The Aztec Heresy by Paul Christopher Page B

here in July of 1521 under the command of Captain Gonzalo Rodriguez, the man who had kept the log shown to them by Pierre Jumaire in Paris. The ship was no more than eighty feet long and would have fit easily in the space between home plate and first base on a regulation baseball diamond.
    The nau, which simply meant ‘‘ship’’ in Spanish, were the last of a long line of watercraft that went back centuries, the front and rear of the vessel literally built as forts from which archers and spearmen could engage other ships. In the case of the San Anton, the ‘‘fort’’ that made up the fo’c’sle, or forecastle, of the ship was eight or ten feet above the sand. The rear quarterdeck was not quite as clearly defined.
    The main deck of the wreck was completely covered by sand and the only evidence that there was even a center portion was the stump of the mainmast poking up darkly from the tongue of sand, which lay like an unmoving river that pointed toward the lip of the blue hole less than a hundred feet away. It was clear that the ship was leaning steeply to one side, and Finn knew they’d had the luck of the Irish on their side. Another hurricane and the ship might well have been pulled inexorably into the depths of the vertical limestone cave and probably torn to pieces in the process.
    Finn let herself drift down toward the ship as Billy finished up the photo survey. She swam the length of the wreck, looking for some way into the hull. If Jumaire was right, Captain Rodriguez knew that he was carrying something extremely valuable back to his masters in Spain, and he’d most probably kept it close.
    If the copy of the Cortéz Codex really was on board, it would probably still be in the captain’s cabin, located under the quarterdeck. At first glance Finn couldn’t see an opening, which meant they’d have to break out the big vacuum pumps and hoses to flush the excess sand out of the way. If they went deep enough they’d probably find a hole in the bottom of the ship created when she’d foundered on the nearby shoals during the hurricane, but coming in from the bottom in a shifting sandbar would be dangerous. Finding a way in from the deck would be far safer.
    She paused, turning herself slightly in the water. She heard something in the distance, a faint vibration like a faraway drumbeat of thunder. A boat. She looked up automatically, searching for and finding the shadow of the Zodiac on the surface and the thin anchor line that led down toward the wreck. They’d been careful to put out Diver Down buoys, so she wasn’t really worried. It was probably just a local coming out to take a look at the Hispaniola. She turned back to her examination of the wreck.
    Hanson heard the boat before he saw it; a heavy sound of big diesels somewhere to the east and the churning slap and heavy whisper of a bow wave. Even without seeing it, Briney knew the boat was large; there was no outboard whine or harsh slapping sound of a planing fiberglass hull smacking down into the water. A workboat of some kind. He turned the glasses toward the channel between North Rock and the Bluff, waiting apprehensively. With the buoys out and the Zodiac clearly visible, he wasn’t too worried, but any kind of large vessel in the area was potentially a problem, and accidents happened, even in perfect weather like this.
    Suddenly the ship appeared. She was a shallow-draft trawler, half the size of the Hispaniola and old. The hull had once been painted smuggler’s gray but was now streaked with rust the color of old dried blood. She had a single funnel pumping black smoke in a stream behind her as her bow broke heavily in the pale water, throwing up an arc of foam. Both of her swinging booms were out and she was going full speed, her course clearly taking her directly toward the Zodiac.
    Run-Run McSeveney had felt the vibration of her passage down in the engine room and had burst out onto the deck below Hanson’s position. Both men saw the