The Legend of the Phantom (17 page)

…Over 400 Years Later….

Chapter 22

The sun broke the cloud layer as the storm rolled past the Costa Rican beach of Jacó and moved eastward inland. The day had only just begun and the now stilled morning air seemed too heavy to want to lighten yet.

As the sun rose a bit higher, t
he air lightened and the date palms seemed to straighten as the last heavy drops from the storm fell from their towering fronds. Not a soul was stirring amongst the tourists that had weathered the storm. Even the street vendors slept in, knowing that the day would start late. But not all were lazing the morning away. A young Tico named Emmanuel immediately went to work scouring the sands of Jacó beach for lost treasures that could be sold to the tourists that would come.

He hurriedly moved the larger shells
from their sandy bed into his hemp satchel that was flung over his neck and one arm. There on the black sand lay a beautiful pink and white conch. A bit further a large cream-colored spiral shell with darker broken stripes running through it.

On the lee side of a
small rock a beautiful half clam shell rested. Ringed in a light purple fading to a brilliant pink, it was partially buried in the small pool of water left from the rising tidal surge. Smaller than those that he would normally collect; it was still fairly good sized. He picked it up; critically measured it with his mind’s eye and kneeling by the pool that he pulled it from, cleaned the sand from it. Then running higher up the beach he laid it out artfully out of the way of the high-tide mark in an area where a beach comber would have to be blind to miss it.

He knew his business well. If the tourists found the beach cleaned of all the shells, they would just move on to another beach. However, if they found a good specimen every once in a while, they were more likely to search out more… and he had more to sell them.

Emmanuel continued his work. The storm had done its job well, and his satchel was filled and yet he still hadn’t scoured by the water’s edge. The day was rapidly filling too, and tourists would be lazily waking soon. He needed to get back, but the thought of finding something more kept him working a little longer.

The tide had by this time
receded enough to expose the black volcanic rocks on the north end. Though the wave action was still quite high, it appeared that if he were careful enough he could get in and out again in enough time to avoid any big waves. After all he didn’t want to get too wet this morning.

Emmanuel surveyed the beach for tourists and seeing only a lone jogger decided he had time to try the rock pools.

The black rocks were the supermarket of tourist trinkets, while the sandy beach was akin to that of street vendors. As waves wash over the black rocks, shells and other flotsam are washed over as well. The return of the wave action lodges those treasures against the rock as it returns to start the process anew. There they remain until the action of the tide produces enough force to dislodge them again; occasionally taking back those treasures that were deposited from before. Timing is crucial when collecting those items that are left behind from the rock pools.

Emmanuel knew that the storm would likely have added to the bounty of the rock pools. To not search it out now would be stupidity. Climbing nimbly over the slippery surfaces, Emanuel worked his way to the now exposed rock pool.

He laid down his satchel and leaned over to dig down in the water with his hand. The first item he found with his fingers was the rough spiral of a large sea conch. As he fought to release it from the grip of the wet sand, he leaned down further into the cavity of the rock. He pulled it free, only to drop it again at the last second. Something in his mind’s eye told him to let it go, but now that he had had the treasure within his grasp, he was determined to get it back. Reaching down again he was finally able to get hold of it and pull it free of the water. “This will bring in some real money!” he thought to himself.

He never saw the wave coming.

Before he had time to even take in a breath he was engulfed in water. The wave lifted him from the ledge he was leaning over and rolled him along, twisting him around and about as the wave swept him against the rocks. He fought to pull himself out, yet the return surge slammed him against the very rock that he had been leaning over moments before.

His eyes glazed over as the water left him partially slumped in the pool.

A smaller wave brought him to. As the water passed by him, he choked and sputtered. He found himself stretched out on the ledge, in a partial kneeling position due to the smaller cavity of the rock, with one foot well buried in the sand. A small trickle of blood was running from a cut on his arm, and he could taste more in his mouth where he must have bit his lip or tongue. There was also a large bump on the top of his head just into the hairline.

As he came to a realization of his surroundings, he remembered the shell and his reason for being where he was. Frantically he turned every which way, looking, searching. His satchel was nowhere to be seen.
He stared off into the nothingness for a moment before unnecessarily saying, “This is beginning to look like I’m going to have a very bad day.”

His immediate problem was to get off of the rocks before another large wave came. It grieved him to lose so much work, and so much potential income, but some things, such as his immediate health and life, were more important.

With effort against his bruised body Emmanuel pulled his foot free and scrambled back over the rocks into the relative safety of the drier sand. There he flopped himself down to rest and allowed himself a moment of self pity. “What did I do to upset you?” he moaned to the sea.

As he lay there, he finally forced himself together again and pulled off
an offending sneaker that was filled with sand from the bottom of the rock pool. Emmanuel upturned the sneaker and dumped the wet sand onto the beach, a small pile of it growing as it fell out in clumps. He hardly paid it any attention as he continued to survey the beach for his satchel.

So it was that he did not notice the coin that fell out as at that moment he saw his satchel being pushed up the beach by a particularly large wave. Dropping his shoe on top of the coin and its bed of wet sand, he rushed off to snatch up his lost treasures before the waves returned them to the sea.

A few minutes later he returned to collect his shoe. The satchel once again over his head and hanging across his chest, he kneeled down on one knee to gather up his sneaker and return with his treasures. Only one treasure wasn’t expected. There under the sneaker, lay a gold coin.

He immediately picked it up and brushing the wet sand from it, saw on one side of it what looked like crossed capital ‘P’s or maybe crossed sabers. Flipping it over was a skull: a death’s head.
Surprise wasn’t the word that described what crossed his face as he marveled at the coin. “Pirate treasure…” he allowed himself to breath out loud. “I found some pirate treasure!” he assured himself, unbelieving. He stared at the coin blankly for some time. Then grabbing up the sneaker, he looked out across the sea.

“Maybe I was wrong…” he said to the sea. “…perhaps this will be a good day after all!”

Tightly clutching the coin Emmanuel turned and ran back up the slope towards his home. He didn't even bother putting on his sneaker.

Chapter 23

The crocodile was immense. If measured from snout to tail it would have out-stretched two basketball players…with one standing on the other’s shoulders! Such a monster would generally be avoided, yet this wasn’t the only one the man casually walked around, waving his bucket of fresh fish.

Only the fact that it lay belly-up in the water made
Ramon suspicious of the great monster. To be sure, Ramon dropped the bucket while he skirted near to Jaws. Old Jaws could have been just sunning himself; after all, crocs often lay still for hours, waiting for their victims. But there wasn’t the least twitch; even after tantalizing him with his favorite fish.

Costa Rica’s Parque Zoologico Nacional Simón Bolivar
is nestled in historical Barrio Amón within a forested ravine. Named after a popular South American freedom fighter, it offers visitors a sampling of abundant animal life…amid a peaceful oasis of gardens and tree-lined paths. Although considered modest in scope, the zoo covers almost 6 acres and is home to approximately 50 species of Costa Rican wildlife and some exotic creatures as well.

The Crocodile Pit is one of its most famous attractions, with Old Jaws being the star. So, it was with a heavy heart that Ramon retrieved his bucket and slowly made his way out of the Crocodile Pit.  For at least to Ramon, ‘beasts’ they were not; ‘pets’ was closer to the word he used in his own description of them. Hence, when Ramon reported the loss, and later that day they pulled out Old Jaws, it caused tears to well in Ramon’s eyes.

The autopsy on Old Jaws was performed by zoo veterinarian Jose Maria Caraval. The beast was weighed, measured, and his stomach contents removed. As Jose inspected the animal
’s stomach contents, something caught his eye. Pulling apart the remains of a half-digested fish, under a layer of gastric-slime, the coin seemed to draw itself to him. Wiping it off on a large towel, the death’s head seemed to stare back at him. He was tempted to pocket the thing, but right at that moment his assistant walked in.

“Say, what’s that?” said his assistant.

“Nothing really,” Jose replied to Daniel, trying to downplay it.

“A coin? Came out of the croc, huh?” Daniel replied, seeing the gastric stain on the towel. “Can I see it?”

Jose reluctantly passed it over. He had never liked Daniel, and yet here was another reason to hate him…

A whistle escaped Daniel’s lips. “I bet this thing is worth a mint.”

“Great. Can I have it back now?” said Jose through clenched teeth, his hand outstretched.

Daniel
flipped it over. “Looks like crossed sabers here on the other side.”

“Hand it back.”
Jose’s voice sounded strained. His grip tightened on the scalpel that was still carried in his left hand.

“Just a second.”

“I mean it, Daniel. Hand it back.” Jose was breathing hard.

Daniel looked up and saw the older man’s face tighten. Realizing that the coin was probably worth more money than he would ever see in his lifetime, he made his decision
. “Sorry, old man, I think this coin is going to stay with me.”

“Over my dead body.” Perhaps it was the animosity between them. Perhaps something more, but Jose knew the moment had come. 

“If that’s how it needs to be.”

Rashly
Daniel threw himself against the elder man, grabbing him around the waist. Caught off-balance, the two of them fell into the tray of surgical utensils used to perform the autopsy.

The tray spun off as Daniel climbed to his feet. Then laughing
, he took a step for the door. Suddenly he stopped and looked down. A large gash had been cut across his midriff, the scalpel still inserted under the skin.

“No!”

As he fell the scalpel was pushed further into his side, lodging itself into his liver.

The sound of the struggle sent a few of the zoo staff running. When the men arrived they found Daniel already dead. Jose was unconscious and had a serious concussion that later proved fatal.

The coin was still gripped tightly in Daniel’s hand.

Chapter
24

The Death’s head coin became the property of the government of Costa Rica. Shortly, investigators were assigned to determine where the coin came from; and an assessor was brought in to determine the authenticity, age, and value of the coin.

The investigators easily determined that the coin
was removed originally from the crocodile, basing their belief in part on the gastric bile that still resided on the coin and in part from the location of the final struggle between the two veterinarians. The coin surely came into the animal through the digestion of a fish. Further investigation showed that a local fisherman supplied the zoo through a daily catch off the western coast of Costa Rica. Assumedly the fish had found the coin and ate it, thinking it to be some tasty morsel. Later that particular fish was netted along with hundreds of others by the local fisherman, and in turn sold to the zoo as food for the crocodiles and other meat eating denizens. Old Jaws was the lucky, or more probably ‘unlucky’, recipient.

As for the assessment of the coin, it was determined to be an authentic item of antiquity, which testing dated around the time of Columbus … near the end of the 1400’s into the early 1500’s.  Being found on the Pacific or western side of Costa Rica rather than the eastern side made it even more of a rarity, especially considering that the Pacific side wasn’t even known to have been discovered by Europeans until early in the 16th century, first by the Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa who crossed the Isthmus of Panama in 1513 and named it
Mar del Sur
(South Sea). Then later by the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan who bestowed upon it
Tepre Pacificum
, or "peaceful sea", which still carries that gift in its name.

Without knowing anything else, the value of the coin was truly immeasurable.

Speculation ranged far and wide. The news-reporters ate it up.
La Nación
, the official newspaper of Costa Rica, printed a column on it. The two sides of the coin were displayed side-by-side showing the death’s head on the one and the crossed sabers on the other. The story of the amazing discovery and its subsequent double murder pushed the story to the front page.

The story was quickly picked up by other papers.

The stories were modified to suit the various newspapers’ circulation.

…
“Death By Coin, Not Crocodile” …“Coin Made By Some Ancestor of ‘Calico’ Jack Rackham?”…“Treatment of Zoo Animals Investigated”…“Was Columbus A Pirate?”…“Coin Proves Pirates First Discovered America”… “Cursed ‘Pirate’ Coin Found”…

The later g
enerated a bit of interest, especially among the superstitious.

Thus when the Costa Rican government decided to launch a recovery vessel in hopes of finding the source of the coins,
the ‘curse’ made it nearly impossible to find crew enough to man her. As they decided to scrap the entire mission as futile, the research ship
Scavenger
appealed to the Costa Rican government with a request to allow it to search the coastline in return for a portion of the recovered funds from the treasure. Permits and terms were put down on paper and shortly the ship began its work; funded in part by the government, but mostly through an investor by the name of John Standoff.

John was a large man; well built and heavily muscled. The scavenger crew wasn’t certain what to make of him, and the captain especially was even less desirous to have him aboard. However, how can you tell your money-pot ‘No!’?

John’s one apparent vice seemed to be the liquor. He was especially partial to rum, and would be found with a flask or bottle somewhere nearby. Despite the alcohol addiction, he seemed amiable enough. Yet there was something about him that just didn’t add up. The members of the
Scavenger
all agreed that he was more the type of man that would have been better suited as a Ruler or a Dictator, with the latter becoming more apparent to the crew as they worked with him day in and day out.

With the captain’s
untimely illness, John had taken over.

The work had been going on for some time. Last week’s wreck had turned out to be a newly comm
issioned supply ship that had foundered during the tail-end of the second world war. Not only was there really nothing to collect from it, as it carried mostly perishables, but the recovery process would have been too expensive to make it worth their while. Les Mann was musing over this as he stared at the screen of the side scan sonar.

They had been using
the sonar to run along the coastal waters outside of Puntarenas. The side scan sonar was ideal for this.

Towed through the water, the
side scan sonar system's transducer is housed in a towfish, which glides along just a few feet from the bottom, searching a swath of 160 feet wide at about 2 miles per hour. The images that are processed through this system come across the screen looking similar to an aerial photograph, which is viewed in real-time.

Location information from a differentially corrected global positioning system (DGPS) is used to guide the towing vessel along predetermined search lines as well as to identify the location of any point on the side scan image. The stored GPS location information allows the searchers to return to any point in the image for further investigation or recovery.

Suddenly an image caught Les’ eye.

“John! John, come here!  I think I found something!”

John swallowed quickly – feeling the burn down his throat – as he stashed his bottle of rum. He hurried over to peer across Les’ shoulder.

“There.” Les pointed, matter-of-factly. “What do you think?”

“Looks broken in two.” He scowled to himself. “The sterncastle appears to be missing from the image.” He drummed his fingers involuntarily as he quickly made a decision. “Ring the bell. Let’s get this ship in position and send in Rover.” He clapped Les on the shoulder. Then left him for the more favorable company of ‘Captain Morgan’. Les in return tried to forget that John ever touched his shoulder.

It was some hours later before they had all the necessary steps for recovery in favorable alignment. The tide was at the right height, the wind had died down to a whisper, the waves were low and the sun was overhead.

Additionally,
Rover (the Remote Operated Vehicle with camera attachment) verified what they wanted to know. It was definitely of either Portuguese or Spanish origin. Definitely a caravel type ship.

Being highly maneuverable, these small sailing ships
known as caravel were favored of the Portuguese and Spanish for oceanic exploration. Their lateen sails gave them the needed speed and capacity for sailing windward. Exactly the type of ship one would expect the coins to come out of.

The sonar was backed by Rover verifying that the latest global placement of the ship parts were still accurate. ‘Yes, parts…’ John noted.

Rover confirmed what John suspected. The ship was split in two, and the sterncastle was indeed missing. This disappointed John. The sterncastle was generally the part of the ship that held the most gold and rare jewels. These would have been stored in the Captain’s cabin for safekeeping in the rear part of the ship. Meaning fewer fortunes collected; and less money back into his pockets.

“Well, at least the main part of the gold should still be there.” John grumbled to himself. Aloud he yelled, “Look alive.
Let’s get that hoist moving!”

The gold came from a hold deep within the midpart of the ship. Universally it was locked away in chests, still sealed for most part. One of the chests had cracked and spilled, and the gold had made its way out of the ship into the rocky grottoes. It was likely one or more of these loose pieces that had been made into morsels for hungry ocean denizens.

One by one the chests were broken free from their barnacled beds and floated to the surface to be stored into the hold.
In all, 17 chests of gold, several larger pieces of ornamental work, and over 40 bars of silver were recovered. From bullion weight alone, not taking into account historical or scarcity value, the haul was in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

The last of the gold was recovered and stored, and the now overall tipsy crew was celebrating, when the pirates attacked.