Holm’s smile grew thin yet somehow triumphant. ‘There’s nothing here,’ he said.
I
Ricky had folded his hands loosely in his lap. When he heard Holm’s pronouncement, he clenched them into fists. ‘Nothing here?’ he demanded. ‘What do you mean, nothing here?’
‘I mean exactly that,’ answered Holm. ‘There’s no shipwreck here. There never was. And, by extension, there is no buried cargo.’
‘How can you say that?’ protested Ricky furiously. ‘What about all the artefacts we’ve found? The cannons? The anchors?’
‘Who knows?’ shrugged Holm. ‘Perhaps they spilled overboard during a storm. Perhaps one of your Chinese ships was threatened by pirates, and its crew jettisoned them for speed.’
‘Nonsense,’ said Ricky.
‘Or perhaps someone bought them on the Chinese black market, then scattered them around the sea-bed.’
‘How dare you?’ erupted Ricky, jumping to his feet. ‘How fucking dare you?’
‘I’m not suggesting it was you.’
‘Of course you are!’
‘What about the sonar anomalies in the wreck mound?’ asked Knox.
‘Rock formations,’ said Holm.
‘They can’t all be,’ protested Ricky.
‘They can all be,’ retorted Holm. ‘And they all are. I admit some of the original readings were highly suggestive; but the latest data are incontrovertible.’ He touched one of the folders. ‘Check for yourself, if you don’t believe me. And even if the sonar scans and magnetic imaging weren’t conclusive, which they are, our sediment analysis would be. If a treasure ship was buried here, the sand on top of it would be rich with traces of wood from its hull, of jute and tung oil from its caulking; we’d have found flecks of rust from nails, from anchors and other ironwork; we’d have found the residue of gunpowder. We haven’t. Barely a whisper, not in any of the samples you took. No traces, ergo no wreck. What you announced as a shipwreck mound is essentially just one long ridge of rock covered by sand.’
The silence in the stateroom was so complete that Knox could hear the hum of the fan in Holm’s laptop, the soft reproach of a wave as it slapped their hull. But then Ricky pointed at Holm. ‘You’re out,’ he told him.
‘That won’t change the truth about—’
‘I said you’re out. Get off my boat. Get off.’
‘As you wish.’ Holm primly closed his laptop, slung it over his shoulder, walked to the door.
‘You signed confidentiality agreements, remember?’ shouted Ricky, following him. ‘Not one word of this better get out.’
‘How do you plan to stop it?’
‘I’ll sue your fucking arse off,’ said Ricky. ‘You’ll never work in this industry again.’ He slammed the door behind him, turned around. ‘And turn that fucking camera off,’ he bawled at Maddow the Shadow.
‘Yes, sir,’ said Maddow, dropping it from his shoulder.
‘And get out.’ He opened the door again, waited for Maddow to leave, then slammed it only slightly less forcefully. ‘Jesus!’ he said, coming back to the table. But his demeanour changed even as they watched, from anger and disbelief through anxiety to a real and palpable panic. He sat down heavily, put his head in his hands, began breathing fast and shallow.
‘What is it?’ asked Knox.
He looked up, still breathing hard. ‘How do you mean?’
‘I mean, you’re not just disappointed by this news. You’re scared.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ said Ricky.
‘Yes, you do,’ said Miles.
A look of self-pity twisted Ricky’s face. ‘You guys don’t know how hard it was raising money,’ he said.
Knox frowned. ‘I thought you got it from Beijing.’
‘I did. But then there was that damned coup.’
Knox glanced at Miles. This salvage had originally been scheduled for the previous year, but an unexpected coup had seen off Madagascar’s former president, and the new guy had appointed his own people to the various ministries, forcing them to postpone. But this was the first they’d heard that it had affected their Chinese government funding. ‘Go on,’ he said.
‘It was the financial crisis,’ said Ricky. ‘My people in Beijing suddenly had more urgent uses for their money. But they recommended me to a guild instead.’ He gave a bright false smile. ‘A commercial and industrial guild. Very big in Nanjing, which is where the treasure fleet was built; and also in Guangdong, where a lot of the ironwork was done. That’s why they were so keen to be a part of this.’
‘A commercial and industrial guild?’ frowned Miles, who’d spent several years salvaging wrecks in the South China Seas. ‘Which one exactly?’
‘I forget their name. The guild of peace and righteousness. Something like that.’
‘The New Righteousness and Peace Guild?’ suggested Miles.
‘Yes,’ said Ricky uneasily. ‘I think that may have been it.’
‘You’re telling me that we’re in business with the Sun Yee On?’
Ricky didn’t reply, other than for his smile to grow a little grislier. But that was enough for Knox. ‘The who?’ he asked Miles.
‘They’re triads,’ said Miles, in a matter-of-fact tone that accentuated rather than concealed his underlying cold fury. ‘I came across them quite a bit in Macao. They’ve been trying to clean up their image and reputation recently. Lots of joint ventures with the police and local party officials, that kind of thing. Buying political goodwill with patriotic projects like this. But they’re still triads.’
‘They were recommended by the culture ministry,’ protested Ricky. ‘How bad can they be?’
‘They’re fucking triads!’ yelled Miles. ‘How could you be so stupid?’ He shook his head in dismay. ‘Jesus! I can’t believe this. We’re screwed.’
‘He’s screwed,’ said Knox, nodding at Ricky.
‘No. We’re screwed.’ Miles glared furiously at Ricky. ‘He only ever hired us because he’d already used up all his own credibility, so he needed ours. Frank and me flew out here ourselves, remember? We talked to the fisherman who found the first cannon. We dived the site ourselves and took the sonar readings. Without our endorsement, he’d never have raised the money, not even from scum like the Sun Yee On. So they’re not just going to blame him when they find out the truth. They’re going to blame us too. And, trust me on this, you don’t want to be on the wrong side of these people.’
‘Hell,’ muttered Knox.
Ricky gave a ghastly smile then got to his feet and went to the sideboard for a bottle of whisky and some glasses. ‘We rather seem to be in the same boat,’ he said, as he splashed out shots for them all with a slightly trembling hand. ‘So what do you say we put our heads together and see if we can’t come up with some kind of solution?’
II
Rebecca was in her bedroom packing for Madagascar when she