The Admiral's Mark (Short Story) (7 page)

A gunshot cracked and a bullet ricocheted off the stone a foot away from his face.

Rócha retaliating.

He’d seen no guards when he entered, but he assumed a place like this had to employ security. Gunshots and mayhem would draw attention.

So he needed to act fast.

He decided to draw Simon in. The Austrian continued to stand his ground, confident that Malone would not shoot him and that Rócha had the situation under control.

He whirled the gun, but before he could fire the earth around Simon erupted in explosive puffs. Three. Four. Five. Which finally caused a reaction as Simon realized someone other than Malone had him in their sights.

The shots came without a retort, which meant a sound-suppressed weapon was on the ramparts above them.

Simon fled to the safety of a nearby building.

Malone smiled.

The Israelis.

Finally.

He’d assumed they were watching. No contact had come last night, but that had not meant they were gone. He knew they would not risk exposure, using him to achieve whatever they were after. Since they were here he
assumed they knew Simon possessed the book. But they would also know that a page was missing, and they would have to wonder.

Did the Americans have it?

His gaze raked the deserted courtyard, but he saw neither Rócha nor Simon. Above him all was quiet, too. He needed to leave. But where was Dubois?

He dropped the arm with the gun to his side and shielded the weapon with his thigh as he hustled out of the sunlight, back into the fortress. He heard people chattering in different languages, their voices raised and excited, all of them surely headed for the exit.

He made his way there and saw people racing down the cobbled path toward the parking lot. A quick glance behind and he saw no one else. So he followed, keeping a watch on his back until he rounded the first bend. High above the gate, on the parapet, he caught sight of Matt Schwartz.

A wave from the Israeli said,
You’re welcome
.

He returned the gesture.

He knew the drill. The Israelis had flushed Simon out, but they would not risk anything more. Instead, they’d watch from their perch as everyone
left. The lack of security or any law enforcement told him something else—the Haitian government had cooperated.

Diplomacy.

Ain’t it grand?

He found the parking lot and still saw nothing of Simon or Rócha. He had to go back and find Dubois. But in the distance, still on the parapet high above the
citadelle
, Schwartz was gesturing for him to leave.

Why?

Then it occurred to him.

He walked over, opened the driver’s door, and slipped behind the wheel of the car.

Dubois’ face appeared in the rearview mirror, up from his hiding place.

“I see my car and wait for you.”

“You okay?”

His friend nodded. “I good. Get going.”

He agreed.

Malone drove straight to where Elise Dubois taught school to let her know everything was okay. She was glad to see her husband unharmed and thanked Malone with a hug and kiss.

“I knew you would do it.”

He appreciated her confidence, since he hadn’t been so sure. The problem now was the Israelis, as they would want payback. But just as with Simon, he had no missing page to offer them. He decided to leave Haiti and report back to Pam, Ginger, and Stephanie Nelle. At least he knew how and why Scott had died. He also had the account number for the $600,000 on deposit in the Cayman Islands, which the Magellan Billet could easily obtain. Ginger deserved that money, and he’d make sure she received it.

They left the school and stopped by the Hotel Creole, where Malone learned that Simon had checked out earlier. Most likely, the Austrian was now headed to the airport, unsure of what had happened at the
citadelle
but glad to be away. He grabbed his bag from the room on the third floor and left, riding with Dubois to the docks and his boat. Along the way, he called and secured a seat on a flight out of Cap-Haïtien to Miami that left in six hours. From there he’d shuttle home to Atlanta.

“Sorry about getting you into all that danger,” he told Dubois.

“I get myself into it. I want to help you.”

“Fortunately, it’s all over, and I appreciate what you did.”

He sat on the aft deck, beneath a canvas canopy, out of the sun. Most of the other boats were gone, out earning a day’s wage. He hadn’t really noticed much about the boat on the first trip, except for its struggling engine.

“You need a mechanic,” he said to Dubois.

“That be me. It makes a lot of noise and smoke, but works. Always has. Scotty help with that. He give me money for parts.”

And he would, too, when Dubois dropped him at the airport.

The least he could do.

“He buy me GPS.”

“Scott did?”

Dubois nodded. “He say we need it. He use it some, then leave it with me.”

He stepped into the forward cabin. Above the wheel, mounted to the old timbers, was a new GPS, wires snaking a path to a power source.

He wanted to know. “What did Scott do with it?”

“That’s how he found
Santa María
.”

“But you don’t know if that wreck is Columbus’ flagship.”

And nobody ever would. Most likely, Scott intended to use his find to work another con on somebody.

“He mark the site with GPS numbers. That’s how I know where it is. He tell me that was secret-agent stuff. But I never believe he is an agent. Just a man who treat me good.”

His mind swirled. Everything fit into place, except one thing. The paper Scott sent to Ginger. That had been bothering him for the past two days. Why do it? And why would Simon think it important enough to fly to Atlanta for a look?

Then it hit him.

How simple.

So simple that it had almost eluded him.

He stepped to the aft deck and found the brown envelope in his bag. He removed the page with the Admiral’s mark written across its face and brought it back inside the forward cabin. He switched on the overhead bulb and held the sheet close as the filament heated.

Slowly, brown numbers materialized.

Dubois watched carefully and realized. “He use lemon juice.”

Malone smiled. “That he did. Actually, not a bad way to send a message, if you don’t know it’s there.”

“I know those,” Dubois said. “They be for the wreck site.”

“Fire up the engine. I want to go back down.”

Malone kicked his fins and swam toward the massive hulk of rock with the crack and crevice. He’d come down alone, Dubois staying up top with Schwartz’s gun, keeping a lookout. No other boats had been around, and he wanted to keep it that way. The current today was weaker, but the same shark remained on patrol fifty yards away. The GPS numbers Scott had secretly sent to Ginger had led them straight back here.

He approached the opening and eased himself inside.

He examined the timbers in the sand and could see that they’d been hewn, man-made, now petrified by centuries in the water. A few other artifacts lay scattered. What looked like a cup, some nails, belt buckles. This was clearly a shipwreck. Whether it belonged to Christopher Columbus remained to be seen.

He fanned the sand and stirred up the bottom, revealing what lay a few inches beneath. The storm rose, then settled quickly, the warm water retaining its crystal clarity. A niche caught his eye, but he knew better than to stick his hand there. Some eel might decide a few fingers would make a great lunch.

Another niche to his right seemed more inviting.

Shallow, no more than a foot or so deep, the entire interior visible.

He fanned its sand.

And saw something.

Glass.

A little more stirring revealed more glass.

He reached down and freed the object.

A Coke bottle, the top stuffed with a cork and sealed with wax. Inside was a rolled piece of dirt-brown paper, similar in size and color to the other pages of the book he’d bought at the auction. A wax-sealed plastic bag provided an additional measure of protection.

He’d found the hiding place.

Risky as hell to leave it underwater, but Scott had never been noted for caution.

Malone stepped from the car at Cap-Haïtien’s main airport terminal. Dubois had driven him from the docks, and they’d made it here in plenty of time for his flight.

He shook his friend’s hand and thanked him again.

“No problem, mon. I glad you come. We solve everything.”

Not quite everything, but enough.

He handed Dubois $500. “Fix that engine, okay?”

“Ah, mon. This be too much. Way too much.”

“It’s all I have or I’d give you more.”

They said their goodbyes and he entered the terminal, checking in for his flight.

Matt Schwartz waited for him just before the security checkpoint.

“I didn’t think you’d let me leave without saying goodbye,” he told the Israeli.

“Did you find the page?”

He nodded.

“I thought you might. We wondered why you went back out on the boat.”

“What happened to Simon?”

“Went straight to the airport and is long gone.”

“Probably thinking that I had help in the
citadelle
.”

“That was the idea. Can I have the page?”

“I assume you’re not going to let me leave with it?”

“Payment for the favor I did you with Dubois.”

He reached into his back pocket and removed the curled page, still in its plastic bag. He’d broken the bottle to free it. The sheet was filled with nineteen lines of writing in faded black ink, along with the mark of the Admiral, just as Simon had described.

“Can we at least be provided with a copy?” he asked.

“I don’t suppose you would take my word that none of this is important to anything related to America.”

“It’s not my nature.”

“Then that copy you made on the way here should alleviate all of your government’s fears.”

He assumed Schwartz knew they’d stopped at the hotel on the way to the airport.

He handed the page over and said, “Any idea what this is? I speak several languages, but I can’t read it. Simon said it was Old Castilian.”

The Israeli shrugged. “Our people will translate it, as I’m sure will yours.”

“Simon killed a man for it.”

“I know. Which makes us all wonder. But people higher up than me will deal with this now.”

He understood. “Being at the bottom of the pile does come with disadvantages.”

Schwartz smiled. “I like you, Malone. Maybe we’ll see each other again.”

“Maybe so.”

The Israeli gestured with the bag. “Something tells me we’ve not seen, or heard, the last of Zachariah Simon.”

He agreed.

“All we can hope,” Schwartz said, “is that next time he’s someone else’s problem.”

“You got that right.”

And he headed for home.

Steve Berry
is the
New York Times
bestselling author of
The Columbus Affair, The Jefferson Key, The Emperor’s Tomb, The Paris Vendetta, The Charlemagne Pursuit, The Venetian Betrayal, The Alexandria Link, The Templar Legacy, The Third Secret, The Romanov Prophecy, The Amber Room
, and the short stories “The Balkan Escape” and “The Devil’s Gold.” His books have been translated into forty languages and sold in fifty-one countries. He lives in the historic city of St. Augustine, Florida. He and his wife, Elizabeth, have founded History Matters, a nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving our heritage. To learn more about Steve Berry and the foundation, visit
www.steveberry.org
.