The Cortés Enigma (4 page)

1

The Noche Triste Treasure had never been found. According to some, it had never existed. It was merely a fantasy. A myth. A tale of strange fallacies and inaccuracies that had become ever more distorted over time.

Everyone who knew anything about the conquistadors was familiar with the story. Supposedly it all began with the Aztecs, sometime in the early 1500s. That much of the story was almost certainly historical. It was written in the texts of the Spanish conquistadors that there was once a great emperor named Montezuma, whose empire spanned far into Mexico, crossing many mountains. Its cities were unlike any ever seen on earth. They were the dwelling places of gods, the homes of beautiful women. Hot water entered each house in abundance, their palaces overflowed with gold. If the stories were to be believed, it wasn’t just the palaces that were overflowing.

The city was even made of gold.

The only part of the story that was known for certain was the part that preceded the conquistadors’ departure. It happened on the night of 30 June 1520 in the middle of Mexico, in a city named Tenochtitlan. It was the nation’s capital, the heart of the empire.

And the heart of its destruction.

According to the accounts written by the Spaniards, it started with the capture of Montezuma by the great conquistador Hernán Cortés. With Montezuma held hostage, the emperor was ransomed. Gold was brought from everywhere, all corners of the empire. As tensions rose, attempts were made to free Montezuma, leading to fighting between native and Spaniard. When Montezuma perished, all hell broke loose. The Spanish sought to retreat, some making it to the coast. Some sources stated the number of Spanish deaths were minimal; others said there were over a thousand.

Most placed the number somewhere in the middle.

Whatever the exact number, the loss of life had a dramatic effect on Cortés. Tradition told that the man broke down and wept for hours beneath a tree. Because of that the night was remembered as La Noche Triste.

The Night of Sorrows.

The Spaniards escaped, regrouped, conquered. Yet the question remained: what happened to the treasure? According to some, it was left behind: it would have been almost impossible for the fleeing Spaniards to have travelled so far across ground with so much gold weighing them down. And even if they did, getting it as far as the water was only half the battle.

Many claimed the treasure had existed, but it was later lost or destroyed. Some said the Mexicans recaptured it, hiding it away in the mountains. Others said the Spanish kept it, melted it down and packed it away in gold bars.

Even painted it the colour of wood to avoid detection.

Most agreed the treasure did exist. After the conquistadors ransacked the great cities, the loot was boarded onto their galleons and set off to sea. According to some, the treasure was taken to Spain and remains to this day safely stored within the vaults of the great buildings, its location known only to the king and his government.

Many claim the treasure never made it to Spain. According to some, it never left America. Others said it was taken elsewhere: Africa, Portugal, Italy, or even somewhere else completely.

Then there were those who claimed to have found it. One had discovered the proof in Ireland, hidden in ancient woodland. Another had apparently found it in another part of Spain while beachcombing in the Costa del Sol with a metal detector. There were similar stories from everywhere between Norway and the Czech Republic, each more far-fetched than the last.

Then there was the most famous of the lot: Juan Carlo Hernandez, an alleged descendent of Cortés who was supposedly working on insider knowledge. The map led him to a secluded area off the coast of West Africa, somewhere between Mauritania and Senegal. There he entered a cave at low tide, expecting to find it overflowing with gold, just as the legends promised.

What he found remains a mystery.

No one alive knew for sure what the treasure was or what it had once comprised. According to most, it was mainly gold, possibly with other jewels, including emeralds, and perhaps the occasional sapphire or ruby: the spoils of Montezuma’s empire. According to others, it wasn’t the treasure itself people were trying to find, but the directions to its hiding place. For some it was not about the gold at all but a search for knowledge.

How the Aztecs had amassed such riches in the first place.

The legend refused to die. The treasure was still out there. Some unsubstantiated accounts reported that it had even made it further afield, reaching its final resting place on a small island in the Isles of Scilly, where, it was claimed, Cortés landed, shipwrecked in a storm that killed at least seven of his crew, and buried the treasure in a cave, its whereabouts no longer known. Others said it was not Hernán Cortés, but his granddaughter acting on her grandfather’s knowledge, doing her utmost to keep hold of what the King of Spain never deserved.

According to legend, it was still there. Waiting to be discovered.

But that was legend. As far as history was concerned, only one thing was known for certain.

The treasure was still to be found.

Hanover, New Hampshire, Present Day

The academic was sitting in his office when the phone rang. Unlike the twenty-plus other calls he had already received that morning, he noticed something different about the ringtone.

The cordless landline phone that sat neatly between his brand new iMac computer and a pile of unmarked coursework was quiet and unblinking. There was no flashing light signalling an incoming call, nor any sign that the five voicemail messages was about to become six.

This ringtone was different, accompanied by a loud buzzing sound that caused the desk to vibrate.

It was his mobile phone that was ringing. The one reserved for close friends and family.

The academic picked up the phone and lifted the flap of his $10 market-bought cover that protected it from accidental drops. The display was lit up, indicating the name Chris. His cousin.

He slid his finger across the display, answering, “Hello?”

“Ben,” the voice replied, excited. “You’re never going to believe this. They’ve just found the
Dunster
.”

The words meant nothing. “Who found…what?”

“Mom just found it on the Internet. They found TF’s ship. They found the
Dunster
.”

Ben leaped forward, crashing his knee into the right leg of his desk. Though the words had failed to register at first, its significance now came at him clear as day. The ship his great-great-grandfather had taken to sea on his final voyage, apparently somewhere in Europe, had been missing since 1905, perhaps even longer.

He gripped the phone, static, numb. “When…wh-where?”

“Article was dated two days ago. Mom found it less than an hour ago. There was an article on the Internet, written in some local newspaper. It was found near a cave, covered in silt.”

Ben’s mind was racing, his pulse even faster. For over thirty-two years his family had fed him the stories, things he had never been able to substantiate – or at least never believed he would be able to.

“Where?” he asked again. “Where was it found?”

“Just off the Isles of Scilly. Apparently it’s been there for over a hundred years. Are you at a computer?”

“Yes,” Ben said, swivelling in his chair. He moved the mouse to interrupt the screensaver and typed in the password on his keyboard. Safari was already open, divided into four tabs, content ranging from emails to the Google page.

He opened a fifth and typed the keywords into Google.

Immediately his eyes lit up. Stories were coming through on several pages, dated not two days ago.

“Oh my god,” he replied, reading. The ship had been found in a small cove, close to a number of caves. Scan reading, he learned it was discovered off the furthest south of all the islands.

St Lide’s.

“Ben, there’s something else.”

Ben scrolled to the bottom of the screen, his eyes focused on the image accompanying the main story.

He froze, gobsmacked.

“TF was on the boat.”

Twenty-four hours later Ben pulled up in a large driveway lined with a grey Honda Civic and a ten-year-old RV. He locked his Ford Sports Coupe automatically and ran along the driveway. There was fresh mail in the mailbox, which was close to full. He collected it as he passed before wiping away some dirt that had appeared on the box where the owner’s name was written. The name he had known all his life.

His name.

Maloney.

A woman was waiting in the doorway, short, grey-haired, his only living grandmother. “I’ve told you before, Ben. Ring first. That way I know you’re coming.”

He grinned, quickly kissing her on the cheek. “I can’t stay, Nana. I need your grandfather’s books.”

“Why, they’re all in the same place.” She looked at him, confused. “Ben, what is it?”

“They’ve found TF’s boat near England.”

The attic light wasn’t working, not that that was anything new. A large lamp was resting on the second stair, inside the doorway; judging from the temperature of the glass, it had been used recently.

Ben switched it on and climbed the stairs, navigating a selection of boxes. He found what he needed by a wall, surrounded by empty boxes and Christmas decorations. The box he wanted was older, not cardboard but wooden, small and antique. The lid was closed, secured by a bronze latch that his grandmother had always made an effort to keep well oiled.

He blew on it, causing flecks of dust to dance around in the light like tiny moths. He lifted the lid and removed the contents. There were four items in total, all books, library bound, one printed, the others handwritten.

His grandmother had appeared behind him, carrying a second lamp. “I told you, Ben. They’re always in the same place.”

He shuffled the books and replaced them in the box. “You mind if I take these?”

“Bring them back. They’re priceless.”

He smiled, kissing her on the cheek as he left. “If I leave now, I can get the flight out of Logan at six.”

2

8pm, St Mary’s, Isles of Scilly, the next day

The remains of the body had been laid out on the table, awaiting the inevitable tests. A large white sheet covered it, the outlines of the bones easily visible beneath the folds. The surgeon was standing alongside it, dressed in a typical white jacket, a green facemask and rubber gloves.

The other man was dressed far more casually. Standing at just over six feet in height, he had the build of a sportsman, perhaps a basketball player or something equally competitive. His thick sandy-coloured hair was neatly combed but slightly curly, its natural waviness prone to becoming tangled when it got too long. His face, though handsome, revealed signs of a hazardous and eventful past, with the rugged, clean-shaven skin on his right cheek displaying evidence of past scars.

For Chris Maloney, it was a consequence of a hard and perilous life at sea.

Chris folded his arms, tucking his cold hands into the folds of his thick black leather jacket, and took a deep breath. The twenty-minute flight from Land’s End to St Mary’s, the largest of the Isles of Scilly, had been largely straightforward, at least compared to the one that preceded it. The journey had started on Monday morning, just before 10am. At seven that evening he was boarding a plane, a direct flight from Boston to Heathrow. By the time he landed, it was morning, the faint glimmer of the rising sun barely visible behind the thick rain clouds that had enveloped the plane for the final hour of the flight. By 10am GMT he was in London, where he embarked on a train to Penzance.

It was now 8pm Wednesday, and he was tired.

But he was here.

Soon, his cousin would join him.

The surgeon removed the white sheet that covered the cadaver and quietly took in the sight. Alongside him, Chris Maloney did the same.

The skin had almost completely decomposed. According to eyewitness accounts, it had been in far better condition when the body was first discovered four days ago, but in that short intervening period, it had degenerated considerably through exposure to the air.

Everything else had disintegrated less recently. The eye sockets were an empty void, as were the ribcage and the stomach. A sickly gelatinous liquid was seeping from the area of the skull where the brain had once been.

Chris looked on, uneasy. Although his stomach had been upset since the in-flight meal, he knew it wasn’t a digestive problem that was affecting him. It wasn’t the first time he’d seen a dead body, and this one was much as he had expected from the initial reports. It had been extremely well preserved, particularly the bone structure. The skull was intact, except for a cavity on the left side. The jaw was slightly out of alignment, giving the impression of a grim smile and ironic humour.

It was the face of a man who had been shot.

Biting his lip, Chris took a step backward and began to wander around the room. Though the find itself was unsettling, what hit him most was the smell. It was the reason for the preservation. A strong odour emanated from a coating of moist silt that had formed a
cocoon-like
covering preserving both the boat and body.

Chris took a deep breath. “Cover it up. I’ve seen enough.”

The surgeon complied, replacing the sheet without argument. Finishing, he removed his rubber gloves and washed his hands in the sink.

“I understand he had some belongings?” Chris asked.

The surgeon nodded, walking toward a second table located by a recently painted white wall that reflected the overhead lights. He opened the lid of a large cardboard box and removed three items.

“One compass, Victorian,” the surgeon began, showing it to Chris. After a century buried in silt, it was impossible to open.

“One pocket watch, also Victorian.”

Chris accepted it with an outstretched hand and tried to force it open. Though it was no longer ticking, the exterior was in surprisingly good condition; fortunately its owner had kept it deep within a waistcoat pocket. Inside the casing was a small photograph, also well preserved, that he recognised immediately. A fair-haired woman was looking away from the camera, an elegant expression crossing her young face. As a Maloney, Chris was certain that he had seen her before, both in photographs and in real life. She was a spitting image of his grandmother.

The man’s wife. His great-great-grandmother.

“One external pocket.” The surgeon gave Chris what looked to be a hundred-year-old shoulder bag. The strap was broken, but the thick leather carrier itself was perfectly intact, its original dark brown colour lightened by a century of being cocooned in silt.

Chris opened the bag, causing dry debris to fall to the floor, some covering his hands and sleeve. There were objects inside: a bottle of vitamins, alongside one of bicarbonate of soda. What appeared to be a small map or perhaps a piece of paper with a diagram had become crunched into a dry ball, in danger of falling apart. There was a small broken pair of binoculars, a dented tin of tobacco – still half full – and a small box of what he guessed were once matches, the wooden sticks all smashed to pieces.

The final object was far easier to distinguish. The casing was also leather, approximately a quarter of an inch thick and, unlike the bag itself, in as good condition now as it had been the day it was made. The casing had served its purpose, covering over one hundred pages of 19th century paper, the majority of which were blank. There was writing on the first page, the first entry dated, arranged in the form of a diary. The handwriting was elongated and messy. The words were written in English with black ink and, judging by the style, he guessed a hard and, probably, expensive nib. Yet it was readable, at least with effort. Skimming through it, he made out at least twenty pages that included writing, all within the date range 12 March 1905 to 8 April the same year.

He closed the book and smiled at the surgeon.

“Thank you.”