The Deep

VI

The moon had risen well above the horizon, casting an avenue of gold across the still water.

Treece’s boat was forty-three feet long, a wooden craft with the name Corsair painted on the stern. Standing next to Treece at the wheel, Sanders looked aft. The hull, he guessed, had once been a standard-design fishing boat, but by now Treece had so radically altered it to fit his peculiar needs that it looked eccentric.

There were winches on both sides of the cabin, racks for scuba tanks along the gunwales, and, where a fighting chair would be bolted to the deck, an air compressor. An aluminum tube, perhaps twelve feet long and four inches in diameter, was lashed to the starboard gunwale. The lamp in the binnacle threw a faint yellow glow on Treece’s face.

Sanders said, “There are so many stars up there, I can’t pick out St. David’s light.”

“Only one that winks regular,” said Treece.

The sea was flat calm, and the lights on shore, a mile away, were passing with mechanical smoothness.

“All the lights look the same,” Sanders said.

“How can you tell where you are?”

“Habit. Once you know the shore line, you can tell by the way lights are clustered. Things like Orange Grove and Coral Beach stick out. You’ll see.”

“How do you avoid the reefs in the dark? You can’t see the rocks.”

“A night like this is a bit sticky. There’s not enough breeze to raise many breakers. You pick your way through.” Treece smiled. “After you make a couple of mistakes, you recess your prop in the hull and put a pair of steel skegs along the bottom so when you hit a rock you get a noisy bong that tells you to back off.”

Sanders heard a whine from the bow. He looked through the windshield and saw Charlotte crouched on the pulpit that extended out from the bow. Her haunches were quivering, and her tail twitched excitedly.

“What’s her problem?”

“Phosphorescence,” said Treece. “Stick your head over the side.”

Sanders leaned over the starboard gunwale and looked forward. A mantle of tiny yellow-white lights covered the water displaced by the bow of the boat.

“It’s called bioluminescence. The boat disturbs the micro-organisms in the water, and they react by giving off light. Some of them are worms, others are crustaceans. Same as fireflies, basically. The Japs used to rub them on their hands during the war so they could read maps in the jungle at night. Charlotte wants to eat them.”

Sanders said, “She’s got quite an appetite.”

“One day she’ll be lunch herself. A while back, she got all hot over a shark that was cruising about; jumped on the bastard’s back and tried to take a bite out of him.”

“Why didn’t it eat her?”

Treece laughed. “The shark was bloody terrified-not exactly accustomed to having some hairy thing jump on him from above. Took a big shit and zoom!-off he went. He came back ’round by and by, but by then I had the dumb bitch out of the water.”

“Why do you bring her along?”

“She gets lonely if I leave her.” Treece swung the wheel a quarter turn to the left. “Besides, she’s company.”

They fell silent, watching the glassy night water and the twinkling lights on shore. Sanders took a deep breath, exulting in the salty freshness of the air. He could not remember feeling so good, so alive. He felt as if he were living out the dreams of his youth, and, like a child, he was pleased-almost proud-to be alone with Treece. He was mildly ashamed to recognize that he was glad Gail was not with them. This was something special, an experience that would be his alone. He reprimanded himself: Don’t be a middle-aged adolescent. The best reason for not bringing Gail along is that this might be dangerous.

He contemplated the possible perils and, as usual, found himself ambivalent toward them: nervous but excited, afraid of the unknown but impatient to meet it, eager to do things he had never done. As he looked at the dark water, a shiver of anticipation made the hair on his arms rise.

They traveled southwest for another few minutes.

“See up ahead,” Treece said, pointing. “That’s Orange Grove. You can tell by the lights: four in a row close together, that’s the dining room. Then a dark spot for the kitchen, then a long thin one-the picture window in the bar.”

“What do you do on a foggy night?”

“Stay home.”

Treece kept the boat at three-quarters throttle until they were directly off the Orange Grove lights. Then he turned toward shore and slowed to a speed just above idle. He peered through the cabin window at the water ahead. “Could use a bit of wind,” he said, “and a bit of cloud cover, too.

In that moonlight, we’re going to stick out like the cherry on a cream pie.”

“How much do you draw?”

“Three feet. We should get through with nothing more than a scratch or two.”

“Will I be in your way if I go up forward?”

“No. Sing out if you see anything that wants to dent us.”

Sanders walked to the bow. The dog was still blocking the way to the pulpit, and Sanders nudged her aside and went to the end of the pulpit. The bow cut through the water with a sshhhh noise that, from where Sanders stood, was as audible as the low chug of the engine. Sanders looked at the streak of moonlight ahead. Something broke

water-a flash of silver crossed the moonlight and splashed into the dark. Sanders looked back at Treece, who said, “Barracuda.”

They crossed the first line of rocks, and the second.

Twenty or thirty yards in front of the boat, Sanders saw rings of water spreading away from a center, as if some unseen hand had thrown a stone from above. “What’s that?” he said.

Treece raised up on tiptoes. “Bejesus!” he said, and he swung the wheel hard left. “That bastard would’ve stove us clean.”

“Reef?”

“Aye. We’re in the third line now.” Treece aimed the bow toward shore and turned off the engine.

The boat continued to drift, then finally settled, nearly motionless. Treece jumped up onto the gunwale and walked forward. “No wind, no tide, no nothing. One hook should keep us here.” He threw an anchor overboard and let the line run through his hands until it fell slack. He tugged it twice, securing the anchor in the coral, and tied it to a forward cleat. “Let’s get dressed.”

Followed by the dog, they went aft into the cockpit.

As Sanders attached his regulator to the neck of the scuba tank-holding the regulator up to the moon, to make sure he wasn’t putting it on backward-Treece went below. He threw two black neoprene wet suits-boots, trousers, jackets, hoods-through the hatch onto the deck.

“Is the water that cold?” Sanders asked.

“No, but the rocks’ll flay you at night. Brush up against something you can’t see, it’ll give you the chills.” Treece ducked below again, and returned, carrying in one hand a metal strongbox, in the other a large battery-powered light in an underwater housing. He showed Sanders the on-off switch on the light and said, “We won’t use it any more than we have to. It’s a bloody beacon down there.”

“How will we see?”

“Still see,” Treece said, pointing to the strongbox.

“You stick next to me.” He opened the box.

Inside, cushioned with rubber, were a mask and a pistol-grip flashlight. “Infrared stuff. So I can find the rock you left.”

When they were dressed, they sat on the starboard gunwale. “Look at your watch,” Treece said.

“After half an hour, you come up, no matter how much air you’ve got left. Don’t want to run out of breeze at night. There may be a current down there, and it’s no fun to swim five hundred yards back sucking a dry tank.”

Treece reached beneath the gunwale, found a Ping-Pong paddle, and tucked it in his weight belt. The dog wagged her tail and sniffed at Treece’s flippers. “Guard the boat, Charlotte,” he said.

He looked at Sanders. “Set? We’ll go down together. When we hit bottom, turn on the light and have a quick look-around. Make it as short as possible. Soon as you see something familiar, so you know where we are, turn off the light and head for it.

If I’m lucky with this”—he held up the infrared light—“we won’t have to use that light too much.”

“What makes you think anybody’ll come out after us?”

“Chances are, nobody will. But there’s no sense issuing engraved invitations.”

Treece put in his mouthpiece and made a thumbs-up no sign. Sanders answered with the same sign, and they rolled backward into the water.

Beneath the surface was utter darkness. More than an absence of light—it was a thick, enveloping black, a positive nothingness. Sanders’ eyes were open, but they did not see-not his bubbles as he breathed, nor the rim around the faceplate of his mask, nor a finger held an inch in front of his face. For a second, he believed he had suddenly been struck blind. Water washed around his nose. He tilted his head to clear his mask, feeling for the top of the faceplate, pressing hard with his fingers, exhaling through his nose, and he saw undulating pinpoints of light-starlight refracted by the water.

As he exhaled and his lungs emptied, Sanders began to sink toward the bottom. He took a breath, and his descent slowed. The water, chilly at first, was warming to body temperature inside his wet suit. He felt warm and helpless and peaceful, as if he were revisiting the womb. He spread his arms and let himself glide softly to the bottom.

His flippers touched sand. There was a gentle current, enough to make standing difficult, so he dropped to his knees. The light hung around his wrist by a rubber thong. He felt for the on-off switch and pushed it with his thumb. A cylinder of yellow stabbed through the black.

Sanders had no idea where he was or which way he was facing. He swung the light left and right over the sand and rocks and was startled by the brilliance of the colors brought out by the incandescent beam. By day, the sand had looked pale blue-gray, the rocks blue-brown, the fish blue-green. But the flashlight brought out the natural in colors. He saw the whites and reds and oranges of the coral, the power-pink belly of a slumbering parrot fish. The light hit a line of brown, covered by green, and Sanders recognized it as one of the timbers from the wreck. The head of a small barracuda appeared at the edge of the beam of light.

It lingered for only a moment. Sanders looked around.

Outside the narrow shaft of yellow, all was black. He wondered if sharks were attracted by light.

Something touched his shoulder. He jerked backward in spasmodic shock and felt fingers tapping him. Then he saw the black figure of Treece move into the beam of light. Treece gestured for Sanders to turn off the light and follow him; he held out his hand.

Sanders took the hand, turned off the light, and when he felt a slight tug, began to kick alongside Treece.

Still he saw only black. Without Treece’s special mask, the infrared light was invisible. Sanders assumed that Treece was homing in on the cave, for there was no hesitation to his movement: he was swimming fast, in what felt like a relatively straight line.

Treece slowed, then stopped. With his hand, he guided Sanders to a spot on the bottom. He tapped the light, and Sanders pressed the switch.

They were at the mouth of the cave.

The light reflected off the white sand and rock walls. Sanders saw the rock marker they had placed in the cave. Treece’s hand moved it and set it in the sand next to the infrared light. A finger pointed to the depression in the sand where the rock had been, telling Sanders to train the light there. The finger withdrew, and a hand appeared, holding the Ping-Pong paddle. Treece moved the paddle over the sand in short, swift motions. The sand rose in billows: in seconds, the cave was filled with a cloud. Sanders put his face down beside the light. The hole in the sand grew. It was several inches deep, more than a foot in diameter. Treece brought his face down beside Sanders’, and the two heads clustered about the light as the paddle waved the sand away.

Treece stopped fanning. At first, Sanders thought he had given up. Then he saw two fingers reach into the sand hole and withdraw, clutching what looked to Sanders like a brown leaf. There was a faint impression on the leaf, traces of writing or printing. The fanning resumed, and Sanders saw a glint in the sand. The fingers probed again, as delicately as if they were extracting a splinter from a child’s foot. An ampule was pulled from the sand.

Soon more leaf appeared-rotten wood, Sanders now assumed, from the cigar boxes that held the ampules; and then another ampule. Then two ampules together.

Then, as the hole deepened, the corner of a box, faded and flaking. Sanders backed off a few inches, for most of the box seemed to lie outside the cave.

Treece fanned until he had uncovered the box.

It lay upside down, a brown square about six inches by eight. He set the paddle down and gently lifted the box bottom, which came away in one mushy piece. Inside, protected by a honeycomb of cardboard partitions, lay forty-eight ampules, all intact.

Treece didn’t touch them. He picked up the paddle and began to fan again, moving away from the mouth of the cave. The sand that swirled around the cave was already sifting between the ampules, covering them.

Treece fanned until he found the edge of another box, then stopped. He held his left wrist up to the light and rolled back his wet-suit cuff.

Sanders saw the dial of his wrist watch: they had been down for thirty-two minutes. Treece’s thumb pointed up, and his hand reached to take the light from Sanders.

Sanders rose slowly in the black water, watching the beam of light below him. It would move a few feet, then stop, then move again. Sanders swam without using his arms, kicking smoothly, making as little commotion as possible, for he suddenly felt lonely and vulnerable in the blackness. His senses were useless, and he did not want to attract the attention of anything equipped to prey upon the weak or solitary.

His head broke the surface. He looked around and saw that he had misjudged his ascent; he had risen away from the boat, not toward it. It rested at anchor, a black sculpture in the moonlight, about fifty yards away. He did not want to swim on the surface, where he would make sounds and vibrations that an animal below might determine were being emitted by a wounded fish. So he ducked underwater and kicked in the general direction of the boat. Twice he poked his head out of water, twice discovered that he had strayed way wide of the boat.

Since he could see nothing on the bottom against which to measure his progress, he could not maintain a steady course.

He was breathing too fast, too deeply, his lungs gasping for more air than the regulator would give them. Stop it!

he told himself. Stop it, or you’ll run out of air. He stopped swimming and lay motionless in the water, forcing himself to breathe more slowly. Gradually, the ache in his lungs subsided. He raised his face from the water, saw the boat, and, with a smooth, deliberate breast stroke, swam toward it.

Sanders reached the boat and held onto the diving platform at the stern that made it possible for divers to board the boat without assistance. He unsnapped his shoulder harness and heaved his tank onto the platform.

Then he hauled himself up and sat, breathing heavily, letting his flippered feet dangle in the water.

He heard a distant whining from the direction of the bow.

Treece’s head popped up beside the platform. He spat out his mouthpiece and said, “Where’s Charlotte?”

“Forward. Sounds like she’s having a nightmare.”

“Not bloody likely.” Treece pulled himself, tank and all, onto the platform. With one motion, he shed his tank and stepped over the transom onto the deck. “She doesn’t sleep on the boat. She waits for me, so she can lick the salt off my face.” He started forward, and Sanders followed.

As they neared the bow, the whining grew louder, more frantic. Sanders saw the outline of Treece ahead of him, a wide, towering figure that moved with certainty and grace even in the dark. He saw Treece stop, then heard him cry, “Bastards!”

“What is it?” As he drew even with Treece, Sanders saw the dog.

She had thrust herself against the port gunwale, where she thrashed in a contorted ball, wildly biting at her flanks.

Something shiny protruded from her rear end, just above the tail, where the dog couldn’t reach with her teeth. She had tried to get at whatever it was, and in gnashing at her flanks had torn tufts of hair and flesh from her haunches. Exhausted, whining, she continued to snap at herself.

Treece squatted down and put out a hand to soothe the dog. The dog curled her lip and growled. “It’s all right,” Treece said softly. “It’s all right.” He grabbed the dog’s neck and forced her head to the deck. With his other hand, he reached around and yanked a piece of steel from the dog’s back.

Freed from pain, the dog moaned and licked herself.

“What happened?”

Treece strode aft, swung down into the cockpit, and snapped on an overhead light. In his hand was a two-inch-long dart shaped like a feather.

“What the Christ do they think they’re doing?”

Sanders looked at the dart and said, “Cloche.”

“What?”

“Cloche wears a feather exactly like that, only smaller. It must be his calling card. He’s already worked on Gail and me. Now he probably wants to force you to deal with him.”

“Idiot,” Treece said. “Just because he hired some toady to row out here and shoot my dog? That’s supposed to make me fall to my knees?” He spat on the deck. “All that does is piss me off.”

He looked up and saw the dog hobbling along the gunwale. “Get me the first-aid kit,” he said, pointing to a locker on the starboard side. “Got to patch up the old lady.”

He lifted the dog off the gunwale and set her on the deck. Gently, he forced her to lie on her good side.

Treece clipped the matted hairs from around the ragged wound, cleaned it with an antiseptic, and poured sulfa powder onto it. As he worked, he cooed lovingly to the dog, soothing, reassuring, treating her, it seemed to Sanders, with paternal tenderness and affection.

The dog responded: she made no sound and did not move.

When he had finished, Treece scratched the dog’s ears and said, “I suppose I better bandage you.”

He reached for a gauze pad and adhesive tape.

“Knowing you, you’ve already got a taste for yourself, and you’ll eat yourself right up to the bloody neck.” He helped the dog to her feet, and, tail wagging feebly, she tottered to a corner and lay down.

“What do you think they’ll do now?” Sanders asked.

“Cloche? No telling. T covered up those ampules, so he’ll not be dead sure we found anything. But that just buys us a day or two.”

Treece shook his head. “Lord, but there’s a Christ load of stuff down there.”

“More than we saw?”

“Aye. That box was just the tip. It looks to me like the number three hold hit the rocks and spilled a little bit. Then maybe she slid backward and busted her guts.” Treece made an upside-down V with his hands. “What we saw was up at the top here. The farther down away from the cave I looked, the wider the pattern was, with some of those explosives mixed in.”

“Can we get it all up?”

“Not with a Ping-Pong paddle. We’ll need the air lift.”

He pointed to the aluminum tube lashed to the gunwale. “And we’ll have to dive with Desco gear, not air tanks. Can’t be coming up every hour for new tanks. That means firing up the compressor, and that means noise. It’s going to be bad.”

“Why?”

“The deep stuff must be all mixed in with the artillery shells.”

“They’re not armed, are they?”

“Doesn’t matter. Brass corrodes. Primers may be weak. And the cordite in those shells is still good as new. Bang ’em together, or drop one on a rock-let alone use a torch comand we’ll be playing harp duets for Saint Peter.”

“Can we get the government to help?”

“The Bermuda Government?” Treece laughed.

“Aye. They’ll have the royal scroll-maker draw up a fancy scroll commissioning me to get rid of the nuisance. If it weren’t for one thing, I’d be tempted to put a charge down there and blow the whole mess to dust.”

Treece fished inside his wet-suit jacket, found what he was looking for, and handed it to Sanders. It was a coin, irregular-shaped and green with tarnish.

It looked as if the design on the coin had been impressed off-center, for only about three quarters of the surface of the metal carried any marks at all. Around the rim of the coin Sanders could make out the letters “El,” then a period, then the letter “G,” another period and the numerals “170.” Closer to the center of the coin was an “M,” and in the center was an intricate crest that included two castles, a lion, and a number of bars.

“So?” Sanders said. “You said yourself that one coin doesn’t make a treasure.”

“True. But coin might.”

“Why?”

“After I sent you up, I went along the reef a way and fanned a few pockets around the rocks.

I found that coin about six inches under the sand. It was lying up against a piece of iron, which is why it survived and wasn’t all oxidized like the one you found.”

“Why is it green?”

“That’s nothing, it cleans right off. The iron it was lying up against looked to me like the hasp of a padlock. It didn’t come loose right away, and I didn’t want to spend the time wrestling with it.”

“You mean there’s a chest down there?”

“Not the way you’d imagine. The wood would have rotted away long since. The coins’d be all clotted together, and a lot of them would be no damn good. There’s a clump of them down there, under a rock. I tried to pry one loose, but it wouldn’t come. I figure it’s stuck to some others.”

“There could be more, then. Gold, I mean.”

“It’s beginning to look like it.” Treece held the coin to the light. “Here. The ‘More” means it was minted in Mexico City. What does that tell you?”

“That the ship was going east, back to Spain.”

“Aye. It was leaving the New World. About a third of the ships that wrecked were on their way to the New World, and they didn’t carry treasure.

They were burdened with wine and cheese and clothing and mining equipment. The numbers are the first three numbers of the date the coin was minted-sometime in the first ten years of the eighteenth century. That jibes with the crest. It’s Philip the Fifth’s. He took the throne in 1700.”

“What do the letters mean?”

“By the grace of God,” Treece said.

“They’re the end of the legend on the obverse of all the coins: Philippus V, then Dei G., for gratia.”

Treece turned the coin over. “That’s a Jerusalem cross. I can’t read the letters, except for that “M” there, and the “R,” but it said Hispaniarwn et Indiarum Rex—King of Spain and the Indies.”

“So?”

“In 1715 a big fleet, one of Philip’s biggest, went down on the way home.”

“I’ve heard of that fleet. But somebody found it, didn’t they?”

“Aye, a diver named Kip Wagner. Ten ships went down, carrying God knows how much in gold and silver, and in the early 1960’s Wagner found what he figured was eight of them. He pulled up something like eight million dollars’ worth of gold.”

Sanders felt excitement surge through his stomach.

“And this stuff is from one of the other two ships?”

Treece smiled and shook his head. “Not a chance. Something’s down there, for sure, but it can’t be one of Philip’s ten. They all went down off Florida, every one of them. It’s been documented over and over again-survivors, eyewitness reports, logs, salvors’ records, everything-and no ship’s going to move a thousand miles on the bottom of the ocean. No, what we know’s no problem; it’s what we don’t know that’s bothersome.”

“Like?”

“It’s a healthy bet that if there is a ship beneath Goliath, it sank between 1710 and 1720. If it was later than that, the coins we’ve found would have later dates. New World coins didn’t stay long in the New World. The Spaniards needed every one of them to keep their country afloat. But there’s no record of a Spanish ship sinking on this end of Bermuda between 1710 and 1720.”

“It doesn’t have to be a Spanish ship, does it, just because it carried Spanish coins?”

“No. Pieces of eight were international currency. Everybody used them. But there’s no record of any ship sinking off this stretch of beach in the early 1700’s.”

Sanders said, “That could be good, couldn’t it? It means the ship was never salvaged.”

“Good and bad. It means we have to start from scratch. Odds are, she went down at night. If there were survivors comand I doubt there were—they’d have no misty notion of where they pranged up. They’d be too concerned with saving their own pelts. So whatever cargo went down with her is probably still there.”

“And that could be—was.”

“No telling. According to the records, between 1520 and 1800 the Spaniards hauled about twelve billion dollars’ worth of goodies out of the New World-that’s twelve billion dollars’ worth in those days. About five per cent of that was lost, and about half of what was lost was recovered, which leaves roughly three hundred million dollars on the bottom. Figure a couple of hundred years’ inflation of that value, you’re well over a billion dollars. That would be nice and neat—if it were true. The trouble is, everybody was corrupt, and for every dollar’s worth of registered treasure on a ship, there was probably another dollar smuggled aboard.”

“To avoid taxes?”

“A special tax. By law, the King of Spain got twenty per cent of every treasure, no matter who collected it. A businessman who traded European goods for New World gold still had to pony up the so-called King’s Quinto. It was much cheaper to bribe some fellow to overlook a few things than it was to give twenty per cent to the crown.”

“That explains the anchor caper,” Sanders said. “I ran across something at the Geographic about a captain who had his anchor cast in gold and painted black.”

“Aye. He was hanged. The point is, there’s no way to tell what could be on a ship. There’ve been a dozen cases of ships sinking and being half-salvaged-and the half that was salvaged toting up to more than was listed for the whole ship. The lead ship of a fleet, the capitana, might have had three million dollars in registered treasure on her. But this is no capitana: there’s no fleet to go with her. It’s possible that this ship was taking home some of the survivors of the 1715 fleet. And maybe some of the salvaged treasure.

But then there’d be some record-if not here, then in Cadiz or Seville-of the survivors leaving Havana and ending up here. There’s nothing.”

Treece reached inside his wet suit and pulled out an oval of gold. “Here’s another bit to the mystery.”

“A coin?”

“No.” Treece passed it to Sanders. “A medallion.”

There was a raised head of a woman on the medallion, and the letters “S.c.o.p.n.”

“I think it’s Santa Clara,” Treece said.

“The “O.p.n.” stands for ora pro nobis— Santa Clara, pray for us. Look on the back.”

Sanders flipped the medallion. The back was clear, except for the letters “E.f.”

“Those same initials!”

“Aye. This morning I wasn’t able to find any officer or noble or captain with those initials, and I’ve looked through mounds of papers.”

Sanders returned the medallion to Treece.

“Maybe it was a present for somebody.”

“Not bloody likely. Nobody gave stuff like this away.” Treece dropped the medallion and the coin into his wet suit, turned off the overhead light, and started the engine. He sent Sanders forward to raise the anchor, and when he heard the clank of iron on the deck, he swung the wheel hard left and headed seaward.

Sanders returned to the cockpit and said, “What do we do now?”

“We stay away from this place for a couple of days while I try to figure out what the hell’s underneath Goliath.”

“Cloche…”

“I know. Now he knows I’m interested, he’s bound to raise a ruckus before long. Best thing for you two might be to pack up and go home. Take the risk he’ll leave you be.”

Sanders didn’t reply; Treece was probably right. Maybe he should try to take Gail home on the first plane out in the morning. But if he left, it would mean he had been lying to himself all his life. His dreams and ambitions-of working with Cousteau, of journeying around the world for the Geographic—would be stamped as the idle fancies of an armchair buccaneer. Here was a chance to do something he had never done before, a chance to live on the edge rather than slip through existence as an observer. The risks involved were genuine, not gratuitous or self-imposed, and that made them seem somehow more worthwhile.

He looked at Treece, then at the deck, trying to phrase a question. Finally, he said, “What if there is a lot of gold down there?”

“We’ll have a royal rumpus getting it up, around those explosives.”

“No… I mean, what if we do get it up?”

“Why, then…” Treece stopped. He grinned at Sanders. “I see the wheels a—whirrin’ in the brain. Okay. I’m tempted to lie to you, to convince you to leave, but that’s not my way. I figure, if a man wants to put his ass on the line, it’s not my place to stop him. So here it is: We go to the Receiver of Wrecks and apply for a license.”

“You need a license?”

“Aye, to dive on any wreck. The license is good for a year. We could say we’re working Goliath, which is an open wreck, and not bother with a license. But I’ll apply, to keep things tidy. They’ve never turned me down yet. The license’s list you and me as equal partners. Normally, the boat counts as a person.”

“What’s that mean?”

“The boat counts as a shareholder, to take care of wear and tear and depreciation and expense. All that. But we won’t worry about that this time. We’ll make some arrangement for expenses. So you and your wife will split half, or however you settle it with her. Whatever we find belongs to Bermuda, technically, but unless they think we’re brigands, they’ll be reasonable. The stuff the Bermuda Historical Wrecks Authority wants, it’ll make us an offer on. If there’s something they’re really hot to get, we’ll have to accept their offer, which is figured out by an arbitrator appointed by—who bloody else?—the government. Whatever they don’t want to pay for they’ll return to us, and we can do as we damn please with it.”

“Sell it?”

“Perhaps.” Treece pause. “But I’ll tell you now, even though we’re daydreaming, that’s where we may come to blows.”

Sanders was startled. “About selling it?”

“Aye. We’ve our differences. I don’t need money; I imagine you do. I care about preserving finds intact. You don’t know enough about wrecks to care.”

The remark stung. “I’ll learn.”

“Maybe.” Treece smiled. “Anyway, the way the market is, we probably couldn’t sell it. Buggers.”

“Who?”

“Back in the late fifties and early sixties, people found a lot of goodies. That’s when I found my first, and Wagner found the eight 1715 ships. Everybody wanted Spanish gold, so a few sonsofbitches got cute and started dummying it. It’s easy to do and hard to detect. You can’t carbon-date gold, and with the technology what it is, a crook can make a right—perfect Spanish coin.”

“Can’t you spot a phony?”

“Sometimes, but it’s hard. Last year, I got a call from the Forrester Museum. A Professor Peabody wanted me to come look at some stuff. He didn’t tell me why, but I figured he smelled a rat or he wouldn’t be paying me to go all the way to Delaware. I looked at the coins, and I was goddamned if I could find anything wrong. But I knew there had to be soijiething. I sat in a room staring at the bloody things for a week. They were perfect! I started talking to myself, arguing with myself about every mark on every coin. I argued right into the answer. The coins all carried a “P.” It was the mint mark, meaning that they were minted at the Potosi mint in Peru. It’s Bolivia now. Then I looked at the date on one of the coins: 1627. There it was.”

“There what was?”

“The Potosi mint didn’t put out any gold coins until the late 1650’s. We had the bastard cold. It turned out he’d spent thousands of dollars buying gold in Europe and having coins made.”

“What for?”

“Some folks do it for the premium on authentic Spanish gold. You used to be able to get five thousand dollars for a good royal doubloon. I have a bar with only forty-eight ounces of gold on it—even at two hundred an ounce that’s less than ten thousand-and I’ve been offered forty thousand for it. But this lad had a grander scheme. He dummied the coins to convince people he had found a wreck he’d been looking for: the San Diego, went down in the 1580’s. He did convince a few, too, and suckered them into investing money in his corporation. He called it Doubloons, Inc. I believe they got him on some fraud charge.”

“Did his coins get into circulation?”

“That’s the bitch of it. Nobody can be sure. But even if his didn’t, someone else will come up with even better coins. You can’t hope to sell a coin or a gold bar these days unless you’ve got papers on it from the Smithsonian and every Christ agency in the world.

I’ve seen coins up for auction that couldn’t have cost more than fifteen dollars. Made in the Philippines. Squeeze ’em too hard, you’ll rub the date off. It’s gotten so bad that some blokes-upright, honest chaps who’ve got the real thing-are being forced to sell Spanish coins to dentists, who melt them down for fillings. Coins three and four hundred years old, rich with the stink of history. And they’re goin’ into a hole in some old lady’s mouth.”

“What can we do with what we find?”

Treece laughed.

“If,” he said. “God knows. One good thing, though: It does look like there’s more than coins on this one.

Jewelry, too, at least some. There hasn’t been too much faking of jewelry yet.” He took the medallion from his wet suit and held it in the dim light from the binnacle. “The Indians used to say, “Gold is the god of the Spaniards.”

It buggered up the Indians, buggered up the Spaniards, and it looks like it’s going to keep buggering up people till the end of time.”

It was after eleven when Treece throttled back and turned Corsair into the cove beneath St. David’s light. By the glow of the descending moon, Sanders could see that the rickety pier was deserted. Treece’s two other boats, a dory and a Boston Whaler, hung limply at their moorings.

They made fast Corsair’s lines, put their diving gear away, and walked to the end of the pier. The first few yards of the dirt path leading up the hill were visible in the moonlight. Then the path turned left and vanished in the dark underbrush.

“This’d be a hell of a place to jump somebody,” Sanders said, walking with his arms before his face to ward off slapping branches.

“For anyone fool enough to try,” said Treece.

Sanders felt a pang of irritation at Treece’s manifest faith in his invulnerability. “What are you, bulletproof?”

“I don’t imagine. But there’s bush about me. A lot of people believe that anyone who mucks with me will be a goner within the day. It’s a nice myth to foster.”

They reached the top of the hill and walked to the picket fence surrounding Treece’s house. The dog, feeling spry again, had already vaulted the fence and was sniffing at something on the front doorstep.

“Tomorrow?” said Sanders.

“I’ll be looking through papers all day.”

“Should we call you at Kevin’s?”

“If you want. Or come out, if you’re curious to see how thrilling it is to root around in dusty papers looking for a set of initials.” Treece opened the gate and stepped into the yard. “Either way, we’ll talk.” He walked toward the front door.

Sanders removed the padlock from the front wheel of his motorbike. Like all mobilettes rented to tourists, his had no automatic starter, no gears, and a maximum level speed of 20 mph. He sat on the seat, opened the throttle halfway, and pushed on the pedals. The bike moved slowly; the engine chugged twice and caught.

He heard Treece call, “Hey!”

He throttled down and pedaled the bike in a tight circle back to the gate.

“Have a look at this.” Treece held something in his hand. It was a Coke bottle, with a white feather inserted in the neck.

“What is it?”

“Bush. To scare me, I guess-though I don’t know how they expect voodoo to work on a Mahican Indian brainwashed in Scotch Presbyterian schools.” Treece gazed out over the dense underbrush surrounding the yard. “But I’ll give ’em this: They’ve got balls, just to come around here.”

He cradled the bottle in his hand. Then, angrily, he pegged it high in the air. The bottle spun, catching rays of light and breaking them into shimmering green and yellow fragments, and fell out of sight behind the cliff.

The headlight on Sanders’ motorbike was weak, barely adequate to illuminate the potholes on St. David’s Road. He traveled slowly, sensing the road rather than seeing it. At the bottom of a short hill, the road bent sharply to the right.

Sanders braked on the way down the hill, and by the time he reached the bottom the motorbike was moving so slowly that it wobbled. The road rose again immediately. He opened the throttle and pedaled with his legs, but he could not generate enough momentum. The bike tipped.

Sanders dismounted and began to push the bike up the hill, helping himself with short bursts from the hand throttle.

When at last the road leveled out, Sanders stopped to catch his breath. He sat on the seat and hung his head. When he looked up again, he saw a black shadow standing just beyond the reach of his light.

A voice said, “Have you thought about our offer?”

Sanders didn’t know what to say. He looked around, and heard only cicadas, saw only darkness.

“We… we didn’t find anything.”

The voice repeated. “Have you thought about our offer?”

“Yes.”

“And have you come to a decision?” The accent was liking, Jamaican. Not Cloche.

“Well…” Sanders stalled. “N…”

“Yes or no?”

“Not exactly. There hasn’t been much time. I…”

“We’ll see, then.” The shadow moved back into the underbrush. There was a rustle of foliage, and the road was empty.

We’ll see, my eye, Sanders thought. If they want to do something to me, why didn’t they do it then?

Then a shock went through him: Gail.

He fell twice on South Road. The first time, rounding a corner, unable to see more than ten yards ahead, he banked the motorbike too sharply. The rear wheel hit some gravel and skidded, and Sanders landed on the road on an elbow and knee, shredding the skin. He fell a second time right before the turnoff for Orange Grove. He had the throttle wide open and was moving fast, with too little light to give him notice of a sudden left turn in the road. He went straight, plowing into the bushes. Thorns and branches lashed his face and tore at his clothing.

As he righted the motorbike and pushed it back onto the road, he felt frantic, almost hysterical. He gunned the engine, and the bike lurched off down the road. He tried to calm himself, arguing that if anything had happened to Gail, he was too late to stop it—nearly an hour had passed since his talk with the man on the road. But what if she was hurt and he could help? What if she was gone?

He turned into the Orange Grove driveway and, through the bushes, saw that there were lights on in his cottage. He dropped the bike, and as he raced for the door, he could see through a window someone in the bedroom. He stopped, feeling the thump of pulse in his temples. The curtains were half-drawn, but Sanders recognized Gail—sitting on the end of the double bed, her hair a mess, her nightgown askew. She was staring, as if hypnotized, at something on the floor.

He threw the door open and saw her recoil, terrified, her arms clutching her breasts. At her feet was a shoe box full of tissue paper.

When she saw Sanders, she let out a gasp and began to sob. For a moment, he looked at her, stunned.

Then he shut the door and went to her. He sat on the bed and put his arms around her. She trembled, and the sobs made her back heave.

“Gail,” he said. She seemed unhurt; there were no marks on her. Nevertheless, he assumed she had been raped, and when he closed his eyes, he conjured a scene of three or four black men-he thought particularly of the young man with the scar on his chest, Slake-holding her down while, one at a time, they assaulted her. The thought nauseated him, he felt dizzy. He wondered what he would feel the next time they tried to make love. Then anger replaced nausea, and he tried to think how, where, he could get a gun. “Take it easy. It’s okay. Tell me what happened.”

She nodded. “I’m probably…” she said, trying to control the convulsive sobs, “dis… silly. It wasn’t… that bad.”

“What did they do?”

She looked at him and realized what he was thinking.

She smiled weakly. “They didn’t rape me.”

Sanders felt relief, but almost simultaneously he sensed regret at losing the supreme cause for revenge. He still wanted to kill them. “What was it, then?”

“What time is it?” she asked.

“Twelve-fifteen.”

“At eleven I went to bed. I locked the door and put the chain on it. I must have gone right to sleep. I don’t know how long I was asleep, but I heard a knock on the door. I thought it was you. I called your name, but a voice said: No, you’d been hurt in a motorbike accident, said he was a policeman sent to take me to the hospital. I opened the door. There were three of them.”

“Did you recognize anybody?”

“All of them. They were all at Cloche’s the other day. One used to be our waiter here, the one with the big scar.”

“Slake,” Sanders said.

“He was the one who pushed me. He put his hand right here”—she cupped her hand over her mouth—“and shoved me back on the bed. He said if I made a sound, he’d cut my throat. I think he would have.”

“I do, too.”

“He kept his hand on my throat and asked if we were going to co-operate. I told him… I suppose I was a little blunt…”

“What?”

“But I was so scared, and I was sure I was going to be raped no matter what. So I said, “Go fuck yourself.” All he did was laugh and say in that way they have, “You be careful, missy, or it be you get fucked.” Then he asked me again what we were going to do, and I said something like, you can tell Cloche we wouldn’t do what he wants for ten million dollars.”

“Maybe you should have lied.”

“I didn’t want to give them the satisfaction.”

“So then?”

“One of them said, “Let’s do her.” Then I knew

I was going to be raped.” She shuddered, and he held her shoulders tighter. was “Do her.” God, what a horrible word. It’s like what they used to say: “Let’s waste him.” Slake held my throat with one hand and yanked up my nightgown with the other.

He held me so tight I couldn’t look down.

All I could see was the ceiling. I felt a pair of hands pulling off my underpants.” She stopped and began to cry. In a corner, Sanders saw her pants. The fabric was wrapped around the elastic; they had been peeled off her hips and thighs.

“I thought you said they didn’t…”

She put a hand on his knee and shook her head, sniffling and swallowing. “They didn’t. One of them held my legs and spread them apart. I’ve never felt anything like that in my life… helpless, open. It was awful.”

“But they didn’t hurt you?”

“No. The next thing I felt was like a finger running all over me… down there…

from my belly button on down. But it wasn’t a finger. It was softer, kind of hairy. I still don’t know what it was. A brush, I guess.”

“A brush?”

“Look.” Gail lifted her nightgown above her hips and lay back on the bed.

Sanders felt panicked and had to force himself to look.

He remembered a time, years before, when a doctor friend had invited him to watch an appendectomy.

Sanders had worn a surgical mask, and the patient, a teen-age girl, had assumed he was the doctor. Lying there, with her privates exposed and shaven, she had begged him to make the scar as small as possible, so it wouldn’t show above her bikini.

Sanders found himself fascinated, mildly (and ashamedly) excited, and, finally, when the first incision was made, repulsed.

Gail noticed his discomfort, and she said, “It’s okay. Look.”

There were six red smears on her groin, rough lines running crosshatched-from pubis to navel, hip to hip, pubis to each hip, and hip to navel. The design, such as it was, looked like a kite.

“What is it?” Sanders asked. “Paint?”

“No. I think it’s blood.”

“Not yours.”

“No. Animal blood of some land.”

“How do you know?”

“I tasted it. It tastes salty, like blood.”

She sat up and lowered her nightgown.

“Did they say anything?”

“Nothing. Neither did I. I was so scared… as long as they weren’t hurting me, I didn’t dare say anything. The whole thing took less than a minute. Then Slake said, “Now maybe you think again.” He let me go, but I didn’t move.

Then one of the others put that thing on my stomach.”

She pointed to the shoe box. “He said it was a present from Cloche.”

Sanders leaned over and unfolded the tissue paper in the shoe box. “Oh, Christ,” he said.

“I don’t ever want to see it again.” Gail stood and walked to the bathroom.

Sanders put the shoe box on his lap and removed the doll. It was crude-linen wrapped around straw-but its meaning was clear: the hair on the doll’s head was human, exactly the color of Gail’s. Her appendectomy scar was stitched to the right of the silver sequin that represented the navel. And there were six red streaks on the doll’s groin, in the same pattern the men had painted on Gail. But the streaks on the doll had been slashed with a knife, and from them tufts of red and blue cotton hung grotesquely down the legs.

Sanders stared. His fingers felt cold; his mouth was dry and cottony. He had never known a fear like this.

Threats to himself he thought he could handle, but this was beyond his control-which, he was sure, was what Cloche had in mind. He heard water running in the bathroom.

“It’s blood,” Gail called. “It comes off easily.”

“Do you think they really would…” Sanders started to ask.

“What?”

“Nothing.” Sanders pitched the doll across the room.

He went to the telephone and, when the hotel operator answered, said, “Get me Pan American, please.”

Gail came out of the bathroom. Her hair was combed, and she held a glass of whiskey in her hand. “This should help,” she said. “It’s…” She stopped when she saw Sanders on the phone.

“Oh, for…” Sanders said into the phone.

“Okay, thanks.” He hung up.

“What were you doing?”

“Trying to get us the hell out of here. The airlines don’t open until nine in the morning.”

“You mean home?”

“Damn right.”

“But he’ll follow us.”

“Let him.”

“I’m all right.” She saw that the hand holding the glass of scotch was shaking, and she smiled. “I’ll be all right.”

Sanders paused. “I don’t think they’re kidding. Neither do you.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Then what’s the argument? It’s not worth the risk, not even the smallest chance that somebody really would rip your guts out. Treece said it: We’re here on holiday, our honeymoon, for God’s sake. We’re not here to get murdered by a maniac.”

“It’s not us you’re worried about, is it? It’s me.”

“Well, not—”

“You think you can take care of yourself.”

When he said nothing, she continued. “Don’t worry about me. We can’t spend the rest of our lives terrified. Besides, we have to stop Cloche from getting those drugs. He’ll use them to ruin lives, to kill innocent people; he doesn’t care. Well, I do. I’m going to do what I should have done all along: go to the government. I have to.”

“What do you mean? Treece told you: It won’t do any good.”

“Maybe not, but I can’t walk away from it.” Her hand still trembled, but there was a look of fierce intensity on her face. “It wasn’t you they threw on the bed; it wasn’t your crotch they painted.

I’m staying, at least until I talk to the government.”

Sanders looked away.

She went to him and touched his face. He put his arms around her and kissed her forehead.

“What did you find tonight?” she asked, her head against his chest.

“Ampules. Boxes of the damn things. They’re there, no question.”

“Any Spanish stuff?”

“A silver coin and a gold medallion.”

“What did Treece think about them?”

“He thinks there might be another ship. Underneath Goliath.”

Sanders recounted his conversation with Treece, and as he spoke, the enthusiasm he had felt on the boat returned.

Watching him, seeing his excitement at the prospect of a treasure, his delight in the newly learned minutiae of Spanish ships, she felt like smiling.

But, out of the corner of her eye, she could see the doll.

Treece looked tired; his eyes were red, and the skin beneath them was lined and puffy. He seemed subdued.

He led the Sanderses into the kitchen, where the dog lay curled by the stove, occasionally licking the bandage on her flank. On the kitchen table was a neat stack of papers comsome old and yellow, some photostats.

Gail told Treece about the visit from Cloche’s men and showed him the doll.

“He’s trying to spook you,” Treece said, “show you how powerful he is. Not that he’d hesitate to kill you. But at the moment it wouldn’t accomplish anything for him. All it’d do is raise a storm and seal it good you wouldn’t help him. But if he ever decides for himself that you really won’t go along, beware. The bastard’d cut your throat as soon as shake your hand.”

“We almost left,” Sanders said.

Treece nodded. “It’s not sure he’d get at you in New York.”

“Not sure?” Sanders said. “You think he’s serious about following us to New York?”

“Wouldn’t have to follow you. A phone call’d suffice. He’s a vengeful bugger and well connected. But no question, you’d be safer there.”

Gail said, “It seems like we’re safer here-at least as long as he thinks we’ll help.” She turned to Sanders. “You were right. I should have lied.”

“Sounds to me like you haven’t made up your minds yet,” said Treece. “Before you do, you might want to hear what I found out last night, or I should say this morning. I think I know-now hear me; I say I think—what ship is under Goliath.”

“You found E.f.,” Sanders said.

“No.” Treece pointed to the papers on the table.

“These are just the beginning, but they’ve got a couple of clues in ’em. You remember we talked about that 1715 fleet?”

“Sure.”

“This may have something to do with that fleet. Try to follow.” He picked up a piece of paper.

“The 1715 fleet was commanded by a general named Don Juan Esteban de Ubilla. He had wanted to set sail for Spain in late 1714, but there were delays, as there always were. Ships were late coming from the Far East, the Manila galleons that carried K’ang Hsi porcelain, ivory, jade, silk, spices, all manner of stuff. He waited in Vera Cruz for over a year for the cargo to arrive, be lugged across the jungle, and loaded onto his ships.

He set off for Havana, where all fleets gathered for last-minute preparations. There were more delays in Havana: ships had to be repaired, more cargo loaded, manifests made up. The early spring of 1715 slipped by, then late spring, then early summer. Pretty soon, it was the middle of July. Ubilla must have been going berserk.”

“Why?” Gail asked.

“Hurricanes. There’s a West Indian jingle that goes, ‘June, too soon; July, stand by; August, come they must; September, remember; October, all over.” A hurricane was the worst thing that could happen to one of those fleets. The ships were pigs. They couldn’t point closer than about ninety degrees to the wind, so in a big breeze they were helpless. They were always overloaded, wormy, and rotten. They leaked all day every day.

“Anyway, while Ubilla was waiting, he was approached by a fellow named Dare, master of a vessel that had once been French but now flew the Spanish flag and carried a Spanish name—El Grifon. Dare wanted to join Ubilla’s fleet, and with bloody good reason: His manifest listed more than fifty thousand dollars in gold and silver, and if he sailed alone there wasn’t a chance he’d get by the Straits of Florida. Jamaican pirates would get him. They had spies everywhere, and they’d know exactly when he left Havana. But Ubilla said no. He was all hot about the delays and the weather, and he didn’t want the headache of shepherding another vessel; ten ships was plenty to keep tabs on. Dare pressed; he hinted that there was something special about his cargo, something other than what the manifest said. Ubilla wouldn’t budge.”

“All that’s in there?” Gail said, indicating the papers on the table.

“Most of it. Everybody kept diaries in those days, and Spanish bureaucrats were fanatics about keeping detailed records, usually for self-protection. Anyway, under normal circumstances Ubilla’s word would have been law.

He was responsible for the fleet, and it was up to him to say who sailed with him and who didn’t. But evidently there was more to El Grifon than Dare was willing to tell. He went over Ubilla’s head, to the highest royal representative in Havana, and in jig time Ubilla was ordered to take El Grifon with him. So now there were eleven ships in the fleet.”

Sanders broke in. “You said last night there were ten ships in the fleet, and they all sank off Florida.”

“That’s what I thought. That’s what everybody thought.” Treece held up a sheet of paper. “This is Ubilla’s manifest. It lists ten ships and all their cargo. What must have happened is that Ubilla had made up his manifest, had done all his paper work, and he was impatient as hell to set sail. If he had gone by the book and presented his manifest for revision, to take into account the eleventh ship-one he didn’t want to bother with anyway-the bloody bureaucrats would have kept him in Havana for another month. They insisted on listing every farthing that went with a fleet, or at least every farthing they weren’t bribed to ignore-and that would have delayed the fleet’s departure until the middle of the hurricane season.”

Gail said, “How did you find out about El Grifon?”

Treece picked through the pile of documents and found a frayed, cracked, yellow piece of paper. He pushed it across the table to her. “Don’t bother to read it. It’s in Old Spanish, and the fellow couldn’t spell worth a damn. It’s a survivor’s account. About four lines from the bottom, there’s a word spelled o-n-c-e the number eleven. I must have read that bastard a hundred times before, and I never picked it up. He says there were eleven ships in the fleet.” He riffled the stack of paper. “It was easy enough to check, or double-check once I had that clue. The King’s flunky kept a meticulous diary, and he mentioned El Grifon as leaving with Ubilla. Reading him kept me up half the night. He was a pompous bastard, and I had to wade through a pile of self-serving crap. When Ubilla got the order to take Dare with him, he apparently told Dare to join up with the fleet a few hours out, so as to avoid the bureaucrats knowing-they’d have forced him to wait till he could revise his manifest.” Treece coughed, stood up, and, without asking, poured three glasses half full of rum.

“The fleet of ten, plus one, left Havana on Wednesday, July 24, 1715,” he said, sitting down. “It carried two thousand men and, officially, fourteen million dollars’ worth of treasure. The real value was likely something over thirty million. The weather stayed fine for five days. You’d think they’d be well out to sea by then, but those hogs only made seven knots, so they’d barely got to Florida, somewhere between where Sebastian and Vero Beach are today. They had no way of knowing it, but ever since they’d left Havana there had been a hurricane brewing down south, and it had been gaining on them every day.

“It caught up with them on the sixth day out, a Monday night, and by two in the morning it was beating the bejesus out of them: forty-, fifty-foot seas, hundred-mile winds blowing out of the east and driving them west, toward the rocks. Ubilla gave one course correction after another, and most of the ships tried to follow him, but it was hopeless. Dare must have been the only one who consciously disobeyed. Maybe he didn’t trust Ubilla; maybe he was just a royal fine sailor. Either way, he kept El Grifon

half a point farther to the northeast than the other ships, and, by Christ, he survived.”

“He made it alone?” Sanders said.

“No. He went back to Havana. He was still worried about pirates. That, or his ship might have been so beat up that he didn’t dare try the crossing without making repairs. And now,” Treece said with a mischievous smile, “the plot thickens. There is no record at all of what happened to Dare and El Grifon once he got back to Havana. For all practical purposes, he disappeared. So did his ship.”

“He could have tried to make it alone,” Sanders said.

“Later on.”

“He could have. Or perhaps he laid low for a while, changed his ship’s name, and joined another fleet.”

“Why would he do that?” Gail asked.

“There are reasons. But a caution: What I’ve been telling you is fact, close as I can get it.

From here on, it’s pure speculation.” He took a drink. “We know that Dare was carrying goodies worth a hell of a lot more than his manifest said, else he never would have been foisted off on Ubilla.

It’s a good bet that only a couple people knew what Dare had on board-Dare himself and the King’s man in Cuba. Suppose Dare went back to Havana and reported to the officials that the fleet was lost. Then suppose he went to the King’s man and made a deal. Say, in return for a portion of Dare’s goodies, whatever they were, the King’s man would report that Grifon had gone down with the fleet. Dare would then disguise the ship and sail away again, scot-free. He could keep what was on board, because everyone thought it had all been lost.”

Sanders said, “That’s an awful lot of ‘supposes.’”

“Aye,” Treece conceded. “I told you, I don’t kfioiv anything yet. The only decent evidence we have is time. For instance, the date on the coin fits. Most of the other evidence is negative: no one ever heard of Dare or El Grifon again; no other ships were reported sunk around here in those years. And I can’t find a likely candidate for ownership of the E.f. pieces, which means they were part of a secret cargo-or at least an unregistered one.”

“But Bermuda’s only one island,” Sanders said.

“Grifon could have gone down anywhere. Florida, the Bahamas…”

“Possible, but not probable. In the deep, maybe, but that was rare. We know Dare was a bloody good sailor. He’d not mess with Florida in bad season again. And the Bahamas channel was abandoned long before then as too dangerous. If he went down-and I’ll grant you, it’s an “if comhe went down here.”

“Why would he even come here?”

“As you’ll learn if you take the trouble,” Treece said, “he had no choice. The route to the New World was southerly, down the coast of Spain, across to the Azores, then over the ocean on the easterly trades. The route home was northerly, up the coast of the States, then a turn to the east. It was mostly eyesight navigation. They didn’t have proper instruments for determining longitude, so they used Bermuda as a signpost to tell them when to turn east. The weather didn’t have to be too bad for them not to be able to see Bermuda until they were on it. Christ, man, there are more than three hundred wrecks on this island. They didn’t all happen by coincidence.”

“What are the chances of getting it up?” Gail asked. “I mean, if it is El Grifon.”

“Getting the ship up? Not the faintest prayer. There’s nothing left of her. It’s getting what was on her that’s possible.”

“But nobody knows what that was.”

“True, but we’re a step beyond daydreams now. There is something down there.” Treece looked happy, excited.

“By rights, you found her. Whatever she is, you were the first to find her. You didn’t know it, and you still wouldn’t if I hadn’t told you, but that doesn’t alter the facts. What I’m telling you is, I don’t want you to go away from here and then get all hot later on if I find something. What’s there-a lot or a little-is half yours.”

Sanders was grateful, and he started to say so, but Gail cut him off.

“You should know one thing,” she said. “I’m going to the government about the drugs.”

“Oh Christ!” Treece smacked his hand on the table. “Don’t be stupid. The government won’t do a goddamn thing.”

Sanders was surprised at Treece’s sudden vehemence, confused as to whether Treece’s anger came from annoyance at the change of subject, the break of mood, or from genuine contempt for the government. Treece was glaring at Gail, and Sanders wished he knew how to help her.

But she seemed to need no help. She looked back at Treece and said evenly, “Mr. Treece, I’m sorry if I annoy you. But we’re not Bermudians; we’re tourists, guests of your government. I don’t know what you have against them, but I do know that we—David and I, anyway—have got to tell them about the drugs.”

“Girl, I can get those drugs, and I mean to. I don’t want Cloche to get ’em any more than you do. I’ve no love for that filth. I’ve seen what it can do.”

Gail’s expression did not change.

Treece stood up. “Tell ’em, then! Learn your own fool lesson.”

Sanders felt that Treece was ordering them to leave.

“What will you do?” he said.

“What I told you I’d do, and not a damn thing more. I’ll register the Spanish ship.”

“What’ll you call it?”

“Spanish ship. That’s all the bastards need to know.”

They had lunch sent to their room. While they waited for the food to arrive, Gail studied the Bermuda telephone directory. The listings for the various departments and agencies of the government took up nearly a whole column. “I don’t even know what I’m looking for,” she said. “There’s nothing like a bureau of narcotics control.”

“Narcotics is probably handled by the police,”

said Sanders, “which is just where you don’t want to go.”

He paused. “I can’t figure it: What the hell do you think Treece has against the government?”

“I don’t know. But something. Maybe it’s what the bell captain said-St. David’s Islanders don’t think of themselves as Bermudians.”

“It seems more than that. He was mad.”

“What about customs?”

“What?”

“The customs department.”

“Nobody’s trying to smuggle them in.”

“No, but Cloche wants to smuggle them out.” She asked the hotel operator to connect her to the customs bureau. When a voice answered, she said, “I’d like to make an appointment to speak to someone, please.”

The voice said, “May I ask what this is in reference to?”

“It’s…” Gail chastised herself for not having a ready-answer. “It’s about… smuggling.”

“I see. Something is being smuggled?”

“Yes. Well, not exactly. Not yet. But it will be.”

The voice became skeptical. “Exactly what? And when?”

“I’d rather not say over the telephone. Is there someone I can see?”

“May I ask who’s calling, please?”

“Yes.” Gail was about to say her name, when she remembered what Treece had said about Cloche: He has friends in many strange places. Quickly, she tried to determine whether the voice on the other end of the line belonged to a black woman. “I’d… rather not say.”

Now the voice was impatient. “Yes, madam.

May I ask, are you a Bermuda resident?”

“No.”

“Then I suggest you contact the Department of Tourism.” There was a click as the phone was hung up.

“That was a big success,” Gail said, running her finger down the list of government agencies. “I should have asked Treece who to go to.”

“I don’t think he’d have told you,” Sanders said.

She called two other agencies, but because she declined to give specifics over the telephone, at the end of each call she was again referred to the Department of Tourism. Finally, she called the Department of Tourism and asked to speak to the director.

“May I ask what this is in reference to?” said the woman who answered the phone.

“Yes. My husband and I are here on our honeymoon, and we have had an unfortunate experience. We’d like to discuss it with the director.”

“Does it have to do with money?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Money. Have you run short of funds?”

“Of course not. Why?”

“Oh. Good. I’m sorry, but I’ve been instructed to ask. We do get those calls.”

“No. It’s not that at all.”

“One moment, please.” The woman put her on hold for a moment, then came back on the line and said, “Would four o’clock be all right?”

“Fine.”

“May I have your name, please?”

“We’ll let you know when we get there. Thank you.”

Gail hung up.

They rode their motorbikes along South Road toward Hamilton. The rush hour had not yet begun, but, even so, the traffic leaving Hamilton was much heavier than the traffic going into town.

Businessmen, dressed in knee socks, shorts, short-sleeved shirts, and neckties, sat sedately on their 125-cc. motorcycles, briefcases strapped behind them. Women, finishing the day’s shopping, carried their children in wire baskets on the rear fenders of their motorbikes. Wicker baskets hung down both sides of the rear wheel, full of groceries.

The Department of Tourism shared offices with the Bermuda News Bureau on the second floor of a pink building on Front Street, overlooking Hamilton Harbour. A cruise liner was moored at the Front Street dock, and the milling tourists choked the traffic to a standstill. The Sanderses parked their motorbikes between two cars on the left side of the street, locked the front wheels, and waited for a break in the traffic to let them cross the street.

“I wonder…,” Gail said.

“What?”

“I’m ashamed to say it. But it’s true. What if this man turns out to be black?”

“I know. I thought of that, too.”

“I feel like I’m getting to be a racial paranoid. Every time I see a black face, I’m convinced Cloche has sent someone to get me.”

The receptionist was a pretty, young black woman.

As they approached her desk, Gail said, “I’m the one who called before.” She looked at a clock on the wall: it was 4:10. “I’m sorry we’re a little late. The traffic was terrible.”

“May I have your name… now?” said the receptionist.

“Of course. Sanders. Mr. and Mrs. Sanders.”

“The director is unavailable. There’s a convention of travel agents at the Princess, and he’s in meetings all day. I made an appointment for you with his assistant.” She rose and said, “Follow me, please.” She went to an office in the rear of the room and spoke through the open door. “Mr. and Mrs. Sanders.” She showed the Sanderses through the door and said, “Mr. Hall.”

The man stood to shake hands. He was white, about forty, tan, and lean. “Mason Hall,” he said.

“Please come in.”

Sanders shut the door behind him, and he and Gail sat in chairs facing the desk.

Hall smiled and said, “What’s the problem?” His accent was East Coast American.

Sanders said, “What do you know about a shipwreck off Orange Grove—Goliath?”

Hall thought for a moment.

“Goliath. Mid-forties, right? British ship, I think.”

They told Hall their story, eliminating both the clinical details of the assault on Gail and Treece’s suspicions about the existence of a Spanish ship. As they were finishing, Gail looked at David and said, “Treece was against our coming to the government.”

“I’m not surprised,” Hall said. “He’s had some run-ins with the government.”

“What kind?” Sanders asked.

“Nothing serious. And it’s all pretty long ago.

Anyway, I’m glad you did come. Even if nothing else happens, you’ve had more than your share of unpleasantness. I’m sorry, and I know the director would want me to extend his apologies, too.”

“Mr. Hall,” Sanders said, “that’s very nice. But we didn’t come here for apologies.”

“No, of course.”

“What can you do?”

“I’ll talk to the director this evening. I’m sure he’ll want to confer with the Minister, when he returns.”

“Where is he?”

“Jamaica… a regional conference. But he’ll be back in a few days. Meanwhile, we’ll check with the police and see if they know anything about this fellow Cloche.”

“The police?” Sanders said. “I told you, Cloche said he has friends in the police. I know he does.”

“We’ll do it all very quietly. I’ll call you as soon as we know anything.” Hall stood up.

“I do want to thank you for coming by. How long will you be here?”

“Why?”

“Because if it will make you more comfortable, I’ll be happy to have a policeman assigned to you.”

“No,” Sanders said. “Thanks. We’ll be all right.”

They shook hands, and the Sanderses left Hall’s office.

Outside, they walked along Front Street. The sidewalk was crowded with window shoppers from the Sea Venture,

who peered at the Irish linen and Scottish cashmere and French perfume in the window of Trimingham’s, and calculated the savings on the duty-free liquor advertised in the spirit shops.

“Do you think he believed us?” Gail said.

“I think so, but I think if we wait for him to do anything, we’ll die of old age.”

A few doors ahead, Sanders saw the Pan American ticket office. When they were abreast of the door, he touched Gail’s arm and pointed.

She stopped and looked at the foot-high blue letters “Pan Am” painted on the window. “We’re damned if we do and damned if we don’t,” she said. “I don’t know if I could live with the pressure at home; the threat, the not knowing, always wondering: What if…?”

David gazed at the lettering for a few seconds more, then said, “Let’s go see Treece.”

“I’ll not say ‘I told you so,” Treece said. “Bloody fools have to be scorched before they’ll admit there’s a fire.”

Sanders said, “Did you register the Spanish ship?”

“Aye. You didn’t tell the noble Mr. Hall about it, did you?”

“No.”

“He was pretty… reserved… about you,” said Gail.

“Reserved?” Treece laughed. “That’s not the word for it. Paper-pushers can’t figure me out. All they understand is bullshit and politics, which amount to the same thing.”

“You think they’ll do anything?”

“Maybe, around the turn of the century.” Treece shook his head, as if to dismiss the government from his mind. “So,” he said, “now that you’ve a half interest in what may turn out to be nothing, what are you going to do?”

“Stay,” Gail said, “we don’t really have a choice.”

“You’ve figured your risks?”

Sanders said, “We have.”

“All right. A few ground rules, then. From this moment on, you’re to do what I tell you. You can question all you want, when there’s time. But when there’s not, you jump first and ask questions later.”

Gail looked at David. “Leader of the pack.”

“What’s that?” Treece said.

“Nothing, really. When we were diving, David got annoyed at me for not obeying him.”

“And rightly, too. We could get through without a bruise, but there’ll be times when getting through at all may depend on how quick you respond. Any time you’re tempted to buck me, know this: I’ll kick your ass out of here in a trice. I’ll not have you getting killed on my account.”

“We’re not out to fight you,” Sanders said.

“Fine. Now”—Treece smiled—“bad-ass decision number one: Go back to Orange Grove and turn in your mobilettes. Pack your gear, check out, and call a cab to bring you out here.”

“What?”

“See? You’re bucking me already. If we’re going to get into this mess, I want you where I can keep an eye on you, and where Cloche’s people can’t. Back there, Christ knows who-all will have you in their sights.”

“B…,” Gail protested. “This is your—was—”

“It may not have all the amenities of your hundred-dollar-a-day bungalow, but it’ll do. And you won’t have to worry about some tomcat planting voodoo dolls in your bed.”