The Eden Legacy

II

The Maritsa lurched into another wave valley, sending the anchor swinging back across the open hatch like a wrecking ball. Knox crouched down and waved to the two conservators in the hold to get clear. Another wave passed beneath them. The Maritsa rolled harder; the anchor gained momentum. Klaus put out both hands in an effort to stop it, but it simply pushed him backwards until he tripped over a davit and fell on to his backside. It should have been funny, but no one was laughing. Something this heavy could do untold damage. It swung towards Lucia; she dithered about which way to evade it for so long that Knox had to push her clear, sending her sprawling across the deck.

The crane operator glanced overboard, clearly thinking of dumping the anchor back at sea; but there was a team of divers still underwater, and it would put them at fearful risk. Knox waited for the anchor to reach the end of its next swing, grabbed hold of its end and hauled himself up, then began using his weight to work against the roll of the boat, like a child slowing a playground swing. Miles saw what he was doing and clambered up too, and together they calmed the anchor enough for the crane operator to lower it safely through the open hatch. The moment it passed beneath deck level, they leapt free, allowing the other crew to close the hatch, cutting down the anchor’s room to swing, its ability to cause damage. They heard it thump hard into the hold floor then roll briefly until it found its angle of repose. They opened the hatch back up. The conservators were already on either side of the anchor, releasing it from its straps. Ricky had somehow got down there already, shouting out his usual orders for Maddow’s camera. Knox looked around. No one appeared badly hurt, though Lucia was still on her backside, looking a little pale. ‘Sorry about that,’ said Knox, helping her up.

‘Christ!’ she muttered. ‘The size of that thing! I’d have been jam.’ She brushed herself down, gave him a dry smile. ‘You’re not planning to bring everything up this way, I hope?’

‘It’ll be fine,’ he assured her. ‘One of our thrusters broke at a bad time, that’s all. We’ve got spares. And we’re unlikely to find anything else that size.’

‘If you say so.’

Movement out on the water caught his eye: Garry at the helm of their Bayliner, bringing Dieter Holm for his presentation. He leaned over the gunwale to watch the motorboat slapping inelegantly through the rising sea, shipping far more water than was prudent. ‘Were you planning on getting back to Morombe tonight?’ he asked.

‘Uh-oh,’ said Lucia. ‘I don’t like the sound of that.’

‘This weather’s not great,’ he said. ‘If it doesn’t improve soon

…’

‘Would there be somewhere for me to sleep?’

‘Of course. And it probably won’t come to that.’

‘Then I’ll keep my fingers crossed. In the meantime, is it okay if I ask another question?’

‘Sure. Fire away.’

She gave him a slightly crooked smile, as if to apologise in advance. ‘It’s just that your boss was telling me about some family folklore of his.’

‘Ah,’ said Knox.

‘Apparently one of his great, great ancestors originally arrived in California on some huge boat from China. He assured me this was at least five hundred years ago, more like six, a good century before any Europeans got there.’

‘It’s perfectly plausible,’ said Knox. ‘The Spanish discovered the Philippines in 1520, and it kicked off a pretty substantial trade between Manila and Mexico. Some Chinese certainly came over to the Americas then. Maybe Ricky’s ancestor was among them.’

‘That’s not what he’s claiming.’

‘I know it’s not,’ said Knox. Ricky was convinced that his ancestors had arrived in America on one of Zheng He’s treasure ships, long before Columbus and the Spanish: that the Chinese, therefore, were the first true discoverers and settlers of America.

‘So? Do you think he’s a crank?’

‘People called Schliemann a crank,’ replied Knox. ‘He discovered Troy. And plenty thought Columbus a crank. He discovered the New World.’

‘And you’d put your boss in their class, would you?’

‘Sometimes people make important discoveries because they stick to unorthodox beliefs even when the world’s laughing at them. Most people would have given up long ago, but Ricky’s kept at it, and I admire him immensely for that.’ It was true enough. Thirty years ago, Ricky had set about proving that his family tradition was for real, scouring America’s western seaboard for evidence of fifteenth-century Chinese ships. When he’d come up dry, he’d searched the east coast instead, before working his way south through Latin and South America, combing beaches, talking to local museums and amateur historians, following up each and every promising lead. When he’d run out of American coastline, he’d turned his attention to Atlantic and Pacific islands instead, then Africa. In all, he’d announced the discovery of a treasure ship no fewer than seven times. The first six had led only to his public humiliation, yet still he’d carried on. And finally he’d come to Madagascar, where he’d seen a rusted cannon in the grounds of a tourist hotel here in Morombe. No one had thought much of it until then, because cannons were common on this coast, from the vast number of ships sunk over the centuries doing the run from Europe to the Indies. But Ricky had recognised instantly that this cannon was different. This cannon had been fifteenth-century Chinese.

‘So do you agree with him?’ asked Lucia. ‘That a treasure ship could have made it all the way to America, I mean?’

‘I’m a scientist,’ he told her. ‘I go where the evidence takes me.’

‘And where would that be?’

Knox nodded at Dieter Holm, arriving at that moment at the top of the gangway steps, laptop slung over his shoulder, carrying a box of comb-bound folders. ‘That’s exactly what we’re about to find out.’