The Deep

“Aye, a diver named Kip Wagner. Ten ships went down, carrying God knows how much in gold and silver, and in the early 1960’s Wagner found what he figured was eight of them. He pulled up something like eight million dollars’ worth of gold.”

Sanders felt excitement surge through his stomach.

“And this stuff is from one of the other two ships?”

Treece smiled and shook his head. “Not a chance. Something’s down there, for sure, but it can’t be one of Philip’s ten. They all went down off Florida, every one of them. It’s been documented over and over again-survivors, eyewitness reports, logs, salvors’ records, everything-and no ship’s going to move a thousand miles on the bottom of the ocean. No, what we know’s no problem; it’s what we don’t know that’s bothersome.”

“Like?”

“It’s a healthy bet that if there is a ship beneath Goliath, it sank between 1710 and 1720. If it was later than that, the coins we’ve found would have later dates. New World coins didn’t stay long in the New World. The Spaniards needed every one of them to keep their country afloat. But there’s no record of a Spanish ship sinking on this end of Bermuda between 1710 and 1720.”

“It doesn’t have to be a Spanish ship, does it, just because it carried Spanish coins?”

“No. Pieces of eight were international currency. Everybody used them. But there’s no record of any ship sinking off this stretch of beach in the early 1700’s.”

Sanders said, “That could be good, couldn’t it? It means the ship was never salvaged.”

“Good and bad. It means we have to start from scratch. Odds are, she went down at night. If there were survivors comand I doubt there were—they’d have no misty notion of where they pranged up. They’d be too concerned with saving their own pelts. So whatever cargo went down with her is probably still there.”

“And that could be—was.”

“No telling. According to the records, between 1520 and 1800 the Spaniards hauled about twelve billion dollars’ worth of goodies out of the New World-that’s twelve billion dollars’ worth in those days. About five per cent of that was lost, and about half of what was lost was recovered, which leaves roughly three hundred million dollars on the bottom. Figure a couple of hundred years’ inflation of that value, you’re well over a billion dollars. That would be nice and neat—if it were true. The trouble is, everybody was corrupt, and for every dollar’s worth of registered treasure on a ship, there was probably another dollar smuggled aboard.”

“To avoid taxes?”

“A special tax. By law, the King of Spain got twenty per cent of every treasure, no matter who collected it. A businessman who traded European goods for New World gold still had to pony up the so-called King’s Quinto. It was much cheaper to bribe some fellow to overlook a few things than it was to give twenty per cent to the crown.”

“That explains the anchor caper,” Sanders said. “I ran across something at the Geographic about a captain who had his anchor cast in gold and painted black.”

“Aye. He was hanged. The point is, there’s no way to tell what could be on a ship. There’ve been a dozen cases of ships sinking and being half-salvaged-and the half that was salvaged toting up to more than was listed for the whole ship. The lead ship of a fleet, the capitana, might have had three million dollars in registered treasure on her. But this is no capitana: there’s no fleet to go with her. It’s possible that this ship was taking home some of the survivors of the 1715 fleet. And maybe some of the salvaged treasure.

But then there’d be some record-if not here, then in Cadiz or Seville-of the survivors leaving Havana and ending up here. There’s nothing.”

Treece reached inside his wet suit and pulled out an oval of gold. “Here’s another bit to the mystery.”

“A coin?”

“No.” Treece passed it to Sanders. “A medallion.”

There was a raised head of a woman on the medallion, and the letters “S.c.o.p.n.”

“I think it’s Santa Clara,” Treece said.

“The “O.p.n.” stands for ora pro nobis— Santa Clara, pray for us. Look on the back.”

Sanders flipped the medallion. The back was clear, except for the letters “E.f.”

“Those same initials!”

“Aye. This morning I wasn’t able to find any officer or noble or captain with those initials, and I’ve looked through mounds of papers.”

Sanders returned the medallion to Treece.

“Maybe it was a present for somebody.”

“Not bloody likely. Nobody gave stuff like this away.” Treece dropped the medallion and the coin into his wet suit, turned off the overhead light, and started the engine. He sent Sanders forward to raise the anchor, and when he heard the clank of iron on the deck, he swung the wheel hard left and headed seaward.

Sanders returned to the cockpit and said, “What do we do now?”

“We stay away from this place for a couple of days while I try to figure out what the hell’s underneath Goliath.”

“Cloche…”