“What do you mean? How can we leave the ship? We’re in the middle of the Indian Ocean, with no land in sight.”
“You see,” my dog explained, “it would be easy for the pirates to leave the Sonata if things went wrong. They can just hop on their own boat–”
“What do you mean if things go wrong? Do you think . . . that this ship may be sunk?”
I shuddered. I’d seen the movie about the Titanic,
and I had no desire to be caught up in a similar adventure.
“Not that I wish to scare you, Alex, but I’m rather sure that this is exactly what Tartine and Preston are planning. They want to collect the ransom, blow a hole in the ship and run for it. I followed Tartine a few nights ago and saw him planting explosives in several places below the water line. Preston is carrying a detonating device, which can be used to activate the explosions by remote control. There are enough explosives on board to send this tub to the bottom of the ocean!”
I was in shock.
“I guess that Preston and Tartine are planning to make their getaway using the pirates’ boat,” William concluded. “Therefore we have to steal that boat before they can set their plan into motion. The ship will be safe as long as they are unable to get away from it.”
“And then? What do we do then?” I wanted to know.
A sneaky expression crept over my spaniel’s face. “Then – we go on a treasure hunt!”
“A treasure hunt?” I gasped in disbelief. What a ridiculous notion at a time like this!
“Look, we have a day or two to spare while a rescue mission is being set up. We’ll have a boat, and we’ll soon be close to the northern tip of Madagascar. We might as well go and have a look and see if we can find La Buse’s famous treasure. It’s still unaccounted for, you know.”
“La Buse?” I remembered his story. “But he was a real pirate of the old days. About three hundred years ago, I think, he sailed these waters until they eventually caught him. According to your book, his treasure was one of the greatest ones ever.”
“And as I said, still not accounted for,” William emphasised.
Who could resist the thought of a pirate’s lost treasure? But if no one could find it in all these years, I asked William, what hope did we have?
“I did my homework,” he said. “I wouldn’t want to hurt your feelings, Alex, but it can sometimes be a bit dull to be your dog. Most of the time you’re at school, or soccer practice, and all that homework that keeps you busy forever . . . and I don’t like most of your friends. Take James, for instance–”
“Now don’t start that again! Just because James beat you at chess, once–”
“I could’ve beaten him if I wished!” William argued. “But how could I allow him to go crying off to tell his mom that he was beaten by a chess-playing dog?”
I tried to bring him back to the problem at hand. “Okay, smarty pants, but now what about this treasure?”
“Well, you see, while you’re busy wasting your time at school I usually keep myself entertained on the internet. There’s interesting stuff on the web these days, I tell you. I found the archived records of the log of one of the captains that captured La Buse all those years ago, and according to that there’s a very good chance that the treasure is hidden on Tromelin Island.”
“Tromelin?” I asked.
William activated Google Earth on a computer that stood on one of the shelves of his closet. He typed “Tromelin Island” in the search box, and the image zoomed to a small pale dot in the sapphire blue sea, just east of Madagascar and north of the larger islands of Mauritius and Réunion.
“That,” he announced dramatically, “is Tromelin Island. It’s part of a group of islands commonly known as the ‘Lost Islands’ because they are almost forgotten, and no one lives there permanently.”
It did look deserted, like a grain of sand lost in the ocean. William enlarged the image and I could see a reef surrounding the shore and a straight line running along the middle of the island.
“What is that?” I asked.
“A landing strip,” William explained. “And that,” he said, pointing to a small square, “is the weather station and the only building on Tromelin. It’s not much more than a tin shack for storage. The scientists only occasionally drop by, every second week or so, to monitor recordings of weather conditions. At present it is totally deserted. Except for a few wandering spirits, perhaps.”
“You mean, like ghosts?” I asked.
“It is rumoured that La Buse murdered all the men who helped him to bury his treasure. Pirate’s tradition, at least in those days,” he quickly added.
If he was trying to comfort me, it did not work.
I scrutinised the image of the little island on the screen. It was mostly sandy, with the occasional patch of green. To my eyes it looked great. “Are you sure this is where the treasure was hidden, William?”
“I’d bet a bone on it,” he replied. He jumped from his stepladder and started rummaging through his backpack, which was stacked in a corner. He emerged with something held between his teeth: the parcel that had been delivered to our house shortly before our departure.
“What’s that?” I asked again. He’d refused to tell me previously. But that was before pirates hijacked us, and before I got wise to the fact that we were actually on a mission for the IDA, and before we embarked on a real treasure hunt.
“You may open it.” He dropped it in my lap.
The parcel contained a small satellite navigation set, almost like the one my mother used in her car, and another instrument that I could not recognise.
“What is this?” I asked.
“That,” my dog announced dramatically, “is one of the latest and greatest miniature metal detectors one can find.”
He must have ordered it on the internet. I could only hope my Dad was too busy to carefully check his credit card statements!