“So this is how the rich live.”
Looking up from the ship’s log she was currently perusing, Annja smiled at McIntosh. The Homeland Security agent had arrived by ferry the following morning. Ganesvoort had arranged transportation, a horse-drawn carriage, to his manor house on the north end of the small island.
“Yes,” Annja agreed. “It is. Some of them. Of course, Ganesvoort could have opted for the Howard Hughes lifestyle there at the end.”
The manor house had been built up over the years. It had begun life as a Portuguese villa, then had been taken over by Ganesvoort’s ancestors and enlarged to a sprawling fifteen-thousand-square-foot residence. Annja didn’t know how many bedrooms and bathrooms the house contained, but there were many. There were a handful of dining rooms and two grand ballrooms. As a result, the rooms weren’t all built on the same level, but the various architects—including the French, who’d had the last opportunity to give the structure a facelift—had managed to pull it all together with unforgettable elegance.
The manor house had a state-of-the art surveillance system and a small army of armed guards.
The room she was using was a reading room on the second floor. The north wall was nearly all glass, with a beautiful balcony that overlooked the ocean. In the distance, sailboats and fishing boats plied the waters.
“I don’t like the windows,” McIntosh growled.
“I love the windows,” Annja replied. “It’s the north light. The most even light of the day. Painters usually prefer the north light when they’re working on a canvas.”
“A sniper,” McIntosh pointed out at the sea, “on one of those boats could cause a problem.”
“Put there by Tafari, I suppose?”
“Yes.” McIntosh frowned at her. “You’re not taking this very seriously.”
Stretching to relieve her back for a moment, Annja decided to deal with the issue head-on. “If Tafari wanted me dead, this would be a dangerous place for me to be.”
“He does want you dead. Those guys last night tried to kill you.”
“They would have killed me as long as they could get the Spider Stone. They planned to get the Spider Stone, then kill me. Shooting me from a ship out at sea isn’t going to get Tafari the Spider Stone, is it?”
McIntosh didn’t answer.
Turning her attention back to the ship’s log, she said, “Think of me sitting here as being that enticing bait you wanted me to be when we got here.” She smirked a little at McIntosh’s frustration with her. “I sit here and he can’t have me. What better bait could you possibly hope for? It’s got to be driving Tafari crazy.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“It is what you meant. Your best hope is that Tafari gets as tired of waiting as you do and makes a move against us so you can nab him.”
McIntosh appeared to give that some thought. “What do you think the chances are of him doing that?”
“I wouldn’t do it,” Annja said. “I’d wait until I left the house and probably this island.”
“That’s you. You’re probably smarter than Tafari.”
“Thank you. I am definitely smarter than Tafari. On any day of the week that ends in Y.”
“Don’t get cocky.”
“I’m not. You see, I know I have a weakness,” Annja said.
McIntosh looked at her, not understanding.
“When I figure out where Yohance came from and I know where the map shows, I’m going to go there. I’ll bet Tafari knows that. That’s when he’ll get his opportunity to get the treasure and kill me, too.”
That possibility turned McIntosh’s frown even deeper.
Annja sat at a French provincial desk that had probably seen service in one of Louis XIV’s courts. The chair, of course, was modern although built in a style that accented the desk. Comfort, when working for hours leaning over old documents and maps, was paramount.
“I still don’t think you’re taking this seriously enough,” McIntosh said.
“On the contrary. I’m taking this very seriously. That’s why I’m working as hard as I am.”
“You don’t normally risk your life doing your job.”
Annja lifted an arched brow. “Really? You don’t call exploring almost forgotten ruins—where cave-ins can occur and diseases run rampant—risky? Going to remote dig sites where a hospital is two days or more away? Falling from a cliff or through a trap some ancient dead man set to keep thieves from his remains? And that doesn’t take into account bandits, robbers, slavers, mercenaries or drug traffickers that you can run into who think you have something they want or that they can use you in some fashion to get past the next checkpoint.”
McIntosh tried to interrupt.
Annja didn’t let him. “Do you know that most countries still distrust archaeologists? Well, they do. Want to know why? Because archaeologists have a long history of being spies for the United States and British governments. A lot of governments see us as a necessary evil. We bring in money to help them extract a past they might never see without outside funding.” She paused. “Archaeology isn’t as bland as you seem to make it out to be.”
“Not the way you do it,” McIntosh grumbled.
“What does that mean?”
“It means that you seem to attract trouble.”
Annja couldn’t argue with that, so she didn’t. Instead, she turned back to her work. Almost five minutes passed in silence.
“How long is this going to take?” McIntosh asked.
Only slightly irritated because she’d been expecting the question from the moment McIntosh had arrived and started pacing, Annja said, “As long as it takes.”
“You’re reading books.” McIntosh approached her and took the top book off the stack.
“That’s what archaeologists do.”
“I thought you broke into graves, found cities that had been buried in lava, looked for dinosaur bones and located shipwrecks.”
“We do that, too.”
McIntosh hefted the book. “If you were getting paid by the pound, you’d make a fortune.”
Annja looked at McIntosh pointedly.
“What?” he asked.
“You’re talking. It’s hard to read when you’re talking. I mean, I can do it, but then I’d be ignoring you. So I’m giving you warning, I’m going to work until lunch. If you talk to me before the lunch bell rings, I’m going to ignore you.” Annja turned back to the book.
And she ignored him.
HOURS LATER, seated at the beautiful table in one of the dining rooms, Annja piled her plate high with food. Plates of suckling pig and pheasant, fresh fruit, a half-dozen salads and several desserts, including three different sorbets, covered the table.
“This is wonderful,” she said.
“I see you’re ambitious,” Ganesvoort observed.
Annja felt only a little self-conscious. She’d always been a healthy eater, and the past few days she hadn’t exactly been meal conscious. “I haven’t eaten this well in a long time. Thank you very much. I’ll be embarrassed later.”
Ganesvoort smiled. “Don’t be embarrassed. It’s my pleasure. My cook thanks you, too. It’s not often that she gets to go all out. My tastes are simple and don’t challenge her. I throw the occasional party simply to keep her from turning in her resignation out of boredom. But she tells me that party preparations are not as personal as cooking for overnight guests.”
“I’m glad she likes cooking for guests. We may be here for a few days.” Annja sipped her wine.
McIntosh looked up from his plate. “Days?”
“Or weeks.” Hallinger used his knife and fork industriously, throwing himself into the meal, as well. Annja had noted the color in his face, as well as his energy.
“Why weeks?” McIntosh asked. “I thought this was a simple research job.”
“Because there are a lot of logs to go through,” Annja replied.
“We don’t even know if the information we’re looking for is here,” Hallinger added.
“Aren’t those logs alphabetized?” McIntosh asked.
“Some of them are, Agent McIntosh,” Ganesvoort said. “However, I must apologize. My collection has merely been a hobby, a sweet passion, not something I felt I had to pursue every day. I’ve only cataloged about two-thirds of the journals and logs that I’ve bought over the years. I’ve read and am familiar with far less of them.”
“Isn’t someone in charge of cataloging things like that?” McIntosh asked.
“Like what?” Annja asked.
McIntosh shrugged. “Historical things.”
“Who’s to say what a historical thing is?” Hallinger asked.
McIntosh thought about that for a moment. “I don’t know.”
“Nor does anyone else.”
“But there are historical preservation societies. I worked a murder case that involved a group like that in Atlanta.”
“Those societies,” Ganesvoort said, “are just as self-serving as my own interests. They choose houses or other landmarks for preservation because they want something to champion. I enjoyed reading ships’ logs and imagining what a maritime life might have been like back in those days. When I sit down with one of those old books, it’s like I’m taking that voyage myself. The story, the men, the problems, they all come alive around me. Even in the unskilled writings of the captains, first mates and officers of the watch.”
“I’m that way about open and unsolved cases,” McIntosh said.
Ganesvoort nodded. “I see. In its own way, an open case is very much a historical document, dealing with murders that happened years ago.”
Annja hadn’t thought about a police investigation like that.
“Right,” McIntosh said. “When you start looking through an unsolved case, you have to put your mind back in the time that the murder took place. Figure out what the people were doing, what they were thinking.”
“And what their world was like on a day-to-day basis,” Annja said.
“Yeah.”
“That’s what an archaeologist does,” Annja said. “We take artifacts—things left behind by others—”
“Clues and evidence, as well as hunches based on case data that lead to profiling, to use your terminology,” Hallinger said.
“—and we attempt to reconstruct the world those people lived in. What they struggled for and what they dreamed of,” Annja finished. “In the end, though, we know we’ve only been able to deliver our best guess. Eventually, someone will come along to challenge or refute what you said. Like when Michael Crichton postulated in Jurassic Park that dinosaurs were fleet and warm-blooded like fowl rather than ponderous and slow-moving like lizards. That turned the science community on its collective ear, even though the conjecture had been out there for a long time. Crichton made the theory popular and put it into the public eye. Laymen started asking questions, and scientists—wanting funding and attention—acted on it.”
“History,” Hallinger said, “in the end is subjective. People never know what to throw away or what to keep. These days, we try to keep most everything. But even recent things, things that touch our daily lives, get recycled as junk. Did you ever read comic books or collect baseball cards when you were a kid?”
“I did,” McIntosh admitted. “I still have the baseball cards, but I sold the comics when I started getting into girls. Comics and girls don’t mix.”
“Depends on the girl,” Annja said. “I still read comics these days and graphic novels, too. Picture storytelling has been around since the first cave painting.”
McIntosh smiled. “I would never have guessed that you read comics.”
“There’s a lot,” Annja said, “that you don’t know about me.”
For a moment, McIntosh held her gaze, then he nodded and dropped his eyes.
Annja forced her attention back to her own plate.
FOUR DAYS LATER, they got a break.
Hallinger sprinted into the room where Annja was working. McIntosh had taken to looking through the English ships’ logs for the name Yohance. He was a quick reader, but bored easily. Still, it kept him quiet most of the time.
“I found him!” the professor exclaimed as he burst into the room carrying a large ship’s log.
After days of looking at them, Annja knew that ships’ logs came in different sizes and degrees of craftsmanship. Some of them had been made by abbeys or by printing shops. But just as many had been handmade.
The people who had kept them were just as varied as the logs. Educated and uneducated men assembled their thoughts on the pages as best as they were able. Ships’ captains, first mates, quartermasters, officers of the watch, common sailors and even cabin boys—those who had become somewhat literate—had all left their marks.
Despite the pressure to solve the riddle of the Spider Stone, Annja had found herself entranced on more than one occasion. Understanding Ganesvoort’s hobby of choice was easy. Whole worlds opened up in those pages.
“You found Yohance?” Annja whispered the name, afraid to say it too loudly.
“Yes.” Hallinger marched into the room like a commanding general. “The time frame is right. It says here that the slaves were brought aboard in July of 1755.” He plopped the log down in front of Annja.
“‘Yohance’ is a common name,” she said, striving to keep her hopes in check and to play the devil’s advocate.
“I know, but it appears that our Yohance’s arrival on the ship garnered attention from the captain and ship’s crew. Actually caused a bit of a furor.”
“What kind of furor?” Annja asked.
“Several of the ship’s crew thought the boy was cursed. Or marked by the gods. Most of the sailors at that time were very superstitious. There was even some discussion of heaving the boy overboard at one point.”
Annja turned the log so she could better see it. The writing was French, put there in a fine, strong hand by Captain Henri LaForge of Cornucopia.
“Where’s Yohance’s name?” McIntosh leaned over Annja’s shoulder, squinting at the cursive writing.
Annja was conscious of him there, of the heat from his body and the scent of his cologne. But the possibility of discovery took precedence over whatever feelings his proximity stirred up.
“Here.” Annja placed her finger on the first mention of Yohance’s name.
“I see the name,” McIntosh growled, “but I can’t read the rest of it.”
“That’s because it’s in French.”
McIntosh shot her a look of impatience. “Maybe you could translate.”
Before Annja could begin reading, Ganesvoort entered the room. Lights danced in his eyes. “You found him?” their host asked.
Smiling, Hallinger looked up at him. “I did.”
Ganesvoort clapped the professor on the back. “So it is true?”
“At least this much of the story. It remains to be seen if the treasure is real.”
“My little hobby has turned out to be worth something after all.”
“It has,” Hallinger said.
Ganesvoort flopped in one of the nearby comfortable chairs. “Thank God. I was beginning to feel that this one had slipped by us.”
“Well,” McIntosh said, “it didn’t.”
“The chances of such a thing being mentioned are so small,” Ganesvoort stated. “Twenty-four million slaves passed through this island. God knows how many ships and ships’ captains. With this kind of luck, we could go to Monaco and become fabulously wealthy.”
“I thought you already were,” McIntosh said.
“I am. But you know what I mean.” Ganesvoort turned his attention to Annja. “Does the listing show where Yohance was from? Usually you don’t get much information.”
“This is more than a listing.” Annja held the book up for him to see. “There appear to be a number of entries.”
Ganesvoort leaned forward like an enthusiastic child awaiting a favorite bedtime story. “Come on, then. Let’s have the story.”
Annja sipped from her bottle of water and began to read aloud, translating the French to English effortlessly.