"Lord Beckett! What mark did Jack leave on you?"
April 1743. A small colonial building on the Dutch side of St. Maarten. Night-time.
"Sir! The prisoners are escaping!"
I look up from the log book I was reading. "Their leader?"
"Jack Sparrow, sir."
The prison doors hang open as I interrogate the guard.
"I swear on pain of death, sir, he overpowered me!" The officer was near tears.
"Where was he headed?" I demand of him.
"I don't kn--to get the key,sir?" I would assume so, I thought, it was the very thing he
was after when we captured him.
A ransacked office. Overturned chairs. Torn curtains.
"Sparrow means business." I head to my safe but freeze as a terrifying memory surfaces:
The empty safe. The key, in a small wooden
chest, tucked safely into my jacket. Me, putting
the key in its new place under my bed.
At home.
The key was at home.
And Jack Sparrow was going to stop at nothing to get that key.
I ran.
The door was already open when I got there. The bed was overturned, the key gone, and signs of struggle lead to the kitchen.
Where, in a puddle of blood, lay my wife and newborn child.
.