Sample Chapters of A Sword for Pizarro

Sample Chapters

A Sword for Pizarro

A Novel by Tom Ryan

Chapter 1

By the time I reached the ocean floor, it was too late – I was being hunted. Bull sharks have the most testosterone of any animal, and this one was displaying every drop, eyeing me like a butcher studying a slab of fresh meat. I was 30 feet down, too far from my boat to make a successful run for it, so I stayed close to the bottom, suspended just above the sand, watching her, keeping my movements slow and steady. The bull was large, a torpedo of muscle and teeth, sculpted by the sea for four hundred million years. Her finely-tuned sensory system was capable of detecting the faint electrical fields of a human heartbeat as if it were as loud as a bass drum, so I tried to stay cool, imagining myself drinking a freshly tapped Budweiser, kicking back at the bar at the Sunrise Marina.

She passed in front of me, about ten feet away, moving from my right to left, momentarily blocking all else. I steadied my breathing, taking long, deep inhales of oxygen and nitrogen, the bubbles from my regulator cutting awkwardly through the water on their escape towards the surface. She made one more pass, her back arched, her lower pectorals pointed, and then darted off to my east, staying a distant sentinel, swimming just in and out of sight.

The late summer water was warm and clear. Normally I wouldn’t be in a rush, but the presence of the monster fish was a tip-off that the day’s trial would be cut short. The dive was to serve as a test of a new apparatus I was working on; a device that would allow underwater wreck sites to be instantly mapped, using sub-surface recognition sensors to differentiate between trash and treasure, showing the precise locations of priceless historical artifacts. The unit, which I dubbed the “Omnitometer,” took a number of measurements and readings, relaying the data to a submersible computer that displayed the information on a modified Heads-Up display built into my diving mask. The Omnitometer combined such disparate devices as the magnetometer, gravitometer, side scan sonar, sub-bottom profiler, and ground penetrating radar into one cohesive tool so that they seamlessly and efficiently worked in unison to compile a three-dimensional profile of a site within a matter of seconds. With the device, one could take accurate readings in a fraction of the time it would take to do a manual archaeological survey and recovery operation. It would allow for immediate spot retrieval of specific artifacts, bypassing the “wait-and-see” approach of routine underwater excavation, and the countless hours of bottom time. The apparatus could penetrate sand and limestone, and could detect both organic and inorganic materials less than a quarter of an inch in size, buried up to ten feet in depth, and covering a swath of twenty-five yards. The Omnitometer wouldn’t take any of the fun and adventure out of digging for underwater artifacts; it would simply save time and make certain that nothing was overlooked. Period.

I decided to conduct my first field test of the unit at a wreck site off the coast of Cape Canaveral. The wreck was of a well-known but unidentified Eighteenth-century Spanish treasure ship that was so picked over by both professional salvagers and amateur scuba enthusiasts that if anything remained, which was unlikely, only the Omnitometer would have any chance of finding it. To give you an idea of the popularity of the wreck site, the local Walgreens sells postcards displaying a map of the wreck, above the words “I dove for treasure in Florida, and all I got was this stupid postcard.” If the Omnitometer were to detect something at this location, where no real treasure had been found in twenty years, it would be an indisputable confirmation of the unit’s abilities.

With the bull off in the distance, I switched the Omnitometer on. I stood on a pile of ballast stones that were discarded to the site’s periphery by earlier salvage operations, and held the unit out in front of me. The device’s sensors were laid out in succession and housed in a cylindrical waterproof polycarbonate resin casing. The entire component measured three feet in length and nine inches in diameter. It was a bit bulky, but since it was just a prototype, I reasoned that ergonomics could come later.

Within a few seconds, the apparatus collected information and sent it to a specially-constructed computer, transmitting the facts and figures, by wire, to my dive mask. The sea floor and its contents, in semi-transparent, digitized form, materialized almost instantly within the glass panes of my mask, allowing me to see an overlay of the Omnitometer’s findings over the actual ocean bed. There were the usual shapes: broken shells, conglomerations of coral and stone – items organic in nature. And then there were things that could only be manmade.

Before I could make sense of the data, the bull shark swiftly advanced, this time from my south. Living things, like schools of fish, appear to the Omnitometer as incomputable streams of information; the bull appeared on the HUD as a large, digitalized green smear, indicating that she was just over eleven feet in length; a behemoth of a specimen for the species. It wasn’t the first time that this particular shark had graced me with its presence. In fact, I had seen her so much on recent dives, I decided to affectionately name her “Marjorie,” after my ex-wife’s mother. It’s safe to say that my ex, who I remain close with, would divorce me all over again if she knew I bestowed her mother’s name on this portly fish, although the resemblance was uncanny. Marge had become more frisky with each dive, and on our previous meeting, I almost came out of the water no longer needing my extensive Speedo collection.

Marge paced back and forth, stopping for short breaks in the oblong shadow cast by my boat overhead. When a presumably tasty fish would swim in front of her, a Jack or an occasional Tarpon, she would follow it, although with mild interest. Rays of the sun that reached the bottom reflected off her back and sent glimmers of light haphazardly through the water. She was gray in the way that a tombstone is gray, with weathered, pockmarked skin, and she watched me intently with two black, pinhole eyes.

On her fourth pass, Marge broke from her routine and came directly at me. Within a second of her charge, all I saw was a set of serrated, triangular teeth. In an instant, the mass of her body disappeared and she was all mouth – open, terrifying, and primitive.

There are two schools of thought on how to deal with an attacking shark. The first is to be entirely passive, to do everything possible to get out of the way of the animal and avoid any further provocation. The second is to make a counter attack. A hammerfist to the nose or a swift poke in the eyes or gills. Which strategy one chooses says a lot about who they are as a person. I didn’t have a hell of a lot of options, and as she darted for me, I swung the business-end of the Omnitometer at her snout. It hit its target. I guess I’m the latter.

I took the force of her charge on my right shoulder, falling back into rock and sand. All around me, a thick flow of blood stained the water. Whose blood was anyone’s guess.

The water cleared. I scanned the vicinity. The Omnitometer lay battered and broken at my feet. I looked over my body; two arms, two legs – all appropriate appendages intact and unscathed. Marge was gone, but I could still feel her presence in the little hairs on the back of my neck. And then, like a flash of lightning, I saw her in the distance; a stream of dark red extended from her thick nose and trailed hazily behind her.

I gathered the mass of plastic and wire and made for the surface. Ascending through the bubbles, the last bits of information the Omnitometer collected raced across my HUD. Among the rusted beer cans and fishing lures, one solitary tell-tale ping particularly caught my eye. It was something special, something rare and beautiful. Something golden.

Chapter 2

Diego Espinoza leaned over the side of The Roustabout, my ‘86 Bertram 33’ Sportfisherman-converted salvageboat, and grinned at me as I bobbed up and down in the water.

“How’s the madre-en-law?” Diego asked in a raspy voice, his chronic Cuban accent undeterred by two decades of residence in the U.S.

“Large, scaly, and nagging, but I told you a million times, Samantha and I are divorced, which makes her my ex-mother-in-law.” I wasn’t sure if he was referring to Marge the shark or Sam’s mother, so I thought that answer would cover all my bases.

“If you two are separados, why you always together when I call you to go fishing or for a surf?”

“We thought it would be easier on our kid if we remained friends,” I countered, as I threw my fins overboard.

Diego looked down at me, squinting his eyes. “You don’t have any niños.”

“Are you forgetting Carnarvon?”

Diego laughed. “When’ll you stop regarding that dog as the child you never had?”

“When you agree that there’s nothing wrong with a man and woman coming together to love their pet.”

“If you ask me, I think you’re using that mangy mutt to get close to your ex-madre-en-law.”

“Carnie’s not mangy; he just needs a good scrub and a bath. And I’ve gotten as close to ‘Large Marge’ as I want for one day. Now help me up, will yah?”

Diego extended a leathery, tanned arm over the side of the boat. I appreciatively grabbed it, and he pulled me up.

Onboard, I placed the jumbled mess that was once the Omnitometer on top of the worktable in front of me, but before Diego could ask what happened, I gingerly placed a golden doubloon next to it.

He looked down at the coin, then at the broken Omnitometer, then back at me, then back at the coin. “It worked! It worked!” he yelled, “Dios mío, my friend, it worked!” And then, as I stood on the edge of the boat, he pushed me back into the water. It was a congratulatory gesture; the way the winning team throws Gatorade on their coach. He followed in behind me with a belly flop, which looked like it hurt quite a deal, yelling, “It worked! It worked!” as he splashed down into the calm Atlantic.

Diego was the type of man that received joy from the successes of others. He didn’t have any real stake in the success of the Omnitometer. He was paid as usual whether the device worked or not, or whether we found something of value on a given day, or didn’t. The day I met him, he was walking the docks of Port Canaveral, looking for a job. I gave him one, scraping barnacles off the bottom of my boat. That was seven years ago. Now it was Diego who’d become a barnacle; a big hearted, Cuban-American, happy-go-lucky barnacle, who stuck by my side through a hell of a lot of shit.

With the bull shark still lurking nearby, our dip was short-lived. Fifteen minutes later, Diego and I sat in the boat’s cabin, examining the golden prize.

“What is it?” Diego asked.

“What do you mean, ‘what is it?’”

“Never saw one like it,” he said, leaning over the coin, staring intently at its gleaming details and intricacies. “What’s its…how do you say…de-nom-i-nation?”

“It’s a perfectly struck eight-escudo, or ‘Royal.’ Minted in Mexico City. About 290 years old.”

“Worth much?” he asked, leaning closer now.

“Enough to pay for the new parts I’m going to need to fix the Omnitometer. Maybe bring in some more money to the business if I put it on display. Spanish Silver Reales – Eights, Fours, Twos, and Ones – are a dime a dozen. This coin is extremely rare. The King of Spain used to give these beauts to people who demonstrated exemplary loyalty in service to king and country.”

“Kind of like my servicio to you,” Diego noted boastfully.

“I don’t know if you can describe pushing me into the ocean where a submarine with teeth is swimming as exemplary service,” I joked.

“Ah, you can handle yourself. I’ve seen you in a fight. And besides, I was in there too. That fish would have to be estúpida to mess with the dynamic duo of Marshall y Diego.” He threw two jabs and a left hook at an imaginary opponent.

I took a forkful of Ropa Vieja that Diego made on board the boat. In addition to his very useful skills with motors and fishing tackle, Diego makes a mean Cuban meal and is really quite a chef. Ropa Vieja is a shredded beef dish, which literally translates to “old clothes” due to the meat being cooked twice, and, well, looking like dirty rags.

“So, what’d ya think?” Diego asked.

“I think after some time in the shop, the Omnitometer will be ready for some more tests.”

“Not about that, about the comida; what about the food?”

“It’s delicious, as always. My compliments to the chef,” I muttered as I ate another mouthful of the Cuban dish, washing it down with an icy bottle of Killian’s Irish Red. Two cultures collide.

“You gonna ask me about the secret ingredient?”

“I do taste something that I just can’t put my finger on. What’d you use?”

“A Manzanilla sherry, from the port of Sanlucar de Barrameda in Spain. I add it to the meat on the second cook.”

“Very tasty.”

Diego went on, apparently mistaking my compliment for interest in his culinary prowess. “It’s said that the sherry has a salty, almost delicate taste from the waters of the Río de Guadalquivir, near the Gulf of Cadiz, where it’s produced.”

I nodded, feigning appreciation with a raised eyebrow, while slovenly stuffing the food into my mouth. We continued to indulge in the meal in silence, staring at the golden coin as intently as if we were watching the Kentucky Derby.

When he was finished, Diego scooped the rest of the Ropa Vieja out of the cooking pan, placed it in a Tupperware container, put tin foil over the top, and then began cleaning up the galley. I would be the first to admit that there was an “I bring home the bacon, he fries it” element to our relationship. We were certainly an odd couple. Had we not been so publicly secure in our heterosexuality, there might be gossip and finger pointing back at the marina.

“You find anything like this Royal before?” Diego asked, scrubbing the dirty pan over the sink.

“Not this nice, and certainly not from this site… I wonder what else is down there that might’ve been overlooked over the years,” I said.

“You gonna go back down?”

“Not today. Not with the Omnitometer busted up like it is. It’ll take some time in the shop before we can get it back in service.”

“Then we come back here?” Diego asked.

“There’re more wrecks off the east coast of Florida than there are minutes in a day; we’re going to be busy, my friend.”

Diego placed the clean pan on the drying rack and took a swig of his beer. “Maybe you’re thinking too small.”

“What’d you mean?”

“Patents, mass production, televisión infomercials, we’re talking mucho dinero, jefe. You prove that it works, you could be a very rich man…and I can be the best friend of a very rich man.” He took another guzzle.

“If I do that, then we’ll be out here competing with a hundred other boats all working the same wrecks.”

“You won’t need to salvage anymore. You’ll retire,” Diego said.

“Could you see me retired? What the hell would I do? I’d go crazy.”

“I don’t mean ‘retire’ retire. I mean, take it easy. Buy a new boat. Put some dinero into Treasure Island. Go golfing every once and awhile.”

“I hate golf,” I said.

“How ‘bout finding yourself a woman? Couldn’t hurt you to go out on a date.”

“For your information, I had one last night.”

“Sí?”

“Her name’s Nora. We had dinner at the Italian Courtyard followed by a very nice stroll along the river.”

“You like her?”

“I do,” I said.

“She like you?”

“Hard not to,” I said.

“Then now is the perfect time to start thinking about you’ future. New woman. New invention. You could be rich! This invention of yours could make the metal detector look as old fashioned as the Ten-Track!”

I laughed. Beer almost came out my nose. “Do you mean Eight-Track?”

“Eight-Track?”

“Yeah, Eight-Track.”

“What’s that?”

“It was like the MP3 player of the seventies. It was actually invented by William Lear in the mid sixties – the same Lear that founded the Lear Jet company. Shaun Cassidy, ABBA, Captain and Tennille – I had ‘em all on Eight-Track… Damn, maybe I am old enough to retire.”

Diego looked concerned. “Hold on. Eight-Track? Are you sure? Where’d I get the other two tracks from?”

“You weren’t even in the country when they were popular. It’s forgivable.”

“So I’ve been saying it wrong the whole time?”

“Afraid so,” I said.

Diego was quiet. He picked up a washcloth and began to pat dry a dinner plate, appearing to contemplate his foible.

“Now wait a second,” I said. “How often do you use ‘Eight-Track’ in everyday conversation?”

“Every time I go to Super Flea. My aunt has an old Ten, I mean, Eight-Track player. She likes Neil Diamond. I keep an eye out for her.”

“I have some great Elvis vinyls she can borrow if she’s extremely careful with them.”

“She only likes the Diamond. Coming to America – it’s her favorite.”

He sat back down at the table and twisted the caps off two new beers – Corona Extra – and handed me one. We said nothing. Men can say absolutely nothing while drinking beer and mean more than if they had been talking for an hour. Diego was finished with his bottle by the time he spoke again.

“So, you think the Omnitometer will be able to find Pizarro’s sword?”

I picked up the golden Royal, which hadn’t been touched by human hands in nearly three centuries, took a gulp of my Corona, and said, “It just might.”