Dourado

CHAPTER 11

Bones looked up at the man who was holding him hostage in the cabin of the Queen’s Ransom. Thin nylon rope held his wrists together tight behind his back, cutting into his skin, and was knotted around his ankles. Next to him, Matt was similarly bound. Corey lay on the floor, blood trickling from a wound he had suffered when one of the attackers had hit him in the head with the butt of a rifle.

“You have found the Dourado, no?” his captor asked in heavily accented English.

Bones did not reply. He looked up at the man with what he hoped was a defiant glare.

His captor merely smiled and shook his head.

“My friend, we can play games all day. But I promise you, sooner or later, you will answer my questions.” He knelt down in front of Bones, and smiled. “Oh yes, you will tell me everything I want to know.”

“And then what? You’ll kill me.” Bones had no illusions about the situation, and would not believe any false promises the man or any of his cohorts might make.

“Yes,” the man said, taking a long drag off his cigarette.

Bones was taken aback by the man’s candor.

“The question is, do you want your last hours to be painful, or pleasant? If you cooperate, I promise you will die of a bullet to the back of the skull. Quick. Painless.”

Bones stared at him. The man seemed to be waiting for him to ask what would happen if he did not cooperate. He wasn’t about to give the jerk the pleasure.

“What if we don’t cooperate?” Corey groaned. He was trying to sound tough, but Bones could hear the strain in his voice.

“You will be made to suffer. And then you will die in the most painful way imaginable.” The man stubbed out his cigarette on the bottom of his shoe, and flicked the butt out of the cabin door and onto the deck.

Bones eyed him. The man was tanned, with black hair and a slightly oily complexion. His face was wide, with eyes set a bit too far apart. He paced back and forth in front of his captives, his hands folded behind his back.

“I believe what I shall do is to begin with you,” he nodded toward Corey. “Your friend shall watch what we do to you. Perhaps that will convince him to talk to us.”

“Take me first,” Bones said. “Neither of them knows anything. Leave them out of it.”

“Oh no, my friend.” The man leaned down close to Bones’ face. “I know the reputation of the American Indian. You can remove your spirit from your body, and watch your own torture, even death, dispassionately. I am wagering that your weakness is that you cannot watch the suffering of your friends with the same lack of concern.” He smiled, confident in his theory.

“You don’t really believe that fairy tale crap, do you? That’s just something we made up to scare white people,” Bones said. “Besides, what can we tell you, anyway? We’re a research…” A loud pop burst in his ear as the man kicked him in the side of the head.

“We will not make satisfactory progress if you insist on playing games.” He looked at Bones with empty, dispassionate eyes. After a moment, he casually removed the pack of cigarettes from his breast pocket and shook out another of the cancer sticks into his palm. The pack was white with a black sailing ship set in front of a blue wheel. They were Esportaziones, an Italian brand. The armed peon rushed from the cabin door he had been guarding, and lit the man’s cigarette with a hastily produced Zippo. The oily man took a deep draw, held the smoke in for a moment, and slowly exhaled.

“I will give you one last chance,” the man said, walking over to where Corey sat. He held the cigarette near Corey’s cheek. The computer whiz winced and turned his head away from the glowing ash.

“First,” the man said in a calm, conversational tone, “did you find the wreck of the Dourado?”

“Yes,” Bones replied. He saw no point in denying it since the man obviously already knew. Now, he needed to buy time until Willis could do something to help them. The two of them had been underwater when the attack came. Bones had surfaced only to find guns drawn on him. They hauled him aboard, relieved him of his dive knife, and tied him up. He cursed his own laxness. Things had proceeded so uneventfully up to this point that he had not insisted that Willis stand guard, convinced there was no danger.

“We found it two days ago. You can see the spot on the chart over there,” he nodded toward Corey’s instrument panel, above which a chart of the area between Bintan and Singapore was mapped. Straight pins were pressed into the map, marking the location of the Dourado, the probable site of the sinking, and places in between where they had successfully recovered artifacts from the ship. These had been few and far between.

The man glanced toward the chart, then back at Bones. He seemed satisfied with the answer.

“What did you find?”

“Gold coins, a few statues, stuff that you’d expect to find on a ship.” Where was Willis? “The Dourado was salvaged years ago. There’s almost nothing left.”

The man thought about this for a minute as he took another long drag off his cigarette. He turned and blew the smoke in Corey’s face, then held the ash close to Corey’s neck. “You are certain?”

Bones nodded, his heart racing. If these people knew about the Dourado, then they had to know that the ship had been salvaged. That was part of the historical record. It was the other information, about the sword and the captain that he needed to protect.

“Can I at least know your name?” Bones asked. He had to stall as much as possible.

“I do not see the harm in revealing my name to a dead man. My name is Angelo.”

“Thanks, Angelo,” he said, feigning friendliness. “Good to know you. My name is…”

“Your name is Uriah Bonebrake. You work with Dane Maddock on the Sea Foam, along with Matthew Barnaby and Corey Dean. At present, you are working for Kaylin Maxwell.”

“Nice job,” Bones said. “I was never much for homework, myself. I just copied off of the cute girls.”

“Enough of this.” Angelo made a slashing motion with his hand. “After you finished your excavation of the wreck of the Dourado, what did you do next?”

Bones took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, trying to appear as if he were debating whether or not to answer the question. Anything to stall.

“We went to the spot you see marked on that chart. It’s the pin farthest to the northwest. That’s where we think the Dourado went down.”

“And then?” Angelo fixed him with an impatient glare, the cigarette dangling between his fingers burning down slowly.

“We started scanning and making short dives at places in between the site of the sinking and her present location.” Behind his back, he worked at the ropes. He had tensed his arms as much as he could while they were tying his hands together, but the bonds were on tight. He didn’t have much wiggle room.

“What have you found on these dives?” Angelo leaned toward him, an intense look in his eyes.

“Again, almost nothing. We figure the cargo gradually spilled out onto the seabed between the place the ship went down and the place it turned up off of Bintan several days later. Over time, the currents will have scattered it pretty wide.

Angelo, without changing expression, buried the cigarette into the exposed flesh of Corey’s upper arm. Corey screamed, as much in surprise, Bones supposed, as from pain.

“What the hell did you do that for?” Bones snarled, jerking in his bonds.

“I did not ask you what you think happened to the cargo. I asked what you found. You will answer me specifically and explicitly.” Angelo’s eyes now held a slightly demented look.

“Fine.” Bones pretended to rack his brain, though their take had been so small that he could probably rattle off the list without a second thought. “Two statues, both in poor condition. Each of Middle Eastern origin.”

“What country?” Angelo snapped.

“Not my specialty.” Bones shrugged, using the motion to mask his struggling with his bonds. “We’ll have them checked out when we get back.”

“No. We will have them checked out when we return. You will not be returning.”

“Whatever,” Bones pretended to dismiss Angelo’s words with a shrug, using the motion to twist against the ropes around his wrist. He felt them give just a bit. “We also found a small, ornate wooden box that had probably contained someone’s personal papers once upon a time.”

“There were no papers?” Angelo leaned toward him again, frowning as he spoke. Suspicion dripped from his words. “You are absolutely certain of this? I caution you. No attempt to deceive me will work. You will succeed only in making your friend suffer.”

“It was a wooden box, genius,” Bones said. “It filled with water. Whatever was in there has pretty much dissolved into some mush in one of the corners. You’re welcome to scrape it off and try to read it if you like.”

For a moment, Bones thought that Angelo was going to punch him, or burn Corey again, but the dark-haired man relaxed visibly and nodded for him to continue.

“Seven coins… no, eight…no, it was seven.” He was running out of stalling tactics.

“Seven or eight. I do not care! Get on with it.”

“Sorry, you said to be explicit.” Bones had worked his wrists looser. He had to be careful to keep Angelo from noticing any movement. “Beyond that, we’ve found some dishes, a pistol, and a small cannon that might have been kept aboard the Dourado for defense, but we aren’t sure about that. We couldn’t have raised it, anyway. That’s everything.” Having finished his list, he stared at Angelo defiantly. “What else do you want to know?”

“What else?” The man seemed agitated now. He stamped his foot and crossed his arms in front of his chest.

“I told you, that’s everything,” Bones said. “Of course, we’re not finished with our search. Who knows what else we’ll find if you let us keep working?”

Angelo did not seem satisfied with the answer. He began pacing again. After a moment, he stopped and scrutinized the map on the wall. He dropped what was left of his cigarette on the floor, and put his finger on the site of the wreck. Silently he traced the path they had marked out on the map.

“Where is the rest of your crew?” He asked, almost nonchalantly. Bones did not know how to respond. Angelo didn’t wait long before he continued. “Come now. I know that you are missing both Mr. Maddock and Ms. Maxwell.”

Bones relaxed a bit. So they didn’t know about Willis. That was a point for their side.

“They went back to the states.” He wouldn’t be surprised if the guy had the resources to know where they had gone.

“Why did they go back?” His voice took on an impatient tone.

“There was a death. Someone in Kaylin’s family. I think it was maybe her cousin or somebody. Dane went with her, since she’s been attacked before.” He stared intensely at Angelo. “But I guess I don’t have to tell you that.”

“You are not being completely truthful with me, Mr. Bonebrake,” Angelo said. “Mr. Maddock and Ms. Maxwell left because you found what you were looking for, didn’t they?”

“What?” Bones didn’t know what else to say.

“You were left behind as a ruse, continuing the search so it would seem to outsiders that you had not found that for which you were searching.”

“We’re not looking for any one thing.” Bones’ searched for a way to stall Angelo further. “We’re just excavating the wreck. Kaylin’s father had researched it all of his life. It was his pet project, and she wanted to finish what he started.”

Angelo produced his own lighter, lit another cigarette and moved back to Corey’s side. He knelt down and held the burning end next to Corey’s left eye. He gripped Corey’s hair in the other hand.

“My patience is at an end. I will know what you found, or I will blind this man.”

“We didn’t find anything,” Corey grunted, trying to jerk his head away. “He’s telling you the truth. Everything we’ve found is on board the ship.”

Angelo thought this over. He did not, however, move the cigarette away from Corey’s head or loosen his grip. “For argument’s sake, let us say that I believe you. Answer this, Mr. Bonebrake; what is it you expected to find on this wreck? And no more lies about not looking for one specific thing. There was something special aboard the Dourado. Tell me what it was.”

Bones could tell that the time for stalling was at an end. As he watched Angelo push the hot ash of the cigarette ever closer to his friend’s eye, he hoped Willis had come up with a plan.