According to the register, a privateer fleet had indeed sailed from the port of Liverpool in April of that year. Nine of eleven ships survived the Atlantic crossing to carry out a successful attack on the Spanish settlement of Portobelo. The storm struck in September near the infamous Hidden Shoals. There, the English flagship, a barque called the Griffin, was lost with all hands.
Adriana leaned back in her chair, frowning. What was Payton getting at? That the deeper shipwreck might be the Griffin? And the J.B. handle came from there?
But it didn’t make sense. Star had found that artifact in the wreckage of Nuestra Señora, up on the reef.
Then it hit her.
The biggest mystery in all this wasn’t the handle. It was the question of what had happened to the galleon’s huge treasure. All at once, Adriana had the answer.
Privateers were sponsored by governments, but they were basically just pirates. Their mission was to raid, loot, and sink the shipping of their countries’ enemies.
If the Griffin had met up with Nuestra Señora de la Luz on the high seas, it would have attacked. And if they were successful, the privateers would have stolen every single coin on board.
What, then, if the hurricane of 1665 had destroyed both vessels? One, a Spanish galleon with an empty hold, foundered on the reef. And the other, an English barque, packed to the gunwales with plunder, sank not far away in the deeper water just off the shoal.
“Way to go, Payton!” she cheered aloud.
It was an amazing theory, a brilliant theory. It explained everything — why there was no treasure to be found in the Nuestra Señora site, and why all evidence pointed to the existence of that treasure in the second, deeper wreck.
It was perfect, Adriana reflected, but it was just a theory. There was still no proof that the other ship really was the Griffin, or that she had ever had any contact with Nuestra Señora. Adriana felt herself deflating as the elation deserted her. Payton’s logic was inspired; it was probably even correct. But it was incomplete.
She was just about to close her computer’s Internet browser when she saw it — a small detail on the British Web site.
According to the records, the Griffin had been under the command of Captain James Octavius Blade.
James Blade.
J.B.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
They were a strange procession down the hall of the hospital of the Antilles Oil platform. Star was at the center, taking baby steps, hanging on to the handles of a walker. Kaz, Adriana, and Dante matched her slow pace, leaning into the hushed conversation.
“Captain James Blade,” whispered Star. “How cool is that? I wonder what he was like? Maybe some kindly grizzled old sailor, hobbling around on a cane with a bone handle.”
“He was a privateer, Star,” Adriana reminded her. “They were as bad as pirates, sometimes worse. He may have hobbled, but he wasn’t kindly.”
“Or he was a maniac with a whip,” put in Kaz.
“The point is, he was a rich maniac,” said Dante. “Or he would have been if his boat hadn’t sunk. Can you imagine that feeling? All your dreams are coming true, and then—”
“I can,” Star said huskily. “I’ll never dive again.”
Kaz didn’t mean to snap, but the thought of Drew Christiansen set off an avalanche of emotion. “Don’t you think that’s a little nitpicky? You could be in a wheelchair right now!”
Star’s eyes flashed, but she nodded sadly. “I know how lucky I am.”
“When are you heading back to the States?” Adriana asked Star.
“Friday morning. Poseidon doesn’t want me on the catamaran, so we have to wait for an oil company helicopter to Martinique.”
“I can’t believe you’re leaving,” said Kaz.
“My dad can’t miss any more work,” Star mumbled. “The choppers don’t run every day. We’ve got to grab this one.”
They nodded lamely.
“The thing is” — Star looked from face to face — “people like Cutter, treasure hunters, they spend decades searching, all for nothing. But between Dante’s eyes, Adriana’s smarts, and Kaz’s guts, we did the impossible. I mean, we found two needles in the world’s biggest haystack. If only I could dive, I’d—”
“You’d what?” challenged Dante. “Swim down to seven hundred feet and bag up a billion dollars? It can’t be done.”
“It can, you know,” Adriana argued. “English can do it. The oil-rig divers go that deep all the time. What did they call it?”
“Saturation diving,” Kaz supplied. “But that’s a big operation — a diving bell, special breathing gas, a support ship—”
“Maybe English and his friends can get the treasure for us,” suggested Dante. “One-point-two billion — you can split it a lot of ways and still come out loaded.”
“Are you kidding?” exclaimed Star. “English hates treasure hunters. Why do you think he’s so mad at Cutter?”
“We’re not treasure hunters,” Dante argued. “We’re just people who happen to know about some treasure. And we may as well get it, because it isn’t doing anybody any good sitting around in the mud.”
“And the money goes to charity, of course,” Adriana added sarcastically.
“What’s so bad about wanting money?” Dante shot back. “I don’t see your family giving away its millions. Come on, let’s just ask the guy.”
“It looks like you’re going to get your chance,” observed Kaz.
They had reached the door of Star’s hospital room. There, seated on the edge of the bed, his face unsmiling as always, sat English.
Pushing the walker, Star led the way inside. “Look how fast I’m getting. Think they’ve got some kind of NASCAR for these things?”
The dive guide got to his feet, towering over the interns. “Bon. You are all here. Now you will tell me — on Deep Scout, exactement what did you find?”
“Sure.” Adriana explained their theory of the wrecks of Nuestra Señora de la Luz and the Griffin, and the vast treasure that lay in the ruins of the second ship. “We can’t be positive, but we’re ninety-nine percent sure. The J.B. handle proves it. Captain Blade must have lost his walking stick or whip during the battle over Nuestra Señora. That’s why we found an English artifact in a Spanish galleon.”
“One billion American dollars,” English repeated gravely.
“One-point-two,” amended Dante.
“We didn’t think you wanted to know,” put in Kaz. “Every time treasure came up, you got mad. What’s the big interest now?”
English rested his chin on an enormous fist. “At Poseidon, I see Monsieur Cutter’s name on the schedule for use Tin Man. Such equipment is not for working on the reef. I think he tries to find this treasure for himself.”
“But Cutter doesn’t even know about the second ship,” argued Kaz.
“Perhaps he knows more than you think.” English paused reluctantly. “You must not jump on the conclusions. But this thing you should hear: The damage to Deep Scout — this was not the shark attack. It was the sabotage.” He explained the tampering he’d observed on the fiberglass plates that covered the sub’s temperature probe.
The interns were horrified.
“Cutter!” Adriana exclaimed. “He killed the captain!”
“He could have killed all of us,” added Star. “And he nearly put me in a wheelchair.”