The Bone Hunters (17 page)

28 May

Aboard
Trader's Bluff

Harbour Island

North Eleuthera

Bahamas

Barnaby surveyed the colorfully painted clay pots on the granite tabletop in the dining salon with obvious distaste. The pots were filled with granola, fresh fruit, yogurt, and a variety of grains suitable for a gerbil. One large plate held what looked like steamed fish. He looked in vain for the bacon, ham, bagels, or scrambled eggs.

“Chris Kimball and I worked out the daily menu,” said Lexy, emerging from her stateroom in a white linen pants outfit and going straight to the pitcher holding the pineapple juice.

After briefly admiring her golden tan, Barnaby went back to his stateroom and fortified his coffee with the bottle of Courvoisier he kept under his bathroom sink. His liquor supply was dwindling and he hoped they would make a breakthrough in the search soon.

Returning to the dining salon, he watched the others consume their animal fodder.

“If you follow this diet, you'll feel like a new man in a week,” said Lexy.

“I already feel like a new man,” said Barnaby, “and he is bored stiff.”

In truth, he was bored in every way. Barnaby craved joining the pursuit of the greatest archaeological loss in the history of evolution, yet there was nothing he could do for the time being except stay cooped up on the boat, reduced to reviewing the depth readings and side-scan sonar results after each day's search.

The day they arrived, Macaulay had reminded him that the Chinese were probably combing the world for them.

“We know that Zhou Shen Wui and his minions now have all the records and documents compiled by Sebastian Choate,” Macaulay said. “They're probably putting enough manpower into this to eventually find the shipping records of the Dutch tramp and to conclude that the ship went down somewhere in the Caribbean.”

With Lexy nodding in agreement, Macaulay gently suggested that with Barnaby's “substantial girth, height, and arresting features,” he would immediately draw attention in Dunmore Town.

Barnaby had to reluctantly agree.

At least the seventy-two-foot Hatteras was comfortable, with its eight-foot ceilings that didn't make him feel claustrophobic, five spacious staterooms, two lounges filled with overstuffed chairs and couches, and a state-of-the-art satellite communications system that allowed him to do his research.

Chris Kimball became the public face of the boat, fending off visitors from other yachts moored in the harbor and going ashore every day in their sixteen-foot Zodiac to pick up supplies and scout for potential threats.

He came back late on the third afternoon with a
recommendation that Barnaby check out a local man in Dunmore Town named Mike McGandy. Kimball said that he was an American expat who had worked for ten years as an agent for the U.S.–Bahamian Drug Task Force. A former navy officer, he had fallen in love with a Bahamian woman and decided to stay. He was now the dive master at a local yacht marina and took groups out for snorkeling and scuba dives on the backbone. His wife operated a medical clinic.

“If he checks out, he could help us after we find the wreck,” said Kimball.

Barnaby sent an encrypted message to Ira Dusenberry to have McGandy checked out. The result came back a positive and Kimball had approached him with their agreed-upon cover story. He had enthusiastically agreed to help.

Kimball brought him out to the Hatteras in the Zodiac and they joined Barnaby, Lexy, Macaulay, and Carlos in the dining salon. Macaulay liked what he saw right away. McGandy was an African-American, all military, trim, intelligent-looking, and no-nonsense. Sitting down with his coffee in the dining salon, he surveyed the others with an open, clean-cut face.

“By now you know the sensitivity of what we're doing,” began Barnaby, “so you'll understand the need for tight security.”

“I understand,” said McGandy. “I had top secret clearance in the navy.”

The cover story Kimball had given McGandy was that they were searching for the cargo of a Russian ship that had jettisoned the contents of its hold after being intercepted by an American destroyer off North Eleuthera
during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The implication was that the ship was carrying nuclear weapon components. McGandy did not probe for specifics.

“We've already begun the search in a way that hopefully hasn't attracted attention,” said Macaulay. “We did run into one man on a small islet off Hawk Point who ran us off with an old Enfield.”

McGandy laughed and said, “That sounds like old Dieter. Those little islets are owned by the Bahamian government. He's a squatter and lives in a shack that he made himself from coquina rock and driftwood. Hurricane Andrew went right over it in 1992. The island was completely underwater. He somehow survived and rebuilt.”

When Lexy got up for more yogurt, Barnaby saw her fingers gently brush Macaulay's tanned shoulders. He knew they were sleeping together again. He could see it in their faces, in the looks that crossed between them when they thought no one was looking. They were trying to be discreet. It wasn't obvious to the others.

Barnaby's mind was momentarily filled with the vision of the naked Astrud as he had last seen her on the bear rug in his lair on the Long Wharf. He tried to think of a vitally important reason to justify bringing her down to join the team. He knew she would come in a heartbeat, but her talents did not comport with the current expedition.

“Who wields the power here locally?” asked Macaulay.

“Nominally, it's the constabulary backed by the Royal Bahamas Defense Force,” said McGandy. “Their job is to stop drug smuggling, illegal immigration, poaching, and violent crime. Up to a point, they perform those tasks.”

“Up to a point,” repeated Macaulay.

“In truth, one guy holds the reins here. His name is Juwan Brugg. He controls everything . . . drugs, prostitution, kidnapping, blackmail, extortion. He's got a big hammer . . . more like a sledgehammer. They're even afraid of him in New Providence.”

“Juwan Brugg,” said Chris Kimball. “There was an NBA player—”

“Same one,” interrupted McGandy. “He grew up here and came back after he almost killed those referees. In public, he often wears an African ceremonial headdress that makes him more than eight feet tall. Some of the islanders revere him as a living god. Make no mistake . . . he's no clown. He's tough and he's ruthless.”

“Where is his base of operations?” asked Lexy.

“You've probably passed his compound on Tollifer's Point on your way out to the Devil's Backbone,” said McGandy. “It's that huge mansion house built like a fortress and surrounded by the ten-foot-high cement walls topped with broken glass. He has a palace guard to protect him and do his bidding.”

“Like those regional warlords in Afghanistan,” said Macaulay.

“Exactly,” said McGandy before remembering something else. “I should correct one thing I said. Juwan Brugg isn't the only sledgehammer here. There's also his mother.”

“His mother?” asked Barnaby.

“Yeah, she runs the day-to-day operation for him out of her beauty parlor on Revere Street,” said McGandy. “She is called Black Mamba. I'm told she's more vicious than the snake.”

“As a precaution going forward,” said Macaulay, “I
think we should begin standing watches after the harbor goes dark from around midnight until dawn. Chris, why don't you put together a watch schedule?”

“I volunteer for the four-to-six shift,” said Barnaby. “I'm up anyway.”

“It might make sense for whoever is standing watch to have some protection. I keep a .40-caliber Heckler and Koch compact semiautomatic in the pilothouse.” Glancing at Lexy, he added, “It has a small frame for the hand and pretty fair stopping power.”

“Very comforting indeed, Mr. Kimball,” said Barnaby, “but all the stopping power I need is in my voice.”

“He's probably right,” said Macaulay. “That and the sight of him in his Churchillian boiler suit ought to frighten away most intruders.”

After Chris Kimball took McGandy back to the town dock in the Zodiac, Macaulay went over the day's plans with the others.

“You be need me today, Genral Steef?” said Carlos, coming into the salon through the open glass doors from the stern deck after smoking his fourth cigarette.

He was dressed in an orange tank top and torn blue jeans and hadn't shaved in a week. His cadaverous face reminded Barnaby of the junkies he had often seen panhandling on Brattle Street in Cambridge.

Carlos had begun calling Macaulay General after learning about Steve's past air force career when they were last together in Belize. Pouring another mug of coffee, Carlos added four tablespoons of sugar to it. Lexy shook her head but didn't say anything.

“Yeah, I be need you,” said Macaulay, ignoring Barnaby's mocking smile. “We're diving today.”

In reviewing the data from the previous day's search, Barnaby had found an unusual reading in one of the side-scan sonar patterns. They had been crossing a deeper patch of water about a half mile off the Devil's Backbone when two virtual images were recorded that seemed to suggest a small ship broken in two on the seabed.

Macaulay and Lexy got up and went back to their staterooms to change into swimming attire. Barnaby remained at the table and watched as Carlos added another spoonful of sugar to his coffee mug.

“Can you be shave yourself one of these days?” asked Barnaby. “You be look more disreputable every day.”

“Workin' on my look,” said Carlos. “Chris she say they may be clean pussy over there and I be ready for him.”

“Sounds like an admirable idea,” agreed Barnaby. “Let me know if you find some.”

Emptying his mug, Carlos went back out to the stern swim platform and untied the boat's dinghy. After rowing it over to the mooring that held the thirty-two-foot
Island Time
, he fired up its engines.

One of them was running a bit rough and he uncovered the engine compartment to adjust the fuel injectors. Leaving the mooring, he brought the boat alongside the Hatteras. Macaulay and Lexy jumped down to join him on the deck. Kimball handed Macaulay a cooler with their day's supplies.

As they cruised past Tollifer's Point, Lexy looked through binoculars at the massive walled compound owned by Juwan Brugg. She decided it didn't look all that menacing. A group of naked men were playing volleyball on the beach below the nearest wall.

Thirty minutes later, they were through the reef and
out into the open sea. It was another stunning morning with a brilliant sun under a cloudless blue sky. There were minimal swells and Carlos kept the speed to around twenty knots as he fed the GPS coordinates into the navigation system that would take them straight to the position Macaulay had been sweeping the day before when the reading came through.

The navigation system began emitting a warning signal as they approached the target location and Carlos immediately slowed the engines until the signal became a solid keening whine. Macaulay was stationed on the bow. He fed out more than two hundred feet of anchor line before the Danforth bit into the seabed and held them in position.

“There are two separate parts to this thing down there,” said Macaulay after they had donned their wet suits and strapped on scuba tanks, weight belts, and swim fins. “If it's the
Prins Willem
, it could be the bow section and the stern section lying fifty meters apart.”

Both his and Carlos's diving masks were equipped with ultrasound voice communications equipment that attached to the masks' restraining straps. The technology relied on bone conduction from their heads and would allow them to communicate verbally underwater with each other and to Lexy aboard
Island Time
.

Macaulay had planned out the dive based on the recorded depth of one hundred thirty feet. Checking his dive tables, he figured they would have about fifteen minutes on the bottom before they had to slowly ascend again in staged cycles to avoid nitrogen narcosis. He picked up his small digital camera in the watertight casing
and made sure it was sending signals back to the monitor mounted on the bulkhead of the wheelhouse.

Resting their buttocks on the port section of the stern, they dropped over backward into the slowly surging sea. After clearing his mask, Macaulay headed down hand over hand along the anchor line. Carlos followed behind him.

As they swam deeper, the water color slowly changed from pale green to darker green. Macaulay paused to clear his ears every thirty feet. When they finally came to the end of the anchor line, he swung around to look in every direction. The visibility was excellent, but all he saw was fine granular white sand, small schools of brightly colored fish, and sea vegetation.

Macaulay checked his wrist compass and pointed to Carlos to follow him. He began swimming north along the sandy bottom, rotating his head left and right to observe everything in their path. After he had gone one hundred feet, he turned right oblique, swam for another hundred feet, and then turned east. He and Carlos were swimming side by side on the easterly course when Macaulay saw something emerge from the green darkness ahead of them on the bottom.

“You see it, Steef?” asked Carlos through the ultrasound voice communicator.

Macaulay pointed his camera at the object as they swam closer. Aboard the
Island Time
, Lexy saw the first image as it registered on the television monitor. It looked like a gigantic shark fin arising from something cylindrical and glossy white sitting on the sandy bottom.

“It's a . . . catamaran,” said Macaulay. “A big one . . .
maybe sixty feet long and sitting straight up . . . no apparent damage that I can see.”

Carlos swam over to the superstructure. The boat was configured for both sail and as a motor yacht. Its main mast was crowned with a small flag, but it was missing its sail. When he reached the stern, he dropped down to look at the name painted on the stern plate.