Текст книги "Black River"

Автор книги: Tom Lowe

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Tom Lowe
Black River

For Natalie

EPIGRAPH

“The present is the ever moving shadow that divides yesterday from tomorrow. In that lies hope.”

– Frank Lloyd Wright

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

People often ask me about my “favorite parts” or “favorite scenes” from some of my books. For me, the best part is right here. This is where I can publically thank and recognize those who’ve helped me with the book.

For BLACK RIVER, a special shout out to Helen Christensen and Darcy Yarosh for their attention to detail. I tip my hat to the production team at Amazon: Carina Petrucci, Kandis Miller and Brianne T. Great job. To Stacy Stablin, thank you for all you do to help promote my books. And finally, to my wife Keri for her creative insight, patience and editing skills, and her sense of humor. Thank you.

And to you, the reader, the person holding this book right now. This story is for you. If you’re a new reader, welcome. And for those who’ve been here for the Sean O’Brien journey, welcome back. I hope you enjoy BLACK RIVER.

PROLOGUE

NORTH FLORIDA, JANUARY 1862

Henry Hopkins looked over his shoulder and saw his wife disappear behind the mist rising above the river. The fog couldn’t hide the fear on her face. If he wasn’t killed in the next hour, Henry knew that Angelina would be there for him when he rowed the small fishing boat back across the river, after midnight. She would wave the lantern precisely at 1:00 a.m. for a few seconds to help guide him to the clearing on the shore, to the Confederate-controlled side of the St. Johns River. But now Henry and another man rowed toward the most famous racing sailboat in the world, and Henry felt a knot grow in his stomach.

The river was a half-mile wide at Horseshoe Bend. The weather-beaten boat smelled of dried fish guts, wet burlap, and burnt pipe tobacco. A crescent moon rose over the eastern shoreline and sent a sliver of light bouncing from the surface of the black river – a river filled with alligators, some as long as the boat. And it was filled with Union Navy gunboats.

The men rowed quietly, the only sounds coming from water dripping off the oars and from a great horned owl, its night calls echoing across the river from the top of a large cypress tree near the shore. The moon cast the tree in silhouette, its massive branches holding shadowy beards of Spanish moss hanging straight down. The old cypress tree had been standing since before the first Seminole War with the U.S. government. The tree was a well-known landmark, a visual marker near the secluded entrance to Dunn’s Creek, a deep-water tributary to the St. Johns River. It was in the creek where the Confederates were hiding America, the schooner that beat the British ten years earlier in a race now known as the America’s Cup. The creek was more than seventy feet deep near the place where it flowed into the St. Johns, a few miles downriver from Jacksonville, Florida.

America was recently bought by the Confederate Navy and used as a blockade-runner to outrun the Union Navy blocking southern ports. It had just made a trans-Atlantic voyage from Liverpool, England, and it sailed with a top-secret crew, cargo, and a contract to be delivered directly to the president of the Confederate States of America, Jefferson Davis, and his top general, Robert E. Lee.

Henry wore his wide brim hat pulled low over his eyes. His unshaven face was lean and rawboned. He watched the river, eyes as dark as the water, searching for Union gunboats, listening for steam-fired engines coming from upriver. His nostrils tested the breeze, trying to detect burning coal, the smell of trouble. The two men rowed silently and spoke in whispers as they got closer to America, its mast and stern in a dark profile under the moon rising high above Dunn’s Creek. Henry stopped rowing. “Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?” asked William Kramer, a bull of a man with a thick chest and powerful forearms. He stopped, lifting his paddle from the water and sat erect, listening to the sounds of the night on the river.

Henry looked south. “Sounded like a yank patrol boat.”

“I didn’t hear nothin.’ Just an old hoot owl, that’s all.”

“C’mon. We gotta get into the creek and scuttle the ship before the yanks take her.”

“Who’d you say we’re supposed to meet?”

“Don’t know. Top secret. Maybe General Lee himself. Time’s a wasting. Let’s row.”

They entered the wide mouth of Dunn’s Creek, bordered by towering cypress trees and thick hammocks of palms and live oaks older than the young nation. A weeping willow tree leaned into the creek, its tentacle-like limbs scraping the surface of dark water. Bullfrogs competed in a thick chorus of mating calls. Hungry mosquitoes greeted the men with whines, orbiting their heads, biting at necks and ears.

America, 101 feet in length and more than 170 tons of wood and steel, was anchored in the center of the wide creek. As the men rowed closer to the schooner, they heard the whinny of horses in the foliage on the creek bank. Henry touched his .36 caliber revolver on his side. “Who goes there?”

Two men on horseback stepped into a wedge of moonlight spilling between the limbs of a cypress tree near the creek. Both men were dressed in Confederate uniforms. They dismounted and signaled for Henry and William to row to the shore. Captain John Jackson Dickinson, brown eyes hard as steel, watched the men approach. His gaunt face was unreadable. A shaggy moustache curled over his top lip. He wore a Stetson hat, gray coat and pants, and a saber at his side. He held his horse’s reins and waited.

The other man, a sergeant, wore similar clothes, but disheveled, as if he’d slept in them. Dickinson stepped closer and said, “Good evening, men. I’m Captain Dickinson. This is Sergeant Reese. Which one of you is Henry Hopkins?”

“I am, sir. This is my friend, Corporal William Kramer.”

Dickinson nodded. “What are your plans to scuttle the ship?”

William spoke. “Sir, I have two very sharp augers. I believe I can drill half a dozen holes just below the waterline and she’ll sink in no time.”

Dickinson snorted, releasing a deep breath. He removed the cigar from his mouth, spit out a sliver of tobacco, and looked at the yacht, his eyes softening, following the masts skyward. “Damn shame. America beat fourteen of the fastest yachts in the world from the British Royal Fleet in 1851. Back then the race was called the 100 Guinea Cup. After America took it by finishing eight miles ahead of the nearest yacht, Queen Victoria renamed the race America’s Cup in honor of that yacht anchored in front of us.” He lit a cigar and blew smoke at the mosquitoes in front of his face. “It’s just a matter of days before the yanks bring in the whole damn Union Navy to seize her. We can’t let that happen. They’ll outfit her with canons and aim ‘em down our throats. Orders come from the very top. Commence your drillin’, sir. Looks like you have the arms and shoulders to do it. There’s one final matter.” He looked at William and asked, “Corporal, do you need help with your task?”

“I’m just gonna lean over the edge of the rowboat and bore holes into the yacht right below the waterline. I figure it won’t take too long. Three in the bow and three in the stern.”

Dickinson turned to his sergeant. “Go on and sit in the boat, keep it from flipping over as Corporal Kramer cuts the holes. Lieutenant Hopkins, step ashore. I need to fill you in on your mission, and it’s your mission alone. Are we clear on this?”

Henry nodded. “Yes sir.”

As Henry stepped on dry land, the sergeant climbed in the boat. Within two minutes the men in the boat were at the bow of America, the auger chewing the first hole through wood.

Captain Dickinson watched the progress for a moment, eyes heavy, and then turned to Henry. “We removed all her cargo right after she arrived from England last week. She’s made a trip over there to bring back something.” He opened a haversack tied to his horse, lifting a strongbox from the sack. He also removed a leather satchel.

“What’s that?” asked Henry.

“No one, not the corporal, no one is to hear what I’m about to tell you. Understand?”

“Yes sir.”

“Inside this pouch is a letter of agreement – a contract. It’s extremely confidential. Understand?”

“Yes sir.”

“It could give the CSA the edge for the long haul. Your job is to get this fully executed contract and the strong box, to President Davis, and to do it traveling behind enemy lines. If you feel you are about to be captured, or worse, your last mission on earth is to make sure this agreement doesn’t fall into Union hands.”

“I understand, sir.”

“I’m told you were hand-picked by our Secret Service to carry out this job.”

“What’s in that box, sir?”

“Let’s call it a good faith payment. It’ll go into the Confederate treasury to help the CSA sustain the cause, and to give us added financial stability to fight this damn war.”

Henry nodded. “Understood, sir. I assumed the CSA is one party in the contract…may I ask who’s the second party?”

“No. That’s confidential. Are we clear, Corporal?”

“Yes sir.”

Dickinson glanced at his horse. “I also hear you’re one of the best riders we have.”

“I do all right.”

“You’ll be traveling great distances, mostly by night. The strongbox is fairly light. A diamond doesn’t have the weight of gold.”

“Diamond?”

“Yes. We’re under strict orders not to open the box. But I’m told one of the most valuable diamonds in the world is in there. It is here as a loan. A gamble to keep the South solvent. If this war drags on, and if the CSA treasury is drained, the diamond, if sold to the right people, might keep the cause alive. However, if the war begins to look like a losing proposition, regardless of a cash infusion, we’re supposed to return the diamond to England. All to be done with the utmost confidentially.”

A movement caught Dickinson’s eye. America was taking on water, slowly sinking. The men in the rowboat were now paddling back to shore. Dickinson said, “The irony tonight is that we are scuttling a ship that beat the British, and yet we might need their money to keep the Confederate states afloat. Are you prepared for what might be the most important, and most dangerous, one-man mission in this war?”

“I hope so, sir.”

“Henry Hopkins, son, I do, too. I sure as hell do. We will have a second small boat follow you across the river into Confederate territory. It’ll be carrying what’s left of the treasury.” Dickinson turned to watch America drop below the surface. Within minutes, the massive schooner vanished beneath the dark water. Only the three masts and their crossbeams protruded from the deep creek as if three crosses rose up in the moonlight to mark a watery grave.

* * *

An hour later, Henry Hopkins and William Kramer quietly began rowing back across the St. Johns River. Clouds passed slowly in front of the moon providing the cloak of darkness they needed. The breeze from the north brought the slight odor of burning coal.

Henry rowed, his eyes scanning the dark water, north to south. “Yanks are out there somewhere. I can smell them, smell the coal burning. It’s got to be a gunboat.”

William stopped rowing for a moment, listening, his eyes straining in the dark. “Yeah, I smell it. Can almost feel the steam on my skin. But I don’t see or hear anything.”

“Row. We’re only halfway across.” He looked toward the far western shore, the tree line a slight silhouette in the dim moonlight. “There’s the lantern! Angelina’s signaling.”

William nodded. “Yep, she’s right on time. You got a fine woman, Henry. How’d a fella like you manage that?” William chuckled.

“I ask myself that all the time.”

William glanced down at the strongbox in the center of the boat. “I guess you’re not gonna tell me what’s in the box, huh?”

“You guessed right. I swore an oath. I’m just the courier.”

“Can you tell me what’s in that haversack around your neck? I know it’s important, or we wouldn’t be meeting those men and sinking the most famous schooner in the world. Is it something that sailed across on America from England to Florida?”

“I can tell you that…yes, it is. Come on, we gotta get to the other side of this river.”

The moon climbed out of the clouds like shedding dark clothes, the St. Johns now bathed in moonlight, the ripples across the black water shimmering with brushstrokes of buttery light. Henry said, “Let’s move! We’re sitting ducks out here.”

William rowed harder, looking north for a second. A bullet hit him in his throat, the impact knocking him on his back, his dying eyes focused on Henry.

“William! Dear God! Hold on! I’ll get us to the other side.”

William tried to speak, his words gurgling, blood flowing out of his mouth.

Henry rowed with all his strength, looking over his shoulder to the spot on the distant shore where his wife waved the lantern, the moving pulse of light like the glow of a firefly in the black. He glanced back at his friend just as a dozen rounds burst from the gunboat skirting an oxbow bend in the river. The heavy bullets ripped through the wooden boat, blowing the sides and bottom out.

Within seconds, the boat began sinking, William Kruger’s body slipping beneath the black water, his wide eyes gazing up at the stars. Henry reached for the strongbox just as the boat split in half taking the strongbox and the body of William Kruger to the bottom of the river.

Henry clutched the haversack around his neck, trying to hold it above the surface of the cool water. A cloud slipped over the face of the moon and the river was black again. He could hear the steam engine on the patrol boat in the distance, somewhere in the inky darkness. Henry swam with all his strength toward the glow of the lantern. He swam toward the promise of a life with Angelina.

And he swam toward the hope of the South.

ONE

LONDON, ENGLAND – TODAY

British Prime Minister Duncan Hannes decided he wouldn’t tell the Queen. At least he wouldn’t tell her immediately. The less she knew about a ghost from the past, the better. There was no sense worrying the Royal Family when these matters could be handled by others. But never in Hannes’ political career had he been faced with such a dilemma. He paced the hardwood floor behind his desk at 10 Downing Street in London and thought about the two emails he’d received.

Hannes, a fleshy man with a trimmed gray moustache and ruddy cheeks, looked through his bifocals and read the latest email again. He rubbed his temples, his face drooping from fatigue, and looked out the window at the Tower of London. He punched five buttons on his desk phone and his call was answered on the first ring. “Good morning, Prime Minister Hannes.”

“I wish it was a good morning. That anonymous email I received last week…”

“Yes, we’re still pursuing it, sir. Highly encrypted. Channeled through at least seven servers around the world. We’re still working on its point of origin. However, we may have isolated it.”

“Well, now you have more to work with, Justin.”

“I take it you received another one.”

“Indeed. Now the sender wants money to remain quiet. Who is making this threat, and where is the bloody bastard? You need to get your very best operative there at M15 to find this person. Do it with speed and utmost discretion, obviously.”

“I have a cyber-team coming to your office. They’ll begin tracking immediately.”

“You said you might have isolated it. What do you mean?

“We believe the point of origin is in the states. Possibly Florida.”

“That makes sense because that’s where they found it. This person is threatening to send the information to the news media. That cannot happen.”

“I understand Prime Minister Hannes. We’re working around the clock on it.”

“This threat is unprecedented. If what this blackmailer says is accurate, it could very well open a Pandora’s Box between Britain and India. He or she – whoever sent this demand – this utter blackmail, they alleged to have tangible evidence that could make the Royal Family complicit in the tragedy and horror of something that remains controversial to this very day. The Queen and her family will not be held hostage to their ancestors on my watch.”

“We’ll begin chasing up the latest correspondence immediately.”

“Correspondence? Justin, correspondence is a letter, perhaps a telephone call, even a damn text message. This is a strong-arm blackmail of the worst kind. It involves three nations and has the potential to drag the Royal Family into the dark terrors of something better left buried.”

“Sir, could you read the email to me?”

“Most of it reiterates what was previously stated. The new addendum threatens to release everything to the news media unless ten million pounds is wired into a Cayman Islands account, attached to a letter of impunity from pursuit and prosecution and signed by a member of the Royal Family. Justin…”

“Yes sir?”

“I’m looking out the window across the River Thames to the Tower of London in the distance. And, at this moment in time, I’m not certain whether one of the most famous of the Crown Jewels is authentic.”

TWO

PONCE INLET, FLORIDA

Sean O’Brien turned to Max and said, “Let’s pull your head back inside the Jeep. We’ll park, unload groceries, and go to work. At least I’ll go to work. You might find old Joe the cat to play a hard-fought game of hide n’ seek. On second thought, maybe not.” O’Brien’s ten-pound dachshund, Max, balanced herself, hind legs on the passenger seat, head out the open widow, hound dog ears flapping in the wind. Her nose tested the air as O’Brien drove across the parking lot adjacent to the Tiki Bar at the Ponce Marina, oyster shells cracking under the tires.

He got out of the Jeep and stretched his 210-pound, six-two frame. Max scampered across his seat, diving from the floorboard to the parking lot like a paratrooper on a mission. She could smell the scent of blackened redfish, garlic shrimp, and hushpuppies, all coming from the Tiki Bar. O’Brien laughed. “Whoa, if Kim’s on duty, you’ll be fed.” He unloaded a bag of groceries, two cans of boat wax, and followed Max and her nose into an open-air dining experience that blended the smells of sunblock with deep-fried mullet.

The Tiki Bar was a restaurant on stilts, a place that appealed to bikers, babes, fishermen and vacationing families. Beyond the food and drinks, it evoked a 1950’s picture postcard atmosphere addressed from a Florida of simpler times. Fifty percent of the customers came from the marina neighborhood of live-a-boards and transients, mariners with seafaring gypsy blood in restless genes. Many were men who worked the shrimp boats for a paycheck and the distance the sea could place between them and their troubles anchored to land-bound conflicts. The Tiki Bar’s hardwood floors were stained into a piebald splatter of spilled beer, grease, and more than a few drops of blood. Bar art.

This Saturday morning, all the isinglass windows were rolled up, the sea breeze delivering the smell of grilled fish across the marina. One person sat at the rustic bar. A dozen sunburnt tourists and charter boat deckhands were seated at the tables made from large wooden spools that, in a former life, were used to wrap telephone cables around them. The big spools were shellacked and turned on their sides. Three chairs to each spool. The hole in the center – a great place for tossing peanut shells.

Kim Davis beamed when O’Brien and Max approached. Kim’s chestnut hair was pinned up. Her caramel-colored eyes were bright, like morning sunlight shining through amber stained glass. She stood behind the bar, rinsing a beer mug and timing a slow-pour of a draft Guinness.

“Sean, you ever notice Miss Max is always leading you? She’s the only female that can get away with it.” Kim smiled, dimples appearing on her tanned face. She handed the Guinness to a charter boat captain who sipped it before returning to his table. “Hold on, Max” she said, picking up a small, chilled shrimp and walking around the end of the bar. She knelt down, Max almost jumped in her lap. “Hi, baby. Here’s one of your favorites.” Max took the treat, tail wagging, and sat to eat.

O’Brien said, “She’ll be back for cocktail sauce.”

Kim smiled, standing, pressing her open palms against the blue jeans that accentuated her hips. “I heard you were coming to the marina today. Nick said you called. Are you getting a little lonely out there on the river?”

“Sometimes,” O’Brien smiled. “My old cabin is a lot like owning an old boat. It’s always in need of a coat of paint or wax.” He held up a tin of boat wax.

“I’m off at four, if you’re still at it, I’ll ice down a few Corona’s for you.”

“Sounds good, but you’d first have to sneak them by Nick’s boat.” O’Brien could feel someone staring at him. He glanced over his shoulder and locked eyes with an older man sitting by himself at the very end of the bar. The man wore his white hair neatly parted on the left, ruddy thin face, polo shirt, and khaki pants.

Kim said, “He’s been waiting for you.”

“Who is he, and how did he know I was coming here today?”

“I didn’t get his name. He’s been sipping black coffee for two hours, and guarding that folder in front of him like a hawk. He asked at the marina office whether or not you lived aboard. Nick was in the office paying his rent and overheard the man. Nick told him he knew you and that you had plans to work on your boat today. So the gent’s been waiting your arrival.”

“I wonder what he wants.”

“Maybe you should find out. On second thought…oh, what the hell, Sean. He’s just a harmless, elderly gentleman, right? But what if something in that folder isn’t so harmless? I’ll keep an eye on Max for you.”