Part 3 (1/2)

”Yes.”

He lifted his shoulders slightly. ”Of course it's true. When I was a boy I swam in those coves, and later I sailed that sh.o.r.e hundreds of times, both very close and farther out to sea.”

”Would you be able to determine a location using old charts?”

Practical. That was the word. This was a practical woman, with her feet on the ground. One might say, he considered with amus.e.m.e.nt, that she was about to offer him a job.

”If you mean the Urrutia, every miscalculation of a minute in lat.i.tude or longitude can translate to an error of a mile.” He raised his hand and moved it before him, as if referring to an imaginary chart. ”At sea everything is always relative, but I can try.”

He sat mulling over what she had said. Things were beginning to fall in place, at least some of them. Zas again gave him a big lick when he reached for the gla.s.s on the small table.

'After all”-he took a sip-”that's my profession.”

She had crossed her legs, and was swinging one of her black-stockinged feet. Her head was to one side, and she was looking at him. By now Coy knew that this posture indicated reflection, or calculation.

”Would you work for us?” she asked, watching him intently through the smoke of her cigarette. ”I mean, we'd pay you, of course.”

He opened his mouth and counted four seconds. ”You mean the museum and you?” ”That's right.”

He set down the gla.s.s, contemplated Zas's loyal eyes, then glanced around the room. Outside, on the far side of the Repsol gas station and Atocha terminal, he could see, lighted at intervals, the complex of tracks.

”You seem unsure,” she murmured, before smiling with disdain. ”What a shame.”

She bent down to flick ash into an ashtray, and the motion tightened her sweater, molding her body. G.o.d in heaven, thought Coy. It almost hurts to look at her. I wonder if she has freckles on her t.i.ts, too.

”It isn't that,” he said. 'It's just that I'm amazed.” His lip curled. ”I didn't think that captain, your boss...”

”This is my game,” she interrupted. ”I can choose the players.”

”I can't imagine that the Navy is short on players. Competent people who don't ground their s.h.i.+ps.”

He watched her reaction closely, and said to himself: This is as far as you go, mate. Get up and b.u.t.ton your jacket, because the lady is going to give you the b.u.m's rush. And you deserve it, for being a clown and a big mouth. For being short on brains, an imbecile.

”Listen, Coy.” It was the first time she had spoken his name, and he liked hearing it from her mouth. ”I have a problem. I've done the research, it's my theory, I have the data. But I don't have what it takes to carry it out. The sea is something I know through books, movies, going to the beach- Through my work. And there are pages, ideas, that can be as intense as having lived through a storm on the high seas, or having been with Nelson at the Nile or Trafalgar. ... But for this I need someone with me. Someone who can give me practical support. A link to reality.”

”I understand what you're saying. Wouldn't it be easier, though, for you to ask the Navy for what you need?”

”But I am asking you. You're a civilian and you have no ties.” She studied him through the smoke spirals. ”You offer many advantages. If I hire you, I control you. I'm in command. You understand?”

”I understand.”

”With military people that would be impossible.”

Coy nodded. That much was obvious. She had no stripes on her cuff, only a period every twenty-eight days. Because naturally she was one of those. Not one day more or less. You only had to see her-a blonde in permanent high gear. For her, two and two always made four.

”Even so,” he said, ”I imagine you will have to give them an accounting.”

”Of course. But in the meantime I have autonomy, three months' time, and a little money for expenses. It isn't much, but it's enough.”

Again Coy focused on the view outside. Below, in the distance, a train was approaching the station like a long serpent of tiny lighted windows. He was thinking about the commander, about how Tanger had looked at him as she was now looking at Coy, convincing him, with that array of silences and expressions she used so well, to intercede with the admiral in charge. An interesting project, sir. Competent girl Daughter, you know, of Colonel So-and-So. Pretty thing, I might mention in pa.s.sing. One of our own. Coy wondered how many people with a degree in history, museum employees by dint of examination, were given carte blanche to search for a lost s.h.i.+p, just like that.

”Why not,” he said finally.

He had leaned back in the chair and was again rubbing Zas behind the ears, entertained by the situation. All things considered, three months with this woman would be a magnificent return on the We ems & Plath s.e.xtant.

'After all,” he added, as if reflecting, ”I don't have anything better to do.”

Tanger seemed neither satisfied nor disenchanted. She just clipped her head a little lower, as he had seen her do before, and the tips of her hair once again brushed her face. The eyes on Coy were taking in every detail.

”Thanks.”

Finally she'd said it, just as he was beginning to wonder why she wasn't saying it.

”You're welcome.” Coy touched his nose. ”And now it's my turn. You promised me a question and an answer_____ What is it exactly you're looking for?”

”You already know that. We're searching for the Dei Gloria.” Dei Gloria.”

”That much is obvious. My question is why. I'm asking what you're you're looking for.” looking for.”

”Museo Naval aside?” ”Museo Naval aside.”

The light from the lamp fell obliquely on her freckled face, intensifying the effect of the fading whorls of cigarette smoke. The play of light and shadow turned her hair to shades of matte gold.

”I've been obsessed with this s.h.i.+p for some time. And now I think I know where she is.”

So that was it. Coy felt like smacking himself on the forehead for being so stupid. He looked at the framed photograph: Tanger as a teenager, light hair, freckles and a T-s.h.i.+rt loose over bare, brown thighs. She was leaning against the chest of a tan middle-aged man in a white s.h.i.+rt, with short hair. About fifty, he estimated. And she, maybe fourteen. Behind them was the ocean and a beach, and he also noted an obvious resemblance between the girl and the man. The shape of the forehead, the willful chin. Tanger was smiling into the camera, and the expression in her eyes was much more luminous and open than any he had seen. She looked expectant, on the verge of discovering something, a present or a surprise. Coy remembered. LDS: Law of the Diminis.h.i.+ng Smile. Maybe you smile at life like that when you're fourteen, and then with time your lips grow chill.

”Go easy. There aren't any more sunken treasures.”

”You're wrong.” She scowled at him. ”Sometimes there are.”

To convince him, she talked a while about treasure hunters. There were people like that, obsessed with old maps and secrets, and they searched for things hidden at the bottom of the sea. You could see them in Seville, in the Archivo de Indias, the New World archives, bent over old files, or casually dropping by museums and wandering through ports, attempting to wheedle information without giving away dues or raising suspicions. She had seen several come by number 5 Paseo del Prado on the trail of a piece of evidence, asking if they could look something up in the archives or consult old sea charts, sowing a patch of false information to camouflage their true objectives. One of them, an Italian and a very pleasant man, had gone so far as to woo one of her fellow employees in order to gain access to cla.s.sified doc.u.ments. These were unique, interesting people, adventurers in their way, dreamy or ambitious. Most of them looked like bookish library mice, fat, bespectacled, not even remotely like the muscular, tanned types with tattoos you saw in movies and television doc.u.mentaries. Nine out of ten followed impossible dreams, and only one out of a thousand ever fulfilled his ambition.

Coy kept petting Zas, contemplating the dogs faithful eyes. He felt Zas's appreciative breath on his wrist. Moist.

”That s.h.i.+p wasn't carrying treasure, unless you didn't tell me the whole story. Cotton, tobacco, sugar, you said.”

”That's correct.”

'And you also said one in a thousand, didn't you?”

She nodded through the smoke, took another puff of her cigarette and nodded again. She was looking at Coy as if she didn't see him.

”The Dei Gloria Dei Gloria was also carrying a mystery on board,” she said. ”Those two pa.s.sengers, the interception by the corsair. You understand? There's something more. I read the survivor's statement, it's in the naval archives. There are pieces that don't fit together. And then his sudden disappearance. Pouf! Vanished into thin air.” was also carrying a mystery on board,” she said. ”Those two pa.s.sengers, the interception by the corsair. You understand? There's something more. I read the survivor's statement, it's in the naval archives. There are pieces that don't fit together. And then his sudden disappearance. Pouf! Vanished into thin air.”

She had put out her cigarette, crus.h.i.+ng it until the last little ember was extinguished. She is one tenacious girl, Coy said to himself. No one who wasn't would have got this far, nor would she have those poker-player eyes, or crush the life out of cigarettes as if she were murdering them. This babe knows exactly what she wants. And I, for good or for ill, am standing right in her path.

”There are treasures,” she said, ”that don't have a price.”