Relics

by K. T. Tomb

  When what seemed like hours of making turns in every neighborhood in Panama City finally came to an end, the car slowed in front of a small church in what appeared to be the roughest part of town. I couldn’t have put together enough saliva to spit by the time the driver pulled to the curb, stopped and waved a hand toward the church.

  “Go. I wait.”

  After glancing at Ishi, I pulled the handle on the door, opened it and stepped out. Thank God, my ever present partner did the same.

  Chapter Four

  “Okay, so killing someone in a church is supposed to be like the worst thing you could ever do, right?” I said in a low tone as Ishi and I approached the arched double doors of what was, in reality, only a little bigger than a common chapel.

  Ishi shrugged.

  “See,” I answered, forcing an uncomfortable smile to my lips. “That’s why I’m the leader and you’re the sidekick.”

  Without giving a response, Ishi reached for the handle, pulled the door open and stepped inside. I’d been in churches before and this one wasn’t any different. There was a small vestibule inside the doors and then about 20 rows of pews on each side of an aisle leading to the altar area, which featured its typical lectern, Eucharist table and the chairs for the priest and his attendant to sit in. Above the Eucharist table was a large, round stained glass window with Christ on the cross looking down upon the congregation.

  Instinctively, we crossed ourselves, and then started down the aisle toward the front. The only sound in the empty sanctuary was that of our footsteps on the terrazzo floor. When we reached the space between the altar and the first row of pews, we stopped and turned to look at each other.

  “Okay, what now?” Ishi asked in a hushed tone. It always seemed better to talk that way in an empty church. Maybe there was some commandment somewhere instructing people to speak that way.

  “If this gets any weirder, then maybe we ought to pray,” I replied.

  “Nicholas Caine and Ishi Cuyamel?” We heard the baritone voice echo through the church, but didn’t see anyone at first. For a moment, I wondered if it was God; after all, He was the only one who could speak that loudly in a church.

  “Yes,” we responded together, turning a full circle in search of the speaker.

  “Come with us,” the man said, stepping forward from off to our left. At the same moment, three other men materialized from the shadows. We were, effectively, surrounded by Arnold Schwarzenegger, Dolph Lundgren, The Rock and that dude who played Jaws in the James Bond movies. Okay, not the actual guys, but you know the type. Each one of them could have surrounded us by themselves.

  We went with them.

  I’d always wondered what was through those doors behind the altar and I was about to find out. The man who had spoken led us to one of the doors, opened it and allowed us to pass through, followed, of course, by the other three monsters.

  “Put these on,” the same guy said, extending black bags toward each of us that were meant to go over our heads. Evidently, whatever was behind those doors isn’t meant to be seen.

  Ishi and I put the bags over our heads.

  We were escorted, though I think my feet only touched the ground a half dozen times during the trip, with a monster on each side of us. We were put into a van and sat quietly while we were driven through Panama City for what seemed like another hour. When the van finally stopped, we were escorted out of it and, probably through a service entrance, into a building that neither of us ever saw. Then we were unceremoniously pushed into two chairs.

  “Remove the hoods, please,” the familiar voice of William Spence said.

  Thankfully, the light in the room was dim or that sudden burst of light would have been a killer on eyes that had been without use for quite some time. I looked around and saw the four monsters step back to the wall behind us and stand like they were at parade rest.

  “What’s with the goons and all the spy versus spy bullshit?” I asked, having wanted an explanation since I’d received the phone call.

  “Deniability,” he answered.

  “And the goons?”

  “Insurance.”

  “Can I have something other than one-word answers, please?”

  “Fine,” Spence said, rising from the chair behind the desk, walking around to the front and leaning on it. “I’ve got an operation for the two of you that’s outside of our normal purview.”

  “Like a favor?” I asked, recalling the conversation that we’d had with Spence after having gone off on a trip to Ecuador as a personal favor for Agent Jacobs a week earlier. He hadn’t been happy about it.

  “You could call it that.” Half a smile rose up on one side of his mouth.

  “I’m sorry, but our boss said no more personal favors,” I replied. What can I say? Being a smart ass is part of my job description.

  “We have brand new satellite phones to prove that we’ve been good,” Ishi added, not wanting to be outdone. Maybe he was beginning to show leadership qualities after all.

  “Joke’s over,” he growled. “What I have for you is extremely sensitive. People have disappeared for knowing too much about this. Even my life is in danger if any connection is drawn between me and what I need you guys to do.”

  “So, that’s the reason for the cloak and dagger or, in this case, the hood and goon stuff?”

  “That’s the reason,” he replied.

  “What about them?” I asked, turning to nod toward the three monsters against the back wall. “Won’t they be in danger if they hear about it?”

  “They won’t hear about it. As soon as you tell me whether you want the job or not, they’ll be dismissed from the room.”

  “It’s going to be kind of hard for us to know if we want the job or not if we don’t know what it is,” Ishi pointed out.

  “What if I said that if you carry this out successfully, your five-year contract with us will be considered to be fulfilled?”

  Ishi and I looked at each other. We didn’t need to have a discussion over what we were being offered. There was a five-year contract we had to fulfill with Project Golden Eye looming over our heads, which, after we had completed it successfully, would allow us to walk away with the loot and cash that we had stashed away, or we could have all of our possessions seized, be completely broke and do some prison time. However, with Spence’s new offer on the table, we were looking at a third option that pointed to our immediate freedom without the loss of our stash. And then it hit me, there had to be a catch.

  “What’s the catch?” I asked, turning back toward Spence.

  “You have to deliver the item into my own two hands. Anything short of that result and the deal is off.”

  “Whew.” I whistled. “You must want whatever it is pretty bad. Maybe I ought to see if I can’t get a little more out of it for the two of us then.” Waving my thumb back and forth, I indicated myself and my Tawankan counterpart.

  “Is that so, Mr. Caine? Perhaps I should just allow these four men to make you disappear somewhere.”

  “Come on now, wait a second. There’s no need for that,” I said, raising my hands in surrender. “We’re all friends here. I was just testing you.”

  “Do you want the job or not?”

  I looked at Ishi again and he nodded slightly, though I could see the apprehension in his eyes. Hell, if I’d had a mirror, I’d have seen it in my own.

  “Okay, we’ll do it.”

  “Gentlemen,” Spence said, waving a hand toward the four monsters like he was shooing a fly.

  “Nice to have met you all. I look forward to seeing you again.” I turned and waved.

  “Ciao,” Ishi added.

  Chapter Five

  We hadn’t enjoyed an extended escape from the four monsters. In fact, it was less than thirty minutes later that they were slipping the hoods over our heads again and we repeated the process that we’d gone through before, but in reverse.

  I didn’t notice it like I had before and I wasn’t as nervous either. I was f
reakin’ terrified. If there was one thing that I knew, it was that you don’t fuck with the Illuminati. But everything that Spence had divulged in his explanation of our new assignment was essentially asking Ishi and me to go fuck with the Illuminati. He hadn’t said it in those exact words, of course; instead, after the goons had closed the door behind them, he had started the conversation with an extremely scary question.

  “What do you know about the Masonic Order?”

  It might have been a harmless question, if he had been talking about the local, secret men’s fraternities that are scattered across the world, but I knew that he wasn’t talking about that. I also knew, instantly, why he’d gone to such great lengths to set up the secret meeting. Hell, he’d probably had himself brought there in the same manner that we were.

  “Just enough to know it’s best to stay off of their shit list,” I answered looking around the room. “Are you out of your mind? Call the goons back in. I’d rather do prison time or finish my five-year contract.”

  “I can call them back in right now,” he said. “If I give more details, then you’ll be committed to the job and there will be no turning back.”

  “Jesus, boss,” I responded. I glanced over at Ishi. He wasn’t nearly as stirred up over the mention of the Masons. Instead, he had a look of confusion on his face.

  “It’s just, like a fraternity, right?” he asked when I looked over at him. “What’s the big deal?”

  “The big deal is that the Masonic Order, the REAL Masonic Order is connected to or is the recruiting ground for the Illuminati,” I responded, watching Ishi’s eyes begin to widen.

  “That’s an oversimplification…” Spence started out.

  “Is it?” I interrupted.

  “No one has ever proven the connection.”

  “Of course they haven’t; anyone who has made it didn’t live long enough to tell anybody else about it.” I took a deep breath and blew it out. The Masons, which you might as well call the Illuminati, were most often considered to be behind the development of the New World Order. Two world wars and countless smaller conflicts had been arranged by them as a means of destabilizing certain areas of the world so that they could move in with assets under their own influence and slowly begin to piece together their ultimate goal. That was the theory, anyway; nobody—nobody living, that is—knew for sure.

  “So?” Spence asked after a long pause.

  My answer should have been a flat out no, but, like with every other stupid thing I’d ever done, I was curious to know what it was that Spence had to have in his hands. I was contemplating my answer when it suddenly hit me. Could Spence be Illuminati or a Mason? What if I say no? What will happen to Ishi and me if we say no?

  I looked over at Ishi and saw his wide eyes, but got no other response and then turned back to Spence.

  “We’re in,” I said in a flippant tone. I had to cover up the real, tangled up mess that was going on with my nerves.

  “Are you familiar with Captain Henry Morgan?” Spence began.

  “The pirate or the rum?” I asked.

  “The pirate,” he replied, frowning at me.

  “I’m more familiar with the rum, to be quite honest,” I replied. “Speaking of the good Captain, you wouldn’t happen to have a little somethin’ around here with his name on it would you? My mouth is dry from all of this cloak and dagger shit.”

  “Nick,” Spence snapped “I need you to be 100% focused on this, got it?”

  “Sure, got it,” I replied. Ishi and I had known Spence to be a hard ass, but he seemed to be putting on an extra dose of it. I shrugged and looked at Ishi, who’d had his raised eyebrows locked in a permanent look of surprise ever since the name ‘Illuminati’ had been mentioned.

  “What do you know about Stonehenge?” Spence continued.

  “A lot more than I know about either of the Captain Morgans,” I said in a low tone. Though I didn’t see the connection between the pirate and the other two, I did know about the connection between the Masonic Order and Stonehenge… Okay, actually, I knew the rumors about the connection. The short hairs on the back of my neck were beginning to dance as I considered the two together in a conversation that was leading toward something that Ishi and I were going to be asked to retrieve. “What does Stonehenge and the Masonic Order have to do with Captain Morgan?”

  The answer in my own mind was that I was probably going to need enough of the rum to make me forget about the other two for the rest of my life if I lived through whatever I had agreed to do.

  “Let me connect Henry Morgan to Stonehenge; the other connection, for obvious reasons, is uncertain,” Spence began. “The stones that make up the structure of Stonehenge are known to have been quarried in Wales, which is one hundred and forty miles south of where they are now positioned. Now, this next part is the part that has all of our lives in danger.”

  Mine and Ishi’s wouldn’t have been in danger if I’d just told him no, but it was already too late for that. I nodded for Spence to continue.

  “There was another item quarried along with those stones and later discovered in a secret temple somewhere near the quarry. It’s called the Map of the Masons. It disappeared from where it had been kept in the secret temple in Wales and no one knew where it had gone. The timing of its disappearance, however, matched up well with the years in which a certain Welsh native, who was a member of the Royal Navy when he began his activities as, let’s say, a scavenger in the Caribbean.”

  “Captain Morgan,” I breathed. It took me a second to catch the barb toward Ishi and me that had been subtly mixed into his narrative. The word, scavenger, for what Ishi and I did—actually, had been doing until PGE snatched us up—was more like ‘looters with a conscience.’ Captain Morgan could never make that claim.

  “I’ll leave you to draw whatever conclusions that you like about the map, Stonehenge, the Masonic Order and Captain Morgan; what I want you to focus your efforts on is retrieving the map and bringing it to me.”

  “Okay.” I pronounced it slowly, hoping that there was a clue forthcoming as to where we would start our search. When none was given, I simply asked. “Where do we start?”

  “Right here in the Caribbean,” he replied. “On San Andres Island. You know the legends well enough, don’t you, Caine? Even if you don’t, I hope you know the history at least.” My expression of contempt was clearly lost on the man as he tossed me a rolled up magazine. “Just in case you don’t, here’s a little easy reading for the trip.”

  I caught the publication in both my hands and looked at the headline on the open page. A wry smile must have turned at the corners of my mouth because Spence immediately added, “Before you get any bright ideas… no, Hanselmann’s archeological team hasn’t found it. This won’t be a simple snatch and run for you two. You will actually have to go retrieve the map from its hidden location and you better do it before the scientists start looking for it too. Don’t go thinking this is going to be some kind of cake walk. It isn’t. It’s only a matter of time before someone on that dig team figures out that there’s more to the game than a few rusty cannons lying on the ocean floor.”

  Chapter Six

  There hadn’t been any prolonged goodbyes exchanged between Ishi and me, and our burly escorts.

  We’d been led into the church, the hoods had been removed and the goons had walked away. Getting out of the church was a pretty easy prospect. What to do after leaving the church was still pretty shaky. We had no idea where we were. Believe it or not, when we left the church, the white compact car and our non-speaking driver were waiting for us.

  We walked out to the car and got in.

  The silent ride back to the private plane terminal was a lot more natural than it had been earlier. Both of us were digesting the information we’d been given and watching our lives pass before our eyes as we considered the likely outcome of our mission. I unrolled the magazine Spence had thrown at me so unceremoniously and read the article it had been folded open to for the rest o
f the drive.

  ***

  Captain Morgan’s Treasure Unearthed in Panama

  31 July, 2012.

  The belongings of a real-life Pirate of the Caribbean have been discovered off the coast of Panama and are set to go on show for travelers keen to see how 17th-century buccaneers lived.

  Captain Henry Morgan, of iconic foot-on-a-barrel rum bottle fame, was, in reality, a Welshman who looted throughout the Spanish Main in the 17th century before losing five ships in the West Indies.

  But after a three-year search, Fritz Hanselmann, an underwater archaeologist with the River Systems Institute and the Center for Archaeological Studies at Texas State University, recently found swords, barrels and chests belonging to one of Morgan's ships off the Panamanian coast.

  “This was an unequaled chance to use archaeological research to bridge the gap between science and pop culture. Morgan was one of the most infamous privateers of all time, so it’s been a remarkable find for all involved,” Hanselmann says.

  The recovery follows a former discovery off the Panamanian coast in 2010 of six of Morgan’s cannons.

  Around 1670, Captain Henry Morgan was reputed to have amassed the largest fleet ever seen in the Caribbean and had consequentially set his sights on Panama City which was, at the time, the richest city in the Western hemisphere. En route, his flagship, Satisfaction, and four other ships ran aground at the mouth of the Chagres River, the sole waterway leading to Panama City. The Lajas Reef at the base of Fort San Lorenzo had pitted against them. Morgan and his men made do with the situation, determined in their plan. They secured the fort, sailed up the Chagres and ultimately took Panama City by hacking their way through dense rainforest.

  And so, the infamous captain will come to live again in 21st-century Panama.