The Columbus Affair

“You’re a Jew?” Sagan asked.

He nodded. “We are both Children of God.”

“Speak for yourself.”

“You were born a Jew, and that you cannot renounce.”

“You sound like the man who once owned this house.”

He noticed that Sagan never used the word father. Alle had told him of the estrangement, but the divide seemed even greater than she believed. He pointed a finger and said, “Your father was a wise man.”

“Let my daughter go and I’ll do what you want.”

He caught the exasperation in the statement but decided not to concede anything just yet. “I studied what happened to you eight years ago. Quite an experience. I can see how it would bring you to this end point. Life was especially cruel to you.”

And he wondered. Could this poor soul even be motivated to act? Was anything important to him any longer? His background work on Sagan ended a few weeks ago, and there’d been no mention of suicidal tendencies. Obviously, some major life decision had been made. He knew that another manuscript had just been completed, written so anonymously that not even the publisher or the “author” knew Sagan’s identity. The literary agent had suggested the tactic, since it was doubtful anyone would have consented to Sagan even ghostwriting for them.

That was how complete the downfall had been.

Five of the seven books Sagan had written became top-ten New York Times bestsellers. Three had been number ones. Critical praise for the cover authors on all seven had been admirable. Which was why, he supposed, work had continued to flow Sagan’s way.

But apparently, it had all taken a toll.

This man was ready to die.

Perhaps he should allow him?

Or maybe—

“Your father was the keeper of a great secret,” he said. “A man trusted with information that only a few in history knew.”

“That’s nonsense.”

“I assure you, it is not.”

He saw that, despite himself, Sagan was intrigued. Maybe there was enough reporter left inside to motivate him one last time.

So he said, “And it all started with Christopher Columbus.”

Columbus stood on the pier. The Niña, Pinta, and Santa María rode at anchor in a branch of the Tinto River, near Palos de la Frontera on Spain’s southeastern coast, not far from open ocean. It had taken months to locate, outfit, and man the three vessels, but now all was ready.

It had to be.

Midnight was approaching.

Breaking with custom, Columbus had not waited to board just before the ships sailed. Instead he’d been present all day, personally supervising final preparations.

“Nearly all are here,” Luis de Torres said to him.

Eighty-seven crewmen would man the three ships. Contrary to the gossip he’d heard, none was a convict royally pardoned for volunteering. Instead each was fully capable, as no one but true seamen would endure this voyage. There was one Portuguese, one Genoese, a Venetian, and a Calabrian, the rest all Spaniards from in and around Palos. Two representatives of the Crown were included, required by his commission, and he’d already cautioned de Torres to be careful around one of them.

“Luis.”

De Torres stepped close.

“We must have all on board by 11:00 P.M.”

He knew de Torres understood. After midnight, when it became August 3, 1492, the police, the militia, and the white-hooded Inquisitors would begin their sweep of houses. Jews had been outlawed from France in 1394 and in England since 1290. The edict expelling them from Spain had been signed by Ferdinand and Isabella on March 31. The church had insisted on the move and the king and queen had agreed. Four months had been given to either leave the country or convert to Christianity.

Time ran out tonight.

“I fear that we might not make it away,” he whispered.

Thankfully, it was next to impossible to physically identify a Spanish Jew. Among the Celts, Iberians, Romans, Phoenicians, Basques, Vandals, Visigoths, and Arabs, there’d been a thorough mixing. But that would not deter the Inquisition. Its agents would stop at nothing to apprehend every suspected Jew. Already, thousands had converted, becoming conversos. Outwardly, they attended mass, offered confession, and baptized their children. Inwardly, and at night, they kept their Hebrew names and read from the Torah.

“So much depends on this journey,” he said to his friend.

And so much depended on de Torres.

He was the voyage’s interpreter, fluent in Hebrew, formerly in the employ of the governor of Murcia, a city that once possessed a large Jewish population. But those people were either gone or converted and the governor had no further need of a Hebrew interpreter. De Torres, like a few others in the crew, had been baptized only a few weeks ago.

“Do you think,” de Torres asked, “that we will find what you seek?”

Columbus stared out to the dark water and the ships, lit by torches, where men were busy at work.

The question was a good one.

And there was but one answer.

“We have no choice.”

“Are you saying Christopher Columbus was Jewish?” Sagan asked.

“He was a converso. That is part of the great secret your father knew. He never told you any of this?”

Sagan shook his head.

“I am not surprised. You are not worthy.”

“Who the hell are you to tell me what I’m worthy of?”

“You renounced your entire heritage. How could you possibly understand things such as honor? Tradition? Duty?”

“How do you know I did that?”

“Is it a lie?”

“And you?” Sagan said. “A kidnapper? Things like honor mean something to you?”

“I have staked my fortune and my life to its fulfillment.”

Zachariah reached into his jacket pocket and found the folded documents. “I need your signature. These will allow lawyers to petition a judge for an order of exhumation on your behalf. I am told it will not be a problem, provided the closest living relative consents. Your daughter has already signed, as the estate’s representative. Of course, she had little choice.”

Sagan refused to accept either the papers or the pen he offered.

“There are but a few minutes remaining for me to call and stop those men.”

He watched as his ultimatum sank in.

Finally, Sagan snatched the pen and papers and signed.

He retrieved them and started to leave. “I will need you at the cemetery, in the morning, at 10:00 A.M. An heir must be present. I will have a representative there on my behalf. Do as instructed. Once the exhumation of your father is complete, your daughter will be released.”

“How do I know that will happen?”

He stopped, turned, and apprised Sagan with a curious glare. “Because I give you my word.”

“I feel better already.”

He pointed at Sagan. “See, there still is some wit left in you.”

“I need my gun.”

He held the weapon up. “You can have it back in the morning.”

“I would have pulled the trigger. I’d be dead right now, if you hadn’t come along.”

He wondered whom Sagan was trying to convince. “Please, do not fret. You will have another opportunity, after tomorrow morning.”

CHAPTER TEN

BÉNE WAITED AS ONE OF HIS MEN DUG OUT THE GRAVE. HIS DOGS had returned and now lay placid beneath the trees, basking in the broken sunlight, satisfied from the hunt. His animals were thorough, a talent bred into them long ago. His mother had told him about the chasseurs from Cuba. Small, swarthy men who’d worn open checked shirts, wide trousers, and light straw hats with shallow crowns and broad rims. But it was their shoes that set them apart. They would skin the thighs and hocks of wild hogs then thrust their feet into the raw hide. The pliant became a kind of short boot, which fit close, and lasted for weeks. They wore crucifixes around their tanned necks and were armed only w

ith a machet, sharpened on one side, the other used to beat the dogs. They first came in 1796, forty of them with their hounds, imported to hunt down the Trelawny Town Maroons.

Which they did.

With no mercy.

Hundreds were slaughtered, and the fear of the dogs was born.

Which he intended to resurrect.

While gangs sought favor with the poorest in Jamaica’s cities, he’d always cast his lot here, in the windward mountains and, to the west, in the leeward Cockpit country, places where Maroons had existed for four hundred years. And though each ran their community through colonels and elected councils, he liked to think of himself as their collective savior, protecting the Maroon way of life. In return, his compatriots provided men and women to staff his many ventures. True, prostitution, gambling, and pornography were covert interests, and they made him millions. But coffee was his passion. All around him, on the slopes for many kilometers, grew shrubs of modest height with glossy, dark green leaves. Every year, sweet-scented, white blossoms sprouted and eventually matured into bright red berries. Once ground and boiled they produced what many said was the finest drink in the world.

Blue Mountain Coffee.

His ancestors had worked the plantations as slaves. He now owned one of the largest and paid their descendants as employees. He also controlled the main distribution network for all of the remaining growers. His father wisely conceived that opportunity, after a devastating hurricane in the 1950s wiped out nearly every grower. A national board was established, with membership limited and criteria for quality, cultivation, and processing decreed. If not grown within sixteen kilometers of the central peak it was Jamaican Prime, not Blue Mountain Coffee. His father had been right—scarcity bred mystique. And through regulation of the product, Blue Mountain Coffee became valued around the world.

And made the Rowe family rich.

His man continued to dig.

Twenty minutes ago his other lieutenant had returned to the trucks to meet more of his men. They now arrived through the trees leading a blindfolded prisoner—late twenties, a mixture of Cuban and African—hands tied behind his back.