Mark of the Devil (5 page)

“Snorkel,” Matt said, more to himself than to Gravely, remembering the box-like design of the object sticking out of the sand.

“Finally towed the thing to a location off the Dry Tortugas in August of fifty and sank it as a target for test rockets. It’s in over two hundred feet of water.”

Matt folded the printout and stuffed it back in the briefcase before pulling out a manila envelope with his name and the NAARPA logo in the top, left-hand corner. “Thanks, Sam. You’ve given me a lead I didn’t have. And here’s three copies of the application I sent to the Florida Underwater Archeology people. Sets out coordinates of the area and requests permission to investigate since it’s within the three-mile limit.”

“Three copies? Why three?”

“As a precautionary measure, I’d appreciate it if you’d keep one, file one with your buddies over at The Smithsonian, and one with the Library of Congress.” Nodding at the government ID hanging from a chain around Graveley’s neck, Matt added, “I know you’ve got contacts at the Library who’ll hold it close for a while. Each application’s in a sealed envelope, and I’d like them to stay sealed until I give you the word.”

With one eyebrow uplifted in a question mark, Gravely accepted the envelope, asking, “Why sealed, and what do you mean by ‘precautionary measure’?”

Matt laughed softly. “In my business, whenever you think you’ve found something that somebody else is gonna have an itch for, you always take precautions.”

“I still don’t—”

“Remember the situation down in Charleston concerning the Confederate submarine
Hunley?”
Matt asked, explaining, “One guy claims he found it at such-and-such a time. A second guy with big bucks comes along and says he found it. Big media and legal battle. I don’t need that, and neither does NAARPA. If this is a German U-boat, especially one for which there’s no record, I sure as hell don’t want that happening.”

Gravely nodded, at the same time reaching inside his jacket. He pulled out a letter-sized envelope and said, “Based on your phone call, here’s a list of ships that were operating out of East Coast ports at the end of the war. Destroyers or destroyer escorts are what you’ll want, more than likely out of the Mayport Naval Station down from Jacksonville on the St. Johns River. If you can get their ships’ logs from the Archives, they might be of help.”

As he took the envelope and placed it in his briefcase, Matt checked his watch. “Whoa! Gotta run if I’m gonna catch my flight.” With a final gulp of his drink, he snapped the briefcase shut and said, “Thanks for your help, Sam. I’ll let you know what happens, but promise, until you hear from me, not a word to anybody.”

“My lips are sealed,” Gravely promised, immediately calling over his shoulder, “except for, Bartender, another martini.”

The golf course stretched off to his right, its greens and fairways host to a twosome here, a foursome there, and mounds of storm-torn palm fronds waiting to be carted away. Eric Bruder, careful to keep the ice-blue BMW convertible at the speed limit, punched a memory button on the dash-mounted cellular phone. He heard a single ring, the click of a receiver being picked up, and a man’s voice saying, “Good afternoon, young Eric.”

Bruder hated being called
young Eric,
especially by that doddering, impotent old fool. He was forty-two years old, goddamn it. He’d like to tell the man to stuff his money and his power, but instead he said, “Just left the dive shop. This might be it.”

“Why do you think?”

“Could be anywhere between Newfoundland and Argentina,” Bruder answered, keeping an eye on a police car that had eased in behind him. “But this is near where that tanker was sunk, the last one before the surrender.” Pulling into the golf club’s parking lot to allow the patrol car to pass, he lit a cigarette and continued, “Navy records say two destroyers pinged a submarine immediately following the tanker’s sinking and went after it with depth charges and hedgehogs, but there was nothing to indicate it was hit.”

“Stay with it. We’ve waited too long to ignore even the slightest possibility. Anything my people should do?”

“Survey the site with a magnetometer. I mentioned that to Park and from the way he reacted, I think they’ve already done it. I also told Park that he and Berkeley must stay clear of the site until I’ve reviewed their application.”

“Very good. Do you think they will?”

“Park might, but Berkeley? From what Dr. Mason tells me, he’s headstrong and prone to take matters in his own hands if he believes he’s right, regardless of what others think. Dr. Mason’s words.”

“Yes, I’m familiar with NAARPA and Mr. Berkeley. The archeological side of our little conglomerate has experienced his interference in the past.”

“While there are certain strings attached, namely Berkeley’s well-being as she phrased it, I’ve made a rather significant financial arrangement with Dr. Mason. She’ll look the other way in case this is what we think and hope it is, but she and Berkeley have a long history together. Perhaps too long. We might have to void that part of the agreement if he becomes an obstacle.”

“Is Starla aware of this arrangement?”

“Yes.”

Bruder heard a faint click, as though someone had picked up a second phone and was listening, but he went on anyway. “Park says Berkeley’s in Washington today. Coming back to Jacksonville after an overnight stopover in Charleston, his home, later this afternoon. I have an idea he’s talking to people who might know something about what’s buried out here.”

“Very possible. NAARPA’s largely subsidized by Congress, so the man has numerous contacts, both government and civilian.”

A woman’s voice suddenly came on line. “Dear brother Eric,” the voice said, its tone sliding leisurely on its own sweet innocence, “I do hope you’ll take care of these people, whoever they are. There really must be nothing to get in our way if they’ve found what I hope it is.”

“Ah, Starla,” Eric answered, a grin having spread across his face at the sound of her voice. “You know me. Be assured, I’ll do whatever needs to be done.”

Punching the
end
button on the cell phone, he sat for a moment. If their grandfather’s letter really meant what Starla thought it meant, he could begin counting down the days when their dependence on Starla’s husband would come to an end. If it hadn’t been for the prenuptial agreement Shoemaker had forced on Starla, they would have already told him to go to hell.

“The old bastard,” Eric muttered. For Starla, if the letter proved correct, revenge for their family’s past humiliations would be important. For him, however, the idea of his own wealth, to do with as he pleased, and freedom from Henry Shoemaker’s oppressive dominance, were lure enough.

He tossed his half-finished cigarette into a bed of flowers in front of the golf club’s entrance, put the car in gear, and pulled out of the parking lot.

Placing the phone onto its cradle, Henry Shoemaker rose and turned toward the wide expanse of glass behind his desk. Insulated from weather and sounds, a panorama of wharves, cranes, and ships stretched into the distance along the south side of Blount Island, an asphalt and concrete bastion anchored firmly in the mud and sand of the St. Johns River. Though under the overall supervision of the Jacksonville Port Authority, many of the ships that lay alongside the acres of wharves, much of the equipment, and most of the unionized longshoremen were his. His ships, his equipment, and his people. The operative word being
his.
One could say the same for the Florida ports of Tampa, Miami, and Fort Lauderdale’s Port Everglades. And farther to the north—Brunswick and Savannah, Georgia, and on to Charleston and Wilmington in the Carolinas. Different corporations, different presidents and CEOs, but all under Shoemaker’s flagship umbrella, Alliance Industries, Ltd.

Shoemaker was neither tall nor short. In fact, if it weren’t for the $2000 hand-tailored suits, $200 silk ties, and $5000 Rolex on his left wrist, Henry Shoemaker would easily have been the invisible man. Though in his late sixties, it would have taken a magnifying glass to find the slightest wrinkle or blemish from the top of his totally bald head to the tip of an almost formless chin. In fact, there was really nothing particularly memorable about his oval-shaped face. His lips were without curvature or fullness, more like two narrow lines stretched partway across the face. If not for the short, narrow rectangular blocks of black, close-cut bristles masquerading as eyebrows above colorless eyes and a nose reddened by a progressive case of rosacea, the face would have been as unremarkable as a slab of white plaster. Behind that face and lackluster eyes, however, was a mind that controlled an empire worth billions, and with those dollars, a bevy of politicians, each begging to know how high to jump and in which direction.

As he surveyed this part of his empire, the soft strains of a Richard Strauss orchestral tone poem issued from speakers placed about the room. They were hidden from view behind potted plants, within lamp bases, or disguised as first editions set meticulously in bookshelves behind doors of exquisitely carved cedar latticework. As the music built toward a crescendo, Henry Shoemaker’s right hand moved baton-like to the rhythm, drawing forth the swell of violins and the impassioned cry of the brass section.

Suddenly, he heard, “For God’s sake, Henry. Can’t you live one minute without that goddamn music blaring in your ears?”

The spell broken, Shoemaker took a deep breath and slowly exhaled in an effort to hide his irritation before turning toward the woman standing impatiently in the open doorway. “Ah, yes, my dear. With you at my side, who needs music?”
Bitch!
he thought, as he reached for the control console built into the top of his desk. He punched one of several buttons, and the music stopped.

If only she weren’t so beautiful, he would have cast her aside years ago. Always wanting more and more, but then again she had been useful. What money couldn’t buy, she had often secured for him when a congressman or senator found himself compromised by her attentions. Eighteen years younger than he, or was it twenty? No matter, she could have passed as his daughter, and had on several occasions. And then there was always the pleasure he derived from saying
no
to her incessant demands.

“Listening in to brother Eric, were we?” Shoemaker asked.

“At the end, yes. Did you learn anything?” she asked, stepping before a gilt-framed mirror and finger-combing golden strands of straight, shoulder-length hair into place. As always, she was careful to leave a touch of sensuous abandon to the way they fell. At the same time, she haphazardly parted the bangs that dropped to just above her eyebrows, adding a natural wind-kissed look to a face that, though still beautiful, would otherwise have been hard and unyielding. The compression of her lips to ensure an even spread of pink-on-chestnut coloring along the contours of her mouth brought a coquettish smile to her face. The smile quickly evaporated when she turned toward her husband. “Did you hear me, Henry?”

“Yes, Starla,” Shoemaker said with a sigh. “Eric thinks this might be it.”

“God, I hope so,” Starla Shoemaker said as she moved to the desk, shedding the white wool opera coat and revealing a body sheathed in black silk and cashmere. Henry Shoemaker found it almost impossible to take his eyes off the flow of her skirt, cut just enough above the knee to show mesh stockings stretching downward into a pair of black, kidskin leather boots. “If so, I want it. It’s mine. You’d know nothing about it if it wasn’t for me—if it wasn’t for my family, especially my grandfather.”

Turning from the voluptuousness of her body and watching the loading of container ships along the wharves, Shoemaker answered, “That may be, but you still refuse to tell me why it matters so much, especially to your family. Your father and your mother are both dead. Except for Eric, what’s left of your family, like mine, is still in Germany. What difference could it possibly make? I don’t understand. Isn’t all this enough?” He spread his hands in the direction of the wharves.

She moved next to him, careful to avoid touching. The
word father
brought back the memory that had haunted her for the past 42 years. She’d been only ten years old…

Her mother was eight months pregnant with the child who would soon be called Eric. Darkness had fallen, almost time for dinner, when ten-year-old Hedda heard her mother call, “Hedda.
Where is your father? It is
mealtime.” She saw her father enter the study, a newspaper in his hand. With his latest business a failure, like all the others since the war, his search for odd jobs just to feed the family was never ending. Whenever he closed himself away with the newspaper, she knew he was searching the Laborer’s Marketplace
section for work. She also knew he no longer used his real
name, in order to ward off the humiliation and scorn that many still held against the family. His face was always sad, no longer smiling. And with a new baby on the way, another mouth to feed…

Always taught to knock before entering, Hedda knocked on the door to the tiny study. “Father? Supper.” She called louder.
“Father?”
Hearing no response, she turned the knob and pushed the door open. The curtains were drawn; the room illuminated by a single desk lamp. The study at first appeared empty until she looked up and saw her father, his body hanging by an electrical cord strung from a light fixture in the ceiling. She felt as though every muscle in her body had turned to stone until the scream rose from her throat. And she screamed and screamed and screamed.

“Well, isn’t this enough?” Shoemaker again motioned toward the wharves and ships below.

His voice was like an electric shock. It snatched her out of the past, back from her father’s study and her father’s death. Starla shook her head. “The ships, the companies, the money, they’re not mine, not ours, all yours. What’s buried out there, if it’s what I think, what I hope, what my grandfather wrote to my grandmother about before he…it’s mine. And with it, the kind of power not even you can imagine. That’s what matters.”