”
“You’re luckier than you know,” Chris said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“According to Jamaican island legend, it’s all a sham. The so-called Port Royal treasure, that is.”
“So called?” I said. “The evidence that Henry Morgan spirited away a vast treasure was in a document identifying the location, dated late seventeenth century, and connected to a former slave who sailed with Morgan to the raid of Panama. I found it myself nearly six years ago through various connections here on Jamaica.”
“Oh, I don’t doubt it. The letter you acquired all those years ago was certainly authentic.” He paused. “But legend here among Jamaicans whose family roots run back to those times has it that the content of the letter was intentionally bogus.”
I sat there in shocked silence long enough for Blackwell to take a swig of his cocktail, put it down, and smile at me.
“You still there, Buck?” Thom said.
“Ah, yeah. Well, I suppose anything’s possible, but a nearly four-hundred-year-old sham? Seems unlikely.”
Yet nothing sounded unlikely coming from this man, who had an omniscient presence about him. Who’d been around the world and back many times, had built music legends from nothing, and still had a glint of Peter Pan in his bright blue eyes.
“It’s academic for you now, of course, but as I said, lucky for you. Assuming local legend is true.”
I sat on a barstool and gulped half of my Black and Stormy, the ginger beer tickling my nostrils.
“And I thought the music business was tough,” Thom said.
Blackwell raised his empty glass.
“We should adjourn to my villa for dinner.”
“Before we go,” I said, “do you know a Professor Nanny Adou?”
Blackwell’s eyes lit up. “Of course. She’s at the University of the West Indies, and her ancestors have been here as far back as Morgan himself. Why do you ask?”
“She’s been asking to see me. Says she wants me to meet an elder from the Moore Town Maroons but hasn’t said why.”
He was quiet for a moment.
“She’s the genuine article, given her history and stature within the community. Have you met her yet?”
I shook my head.
“Well, it would be worthwhile, I’m sure. As I was saying, her family lineage goes back to the matriarch of Maroon leadership—Nanny herself.”
“A mystery, wrapped in a conundrum, surrounded by legend,” Thom said. “You’ll be right at home here, Buck.”
Because Professor Adou was driving up from Moore Town, Johnny Blake suggested we all meet at the Trident Hotel in Port Antonio. I rented a Jeep through GoldenEye and set out after breakfast.
The drive east along the coastal road cut in and out of wooded areas, weaving through small bays and towns: Port Maria, Annott Bay, Palmetto Bay, Buff Bay, and Hope Bay. An hour and a half later I finally found the Trident, just past the heart of Port Antonio. It was an elegant resort, geared to recapture the success of the 1950s, when the region’s proximity to the Rio Grande had made it a strategic location for banana exporters.
Johnny was seated on one of the red couches in the courtyard out back, sipping a Coke. He jumped up when he saw me, and true to his outgoing personality gave me a quick hug and a fist bump.
“Mr. Buck, welcome back to Jamaica, mon.”
“Thanks, Johnny. Can’t say I’m happy to be here, but at least SCG is striking out.” I glanced around. We were the only ones on the patio. “Speaking of which … have you ever heard a rumor the letter you sold me might be some kind of ancient scam?”
Johnny’s ever-present smile vanished.
“Never heard nothing like that, mon. You saying I—”
“Whoa! I’m not suggesting you knew anything. But Jack hasn’t found dick, and I heard the rumor from a source who knows local history, and it got me wondering.”
Back came the toot
hy smile.
“Bad for your old friend Jack Dodson if it’s true, huh?”
“Wouldn’t break my heart, Johnny.”
“Things real tense in Port Royal. Their work getting sloppier, and the Heritage Trust getting pushy.”
Now that I’d seen Jack’s operation firsthand, my estimate of $25,000 per day may have been conservative.
Good.
“By the way, I found out about that blond,” Johnny said. “Name’s Heather Drake—”
“I know.” I took a deep breath. “I mean, it turns out I knew her.”
He laughed. “Why am I not surprised, King Buck?”
“Do me a favor—don’t call me that.”
A waiter in a black uniform delivered cups and a pot of coffee. Johnny requested another Coke, and once the waiter poured my coffee, he bowed and walked away. I turned back to Johnny.
“I’m still curious about Professor Adou. You haven’t told me much.”
Johnny grinned, then reached into his pocket and pulled out a roll of Jamaican cash. He removed the rubber band and peeled back some bills until he found a five-hundred-dollar note. He held it up to show the image of Nanny, the leader of the Windward Maroons back from the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.
“Named after the Mother of us all. I know who Queen Nanny is, but why’s the professor named after her? Is there any significance?”
“Plenty significance, mon. She’s the product of modern education but got a lot of old connections. Good thing you finally meet her, ’cause I’m not sure whether she be an Obeah like her great-great granny, but you don’t want to take no chances—”
Suddenly Johnny’s eyes bulged and he nearly fell out of his chair trying to stand up.
I glanced over my shoulder to see a tall, lithe woman in tan slacks and a bright yellow short-sleeved blouse walking toward us. I realized I was staring with my mouth open. Neither Chris nor Johnny had bothered to mention that Nanny was beautiful: fine features, mocha skin, short highlighted hair, gorgeous figure, and a confidence that pulled it all together. I pushed my chair back and stood up.
Maroon Rising Page 3
