“I present the SS Waratah,” Hiram said. “Discovered by Paul and Gamay Trout, three days ago, adrift in the southern reaches of the Indian Ocean.”
Kurt looked at the photo. He realized that Hiram wouldn’t be joking about such a thing, not at this point, but it boggled his mind and he had to make sure. “You’re serious?” Yaeger nodded.
“How is it possible?”
Hiram explained their theory about how the sediment she was buried in stunted the corrosion on her hull, and what Gamay and Elena found in her sick bay.
“We’re operating on a theory that a violent group took over the ship,” he continued, “and sailed her north.”
“Any idea where she ended up?”
Hiram nodded. “The west coast of Madagascar,” he said, then followed up by explaining how Gamay had led them to that answer, passing yet another photo from the file to Kurt.
Two satellite images were printed on the photo side by side. They showed a muddy river snaking and turning.
“Before and after,” Yaeger explained. “The picture on the left is two months old. The picture on the right was taken last week.”
Kurt’s eyes went right to a highlighted section where the channel bent ninety degrees and then ran out to the sea. In the older photograph there was a large obstruction, like a hill or sandbar, that seemed to force the bend. In the newer photo the hill was gone, the river had carved out a new course, and the channel had widened and straightened substantially.
“Torrential rains last month scoured a new route to the sea,” Hiram said. “They took everything in their path along with them, including the hull of the SS Waratah. The hill in question matches her dimensions almost perfectly.”
Kurt rubbed the stubble on his chin. “So the Waratah was hijacked and stashed in this river, not lost at sea like everyone thought. Eighty years pass, and the Banisters, being held captive, discovered her, patched up one of her lifeboats, and tried to sail to safety, leaving five-year-old Olivia behind. They don’t make it. The hijackers keep the young girl and slowly indoctrinate her. All these years later, we have Calista to deal with.”
Hiram nodded. “You’d have made a good detective,” he said. And, with that, he presented one last piece of the puzzle. This time the image depicted a large plantation-style estate, complete with hedges shaped into a complex maze, terraced gardens, a large pool, and various other structures. A row of satellite dishes sprouted along one side of the main building, while a helipad with a moderate-sized hangar lay on the other. Kurt could see the tails of two military-looking helicopters sticking out of the hangar.
The property was sprawling, and the grounds beyond the walls looked like pastureland. Kurt could see livestock roaming free. At the very top of the property was a jagged bluff of weathered gray stone. It ran the entire width of the photo.
“This compound is five miles upriver from the spot where the Waratah was hidden. It’s owned by a mysterious but powerful man named Sebastian Brèvard. For four generations the Brèvard name has been connected with various types of criminal activity. Money laundering, bank fraud, trafficking in weapons and stolen goods. But strangely, there is no record of their existence before 1910, when they purchased this large tract of land.”
“I’m guessing documents were fairly scarce back then,” Kurt said. “Especially in Madagascar.”
“You’d be surprised,” Hiram said. “The fact is, from 1897 to 1960, the island was part of the French empire. In the land purchase records filed with the colonial governor’s office, the Brèvard family claim emigration from France. And a distant level of nobility. However, the coat of arms they lay claim to is made up. It has no true heraldic provenance in the annals of French society. Nor is there any record of a wealthy French family bearing the Brèvard name leaving France for warmer pastures during that time.”
Kurt saw what Hiram was getting at. “So this false band of nobles appear out of nowhere six months after the Waratah goes missing and they buy the land on which the ship is hidden, presumably to keep it that way.”
“Not just the land where the ship was hidden,” Hiram corrected, “but a mile-wide swath all the way from the water’s edge up to this impassable outcropping of granite.”
“I think I can guess where the money came from,” Kurt said. “Jewels, gold, and cash stolen from the passengers and crew of the Waratah.”
“Our thoughts exactly,” Hiram said. “Supplemented, we now think, by a stack of counterfeit notes that were considered among the best ever produced during that era.”
Kurt sat back and considered the implications. It seemed likely that Sienna’s kidnappers were the same group of thugs who’d abducted and destroyed the Banister family thirty years before. Beyond that, the evidence suggested they were descended from a group that pirated the Waratah back in 1909.
Instead of anger, Kurt felt only a cold determination to put an end to their destruction. “I guess the apple really doesn’t fall far from the tree,” he said. “Any idea who they really are? Where they came from?”
“It’s all speculation,” Yaeger said, “but a band of criminals known as the Klaar River Gang had been terrorizing Durban through the winter of 1908 and into the summer of 1909. Records show that the gang fractured in a power struggle and turned on itself just as Durban police were about to round them up. Most of the members were killed, but several high-ranking associates were never accounted for. Despite initially thinking the gang had been wiped out, the chief inspector of the Durban police soon came to the conclusion that the leaders of the gang had escaped and had killed the others to cover their tracks. He stated publicly that he expected them to surface again, but they never did. Later in his life he became enamored with the idea that they’d made their way aboard the Waratah and perished when it went down.”
“What made him think that?”
“Timing, for one,” Yaeger said. “They’d vanished two days before the Waratah sailed. But there was another reason as well. Counterfeit ten-pound notes eventually surfaced in the Blue Anchor Line’s payroll, very hard to distinguish from the real thing. It was assumed that some tickets had been purchased with the notes and that’s how they got into the office’s cashbox. Similar notes, and burned fragments, were found at the gang’s hideout.”
Kurt thought he saw the line of reasoning clearly at last. “So the leaders fake their deaths and slip aboard the Waratah, paying for passage with forged notes, only to vanish with the ship. Even those who guess where they might have gone think that’s the end of it, karma catching up with the gang or some grand cosmic rebalancing of the scales of justice. No one realizes they’ve hijacked the ship, taken it to Madagascar, and hidden it on this river. They use the wealth stolen from the passengers and their own forged banknotes to buy a new life. But instead of going straight, they slowly turn back to what they know: crime. And every generation since has followed the pattern.”
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“That’s about the size of it,” Hiram said.
“If we’re even half right, I think it’s time we put an end to it,” Kurt said. “Any chance we have the Delta Force or a team of Navy SEALs standing by?”