Lost Empire

“How many are we going to need?” Remi asked. With one hand she deftly curled her auburn hair off her neck and snapped a rubber band around it, making a neat topknot.

Sam smiled. “It’s like magic, how you do that.”

“We are a wondrous species,” Remi agreed with a smile and wrung the water from her shirttails. “So, how many?”

“Six. No, five.”

“And you’re sure we couldn’t get what we need in Stone Town and sneak back here?”

“You want to risk it? Something tells me that gunboat captain would be only too happy to arrest us. If he thinks we were lying to him . . .”

“True. Okay, Gilligan, let’s make your raft.”

THEY HAD NO TROUBLE finding plenty of downed trees but a harder time finding ones of a manageable size. Sam identified five candidates, all roughly eight feet long and about as big around as a telephone pole. He and Remi dragged each log down to the beach, where they arranged them in a row.

SAM WENT TO WORK. The construction was simple enough, Sam explained. He grabbed a nearby piece of driftwood and inscribed the plan in the sand:

“Not exactly the Queen Mary,” Remi observed with a smile.“For that,” Sam replied, “I’d need at least four more logs.”

“Why the protruding ends?”

“Two reasons: stability and leverage.”

“For what?”

“You’ll see. Right now I need some line-a few dozen six-foot lengths.”

Remi saluted. “As you command.”

AFTER AN HOUR’S WORK, Sam straightened up and stared at his creation. His narrowed eyes told Remi her husband was ru

WITH THE RAFT in tow, they slipped back through the inlet to the island’s western side and headed south along the coast until they were again over the bell’s resting place. Using the gaff hook, Sam maneuvered the raft around to the landward side of the Andreyale and secured it to the cleats.

“My gut tells me we’re due for another drive-by,” Sam said, sitting down in a deck chair. Remi joined him, and together they drank water and watched the water until, thirty minutes later, the Yulin appeared to the north, a half mile out.

“Good call,” Remi said.

The Yulin slowed to a walking pace, and from their afterdeck Sam and Remi could see a figure in a white uniform standing on its afterdeck. Sun glinted off binocular lenses.“Smile and wave,” Sam said.

Together they did just that until the figure lowered its binoculars and disappeared into the cabin. The Yulin came about and began heading north. Sam and Remi waited until it disappeared around the curve of the island, then went back to work.

With the already prepped anchor in one hand, Sam do

Back on the surface, he caught the line Remi tossed to him, then looped it over the raft’s center beam, dove down, and clamped the D ring onto the bell’s crown. A minute later he was back on the afterdeck, where he secured Remi’s line to both cleats.Hands on his hips, he appraised the setup.

Remi smiled sideways at him. “You’re very pleased with yourself, aren’t you?”

“I am.”

“You should be. My intrepid engineer.”

Sam clapped his hands together once. “Let’s do this.”

WITH REMI at the wheel, Sam called, “Slow ahead.”

“Slow ahead,” Remi repeated.

The water beneath the stern turned to froth, and the Andreyale eased forward a foot, then two. The cleated line began rising from the water. With a muffled squelch-pop, the rope cinched down on the raft’s crossbeam.“Looking good,” Sam called. “Keep going.”

The raft began moving, closing the distance to the stern.

“Come on,” Sam muttered. “Come on . . .”

On the far side of the raft the anchor line quivered with tension as it negated the Andreyale’s drag on the raft. Sam do

“A thing of beauty. Keep going.”

One careful foot at a time they lifted the bell until finally the crown broke the surface and thunked into the crossbeam.

“Slow to idle!” Sam ordered. “Just enough to hold position.”

“Idling!” Remi replied.

Sam grabbed the six-foot length of line from the deck and dove over the side. Three strokes brought him to the raft. Five loops through the bell’s crown and a bowline knot over the crossbeam, and the bell was secure. Sam lifted his hands triumphantly, like a cowboy who’d just roped a calf.“Done!” he called.

The Andreyale’s engines sputtered and went silent. Remi walked onto the afterdeck, smiled, and returned her husband’s thumbs-up.

“Congratulations, Fargo,” she called. “Now what?”

Sam’s smile dropped away. “Not sure. Still working it out.”

“How did I know you were going to say that?”

CHAPTER 6

ZANZIBAR

IN TRUTH, THERE WAS NOTHING TO WORK OUT. THEY DIDN’T DARE tow the bell back up the coast to their bungalow. The needed a safe place to stash it while they made some decisions and arrangements.

While they both recognized their encounter with the Yulin might be a molehill they’d built into a mountain, they’d also come to trust their instincts, and on this issue Sam’s and Remi’s gut reactions were in agreement: Neither the Yulin’s initial visit nor its repeated appearances were happenstance. Also, her captain’s questions were variations on a theme: Were the Fargos looking for something specific? This suggested someone-perhaps the shadowy figure hiding in the Yulin’s cabin-was concerned that something of note was at risk of discovery. Was it the bell or the Adelise coin, or something else entirely?“The question is,” Sam said, “do we want to wait and see what they do or shake the tree a little bit?”

“I’m not fond of sitting on my hands.”

“I know. Me neither.”

“What did you have in mind?”

“Behave like we’re people with something to hide.”

“We are people with something to hide,” Remi replied. “A two-hundred-pound ship’s bell suspended from a homemade raft.”

At this, Sam laughed. His wife had a knack for cutting to the heart of a matter. “If we’re not blowing all of this out of proportion, they-whoever they are-have probably already searched the bungalow.”“And found nothing.”

“Right. So they’ll watch and wait for us to come home.”

Remi was nodding, smiling. “We don’t come home.”

“Right. If they come looking for us, we’ve got confirmation the game’s afoot.”

“Did you say ‘the game’s afoot’? Really?”

Sam shrugged. “Thought I’d try it out, see how it plays.”

“Oh, Sherlock . . .” Remi said, rolling her eyes.

WITH THE BELL and raft in tow, they retraced their course through ankle inlet and to the mangrove lagoon. Nightfall was only a couple hours away. They spent an hour of this time tooling around the lagoon’s perimeter looking for a suitable hiding spot for the raft, which they found along the eastern shoreline where a cluster of cypress trees were growing diagonally from the bank. Using the gaff, they eased the raft beneath the overhanging branches, then Sam dove in and tied it off to one of the trunks. “How’s it look?” Sam called from behind the screen.“Can’t see a thing. They’d have to get in there to find it.”

THEY RETURNED to the mouth of the inlet, where Sam used a dead line to catch four small red snappers, then they returned to the lagoon and waded ashore to the beach. Remi, who had the better filleting skills, cleaned and prepped the snapper while Sam collected wood for the fire. Before long the fillets were sizzling and, as the sun dropped behind the coconut palms, they were eating.“You know, I think I like roughing it,” Remi said, flaking off a piece of fish and putting it in her mouth. “To a degree, that is.”