The Storm of 1715

The compound is dark... so are the living quarters, with the exception of the stereo whispering a little Santana at Woodstock. We have passed that little Hula Girl around like a hooker at a bachelor party and none of us has moved since the sun went down. We do manage to have cold beer in our hands... how it gets there I haven't a clue.

"You know what I miss?" Jerry says with a stoner drawl.
"Sex with a woman?" Lou smiles.
"Delivery pizza." That gets a nod from all of us except Ollie, who has no concept of delivery pizza.

How we made it through half an ounce of this local shit without getting the munchies I have no clue. But after that comment we all started feeling it in the pit of our stomachs.

Now, time out here is not really applicable to any event or happening. It is a broad indicator of whether or not we can eat or starve at this point. The Cantina in town is usually dark in a couple of hours after sunset. We honestly couldn't tell how long it has been dark, but we area hoping it is a recent event.

"Do you think the truck will make it into town?" Jerry is up and takes a long stretch.

"Where is the Landcruiser?"
"Nestor's"
"A lot of good that does us."
"Well? The truck?"
"Yeah... I guess. We better grab some extra jugs of water."

Now Jerry has driven this road to town a thousand times, eighty percent of the time he has been fucked up... so no worries.

Lou and I are standing in the bed of the truck, water from the jugs sloshing around our feet. He has the roll-bar lights ablaze, lighting up the road ahead like a solar flare. They are hot between our hands as we tighten our grip for the holes and bumps that Jerry is taking with a little laugh each time we leave the ground.

The edge of town is upon us and Jerry slows down to a crawl. The children of Nogales are like the kids of my generation, one bereft of video games and computers. They play outside until they are forced to come in, and even though it seems like they are all inside now we don't want to take a chance.

As we make our way up the main street it seems that our hopes will be dashed. Nightlife in Nogales is people blowing out oil lamps and climbing into hammocks.

The road rises slightly as we approach the Cantina, and to our relief the smell of carinitas still fills the street at the corner. They are closed, but will open to feed us. Jerry and I have funneled a lot of quetzals into their business. Well, quetzals, Mexican pesos, even American dollars... it all spends down here. If all that fails a little gold in your pockets will work.

We eat carnitas and some special rice they cook and drink a couple more bottles of cold beer. It isn't until we have satisfied that hunger that we talk about the lawyer and his message.

"Cuba?" Jerry lets out a belch that lasts a good three count. I hear one of the girls giggle in the back.
"I don't know anyone in Cuba."

"We don't either." I think for a moment, "well... except for Antonelli's people."

"We will need to make a couple of fueling stops. Or at least one in the Yucatan. We already found an airstrip... Roberto Yaguero. That puts us right in Playa Santa Lucia."

Jerry stands and stretches, "You boys have done your homework."
Lou stands as well, "We're gonna go, Jerry. We just want to go together."

We water the truck and head back to the compound. It is a much nicer ride on the way back... not trying to beat the clock this time. I am in the cab this time, with Ollie and Lou holding the rollbar in the bed.
"You need to go, Jer. We should do this together."
"Last time I was on one of these expeditions those Yanamami Indians nearly killed us all."
"Not a problem. They don't have Yanamami Indians in Cuba."

About a quarter mile from the compound we can see that the security lights are blazing. Something big has come in through the fenceline. I reach back and pull the rifle from the rack behind us and check the load. Jerry turns off the headlights and we use the light from the compound to navigate. Before we get to the back gate we can see what has tripped the security system.

The helicopter is still winding down, nav lights still on. As far a we can see no one has had time to get out of the passenger cabin. We shut the truck down before the tree line and make our way to the back gate without being seen.

"What do you think?" Jerry says, crouched down.
As he speaks the passenger door slides open and a man in a three piece suite climbs down. He straightens up his outfit and by the blazing lights in the compound we can make him out.

"Hey ABRAMOWITZ."
He jumps just slightly and shields his eyes from the lights in the compound. He steps back to the door of the helicopter and talks to someone inside, then steps back out.
"Mr. ALLEN?"

We all end up in the living quarters, Abramowitz with his head on a swivel as we sweep a jungle tarantula off the counter and out the open window.
"Damn spiders." Lou tisks.
"Gent... Gentlemen." Abramowitz starts, "We sent Mr. Stinkle here to meet with you several days ago and have not heard back from him."

"That's because he's dead."
"Jesus, Lou, let's not sugar coat it." I shake my head at him.
"What do you want me to do, hold his hand while I say it?"

Abramowitz drops down onto one of the barstools, "Dead?"

"Yeah, he didn't quite make the airstrip and dropped into the jungle south of here. We wouldn't have even known he was out there if it weren't from Lou here test flying a powered glider."

"Oh my." That is all he says. Apparantly ties run deeper than a letterhead in the lawyer business.

"I don't think he suffered. It wasn't like there was a fire or anything. I am sure as soon as he hit he was gone. We were able to find his identification and his bags. They're over there." I gesture to the bags near the door.

After a moment Abramowitz collects himself.
"Did you gentlemen open the envelope he was bringing to you?"

Lou and I nod.

"Then you know that your services are required?"

Now, it is all in how you ask somebody in my book. And by the look in Lou's eye this guy better rephrase that last statement.

"We don't work for you, or her, unless we want to... understand?" Lou says with unintended menace.

"Now... I am just relaying the request of the dispatch the was delivered to you."
His hands are shaking slightly as he shows them palm forward, like Lou had pulled a gun on him.

"Just what is it you need us to do?"

Abramowitz looks over to the bag, "May I?"

"The documents aren't in the bag."
We walk over to the table and I open the atlas to the Bahamas where the documents hold the page like a bookmark. Abramowitz pulls the treasure map from the book and points to the waters off of Samana Cay.

"We need your help locating what is at the end of this map."
"And what might that be?"
"I... we are not prepared to discuss the details until you have signed on."

Lou takes the map from his hands and closes it in the atlas.
"Look, Abe, we aren't going anywhere until we know everything you know. If you can't manage that, then get the fuck on that slick and get out of here."

Abramowitz weighs that statement for a beat or two and then re-opens the atlas and slides the treasure map onto the table.
"Do you have more light?"

Jerry grabs the desk lamp and pulls it over to the table. The light pours onto the atlas as Abramowitz flips back through the pages for a map that favors depths and reliefs of the oceans and land masses.

"In 1715, King Phillip of Spain ordered his treasure fleets to the New World...Vera Cruz and Cartagena to be exact. Spain was in need of a great deal of wealth to refill her cophers after the costly War of Succession ended with England and the Dutch. When the ships had their fill of gold, silver, precious gems, and other treasures they headed for a rendezvous in Havana before heading across the Atlantic."

Abramowitz paused and pulled a handkerchief from his vests pocket and dabbed the sweat from his brow. "Would you gentlemen have a glass of water?"

Lou pulls a beer from the ice chest, opens it, and sets it on the table in front of him. Abe sighs slightly and takes a pull. It must be better than he thought. He takes a long draw off of it and then continues with his story, placing his finger on the map... tracing the probable route from Havana back to Spain.

"Aside from the treasures of value to run the country, King Phillip had decided to marry the Dutchess of Palma. The ten ships of the treasure fleet were ready to depart Cuba in mid May of 1715, before the danger of hurricanes in that region. But because he ordered this treasure of "crown jewels" to be assembled for her, it delayed their departure until late July.

Don Casa Torres, the Governor of Cuba, had his hand in the delay as well, trying to get his personal wealth back to Spain where he was now headed. It is the ship he had hired, a French ship... the Grifon, that we are concerned with. The Clarok was among his possessions at that time.

When the ships left Havana they skirted the Florida coastline, trying to avoid the ominous weather to the south east. But it was too late in the season. A hurricane broadsided the treasure fleet and dashed them on the rocks near what is now known as Sebastian after a valiant effort to weather that storm. The loss of life was tremendous. Very few of the seven hundred men on those ships survived. Over fourteen million pesos in treasure lost."

I looked at Lou and then Jerry and Ollie, "So we are looking at a lot of treasure on the coast?"

"No," Abe continues, "ships were dispatched from Havana after word of the shipwrecks and they recovered two thirds of the treasure in the next several years."

"So there is still treasure... a third of it."

Abramowitz looks up from the atlas at me, "No... that is not what we are after."
Lou claps him on the back, "Well Abe, that's what we're gonna be after."

"Gentlemen, please, the Grifon, that is what we are after."

Jerry points to the east coast of Florida, "You said they went down off of Florida, Abe. What does that have to do with Samana Cay?"

"Exactly... " Abe takes a draw off of his beer with the looks of a man that might want a second.
"The Grifon was the only boat that escaped the storm. It was captained by Antione Dare, the only true Caribbean captain in the fleet. He saw the storms, read the sea, and departed the treasure fleet before they were trapped in the shallows."

"So the Grifon had the Clarok on board and they ended up somewhere off of Samana Cay?" I look at the distance between Sebastian Florida and Samana Cay. "That's in the opposite direction from their original course."

Abramowitz finishes his beer and Lou has another open for him. He seems to have softened that pole up his ass.
"Gentlemen, we thought the Clarok was the only piece of the puzzle. When Mr. Antonelli had the item brought up, we assumed that was all we were looking for. It wasn't until we researched the history of the actual shipment that was put in the holds of the Grifon that we found out there was more."

Abramowitz excuses himself and heads back out to the helicopter. When he returns he has a folder in his hand. He lays it on the table and opens it. There is a picture of the Clarok, all nice and shiney as it was when we took our little trip. Then the next page he shows us is a bill of lading of sorts, ancient scrawl... in Spanish, that is translated in pencil above the writing. It lists the Clarok and two "tablets" in the same chest. There is a brief description of both. The tablets they describe as jeweled.

"It wasn't until the team found the manifest that we realized that Mr. Montoya had missed something in the translation at the Mayan ruins. Not so much missed something, but misinterpreted. He believed the reference to the tablets at the ruins were speaking of the actual tablets in the walls of the ruins, the ones he was actually translating."

He stops for a moment to see if we understand what he is saying. We don't.

"Gentlemen, these missing tablets must have something to do with the use of the Clarok. We have researched shipwrecks in the Bahamas and believe that pieces of the treasure aboard the Grifon have been found in the waters off of Samana Cay. At great expense to the Antonelli family they have aquired the map, a copy of which my associate had flown up here to show you."

Lou narrows his gaze, "If the Clarok had been found, and it was in the same chest as these tablets, then why wouldn't they be in the same place?"

"The Clarok was an obvious find, large, encrusted with jewels and gold. It may have traded hands many times from the location it was discovered. The tablets, we hope, remained unnoticed by pirates or collectors, and are part of the treasure that we seek."

Abe take a long pull off of his second beer and reached up opened his necktie a bit.
"Gentlemen, I have said too much already. The Antonelli family needs your help. We don't trust anyone else with this information. Three of you have already been involved with the first experiment and know of its use and power. We and are not ready to dispense every last bit of information, not to even you, until we know you are with the project."