The Columbus Affair: A Novel (5 page)

“Why not stay?” Rócha asked. “We can finish the performance. Without the camera.”

“I don’t think so,” she said. “I’ve had enough acting for one day.”

T
OM WAS PERPLEXED.
“W
HY WOULD YOU WANT THAT BODY EXHUMED
?”

The video feed from the iPad had stopped, the screen once again black.

“My associates are awaiting a call from me. If that is not received in the next few minutes, then the suffering of your daughter will begin. The video was to make clear the situation.” Simon motioned at the gun. “May I have that.”

He wondered, what
would
happen if he just let the police handle this?

About as much as what happened eight years ago, when he’d needed them to do their job.

Not a damn thing.

He handed over the weapon.

Interesting how defeatism worked. Back in the days when he roamed the world for the next big story, he never would have been cowed by someone like this. Confidence and audacity had been his trademarks.

But they’d also been his downfall.

He’d been a moment away from ending his life, lying on the floor with a hole in his head. Instead he was staring at a man, neat as a bird, who seemed about fifty years old, his hair a mixture of silver and black. The face contained hints of East European, confirmed by high cheekbones, a ruddy tone, full beard, and deep-set eyes. He knew the look. He’d seen it many times in that part of the world. One trait he’d mastered
as a reporter had been the rapid assessment of people. Their looks. Habits. Mannerisms.

This one smiled a lot.

Not to convey amusement, more to help make his point.

He was pleased that some of the skills acquired in his former profession had bubbled back to the surface.

They hadn’t appeared in a long while.

“Your father died three years ago,” Simon said. “He lived here, in this house, until that day. Did you know that your father was an important man?”

“He was a music teacher.”

“And that is not important?”

“You know what I mean.”

“Your father taught for most of his adult life. Your grandfather, though, on your mother’s side, was a most interesting personality. He was an archaeologist, involved with some of the great digs in Palestine during the early 20th century. I read about him.”

So had Tom. Marc Eden Cross, whom he’d called Saki, had worked many digs. He recalled, as a child, listening to stories of those exploits. Not all that exciting, really. Archaeology was nothing like what George Lucas and Steven Spielberg made it out to be. In fact, it was a lot like journalism, where the vast majority of the work was done alone at a desk.

Simon surveyed the parlor, walking around admiring the dusty furnishings. “Why did you preserve this house?”

“Who said I did?”

Simon faced him. “Come now, Mr. Sagan. Is this not a time to be honest? Your father deeded this property to you. In fact, it was all he left you. Everything else he owned went to your daughter. Which was not much. What? A hundred thousand dollars, a car, a few stocks, some life insurance.”

“I see you visited the probate court.”

Simon smiled again. “There are inventories the law requires to be filed. Your daughter was named the estate’s administrator.”

Like he wanted to be reminded of that insult. He’d been expressly excluded from the will, all legal responsibility passing a generation.
He’d attended the funeral but stayed out of the way, doing nothing expected of a Jewish son. He and Alle had not spoken.

“Your father,” Simon said, “transferred title to this house to you five weeks before he died. You and he had not spoken in a long time. Why do you think he did that?”

“Maybe he just wanted me to have it.”

“I doubt that.”

He wondered how much this stranger actually did know.

“Your father was a devout Jew. He cared for his religion and his heritage.”

“How would you know?”

“I have spoken to people who knew him. He was a follower of the Torah, a friend of his synagogue, a supporter of Israel, though he himself never visited the Holy Land. You, on the other hand, are quite familiar with the region.”

Yes, he was. The final three years of his career had been spent there. He’d filed hundreds of stories. One of the last exposed a rape committed by a former Israeli president that made headlines around the world and ultimately led to the man’s imprisonment. He recalled how, when all of the bad things happened later, the pundits wondered how much of that story had been fabricated.

Pundits. People who made a living finding fault. Didn’t matter what, they had an opinion, which was never good. Pundits had reveled in his downfall, condemning him as a journalist who decided that the news itself wasn’t good enough.

Better to make up your own
.

He wished it had been that simple.

“Why does my family interest you so much?”

Simon pointed a finger his way. He noticed the perfect cuticles and manicured nails. “Probing like a journalist again? Hoping to learn something? Not today. All you need to know, Mr. Sagan, is that your daughter is in grave danger.”

“What if I don’t care?” He thought some bravado might be good for them both.

“Oh, you care. We both know that. Otherwise, you would have pulled the trigger while you still held the gun. You see, that is the
thing about children. No matter how much we disappoint them or they us, they are still our children. We
have
to care for them. Like with your father. You and he had barely spoken in twenty years, yet he left you this house. That fascinates me.”

The man called Simon walked toward the pewter menorah on the far table and lightly stroked the dulled metal. “Your father was a Jew. As was your mother. Both proud of who they were. Unlike you, Mr. Sagan. You care nothing about from where you came.”

He resented the condescending attitude. “Comes with a lot of baggage.”

“No, it comes with pride. We, as a people, have endured the greatest of suffering. That means something. At least to me it does.”

Had he heard right?

His visitor turned toward him.

“Yes, Mr. Sagan. Me being a Jew is exactly why I am here.”

B
ÉNE STOOD IN WHAT HAD ONCE BEEN A
J
EWISH CEMETERY
. H
OW
long ago? Hard to say. He’d counted fifteen markers cracked to rubble, others lying embedded. Sunlight fluttered through the thick canopy of trees casting dancing shadows. One of his men had stayed with him, and the other, who’d gone in search of the dogs, now returned through the foliage.

“Big Nanny and her clan did the job,” his man called out. “They cornered him near a bluff, but he stayed still.”

“You shoot him?” he asked his man.

A nod confirmed what a gunshot a few moments ago had already told him. This time the prey had not resisted.

“Good riddance,” he said. “This island is free of one more stinkin’ parasite.”

He’d read with disgust newspaper articles about drug dons who imagined themselves Robin Hoods, stealing from the rich, giving to the poor. They were nothing close to that. Instead, they extorted money from struggling business owners so they could grow marijuana and import cocaine. Their soldiers were the most willing and ignorant they could find, demanding little, doing as told. In the slums of West Kingston, and the bowels of Spanish Town, they ruled as gods but, here, in the Blue Mountains, they were nothing.

“Do we let
dem
know how he’s gone?” one of his men asked.

“Of course. We send a message.”

His chief lieutenant understood and gestured to the other man. “Fetch
da
head.”

“Yes, indeed,” Béne said, with a laugh. “Fetch
da
head. That will make our point. We would not want to waste this opportunity.”

A dead drug don no longer concerned him. Instead, his attention was on what he’d accidently discovered.

He knew some.

At first only Christians were allowed in the New World, but as Spanish Catholics proved inept at colonization the Crown turned to the one group who could produce results.

The Jews.

And they did, coming to Jamaica, becoming merchants and traders, exploiting the island’s prime location. By 1600 the native Tainos were nearly wiped out, and most of the Spanish colonists had fled for other islands. What remained were Jews. Béne had attended a private high school in Kingston, started by Jews centuries ago. He’d excelled at languages, math, and history. He became a student of the Caribbean and quickly learned that to understand his home he had to appreciate its past.

The year 1537 changed everything.

Columbus was long dead and his heirs had sued the Spanish Crown, claiming a breach of the Capitulations of Santa Fé, which supposedly granted the family perpetual control over the New World.

A bold move, he’d always thought.

Suing a king.

But he could appreciate such nerve, something akin to kidnapping a drug don and hunting him with dogs.

The lawsuit dragged on for decades until 1537, when the widow of one of Columbus’ two sons settled the fight on behalf of her eight-year-old son, the next direct Columbus heir, agreeing to drop all legal actions in return for one thing.

Jamaica.

The Spanish were thrilled. By then the island was deemed a nuisance, since little precious metals had been found. Béne had always admired that widow. She knew exactly what she wanted, and she obtained both the island and something else of even greater importance.

Power over the church.

Catholics in Jamaica would be under the control of the Columbus
family, not the king. And for the next century, they kept the Inquisition out.

That’s why the Jews came.

Here no one would burn them for being heretics. No one would steal their property. No laws would restrict their lives or their movements.

They were free.

He stared over at his men and called out, “Simon will have to see this. Take some photos.”

He watched as one of his men obeyed.

“Oh, Mrs. Columbus,” he whispered, thinking again of that widow. “You were one smart
gyal
.”

Of all the lands her father-in-law discovered, and all the riches she and her heirs may have been entitled to receive, she’d insisted on only Jamaica.

And he knew why.

The lost mine.

When forced in 1494, during his fourth voyage, to beach his ship in St. Ann’s Bay, on board was a cache in gold. Columbus had just come from Panama where he’d bartered the precious metal from the local population. Unfortunately his worm-eaten caravels could sail no longer, so he ran aground in Jamaica, marooned for a year.

Sometime during that year he hid the gold.

In a place supposedly shown him by the Tainos, its existence kept secret even from the Spanish Crown. Only Columbus’ two sons knew the location, and they took that secret with them to their graves.

How stupid.

That was the lot of sons, though. Few ever outshone the father. He liked to think he was the exception. His father died in a Kingston jail, burned to death the day before being extradited to the United States to stand trial for murder. Some said the fire was intentional, set by the police. Others said suicide. Nobody really knew. His father had been tough and brutal, thinking himself invincible. But in the end, nobody really cared whether he lived or died.

Not good.

People would care if Béne Rowe died.

He thought about the Jews lying beneath his feet. They’d been an ambitious people. Eventually, they welcomed England’s dominance over Jamaica. In return Cromwell had allowed them to live openly and practice their religion. They’d reciprocated and helped build the island into a thriving British colony. Once thousands of them lived here, their burial grounds scattered near the parish capitals or on the coasts.

Now only about three hundred Jews remained.

But the live ones did not concern him.

His search was for graves.

Or, more particularly,
a
grave.

He watched as his man continued to snap pictures with a smartphone. He’d send one of the images to Simon. That should grab his attention. Twenty-one documented Jewish cemeteries existed on Jamaica.

Now a twenty-second had been found.

“Béne.”

The man with the smartphone was motioning for him. Unlike the drug lords who liked to be called
don
, he preferred his name. One thing his father had taught him was that respect from a title never lasted.

He stepped across to his man, who said to him, “Look at
dat
one there in the ground.”

He bent down and studied the markings. The stone lay flat, facing the sky, its etchings nearly gone. But enough remained for him to make out an image.

He brushed away more soil. He had to be sure.

“It’s a pitcher,” he said.

He wanted to shout with joy. Nowhere in the other twenty-one graveyards had they found the image of a pitcher, held by hands, being poured.

Zachariah Simon had told him to look for this symbol.

Was this
the
grave?

“Fetch a shovel,” he ordered, “and dig it out.”

A
LLE LEFT THE BUILDING FEELING VIOLATED AND DIRTY
. T
HOSE
men had gone too far. Earlier, they’d discussed the performance and agreed on how to make it compelling, but no one had mentioned anything about groping her. Zachariah must have witnessed what happened from the other end of the transmission. She wondered what he thought. The idea had been to spur her father into action, to make the situation appear dire. Anything less and her father might not do what they wanted. Too much, and the threat would be meaningless.

One thing she could say.

What just happened should be sufficient.

She’d met Zachariah six months ago. He’d appeared in Seville, where she was working in the Biblioteca Columbina, among an extraordinary collection of materials from Christopher Columbus’ time. Her doctoral thesis was to be on the great explorer’s map, the one he’d used to find his way to the New World. A famed chart, it had disappeared in the 16th century, and much had been made of its fate. Some postulated that it could have been the
mappa mundus
, the so-called original map of the world. Others argued that it contained geographic information supposedly unknown to navigators of the 15th century. Still more thought there might have been connections to the Phoenicians, the Greeks, ancient Egyptians, or even Atlantians.