“We enlisted you, Ethan, in hopes you could get L’Ouverture to tell us where the treasure is, so we can lay claim to them.”
“The French, alas, filled him full of holes.” The death of the Black Spartacus had been reported in the newspapers, but the French blamed L’Ouverture’s end on disease, not a failed escape attempt. “He was dying anyway, but they shot him as we hoisted him.”
“Barbarians. So… did he give you any clue?”
I hesitated. Did we want to share what little bargaining we had with the greedy British? Astiza, a mother, didn’t hesitate.
“He said the emeralds are in the diamond, but we don’t know what that means,” she spoke up. “Please, share that with Leon Martel and get our son back, Sir Sidney. We don’t care about this treasure of Montezuma. You can follow Martel when he goes looking for it and take it away from him then. We just want to get our boy and go home.”
And where did she imagine home was? I wondered. Would she follow me to a new one in America, after I’d helped lose our son?
Smith shook his head, sympathetic but stern. “Absolutely not. We don’t share secrets with the enemy, Mrs. Gage, and have no doubt, Leon Martel is your enemy. Moreover, he’s not easily contacted. In anticipation of war, he’s already crossed the ocean with Horus before he could be stopped by the British navy.”
“Crossed the ocean!”
“And not with Napoleon’s consent, I suspect. Martel’s a renegade, operating on his own, so far as we know. He rowed out to a ship bound for Saint-Domingue during a brewing storm, on the pretense of visiting a friend. When the gale came, the captain was forced to weigh anchor and sail to gain sea room, taking Martel and your son with him. Presumably, the villain has arrived in the embattled colony. We’re also informed that he has relations on the French sugar colony of Martinique. That’s the childhood home, I’m sure you know, of Bonaparte’s wife, Josephine. Martel thinks the treasure is somewhere in the Caribbean, and he’s no doubt sending evil minions out to find it, in order to ingratiate himself with the first consul and his family.”
I wondered if the French would call me an evil minion if I signed on again with the British. Astiza had given me back Napoleon’s little pendant, and I’d secreted it in case we needed to sneak about French possessions. If hung around my neck, it would make a splendid target for a firing squad from either nation.
But what choice did we have but to join Smith? We really knew nothing, and if we were to get my son and emerald back, we either needed a clue to bargain with or the British navy to back up our demands. “What do you want us to do?” I asked resignedly.
“I want you to go to the West Indies, find the treasure before Martel does, and lure him into a trap. At the end you’ll get your son, the emerald, ten percent of anything you find, and everlasting fame.” He nodded, already victorious in his head.
The West Indies! For many men they were a death sentence. I already knew Napoleon’s army was being destroyed by yellow fever and revengeful slaves. “But how?” I asked.
“L’Ouverture is dead, but his successor, General Jean-Jacques Dessalines, fights on in Saint-Domingue. I need you to go to the slave war, Ethan, and find out if the Negroes are hiding the most important golden models in human history. You have an enormous advantage: The French government has no idea it was you and your wife racing across the rooftops of Fortress de Joux. For all Napoleon knows, you’re still his go-between with the American negotiators, correct?”
“I told his ministers in Paris that I was taking leave to draw a map of my explorations for Monroe,” I conceded. “Then we sneaked off to rescue L’Ouverture.”
“That means you can go yourself to the French garrison in Saint-Domingue as an American agent and pretend to be their friend.”
Smith was even more devious than me, which is saying something. “But what good will that do?”
“You need to learn their military secrets and then trade them to Dessalines for the secret of the treasure.” He said this as if it were simple.
“But won’t the French hang us both as spies long before that happens?” Astiza asked. She has impeccable logic.
“Not if you pose as negotiators for Louisiana,” Smith said, “and explain you need to inspect the state of the war in Saint-Domingue to report to both the American and French agents whether a sale makes sense. Can France hold the colony, and, if not, is it best that Napoleon get money for New Orleans? All this is true enough. You can pretend you’re important, even though you’re not.”
Astiza thought out loud. “While Ethan poses as a diplomat in Saint-Domingue, I can look for Harry and Martel.”
“Exactly. You’re double agents, pretending to work for France and America while you really work for England and the slave army. You will pretend to Dessalines that you have been sent by L’Ouverture to find the treasure to finance their new nation. After lying to everyone, you escape and deliver the secret to us, the British.” He smiled with the satisfaction of a burrowed fox watching baying hounds thunder past, tongues out and saliva flying.
For Smith, of course, the question was simple. My loyalties were more complicated. I liked France, and the French, if not their henchmen. It had been France that had helped my own country win independence, bankrupting itself in the process, and the French Revolution that bankruptcy precipitated was closer to American ideals than England was. If I could just persuade Bonaparte to return to its precepts, I might be more at home in Paris than London. Yet it was England I needed now, thanks to treacherous Martel. So I must go back to the French in their tropic headquarters in the midst of pestilence? I tried to weigh the odds. “If I find Harry and the emerald in Saint-Domingue, why would I share anything with you?” I am honest to a fault.
“Because our navy will help you retrieve what must be a remote treasure, since no one’s found it. With your ten percent, you’ll be the richest man in the United States. Play the spy just once more, Gage, and you’ll have the retirement you desire.”
Chapter 14
Our safe arrival at the English island colony of Antigua in the Caribbean was something of a miracle, given the tumult that ensued once Britain and France renewed their struggle. I’ve often pondered the popularity of war, the peculiar eagerness of nations for fleeting glory and insane butchery. Ten thousand deaths, and borders barely change. But the truth is that many people make money off conflict, and nowhere can fortune be made or lost so quickly as at sea. Ships become pawns, and we were captured and then recaptured in the first two weeks of combat. We started our journey on a merchant tub, transferred to a French privateer, and ended on a British frigate.
From London, Astiza and I took the express coach to Portsmouth to sail for the West Indies on the merchant brig Queen Charlotte in hopes of getting ahead of trouble. The ship was a regular transatlantic trader that was carrying a cargo of china, furniture, and fabric it would exchange for sugar, molasses, and rum. The Portsmouth Express, however, proved to be a waste, given that we hurried to the city only to wait a week in harbor for favorable winds and, it turned out, the onset of war. Astiza remained in a fever of anxiety about the fate of our son, and easily irritated since we both felt my procrastination in Paris had led to this mess. Like too many married couples, we didn’t talk out our resentments, and they festered. I was solicitous, but she remained cool. She was polite, but I was stubborn about admitting blame.
I had to get our boy back. I paced the port, trying to will the wind. Maybe steam engines aren’t such a ridiculous idea after all. I still wore my magnifying glass around my neck to confirm the identity of my emerald: no one can say I’m not, in my own way, an optimist. I also still carried that medallion of confidence from Napoleon. Yet I was on no one’s side but my own. Switching sides and trusting no one is a wearying place to be. Not only does every man seem a potential enemy, you also get confused about what you stand for. Another thing I plan upon retirement is becoming an unblinking American patriot and giving allegiance to my country’s policies, no matter how daft, so I can mix with neighbors who think that I think the thoughts they think I should have, even while I don’t have to think very much at all.