Lost Empire

“Though Blaylock isn’t a seaman, he proves an able captain, and the Maasai an adept crew. Blaylock knows he doesn’t dare attack the Shenandoah II either directly or at sea, so all through July and August he does his best to shadow her. He gathers intelligence reports and bides his time until the night of September sixteenth.

“He catches the Shenandoah II at anchor off Sainte A

“Blaylock’s official report of the capture reaches the U.S. in November. He tells Dudley that he put the Shenandoah II’s survivors ashore on Sainte A

“Unfortunately, I found nothing. Blaylock then splits his crew between the boum and the Shenandoah II and sets off for the return voyage to Zanzibar. Three hundred miles east of the Seychelles, they encounter a storm, and the Shenandoah II sinks.”At this, Sam and Remi leaned forward together. “Sinks?” Remi repeated. “How in the world-”

“Along with his report to Dudley, Blaylock includes a coded message for Constance.” Selma flipped a page on her legal pad and traced her finger down a couple lines. “‘Having secured the Shenandoah, we promptly took inventory of her stores and goods. To my great surprise, in the captain’s cabin I found a most remarkable item: a statuette of a great green jeweled bird consisting of a mineral unfamiliar to me and depicting a species I have never encountered. I must admit, dear Constance, I was entranced.’”Sam and Remi were silent as they absorbed this. Finally Sam said, “That explains the line in his journal-the great green jeweled bird.”

“And all the bird sketches,” Remi added. “And maybe what we found in Morton’s museum in Bagamoyo. Remember all the stuffed birds hanging from the ceiling, Sam? He was obsessed. What else did he say in the letter, Selma?”

“I’m paraphrasing, but here’s the gist of it: He’s done his duty for his country, not once but twice, and he lost his wife in the process. He admits he lied to Dudley about the Shenandoah II’s sinking. He begs Constance’s forgiveness and tells her he intends to discover where the Shenandoah II’s crew found the jeweled bird and recover the rest of the treasure.”“What treasure?” Sam asked. “At that point, does he have any hint there’s more to find?”

“If he did, he never jotted a word about it. At least not in plain text. Given the nature of his journal, it may all be hidden in there somewhere.”

“What about the Shenandoah II’s captain’s log?” Remi asked. “If Blaylock was assuming the previous crew had found the jeweled bird during their travels, the log would be a natural place to start.”“He never mentions a log, but I agree with your assumption.” Sam said, “My guess: He transcribed whatever he found relevant in the captain’s log to his own journal.”

“At any rate,” Selma continued, “Blaylock continued to write Constance after the Shenandoah II’s capture, but his letters became more and more irrational. You can read them yourself, but it’s clear Blaylock was descending into insanity.”“And those are just the plain text portions of the letters,” Pete added. “We’ve still got fourteen to decode.”

“If we’re to believe all this,” Sam said, “then Winston Blaylock probably spent the remainder of his life sailing the ocean aboard the Shenandoah II, scribbling in his journal, staring at his jeweled bird, and carving glyphs on the inside of the bell while looking for a treasure that may or may not have existed.”

“It may be even bigger than that,” Remi said. “If the Orizaga Codex is genuine and the outrigger is what we think it is, somewhere along the way Blaylock may have stumbled onto a secret that was buried with Cortes and his Conquistadors: the true origin of the Aztecs.”

CHAPTER 37

GOLDFISH POINT,

LA JOLLA, CALIFORNIA

“THERE ARE A LOT OF LOOSE ENDS HERE,” SAM POINTED OUT. HE grabbed a nearby legal pad and pen and began writing:

• How/when did Morton obtain Blaylock’s journal, his walking staff, and the Orizaga Codex?

• How/when did the Shenandoah’s bell end up buried off the coast of Chumbe Island? How did the clapper come off?

Sam stopped writing. “What else?” he asked. Remi gestured for the pad, and he slid it over to her. She wrote:

• How much do Rivera and his employer know about Blaylock? How did they get involved? What are they after?• How did Rivera know about Madagascar?

She slid the pad back to Sam, who said, “I have an idea about one of these . . . What are they after? We suspect Rivera works for the Mexican government, correct?”

“It’s a safe bet.”

“We also know the current administration, President Garza’s Mexica Tenochca, came into office on a wave of ultranationalism-pride in Mexico’s true, precolonial heritage and so forth. We also know Rivera and his goons all have Nahuatl-Aztec names, along with most of Mexica Tenochca’s leaders and cabinet members. The ‘Aztec Groundswell,’ as the press called it, won them the election.”Sam looked around the group and got nods in return.

“What if whoever Rivera works for knows the truth about the Aztecs? What if they knew long before the election?”

Remi said, “We did find what might be nine tourist murders in seven years in Zanzibar. If our hunch about them is correct, the cover-up goes back at least that far.”

Sam nodded. “If Blaylock truly found what we think he found, this could turn Mesoamerican history on its head.”

“Is that enough to kill for?” Wendy asked.

“Absolutely,” Remi replied. “If members of the current government won the election based on a lie and the truth comes to light, how long before they’re drummed out of office? Or even its leaders arrested? Imagine if after George Washington was elected America’s first president, it was proven he was a traitor. It’s a bit of an apples-to-oranges comparison, but you get the idea.”“Then, potentially, we’re talking about President Garza being directly involved in this,” Pete said.

Sam said, “He certainly has the kind of horsepower that’s been backing Rivera from the begi

Selma flipped pages on her pad, then recited,

In my love’s heart I pen my devotion

On Engai’s gyrare I trust my feet

From above, the earth squared

From praying hands my day is quartered, the gyrare once, twice

Words of Ancients, words of Father Algarismo

“The first two lines we already figured out-he’s talking about the bell and Fibonacci spirals. Now we just need to figure out the last four lines.”

THEY BROKE INTO GROUPS. Selma, Pete, and Wendy worked on Blaylock’s letters to Constance Ashworth, searching for any clues they may have missed, while Sam and Remi retreated to the solarium to pore over Blaylock’s journal, which Selma had loaded onto their iPads.

Side by side, they reclined on chaise lounges partially shaded by potted palms and billowing ferns. The sun streamed through the skylights and cast dappled shadows across the tiled floor.After an hour, Sam muttered, half to himself, “Leonardo the Liar.”

“Pardon?”

“That line from Blaylock’s journal: ‘Leonardo the Liar.’ Clearly Blaylock was referring to Leonardo Fibonacci.”

“Of the sequence-and-spiral fame.”

“Right. But why did he add ‘the liar’?”