Bluewater Quest Read online

  Dani grinned. "Thanks, Doctor Everett. You have a good eye. She's actually a reproduction of a classic design by L. Francis Herreshoff."

  "Oh, call me Shellie. And this Herreshoff must have had an artist's eye. The visual harmony is lovely. It's a pleasure just to look at her."

  "Thanks, Shellie," Liz said. "Are you by chance an artist?"

  "Oh, I wish. But I'm afraid my only gift is the ability to draw pleasure from the work of others."

  "She's being modest," Rick said. "Her background is in art history, and in spite of her protests to the contrary, she's quite talented in her own right. She's just too busy to pursue that these days. And by the way, I'm Rick. Forget the professor stuff. We may work in academia, but it's just a job. We don’t let it define who we are."

  "I couldn’t help noticing the paintings in the main cabin," Shellie said. "They’re so precise they almost look like photos. Who’s the artist? I couldn’t make out the signature."

  "Liz did those," Dani said.

  "You’re quite good," Shellie said. "If I could paint like that, I’m not sure I’d ever do anything else. You could make a living from your work."

  "You’re kind to say so," Liz said, "but I’m not sure I could paint for money. Then it would just be work. Now, it’s my escape."

  "I understand the escape part. It’s that way for me, too. But I don’t paint as well as you."

  "I feel that way when I look at other people’s work," Liz said. "Did you notice the impressionist sunset on the forward bulkhead of the saloon?"

  "I did!" Shellie said. "It’s a real departure from your others. You’re quite versatile."

  Liz smiled. "Not that versatile. I look at that and it makes me feel so … I guess unimaginative is the word I’m searching for."

  "So you didn’t paint that?" Shellie asked.

  "No. A friend of ours did."

  "It’s awesome. Is your friend someone I might have heard of?"

  Liz chuckled.

  "It’s doubtful," Dani said. "But if you had, you’d remember it. He lives in Dominica. If we go up that way, maybe we can introduce you."

  "Has he done many paintings?"

  "Quite a few," Liz said. "His wife paints, as well. She runs a gallery there."

  "And what’s his name?" Shellie asked.

  "Sharktooth," Liz said.

  "Huh? Sharktooth? Is that like a stage name or something?"

  "Or something," Liz said. "It's the only name he'll answer to, for whatever reason. Tell us about yourselves. You’re both professors?"

  "Yes," Rick said. "My field's the pre-Columbian history of North America, which means I get to dabble in archaeology, as well." He looked at Shellie.

  "And my background is art history. I have a special interest in east Asian and Middle Eastern works. My focus is the era from the Holy Roman Empire through the Middle Ages."

  "So, there's some overlap in your interests, at least in the sense of the time period," Liz said.

  "Right," Shellie said. "That's how we first encountered one another. We were both involved in the study of some artifacts that were recovered from an Inca site in southwest Colombia."

  "Someone found a jeweled dagger that was of obvious Arabic origin. The site was at first thought to predate the Spanish period, partly because of the engraving on the dagger," Rick said.

  "There was a notion that the Arabs were there before the Spanish?" Dani asked, raising her eyebrows. "In South America?"

  "Yes. But Shellie managed to pin down the origin of the dagger to a Moorish artisan in Spain. He did his work in the days before the Spanish took back the Iberian Peninsula. The dates matched up, but the dagger itself was mentioned in some records that were much later, consistent with the idea that Francisco Pizarro, or one of the noblemen in his party, owned it. It was valuable and distinctive enough to appear in some documents that put it in Spain well after the beginnings of the Spanish conquest. Perhaps they left it with some local dignitary as a gift."

  "That's quite a story," Liz said. "I can imagine that there was some serious detective work involved in discovering that."

  Shellie smiled. "There was, indeed. But the best thing I discovered was Rick."

  "That's sweet," Liz said.

  "Were the people who found the dagger disappointed?" Dani asked.

  "Oh, maybe a little, but the site was important enough to keep them excited even without tying it to the Moors," Rick said. "I'm sure it would have been fun for them if it turned out that the Spanish didn't leave it there. Just imagine; it could have turned back the clock on the discovery of the new world by several hundred years."

  "Is that related to your current project?" Liz asked. "Our charter broker told us you were looking for evidence to support that same kind of theory."

  "It sort of is," Rick said. "Our work on the dagger is what attracted the attention of our sponsor and led them to us. How much did your charter broker tell you? Elaine, right? She's your broker?"

  "Yes," Liz said. "I just told you everything we know. It sounds like an interesting project. Can you tell us more about it?"

  Rick and Shellie traded looks for a few seconds. "Sure," he said. "But we'll need your commitment that it goes no farther without our okay."

  "That's not a problem," Dani said. "We trade on protecting our guests' privacy."

  "Elaine assured us of that. She recommended you two because of your background, Dani."

  "Our background?" Dani frowned.

  "Yours, individually," Rick said.

  "She said you grew up in the islands. Your family's from Martinique?" Shellie asked.

  "My father's family, yes. Why is that important to you?"

  "We need someone with more than a casual knowledge of local politics and culture. We'll be depending on you to keep us straight with the authorities."

  "How do you mean that?" Dani asked, her frown deepening.

  "We don't want to cross any boundaries, legally or culturally. It may come to the point where we're doing some minor excavating, looking for artifacts."

  "I'm afraid I don't know much about that," Dani said. "Doesn't it involve a lot of red tape?"

  "Sometimes. Our sponsor has people who can handle that; it's the sensitivity to that kind of issue, and the ability to interpret local reactions that we're looking for from you," Shellie said.

  "The Caribbean countries don't have well-defined regulations for protecting historic sites. Pillaging has always been a problem here," Rick said. "But people are becoming more conscious of the need to stop that. Your sense of the local attitudes is what we need."

  "Oh, okay. I do know the people on the different islands pretty well, if that will help."

  "That's exactly what we want."

  "So what are you planning?" Liz asked.

  "To start with, we have a fragment of a map that is thought to have been drawn by one of the Moors who made this voyage. It was part of a folio we managed to obtain from an archive in a Middle Eastern country that I'm not at liberty to name."

  "Does it point to a particular island?" Liz asked.

  "It's not that easy," Rick said, grinning. "As I said, it's a fragment. What we have is a photocopy, of course. The documents of the voyage put the fleet somewhere between the islands we call Grenada and Puerto Rico, but based on what we can glean, we don't think they got as far north as Puerto Rico. Our first job is to do a preliminary survey of the islands to try to find a match for the geographic features on the map fragment. We'll be trying to get a feel for how the area would have looked back then, as well."

  "I imagine that you've already studied modern maps and charts," Dani said.

  "Yes, of course. That's part of why we think the island we're looking for is in the Lesser Antilles. The Virgins and the Greater Antilles don't offer a match, at least not on a preliminary basis."

  "How do you want to go about this, then?" Dani asked.

  "Well, if it's okay with you, we'll go over that with you in the morning. We've got a little presentation worked
out. We thought it might be useful with the local authorities, and we'd like your reaction. It could be that you'll recognize some of the features from the fragment and the text references. Based on the preliminary work we've done, it could even be Grenada."

  "Sure, that's fine with me," Dani said. "Liz?"

  "Certainly."

  "But is there any way we could have an early dinner?" Shellie asked. "I'm beat from the airplane ride. I could use food, a nice walk around the harbor, and an early bedtime."

  "Dinner in half an hour?" Liz asked.

  "Perfect," Shellie said. "Okay with you, Rick?"

  "Yes. Suits me. Liz, if I come below with you, can you help me get on the internet? I have some things I need to check."

  "Yes, I can do that." Liz stepped through the companionway and Rick followed her.

  Shellie took a sip of wine and gave Dani a warm smile. "Growing up in the islands sounds exciting," she said, putting her glass on the cockpit table.

  "I don’t know," Dani said. "It was just … the way I lived, I guess."

  "Now, you said your father was from Martinique. Is that where you lived when you were little?"

  "Well, sort of," Dani said. "Some of the time, anyway. My parents were divorced, so I had a strange childhood."

  "Oh, I went through that, too. I'm sorry if I was prying. I understand if you'd rather not talk about it. My interest was piqued by the notion of growing up down here in paradise."

  "No, it's okay," Dani said. "I didn't take it that way. I just don't want to bore you."

  "I love hearing about unusual experiences. I'm sure your story's not boring. How did you and Liz end up in business together? She's from Belgium, right?"

  "She was on a sabbatical in the islands, and she met this strange guy, who had tried to kill me when I … Are you sure you want to hear all this? It's a long, involved story."

  "It's absolutely tantalizing, with an opener like that. This guy tried to kill you?"

  "Yes. It's going to take a while, because a bunch of my friends from childhood played a part."

  "We've got weeks. I'd love to hear whatever you're comfortable telling me."

  "Don't get her started on that now," Liz said, setting a tray of appetizers on the bridge deck. "It's not good dinner table conversation. Tell them about how you tricked me into cooking for you on Kayak Spirit before you conned me into buying Vengeance with you."

  "You tricked her into cooking for you?" Shellie asked, as Liz ducked back into the galley.

  "Was Kayak Spirit a boat?" Rick asked.

  Dani smiled as she remembered taking Liz sailing that first time. "Yes. She belongs to a friend of mine, and I was living aboard her, doing a little refurbishing, when I met Liz. We were in Antigua, and this boat was for sale at a brokerage there. I had decided I wanted to buy her and go into the charter business, but I would need a partner — somebody who could sail, but more important, somebody who could cook. So, I invited Liz out for a day sail … "

  3

  "What do you think of Dani and Liz?" Rick asked, as he and Shellie strolled along the road from the marina toward St. George’s.

  "Dani's okay, but you spent more time with Liz than I did," Shellie said.

  "I was going over my presentation and she was fixing dinner. We didn't talk much. But man, can that woman cook!"

  "The broker said she was a gourmet chef," Shellie said.

  "She told us the truth. I only got snatches of your conversation, but it sounded like you got quite a bit of Dani's story."

  "She was guarded at first, but I got her to relax a little. She was still pretty careful, though, especially talking about her father's business and her teenage years."

  "Why were you asking her about her father's business?"

  "Oh, it just kind of came up. You wanted to know how extensive her background was in the islands, so I was trying to probe where she had lived down here, and when. And how old she was in each place."

  "What did you learn?"

  "She had a strange childhood. Her parents divorced when she was an infant. Her mother's part of a wealthy investment banking family in New York, and her father's an international businessman."

  "I thought she said his family was from Martinique," Rick said.

  "Yes, he was born there. His family's been in the islands since the 1600s, and they were apparently well off. Some of them were, anyhow. Some of his ancestors were in Louisiana, before the purchase. She has distant cousins all over the place, but mostly concentrated in the French islands. Her father lives in Paris now."

  "So how did she come to live all over the Caribbean as a kid?"

  "It was summers and vacations, mostly. Her mother wasn't particularly interested in her, from what I got. I think there's some strain there. She insisted on Dani going to private schools in the Northeast, but other than that, she didn't pay much attention. Her father took her under his wing, but whatever he was doing to build his business in the islands, he was gone most of the time. So she was passed around among his friends and family when she was nominally in his care."

  "What was special about her teenage years? You said she didn't want to talk about them."

  "I don't know. I didn't sense anything amiss, there. She just wouldn't say where she spent her time, except that she hung out with a friend of her father's who was almost like a much older brother. He was in the U.S. Army, a military attaché, most of the time. He spent the majority of his career in the islands and South and Central America."

  "That does sound like a strange childhood, but at least she must know her way around this part of the world. That should be a big help."

  "Oh, I think so. I think she was much more comfortable in this part of the world than in the States. Still is, for that matter. Her mother browbeat her into working for the family's bank after she finished college."

  "What did she study?"

  "Bachelor's in accounting, Master's in finance."

  "How'd she find her way into this business, then?"

  "Her father's always been a yachtsman. He's got a fleet of big crewed charter yachts in the Mediterranean. She was a deckhand on them off and on from her early teens, when she wasn't kicking around down here. When she got fed up with investment banking, she started crewing on private yachts here in the Caribbean. She and Liz bumped into one another while Liz was on a sabbatical from working for the E.U. I didn't get to hear the particulars of how they met, but the little I got really blew me away."

  "How so?"

  "All I got was that Liz met this 'strange guy,' as Dani put it. He had tried to kill Dani, at some point before Liz took up with him. And that was all she said about that. She wandered off into the divorce thing."

  "Wow! How could you not grill her on that?"

  "Well, like I said, she was guarded. I don't think she's much into small talk. I just let her go where she was comfortable. I mean, all we care about is whether she can be a good fixer for us, with the locals, right? We don't need her complete life story."

  "Right, but it sounds like she's really got some tales to tell. Probably Liz, too, if she was seeing the guy who tried to kill Dani."

  "No kidding. Anyhow, I don't think the charter broker steered us wrong. I think Dani and Liz are just what we need. And they're pleasant company, too."

  "Not to mention Liz's cooking," Rick said.

  "Keep that up and you'll make me jealous," Shellie said, smiling up at him as she gave him a gentle elbow to the ribs. "Let's get back to the boat; I'm ready for bed."

  Hossein Rahimi was preparing to leave his office for the night; as usual, he had worked until almost midnight. The hours after most people had gone home were his most productive ones. He'd spent the evening studying the material on Ali ibn Abi Bakr that his people had assembled during the afternoon.

  The mullah had left his imprint on Islam, even though he had disappeared a thousand years ago. Ali ibn Abi Bakr, according to Rahimi's researchers, was indeed a descendant of the Prophet. Furthermore, he was a proponent of the Sunn
i interpretation of Mohammed's teachings.

  This made Ali a heretic in the eyes of the Shiite clerics who controlled modern Iran. It was clear now, at least to Rahimi, that the Saudis had a broader agenda than claiming the Moors had discovered America. Ali ibn Abi Bakr's writings would support the Saudis' Sunni view of Islam, eroding the credibility of Iran as a major influence in Middle Eastern politics.

  Rahimi had prepared a memorandum for his commander’s approval granting him the authority to pursue this investigation outside his normal geographic territory. The directorate responsible for the Caribbean included most of the western world, but Rahimi didn't expect to meet any resistance to his request from his counterpart responsible for the west. His request was pro forma, an extension of his responsibility for surveillance of the Arab nations.

  The agents currently assigned to Rahimi's counterpart for the West were preoccupied with the minions of the Great Satan. They were also pursuing opportunities afforded by the increasing unrest in Venezuela. They didn't have time to devote to chasing an academic who was hunting ghosts, even if the academic had the backing of the Saudis.

  Rahimi had sent the memo earlier. Several hours ago, he had begun deploying his own agents in anticipation of his commander's approval. He had a deep-cover team en route to the Caribbean. Because of airline connections and his lack of specific information as to the Saudis' plans, the team would start from the French island of Martinique. They would arrive there early in the morning.

  "Were you telling her your life's story, or what?" Liz asked, rinsing a plate and handing it to Dani to dry. Their guests were out for a stroll in the cool of the evening. "I felt like I was interrupting a performance when I brought dinner up into the cockpit."

  "Yes. She's really easy to talk to. She drew me out before I even realized it."

  "They're both good company," Liz said. "I'm enjoying them; they're nice people."

  "They seem to be," Dani said. "You've spent more time with him, but I almost like her."