Lost Empire

None of this was new to the Fargos. Together and alone, privately and professionally, Sam and Remi had been hunting for treasure, artifacts, and hidden history for most of their adult lives.Following in her father’s footsteps, Remi had attended Boston College, emerging with a master’s in anthropology and history, with a focus on ancient trade routes.

Sam’s father, who’d died a few years earlier, had been one of the lead engineers on NASA’s space programs while Sam’s mother, a vivacious lady, ran a charter dive boat.

Sam received an engineering degree from Caltech, along with a handful of trophies for lacrosse and soccer.

While in his final months at Caltech, Sam was approached by a man he would later discover was from DARPA-the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency-the government’s research and development arm. The lure of pure creative engineering combined with serving his country made Sam’s choice an easy one.

After seven years at DARPA Sam returned to California, where Sam and Remi met at the Lighthouse, a jazz club on Hermosa Beach. Sam had wandered into the club for a cold beer, and Remi was there celebrating a successful research trip looking into rumors of a sunken Spanish ship off Abalone Cove.

Though neither of them had ever called their first meeting a case of love at first sight, they’d both agreed it had certainly been a case of “pretty damned sure at first hour.” Six months later they were married where they’d first met, in a small ceremony at the Lighthouse.

At Remi’s encouragement Sam dove headfirst into his own business, and they struck pay dirt within a year with an argon laser sca

For Sam and Remi, the engine that drove their lives was not money but rather the adventure and the satisfaction of seeing the Fargo Foundation flourish. The foundation, which split its gifting among underprivileged and abused children, animal protection, and nature conservancy, had grown by leaps and bounds over the last decade, the previous year donating almost twenty million dollars to a variety of organizations. A hefty part of that money had come from Sam and Remi personally, and the rest of it from private donations. For better or worse their exploits attracted a fair amount of media attention, which in turn attracted wealthy, high-profile donors.

The question they now faced was whether this ship’s bell was something they could turn into philanthropic funds or simply a fascinating historical diversion. Not that it mattered, of course. The pursuit of hidden history held its own joys for them. Either way, they knew where they had to start.“Time to call Selma,” Remi said.

“Time to call Selma,” Sam agreed.

AN HOUR LATER they were back at their rented plantation-style bungalow at Kendwa Beach, on Zanzibar’s northern tip. While Remi prepared a fresh fruit salad, slices of prosciutto and mozzarella, and iced tea, Sam dialed Selma. Above their heads, a sixty-inch ceiling fan churned the air while through the French doors a cool offshore breeze billowed the gauze curtains.

Despite it being four A.M. in San Diego, Selma Wondrash picked up on the first ring. Sam and Remi were not surprised, having come to believe Selma slept only four hours a night, save Sundays, when she slept five.“The only time you call me when you’re on vacation is when you’re in trouble or about to get into trouble,” Selma said over the speakerphone without preamble.

“Not true,” Sam replied. “Last year from the Seychelles we called-”

“Because a troop of baboons had broken into your beach house, destroyed the furniture, and made off with all your worldly goods, and the police thought you were burglars.”

She’s right, Remi mouthed from across the kitchen island. Using the tip of her knife, she tossed Sam a chunk of fresh pineapple. He caught it in his mouth, and she applauded silently.“Okay, that’s true,” Sam told Selma.

A former Hungarian citizen who’d never quite lost her accent, Selma Wondrash was the stern but secretly softhearted head of Sam and Remi’s three-person research team behind the Fargo Foundation. Selma was widowed, having lost her husband, an air force test pilot, in a crash ten years earlier.

After finishing her degree at Georgetown, Selma had managed the Library of Congress’s Special Collections Division until Sam and Remi lured her away. More than a research chief, Selma had proven herself a superb travel agent and logistics guru, getting them to and from destinations with militaristic efficiency. Selma ate, drank, and lived research: the mystery that stubbornly refused solution, the legend that showed the barest spark of truth.“So what is it this time?” Selma asked.

“A ship’s bell,” Remi called.

They could hear the fluttering of paper as Selma retrieved a fresh legal pad. “Tell me,” she said.

“West coast of Chumbe Island,” Sam said, then recited the coordinates he’d locked into his GPS unit before heading for the boat. “You’ll have to check-”

“Boundaries of the reserves and sanctuaries, yes,” Selma said, her pencil rasping on paper. “I’ll have Wendy look into Tanzanian maritime law. Anything else?”

“A coin. Diamond-shaped, about the size of a U.S. half-dollar. We found it about a hundred twenty yards north of the bell . . .” Sam looked to Remi for confirmation of this and got a nod in return. “We’re going to see if we can clean it up a bit, but the face is obscured right now.”“Got it. Next?”

“There’s no next. That’s it. As soon as possible, Selma. The sooner we can put a hook on that bell, the better. That sandbank didn’t look all that stable.”

“I’ll get back to you,” Selma replied and hung up.

CHAPTER 2

MEXICO CITY, MEXICO

QUAUHTLI GARZA, THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED MEXICAN States and the leader of the Mexica (pronounced in the traditional way, Meh-SHEE-kah) Tenochca Party, gazed out the floor-to-ceiling windows and down into the Plaza de la Constitucion, where the Great Temple had once stood. Now it was nothing more than beautified ruins, a tourist attraction for those who wanted to gawk at the sad remains of the magnificent Aztec city of Tenochtitlan and the great twelve-foot-diameter, twenty-ton Calendar Stone.“A mockery,” Quauhtli Garza mumbled, watching the milling crowds.

A mockery he’d so far been able to correct with only marginal success. True, the Mexican people had since his election gained a better understanding of their lineage-had come to understand the true history of their country that had been all but obliterated by Spanish imperialism. Even the name, the Aztec Party, which so many news reporters used to describe Mexica Tenochca, was an insult, a nod to falsity. Hernan Cortes and his bloodthirsty Spanish conquistadors had named the Mexica peoples Aztecs, bastardized from the name of the legendary home of the Mexica-Aztlan. It was a necessary artifice, however. For now, Aztec was a term the Mexican people both understood and could take to their collective hearts. In time, Garza would educate them.

It was, in fact, a ground surge of pre-conquest nationalism that had swept Garza and the Mexica Tenochca into power, but Garza’s hopes for Mexico’s widespread and immediate embracement of its history were starting to fade. He’d come to realize they’d won the election partly because of the previous administration’s incompetence and corruption and partly because of Mexica Tenochca’s “Aztecan showmanship,” as one political pundit had termed it.Showmanship indeed! It was absurd.