The Basingstoke Chronicles (2 page)

"Something about a new civilization," an elderly American gent told me.

"An artifact from pre-history," advised a middle-aged South African man.

"The eleventh Commandment," whispered Ethel. "Thou shalt not turn around right
now."

I broke that one instantly. And sure enough, a half hour late, supercilious as ever,
MacDuff emerged from the vestibule and handed his cloak and deer-stalker to the doorman. He
did not make eye contact with anyone who greeted him, instead saving his first glare of the
evening for the one who'd knocked him unconscious at the previous gathering. I stared right
back.

"Just ignore him," Ethel said. "There's close to eighty people here tonight--plenty of
cover for you both."

I smiled and gave her a quick glance from head to toe. Her burgundy cocktail dress
matched the color of both the long strip of regal carpet and the heraldic banners which draped
down from the balconies, yet looked odd beneath her curled, chestnut hair. Her eye-shadow was
also a little overdone, and a graze on her left shoulder hadn't fully healed. However, I had to take
a breath. She was still by far the most exquisite thing in the room.

"Come on, tiger, they're starting in a minute. Let's go find Sam," she said, pulling me by
the arm into the flock of guests migrating toward the far tip of the hall. Dumitrescu already
waited atop his podium.

Loose knots of conversation untied. The party slowly converged in front of our host,
who began.

"Ladies and gentlemen, archaeology is the science of human history. It is our means of
proving what time has labored to conceal--the steps of our forebears across ever drifting sands.
We are the collectors, the puzzlers, the few who care. Our grit paves the way for writers and
historians. To those who say we are the thieves of mythology, that we have no dreams of our
own, I say listen... Listen to the whispers of those gone before us, waiting for their true stories to
be told, and their real worlds discovered. Those who claim otherwise are the thieves, perhaps the
greatest thieves of all, for they would steal the truth of our heritage."

This final phrase met with a generous applause. It was the practice of each Society host
to start the proceedings with a personal prologue to the evening. Dumitrescu had given a fine, if
somewhat fanatical, opening statement. A wave of anticipation grew from the left of the
congregation. Necks craned and heads swayed to see what was happening.

"First, let me introduce you all to a new riddle," the Romanian announced.

Four pallbearers appeared, carrying what looked like an open-top metal casket through
the crowd. As they placed it onto a wooden table before Dumitrescu, the party shuffled around in
a tight semi-circle.

The glass covering reflected all manner of horrified expressions. The figure inside, a
male well over six feet in height, had already started to decompose. His right side appeared to
have suffered significant damage. My first impulse told me it had been badly burned, yet the
corruption of skin on its left half suggested otherwise; I had seen a drowned body before and the
similar discoloring was hard to forget.

So, burned and drowned, I thought. A little more information wouldn't hurt.

Dumitrescu, looking rather pleased with himself, adjusted his bow-tie and cleared his
throat.

"This man, whom we have nicknamed the
Enigman
, was found two weeks ago,
floating fifteen miles off the coast of Cuba. The crew that found him said that while he had not
been dead long, there was no other vessel visible on the ocean for miles. They had no idea how or
why he was there. The pathologist who later examined him revealed he had drowned after
suffering extensive burns. His conclusion was a fire or explosion on his boat which then must
have sunk, leaving him to die on the sea."

He paused to clear his throat a second time. His words apparently flowed with more
patience than his thoughts. The well-dressed gentlemen who had carried the casket then appeared
with another item, a flat glass case which they placed next to the body.

"Now, the real mystery lies in his clothing. Note the pattern of the embroidery. If there's
a better example of Inca design, I've never seen it. "

Sure enough, the angular, almost maze-like blue pattern could have been found on any
Peruvian market stall--two shades of blue to be precise: crenellated sky blue woven across a navy
blue background. Knee-length, the garment was similar to a Hellenic chiton, a close-fitting cloth
with the upper right side left open for activity. Needless to say, no one indulged this fashion in
1979.

"Also," he continued, "our experts tell us that while the woolen fabric is only twenty
years old, it is from a species of animal which has been extinct for nine thousand years."

Everyone remained silent for a few moments. I could hear the collective cog-wheels
turning back the ages for an easy answer, and then grinding to a collective halt. It was a stalemate
of logic.

"You're sure about that?" came a thick Scottish accent to my right. It was MacDuff.

"There is no error," replied Dumitrescu. "The facts have been checked a dozen times. We
have found no answers."

As murmurs rose to a cacophony of wild debate, I looked across to the strawberry-haired
Scotsman. As our glares clashed, I knew we had both extended the same thought.

What else was on that boat?

A strong smell of lager wafted across the three of us as we entered
Delfin
hotel,
Cienfuegos, Cuba. Glorious cool air streamed from the three working fans overhead, permitting
me a long overdue sigh of relief. The noon sun had proved tyrannical since the first moment we
had stepped off the plane, and I am not one to suffer heat readily. In my opinion, the only
effective sun blocks in Cuba are either nighttime or asbestos; the rest are for naive tourists.

As Sam and Ethel checked us in at the main desk, I observed a poker game a few tables
away. The handsome Cuban protagonist was a very familiar face indeed.

Rapt in the tense, medium stakes, he failed to notice me as I positioned myself at a
discreet distance. The light-grey plumes of cigarette smoke afforded me a perfect cover to watch
from over the shoulder of a heavy-set player. The Cuban, under the close scrutiny of his three
fellow players, maintained an impenetrable poker face. His alert eyes switched direction to follow
each speaker in turn as he peered over the tattered cards he held up to his face.

"Rodrigo can taste his defeat; his eyeballs are ready to pop," claimed a sweaty fellow
wearing a red Bermuda shirt.

"That's not fear--look closer. A red glint like that means we should call his bluff before
he explodes," said a man to my left. His rolled-up sleeves were soaked with perspiration.

The first man replied, "Don't worry, Juan. Senor Rodrigo is a crafty cat. If he stares at
you long enough you can see one eye lying to the other."

The player under scrutiny did not make a single move. His focus would quite rightly
have disquieted any punter.

"Yes. Now that you mention it, I'd like to put an honest bullet between them... there's a
low-down, no good, back-stabbing mug behind that stare," added the man to my left.

Still no reaction. The third player--a small, wiry man with his long black hair tied to a
knot--was seated between the other two. It was his turn to speak up. "Well, he knows what clocks
your game. Look at you--wound up like a damn Seiko!"

For that, he received a sharp jab on his arm by the man in the white shirt.

"
Mierda!
I...I really meant that for Eduardo!"

The heavy-set man now punched his other arm. " You
putas
touch me again and
see what happens!"

The show of temper provoked a predictable response. Both men grinned and hit the little
fellow simultaneously. His war cry sparked a playful kerfuffle in which one of them had only
death on his mind and the other two were dying with laughter. I stood back to avoid becoming an
unseen casualty. As I looked up at Rodrigo, I saw he had still managed to maintain his poker
glare.

No wonder he's never lost.

Suddenly up he sprang, dashing over the circular wooden table to rugby-tackle the man
in the Bermuda shirt. A four-way wrestling bout ensued. I laughed as I watched the desk clerk
fumble to telephone for assistance. And as soon as Rodrigo's far heavier opponent pinned him to
the carpet, I sank to my knees in front of him and counted the bastard out. He burst into
laughter.

"Who do we pay to get a decent referee around here?" he quipped, shaking my hand
from his defeated position.

"How about them?" I replied, pointing toward two police officers as they tore past the
window.

"Good to see you again, Baz!" he said. "Let me introduce you to my three new
cell-mates for the evening--Juan, Eduardo and brave little Carlos."

"Will you be all right?"

He gathered his deck of cards. "Of course. Just a change of venue, that's all."

Rodrigo managed to convince the authorities of the innocence of the fracas. His three
friends sidled off after a brief reprimand. Leaving his details for the hotel to charge him for the
damage, he shook the hands of the two officers and threw a mock salute to their backs as they
left.

"Now to real business, Englishman," he said, pulling my white neck-scarf tight around
my neck. "What're you doing here in Cienfuegos?"

In a way, I had to feel sorry for him. He was a good friend of mine. We had first met six
years earlier on the Greek island of Zakynthos, where we had both learned to scuba dive. But I
had scarcely provided enough information to warrant him dropping everything so suddenly.
Rodrigo was a Yale graduate in English Language, but his mother had also persuaded him to
minor in Latin American Languages as a way of preserving their ancient Bolivian heritage. While
not fluent, he had a reasonable grasp of Quechua, Aymara and Mayan dialect origins. As I had
not seen him for almost two years, he had the right to refuse my request in any language he
chose.

"We're here to solve a riddle." It was the best I could do without including the phrase
'needle in a flaming haystack.'

"I despise riddles!"

"How about sunken treasure?"

"Hmm...percentage?"

"Excuse me?" I replied. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"What percentage of certainty have you that the treasure exists, and what percentage of it
is mine if we find it?"

I paused for a moment in disbelief. I hadn't remembered him being so testy or abrasive.
What's happened in the intervening years?

"Um...you'll get half, Rodrigo, like always."

"And the riches... What odds are you offering?"

"You're right, amigo. To be honest, there's a very good chance we won't even find
enough pesos to buy us a drink."

"Say no more!" he replied, with a strange, almost thespian elocution and poise. "One
who would brave the ocean for a beer cannot fail to find the treasure he truly seeks."

My laughter spluttered like a geyser across his face. How the hell he remained deadpan
after that corker I will never know. He simply wiped his face and arched his eyebrows as if he
were utterly ignorant of the jest.
That
was the sense of humor I remembered.

After a few moments he relented and threw his arms around me.

The shadows of a few clouds streaked by outside, painting the bleached walls and
buildings in heavy shade, a Zebra Crossing over the roof of the town. I suddenly found myself
glad to be in Cuba.

"Y'know me, Baz," he said, letting go, "any excuse for a dive."

I explained to him in detail everything I knew about the body and its whereabouts at the
time it had been recovered. He vaguely recalled having heard of it and agreed it was worth
investigating, if only to find the vessel in question.

"Well, everything's ready for tomorrow. We're moored just past
Faro Luna
, so
I'll drive us there early in the morning, before the tourists invade with their sickly complexions.
No offence."

"None taken," I retorted. "We can't all be swarthy communists."

"Hey, watch it, English. I know El Comandante personally. One phone call from me and
you'll be going fifty-fifty with a tiger shark. That's half of you now and half for later. Adios. See
you at five."

I waved goodbye and collected my room key from the main desk. Sam and Ethel were
nowhere to be seen; they must have collapsed onto their bed with jetlag fatigue. As for myself,
traipsing up the two floors of grey-carpeted stairs was a challenge not worthy of one so exhausted
already, and the last thing I recall from that afternoon was the miracle feel of a soft, double
pillow.

* * * *

A wistful, exotic sea breeze stroked us as we left the town centre the following morning.
Rodrigo's open top, white Cadillac had seen better days, yet he was a sure driver. Sam and Ethel,
cuddled together in the back, hardly said a word until we approached Jagua Bay. At least their
even tans from their time spent in Egypt afforded them a modicum of camouflage in Cuba; I was
as white as our car should have been, and therefore stood out like a polar bear on a barbecue
grill.

It had been over four years since my last visit to Cuba, yet much I still recalled of the
beautiful region we passed through. Cienfuegos, or Pearl of the South, is located on the southern
coast of the island, two-hundred and fifty kilometers east of the capital Havana. One of its natural
treasures, Jagua Bay, is a former site of Indian settlements and was once a stalking ground for
pirates and corsairs. One of the chief seaports of Cuba, Cienfuegos is also the capital of its own
picturesque and fertile province in which sugar and coffee are grown in abundance.

Rodrigo had introduced me, on my last trip, to Castillo de Jagua, a sizeable fortress
erected in the mid-eighteenth century for protection against Caribbean pirates. Our sand-swept
tarmac road wound against the edge of a shallow cliff. Not far from the Bahia de Cienfuegos,
Ethel gave her husband an enthusiastic tap on his chest. After admiring the fort for a few seconds,
they both turned toward me and nodded. Sam leaned forward. Against the hurtling wind, he
shouted, "If we don't find anything in the sea, let's take a closer look at
that
!"