The house phone rang and rang, and rang some more. St. Julien Perlmutter didn’t believe in answering machines, voicemail, or even cell phones. To his way of thinking, they were all intrusive annoyances. He particularly had no use for such devices on the rare occasion he left his Georgetown house, which usually meant he was eating at one of the capital’s finer dining establishments or engaging in archival research at a national library.
Fortunately for the caller, Perlmutter was at home, searching for an ancient tome on one of his many bookshelves. A behemoth of a man, he was perhaps the foremost maritime historian on the planet. His breadth of knowledge on ships and shipwrecks was legendary, while archivists drooled for the day Perlmutter would expire and his collection of letters, charts, journals, and logbooks might be subject to acquisition.
Dropping into a stout leather chair beside a rolltop desk, he reached for the phone on the tenth ring. Like most objects in his house, the handset was a marine relic, having once graced the bridge of the luxury liner United States.
“Perlmutter,” he answered in a gruff voice.
“St. Julien, it’s Summer. I hope I didn’t catch you in the middle of a meal.”
“Heavens, no.” His voice instantly warmed. “I was just searching for a firsthand account of Christopher Columbus’s fourth voyage to the New World.”
“A serendipitous era,” she said.
“The Age of Discovery always was. I had the pleasure of dining with your father recently. He said you and Dirk were working in Mexico.”
“Yes, we’re still here. And we could use your help. We’re trying to track down a Spanish ship that would have sailed from Veracruz in the early days of the conquest.”
“What was her name?”
“I’m afraid we don’t know. The only clue to her identity is a drawing from an Aztec codex, a copy of which I just emailed you.”
While Summer relayed the discovery of the codex and their travails with the Aztec stone, Perlmutter turned on his desktop computer and pulled up the image.
“Rather slim pickings,” he said. He studied the cartoonish image of a sailing ship with a monkey floating above its bow. “Do your Aztec experts have an interpretation?”
“Nothing definitive. The monkey may relate to the cargo, its route, or possibly a moniker for the ship’s name. We hope it’s the latter.”
“It’s possible, although during that time the Spanish were more apt to name their ships after religious icons. Fortunately, the records of the early Spanish voyages are fairly stout.”
“It’s the stone we’re after, so if you have any thoughts on where it may have ended up, we’d certainly be interested. It obviously has some deep significance to someone.”
“Regrettably, many among us will go to unsavory lengths in pursuit of a simple dollar. I’m sorry about your friend. I do hope you and Dirk will be careful.”
“We will.”
“As for the stone, I’ve been through all the major Spanish maritime museums and don’t recall any mention of such an artifact. I suppose it could have ended up in a private collection. I’ll make some inquiries.”
“Thanks, Julien. We’ll be sure to bring you back a bottle of your favorite tequila. Porfidio, if I remember.”
“Summer, you are an angel. Just don’t let your renegade father near the stuff or it will be a dry bottle before I get within sight of it.”
Perlmutter hung up the phone and stared at the image of the galleon on his computer. As he stroked his thick gray beard, his mind was miles away. Four thousand miles, to be exact.
“There’s only one place to start, my fine furry friend,” he said aloud to the image of the monkey. “Seville.”
23
Pitt gazed out the Sargasso Sea’s bridge window as a large container ship passed to the north. Another twenty miles beyond it lay the green coastline of southern Cuba. He wondered if the toxic effect of the mercury was already encroaching on its shores.
The NUMA research ship was approachi
ng the third dead zone identified by Yaeger. Pitt was bristling at their failure to identify a source. The second site, a hundred miles northeast of the Cayman Islands, had yielded no answers. This current area, like the last, showed extreme concentrations of methyl mercury, though at slightly decreased levels. Because the mercury was more dispersed, it had taken the scientists two days to narrow the peak toxicity to a four-square-mile area.
The muted sounds of efficiency on the bridge were broken by the deep voice of Al Giordino grumbling through an overhead speaker. “Stern deck. AUV is aboard. I repeat, AUV is aboard. Please proceed to the next grid area.”
Pitt beat the captain to the transmitter. “Bridge acknowledged. I’ll meet you in the theater in five minutes for today’s matinee.”
“You bring the popcorn, I’ll bring the Milk Duds. Stern deck out.”