Bluewater Quest Read online

  "That wasn't in the material you showed us," Liz said.

  "No, it wasn't," Rick said.

  "Is that document still around?" Dani asked.

  "No one knows where it is. There are a number of references to it, but the original is lost. What we know about it is best described as hearsay."

  "About the sketch map," Dani said, "where did that come from? Was it from this lone survivor?"

  "No. It was found with the papers of an historian and geographer who documented Khashkhash's voyage — with the papers that went into the translation that you read, in other words."

  "So, you don't know with certainty where the mullah's base was at the time it was overrun?"

  "That's correct. It's possible that it had been relocated, although it was in one place during the period of several years when Khashkhash was exploring the area. That's clear from Abul-Hassan's history. It seems unlikely that the mullah would have moved it after Khashkhash left. He didn't have much manpower, compared to the number of men who were around when the base was established."

  "I couldn't tell from the files you shared with us what the base was like," Liz said.

  Rick smiled. "No. There wasn't a description. It was in daily use for several years, but we have no idea whether it was a tent city or a fortress of some kind."

  "I'd think a fortress would have left a trace," Shellie said.

  "I don't know," Dani said. "The islands change. We're talking about almost a thousand years, in the tropics. Besides storms, there's volcanic activity, even an occasional earthquake. Wood rots and stone crumbles. If it was built on the shore of one of these harbors, there's no telling what happened to it — if it was even a permanent structure."

  "The first step is to figure out which island they were on," Rick said. "Then maybe some other references will suddenly come into focus. That's the way these things work."

  "Fascinating," Dani said. "Speaking of the way things work, I think I'll go replace that head discharge hose. Liz, can you and Shellie keep watch?"

  "You bet," Shellie said. "I'm loving every minute of this."

  Liz smiled and nodded. "Yell if you need an extra hand with the hose."

  10

  "I see now why you said Bequia is special," Shellie said, "and why you wanted to land the dinghy at the town dock and walk up here, instead of using the restaurant's dock."

  "It's an attractive little town," Rick said.

  "It's unusual," Liz said. "It's small, and the terrain isn't suited for agriculture. It was a fishing village in the old days."

  "Fishing, huh," Rick said.

  "Whaling, too," Dani said. "The whales migrate down through the islands every year. There's a long history of whaling here. One of the waterfront bars we passed is all decked out with whalebone. The barstools are vertebrae."

  "Ugh," Shellie said.

  "It works," Liz said. "It's not as macabre as you'd think. If you didn't know what they were, you might not notice. We could stop in for an after-dinner drink, if you like. It's not out of our way. Not much anyway."

  "This looks like the kind of place where nothing's very far out of your way, " Rick said.

  "That's so," Dani said. "If we had turned the other direction when we left the town dock, you would have seen the main street just fizzle out. It's like it forgot where it's going, like it can't remember if it's a street, or a walkway, or a parking lot, or maybe an open-air market."

  "Sounds like you know the town well, Dani," Shellie said.

  "I spent a lot of my childhood here. One of my father's early partners lived here. While he and my father were off doing business, his wife took care of me."

  "What about school?" Shellie asked. "Did you go to school here?"

  "That was before I started school."

  "Do they still live here?" Rick asked. "The people you stayed with?"

  "She does. Her husband died years ago. He was a lot older than my father."

  "Could we meet her? Would she be old enough to remember the colonial days?"

  "Meeting her's no problem. She runs a little restaurant at the other end of town. And she loves to talk about the colonial days. We'd have to spend some extra time here tomorrow, though."

  "I'd vote for that," Shellie said, "if you think we can spare the time, Rick."

  "Background's important. You never know what you'll learn from somebody like her. Let's plan on it."

  "Good," Dani said. "I enjoy introducing our guests to her. She's family; she's more of a mother to me than my own mother."

  "Does she have children?" Shellie asked.

  "Two sons. They're much older -- my father's age."

  "How old is she?"

  "Ancient," Dani said. "I've lost track, but you can ask her."

  "She won't be offended?" Shellie asked.

  "She's too old for that to bother her," Dani said, with a smile. "But she doesn't pay much attention to things like age. And she doesn't look her age, so don't be surprised."

  "The whaling thing intrigues me," Rick said. "I always associate that with New England."

  "Well, that's not wrong, but the Caribbean is full of whales at certain times of year," Dani said. "It wouldn't be unusual for us to spot some on our way north from here. Whale watching's a big business in Martinique."

  "Are they making a comeback?" Shellie asked. "Because of the protection?"

  "I can't judge that," Dani said. "But there seem to be plenty of them around here."

  "They still hunt them here in Bequia," Liz said.

  "Hunt them?" Shellie frowned.

  "The International Whaling Commission allows them to take up to four a year," Dani said. "They do it the old-fashioned way. A few men in a tiny boat, sail-powered. When they spot a whale, they drop the mast and row, with rags to muffle the sound of the oars in the locks. They sneak up on the whale, and a man in the bow harpoons it, by hand. Then the fight begins. The whale can tow the boat for hours before they wear it down enough to kill it."

  "What do they do with it once it's dead?" Rick asked.

  "It's a community thing. They rarely get one, and when they do, the whole town shares the meat. They tow it back in and beach the carcass on a little island just north of Petit Nevis. The remains of an old whaling station are on Petit Nevis. That dates back to the 1800s, at least. To when whaling was big business. It's only a few hundred yards off the south coast. They used to use that, but it's privately owned, now. Somebody objected, so they butcher the whales on a tiny little sand spit called Sempler's Cay. That's between Petit Nevis and the main island."

  "A whaling station? What's that like?" Rick asked.

  "I don't know what it was like when it was in full swing," Dani said. "Now it's mostly the ruins of what's called a 'try-works,' where they rendered the blubber to get oil. There's a cradle that held a huge pot and some stonework chimneys."

  "How old is it? Do you know?"

  "No, I don't, but you should ask Mrs. Walker — the lady I was telling you about. Her family's been here forever — when you look at her, you'll see her Carib ancestry."

  "So you aren't exaggerating, then?" Rick asked. Seeing Dani's puzzled look, he said, "About her family being here forever, I mean."

  "No. She's a product of the Caribbean melting pot. You'll see when you meet her."

  "Do you think she grew up hearing any of the oral history of the Caribs?"

  "I'm sure she did. She has a lot of physical traits that came from the Caribs. Bequia's the kind of place where there weren't a lot of outsiders to dilute the gene pool. Why? What are you thinking?"

  "I'm wondering if the Caribs hunted whales, and whether the use of that island as a whaling station might predate the Europeans."

  "I don't know. Surely, they must have hunted whales. I thought all the indigenous people in the coastal Americas did."

  "Probably so," Rick said, "but there's no evidence that the Caribs did. Not in any of the articles I've read."

  "What kind of evidence would you expect?" Dani asked.
r />   "Bones. The kind of stuff found in middens."

  "Are there a lot of middens in the islands?" Liz asked.

  "Yes. There are middens everywhere people lived — it's kitchen trash."

  "I see. What do they find in the ones in the islands?" Liz asked.

  "Mostly crab shells, shells from mollusks, fish bones. A few bones from small animals, but not too many of those. Most of the protein came from marine sources."

  "Where are they found?" Dani asked. "The middens."

  "They usually mark a site of habitation," Rick said. "Most are close to where people were living."

  "Are many found along the shoreline?"

  "Some, but I'd guess a lot of those got washed away, down here. Is that what you're thinking?"

  "Well, that, and the size of whale bones. The whaling station at Petit Nevis has a ramp that they pulled the carcass up so they could cut off the meat and blubber. Then they shoved everything else back into the sea. People on Bequia have occasionally pulled some whale bones out of the deep water there to use for decoration, or even construction. It's not like killing a deer and carrying a joint of venison back to your camp. We're talking big, heavy stuff."

  "Good point," Rick said. "It seems reasonable that the Caribs must have hunted whales, or at least dolphins. There have been some manatee remains reported in some of their middens, but not many. But they had big, seagoing canoes. They traded from island to island, so they had the wherewithal to chase down marine mammals."

  "Manatees and dolphins are still pretty big to lug home. My bet's they butchered them where they killed them, or maybe towed them to a beach." Dani said. "That's what I'd do. That's what the locals do now."

  "That makes a lot of sense, actually. It's not inconsistent with what happened with other primitive people who hunted whales. The Caribs might have just had a better way to get rid of the remains."

  "An early form of recycling," Liz said.

  Rick chuckled. "Right. I'm eager to meet this Mrs. Walker. Any chance we could see that whaling station?"

  "Sure. That's easy," Liz said. "There's a nice little anchorage there, big enough for a few boats. With this settled weather, we could even spend the night there tomorrow night if you want, and get an early start to St. Lucia the next morning."

  "I like that plan," Rick said. "Not to change the subject, but should we order dinner?"

  All three of the women nodded.

  "Thought you were going to starve us," Shellie said.

  "I think you're in the clear, Ash," Ed said, lowering the binoculars. "All four of them got out of the dinghy and they've walked up the hill on the north side of town. This time of day, headed in that direction, my bet is they're out to dinner. The little map in the guidebook shows a fancy French restaurant up that way. They're probably gone for at least an hour, hour and a half."

  "Okay, I'm on my way."

  "Where are you going to put the tracker?" Bert asked.

  "Since we've been here, I've had the time to study their boat. It's just as well I didn't do a rush job the other night. I think I've got the perfect spot, now."

  "Where?" Ed asked. "Don't forget, it needs a clear view of the sky. Top of one of the masts would be perfect."

  "Give me a break, Ed. You think nobody would notice me climbing the mast?"

  He shrugged. "So, where, then?"

  "See that rectangular box on the roof just forward of the mainmast?"

  "Covered in canvas?" Ed asked. "Looks like a life raft in a canister."

  "Yes, exactly. That's it. I'm going to put it right on top of that, under that canvas cover."

  "What if somebody sits down on it?" Leila asked. "That looks like a perfect perch for somebody."

  "That won't hurt anything," Ashley said. "Look at this thing." She held up a device in a white, high-impact-plastic case. It was about the footprint of an index card, but around 4 millimeters thick. "It's nice and flat; nobody's going to feel it, even if they do sit on it, especially under that canvas."

  "Okay. Want me to run you over there in the dinghy?" Leila asked.

  "No. Too much chance of being seen. I'll swim." They were anchored about 50 meters off Vengeance's port bow. "Should I give Everett's laptop another try while I'm there? I should have plenty of time."

  "Skip it," Ed said. "No need; It's taken care of."

  Ashley frowned at that as she got to her feet. She moved the cushion on which she'd been sitting and opened a cockpit locker underneath, pulling out a black neoprene wetsuit. "Camouflage," she said, wriggling into the skin-tight suit. She bent forward, flipping the zipper-pull lanyard over her left shoulder.

  Standing up again, she reached into the locker and picked up a microfiber towel in a sealed, clear plastic pouch. "No wet footprints on their deck," she said, stuffing the pouch and the tracking device into the neck of her wetsuit. She grabbed the lanyard dangling over her shoulder and tugged it, zipping the suit closed along her spine.

  Pulling a black neoprene hood over her blond hair, she said, "Back soon." She climbed down the boarding ladder that hung over Aquila's stern and slipped into the water. Using a smooth breast stroke, she barely rippled the surface of the water as she swam toward Vengeance.

  "I'm surprised you told her to leave the computer alone," Leila said.

  "Tehran's sending us copies of everything," Ed said. "They hacked into the foundation's email server. We should have it by morning. Besides, I took a look at the log from the Bypass thumb drive this morning. The hard drive on that computer's encrypted. It probably wouldn't have done us much good to clone it."

  "She's out of the water," Bert said, a pair of binoculars pressed to his face. "She's creeping along the side deck. There. She's peeled the backing off the adhesive patch on the tracker. Lifting the edge of the canvas. She's done. Crawling back to their boarding ladder."

  "I've got a handshake from the tracker," Ed said, fiddling with a touch-screen tablet computer. "And it's working. Great. Let's see if it goes to sleep … yep. We're good." He took the tablet below and put it on the chart table.

  As he climbed back into the cockpit, Ashley swam up alongside. "Before I get out of the water, would you check and make sure it's working?" she asked.

  "Done," Ed said. "Good job. Come on up and get dressed. Dinner's on me."

  "Where?" Leila asked, as Ashley stood on their boarding ladder and unzipped her wetsuit.

  "Anywhere but the French place. Take a look at the guidebook while Ash gets dressed."

  "Are you still awake?" Dani asked. She and Liz were in their cabin, having bid their guests goodnight half an hour earlier.

  "Yes. What's on your mind?"

  "This whole situation; there are some things that don't make sense to me."

  "What, for example?" Liz asked.

  "Well, the first thing that's off is the break-in last night."

  "What about it?"

  "I'm having trouble accepting that some junkie thief was able to pick a high security lock."

  "Okay. What's the alternative explanation?"

  "Well, the most likely is that we forgot to lock the doors."

  "You know better than that, Dani. I checked them before we left, and Shellie watched me do it. She even asked if theft was a problem, when she saw me checking."

  "She didn't mention that."

  "No, but she did agree that I locked the doors and checked them."

  "And I believe you. I just don't like the option that's left to explain the break-in."

  "And what option is that?"

  "It wasn't some common thief. It was somebody who had the skills to pick our lock. Or somebody with one of those high-tech electronic gizmos that does it for you."

  "What kind of person would that be, Dani? Even the locksmith had trouble that time."

  "Yes. That's what worries me. Why would somebody with that capability want to break into Vengeance and steal a GPS and a VHF? Both those things wouldn't bring enough cash to pay for one of those electronic lock picks. Remember, the locksmi
th said it was cheaper just to cut the lock out and replace it, and that's not cheap."

  "I remember. But you interrupted them. Maybe they were going to take the computer, and whatever else they could find."

  "I don't believe that. An ordinary thief wouldn't have left the computer after he knocked me out. I think they were trying to see what was in it; copy some files, maybe."

  "Uh-oh. Your paranoia's showing. Why do you think that? The computer's password protected. Remember the trouble Rick had getting it to accept his password?"

  "Yes. I'm thinking the thief was trying to hack into it, maybe trying passwords at random, and that caused it to lock up. Some computers will do that."

  "But why not just steal it?" Liz asked. "Hack into it at their leisure?"

  "Because then Rick would know somebody had his files," Dani said.

  "What would be on the computer that would be worth all that? Rick's a history professor, not some kind of spy."

  "As far as we know."

  "Dani, get a grip. Where has that devious mind of yours taken you?"

  "Who would stand to gain if Rick managed to prove that the Moors discovered the Americas hundreds of years before Columbus?" Dani asked.

  "But it's all academic, Dani. It's not like that would give the Moors — or whoever they've been replaced by — any right to rule. We're not in the colonial era any more. The geopolitical boundaries are well-established now, don't you think?"

  "Somebody's paying a quarter of a million dollars for us to sail Rick and Shellie around the islands for three months. That's a lot of money; I said before, there has to be a payoff."

  "Okay, so what do you think is going on here?" Liz asked.

  "I wish I knew."

  "You said you liked Rick and Shellie the other day. Has that changed?"

  "No, not really. They're nice."

  "So you don't think they're involved in some nefarious plot to mess us up?"

  "Not knowingly, anyway, but the more we learn about Rick, the less comfortable I am with him."