Lost Empire Page 6

  “¡Apúrate!” Hawk Nose called. Hurry up!

  Sam’s target raised a hand to acknowledge the order.

  Thirty feet away . . . twenty feet.

  Sam kept moving, pulling himself clockwise around the mangrove roots. He stopped, peeking around the edge. The Zodiac was ten feet away. Sam watched, waited until the nose of the Zodiac disappeared around the opposite side, then glanced back up the lagoon. The other two Zodiacs were a hundred yards away and still moving.

  Sam took a deep breath, ducked under with the gaff pole, kicked twice, pulled himself around the roots, and let his eyes pop above the surface. The rear of the Zodiac was five feet away, moving slowly, the driver sitting with one hand on the motor’s throttle as he leaned sideways and scanned the mangrove with his flashlight. Sam did a half kick with his feet and closed to within a foot of the Zodiac. He reached out, gently placed his left hand on the rubber side, then raised the gaff from the water, cocked it back, and flicked it forward as though casting a fishing lure. The gaff’s steel tip caught the man on the side of his head, just above the ear. He let out a gasp, then slumped over the side, his head drooping in the water. Before Sam could make another move, Remi was there, lifting the man’s head and rolling the body back into the Zodiac. Sam looked over his shoulder. Hawk Nose and his partner were two hundred yards away now.

  “Yaotl!” Hawk Nose’s voice echoed over the water.

  “Hurry,” Sam said to Remi, then climbed aboard the Zodiac and took a seat at the motor. “Stay on the port side. I’ll drag you back to the Andreyale.”

  Remi swam around and grabbed the oar hook with two fingers. Sam revved the motor, and the Zodiac glided out from behind the mangrove. Sam found the man’s—Yaotl’s—flashlight where it had fallen, picked it up, and aimed it at the other two Zodiacs, which come to a halt. Sam flashed the beam twice and raised a casual hand, praying it would be enough. He held his breath.

  Nothing from the Zodiacs. Ten seconds passed. And then the double wink of a flashlight followed by a raised hand. “Yaotl . . . ¡Apúrate!”

  Sam guided the Zodiac to the Andreyale’s stern, using the length of the boat to hide their movements. Remi climbed aboard, and together they rolled Yaotl over the gunwale. He landed with a thump on the afterdeck.

  “Now what?” Remi asked.

  “Tie him up, hands and feet to the cleats, and search him. I’ve got to catch up with my new friends.” Remi opened her mouth to protest, but Sam interrupted: “I need my mask and the binoculars.” She went into the cabin with both items and traded them for Sam’s gaff. “Don’t worry, Remi, I’ll keep my distance.”

  “And when you can’t any longer?”

  “I’ll have a terrible mishap.”

  He gave her a wink, revved the engine, and motored away.

  HAWK NOSE and the other man had continued on. By the time Sam reached the midpoint of the lagoon, they were turning west into the inlet. Sam mentally recalled the twists and turns of the inlet, did a few quick calculations, and kept going. Fifty feet from the entrance, he slowed to idle and listened. No sound of the other motors. He revved up, kept going, and made the turn. A hundred yards ahead the other two were moving single file through the inlet. Beyond them, about a half mile away, Sam could see the inlet widening into Chumbe Island’s shoals. He lifted the binoculars to his face and scanned the channel. Nothing was moving, and no lights were visible within ten miles—save one. A mile to the southwest, a single white light hovered thirty feet off the water—the international signal for a boat at anchor. The boat itself was bow on, rake stemmed, with a gleaming white superstructure, clearly a luxury yacht. The mother ship, perhaps?

  Hawk Nose and his partner veered left and disappeared from view momentarily. Time to prepare for the mishap: Sam throttled down, veered left, and let the Zodiac ground itself on the sand. A quick glance around gave him what he needed: a dagger-shaped rock. He grabbed it, shoved the Zodiac back into the inlet, jumped aboard, and took off again.

  So far Sam’s luck was holding. Aside from a few backward glances to make sure “Yaotl” was following, neither Hawk Nose nor his partner slowed to let him catch up. The remainder of the transit took ten minutes, and soon enough Sam could see the other two Zodiacs jostling as they moved into the shoals.

  “Come on, guys, show me where you’re going,” Sam muttered.

  Now clear of the shoals, Hawk Nose and his partner veered left and headed toward the yacht. Two minutes later Sam was himself in the shoals, but he put on a few more degrees left rudder, steering the Zodiac nearly parallel to the bank in which they’d found the bell. Onshore, landmarks began looking familiar. He was within twenty yards of the precipice. It was time.

  He grabbed the rock from between his feet, leaned over the side, stabbed the tip into the rubber sidewall, and heaved backward. He repeated the process twice more until he’d created a ragged eight-inch gash. He tossed the rock over the side and checked the progress of the other two Zodiacs: they were a few hundred yards out into the main channel and still heading for the yacht.

  It took only twenty seconds for Sam’s sabotage to take effect. The Zodiac began slowing, shuddering and wallowing as water gushed into the sidewall. He gave the throttle one last twist, then let out what he hoped would sound like a panicked scream, then rolled over the side.

  He ducked underwater, settled the mask over his face, blew it clear, then clamped the snorkel’s mouthpiece between his teeth. He went still now, floating with just his eyes and the tip of the snorkel above the surface.

  His scream had done the trick. Hawk Nose and his partner had reversed course and were heading at top speed toward the rapidly deflating Zodiac, which was now drifting twenty yards to Sam’s left—and directly over the precipice. When the rescuers were fifty yards away, flashlights blinked on and began scanning the surface.

  “Yaotl!” Hawk Nose called. “Yaotl!” The other man joined in.

  Sam had been hyperventilating his lungs for the past minute. Now he took one final deep breath, ducked beneath the surface, and finned toward the bank. He was there in ten kicks. He turned so Hawk Nose and the other were on his right, then begin finning north along the bank, occasionally glancing back to check the location of the flashlight beams. Both Zodiacs had converged on the remains of the third.

  “Yaotl!” Sam heard through the water. Then again, this time more strident: “Yaotl!”

  Sam kept swimming. Behind him, the deflated raft was being dragged from the water and into one of the Zodiacs. Sam stopped, held still. He felt the ache of oxygen depletion in his lungs and a tingle of panic in his neck. He quashed it and remained still.

  After what seemed like minutes but was no more than thirty seconds, the Zodiacs revved up, came about, and headed back into the channel.

  Sam finned for the surface.

  CHAPTER 7

  ZANZIBAR

  TWENTY-FIVE MINUTES LATER WHEN SAM CLIMBED BACK ABOARD the Andreyale, he found Remi sitting in a deck chair casually sipping a bottle of Kenyan Tusker beer. Their guest, Yaotl, lay like a defeated game fish on the deck, back bent, wrists bound to his feet, these in turn knotted to the nearest cleat. He was still unconscious.

  “Welcome back,” she said, handing him a beer. “How’d the mishap go?”

  “They seemed to have bought it. How’s he?”

  “Bad lump on the side of the head, but he’s breathing fine. Aside from an ugly headache that’ll last a day or two, he’ll survive. He was well armed. She nodded to two objects lying at her feet: one was the knife they knew about, the other a semiautomatic pistol. Sam hefted it.

  “Heckler and Koch P30. Nine millimeter, fifteen-round magazine.”

  “How in the world do you know . . .”

  Sam shrugged. “No idea. I store trivia. Can’t help it. Unless I’m mistaken, this isn’t a civilian gun. They’re only sold to law enforcement and military.”

  “So our guest here is, or was, either a cop or a soldier?”

  “Or someone with back-ch
annel influence. Did you find anything else on him?”

  “Not so much as pocket lint. No wallet, no identification. And his clothes and shoes are local. I checked the tags.”

  “Professionals, then.”

  “Seems so,” Remi said. “As for the cookies we left for Santa . . .”

  “We saw what they thought of the Adelise coin. Tossed it away like a penny. But the ginned-up notepad was another story.”

  Before setting the stage for their guests, Sam and Remi had decided there were five possibilities the mystery man, “Hawk Nose,” was interested in: one, the Adelise coin; two, the bell; three, the Fargos themselves; four, something he was worried they might find; or five, nothing—the molehill/mountain scenario.

  Their ruse had ruled out numbers one and five and seemed to rule in numbers two, three, and four. Sam and Remi had filled the notepad mostly with nonsensical scribbles and numbers, save one area: a sideview diagram of a ship’s bell and below it a time (2:00 P.M.), a place (Chukwani Point Road), and a phone number provided by Selma that, when called, would be answered by Mnazi Freight & Haul. If Hawk Nose took this bait, they could be reasonably certain his interest lay with the bell.

  This, of course, raised the questions of how Hawk Nose had learned about the bell. Sam and Remi had told no one except Selma. Since Hawk Nose hadn’t paid his visit before they’d raised the bell using Sam’s raft, could it be attributed to someone having spotted the bell as they moved it to the lagoon? But, then again, they’d seen no one in the area, either onshore or offshore.

  “It’ll be dawn soon,” Sam said. “Let’s gather our booty and find a place to lie low until we can find us some different accommodations.”

  “And him?” Remi asked, nodding to Yaotl.

  “We’d better move him inside. Don’t want him getting broken, do we?”

  ONCE YAOTL WAS SECURE in the cabin, they raised anchor and crossed the lagoon to where they’d hidden the bell raft. After towing it closer to the beach, Sam jumped over the side and maneuvered it until the bell was floating a foot off the bottom.

  “Leverage . . .” Sam muttered to himself. “Remi, I need the hatchet from the toolbox.”

  She collected it and handed it down. Sam then waded ashore and disappeared into the trees with a flashlight. Remi listened as he moved about in the darkness: twigs breaking, the thunk of wood striking wood, a few hushed curses, then a few minutes of chopping. Five minutes later he returned carrying a pair of palm saplings, each eight feet long and four inches across. Into each end he had chopped a notch. He handed the poles to Remi, then climbed aboard.

  “Care to share your plan?” she asked.

  Sam gave her a wink. “Don’t want to spoil the fun. We’re going to need daylight, though.”

  The wait was short. Ten minutes after they watched the first yellow-orange tinges of sunrise over to the east, they went into action. Sam untied the raft, jumped into the water, and rotated the raft so the side with the three protruding logs were facing the beach. He straddled the outer log, causing it to sink six inches, and called, “All back slow!”

  “All back slow,” Remi replied.

  The engines rumbled to life. The Andreyale backed up until the transom bumped into the raft. “Keep coming!” Sam called. Between his weight and the Andreyale’s horsepower, the protruding logs dipped beneath the surface and began burrowing into the sand. The water beneath the Andreyale’s stern turned to froth. When the logs were embedded a foot into the sand, Sam called, “All stop!”

  Remi throttled down and walked to the stern. Sam ducked under the raft and emerged in its center beneath the transom. “I’m going to push up on this crossbeam, and you’re going to pull,” he said.

  “Got it.”

  Working together they manhandled the log onto the gunwale with the protruding ends jutting over the afterdeck.

  Remi stood back and wiped her hands. “I think I see where you’re going with this.” She recited, “‘Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it—’”

  “‘—and I shall move the world,’” Sam finished. “Archimedes.”

  Using the hatchet, Sam chopped a notch into each end of log resting on the gunwale. Next he picked up one of the saplings, handed it to Remi, then grabbed his own.

  “Now the trick part,” Sam said.

  Each of them placed the notched tip of a sapling into the corresponding notch on the log, then braced the other end against the port and starboard cleats respectively.

  “Care to do the honors?” Sam asked.

  “Where are you going to be?”

  “In the cabin with you. If those saplings let go, we don’t want to be anywhere near them. Slow back, if you will.”

  Remi engaged the throttle and eased the Andreyale backward. Slowly the front edge of the raft began rising. The saplings trembled and bent like a pair of bows being drawn. The logs groaned. Inch by inch the bell rose from the water until its mouth was even with the gunwale.

  “Hold here,” Sam said. “Steerageway only.”

  He grabbed the remainder of the anchor line and padded onto the afterdeck, his eyes darting from one trembling sapling to the other. At the transom he leaned out, knotted the line around the bell’s crown, then backed into the cabin, uncoiling line as he went.

  “All back slow,” he murmured.

  Remi leaned back and whispered in his ear, “If we drop that thing through the deck, I’m pretty sure we’re going to lose our deposit.”

  Sam chuckled. “We’ve got Triple A.”

  The Andreyale eased backward. The saplings kept bending, creaking. Gingerly, Sam took up the slack in the line. The bell slid over the gunwale, bounced on the lip, and started swinging.

  “Sam . . .” Remi warned.

  “I know,” Sam muttered. “Hold it here. Easy . . .”

  He spun around, darted down the ladder, and emerged ten seconds later carrying a mattress. In a double-handed bowler’s motion, he slid the mattress down the deck to the transom.

  “Gun it!” he called.

  Remi jammed the throttle to its stops. Sam heaved back on the line. Like overlapping gunshots, the saplings snapped and twirled away. With a dull thunk the bell crashed into the mattress, rolled onto its side, and went still.

  CHAPTER 8

  ZANZIBAR

  “WE LOST A MAN,” ITZLI RIVERA SAID INTO THE PHONE.

  “Oh?” President Quauhtli Garza replied. Even from ten thousand miles away his disinterest was palpable.

  “Yaotl. He drowned. His body was lost in the channel. He was a good soldier, Mr. President.”

  “Who gave his life for a greater cause. It’s fitting. In Nahuatl, Yaotl means ‘warrior,’ you know. He will be greeted by Huitzilopochtli and reside for eternity in Omeyocan,” Garza replied, referring to the Aztec god of war that kept the sun moving in the sky, and the most sacred of the Aztec’s thirteen heavenly realms. “Is that not reward enough?”

  “Of course, Mr. President.”

  “Itzli, please tell me that’s all you have to report.”

  “No. There is more. The Fargos may have found something. A ship’s bell.”

  “What do you mean ‘may have found’?”

  “We searched their boat. On a pad of paper we found a diagram of a ship’s bell.”

  “Describe it. Is it the right one?”

  “The drawing was generic. They may not even know what they have. Either way, it appears they’re going to try to get it off the island. Next to the diagram was a notation about a freight company and a time. The pickup location is just south of Zanzibar’s airport.”

  “That can’t happen, Itzli. That bell can’t leave the island. The Fargos’ investigation needs to end here and now.”

  “I understand, Mr. President.”

  “You know where they’ll be and when they’ll be there. We’ll have all our bad eggs in one basket.”

  “THAT’S ONE PAMPERED ship’s bell,” Remi said.

  Standing across from her on the shade
d cobblestone patio, Sam nodded. For the last hour they had been swaddling the bell in sheets soaked in a warm solution of water and nitric acid. Now it sat, draped and steaming, in the center of a slowly expanding slick of gray-green marine growth dissolved by the acid.

  “How long until we swap?”

  Sam checked his watch. “Ten more minutes.”

  Three hours earlier, after dismantling the raft and scattering the parts, they’d left the mangrove lagoon and headed south along the coast past Fumba Point into Menai Bay. With Remi at the wheel, Sam called Selma and brought her up to speed and then explained what they needed. Forty minutes later, as they were rounding Zanzibar’s southern tip, Selma called back.

  “It’s a little smaller than your bungalow, but it’s secluded, and the agent promised to leave the keys under the mat. You’re paid up for the week.”

  “What and where?”

  “A villa on the eastern side of the island, two miles north of the Tamarind Beach Hotel. The awning over the porch is red-and-green striped. There’s an old stone quay on the beach.”

  “You’re a wonder, Selma,” Sam said, then hung up and dialed again, this time Abasi Sibale’s home phone number. Without a question, Abasi agreed to meet them on the villa’s beach with his pickup truck. Upon seeing the ship’s bell sitting on the Andreyale’s afterdeck, he merely smiled and shook his head. “Someday,” he said, “you will come to our island and have a perfectly boring time.”

  “I’LL GO CHECK on our guest,” Sam now said.

  “I’ll make sure our bell doesn’t get away,” Remi replied.

  “If it tries, let it.”

  “Gladly.”

  They were both tired, and this bell, having both resisted their efforts and attracted some dangerous attention, had become the enemy. Their outlook would improve with sleep and some answers, which would hopefully come after a couple more hours of nitric-acid swaddling.

  Remi smiled. “Leave the gun.”