Chapter Seven

 

 

 

March 31, 1780

Nevis

 

 

The small boats came at night one by one from the ships anchored offshore. They slaved their way across the breakers crashing in front of them and then disgorged their men onto the beach and waited. Many of the men were slaves.

The caravans went up the mountain after sunset and were down before daybreak. There were twenty African men in each led by five white officers. It was backbreaking work. It was also a very well-planned operation and executed precisely. The boats were loaded onshore, and their precious cargo quietly ferried to the waiting vessels.

The ships, once filled with gold, slipped out of the protection of the reefs around Nevis and proceeded to their destinations. The slaves worked as crew. The officers were trusted friends and professionals. The gold was being moved for a reason.

The American Revolution was winding down. The British, although successful in the southern colonies, were now being harassed by guerrilla and partisan forces, which negated many of the Crown’s gains there. The French Navy was for the moment dominant in the area and would soon seal the fate of King George’s efforts to hold his largest outpost in the New World. It was the nail in the coffin.

The gold needed to be moved so it could now be used for the benefit of a new country rising on the American continent. Nevis was too populated. He could not risk its discovery.

The men worked on. There was no thievery and there were no loose lips. The treasure was deposited in twenty different locations around the Caribbean in very isolated, safe, areas. Unless one had a map, the treasure would never be found.

The man controlling the operation from afar sat in a room alone in the headquarters of General Washington as the war raged around him. He was tired and missed his family. However, his head spun with visions and plans for this new political creation, the United States of America.

He was the only person who could tie it altogether, who knew all the locations of the treasure. He would ensure the precious metal was used to its maximum benefit.

There were many ideas floating around in his head regarding the fiscal operation of his new country. The states all had very high levels of debt from the years of fighting. He wanted the new federal government to assume these debts and institutionalize a strong central government. He also had ideas about the management of the new country’s finances. All of these ideas required money.

The maps of the different locations were spread out on the table in front of him. The man smiled as he finally received word that the operation was complete. The courier had just delivered the news. Silently he folded each of the maps and put them into a leather pouch. The pouch he hid inside his jacket. It never again left his person while he was alive. He was the American commander’s aide-de-camp, Alexander Hamilton.

　

 

 

June 28, 2017

Nassau, Bahamas

 

 

 

Alex sat on the deck of the bar overlooking the harbor. He was into his third vodka and did not feel a thing. Drinking was in his blood. The Russian scourge had taken hold of him recently, and he drank like a fish. He ordered another. It’s no wonder that Russian male life expectancy is so low, he thought and smiled. It was a full twelve years below males in the United States, primarily due to alcoholism.

Better to burn out than to fade away, he contemplated.

He was at the sailing club, where he raced small sailboats. The club was old and had memories of past glory adorning the walls. Pictures, awards, trophies, and newspaper clippings were placed throughout the premises.

The Bahamians had actually recruited him to their Olympic sailing team recently. He was that good. Sailing and treasure hunting were his passions.

Just finishing a nice weekly lunch with his fellow club members, most of them elderly, he really had nothing to do the rest of the day, so he decided to drink. He looked out across the harbor to Paradise Island. Many sailboats sat at anchor and bobbed in the sunny waves. There was a nice breeze coming off the water. He tried to enjoy the scene and the moment.

The prime minister’s offer was intriguing.

Alex was the premier treasure hunter in the Caribbean. He had spent most of his adult life attempting to find and catalogue the wrecks that littered the ocean floor around the many islands and cays that formed the country known as the Bahamas. His talents were well known.

“I want to form a partnership,” the prime minister had said. “You have something I want and I have something you want.”

What the man wanted was money, money in the form of gold. He knew Alex would find many treasures if he kept up his quest. There were rumors that a large find could be in the works.

Alex wanted to be free from government interference. There was the slight sticky point that the treasure Alex found technically belonged to the Bahamian people. The government always took its share and then some. In fact they could confiscate the treasure altogether. The prime minister suggested that Alex could do away with these silly worries by splitting the booty with him, illegally of course. All proceeds were to be deposited in an appropriate offshore account that did not bear his name.

Alex flagged the club waiter and ordered another drink and stood.

Whenever he felt the stress rising through his chest, he started pacing. When he started pacing, he knew the unhappiness was coming. He stepped near the table and reached for the bottle. It had become ingrained in him. It was the only thing that calmed the waters, the only thing that got him through the night. Sometimes, it was what got him through the day as well. He looked forward to the first drink, every day about this time. He knew it was a problem, but he shrugged it off. There are worse problems and I’m Russian. It’s in my blood, he thought.

The vodka went down easily. At least he had ordered the good stuff.

He looked again at the towering spires of Atlantis rising from Paradise Island across the harbor. The resort and casino brought throngs of rich Americans to the island, where they parted with their money. He casually watched as an older couple sat on the deck of their sailboat anchored one hundred yards from the club. They sipped drinks and stared back in his direction, oblivious to the machinations of the local economy. Their world was their boat and the casino behind them.

“This endeavor is becoming quite lucrative,” he murmured to himself. He thought again of the prime minister.

It was an intriguing proposal indeed.

But Alex had other masters, and he had to be very careful.

 

 

 

May 23, 1701

London, England

 

 

The macabre parade made its way to Execution Dock, Wrapping, London. Captain Kidd was tied up with several other condemned men in a horse-drawn cart with the full effects of the horror of eighteenth-century London. He was poked with sticks, urinated on, and smeared with excrement as the column weaved down the cobblestone streets to his end. He had been drinking drams of rum all morning and was roaring drunk. He was the life of the party. He bellowed at his tormentors in the crowd and gave them what they wanted, a sick scene of sadism.

What a fall he had taken. Four years ago, he was a respected businessman and mariner who had bought a pew in Trinity Church in New York. He had a beautiful family and was respected by the Crown. Now he was a hated pirate about to die.

The procession made its way to the gallows. The birds were swarming, as they knew what was coming. This realization frightened Kidd more than anything. He tried to put the thought out of his mind.

He was to be gibbeted. In other words, his body was to be left hanging in the harbor for the birds to pick for twenty years until all that was left was his skeleton. This would be a warning to future generations of the consequences of piracy.

Kidd had made one last plea. He told the court of his wealth hidden in the Caribbean, but unfortunately they did not believe him. “I offer you one hundred thousand pounds in gold for my freedom,” he had stated. The court laughed.

The gold therefore stayed hidden in Nevis.

Pardons arrived at the last moment, but alas Kidd was not among them. Several of the prisoners were released into the boisterous crowd, their families rejoicing. Life in eighteenth-century England was a day-to-day test of survival, especially if one was poor.

The horses pulled the cart underneath the platform where the ropes were hung. He remained defiant and dignified. The noose was put around his neck. The crowd of the pathetic London underclass numbering in the hundreds quickly became ghastly silent. This was the best part. This was their entertainment.

The cart was abruptly pulled away, and he hung briefly but tumbled to the ground. The crowd howled and rushed forward. They wanted to see the death dance as the condemned writhed under the gallows in agony, soiling their trousers.

The rope had snapped against his neck, and he fell.

I’m still alive, he marveled. The rope had broken.

The executioner would not be foiled a second time. The hanging was prepared again, the noose put around his neck, and the cart was pushed away. This time the rope held, and Captain Kidd died. Relatives of the other men swinging in their nooses wept as they pulled on the legs of their loved ones to hasten their death.

Sarah could not bear to be in London for Kidd’s trial. She also feared for her daughter’s safety in England. She waited in New York for the return of her husband. He did not arrive.

She received news of his hanging some time later.

She was ordered out of her home by the colonial government and lost all of her possessions. Despite this unfortunate outcome, she hired an attorney and fought the order; the residence was eventually returned to her.

She remarried and had another child named William. However, she outlived her fourth husband as well as her daughter. She was the only one left alive who actually knew where Kidd’s treasure was located, but she never spoke of it again. Its location died with her. She passed on a very wealthy woman in spite of the treasure and left her possessions to Captain Kidd’s grandchildren.