The Admiral's Mark (Short Story) by Steve Berry Read Free Book Online Page B

simple.
    So simple that it had almost eluded him.
    He stepped to the aft deck and found the brown envelope in his bag. He removed the page with the Admiral’s mark written across its face and brought it back inside the forward cabin. He switched on the overhead bulb and held the sheet close as the filament heated.
    Slowly, brown numbers materialized.
    Dubois watched carefully and realized. “He use lemon juice.”
    Malone smiled. “That he did. Actually, not a bad way to send a message, if you don’t know it’s there.”
    “I know those,” Dubois said. “They be for the wreck site.”
    “Fire up the engine. I want to go back down.”

    Malone kicked his fins and swam toward the massive hulk of rock with the crack and crevice. He’d come down alone, Dubois staying up top with Schwartz’s gun, keeping a lookout. No other boats had been around, and he wanted to keep it that way. The current today was weaker, but the same shark remained on patrol fifty yards away. The GPS numbers Scott had secretly sent to Ginger had led them straight back here.
    He approached the opening and eased himself inside.
    He examined the timbers in the sand and could see that they’d been hewn, man-made, now petrified by centuries in the water. A few other artifacts lay scattered. What looked like a cup, some nails, belt buckles. This was clearly a shipwreck. Whether it belonged to Christopher Columbus remained to be seen.
    He fanned the sand and stirred up the bottom, revealing what lay a few inches beneath. The storm rose, then settled quickly, the warm water retaining its crystal clarity. A niche caught his eye, but he knew better than to stick his hand there. Some eel might decide a few fingers would make a great lunch.
    Another niche to his right seemed more inviting.
    Shallow, no more than a foot or so deep, the entire interior visible.
    He fanned its sand.
    And saw something.
    Glass.
    A little more stirring revealed more glass.
    He reached down and freed the object.
    A Coke bottle, the top stuffed with a cork and sealed with wax. Inside was a rolled piece of dirt-brown paper, similar in size and color to the other pages of the book he’d bought at the auction. A wax-sealed plastic bag provided an additional measure of protection.
    He’d found the hiding place.
    Risky as hell to leave it underwater, but Scott had never been noted for caution.

    Malone stepped from the car at Cap-Haïtien’s main airport terminal. Dubois had driven him from the docks, and they’d made it here in plenty of time for his flight.
    He shook his friend’s hand and thanked him again.
    “No problem, mon. I glad you come. We solve everything.”
    Not quite everything, but enough.
    He handed Dubois $500. “Fix that engine, okay?”
    “Ah, mon. This be too much. Way too much.”
    “It’s all I have or I’d give you more.”
    They said their goodbyes and he entered the terminal, checking in for his flight.
    Matt Schwartz waited for him just before the security checkpoint.
    “I didn’t think you’d let me leave without saying goodbye,” he told the Israeli.
    “Did you find the page?”
    He nodded.
    “I thought you might. We wondered why you went back out on the boat.”
    “What happened to Simon?”
    “Went straight to the airport and is long gone.”
    “Probably thinking that I had help in the
citadelle
.”
    “That was the idea. Can I have the page?”
    “I assume you’re not going to let me leave with it?”
    “Payment for the favor I did you with Dubois.”
    He reached into his back pocket and removed the curled page, still in its plastic bag. He’d broken the bottle to free it. The sheet was filled with nineteen lines of writing in faded black ink, along with the mark of the Admiral, just as Simon had described.
    “Can we at least be provided with a copy?” he asked.
    “I don’t suppose you would take my word that none of this is important to anything related to America.”
    “It’s not my nature.”
    “Then that copy you made on