“Is that…”
Bones grinned as Letson took the bag and opened it with deliberate and careful movements. “Wild Turkey, my friend. I hear you’re a bourbon man, now.”
Letson held the bottle below his large nose, the lip brushing his thick, brown mustache. “You heard right. Come on in.”
Letson pressed a key on a keypad mounted just inside the door, and then they followed him through a hallway into a living room with simple but tasteful furniture. This was a far cry from the thrift store motif at his place in Boston.
Bones slapped him on the shoulder. “Looks like making the big bucks agrees with you. It almost looks like a grownup lives here.”
Maddock said, “Bones, I’m guessing it has more to do with Jimmy’s new girlfriend. Women aren’t satisfied with crate tables, a beanbag chair, and early George Lucas for artwork.”
Letson stopped and glared. “You wound me, Maddock. Lucas is a genius. Though you’re right that Sheri assisted me with the decorating.”
“How long have you two been dating?” Bones asked.
“About three months. So two months more than your longest relationship unless you’ve turned over a new leaf. She’s into science fiction and computers, so I’m hoping we have a future together. Anyway, follow me.”
Letson continued walking into another hallway. Maddock remembered Bones once saying he looked like Weird Al with his skinny frame and mass of curly hair, and he couldn’t much argue with that assessment. Right down to the John Lennon glasses, which Letson didn’t need but liked the look of. His skin was darker than last time, no doubt due to his recent trip to the Caribbean.
Letson directed them into a room which looked far more like Maddock had expected. With a cavernous ceiling and only two small lamps, shadows floated everywhere. The poster collection had expanded to include Indiana Jones in addition to Star Wars, which Maddock considered a definite step in the right direction. The clear focus of the space, however, was over half a dozen monitors and all manner of computers and peripheral equipment.
Bones let out a whistle. “Holy crap. Are you working for the government now?”
“Nah, these are just the tools of my trade. I’m actually making money on the side as a white hat.”
“You mean like the guys in Spy vs Spy?”
Letson guffawed. “Those books were great, but no. A white hat is someone who gets hired by companies and organizations to use their hacking skills to test systems for vulnerabilities.”
Maddock pondered this. “Sounds to me like there’s an awfully blurry line there. You have to be good enough to break the law without getting caught, but ethical enough that they can trust you.”
“You hit the nail on the head. It actually started when I found a major vulnerability in one of the commonly used network software packages. The company was grateful enough to hire me to attack them once a month and generate a report.”
He sat down in front of the two largest monitors. Maddock looked at Bones, who shrugged before taking a seat next to the hacker. Letson had that combination of hyper-focus and spaciness so often found in technically oriented people.
“Okay, Mister Cloak-and-Dagger, what’s so sensitive that you couldn’t tell me about it over the phone?”
“It’s something we wanted to show you.” Maddock took out a plastic bag holding a worn gold coin. “We found this among the wreckage of Queen Anne’s Revenge. Blackbeard’s ship,” he added, seeing Jimmy’s puzzled expression.
Letson set to work immediately, scanning both sides Zippoand loading the images onto his computer. At least, that’s what he told Maddock and Bones he was doing. Neither had any sort of computer expertise.
Letson’s fingers flew over the keyboard so fast that Maddock couldn’t possibly have said which letters he was keying. Window after window opened and closed on the monitor until finally an image appeared that he recognized: a picture of a worn gold coin exactly like the ones he had found on the Queen Anne’s Revenge.
“Gentlemen, I think we have a winner!”
“That’s it exactly,” Maddock said. “You’re incredible!”
“You said it, I didn’t. How about this one? Did you find any like that?”
Another picture flashed on the screen, this time of a coin similar to one which Bones had found. “Hot damn, Letson, you are the man. How did you find those?”
When he swiveled his chair to face them, a triumphant smile graced his face. “I’ve told you before about the Internet. Someday everything ever known to man will be connected on one big network. By now, I’m sure you’ve learned enough to know I’m right. Finding the pictures was easy. The hard part will be finding out the significance of these specific coins.”
He returned to the keyboard and pounded away. Maddock almost held his breath as he watched his old friend work.
Ten minutes later, Jimmy paused, sat back, and cracked his knuckles. “You said you found the coins at a shipwreck?”
“Previously undiscovered,” Bones added.
“I’m sure your mom is very proud. Where was this wreck, exactly?”
“North Carolina.”
“North Carolina,” Jimmy whispered as he returned to typing. “It seems,” he finally announced, “there are actually very few of these coins still in existence and you could probably sell yours for major bucks. Turns out, every coin like this one I could find came from the same place. Sound like useful information?”
Maddock knew Letson was enjoying stringing them along. “As long as that place wasn’t off the coast of Atlantic Beach.”
“Oh, it wasn’t a ship.” He paused for dramatic effect. “It was a cave in North Carolina.”
FIFTEEN
“Hey Maddock, remember the time we got stuck in a cave and that bear chased us?”
“I also remember we agreed never to speak of it again. But there was another cave after that where we found something awesome, or have you forgotten already?”
Bones shook his head. “People carved that place so it doesn’t count as a cave.”
Sterling stared at them. “What the hell are you guys talking about?”
Maddock exchanged glances with Bones. “It’s a long story. Bones, help me move this rock.”
Maddock and Bones put their backs into the effort and the five-foot tall slab of granite slid eighteen inches to the side. The movement generated a scratching sound as it rubbed against the rock of the ground. Stepping aside, Maddock could now see an opening through which they could fit.
Bones rubbed his hands together. “Allow me to lead the way.”
Maddock gestured with his hand in agreement. He, Bones, and Sterling had driven back into southern North Carolina to a spot about twenty miles inland from the wreck of the Queen Anne’s Revenge. Jimmy Letson had given them the exact location of the cave where similar coins had been found, the cave which now beckoned.
Letson had not been able to find any pictures of the cave, just a brief summary about the discovery of the coins. The cave was on national forest land and the reports suggested that from time to time local youth would decide to bushwhack over a mile through dense scrub to reach it. Two teenagers had discovered a few dozen pieces of gold and silver about a decade earlier, and a period of several years with increased scrutiny followed. But no one found anything else, and activity had died down as far as Letson could tell.
They had no information about the size of the cave other than the fact that there were two chambers and it was tall enough in some spots for a man to stand. This fact alone made it unusual, but the remote location and disinclination of the federal government to allow any official exploration or development meant that no one except locals knew about it.