Knight's Cross (The Shipwreck Adventures Book 3) Read online

  He heard voices above him. He did not move. He waited.

  The voices faded, and the next noise was the popping and crunching sound of tires on gravel. The engine revved up and then the noise receded as the car moved on down the road.

  This was simply another test. There had been so many, these past six years. Lesser men would never have been able to endure, of that he was certain. His body had been damaged, but his will had been hardened by the fire. That he survived could only be seen as a miracle.

  All those years ago, his mother had read stories to him from her Bible. She told him that only God performed miracles. Dig knew better. He was the one who’d been burned over half his body when the gas in the bilge of that speedboat exploded in a fireball. He’d clung to consciousness and avoided Riley as she swam around the boat, searching for Cole. The first boat on the scene had been manned by a paramedic who had agreed to secrecy at the promise of a bribe. And later, the French doctor who treated him told Diggory he was lucky—that it was the immediate immersion in cool salt water that had saved what little skin he had left.

  Diggory knew it was neither luck nor the hand of God. As Nietzsche had said, he was of “a higher sovereign species . . . Not merely a master race whose sole task is to rule, but a race with its own sphere of life, with an excess of strength.” With every test life had thrown at him, Diggory had proven his superiority.

  But just because he had acquired the strength to overcome the damage from the accident, that did not mean he forgave her. It was because of her that people now stared at him, and not for his good looks. She’d have to pay for what she had done to him.

  At each step of his early recovery, he had eliminated those who nursed him, helped him, rehabilitated him—and he felt no remorse. Those who felt bound to a moral code proved only that they were weak and not fit to live.

  The supreme ruler was coming back to purge the world of his enemies and all the barbarians. These Knights of Malta were weak with their religious zealotry, but they served his intentions well for the moment. They sure as hell knew how to start up a good war.

  Aboard Bonefish

  Adakoy, Turkey

  April 10, 2014

  Riley crawled out from under the chart table and squirmed to her feet in the tight little galley. Compared to the new boat Cole was having built, her sailboat had started to feel small and cramped. It hadn’t always been that way. Eight years earlier, when she was newly discharged from the Corps and trying to figure out what to do with the rest of her life, she had stopped to see a broker in Annapolis on a whim. He’d shown her several boats at Jabin’s Yacht Yard on Back Creek, but the Caliber 40 had felt like home. She’d fallen in love with the stout vessel, in spite of the fact that it was bound to be a handful to manage solo. Her offer had been accepted that afternoon.

  Riley closed her eyes and rolled her head around, bending her neck as far as she could in each direction. Her hand went to the right side of her neck and massaged the sore muscles there. She felt the ridges of the old scar tissue through her thin T-shirt. The chronic pain from the old burns continued to haunt her.

  It was time for an exercise break. She’d been pulling wire all morning for the new electronic chart plotter she was installing at the nav station, and her shoulder and back were killing her.

  In the companionway, she leaned her back against the head door and slid down into her isometric squat position. She tightened her muscles and breathed deeply. It wasn’t always easy keeping fit on the boat, but she had developed a routine of exercises that used the boat’s interior furnishings as her gym.

  All morning, Riley had been going over her memories of yesterday’s car crash. She relived the concussion of the collision, how she’d felt momentarily disoriented. But her seat belt had held, and, though the wind was knocked out of her, she hadn’t hit her head. She realized they’d been rear-ended, and she’d turned when Cole had told her to look. She’d caught only a brief glimpse of the man. He was wearing a long overcoat, so she could make out little of his body or frame. Tall, with long, stringy, salt-and-pepper hair that hung to his shoulders. His face looked scarred, like maybe he had suffered a severe case of teen acne, and he ran with a herky-jerky motion that suggested a limp. The man looked decades older than Dig.

  Cole had refused her suggestion of a trip back to town to see a doctor. She thought his nose might be broken, and, if she were honest with herself, she thought he might need a doctor to look at both the outside and inside of his head. Seriously? Diggory Priest? After all they had been through with Skull and Bones and the Enterprise, she just wanted to put it all behind her.

  But Cole had tried their car, found it would start, and driven it on to the boatyard. He’d insisted he didn’t want to get involved with the Turkish police, and besides, they weren’t at fault.

  Now she was on her back with her legs in the air, doing the hundred-breath exercise, when she heard the familiar noise of the dinghy’s outboard engine approaching. She jumped to her feet.

  It was early for Cole to be returning to the boat. She checked the brass clock on the bulkhead. Only 4:00 p.m. More often than not, these days, he was late getting back. She had learned not to think about dinner before 7:00.

  She climbed the steps into the cockpit and watched as he tied the dinghy painter to the radar post and climbed the transom steps.

  “What’s up?”

  Cole slipped the backpack off his back. “Nothing.” Both his eyes had dark circles under them—a pair of shiners from their rear-end collision.

  “This is awfully early for you. Is your nose bothering you?”

  When she saw those dimples framing that smile, the old familiar heat bomb went off in her core. Heart, tummy, and everything south of there reacted to this man, and it had been the same ever since the first time she’d plucked him naked out of the sea off Guadeloupe, six years earlier. It was physical and beyond her control.

  “No, actually, things went really well in the yard today. I feel great. Theo and the guys are going to finish up early this afternoon, so they’ll be ready to tackle the generator problems tomorrow. I think we might actually be able to launch next week.”

  “That’s great news!”

  “Yeah,” he said, nodding, “it is.” He set his backpack on the cockpit table. “But there’s something I’ve been wanting to talk to you about. Is now okay?”

  “Hey, I’d much rather spend my time with you than bent up like a contortionist under the chart table. You want a beer?”

  “Sure.”

  Riley went below to get the brews out of the fridge. When she returned and sat next to him on the cockpit seat, he took a long drink from the chilled bottle before speaking.

  “Riley, I had hoped to put all this behind us. I couldn’t bear it if something happened to you because of me.”

  “I’m not sure what you’re afraid of.”

  “That’s what I’m here to explain. I told you that I’d become interested in the Knights of Malta because of my father.” He reached into the backpack and withdrew a leather-bound journal.

  Riley recognized the book. She’d been in possession of the last one of the three books during the four years Cole had disappeared from her life. The journal had become a treasured link to the man she thought she’d lost, and she spent many nights reading through the pages, looking for some link to Cole.

  “My dad started writing in these after my folks divorced and he returned to England. A way of talking to his son across the ocean. The first one was mostly written when I was just a kid. He wasn’t so opinionated then.”

  “Yeah, ‘opinionated’ is putting it mildly.”

  “Opinions that got him killed.”

  “Don’t forget they killed my father, too.”

  On the Docks

  Vittoriosa, Malta

  February 9, 1798

  Since her father was having a good morning, Arzella seized the opportunity to get out and walk down to the market. How she longed to smell the sea air. She slung her
shopping basket over her arm and slipped out the door.

  As she descended the stepped street, she heard singing and laughter from the many balconies that overhung it. Everyone had their shutters thrown open on this warm winter morning, and the joy in the sunny day was infectious.

  Soon she began to catch glimpses of the deep-blue water of Grand Harbour between the stone buildings. Arzella wished she could go sailing, as she had done when she was a girl. At least she could stop by the wharf to visit her uncle aboard his fishing boat, the Emily. She hoped he’d have a nice fish for her to take home for her father’s supper. It was growing more and more difficult to get him to eat, but her father loved his fish.

  After purchasing some vegetables, she strolled over to the fish market and located the Emily.

  “Arzella, I was just thinking about you! I swear, you are more like your mother every day.”

  “Good morning, Uncle Edward,” she said, enjoying the feeling of the smile on her face and the English language on her tongue. “How am I like my mother?”

  “Whenever I would think of my dear sister Emily, she would appear as though she knew I needed her. Clairvoyant, she was.”

  “Oh my. Now that’s funny, Uncle Edward. Your dear sister. I remember Mum telling me how the two of you used to fight all the time. You don’t have to make her out to be something she wasn’t. I won’t forget her.”

  Her uncle jumped from the gunwale of his boat to the wharf and landed in front of her. He kissed her on both cheeks. “I have no fear of that. She’s been gone eight years now, and I miss her more each day. She was an extraordinary woman.” He patted the top of Arzella’s head. “Like her beautiful daughter.”

  She brushed his hand away. “Uncle, please. I am not a child anymore.”

  He laughed. “That is evident. Come aboard. You can have the pick of my catch. Take my hand.”

  Arzella lifted her skirts several inches and jumped across the water. “Too late!” Her feet landed on the fishing boat’s wooden rub rail. “Min jorqod ma jaqbadx hut,” she said in Maltese. It was an expression used by the locals: Those who sleep late do not catch fish.

  She pivoted and scooted her backside onto the gunwale, lifted her feet, and swung them over and onto the deck.

  Her uncle shook his head. “I should have known,” he said. “I’m the one who taught you not to depend on me when we went to sea. I said you needed to be able to get around the boat on your own.”

  “And now I can!” Arzella spread her arms wide and twirled in the middle of the deck. “Oh, Uncle, how I miss those days. I got to wear trousers instead of these stupid skirts.” She brushed at the folds of fabric that surrounded her legs. “And no one told me that I couldn’t possibly sail because I was a girl.”

  Edward leapt to the top of the gunwale and swung from the ratlines to the deck. “That’s because, given the way you were dressed, no one knew you were a girl. But those days have come to an end, Arzella. Now you must act like a lady, or you will never find a husband.”

  She walked to a large wood box and opened the top. Inside, layers of fish rested on leaves of seaweed. “Who says I want one?”

  “Do not speak like that. Your father wants more than anything to see you married. You must grant him that.”

  “Hmm. We shall see.” How she hated that word must.

  Edward stepped over to the box and pointed to a large monkfish. “That one. Your father will love it.”

  Arzella nodded and her uncle wrapped the fish in seaweed. She placed it in her basket.

  “I should get back to him.”

  “Take your time. I was just about to deliver this last box of fish and then go pay my brother-in-law a visit myself. I’ll stay with him until you return. You deserve some time off.”

  She kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you, Uncle Edward. I won’t be long.”

  Arzella climbed up onto the gunwale and leapt across to the dock.

  “Don’t hurry. Enjoy your freedom!” Edward called after her.

  Arzella wandered down the quay in the direction of Fort Saint Angelo, the Knights’ main armory and the place where local legend claimed they kept their treasure in a vast round room at the center of the fortress. She didn’t think much of legends of that sort, nor of the Knights. Most of them she had met had little money, yet lived above their means. Gossip, gaming, and dueling seemed their favorite pastimes—other than lounging about the taverns in Valletta and Vittoriosa. They really were good for nothing, as far as she was concerned, yet they treated anyone not of noble blood as though they were dogs.

  Take that Knight who had come into their shop a couple of days ago. What right had he to scold her for speaking her mind? Didn’t he know that, after the events in France, the world was changing? She pictured him standing there, his open mouth gaping like a black cavern in the midst of his red whiskers. Normally, she thought redheaded men looked weak and silly, but that man’s hair and beard were more the color of chestnuts than of carrots. It was not wholly unpleasant to look at.

  Several of the fishermen called out to her as she ambled along, enjoying the heat of the sun through her shawl. She took a deep breath and savored the smell of the sea and the docks. How she missed those days when her mother was alive and she got to roam these docks every spare moment she had. With her mother gone and her father’s illness causing him to grow blind, there was no more time for sailing with her uncle. She’d had to learn her father’s trade to keep food on their table.

  Still, she was proud of the work she did. There was very little in the shop that remained of her father’s work, but few people knew that truth. Every piece she made carried the stamp of Pierre Brun.

  “Bonjour!” Another voice called out from the water’s edge.

  Arzella smiled and shaded her eyes from the sun. She could not see the man on the boat who called out to her, but she assumed it was someone she had known as a girl on the Emily. She raised the hand at her brow in a brief wave and kept walking.

  Behind her, she heard the thudding of boots running on a ship’s deck, and then someone leapt onto the quay, so close she felt the wind on the back of her neck. Laughing, she turned around, but her laughter broke off. The reddish beard was unmistakable.

  He was out of breath from running. “I recognized you from the silver shop the other day.”

  She stepped back and stared.

  “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

  Silly man, she wasn’t frightened. But confused? Perhaps. Arzella stepped to the edge of the quay and examined the vessel. “A xebec,” she said. “That is a corsair’s boat.”

  “You have some knowledge of boats.”

  She stared into his eyes for several long seconds, then pressed her lips together in a false smile and said, “Hmm. Yes. Some knowledge.”

  “This vessel is the Ruse.”

  Arzella noticed an older Maltese man sitting on a barrel on deck and smoking a pipe. He was watching the young Knight intently.

  “Sir għodwa t-tajba. Do you know this Knight?” She spoke in Maltese.

  The man removed the pipe from his mouth and rubbed his chin. He replied in Maltese. “Good morning to you, madam. Yes, I have made his acquaintance. I sail as first mate and navigator on this ship.”

  Alonso looked at the man and called out in French, “Nikola, what are you saying to her?”

  “So he is a naval man?” she asked the first mate.

  “No, mademoiselle, the Ruse here is his own ship. He is the last corsair Knight in Malta, and, if I may say, the best. He is Chevalier Alonso Montras from Aragon, the great-grandson of Le Rouge de Malte. We have just returned from a successful sortie.”

  “How successful?”

  “We took an Arab dhow twice our size.”

  Arzella raised her eyebrows.

  Alonso tried to step between Arzella and the man. “What is he saying to you? My friend likes to joke. If he is saying terrible things about me, don’t believe him.”

  She turned back to the Knight. “He say
s you have some knowledge of boats,” she said.

  From the Maltese she heard a low chuckle.

  The red-bearded Knight raised his eyebrows. “Some knowledge? Ha! You are an impertinent girl.”

  Arzella took note of the rope work, the paint, and the canvas. The xebec had been maintained in superb condition. There was no indication she had just been in a battle.

  The Knight continued. “I would like to show you my knowledge of boats and the sea. Nikola and I must move the Ruse off the wharf now that we have finished unloading. You may watch as we depart for the anchorage.”

  Arzella reached up and plucked a hair from her head. She held it aloft. “The winds are freshening from the west. You’ll have no problem getting out of Dockyard Creek here, but you will have to tack up Grand Harbour to reach the anchorage. You could use a third hand on a boat this size.”

  Alonso turned to Nikola. “Did you hear that? Have you ever heard such things from a maid? She thinks she knows something of sailing!”

  Nikola replied, “She merely repeats the same facts I have just finished telling you. It will be a difficult beat up the harbor.”

  Arzella said, “I would be delighted to spend a bit of time on a sailing boat.”

  Alonso turned, bowed at the waist, and swung his hand through the air toward his vessel. “Mademoiselle, you are welcome to come watch us work.”

  She was amused by the look on the Knight’s face when she hiked her skirts above her ankles and walked across the narrow gangplank unassisted.

  “Let’s go,” she told the Maltese. He reached for her hand. She shook her head and jumped to the deck. “Min jorqod ma jaqbadx hut,” she said.

  The expression caused the older man to laugh out loud. “L’Angel, I think we are the ones who are going to be watching!”

  Aboard Bonefish

  Adakoy, Turkey

  April 10, 2014

  “We both know who killed your father, Riley. You were there.”

  She closed her eyes for a moment and fought against the images from that day that popped up on her mind’s screen every time she thought about her father. Again she heard her father saying there was nothing he could have done to stop his Skull and Bones from killing her brother, Michael. She wasn’t sure which man disgusted her more—her father or the man who had killed him. “Please, Cole. Let’s not get started about Diggory Priest again.”