The Admiral's Mark (Short Story) Read online

“Why didn’t you go down with him?”

  Dubois eyed him with irritation. “ ’Cause Scotty say he don’t want me down there.”

  None of which had been detailed in the police report. But the whole thing was more overview than report. Few details, even fewer conclusions. Just a simple statement of “diving accident.”

  “Scotty?” he said. “You and him buddies?”

  Dubois eyed him again with a cool stare. “I like him. He okay.”

  Then Dubois rolled over the side into the water.

  Malone followed.

  A gray reef shark immediately greeted him. The air from his tank carried a dank, oily aftertaste, probably from a bad compressor. He hadn’t been underwater in five years, but he quickly acclimated himself, listening to the burbling sound of his exhaled breath.

  Dubois led the way to the bottom.

  He checked the depth gauge snaking from his regulator.

  Twenty-five feet.

  Shallow enough to have no decompression worries.

  He stared around in the aquamarine sea and noticed only a few tropicals here and there, some wrasses and an angel, but nothing like the numbers one would expect. He knew Haiti’s reefs had been decimated by overfishing and sedimentation. Most of the trees on the island were gone—cut down for fuel and shelter with few replantings—allowing rainwater to cascade from the mountains unimpeded, carrying along tons of mud that ended up on the seafloor. Not enough reef fish also meant fewer to keep the coral clean of algae. So the twisted limestone hulks loomed mostly lifeless, everything stained dark green.

  Dubois motioned to a formation fifty feet away and indicated that Malone should lead the way.

  He swam toward it.

  A loud rasp from the regulator accompanied each of his breaths. He was trying to ignore the foul-tasting air and hoped nothing was toxic.

  They came to a coral formation, this one, too, devoid of polyps. A few fish were gorging on the algae. The shark had drifted off. The water was warm and comforting, almost too much so, and he cautioned himself to stay alert. Rays of bright sunshine, fractured by the surface, danced to a quick beat. Dubois had been right. A steady current in their face made the going difficult.

  They arrived at the limestone hulk, which rose ten feet toward the surface, stretching out many more yards toward the open sea. A darker hue in the water a few hundred feet away signaled greater depths, and he assumed that was where the shallow reef ended.

  Dubois pointed to an opening in the rock, where chunks had fallen away to reveal a crack that spread for twenty feet. A small, cavelike opening led into the crevice. Dubois motioned with his hands, indicating that a storm had caused the damage.

  Malone swam close and peered inside. He saw what appeared to be wood timbers on the bottom, encrusted with barnacles and algae. Other shapes lay embedded in the sand, thick with encrustation.

  A wreck of some sort. Old, too. Hidden beneath this rock mound for a long time. He motioned—Is this all?—and Dubois nodded. He decided he’d seen enough. He’d need to return for a closer inspection, but first more information was called for.

  He motioned for them to surface.

  They drifted away from the limestone wall.

  Scott had apparently found a shipwreck. But there were probably thousands of those in these waters, as Cap-Haïtien had been a bustling seaport. French, Spanish, British, and Portuguese ships had plied these waters, along with buccaneers. Probably hard even to count the number of ships that met the bottom.

  What made this one so special?

  He exhaled and turned his attention toward the surface, watching as the bubbles drifted upward.

  His next breath drew nothing.

  What?

  He tried again, sucking harder.

  No air came through the regulator.

  He reached for the pressure gauge, which read zero.

  He whirled around, searching for Dubois, who was only a few feet away watching through his mask. The tiny bit of air in his lungs was about gone, no way to ditch his weight belt and make it twenty-five feet up before he blacked out. He slashed his right hand across his throat, the universal sign for no air, and kicked toward Dubois.

  The Haitian handed over his regulator.

  Malone drew a deep breath.

  Then another.

  Two more were required before his nerves stabilized.

  He shared the air, then watched as Dubois reached around him. He felt something being turned, then noticed the air gauge move from zero to more than 2,000 pounds.

  The son of a bitch had turned the valve off at the tank.

  He replaced his regulator in his mouth, and Dubois motioned for them to surface. They made it to the boat and Malone climbed aboard first, quickly releasing his waist belt and dropping the tank to the deck. Dubois came up and, before he could do a thing, Malone pounced, slamming the Haitian to the deck. Dubois remained still—as if he’d expected an attack—calmly releasing his own belt and freeing himself from the harness.

  “What in the hell just happened?” Malone yelled.

  Dubois stood. “Scotty not drown. He be killed. Just like I show you.”

  It was true, he’d never felt his air valve being closed. Never seen it coming. If Dubois hadn’t been there, he’d be dead.

  “That’s what I tell police.”

  “He was down there alone. Who the hell killed him?”

  “The other man.”

  “The police report said nothing about another man.”

  “I tell them. They don’t want to hear. I know something wrong with that policeman. Something wrong with all of them here.”

  Which was one reason why United Nations peacekeepers were all over the country. Corruption had long been a way of Haitian life.

  “I don’t mean to kill you,” Dubois said. “But I want you to know truth. You said Scotty your relative. So you need to know. The other man kill Scotty.”

  “Was he on this boat?”

  Dubois shook his head. “He come in another, anchor over there.” He pointed east. “Not far away. Diver go down. I don’t think much. Lots of divers around here every day. Next thing I know he comes up and boat leaves. But Scotty never comes up. So I go down.”

  “You get a look at the other guy?”

  Dubois nodded. “Good one.”

  Playing a hunch, he stepped over to his travel bag and found the copies of the two passports he’d obtained in Atlanta. He showed them to Dubois.

  “That’s him,” Dubois said, pointing at Rócha.

  “Sure?”

  “Real sure.”

  Murder changed everything.

  “Scotty was good to me,” Dubois said. “I bring him here several times. He pay me good, always nice to me. He come to my house and eat with my wife and children. I like him.”

  That had been Scott. A liar. A thief. But a friendly soul.

  “What was Scott after?”

  “He tell me he find Santa María.”

  That shocked him.

  He knew the tale.

  On his first voyage Columbus anchored somewhere in these waters. But on Christmas Day, 1492, his flagship, the Santa María, lodged on a reef. With no way to free the keel, the ship was dismantled, its timbers and cargo hauled ashore and used to construct a settlement. Three weeks later Columbus sailed away in the Niña, leaving 39 of his crew behind in what he called La Navidad, the first settlement of Western Europeans in the New World. He charged those men with exploring the island and finding gold. But when he returned in November 1493 with 17 ships and 1,200 men on his second voyage, La Navidad lay in ashes. All 39 crew members were dead, slaughtered by the Tainos. What remained of the Santa María settled on the sea bottom and had been sought by archaeologists for decades.

  And Scott had found it?

  “He tell me it is there,” Dubois said. “In that rock. He dive several times. Always alone. Until last time.”

  “You could have just told me this. You didn’t have to try to kill me.”

&n
bsp; “You look like man who can handle things. Not like Scotty.”

  He caught something in the man’s voice. “You don’t like what happened to him?”

  Dubois shook his head. “He not deserve that. But there be nothing I can do. Police have the power here.”

  He’d heard enough. “Take me back to shore.”

  “You going after man in picture?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think you need help. That man is here, in Cap-Haïtien. I know where. I have car. You need to get around. I owe that man.” Dubois paused. “For Scotty.”

  He found the Hotel Creole just off the Place d’Armes, near the Cathedral Notre-Dame, a striking Victorian building, its entrance separated from the street by a leafy courtyard, an iron gate manned by security. When he appeared, bag in hand, saying he was there to check in, he was welcomed inside. Dubois had driven him from the docks. This was the hotel the man at the airport had said Simon and Rócha were staying at, the same one noted on the envelope sent to Ginger by Scott, the same one Dubois had identified, too. He was still leery of his new ally, but he’d many times enlisted aid from locals. All part of the job. So were deceit and betrayal, so he stayed on guard. In his favor was the fact that Simon and Rócha had no idea he existed, and he planned to use that anonymity to his advantage.

  The hotel’s lobby seemed straight out of the 18th century, with a vaulted ceiling and lots of stone and wood that opened to an inner courtyard. Behind the front desk he noticed numbered slots on a wall, one for each room. Not something one saw much anymore. So he decided to try an old trick. He approached and said he wanted to leave a message for Zachariah Simon. He pretended to scribble something on a pad, folded the page over several times, then handed it to the clerk, along with a $10 bill. The man smiled, thanked him, then turned and inserted the note in a slot marked 25.

  “And I’d like a room.”

  He tossed his bag on the bed.

  His room was on the third floor, spacious, clean, the design minimalist with little furniture. Thankfully, the doors were also antiques, fitted with simple tumbler locks and no dead bolts. He left the room and descended to the second floor, finding the door marked 25.

  He listened outside, heard nothing, then knocked.

  Another try.

  No answer.

  He found the small diamond pick he kept in his wallet and tripped the tumblers in less than five seconds, a handy trick learned during his first few months on the job with the Justice Department.

  The room inside was similar to his own. Two travel bags lay against one wall. He gave each a quick inspection and saw nothing that caught his attention. What did interest him were the papers on the desk. One was a report on Scott Brown, a background investigation that was surprisingly detailed. He scanned the paragraphs and learned things about his brother-in-law that he’d never known: where he’d been born and raised, the number of aliases he used, the multiple Social Security numbers associated with his several identities, and a bank account in the Cayman Islands with nearly $600,000 on deposit. From all he knew the Browns lived paycheck-to-paycheck—hers. Typical of Scott, though, to squirrel away money and never tell his wife. Most likely the stash was either seed money for the next con or living expenses between marriages.

  One thing, though, became clear. The two men who occupied this room were intently interested in Scott.

  Unfortunately, Herr Brown managed to get ahead of us. The answers are not here.

  That’s what the older man, Simon, had said in Atlanta.

  Something else caught his eye.

  A printed catalog for a local auction to be held at another hotel, La Villa St-Louis, tonight. He thumbed through. Mostly antiques. Some jewelry. Furniture. All from an estate being liquidated. Contrary to popular misconception, there was wealth in Haiti.

  He noticed blue ink on one of the pages.

  Numbers. 5,000. 7,000. 10,000.

  Above the writing was an item for sale.

  Small volume (215 × 130mm), 62 leaves with hand printing in dark ink, another 12 blank. Fine original leather over wood binding. Significant soiling and browning, occasional spotting and staining. Dutch vellum, gilt edges, extremities rubbed. Provenance still in question, but verified to mid- to early-16th-century origin.

  A color photo displayed the book. He’d seen many like it before. Books were a love of his. He collected them by the hundreds, all encased in plastic sheaths, lined on metal shelves in his basement back in Atlanta. Pam hated them, as they took up a lot of room, not to mention the money he spent on them. But he was a hopeless bibliophile. A dream that he allowed himself to sometimes enjoy was to one day own a rare-book shop.

  He wondered what it was about this book that was so interesting.

  The brochure noted that the auction began at 6:00 P.M. His watch read a little after two. He decided that his anonymity could be stretched a little further, so he’d be there to see what happened.

  He left the room, relocked the door, and made his way downstairs to the lobby. He needed to find Dubois. His ally had said he’d wait outside the main gates, on the street. People streamed back and forth through the hotel from the courtyard, two restaurants, and a bar that was doing a brisk business for the middle of the afternoon. He turned for the main doors and was immediately flanked by a man on either side. Both were young, clean-shaven, with short hair, dressed casually, their shirttails out.

  “Mr. Malone,” one of them said.

  So much for being anonymous. He said nothing and waited for them to make the next move.

  “You need to come with us.”

  He stopped walking. “I hope you have a better reason than that.”

  “Like I said. You need to come with us.”

  He could take them both. No problem. So he held his ground. “I don’t need to do anything.”

  The other man reached into his back pocket and produced a leather wallet. He opened it and displayed an identification.

  One he’d seen before.

  HaMossad leModi’in uleTafkidim Meyuchadim.

  Institute for Intelligence and Operations.

  Israeli.

  “What’s the Mossad’s interest in Haiti?” he asked.

  “We need to talk. But not here.”

  He stepped from the car, the two agents also exiting. He’d ridden with them a few miles outside of Cap-Haïtien to a spot he’d read about but never visited.

  Sans-Souci Palace.

  Henri Christophe, or King Henri I as he’d labeled himself—tall, strong, smart, and unruly—built it in the early part of the 19th century, part of his plan to show Europe and America the power of the black race. Eventually, scattered around the island, were six châteaus, eight palaces, and the massive citadelle, but none compared to Sans-Souci. An earthquake toppled much of the building in 1842, the ruins never rebuilt. Once the equivalent of Versailles, with fifty rooms, a Baroque staircase, and stepped gardens, home to a grandiloquent court of dukes and duchesses, centuries of neglect had allowed nature to again take control. But though gutted by flames, roofless, exposed to tropical wind and rain, the shell seemed in harmony with its surroundings.

  He followed his minders toward the ruin across a carpet of green grass. He recalled that sans souci translated to “without care,” which did not accurately describe the current state of his emotions. Though the Israelis were allies, he’d never liked dealing with them. The fact that they were here, watching him, and he hadn’t known, made things worse.

  What in the world had Scott involved himself in?

  A man waited for him at the base of the crumbling château. Interesting that Christophe had built the palace to advance African supremacy, but everything here screamed European monarchal prestige. Few other people were around, odd considering that this one of the region’s main attractions.

  “Mr. Malone, I appreciate your coming here,” the man said. He was mid-fifties, thin, fit, with a full head of brown hair. He, too, was dressed casually, and was clearly in cha
rge. The two young men from the hotel withdrew to a discreet distance, keeping an eye on things, but not close enough to hear.

  “You have a name?”

  The man smiled. “Matt Schwartz.”

  “And why is Israeli intelligence here in Haiti, watching me?”

  “You’re a man to be watched. Quite a reputation. An agent with the famed Magellan Billet. One of Stephanie Nelle’s hand-chosen twelve. In fact, from what I’ve been told, you’re her prized agent, the one she sends on the toughest jobs.”

  “You can’t believe everything my publicist says.”

  Schwartz chuckled. “No, you can’t. What were you doing in Zachariah Simon’s room?”

  “My mistake. Went into the wrong one. That hotel is like a maze.”

  “I was hoping you might offer something more creative.”

  “And why would I do that?”

  “Professional courtesy?”

  Now he smiled. “Why don’t you tell me why you’re here?”

  “Simon is someone we’ve kept an eye on for a while. You know anything about him?”

  He shook his head.

  “Billionaire. Lives in Austria. His family is a big supporter of Israel. They survived the Holocaust, even prospered after the war. His father and grandfather helped form our state. But this third generation is not nearly as benevolent. In fact, Zachariah Simon is a problem.”

  “Terrorism?”

  Schwartz shook his head. “If so, not the garden variety.”

  He wasn’t getting much more than what a department summary might reveal, available to anyone with even a minor security clearance. This man was doing his job, keeping things close, offering just enough so his listener might reciprocate. So he offered, “I’m not here on official business.”

  “Really? You just decided to take a little trip down to Haiti?”

  “My brother-in-law, Scott Brown, drowned here last week. I came to find out what happened.”

  “Scott Brown.” Schwartz shook his head. “That man was a problem, too.”

  Malone was taken aback by the comment. Now he wondered if the Israelis had been part of what had happened, so he asked, “What did Scott do?”

  “He nearly wrecked a year’s worth of effort. He was working some sort of con on Simon. But he had no idea who he was dealing with.”