This clinic was way different to the hospitals in New York, hearing Elena's cries I dropped the cuddly crash bandicoot - fox thing, and quickly made my way back to Elena. Bursting open the ward door, she lay on the bed with the doctor and nurse by her side.
"Push Mrs Drake, push…"
"I am pushing…"
I think I was more nervous, than she was – but I remained calm.
"It's okay Elena, just keep pushing, don't panic, breath, just breath, there's no need to panic, just push…."
I really needed to learn when to be quiet.
"Nate…really, calm down, just hold my haa…nddd."
Elena was trying hard as she could, I couldn't help thinking about how much pain she might be in and couldn't believe how exciting this was to watch my, wife give birth to our child.
"One more Mrs Drake, I can see the head."
I held on to Elena's hand tight and we looked at each other with joy and hope as Cassie came into the world. My life was full of adventure stories, and now a new chapter had begun.
The small, beautiful baby girl lay in Elena's arms, and I swore never to allow her life to be put in danger.
…
"Cassie! Slow down…" She wasn't listening as she peddled faster and faster, I knew there was a hill up ahead and it was a steep climb. "Slow your bike down Cass," she could see the hill was coming and decided to take a trail off road.
"Dad, mom, this way."
It was as though she knew the route, a trail had been laid out for her. I look behind as Elena struggled to keep up. "Cassie slowdown a bit, ya' mom's outta breath."
"I'm….fine….I can keep up…."
It wasn't just Elena feeling it, it was happening to me - the tiredness setting in. I pushed harder and gained some more speed. The trees went whizzing by as the trail went high and low – I needed to cut her off somehow, I needed to go a different route.
Looking back at Elena, she appeared a bit tired for this race. "Elena, you wait here, I'll be right back."
"Go….get….her back…"
Jumping on the embankment below Cassie's trail. The ground was much muddier on this route, I figured I could get some more speed and traction with the wheels. "Wooah, Nate, that was a close one." Nearly falling off the side and into the river.
"Bugs, get off me," the quicker I peddled, the more I was being bombarded with tiny creatures, bashing at my skin. "Pwwweeh," spitting them out of my mouth as they flew in. The sun trying to break through the trees. I could see Cassie above me and now realised where she was heading. The rock face was high, and it was clear she wanted to get to the top to the see the amazing view.
She was fearless, six years old and there was no stopping her.
I didn't realise I ran out of road as I looked down below and noticed I was no longer on the ground, the ramp's angle pushed me closer to the rock face as I reached for a tree to hang on to. "Wooh, wooh wooh," the bike fell into the river below and crashed into the rocks as I hung on to the branch.
It snapped….
"Waahhh."
I flew off and landed on the rock face. I began climbing up, I hadn't done this in a while. The ledges were just thin enough for me to get my fingers in as they helped me traverse the rock face, jumping from one rock to another. "Careful Nate," I made it as I climbed up and peered my head over the top of the rock, the dust whispering near my face – which left looking at Cassie's feet.
"Dad, what are you doing?"
"Nothing….just….I'll be fine…."
I climbed up and put my arm around Cassie as we looked out at the view of this paradise Island. We could see a small town in the distance and the river below.
"MOM! Up here…." She shouted at Elena below who looked small from up here, but I could sense she was smiling back at us – she put her hand in the air and waved. We looked over the edge at the river.
"Dad is that your bike?"
…
"Come on dad, you're too slow."
I ran after Cassie as she jumped into the ocean, I had the feeling she was a born swimmer, just like her old man. I stopped and watched her and shouted not to get too close to the rocks. She loved the ocean; we showed her pictures of the places her parents had been, either on vacation, or the salvage jobs I'd deep sea dived on – and of the sights we'd seen. Hiding the fact that we'd been shot at most of these exotic locations.
We had shown her some utopian places already, and now she was eight, she'd been on more adventures and seen more places than Elena, Sully, Sam and I ever saw when we were her age.
"Hey Kid, she's a natural." Sully had joined us, and we watched as Cassie swam in the ocean.
"Is her grandfather gonna go in and join her?"
"Nate, less of the grandpa shit, I told her to call me Uncle Sully." He said, I thought he wasn't too bothered about being an older role model, but after Cassie made him look old – he wanted to live through Cassie's vicarious young life.
Sully had taken to her, although he was technically her surrogate Grandfather, he felt young around her and pushed Cassie to call him Uncle. She had an uncle, Sam, but he couldn't join us today. Sully and me, watched Cassie swim like a fish.
Elena came over to us with some cold drinks. She was wearing blue denim shorts, just up to her ankles and a white shirt. Her hair a fleece of golden blonde in the sun light, which she'd tied it back showing her beautiful features. The sun shone on her and she looked beautiful standing in the light.
I smiled at her…
"Nate, you're looking at me weird…"
"Sorry, I was just admiring the view."
"Okay, weirdo..."
I showed her weirdo, as I grabbed her letting Sully get the drinks before they spilled on the beach. She laughed, and I kissed her and dropped her before she hit the ground. She looked back at me, and we smiled and kissed again.
"DAD HELP!" I heard the cries from Cassie, I dropped Elena on the sand and ran and dived in the water. Swimming towards her as she got nearer the rocks.
"Cassie? Cassie are you okay?" Each pull of the water got me closer, I could see her, bobbing up and down in the waves. "Cassie, I've got you, I've got you."
She had seen something under the ocean, a gold coin. She wanted it so badly. I went under and looked for it. The gold, blue and black fish swam past me, as I turned some rocks upside down. The seaweed majestically moved with the flow of the water. I could see what she was looking for.
I came up and shoved my head above the water, spitting out the salty drink. "I've got it.."
We made it back to shore where Sully wrapped Cassie in a towel and started to dry her off.
"Mom, Uncle Sully, look its treasure….I bet you've never found treasure before?"
We all looked at one another and said:
"Nope."
"Nah ah."
"You kidding me kid, that's a find right there."
The ground started to shake, and the beach turned into quicksand as we all sank towards the bottom. Cassie was first to disappear, then Elena, Sully and eventually me. As I sank deeper into the ground the warmness of water touched my feet, I was slowing sinking into the ocean. The water became dark and murky. I could see Elena and Sully and tried to reach for them. Cassie was holding out her arms and trying to reach for me. I reached out in the darkness of the water and started to yell.
Waking up I spat water out of my mouth, coughing up more as I was lying on a beach side with Elena and Sully over me – blocking the sun.
"Nate, Nate….?"
"Goddamn kid, you gave us quite a scare."
I quickly got up and touched the cut on my eye – where I must've hit a rock. The sunlight was bright, but I looked where we were, we were near the cove but away from the soldiers. Sully and Elena must have got me to the beach somehow. I could see Sully was shot, but it didn't seem to affect him too much. We still needed to get him to a hospital, but first we needed to get back to the hotel and try and work all this out.
Back at the hotel
Elena and I got Sully on the wooden bed, he lay over the sheets, she'd bandaged him up pretty good. I started to pace the room, thinking about what just happened and where the hell, Redd was going, with my daughter. Sully didn't want to lay down he wanted to get up and go after them too, but we had no idea where they were going.
"Sully, you need a doctor."
"I'll be fine kid," he didn't want to feel useless, I could see that, but his wound needed looking at. I knew someone on the island who could help and called her to come over and see for herself.
"Her kid?"
"Yes, her and behave yourself," he started to get up again.
"I need to get up for her."
"Yes, that's what worries me." Elena pushed him back down and fluffed up his pillow. He asked for a Scotch, but I didn't have anything to give him.
"Sully what the hell are you doing here?" Elena was moving away from being night nurse and more about being a Gestapo interrogator.
"Shit Sully, what just happened?"
"Sorry kid, you know what Cassie's like, adventures in her blood. She sounded and acted just like you." He was saying words that scared me, I didn't want her to grow up like me and I would never have imagined anything like this.
"Well…when I catch up to her, I'll tell her to act more like her mom."
"What does that mean?" Elena said looking a bit angry about my words.
"I didn't mean...anyway we need to figure out where Redd is taking Cassie, what was on the craft?"
Elena started to cry, and I could see she was very upset, I held her in my arms and said I would get her back, I promise. The picture of Redd Fisher on the wall was staring at me. The profile shot of him looking smart and very rich. I imagined and an evil grin on his face.
I couldn't stop thinking about Cassie, worried how scared she was. I knew she was brave and convinced myself she'd be okay. There didn't seem to be a point to Redd kidnapping her, but there was something else about all this – something I had forgotten about – some other mystery to be solved.
"Sully, why were you making a deal with the guy who kidnapped your granddaughter?"
"Sam asked me to help him out, he'd been down on his luck….and," hearing my brother's name, with luck in the same sentence was not surprising, but had Sam made a deal with the devil?
"What did Sam ask you to do?" Elena stepped away from me and walked next to Sully, she wanted to know what was going on. But I had an idea where this was going.
"He needed the money, it's complicated kid. He wants the money to find the treasure he's pining for."
"If this was what I thought it was, then Sam had seen what I'd seen in the news recently. I thought he'd given up trying to finance a treasure hunt, but I knew you could take a Drake out of the hunt, but you can't take the hunt out of the Drake. He couldn't stop trying to find new ways to get back out there and search for gold – which would most likely end at the bottom of the ocean. He always wanted to aim that much higher, the hunt was never over for him.
I walked to my drawer and took out the journal, the leather was worn and the feel of it made all the memories come racing back; some were great; some were fantastic – and the rest scared the shit out of me. Flicking through the pages I showed Sully one half of a map I had drawn, years ago.
"Sully is this what Sam was searching for?" The rough sketch of the map, I had near the back of the journal, reminded me that this would be the final location I'd hope to find. I had forgotten about it until learning what Redd Fisher was up to.
"Jesus, kid where did you find that?"
"History class…"
I told them that this was a fragment of a map my history teacher gave me. It was secret and no one else knew about it. Apparently, it had been found after Nuno Da Silva's great grandfather's ship was boarded.
"Tomas Sinclair found it on the captain's desk, this wasn't the only thing they found…they also found a young man with strange markings on his back and plenty of dead bodies."
'The ship was dead in the water; the crew were dead on the ship. There had been some altercation on board and the men had turn against one another. When we found the slaves, we removed which ones were left alive. I had never seen anything like it, it was the devil's work. I found the captain dead in his cabin. He was holding a map, but it looked incomplete. It wasn't an Island I recognised in these waters and this ship's charts were searching for the island – they didn't want to move away too far. It had to be here, somewhere around Africa.'
"I think Redd Fisher is going to this island," I read out the excerpt from the captain's notes, I had to fill in the blanks as some of the words in the text my history teacher let me see were damaged. We spent a few nights trying to work it out – hiding it from Sam and the sisters - and it was always a mystery.
"Where is this African Island? And what's there?"
"No idea where it is, but I have a good idea what's there."
This was going to be another one of those I explain the story to the group situations, but I didn't have all the answers. I only had this one fragment of the map, it wasn't even a complete half, and all accounts from Silva, and Captain Tomas Sinclair, pointed to the fact, they needed both parts to find the island. I had a feeling that Redd Fisher had found the complete map - somehow.
"So, what's on the island?" Sully had the look of dollar signs in his eyes.
A few pages toward the back of the book, had a cut-out of a tear drop shape, inside was a fragment of a stone. It was red and sparkled in the light. I showed them this small piece of heliotrope. "This…well the full thing – the real thing."
I remember finding a small piece of the original during Eddie's pirate shootout. Why Eddie thought it was a good idea to put explosive barrels on his boats was anyone's guess - rest in peace buddy. I saw this small, fragmented, gemstone inside Sir Francis Drake's coffin and kept a hold of it. But once I had traversed Eddie's fortress, I must've lost it swinging from the vines.
To remind myself that it needed looking into, I got a very small stone fragment to place in this spot right at the back of my journal – if ever there was a chance to do one last find – this would be it.
"Nate, what does this have to do with anything?"
"Guys, this could've been a part of the jewel Drake wore, well, the real jewel – not this exactly."
"Hold on kid, you're not making any sense."
It was a reach, but the accounts of how Drake obtained the jewel are suspicious. The jewel was put inside a necklace and may have been damaged, but the one in the Victoria & Albert Museum in the U.K. isn't damaged. I'd seen it enough times to know that. At first, I thought it could just be from some other jewel he had in his possession.
Sully decided to give me a history lesson, "I thought Queen Elizabeth gave the jewel to him in commemoration of his defeat of the Spanish – in 1588?"
"Wow Sully, I'm impressed."
"Being with you kid, I've learnt a few things."
"We know the jewel was given to him between 1540 and 1596, but the date on the jewel reads 1586." Elena looked at me puzzled, she knew about Sir Francis Drake as much as I did, I'd talked to her about him enough times.
"Nate, why would he be given such an illustrious gift? Especially by the Queen." Elena was thinking about what I had said before, about receiving jewellery from Queen Elizabeth. She continued, "she really had to like you, you'd be in the tower if not, right?"
The key to finding Cassie's whereabouts was here somewhere in all of this. I mentioned about the possibility of the jewel being made in 1586 but believed there to be more to the jewel than we've all grown up hearing and reading about.
"So what Nate, Redd is after this jewel, what's so special about it? And where is Cassie?" Taking Elena's laptop, I powered it up and showed her Drake's necklace – sometimes worn around his neck and other times worn around his side.
"We know Drake was a slave trader." I showed them the history around that but pointed to two people on the necklace – a West African Man and a Romanian Woman.
"Who are they?"
"No one knows, but I think the man's profile is likely to do with the West African Slave Trade…"
"And the woman?"
"No clue." It was a mystery I'd been trying to solve for a long time, it was as though these two people were important to him, or important to a select few who knew them. Could they have the location to the stone? Were they responsible for the creation of the stone? I knew then when Drake circumnavigated the globe with Nuno Da Silva, they brought all manner of treasures, pearls, rubies and diamonds with them. I believed it was forged using those, but I also think a rare stone was part of the creation of the jewellery – the stone of Eve.
I started to walk around the room ready to get excited about the jewel and what secrets it may hold, but I was interrupted with knocking coming from the hotel room door. KNOCK
KNOCK
KNOCK
I reached for my weapon, and really didn't want to start shooting inside a hotel, it wouldn't be too long before the authorities on the island made their way to the cove and saw bodies of Matvey's soldiers lying face down in the sand.
KNOCK
KNOCK
"Mr Drake, it's Acindina, you ask me to help – Mr Sullivan."
"Yes, right, sorry…." I made my way to the door and let her in, she walked past me in a hurry. Spotted Sully and walked straight towards him.
"We need to get him to the hospital, it's 'good bandage, but he needs medical care."
Sully was looking at her, undressing her with his eyes. She was in her forties, so it wasn't too gross a picture.
"You heard the lady, but first I wanna hear more about this jewel, sounds expensive."
Joined by Acindina I put my gun down and began talking about the jewel in more detail.
…
After they all heard it, I couldn't tell if they were gonna burst out laughing or thought the concept could be possible. Elena had understood what I was saying, she'd heard my stories about what I'd seen – even though sometimes I couldn't explain what I'd seen.
"So, you think that's why he's after it, and what, that's how you believed Drake won the war against the Spaniards?"
They couldn't believe what I told them, it was too fantastic a theory, when the words left my mouth, but if Redd believed it had that power – he'd stop at nothing to get it.
"Elena, can you stay with Sully, I need help, and there's only one more person who I trust to help me find Cassie – I'm gonna go to England and together we'll find a way to get Cassie back safe."
"Who?"
Thanks for reading, we'll continue the adventure next time as we find out who else Nathan can trust, what powers does the jewel hold and how does Redd Fisher even know about all this? Hope you've enjoyed this chapter and are looking forward to reading the next part.