Chapter 41: Blackbeard’s Secret Contact
Silence lingered after Thatch’s last words. Clearly, one was thoroughly pleased with himself and the other was deciding whether to indulge him.
James let it hang for a few moments. It seemed only fair.
Behind them, both crews finished their work. Boots thudded across the planking, coils of rope hit the deck. Another fella chuckled at a joke that had already been told too many times. Out on the water, the burning sloop had nearly burned itself out. What had been a blaze was little more than glowing embers now.
"Aye, well."
James turned toward him. "Before you get too pleased with yerself, let me remind you of somethin’. I used my lass as a ram, grapeshot tore across the whole bloody deck, and a sloop was lining up behind me while yer guns were pointin’ at little more than smoke and silver. The Rose did the bleedin’, Thatch. You just arrived in time to look impressive."
Thatch laughed, full and boisterous.
"That’s exactly why I like you, Calloway."
He rested against the rail, his grin fading into something more businesslike. "Right then. You wanted to know what I know."
"After spendin’ the night dangling it in front o’ me? Aye."
"There’s a man in Pensacola, La Florida."
Thatch spoke as though stating something beyond question. "Juan de Ayala y Escobar. Spanish officer, been serving His Majesty for years. He’s got his eye on becoming governor of Florida one day. Trouble is, ambition like that costs money. More than a colonial salary’s ever likely to provide."
James folded his arms.
"So how does he make up the difference?"
"However the opportunity presents itself."
Thatch grinned. "A merchant limps into port missing his cargo, and somehow Juan’s the one who found it. A few chests of silver change hands, a few documents get scratched out and written again, and by the time the ink dries it’s Spanish silver bought fair and proper."
James watched him for a moment. There was no hesitation in the man’s voice. Thatch spoke of it the way a merchant might speak of lawful business.
"And nobody questions it?"
Thatch snorted.
"Who’s going to? Havana?"
He waved a hand toward the empty sea. "They’re days away and fat with bigger problems. Juan sends ’em their reports, they stamp ’em, and everybody goes home happy. He pockets his share, we pocket ours, and everyone pretends the silver’s was never robbed from Spain."
James looked out across the dark water.
"How much’s his share?"
Thatch scratched his beard, "A percentage of the value. We’ll settle the exact figure when we’re standing in front of him. Usually somewhere between fifteen and thirty percent, depending on his mood and how much he wants to convince us he’s being generous."
James nodded as another piece clicked into place.
"And the mortar." He looked back at Thatch. "That came from him."
"Aye. The extra guns too."
Thatch shrugged. "A man planning to become governor keeps friends in the armory. Those friends normally stop asking questions when the silver they receive’s worth more than the weapons themselves."
A quiet breath escaped James, somewhere between a laugh and genuine admiration.
"So he’s more than a middleman."
"Much more."
"More, a nosy bastard with his hands in the Crown’s own weapons."
"That he has."
James looked past Thatch toward the dying wrecks. A man who could pull guns from a Spanish armory without anyone noticing was a key contact. A man who’d been doing it for years without getting caught was something else entirely.
He looked back.
"And Havana’s never gone lookin’?"
Thatch gave a dismissive snort. "They won’t find anything worth finding. He’s been at this longer than I’ve known him. Too clever to leave traces some drunken customs clerk could follow."
He shrugged. "Men like Juan don’t live long by drawin’ attention to themselves. He keeps it quiet, keeps it profitable, and everyone walks away richer."
James gave a slow nod.
That answered one concern.
There was another.
"And what about his politics?"
He scratched idly at his chin. "The Flying Gang, Hornigold. Does any of that matter to him?"
"Not in the slightest."
Thatch leaned back against the rail. "Juan doesn’t give a damn whose flag’s flying so long as the silver spends. I’ve traded with him before. Never had cause to doubt him."
James considered it one last time.
Once he reached a decision, it came quickly, as they always did.
He gave a single nod. "Pensacola it is."
They both pushed away from the rail at the same moment. The conversation ended as simply as it had begun.
"Try not to sink anything else before we get there, Calloway."
"Away with ye, Thatch. That ram was the finest bit o’ seamanship anyone managed all night."
Still laughing, Thatch swung down toward his own boat.
James went his way back to the Rose.
The last of the cargo disappeared below as the crew finished loading in the darkness. Chests rose hand over hand over the side before vanishing into the hold and lines were neatly coiled and stowed. Hatches were secured over a cargo deck far heavier than it had been at dawn the previous day.
Behind them, the three stripped merchant ships floated high in the water, pale shadows against the darker sea. Their surviving crews remained aboard, left with whatever conversations men found after watching every ship sent to protect them burn in less than an hour. Farther away, the last wrecks of the Guarda Costa still glowed with low orange fire, untended and already fading into memory.
Neither pirate ship spared them another glance.
Canvas climbed both masts almost together, catching what wind remained. The Rose and the Revenge turned onto a new heading, leaving the wreckage behind as they steered toward open water. Both ships rode lower than they had the night before, burdened with more silver than either vessel had ever carried.
Cudjoe found James standing at the wheel after the Rose settled onto her course.
James explained their destination and the agreement in only a few sentences. It was everything a quartermaster needed to know and nothing more.
Cudjoe listened, looked once toward the horizon where Pensacola lay beyond sight, and said nothing.
For Cudjoe, that silence was answer enough.
James left him to the wheel and headed below.
The cabin greeted him with the familiar tilt as the deck above. The lamp swayed gently from its hook and the bunk waited where it always had, the one that had held him bleeding and barely aware less than three weeks earlier.
He dropped onto it without removing his boots.
Only now, with nothing left demanding his attention, did the night’s aches begin to catch up with him.
A cargo packed with silver.
A valuable new contact with friends inside the Spanish armory.
A crew that had survived grapeshot, a collision, and everything else the night had thrown at them, emerging richer and mostly alive.
Things could have turned out a great deal worse.
How much worse he was about to find, as the ship and crew display appeared in front of him.
