 
Time Ship

### (Book One)

A Time Travel Romantic Adventure

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By

IAN C.P. IRVINE

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Published by Ian C. P. Irvine on Smashwords

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Copyright 2013 IAN C.P. IRVINE

### The new exciting adventure novel for grown-ups and teenagers where 'The Perfect Storm' meets 'The Philadelphia Experiment' meets 'Pirates of the Caribbean' meets 'Contagion'.

### For my friends Brian Patterson, Rudiger Rohloff and Jerome Connor.

Absent but never forgotten. I miss you.

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright observed above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Please note: This is the first book in a two part series. The story begins with Book One and carries on seamlessly and concludes with Book Two.

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Alternatively, you will have the option to purchase an Omnibus version containing both Book One and Book Two, which readers are strongly recommended to purchase.

Other Books by Ian C.P. Irvine

Haunted from Within

Haunted From Without

The Orlando File

Crown of Thorns: The Race to Clone Jesus Christ

London 2012 : What If?

The Sleeping Truth : A Romantic Medical Thriller

Alexis Meets Wiziwam the Wizard

### Please note: This is the first part in a two part series. The story begins with Book One, continues and concludes with Book Two. Readers who wish to read the whole series in one book are strongly recommended to purchase the Omnibus Edition: Time Ship (Omnibus Edition containing Book One and Book Two)

Chapter 1

Bush Center for Geo-Electromagnetic Studies

New York

Sunday 5.55 p.m.

Once every six hundred years. The odds weren't exactly in Derek's favour.

Although that didn't stop the U.S. Defense Department from taking only three months to approve $5 billion for the project's initial funding. Enough and more to build the Bush Center for Geo-Electromagnetic Studies in New York, and to fill it with the latest technology that money could buy.

Derek, or Professor Derek James Martin, as the sign on his office door read, picked up the carton of Chinese take-away, and kicked back in his chair, slowly devouring his Sweet and Sour Chicken, whilst simultaneously scanning the incredible arrays of sensors and computer screens spread across every inch of the surrounding walls. With the lights off, he sat in the semi-darkness, lit only by the myriad of glowing screens, the flickering stream of incomprehensible numbers and pictures casting an ever-changing set of shadows and colored light across the Derek's face.

He hadn't left the office now for three days, and the smell of stale sweat, Chinese takeaway and old pizza had long since scared off even the most die hardy of the institute's cleaners. Whenever he felt hungry drinks and food arrived at his door magically, simply by dialing a few digits on his phone and telling the department secretary what he wanted.

The risk of leaving, and coming back to find that he had missed the event of the millennium was far too great. If this was going to be 'the one', he was damn well going to make sure his team captured the event in all its glory. All the equipment was primed and ready to go, two ships and five aircraft had been redirected to the area, and he'd borrowed time on two of NASA's satellites, which should be in position in the next few hours. He already had one of the military's satellites scanning the area, it's high resolution cameras capturing every microsecond of what was happening forty miles below.

The center had been operational for two years now, had over twenty Ph.D.'s, and a staff of thirty junior researchers, mostly recruited from the army or on secondment from other government agencies.

As from yesterday, they'd all been working round the clock. Everything was ready. If it happened just as Derek predicted, it would only last a few minutes, maybe even seconds, but more than likely they would spend the rest of their lives analyzing what they saw and recorded.

If it happened.

The green phone on the desk rang, and Derek took the spoon out of his mouth and spoke aloud,

"Phone answer. Derek here."

There was a small beep, and the voice recognition system answered the call, and piped the voice on the other end onto the loudspeaker without Derek moving.

"Derek, are you watching the G-V-scope?"

"Hey Mick, sure thing. I've got in on Screen Two, and I'm just watching a live video feed that I'm getting back from the Stormchaser flying around the epicenter. It looks like it's starting. It's large okay. It's going to be bigger than '84, that's for sure."

"Do you think this could be the one?"

"Too early to say, but it's looking promising..."

There was a high pitched beeping sound, and one of the high-density printers in the corner started spewing out some color images.

"Hey, Mick, the pictures from the satellite are just coming in. Why don't you pop down to my office. I could do with a second opinion."

A couple of minutes later Mick Samuels walked through the door, flicking on the lights before making his way around the large desk and standing behind Derek, peering over his shoulder at the pile of photos on the table.

"Bloody hell, Derek, it stinks in here!"

Derek ignored his protests as he spread out the photographs for them both to study.

Mick bent forward and whistled, his eyes quickly scanning the graphics and assimilating the information.

"It's huge. Forget Hurricane Donna in 1960. This one's even bigger than Andrew in '92 and Katrina in 2005."

Derek pushed back with both hands from the edge of the desk, propelling his chair on its wheels across the floor to the far wall, where he hit a couple of buttons on a computer console, and ripped off a read-out after it was printed.

"Take a look at that!" he said, giving Mick the computer printout. "The Gauss readings have just gone off the scale!"

Derek walked across the room to the window, staring out at the black night.

"Any idea what time it is?"

"It's six o'clock."

"Evening or morning?"

"Evening."

"How's the evacuation going?"

"Don't worry Derek. It's all done. We're clean. There's no ships left in the area, apart from ours. They arrived just over an hour ago. Southern Florida and the islands around the storm center are on alert, but if you're right, they'll blow themselves out, way before they hit land."

"They won't hit land. Now the Gauss readings have come in, it seems there's a good chance it's going to be exactly what we predicted. It looks like this could be 'the one' we've been waiting for. When these four storms collide, they'll combine to produce the biggest electrical storm in a thousand years! Hurricane Josephine will just miss Jamaica, and collide with Hurricane Kyle, and then almost immediately afterwards they'll both smash into Hanna and then Isaias coming from the north and the south. When they meet, all the energy from the four storms will be driven towards a common epicenter, combining into one massive cauldron of raw power. Their energies will be warped together, and their incredible power will be focused onto the collision center. In such a small space, the internal energy of the storms will only have one escape route: inward, in on itself. The kinetic and geothermal energy of the storms will be transformed to electromagnetic energy, and the atmosphere will shatter. One moment it'll be like Armageddon, and then a few minutes later, it'll all be over. It'll be as quiet as a duck-pond. All that energy will be gone! But where to? That's what we have to find out!"

"Relax! If we've prepared for this correctly, we'll know soon enough." Mick replied, getting up to leave, and patting Derek reassuringly on the back.

"And if we haven't? Can you wait another six hundred years?"

"Only if I get paid overtime...Seriously though, the speed these things are moving, they'll collide in six hours. We've not got much time left. I'd better do the rounds, and double check everyone's ready."

"Remember Mick, we only have one shot at this, so make sure we do it right."

### Chapter 2

The Sea Dancer

Captain McGregor's Pirate Ship

AD 1699

Sunday

8 p.m.

"Turn her into the wind! Now! Afore we're blown broadside into the Eagle! She's sinking, and there's nowt we can do about it now!" Captain Rob shouted as loud as he could, trying to make himself heard above the roar of the storm. "There's no chance in hell of picking up any survivors in these waters. We'll have to leave them all behind."

Nobody argued. Captain Rob McGregor could see the fear written all over their faces. Not a man in his crew had ever seen a storm like this before, and none of them wanted to die. The fact that they had managed to save a handful of men from the Royal Thistle before it went down an hour ago had been a miracle in itself, but the experience was still fresh in their minds, and with three boats already claimed by Davey Jones' Locker, no one wanted to make it four.

The Sea Dancer rocked violently and sunk down deep into the depths of a massive hole that seemed to appear from nowhere in the ocean as two massive waves collided and passed each other going in different directions.

Captain Rob was scared. He had spent almost all of his life at sea, and he could never recall a sea or a storm like this before. The wave movements made no sense to him: it was proving almost impossible to judge how to navigate in these waters. Instead of one ocean, it seemed like they were riding the waves of two or three seas which were all heading in different directions, each fighting for dominance. Giant waves roared up from nowhere, towering above them, and then crashed down on their deck, sweeping everything before them.

Only minutes ago in the failing light and between sheets of driving rain, Captain Rob had seen the third ship in his fleet, the Eagle, riding up over the top of one large wave, just as a second wave collided and crashed into it broadside from another direction.

The force of the water had pushed the Eagle over, and within seconds it was on its side. As the waves passed by, it left the Eagle and its crew floundering in the water.

Most boats would normally float for long enough to let some of the crew get out, but with the weight of its heavy cargo dragging it down, Rob knew that this time there would be no chance.

The Eagle was doomed.

In seconds it would be gone.

Both ships had gone down within a few hundred yards of each other. First to sink had been the Royal Thistle, as they sheltered in the lee of Black Rock, a small volcanic island where they had sought refuge after their raid on Captain Kidd's lair. They had dropped anchor just off Sharp's Point, and Captain Rob had issued a measure of grog for everyone on all three ships in way of celebration for the success of the raid, with a promise of more when they made harbor. But a few hours before nightfall, a tremendous storm had blown up out of nowhere, and with no natural harbor where they could ride it out, they had been forced to weigh anchor, run with the wind and head for deeper water. Unfortunately, the arrival of the storm was so fast, that surging seas had forced the Thistle onto the rocks and she had been ripped open and sunk before they had been able to launch their boats and recover any of its cargo. It had gone down with all hands and a quarter of the booty from the raid.

At first the Thistle and the Sea Dancer had hoped to round the island and find new shelter from the storm on the other side, but the sea was even rougher there than where the Thistle went down. The risk of being driven onto the rocks was still just as great there as before, so in desperation they had started out away from the island making for deep water. They had only managed to get about a thousand yards when the Eagle had been sunk. Davey Jones had claimed another quarter of the remaining treasure they had stolen from Kidd's drunken rabble earlier that day.

Captain Rob gripped the tiller with all his strength, hanging on for dear life as another wave crashed onto the sterncastle from behind him. He was a tall man, broad across the shoulders and strong. The wave pushed him against the massive oak tiller in the middle of the quarterdeck, driving the wind out of his lungs and sweeping him off his feet.

Thankfully, the rope that he had tied around his waist and attached to the tiller held, and after the wave had passed by he managed to struggle back up to his feet, coughing the salt water out of his throat and gasping for breath.

He reached down, offering his hand to James Silver, the quartermaster, who like Captain Rob, had been knocked to the ground by the force of the wave.

James Silver spat water from his mouth, and pushed Rob's hand aside, pulling himself up alone.

"Thanking ye kindly, Captain Rob, but I can manage on me own, just fine."

Suddenly there was a loud, earth shattering crack, and as the quartermaster and Captain Rob looked up, the front mast split in half at the middle, and fell forward toward the deck.

At the same moment, a swell pushed the Sea Dancer upwards, and the remaining sails which they had not yet managed to furl away and had been forced to just let fly freely, caught a large blast of wind bouncing of the tumultuous surface of the ocean, filled completely, and started turning the ship around and changing its course. While the body of the ship swiveled underneath it, the front mast fell towards the side of the boat, dragging its top sails down with it.

As the weight of the mast and the sails pulled it downwards, the ropes and guides holding the sails upwards and attached to the ship beneath, suddenly tightened, stretched and started to snap, whiplashing wildly across the deck.

Too late, the quartermaster shouted out a warning to the deck crew, his cries drowned in the roar of the storm: "Smith,... the rigging lines...watch out!"

Captain Rob and the quartermaster looked on helplessly as one of the lines cut through the air at great speed, slicing clean through the leg of the Miles Smith, the young boatswain, amputating it from the middle of his thigh downwards.

The young lad screamed, his cry of pain cutting through the cacophony of the storm, and alarming even the most hardy and battle-hardened of the pirates on board.

As Smith looked down at the stump of his leg, his grip loosened on the base of the mast to which he has hanging for dear life, and the force of a receding wave swept his remaining leg away from under him, pushing his body towards the side of the Sea Dancer, catapulting him over the edge, and into the boiling cauldron of the ocean beneath.

One moment he was there, a second later he was gone. As was the rest of the mast which had now vanished over the side.

The quartermaster turned and stared horrified at Captain Rob, his expression and his eyes conveying everything that needed to be said.

They had used the wind to drive them away from clutches of the Black Rock. Ideally, in a storm, once they had reached deeper water far from land, they would turn into the wind to reduce the pressure on the sails, and furl away most of the canvas. But such was the speed with which the storm had intensified and come upon them that they had been unable to do this.

Within minutes of clearing the Black Rock, the wind had begun to come at them in great gusts from all directions. Unable to stow the sails properly, they only managed to loosen the sheet lines and let the sheets flap uselessly in the wind.

Even in a storm, it was necessary to maintain a small amount of canvas, so that the Captain could have some control where the ship was blown. With that in mind, they had kept one sail partially filled with wind. But now, the loosely hanging top sail on the remaining mast was suddenly caught by another powerful gust of wind, whipping it outwards and then ripping it loudly from top to bottom.

With no other sails set, and the last vestige of their control gone, the Sea Dancer and its crew were now nothing more than flotsam being buffeted violently amidst the roughest waters any sailor had ever experienced in this century, the last, or any one before that.

Only a miracle could save them now.
Chapter 3

Stormchaser 3

10,000 ft above the Atlantic Ocean

2013

Sunday

11.48 p.m.

Kate Schwartz smiled for the first time in two hours. She had been a professional NOAA Hurricane Hunter for over five years now, but this was without doubt her roughest and most dangerous mission to date.

It was with an audible sigh of relief that she relaxed her grip on the controls and sat back in her seat. The instrument panels on the Lockheed WP-3D Orion told her and her co-pilot, Andrew Chung, that everything was okay and that for a few minutes at least, they could relax.

She knew she was mad: that this was probably the most dangerous job in the world. But someone had to do it, and since her very first flight into the eye of a hurricane six years ago, she had been addicted to the adrenaline rush it gave her. Satellites were great at many things, and had admittedly taken over a lot of what the Hurricane Hunters used to do, but satellites couldn't measure the spread of the internal barometric pressures of a hurricane or provide sufficient accuracy in measuring hurricane wind speeds. The only way that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration could get that information was to pay crazy people like her to fly directly into the biggest storms on the planet, and take atmospheric and radar measurements from within the storm itself. Armed with the facts, NOAA could then predict how hurricanes would develop and behave, determining which would be a threat to American lives and industries.

Kate and Andrew were sitting silently, staring out of the cockpit windows at the eyewall of Hurricane Josephine. They had entered the hurricane over thirty minutes ago and only now had they emerged into the almost eerily calm world at the center of the hurricane itself. Above them there was clear star filled sky, and beneath them they could see the dark waters of the ocean below. Kate had flown through over two hundred hurricanes in her career so far, sometimes repeatedly traversing the same hurricane many times, but each and every time she passed through the center she always marveled at the experience.

It was like as if God had just reached down from Heaven with a round cookie cutter and sliced out the middle of the storm: one minute they would be flying through hell itself, with incredible noise, little visibility, turbulent and violent winds, snow, hail, lightning and thunder all around them, and then...a moment later...they would emerge from a wall of vertical clouds into a peaceful garden of tranquility and sunshine, or bright, starlit skies.

There were only a handful of people on the planet who had or would ever experience what she and Andrew were witnessing now, and that in itself, almost made the job worthwhile.

The peace would however, be short-lived. Already they were just about to enter the opposite wall of cloud on the other side of the epicenter.

"Here we go again," Kate shouted into her microphone, glancing at her instruments. "The hurricane's getting stronger by the minute. I think we should fly through to the other side, and then re-evaluate what we do next. I've never seen any storm like this one before, and I don't know if we should really risk flying back through it again once we're clear."

"Agreed." Andrew Cheng replied while getting ready to deploy and drop another series of dropsondes, expendable weather reconnaissance devices that contained sensors to measure barometric pressure, temperature and humidity as they fell down to the ocean surface. As the sonde fell it relayed the important information to computers on their aircraft, allowing the Hurricane Hunters to accurately measure and track the storm conditions in real time. "But...don't forget, something like this will probably not happen again for hundreds of years..."

Andrew never finished the sentence. He didn't need to.

The events that were taking place in the Atlantic Ocean that day were unparalleled in living or recorded memory. Four big superstorms, each a phenomenon in its own right, were heading towards each other with incredible power and speed. When they met and combined no one knew exactly what was going to happen. This was the first time that such an event was going to be seen, and both Andrew and Kate knew that they would do whatever they could to help the scientists make the necessary observations.

They carried on flying without further conversation, both focusing intently on the tasks they had to complete and lost in their own thoughts. It was Kate that finally broke the silence.

"I wonder how the 53rd and the others are doing?" she asked, referring to the other NOAA WP-3D, and the two Lockheed WC-130s from the United States Air Force Reserve's 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron which had been teamed up with the NOAA aircraft to cover this incredible event. NOAA also had a fifth plane participating in the exercise, a G-IV Gulfstream, but the G-IV was a high-altitude jet flying above the storms at 41,000ft and would not be in any real danger.

"They'll be fine." Andrew replied, wondering the exact same question and trying to sound as positive as possible.

The fact was, on this job, no one knew just what to expect.

When they had left their base at the NOAA Aircraft Operations Center at MacDill Air Force Base, in Tampa, Florida earlier that evening, they had been full of excitement. Together with the other two aircraft that would take off from Keesler Air Force Base in Mississippi, they would map and record all the meteorological characteristics of the four storms that were currently covering most of the north Atlantic Ocean, helping to determine their size, power and direction. Yet, they all knew they were heading into the unknown. This event was unprecedented in its scale.

They had been briefed the day before over a video link by a couple of professors from the rather secretive Bush Center for Geo-Electromagnetic Studies in New York state. The two professors, one of whom was a personal friend to Kate, had explained the theory of what could possibly happen, and although it seemed far-fetched, it did make some strange sort of sense. It certainly helped explain the mysterious events of three years before when two hurricanes of enormous strength and power had collided with each other just south of Jamaica: almost inconceivably, within minutes of the collision both hurricanes had fizzled out into nothing. Scientists the world over had witnessed the event, but none had understood it. Where had the power of the hurricanes gone to? What had happened to the incredible electromagnetic energy that was at the heart of each storm? Where had the kinetic energy of the powerful winds gone? Or the potential energy of the large amounts of water that had been lifted into the air against the force of gravity?

If the scientists at the Bush Center were correct, then perhaps at last a potential explanation had been found. Yet to most of the Hurricane Hunters at NOAA it still seemed inconceivable to believe that the four storms that were being tracked and monitored by so many scientists around the world today, would potentially fizzle out into nothing within the next ninety minutes.

Yet, if they were right, all that energy had to go somewhere, and the Bush Center had warned all of the pilots very explicitly that it would be wise to be well clear of the area where the four hurricanes eventually collided together.

That meant they had one hour left. Time enough, perhaps to just make one more trip and head for home back through the storm, before the event of the century reached its climax. After that it would be up to the satellites and the high-altitude Gulfstream to record exactly what would happen in the hurricanes below.

"Andrew...take a look at the electrostatic readings." Kate said. "They're going crazy..."

Andrew pushed a button dropping the second of the dropsondes, watching for a moment longer to check that the green light on his display went active, indicating that the slow-descent parachute had been successfully deployed, and then he twisted around and bent towards Kate, scanning the printout trace which was slowly spewing out of the electrostatic meter. The trace was going up and up and up, indicating that electrostatic energy in the air outside the airplane was rising dramatically.

Andrew pressed a few buttons on the meter, switching scales so that the recording would stay on the chart. He had never seen it so high before.

"Check this out..." Kate said, and Andrew looked up and through the cockpit window. Outside hundreds of tiny lightning bolts were sparking and arcing across the windshield, starting on the body of the plane and jumping to other parts of the plane chassis. There were so many that a curtain of light was beginning to build up around the airplane. Not to be mistaken with lightning, the corona discharge that Kate and Andrew were watching now was caused by the highly charged gases around the airplane beginning to ionize and freely conduct electricity, rather like the plasma lighting in a neon tube. The first time Kate had seen it was on her third flight through a thunder storm, and it had fascinated her. Except that was nothing like as intense as what they were witnessing now.

"Wow...that's the most ferocious St. Elmo's fire I've ever seen!" Andrew exclaimed as he watched the eerie display."

"We are at 70,000 Volts per inch of space now. And building..." Andrew said, looking at the electrostatic readout again."

"I've never been in anything higher than 100,000 Volts per inch. If it gets any higher than 110,000, I think we should think about bugging out."

"That won't happen. Don't worry." Andrew tried to sound reassuring.

They carried on flying in silence for another twenty minutes, the glow from the static discharge outside the plane increasing all the time, and the winds that buffeted the plane becoming more violent by the second.

A few minutes later, Andrew dropped the third sonde in the series.

Neither Kate nor Andrew said anything. Kate was beginning to feel distinctly nervous.

"We should be coming to the edge of the storm soon..." Andrew said eventually, looking at the radar and also noticing that the St. Elmo's Fire effect was beginning to decrease in intensity outside the plane.

No sooner had he spoken than the Control Tower at the Aircraft Operations Center raised him on the radio, the voice crackling in the static and only just discernible.

"Andrew, Come in. Do you read me?"

"Roger, Control. Everything's fine here. We're just coming out the other side now...expect to be in clearer skies in about ten, over."

"Andrew, it's Doug here. We're looking at the satellite images we're getting back from Skybird and it's not looking good. Hurricanes Hanna and Isaias are speeding up and heading towards you faster than we expected. Hurricane Kyle has also turned and is moving towards you from the south east. The estimated time of collision of all four hurricanes is now only thirty minutes away. What's your safest and fastest route home?"

"I was kind of hoping you'd tell us that..." Andrew replied, looking over at Kate who was listening in.

"We think it's straight back through Josephine. The way you came. Is that feasible? Over."

Kate looked at Andrew.

"Is there any other option? Over."

"Actually, not really. Kyle is twice as large as Josephine. If you head south, it will be like going from the frying pan into the fire. Alternatively, we think you could just avoid Isaias if you head north east, but then you will risk running out of fuel for the flight back, depending on what happens during or after the collision. Over."

Andrew looked back at Kate. Technically, she was the superior officer and on paper it was her call. The rest of the eleven crew on the flight all trusted her decision and no one would question her.

Kate was busy scanning some of the reports coming back from the dropsondes.

She was worried.

"Doug, Kate here. Give us a moment, please. We'll call you straight back. Over."

"Roger that." Doug replied, signing off.

"Andrew, what do you reckon?"Kate asked. "I think we should just head straight home by the shortest path and take our chances. I'm worried about the fuel. I think that Control is right. We could head north east and avoid the hurricanes, ...but only just. However, if they don't blow out just as the professors think they will, we will have to fly back through them anyway, and if the winds are still so strong, we will be desperately short of fuel. On top of that, the readings from the last dropsondes showed that near the surface of the sea the energy was building up to over 130,000 Volts per inch of space."

"Near the surface? ...but that's impossible...that means that higher up..."

"I know. No one will ever have flown through anything like it before. It will be a first..."

The words hung in the air. Kate's meaning was only too clear. First of all, it would be a challenge. This is what the Hurricane Hunters lived for. It was their raison d'etre, the reason why they faced this danger: the opportunity to see and understand how hurricanes worked and to experience and record firsthand the full natural, mighty power of Mother Nature in a way that that no one else ever could. If they went back, they would witness something no other human being ever had.

But secondly, Kate was stating the obvious. They might not make it back.

In the past twenty minutes, their flight had changed from a mission of research to a flight for survival.

Andrew smiled.

"You only live once. Let's go for it," he replied.

Kate nodded.

"Control, Kate here. Over," she said, switching the radio back on.

"Kate: What's your decision? Over."

"I'm turning the plane around, we're coming home by the shortest route. Put the beers in the fridge. I'm going to need one. Over."

"Roger that. And good luck."

\---------------------

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Back in the Control Tower of the AOC at MacDill, Doug West stepped onto the balcony and lit up his cigarette. He hadn't smoked in two years, but today was turning out to be more stressful than normal, to put it mildly.

He lifted up his hand, looking at the latest photograph that they just received back from their orbiting Skybird satellite.

Isaias had just started to collide with Hanna. The two hurricanes were beginning to brush against each other.

In his twenty years of working at the AOC, Doug West had never seen anything like it.

No one had.

\---------------------

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In the cockpit of the Lockheed WP-3D Orion, Andrew switched the overhead lighting off. It was no longer needed. The glow from the St. Elmo's fire outside the cabin was now so bright, it was as if they were flying during daytime. The meter said 137,000 Volts per inch.

Inside the plane the crew were beginning to feel sick. Two of them had fainted and were now relieved from duty and strapped down hard into their bunks and others were feeling dizzy, nauseous and light-headed. Andrew had thrown up once but had started to feel slightly better.

The plane was being buffeted by the strongest winds that the crew had ever experienced. Secretly Kate was beginning to worry about the superstructure of the plane. Twice the turbulence had been so bad that the plane had fallen several hundred feet before recovering.

Incredibly, Andrew had still managed to take recordings as they flew on, dropping five more dropsondes to capture and record the incredible phenomena they were fighting their way through.

Suddenly, almost without warning, the airplane punched its way through the cloud and emerged into the incredible calm of the eye of the hurricane, and almost instantaneously the violent shaking of the plane ceased. The difference between a minute ago and now could not have been more stark.

Both Kate and Andrew exhaled loudly. For the past ten minutes neither of them had spoken a word.

Kate leaned forward slightly, looking up at the stars.

She could just make out a few familiar constellations.

"Kate, look..." Andrew shouted loudly, his voice deafening in Kate's headphones.

Immediately Kate saw what Andrew was pointing at.

As they flew West, on their right and to the North, the round vertical wall of cloud that surrounded the eye of the hurricane had begun to crumble, the wall of cloud beginning to move inwards and towards them at great speed.

The Eye of the Hurricane was collapsing in on itself.

"Hanna and Isaias have arrived earlier than expected!" Andrew shouted, fear now easily discernible in his voice.

Kate stared in disbelief at what she was seeing, the north wall of the eye now only yards away.

The force of the wind coming at them from their right side caught the plane and lifted it up on its edge.

Kate immediately compensated, turning the nose of the plane northwards and down, into the oncoming torrent, struggling to regain control.

Lightning began to flash outside the plane and lumps of ice almost as large as baseballs began to pound against the fuselage.

A wave of nausea swept over Andrew, and he vomited again, this time not making it into the company sick bag so kindly provided by NOAA. Instead it covered the instrument panel, blanketing the readout panel which now indicated that outside the electrostatic energy had now reached 490,000 Volts per inch.

Inside the cockpit the instrumentation panel began to spark with electricity, and the air itself began to glow and light up, the Lockheed WP-3D Orion quickly turning into the world's largest ever plasma tube.

The plane itself began to glow from one end to another, at first a little, and then a lot, the light it was emitting becoming increasingly incandescent, until suddenly it became as bright as the sun. For a few seconds the airplane glowed so brightly that in the G-IV Gulfstream flying 31,000 ft above them, they registered and recorded a pulse of light piercing its way through the center of the cataclysm occurring beneath.

Strangely, one minute the light was there. And then the next it was gone.

As was the Lockheed WP-3D Orion which suddenly simply vanished into thin air,-leaving no trace that it had ever been there at all.

Chapter 4

The Sea Dancer

Captain McGregor's Pirate Ship

1699

Sunday

8.30 p.m.

James Silver, the quartermaster aboard the Sea Dancer, hung on for dear life, cursing loudly at the loss of young Miles Smith. He had liked the lad: good with a cutlass, able and keen to learn. He'd had the making of a truly good buccaneer.

The storm was intensifying further, the wind getting stronger and the rain now driving down so hard it was almost impossible to see.

The wind was coming at them from all directions, making it impossible to set a course even if they had been able to. The little amount of sail that they had left could not help them in these conditions. They were helpless.

Cap'n Rob was still clinging to the tiller, but the quartermaster knew that this was a futile attempt at control. There was nothing anyone could do until the storm passed, ...if they managed to survive that long.

Suddenly a shower of large hailstones started to rain down on them from above, pounding James Silver and the Captain and adding to their misery.

"Mr Silver," the Captain said, "Tell the lads to go below decks, and get ye with them. I'll stay topside for now, at least for as long as I can...Make sure they don't go for the grog! As soon as the storm subsides, we are going to need every man on deck, able and as sober as a bloody judge!"

The quartermaster considered arguing with the Captain for a moment, but he knew there was no point. Either in arguing, or with disagreeing with the reasoning behind it.

Captain Rob was a good Captain. He was tall, handsome, powerful, charismatic and well liked by the men, but James Silver did not like the Captain of the Sea Dancer, and it was no secret. Nevertheless, Silver respected him for his judgement, audacity and bravery, but he was jealous of him.

James Silver wanted his job, and one day he would have it. As was the tradition amongst pirate crews in the Caribbean, Silver had been elected quartermaster by the crew. His duty was to represent the interests of those who had elected them, to manage the distribution of food and provisions, and to keep the motley rabble in order and protect them from themselves. For that, if he did a good job, he would be granted an extra share of any booty they found, which with their hold now filled to the brim, would be sizeable! But even though he respected Captain Rob, they were cut from different cloths. Silver had struggled all his life, fighting for everything he had, ever since he had been orphaned as a child when the pox killed his parents in London. His uncle had taken him in, fed him, and beaten him almost every night for ten years until Silver had run away, and stowed away aboard a trading ship that was leaving the Thames, and London, far behind.

Silver had learned a new life at sea, and had slowly risen up through the ranks. Years later, when the ship he was on had crossed the Atlantic Ocean and been captured by pirates en route to James Town in the Americas, James had been given the option to live and join his pirate captors, or to be left in a rowing boat with the others, far out at sea.

James had chosen to live, and ever since then he had depended upon no one else but himself for a living. He'd been a pirate for over twelve years now, which, by anyone's standards, was a long, long time. By all accounts he should have been dead by now, but he wasn't, and he had no plans to die anytime soon.

He did have a plan though: the same plan that had been shared by everyone on the Eagle, the Albatross, the Royal Thistle or the Sea Dancer - to make one more raid, to capture and secure the biggest pirate treasure in the world, and then to retire and live a long and prosperous life with his share of the prize.

Until the storm had blown up, the plan had gone better than any of them could ever have hoped for.

Actually, the plan was not his. It was Captain Rob's, which was another reason why Silver was jealous of the man. Silver had not and would never have conceived of such an audacious plan by himself. But Captain Rob had, and he was a genius!

Everyone on the high seas knew that Captain Kidd, a notorious British privateer who had been abandoned and branded a pirate by his English masters, had captured a treasure ship in the Far East called the Queddah Merchant, a 500 ton Armenian merchant ship laden with gold, jewels, silver, silks, sugar and guns,...and that Captain Kidd and some of his crew had brought the ship and their share of the loot back to the Caribbean. After that Kidd's reputation had grown, and other pirates had flocked to his side. Soon, from out of his secret port in the Virgin Islands, he commanded a fleet of his own, terrorizing the seas and building his treasure from strength to strength. For a while he continued to mainly attack ships under the French flag, thus keeping his English masters happy, who continued to turn a blind eye.

But many pirates, like James Silver, had grown jealous of Kidd's success. The stories that fellow pirates told each other and discussed whilst eating or drinking around beach fires or in the taverns ashore were always about one thing...the booty that Kidd had amassed. Legend had it that that there was now so much that it overflowed from the storehouses in the port where it was hidden, and that they had begun to bury it on and around the island, such was the scale of the fortune.

Yet, Kidd had also grown a fearful reputation for the way in which he treated his crew and all those who opposed him, and one day whilst drinking in a tavern in Port Royal in Jamaica, Captain Rob had met Richard Tyler, a bursar whose job it had been to count and catalogue the booty that Kidd and his band of pirates were amassing.

Responding to encouragement from Captain Rob, Tyler had explained drunkenly that after falling into an argument with Kidd one night about the best way to value and account for uncut sapphires, Kidd had ordered Tyler beaten and thrown into the clink. That had been enough. A few days after he had been released, Tyler had stowed away on one of several trusted merchant ships that made good trade in Kidd's port, and since then he had vowed vengeance and retaliation on Kidd for the eye that he had lost during his beating.

As Captain Rob had plied him brandy and beer, Tyler had opened up and told the Captain everything he knew about where Kidd kept his treasure, and about the social habits of the pirates.

Rob had learned two very important pieces of news: firstly, that Kidd had split the treasure they had amassed and now kept it hidden in several different places. In particular Captain Rob had discovered that Kidd had buried the best pieces and the majority of the treasure in a cave on the far side of the island. For most of the day, the cave was flooded by the sea, and could not be accessed by man nor boat, but when the tide was low, a boat could be brought in, the treasure recovered and then taken quickly away, possibly if the main port on the other side of the island was ever under attack.

The remainder of the treasure was split between the cellars in two houses in the port, and the stronghold of the fort that Kidd had captured from the Spanish above the entrance to the hidden port of Puerto Bello de la Cruz. Kidd's thinking was that if they were ever attacked, the invaders may capture the secure stronghold and believe that they had found the main cache, not suspecting that there was more hidden elsewhere in less secure surroundings, right under their noses in the town!

Only a few of Kidd's trusted Captains and quartermasters knew of the existence of the other treasure caches, two of whom had since died mysteriously...or been murdered by Kidd.

Tyler knew that his knowledge was dangerous and that he would now be a hunted man, and he was keen to seek sanctuary in the Americas. He was heading for Boston with the next ship that had business there.

Upon discovering that Richard Tyler knew of the exact location of the cave, Captain Rob had persuaded Tyler to join his crew, and help the Captain to mount a bold raid on the main port to steal the treasure cached in the houses and the fort, and then to recover the treasure from the cave.

Following guidance from Tyler, Captain Rob planned to attack the Port early on the Sunday morning, when the tide in the cave would be low and the pirates drunk, sleeping and snoring raucously after the revels of another Saturday night's debauchery in their hidden costal port.

In truth, over the past few years, Captain Rob had assembled quite a formidable fleet, and although the plan at first sounded audacious and possibly foolhardy, on closer inspection it was actually quite feasible.

Captain Kidd had grown too confident. Power and wealth had gone to his head, and he believed that in the Caribbean, he was the lord and master. No other pirate dared challenge him at sea, and none would ever even consider attempting to steal from him, especially right from under his own nose while he relaxed in his own port.

Although the English had declared him a pirate, Captain Kidd still had powerful friends amongst his original financial backers in the Whig party in England, who would secretly be expecting a return on their investment at some point in the future when he returned to England. After all, it was they that had help set him up and seen him issued with his original charter as an English privateer against the French. The French had recently lost so many ships to his band of buccaneers that Kidd did not believe that they would be ever be so powerful as to mount an expedition against him.

And the Spanish? They had too many problems at home and in the south to worry about another pirate in the north, even though he always took advantage of any passing Spanish Galleon and plundered it as well.

Captain Rob was relatively new in the Caribbean. Few knew of him or his capability. The talk was that he had made his fortune in the Indies, and headed west only when he had drawn too much attention to his activities in the Far East.

Secretly, James Silver had doubts about Captain Rob's authenticity, and his roots. Whereas he claimed to have taken to the pirate life after being captured prisoner from an English ship, Silver suspected that there was more to it. What, he could not lay his finger on, but he knew that Captain Rob was hiding some secret under his bright red coat, blue-tunic and flamboyant tri-cornered hat. Captain Rob was not everything he claimed to be, that was for sure.

But, he was without doubt, an excellent captain: a brilliant navigator, clever, decisive, good in battle, ruthless when needed but also merciful to those who deserved it. He exercised more than a modicum of fair play, told the worst but funniest jokes on the high-seas, and his men loved him. As did the ladies: handsome, tall, broad, and physically powerful, the Captain attracted the attention of most women who encountered him, from serving wenches in the taverns on shore, to those unlucky enough to be taken prisoner aboard any ship they captured.

James Silver kept his suspicions and his thoughts about the Captain to himself. He knew the time would come when one day the truth would arise, but until then he would bide his time.

When Captain Rob had first arrived in Jamaica, he had only one ship, the Sea Wind. It was a 210 ton two-masted brigantine, beautifully square-rigged on the foremast, with fore and aft sails on the mainmast. Within three months of his arrival, Captain Rob had captured and taken over three other French ships, including a brig and another brigantine, the former which he renamed the Sea Dancer, and the latter which he called the Royal Thistle. The Sea Wind had been sunk a year later, during a skirmish with the French, but Captain Rob had managed to escape in a long boat before the Sea Wind went down, and had been picked up by the Sea Dancer. The French had escaped, and since that day Captain Rob had stayed the master of the Sea Dancer.

In the past year they had extended their fleet with another brigantine, a sloop, and a schooner, which they had unfortunately lost in a storm near Tortuga.

As such, when Captain Rob assembled his fleet to attack the pirates' lair in Puerto Bello de la Cruz, he commanded two brigantines - the Royal Thistle and the Eagle - , a sloop called The Albatross, and a Brig: the Sea Dancer.

Of all the ships under his command, everyone knew that Captain Rob had a fondness for the Sea Dancer, since it was this ship that had saved his life when the French had sunk the Sea Wind. The Sea Dancer was a magnificent vessel. Unlike the brigantines, it was square rigged on both of its masts, although other sailing configurations were also possible. The shallow-draft of the Sea Dancer combined with its varied sail options, afforded Captain Rob great maneuverability and speed, hence the name Captain Rob had chosen for it.

The Sea Dancer had a crew of 120 officers and men, displaced 297 tons, and had a hull length of 123 feet. It carried the full complement of traditional armament, namely eighteen 32 Pound Carronades and two 12 Pound Long Guns, making it a force to content with and the much feared battleship of Captain Rob's fleet.

While both the other brigantines could carry up to 16 guns each, they no longer did so, for the simple reason that ideally their armaments would never be needed. Whereas gold and silver was what occupied the dreams of most pirate crews, the best prize most could ever expect was a merchant ship loaded to the gunwales with goods that could be traded or sold. The last thing a privateer wanted to do was to sink a ship it wanted to capture, thus losing all its cargo. Thankfully, most merchant ships surrendered when attacked and larger weapons were not necessary. The weapon that pirates and privateers depended upon most of all was 'fear': most merchantmen would rather surrender to the pirates and throw themselves at their mercy, rather than risk being slaughtered or tortured for resisting. Such was the state of fear that could be induced in a merchant crew by the mere glimpse of a pirate flag on a ship bearing down on them at speed, that most surrendered without a fight!

Consequently, when the two brigantines in their private fleet were first captured, Captain Rob had ordered most of the cannons to be buried ashore and replaced with small swivel guns, blunderbusses and the increasingly popular shortened cannons with larger bores called howitzers. These were all used mainly as anti-personnel weapons, and were not powerful enough to sink most sizeable merchant ships, but were perfect for creating fear amongst the crew of their prey, and controlling any resistance they may encounter close up. Also, by reducing the armaments they carried on board, they cut down on the amount of valuable cargo space wasted on storing powder and ammunition.

The Albatross was the swiftest vessel in their fleet, with a bowsprit almost as long as her hull, and a topsail that could be hoisted on its single mast to help her reach a top speed of over eleven knots. Although it was relatively small in comparison with the others, it still carried a crew of sixty, and eight cannon, but it provided their fleet with the ability to go after craft in the shallower channels and sounds of the islands of the Caribbean.

Between them Captain Rob's fleet offered all the flexibility they needed: speed, maneuverability, fire-power to be feared and cargo space for captured goods and treasure.

It was four o'clock earlier that day on the Sunday morning when the Sea Dancer, the Royal Thistle, and the Eagle had entered the harbor at Puerto Bello de la Cruz.

The location that Kidd had chosen for his hideaway was perfect. From the sea, the inlet to the small bay was almost invisible, and it was only by sailing closer to the shore where the entrance was to be found, that it was possible to see that a small outcrop of land hid the entrance to a larger bay that nestled behind it and lay between several hills which formed a natural amphitheatre centered on the entrance from the sea.

As Captain Rob's fleet swept around the headland into the harbour, Richard Tyler pointed out the small, old Spanish fort sitting high on the headland, but which was previously hidden from view by the sea. Raising his eyeglass, Captain Rob saw several cannons in the fort trained on the harbor mouth, and pointing straight at his ships.

Prewarned by Tyler of this danger, Captain Rob gave the command and one of the Able Bodied Seamen on deck raised the two colored flags that they had made a few days before: a red flag with white diagonal stripes, and a green flag with a large, round, black spot in the middle. This was the secret code that Tyler had told them was the signal given by trusted supply vessels or merchant ships who came to the port to barter or trade for the goods that Kidd's crews had stolen from other merchant ships on the high seas.

The bay itself was not large, and apart from the old Spanish Fort, Captain Rob could quickly make out that there were no other large stone buildings in view. The rest of the several hundred cottages or small buildings that nestled around the water's edge were made of wood or small boulders with thatch on top, reminding him greatly of the sight of the crofters' cottages which Rob had seen in the Great Glen in Scotland.

The harbor at Puerto Bello de la Cruz sat nestled between several hills that curved around the small bay. It was a dark night, with strange cloud formations blowing quickly across the sky, heralding rain or a storm to come, but the combined effect of the glowing lights which still burned in some of the cottages produced an almost magical and heart-warming effect, like hundreds of fireflies or candles twinkling and reflecting in the waters of the bay.

As planned, the ships all dropped anchor and set off their boats, conveying the pirates that would take part in the raiding party ashore. Silence and surprise were key.

As the boats came ashore, the pirates broke off into their separate groups, each already well versed on their objectives.

Leaving skeleton crews on board to man and guard his fleet, and provide some gunners for the cannons, Captain Rob had brought ashore a small army of four hundred men.

Richard Tyler had estimated that there were normally over a thousand pirates living in the bay of de la Cruz, but this number would be reduced to around three hundred since over half of Kidd's ships were out hunting and not due to return for another couple of weeks.

Of those three hundred, at this time of day most would be drunk or unconscious.

Coming into the bay, Captain Rob had counted only two pirate ships, and two supply ships, which backed Richard Tyler's claims. Neither of the pirate ships belonged to Captain Kidd, which meant that the pirate leader was not at home! This discovery was far better than they could have hoped for!

The first group of fifty men made their way as quietly as possible up through the streets towards the Fort. Tyler had warned them that the guards at the Fort were ever vigilant for strangers, and that they should expect some resistance.

It was part of Tyler's plan that he would go ahead of the main group, and bluff his way into the Fort, persuading the pirates within to open the large wooden gates and let him in. As soon as he entered, he would do his best to cause a distraction and the other pirates from Captain Rob's band must then take advantage of the situation and storm through the gates after him.

In private, James Silver had voiced some concern to the Captain that the whole plan depended completely on their ability to trust Richard Tyler: he could be leading them into a trap. What if the plan was a ploy that had been dreamt up by Captain Kidd to capture Captain Rob's fleet?

Captain Rob had thought about this long and hard. He was a shrewd judge of men, and after speaking further about the plan with Richard Tyler, he had convinced himself that the man was telling the truth and was earnest in his desire to seek revenge on Captain Kidd. In addition, Tyler's story seemed to tally: the wound on his eye was still fresh, and the anger and venom that showed in his face when he talked of Kidd was real. No one could fake that. No, Captain Rob was sure that meeting Richard Tyler by accident was a stroke of good fortune that could not be ignored.

Tyler was a small, round man, obviously well fed and partial to ale, but Captain Rob saw in him a strength of character and a sense of pride, that Kidd had obviously dented. Now Tyler wanted revenge.

At the same time that Tyler led a band of the pirates to recover the treasure hidden in the fort, Captain Rob would lead another party to one of two houses in the town where Tyler had promised them other parts of Kidd's hoard had been hidden. He had drawn two very clear maps for James Silver and the Captain, clearly marking which house contained the hidden hoards, and handed them over with the guidance that in both houses they should make their ways to the cellars, remove the beer and water casks, and dig down for two feet in the dirt. They should then recover three large sacks, and five large chests from each house. He cautioned it would take four men to lift each chest, and they should have carts ready outside the house to convey the chests to the boats: "You will find carts and horses tethered outside the houses. Only take one chest per boat, lest it presses through the bottom and spills all over the harbor beneath."

Captain Rob and James Silver had laughed upon receiving the instructions. They were so specific, and so clear, it was obvious the man was an accountant who lived for figures, facts and details!

To accompany Tyler up to the Fort, Captain Rob sent the Captain of the Eagle, a tall and fierce Welshman, Captain Llewellyn Jones, one of the strongest men Rob had ever met. In a skirmish aboard a galleon off the coast of South America, Captain Rob had once seen a group of six Spaniards surround and descend upon Captain Jones, hiding him from sight as they took him on. Minutes later the Welshman was the only one to emerge alive, his cutlass swinging and striking the heads of three of the Spaniards as he did so, brushing off his attackers as if they were an annoyance rather than a threat.

As the pirates landed their longboats on the sands of the harbour, Tyler's parting words were, "Remember, no man shall act before our party has taken the Fort, lest ye warn them and cause them to shut their gates and fire their cannon on your ships. I shall signal our success by the waving of a fire-stick on top of the walls. Look ye for my signal! Only then should ye go to work. I would caution ye not to leave any man standing who may later identify ye, lest ye want Captain Kidd to hunt ye to the ends of the world and throughout all time!"

"Richard Tyler," Captain Rob had replied. "I promise ye man to man, that if ye succeed in yer task today, and we are victorious, ye shall be richer tonight than the Queen of Sheba!"

"But not as good looking..." James Silver had added, jokingly. Richard Tyler had laughed, turned around and disappeared into the night, Captain Jones and his party following close behind.

Ten minutes later Richard Tyler stood before the gates of the old Spanish Fort and shouted loudly at the watch, who were obviously asleep. The rest of the pirates under Captain Jones's command lurked behind in the shadows of the tall Blue Mahoe trees, which grew on the slopes beyond the path towards the top of the hill. From where they watched and waited they could see down onto the ramparts of the small fort, and were surprised to see that no one was obviously manning the three cannon that were visible atop the walls and pointing towards the harbor.

Perhaps, with Captain Kidd away at sea, the garrison left behind had relaxed just a little too much, and hopefully drunk their fair share of grog.

"Ahoy, there!" Tyler bellowed aloud. "It's Rich Tyler here, sent back by Captain Kidd to make sure that no one has fallen asleep on duty! Open up these gates and let me in. Sharpish, unless ye want me to tell the Captain what I've found here!"

The small round man stood with his feet apart, and pressed two balled fists onto his hips, acting the part of being shocked and angry with the state of the watch on the fort.

"Richard Tyler? Is that you out there?" a groggy voice came back, uncertainly.

"That it be! And if that is you, Samuel Smith, then I would be worried if I were you lad! Why is the gate undefended? Who is manning the cannon? Where is the rest of the watch? Let me in! Now! Before I lose my patience and get straight back in a boat and back out to the Captain and fetch him hither too!"

Two figures appeared in darkness on the rampart running across the top of the fort gate.

"Tyler? What are you doing back here? Last I heard ye had caught the supply ship to Boston, on account of the fact that the Captain had given you a hiding!" There was the sound of a few laughs on the other side of the wall.

"Well, well, Mr Black. I'd recognise that voice anywhere. Yes, it is me. I left, but only because I had to find a doctor to see to my eye. But I saw one, and now I've come back to make sure that my share of the booty is still intact, on orders of the Captain who I met ashore in Tortuga, and on the promise of an extra share to compensate for the loss my eyeball. And what do I find? Nothing less than all of you drunk and asleep in your hammocks. I tell ye what men, I'm losing my patience out here. I'll count to ten then head back down to the bay, preparing my report for the Captain as I go. If that's what you want, my boys?"

There was the sound of commotion, and raised voices, and then slowly the two large wooden doors began to swing inwards into the fort.

Richard Tyler stood his ground, waiting for the doors to open fully.

"Ye took yer fair time, lads. What madness has crossed yer mind to fall asleep on duty?"

"Keep yer hair on Richard Tyler! We saw the ships come in, and we got the right response to the challenge. All is well, Richard Tyler. All is well. Perhaps we had a little too much grog and fell asleep just afterwards, but only on account of the fact that it is Master Fletcher's birthday today. There's no need to write any report for the Captain. Especially since the booty in the storeroom is just as ye left it. Shipshape and secure. And also because I mind to recall that there is a half-full bottle of brandy here in my hand that could be yours if you would just promise to forget what ye've seen."

"Aha...perhaps, now ye are just taking advantage of my thirst. I'll tell ye what lads. If the three of ye agree to head down to the boat just now, and collect my chest for me, I will take a drink and ponder on it for a while...But get ye gone, now, afore I change me mind!"

From inside the gate, a few voices were heard exchanged, and then slowly three figures emerged from the darkness of the Fort and into the night, stumbling with their breeches and pulling on shirts.

Richard Tyler pointed down the hill, and the three men stumbled past him, leaving the gates of the fort wide open.

A few minutes later, Captain Jones and his band emerged from the trees and crept into the Fort, leaving behind six pirates who crept down the hill and quickly killed and silenced the unlucky three pirates before they realised they had been tricked and could raise the alarm.

Inside the fort, the main party found only three other pirates asleep in their hammocks, each of whom was killed swiftly by Captain Jones with his cutlass across their throats.

Whilst half of the men followed Richard Tyler into the store room to start collecting the treasure, the other half climbed up to the cannons and pushed them over the edge of the ramparts, watching as they crashed down the hill and bounced off the cliff and fell into the water of the bay beneath.

Twenty minutes later, the store room was empty and the treasure was being carried slowly but steadily back down to the boats in the bay.

Thanks to Richard Tyler, the first part of the plan had been a complete success.

Chapter 5

The Royal Thistle

Puerto Bello Del la Cruz

Sunday Morning

1699

4.45 a.m.

Aboard the Royal Thistle, Captain Richard Wainwright cursed loudly, and called on the 1st Mate to bring him some more food. His stomach was rumbling so loudly he was worried that it would wake up the pirates slumbering in the houses on the shore.

Captain Wainwright was angry that he had been left behind and in charge of the boats. He was desperate to get ashore and pay his respects to any pirate who sailed with Captain William Kidd.

Wainwright hated Kidd for two reasons. Firstly, because they shared the same name, and Kidd had soiled its use.

And secondly, because when he was younger he had sailed with Kidd under another command, and had suffered more than his fair share of beatings at the hands of the sadistic bastard that had later risen through the ranks and become a Captain before he had.

Revenge had been a long time coming, but tonight he would extract whatever ounce of the sweet nectar that he could.

His main priority for now was to look after the fleet, to protect their flank from any other boats that may inadvertently sail in behind them, and to train half of the fleets guns on the shore and the other boats in the harbor.

A secondary task was to send a party of seamen over to the other two remaining pirate ships in the harbor belonging to Kidd's fleet, and as quietly as possible, to slip aboard, overcome their crews and capture their ships and most importantly their cannons. Captain Rob had been clear in his intent: they had to ensure that the other pirate ships from Kidd's fleet were in no position to fire upon their own, or on the raiding party as they returned from the beach. Also, Captain Rob had ordered that should the raid be successful, once their own fleet had left the harbour, a skeleton crew under Wainright's command should up anchor on the largest pirate ship, sail it to the harbor mouth, and scupper it, blocking the entrance both from new arrivals and any departures.

On the evening before when final plans for the raid on Puerto Bello de la Cruz had been discussed and argued in the Captain's cabin aboard the Sea Dancer, the Captain of the Thistle had asked permission from Captain Rob to spare no quarter in their attack on the pirates of de la Cruz: "We are all with you in this, Captain Rob. Most of us have a personal grudge and reason why we would we happy to send that bastard Kidd to the depths of the ocean. There is none of us that would lose a wink o' sleep over murdering that bastard! Of that there is no fear, but once we attack the stronghold in de la Cruz, we are breaking the Pirate Code, and when Kidd returns from wherever he is now - if Mr Tyler is indeed right that he is currently away at sea - he will spare no quarter in hunting us down to the ends of the earth and beyond. He will never rest until either we are dead, or he is. Personally I favour the latter," to which they had all laughed. "My point is, that although we know that those who dwell in Puerto Bello de la Cruz are pirates just like us, that once the first pistol is fired, the war will have begun. It will be either them or us. There will be no turning back. So I vote that we sink ALL their ships, burns their boats, and kill any pirate that stands against us. No questions asked. Death to them all. Lest we show mercy and wake up the next day to find them standing over our heads demanding back their treasure and then running their cutlasses through our chests. Once we commit to do this, we do it properly or not at all."

No one spoke for a few moments.

Not because anyone disagreed, but because the gravity of what had been said was weighing upon them all.

Captain Rob ended the silence by standing up from the table around which they all sat, and walking slowly to the window at the back of his cabin. He turned and addressed the other captains, quartermasters and ships officers assembled before him.

"Mr Wainwright, God bless him, is correct. As requested, no quarter shall be spared. It is my intention that we take everything of value, and leave no one standing that opposes us. Tomorrow we will break the Pirate Code, and destroy the brotherhood of pirates, that is true. But only with reason. For far too long has Captain Kidd got away with murder and brutality. His vices are infamous, and everyone here knows someone who has suffered at his hand or under his command. Tomorrow, his reign of terror will come to an end. I am hereby authorizing a sum of £10 pounds sterling to be paid in gold to the man that kills Captain Kidd and brings me his head...But let's not lose focus on why we are doing this. This isn't about revenge or any righteous desire to exact justice for the wrongdoings of Captain Kidd's past. This is purely in pursuit of the biggest treasure that any pirate has ever amassed. Kidd has it, and we want it. And what's more we shall take it! And when we have split the booty between us, we shall each retire to a land, as far away from here as possible, and live the life of a King until the day we dies. And long may that be. And no one, Kidd, the Devil, or the King of England, shall take that from us!"

With a twinkle in each of their eyes, they all then stood as one, raised their glasses and drunk together, swearing a vow to the success of the mission and the future which they had seen and were now going to claim for their own.

In the streets of Puerto Bello de la Cruz, the pirates under James Silver and Captain Rob's command had split up and located the houses on the maps they had been given by Richard Tyler, with several men sent out scouting to find any horses and carts they could commandeer to carry whatever they found. Under Captain Rob's instructions, a number of seamen had been left on the shore by the boats, with others lurking in the shadows at various locations en route to the houses where the treasure was hidden, guarding the boats and the escape routes and ready to deal with and dispatch any unlucky sailors that might stumble upon their plan and try to stop them.

The success of the raid would depend upon two elements: firstly, managing to locate the treasure and extract it without waking up too many people, secondly, managing to transport it to the boats and getting it back on board ship before any alarm had been raised.

Just in case, James Silver had ordered two howitzers to be carried to the beach and set up, pointing directly up the two main streets that passed through the town. With the howitzers filled with grape-shot and nails, and the cannons from the ships pointed directly into the town, the pirates were confident that once their raiding party had made it back down to the beach, that they would be able to cover their escape in good order.

It was nevertheless a daring plan. When the men watched the fire signal being giving from the top of the Spanish Fort, they entered the streets of de la Cruz in high spirits, excited and dreaming of the gold, jewels and treasure that would shortly all be theirs...if the stories had been true, and Richard Tyler had not been lying to them!

James Silver and his men reached the first house, discovering that it was directly across the street from a tavern. The sound of snoring coming from the tavern was so loud that it could be heard in the street outside, where several drunk sailors lay asleep or unconscious in the dirt. On instructions from James Silver, two of his men dragged the bodies of the drunken sailors into the shadows and quickly slit their throats. They then slowly opened the door to the tavern, counting twenty further drunkards lying on the tables and the tavern floor. They were all snoring and sleeping so deeply that they posed no risk to the pirates: cannon fire itself would possibly not wake them!

The door to the house opposite the tavern was not locked, and James Silver led the first of the pirates inside, discovering several men sleeping on the floor on mats in the main room. Silver killed them all himself, by slitting their throats with his cutlass. His men looked on as he worked swiftly.

Some stairs led upstairs to another floor, and Silver sent some men up with a wave of his hand. His men knew what to do.

At the back of the main room, some stairs led down into a cellar which had beer barrels and water casks lined up against the far wall, just as Richard Tyler had said they would find.

James Silver's pulse quickened. He could almost smell the gold!

They went to work quickly, moving the barrels and casks to the upstairs room and starting to dig furiously in the ground with their spades.

They worked silently in candlelight, the heat in the room building up quickly and forcing some of the pirates to strip down to their breeches, wrapping their headscarves around their necks, mouths and noses to stop them breathing in the dust.

The dirt piled up swiftly against the other walls of the room, until at last one of the pirates shouted loudly with excitement, only to receive a quick bash on the head from James Silver for his trouble.

"Shut up, man, lest ye wake the devil himself!"

James Silver snatched the man's spade from him, jumped down into the small pit,

and dug around the chest that was slowly emerging from the ground. After he and two other men cleared the soil away, they tried lifting it but discovered they couldn't. It was too heavy.

Swearing loudly, Silver beckoned for help from some others, and slowly they managed to pull it up and out of the small trench.

The lid was locked, a small padlock preventing anyone from opening it.

Swinging the back of the spade down from above his head, James Silver eventually managed to crack the rusting padlock open, and it dropped to the floor. While the other men in the room stopped digging and stood around him, gawking at the chest, James Silver slowly opened the lid.

Their jaws dropped wide open and profanities in four languages filled the air.

"By the big, black beard of Beelzebub," James Silver exclaimed aloud, throwing the lid open wide, "Richard Tyler was telling the truth, God Bless Him! Take a look at that, my boys..."

The chest was full of gold coins. Thousands of them. They glinted in the light of the oil lamps which the pirates raised above the chest. James Silver put both hands in the chest, rummaging around in the coins, and laughing aloud. He took one out, examined it closely and then bit it between his teeth, appraising it.

"Spanish doubloons. We're rich lads. Rich. And if the Cap'n is right, there's a lot more here besides. You boys, keep digging. You lads, get this chest topside, and give the signal for the First Mate to bring up the carts. As soon as you can, load this up and get it down to the boats!"

Shortly after, the men in the first house found another chest, this one being full of jewelry, plate, goblets and candles, in a delightful mixture of gold and silver.

This was followed by three large sacks full of silver pieces of eight and other coins, and another three large chests full of coins, gold, silver or copper metal ingots, jewels, uncut sapphires, emeralds, and rubies, cutlery, candles, goblets, and other bits and pieces, including small statues and what looked like little crowns or tiaras.

Some of the pirates had been pillaging ships in the Caribbean for many years, but none had ever seen so much precious booty in the same stash before. It was almost too much to comprehend. In the whole history of mankind and seafaring, few would ever have seen a sight that came close to this, including the Kings and Queens of all Christendom!

Such was the weight and amount of the treasure, that they found it difficult to carry it up and out of the house. Two of the chests had to be partially emptied before they could be lifted, and their contents carried in swift relay by men running back and forward, up and down the streets to the bay.

Several times, unlucky inhabitants of Puerto Bello de la Cruz stumbled to their doorways to relieve themselves in the trees, and were met by cold steel and an unexpected death.

It took two hours for James Silver and his men to transport his share of the treasure from the house they found it in, into the boats, and back to the Sea Dancer. James Silver later boasted that they didn't spill a single coin, and manage to recover every piece of treasure without leaving a penny behind.

Captain Rob was not so fortunate.

He had found and located the treasure as quickly as Silver, unearthing exactly the same number of chests and sacks, but while transporting it back to the boats, one of the sacks had split open aboard a bouncing cart, and the coins had spilled all over the ground. The pirates had rushed around, filling their pockets and hats, and putting as much as possible back on the cart, but as the last of the coins were being recovered their luck ran out and the alarm was raised.

The sun was just tipping the horizon when some dogs started barking loudly, and then someone in the town spotted them, fired a musket shot and shouted a loud warning to everyone else. At first, there was little response, giving Captain Rob's team extra precious minutes in hurrying down the hill with the final cart to the shore, but then when a second musket shot rang out, men started appearing in doorways, and running into the streets, in various states of attire and drunkenness.

As the last cart trundled and bounced down the hill towards the boats which had been ferrying the treasure back and forward to the ships for the past hour, more coins began to spill out of the cart.

Captain Rob left the shore, running back up the main street with a group of reinforcements, and shouting at the men in front to leave the coins in the dirt and make good their escape.

His band of pirates, all carrying muskets, split into two groups. Under the command of Robert Grieves, a mate aboard the Eagle, one group took up position at the bottom of the other main street that led down amongst the houses to the harbor.

Luckily, some of Kidd's men coming fast down the other street, stopped and started scratching in the dirt to pick up the fallen coins from the cart. Others behind them fell over the ones in front, and soon the street was blocked, a mêlée of drunken pirates fighting over the spilt coins. It was a short reprieve. Other locals and pirates from Kidd's command were pouring down the other side streets, shouting and waving their cutlasses.

About ten pirates escorting the cart down the hill broke off and started engaging Kidd's men as they chased after them. The cart was now close to the beach, and at James Silver's beckoning, those carrying coins and any loot were immediately loaded into the boats with the coins from the cart.

As Captain Rob's men approached those involved in the skirmishing, he gave a command and his men stopped running and formed two lines across the width of the street. In a move which Captain Rob had practiced and honed with his men aboard ship during the months spent at sea, he had taught the rear line to lift their muskets and prepare to fire a volley into the oncoming enemy in front.

The line in front were kneeling awaiting the command to stand, raise muskets and fire, then step forward, kneel and reload.

Together, they would form a moving wall of musket fire that would advance up the street, issuing a cloud of musket fire that would stop the enemy dead in their advance and cut them down quickly.

As soon as they were ready and in place, Cap'n Rob shouted loudly, "On me, boys!" and those holding back the oncoming pirates in front, disengaged and ran quickly down the hill, behind the wall of muskets, and down to the boats.

"Fire!" Captain Rob gave the command, and a cloud of fire and smoke erupted from the muskets. The front row of Kidd's men fell to the ground.

"Advance...Kneel, ...Raise....FIRE!" Captain Robb shouted again, and another line of Kidd's men fell.

"Advance...," he shouted again, and again. Each time a line of pirates falling in quick succession.

Such military-like discipline was almost unheard of amongst pirate crews at this time, and the effect it had on the enemy pirates was devastating. They fell quickly, blocking the street, and making it difficult for those behind to clamber over them. The others soon stopped in their tracks and hesitated. As they stood, more men fell to the ground under another wall of musket fire.

This broke their resolve, and they turned and started to retreat back up the hill and into the side streets.

The men under Robert Grieves' command had also advanced up the hill along the street they had stationed themselves in, but a group of Kidd's men coming down a side street had managed to destabilize their line, and they were all soon embroiled in hand to hand fighting.

By this time the boats with the last of the coins and booty had left the shore and were almost back at the ships. Other empty boats had now returned to the beach, and Captain Rob shouted at James Silver to start loading the men back into the boats. At the bottom of the street he was covering, Captain Rob left a single line of men issuing musket fire, and took the rest up the other street to the rescue of those involved in hand to hand combat. Seeing what was happening, James Silver sent another twenty men from the beach up to help, and soon Kidd's men were being beaten and were in full retreat.

A number of Captain Rob's men had fallen, and in the lull between the fighting, a band of men were sent out to recover the dying and wounded, and whatever dead bodies they could.

Steadily the boats were loaded with men and they started rowing back out to the ships, the wounded being put aboard the Thistle and tended by Mr Bones, the physician.

Gun smoke, the smell of burnt powder, and smoke from some fires which had started in some of the houses, now filled the air.

As soon as the last of the men arrived on the beach, Captain Rob gave the order to deploy the howitzers. Next, he turned towards the ships and gave a signal to the gunners aboard the Sea Dancer.

Within seconds a volley of cannon fire landed amongst the houses on the shore. A second volley swiftly followed.

The effect of this was to create fear, confusion and turmoil amongst Kidd's men on shore, who were regrouping and preparing for another attack on Captain Rob's men.

As the cannon balls ripped through the dry wooden houses, they started fired where they landed.

When a third volley of cannon arrived, the town of Puerto Bello de la Cruz began to burn.

Amidst the fear and confusion, the inhabitants began to flee in two directions: either back into the town and then up towards the fort and into the woods beyond, seeking sanctuary in the hills and trees, or down towards the beach and shore line.

As another wave of Kidd's pirates ran down towards the beach, the howitzers were fired, cutting down the front row of men en masse, the grape shot slicing through them, ripping open and disemboweling many of those caught in the blast. Those behind kept running in pure panic, and were soon killed by a second wave of howitzer fire, their gunners well trained and practiced in reloading their weapons fast and efficiently.

The raid had become a massacre, and the blood of Kidd's men was now running down the streets, congealing in the dirt or forming here and there into disgusting pools of red which now shimmered in the rising sun.

Captain Rob stood on the beach, watching dispassionately at the carnage he had created.

His mission, started many years before in a secret room in London, was now almost complete.

When the battle had started ashore, Captain Richard Wainright had led his men up the anchor lines of Kidd's ships in the harbor. They had met little resistance, all of which was dealt with quickly and ruthlessly. After looting the ship for water, grog, food and provisions, they had selected the largest vessel of all and started to move it towards the harbor mouth and into position.

On the other two ships, they pointed two of their cannons downwards, fired, and put large holes in their hulls. Both ships began to sink, bust just to make sure, Wainright set them on fire before he abandoned them and headed back to the Thistle.

With the loss of only two men during the onboard skirmishes, his part of the mission had been a success.

Within an hour, and by the time the sun had fully dawned, the last of Captain Rob's men were climbing aboard.

Their haul of treasure had been split between the three ships: the booty from the Fort had been loaded onto the Eagle, the treasure retrieved by James Silver onto the Sea Dancer, and the rest onto the Royal Thistle.

On board the Sea Dancer, Captain Rob gave the signal, and the three ships under his command weighed anchor and headed towards the harbor mouth and the open sea. The Royal Thistle had waited just outside the harbor entrance, to pick up the last of Wainright's men who had rowed out in a pinnace, having successfully just sunk Kidd's last remaining ship in the mouth of the harbor.

Then with all the men aboard and accounted for, Captain Robb's fleet set sail around the island, planning to meet up with the Albatross and offer assistance in finding and retrieving the last of the booty which was hidden in the cave.

As they sailed away, the mission a complete success, Puerto Bello De La Cruz lay destroyed and burning.

Aboard his three vessels, Captain Rob McGregor now carried the greatest treasure ever assembled and afloat at the same time in the history of mankind.

Looking up at the sun, smiling, Captain Rob thanked God.

It could not have gone better.

Just then the sun slipped behind a bank of cloud, and it began to rain.

Chapter 6

The Sea Dancer

Sunday Morning

7.30 a.m.

Aboard the Sea Dancer, Captain Rob McGregor looked at the clouds gathering overhead and felt the first twinges of concern. The clouds were moving very fast, and gathering pace by the minute. A few hours ago the sky had been almost clear, and they had watched the sun rising into the sky, with the promise of a glorious day.

Captain Rob was well versed at reading the signs of nature to foretell what was to come: the movement of the sea, the color of the water and the sky or clouds, the size and shape of the clouds, how high up they were in the sky, how many different layers of cloud there were, the speed and directions the clouds were moving, the rain, snow, hailstones or sleet, mist, lightning or thunder. And there were other signs to watch for: what the birds or fish were doing, and how they were behaving. Even observing the rats on board gave clues as to the weather they should expect.

And the signs were not good. The weather was changing very fast for the worse. A storm was coming. A large storm.

Which presented a problem.

Ideally, Captain McGregor should take his fleet into a harbour, and shelter the storm out. However... he had just destroyed the nearest harbor and blocked its entrance! There was no going back there, even if they had been welcome.

In addition, the coastline all the way around the island was very rugged, made up mainly of cliffs or ragged rocks which would rip the hull out of any ship that got too close. Captain McGregor knew that if the waters got rough, he would have to take his ships out to deep water to avoid being pushed onto the rocks by the high seas.

With no way of knowing for how long the coming storm would last, Captain McGregor also knew that he had to get as far away from the island as possible, before Captain Kidd returned.

If Kidd had any sense, he would he reading the signs and heading into a friendly port close to wherever he was now: wherever that may be.

Captain Rob cursed under his breath. The day had gone so well until now! It had been perfect up till then. It could not have gone better.

He thought briefly about the huge fortune that they had taken from Kidd's lair and smiled. He had never seen the like of it in his life before. No one had. So great was the vast, vast fortune that it would probably take weeks to count!

He looked at the gold coin that he was fiddling with in his hands, a souvenir of the haul, and wondered briefly where Kidd had amassed such a large fortune from. What poor victims had lost their lives because of the gold, and how many?

Was the treasure all the work of Kidd's own pirating, or like Captain Rob had done today, had Kidd stolen it from another Captain who had done all the hard work for him? There was so much...how long would it have taken Kidd to gather it all? What ships had he captured? And from which countries?

So many questions. Questions that he may never find answers to.

Some rain splashed into his eyes, and he wiped it away.

Blinking, he turned his attention back to the storm and the immediate job at hand.

Any moment now, they should sight the Albatross.

When the Sea Dancer, the Thistle and the Eagle had sailed to Puerto Bello de la Cruz, Captain Rob had ordered the Albatross to follow Richard Tyler's map to the opposite side of the island and locate the cave where the final part of the treasure had been buried. Once there, and as soon as the tide permitted, they were to lower their boat and enter the cave, retrieve the treasure and transfer it back to the Albatross.

Low tide was an hour ago, so if things had gone well, the boats should be returning to the Albatross any time now, hopefully as full of treasure as they were themselves.

If things had gone well.

Richard Tyler did not believe that there were any pirates tasked with guarding the cave, on the basis that Kidd's plan was to draw no attention to it, and only a few pirate officers knew anything about the treasure being there at all.

So, in theory, it should be an easy matter for the Albatross to locate the booty, take it and leave.

In theory.

Captain Rob looked back up at the clouds, and the oncoming storm, and cursed again.

No plans ever went according to plan. Who could have predicted this?

"There!" James Silver shouted, gesticulating wildly at the headland they were approaching. From where they were, they could just make out the bowsprit and bow of the Albatross pulling away from the island.

Captain Rob tried raising his glass to look at the Albatross, but the rain made it impossible to see anything.

The wind was picking up behind them now, and they made good time in drawing nearer to the headland. As they drew closer however, they heard the sound of cannon fire, and saw flashes of light coming from the Albatross. They could also smell smoke.

As they watched, the Albatross emerged from the other side of the headland, and started turning slowly towards them. As they passed the headland, the cannon fire stopped, and they realised that it was the Albatross that had been fired upon from the land, and that it was now aflame and burning.

The Albatross was beginning to list to starboard, and was obviously taking on water.

Although the wind and the rain were beginning to pick up, they were now close enough to hear the shouts of the men aboard the sinking ship.

A boat was already in the water, and a second was being put over the side, but the ship was taking on water so quickly now, that those aboard the Sea Dancer could see the ship was doomed to sink before the boat would be launched.

"It's going down fast!" Silver shouted.

"Prepare to pick up those in the boat," Captain Rob ordered, scanning the cliffs ahead trying to see where the cannon fire had come from. He could see nothing, although for a moment he thought he could make out a movement on the land high above the cliffs which could have been either an animal or a man. In the driving rain it was now impossible to tell.

Captain Rob ordered for a message to be sent to the other ships telling them to head further away from the island and wait for the Sea Dancer to join them, but prepare their guns for battle in case Captain Kidd's ships were just about to emerge from around the headland. A boat was set down immediately and the message dispatched, the pirates in the boat rowing furiously to convey the order.

The sea was getting rougher and Captain Rob did not want to risk any of his ships being pushed closer to the rocks, or into range of any cannon that could be waiting for them to come round the headland. It would also be prudent not to sail past the headland and around the island, in case a trap was awaiting them,

As they drew closer Captain Rob ordered Richard Tyler to join him on the forecastle to advise him on the lay of the land and the coast, and where any cannon on the land could be positioned.

When Tyler joined James Silver and the Captain they stood together at the prow of the Sea Dancer and watched in despair as the Albatross disappeared from sight beneath the waves.

As the ship went down they could hear the death cries of the men who were still left on board: by the time the Sea Dancer would be close enough to pick up any survivors, most would have been washed onto the rocks and smashed to pieces.

"Avast there, Mr Baker!" Captain Rob shouted behind him to the deck. "As soon as the boat from the Albatross arrives, get those sailors aboard and you and three men take the boat back and pick up any more survivors in the water! And send one of the men from the Albatross up here to make a report."

A few minutes later the boat from the Albatross pulled alongside, and the lucky sailors who had survived the sinking of their ship started to climb up the lines to the deck of the Sea Dancer. Many of the men were wounded.

As Baker and the others lowered themselves into the boat and headed back towards the waters where the Albatross was last seen, one of the survivors came across to the quarterdeck. Captain Rob recognised the man immediately. He was one of the most ruthless men on the Albatross, famous amongst the others for the number of men he had once killed on a single day during a fight with the French.

"Mr Sharpe," Captain Rob welcomed him. "Tell me what happened on your boat, and make it fast. Are we in danger? Are there any other ships around the headland?"

The tall English pirate looked up at the cliffs above the land, quickly scanning the hillside before answering.

"Neah, Cap'n. Not from here. We were fired upon by cannon from somewhere above the cliffs on the other side of the headland. We've seen no other vessels, apart from yours. I reckon we'll be safe, so long as we turn around and head out to sea."

"And what about the treasure? Did you find any?" James Silver asked, voicing the question that they were all thinking.

For a moment Mr Sharpe's eyes lit up, and a smile crossed his lips, but then he looked back towards where the Albatross had last been, and the smile vanished almost as quickly as it had appeared.

"Treasure? Aye, Mr Silver. A vast fortune. The like of which ye have never seen before! I was in the party that went ashore into the cave as soon as the tide ebbed. We slipped into the cave in the boat, waded ashore and started digging at the back of the cave. We'd been digging for only thirty minutes when we found the first chest. It was full of gold coin. A fortune Captain. A fortune..." The sailor paused, looking over at the boat which Mr Baker was now rowing back to where the Albatross sank.

"Carry on man," James Silver coaxed, "Complete your report! Did you find anything else? And who fired on you? And when?"

"After we put the chest in the boat, we found two sacks of coins and another two chests full of pieces of jewelry and plates, candelabra and goblets. And then, we found a small chest full of jewels...diamonds, rubies, rings, necklaces...It was incredible! We filled the boat, and rowed it back out of the cave towards the Albatross. We loaded it all onto the Albatross which was anchored in the shadows of the cliffs. We had just slipped anchor and set sail, taking us out away from the cliff, when the first cannon was fired. At first we didn't see where it was coming from, but then we saw that it was coming from a cannon high up above the cliff. They fired on us at will, but we couldn't elevate the cannon high enough and couldn't fire back... They hit us three times, holing us badly. At the same time, the weather started to get worse, and a fire had started in the ship. We tried to get out of range by coming around the headland, but we went down fast."

"Why didn't they fire upon you earlier, before you landed?"

"They probably didn't see us arrive. We anchored at night in the dark. I'm guessing they didn't see us until we were leaving and came out from under the shadow of the cliff and into view from the land."

"And the treasure?" Richard Tyler asked, knowing the answer already.

"Inside the Albatross. Sunk. All of it..."

"All of it?" Captain Rib asked.

"All of it," the bedraggled pirate replied.

"Well then, in that case, you won't object to emptying your pockets, will you? Empty your pockets, Mr Sharpe." Captain Rob commanded.

The pirate looked across at the Captain, startled.

"Empty your pockets man!" James Silver shouted.

The pirate reached into his breeches with both hands and pulled out two handfuls of gold coins and jewels.

"I was only trying to help save what we could... all the men have something. We all took what we could before we got into the boat..."

Captain Rob stepped forward, taking the hat off James Silver's head, turning it over and reaching out with it to Sharpe.

"Thanking ye kindly, Mr Sharpe. If you'll just hand it all over to the quartermaster now, and then go with Mr Silver to recover anything else that was taken from the Albatross by the other men, we'd be most grateful. We'll add it to the rest, and share it out when we're far away from here and safe."

As Mr Silver and the pirate left the quarterdeck, Silver carrying his hat which was now full of gold, Captain Rob and Richard Tyler watched as the boat from the Albatross arrived at the scene of the sinking and started to circle around, picking up some survivors.

Sadly, there were not many.

Thirty minutes later the boat had returned to the Sea Dancer. After the men had climbed aboard, Captain Rob gave the order for the boat to be abandoned and Mr Jones set it adrift.

"Well, Mr Tyler, I think it's time we joined the others, and find another island to shelter from the storm that is coming!" Captain Rob said, returning to the helm and taking up his position beside the man on the tiller.

"I'm sorry, Captain. I knew nothing about the cannon above the cave...I never knew it was there..." Richard Tyler started to excuse himself.

"Enough Mr Tyler. Such knowledge would have been helpful, admittedly, but I won't hold it against you. We still have three ships full to the gunwales with the greatest treasure ever assembled, and it's all down to you! Anyway, I don't think it will be missed. There's more than enough in our holds to lasts us for a thousand years or more! Most importantly, your share for today's venture is guaranteed to be substantial. Of that ye may rest assured!"

The wind was blowing hard now, and as they turned into the wind, the sails filled and the Sea Dancer lurched forward, picking up speed and heading after the other remaining boats of Captain Rob's fleet.

It was thirty minutes before they sighted the first boat, the Royal Thistle. The Eagle was waiting a distance behind it.

As the other ships came into sight, Captain Rob was studying the weather again. Over the past twenty minutes, the rain had stopped, the clouds had cleared, the sea had become calmer, but the temperature had dropped.

To Captain Rob, this made no sense. He had never seen conditions like this before, materializing so fast, and then disappearing again so soon. Captain Rob was surprised. He had been convinced that a major storm had been brewing up, and had been planning to make a run for Black Rock, an island that he had seen once before several years ago, where he had hoped to shelter from the brunt of the storm in the lee of the volcanic mountain that rose sharply out of the sea.

Maybe that would not be necessary after all. Nevertheless, Rob felt very uneasy. Perhaps it was just the excitement of the day, or the upset of losing a boat he liked, a crew he valued, and a vast treasure that was apparently, according to Mr Sharpe, unparalleled anywhere in the civilized world.

Suddenly the wind died, and the sails began to flap.

The seamen on the deck all looked up, staring at the rigging. Rob could sense the unease that was spreading through the crew. He had not been the only seaman on board to feel unhappy and unsettled by the strange weather conditions.

"Fog!", a sailor aloft in the rigging shouted down.

Almost as one, they all looked out towards the Royal Thistle, still a mile off, which was suddenly engulfed by a thick bank of fog which was rolling towards them at great speed across the surface of the now calm sea.

Fog?

Where had it come from? Why was it moving so fast?

One moment they were being buffeted by waves and storm conditions, the next they were becalmed, and now they were about to be engulfed by fog. What was going on?

The Sea Dancer had now slowed down and was no longer making any headway through the water. The sails were still, and as the fog rolled up to them and swallowed them up, the world around them became very quiet, and muffled.

James Silver returned to the Quarterdeck.

"Have you ever seen the like of this before, Cap'n Rob?" he asked.

"Never, lad." Captain Rob answered. "Not in all my years."

"How far are we away from the Eagle and the Sea Dancer?"

"A nautical mile. Straight in front of us."

"Too far away to send a boat across?"

"At the moment, yes. We've no choice but to wait it out for now and hope that the wind comes back and blows the fog away. I'm going below to look at the booty. Call me when anything changes."

"Aye, aye, Cap'n." Silver replied.

Captain Rob walked across the quarterdeck, stepped through the hatch and down the ladders to the hold where the Captain Kidd's treasure had been placed at the bottom of the ship.

As he stepped through into the dark, dank room, he found himself in the company of ten other pirates, all down there for the same purpose: to marvel at the riches they had stolen and would soon divide up between themselves.

As Captain Rob stepped into the room, the Boatswain, a burly man from Devon, stepped forward and offered the Captain his oil lamp.

"...So ye can see just how rich we all are, Cap'n Rob," he smiled.

"Thanks, Mr Peters. 'Tis appreciated." Captain Rob replied.

"Captain," another of the crew asked. "What do ye make o' the weather? Are we heading for a storm, or are we not?"

"To be honest, Mr Glasgow, that I cannot tell ye. I thought that we were, but then I was proved wrong. Now we are becalmed, and there is not a puff of wind in the sky! But come on lads, enough talk of clouds and rain,...show me the swag! What exactly is it that we have here? Enough for each of us to buy a farm?"

"That it is, Captain Rob. And more. Look ye here, Cap'n Rob...See what I have in my hands!"

Captain Rob looked across at what the ship's cook was holding up. It was a large, thick golden chain, with over a thousand links in it. It had enough gold in it to buy a small island, let alone a few acres. He reached out and took it from the young cook who slunk back away from the Captain as he took the proffered chain from his hands.

The Captain appraised it, whistling at its weight.

"This will raise a fair penny in Boston, lads. A fair penny indeed!"

The Captain laughed, and the others joined in.

"Now, step aside lads, and let yer Captain see what else we have got..."

Up topside, James Silver was nibbling on one of the last of the biscuits that they had left.

The Sea Dancer and the other ships in Captain Rob's fleet were running dangerously low on food and fresh water.

James Silver had not yet spoken with Captain Wainwright from the Thistle, whose job it had been during the raid to secure whatever supplies he could from any other ships in the harbor. He hoped he had managed to find enough supplies for the next four weeks at least. Otherwise there would be trouble to come, and a lot of empty bellies.

A man cannot eat gold.

What most landlubbers failed to realise was that when a pirate ship attacked another ship at sea, often the greatest desire was to find food, water and grog. Desperation, starvation and thirst often drove pirates harder than any dreams of jewels or silver.

And right now, James Silver was hungry.

The sooner they caught up with the Thistle and shared out what Captain Wainright had recovered, the better!

When Captain Rob emerged back onto the quarterdeck, it had been over an hour since they had entered the fog. Seeing that the conditions had not improved in the slightest, he ordered one of the gunners to prepare to fire one of the cannons on the port side, in a direction away from the last sighting of the Royal Thistle.

A few minutes later, he gave the order to fire, with every sailor on board listening eagerly for a reply from either the Thistle or the Eagle, counting the seconds in between when they fired the first shot and when any reply might be heard.

Captain Rob knew that the other ships would be waiting for a cannon shot from the Sea Dancer, this being a standard procedure that he had taught the other captains many months before, for use in any weather such as this that they may encounter whilst sailing north to Boston.

As the gunner lit the charge, the cannon erupted, jumping backwards on its carriage, with the cannon ball disappearing instantly into the fog. There was an initial loud roar, but the sound was immediately swallowed up and muffled by the blanketing effect of the fog.

Captain Rob counted.

A few moments later they heard the first bang, followed quickly by another.

Two bangs: two ships- the Thistle and the Eagle had instantly fired their cannon in reply to their initial shot. By counting the time between the first shot and its reply, and doing some basic calculations, they were able to estimate the distance between the ships.

Captain Rob turned to James Silver, "What do you reckon?" he asked.

"Less than half a mile away. We've been drifting closer together."

"Good. We'll repeat it after lunch. Please order the cook to serve up some food. With any luck, this fog will lift by the afternoon...I'll take the helm for now."

Sadly, both men knew that although luck had been on their side earlier that morning, with the loss of the Albatross, then the storm, and now the fog, it seemed that any such luck had long since departed them.

The sinking of the Albatross and the strange weather had dampened the spirits of the men, but with some food in their bellies and the break in their duties afforded by the lack of wind, the men sat around chatting and taking it in turns to go below decks and look at the treasure in the hold. Slowly an air of excitement began to spread and lighten the mood of the sailors, and the sound of laughter began to return to the deck. Shortly afterwards two of the men started to play on their penny whistles, and others took to their feet and started to dance a jig. When the other men started to clap and join in with the tune, the transformation was complete.

Incredibly, as the morale lifted, so did the fog. Whereas before it had been difficult to see from one end of the ship to the other, and the top of the masts were lost in a white blanket, it was now possible to see some clear sea on either side of the ship and both sails were completely visible on both masts.

Looking up, Captain Rob saw a dull, white ball beginning to peak its way through the fog as the sun tried hard to shine through above them, and realised that once the fog lifted, there would be blue clear sky above.

A cheer went up from the men, and at the same moment Rob felt the first breath of wind on his face. A minute later, the sails began to flap and the fog started to disappear almost as fast as it had arrived.

Captain Rob shouted at the men, issuing commands and sending the riggers aloft to trim the sail.

Ahead of them the Royal Thistle and the Eagle were now both fully visible, both boats underway with their sails set.

The Sea Dancer was the fastest boat in the fleet, and soon they had drawn close to the Eagle, which was now lagging behind the Thistle.

Captain Llewellyn Jones stood at the stern, shouting a welcome across to them. Captain Rob let Silver take over control of the tiller, and he lent over the starboard rail at the front of the ship as they drew close.

"Ahoy, Captain Jones! Good to see you man. Everything shipshape?"

"Ahoy, Captain McGregor. Everything's grand! But what news of the Albatross?"

"Only bad news, Captain Jones. Sunk by cannon fire from the shore, and she took her men and the booty with her. A great loss. But we should not lose heart. Three ships have survived today's adventure, and each laden with great treasure!"

"And what of the weather? I cannot read the signs...these conditions are a mystery to me!" The big Welshman replied, waving at the now empty blue sky above."For now, it looks like the worst has passed. As such, I would like to drop anchor somewhere and rest a while and issue some grog to the men. They deserve it!"

"Agreed. Let's make haste to the Black Rock. You will find it on your charts to the north. With these winds we will be there by mid-afternoon."

Overtaking the Eagle, Captain Rob issued the same command to the Royal Thistle, and by late afternoon all three ships had dropped anchor in the shadow of the black volcano and a well earned measure of grog had been issued to the crew.

It was time to celebrate.
Chapter 7

Bush Center for Geo-Electromagnetic Studies

New York

Monday

00.29 a.m.

AD 2013

Professors Derek Martin and Mick Samuels stood in front of the bank of LED screens staring in disbelief at the satellite images and real-time video that was being relayed to them from the Skybird satellite and the G-IV Gulfstream high-altitude plane that was flying directly above the storm center.

As the images on the wall screens showed, there were now no longer four separate hurricanes: only minutes before two of them had collided together, and now as they watched, the third of the hurricanes - Hurricane Josephine - was beginning to collide and merge with the new, single mega-storm just formed by the collision of Isaias and Hanna.

Ten minutes ago they had been able to see four clearly defined 'eyes', one at the center of each hurricane: then as Isaias and Hanna had collided, they had merged together and coalesced until the dark blue centers in the middle of each had warped together, forming one single hurricane eye.

Surprisingly the eye of the combined Hanna-and-Isaias hurricane was smaller than the individual eyes had been in each of the separate hurricanes. At the same time, they had observed a visible increase in the speed of rotation of the new hurricane, and it had changed course towards Josephine, veering slightly away from Hurricane Kyle.

Incredibly, almost as if it could sense what had just happened, Hurricane Kyle had also altered its course, veering further to the north west and now on a new collision course with the other hurricanes.

At this moment, the titles that Derek and Mick shared - 'Professor'- held very little meaning to either of them. For all their education and training, the basic fact was that neither man understood what was happening...this was something that had previously never been observed or described in any text-book and could not be predicted.

In theory, what was happening today was impossible.

At its most basic, a hurricane was an extremely intense rotating weather system that began to form over tropical oceanic regions, and then developed and intensified until sustained wind-speeds reached over 74 mph. The strength and power of all hurricanes varied according to a number of factors, but there was a general acceptance that their destructive capability could be categorized on a scale of '1' to '5' , depending upon the hurricane's wind speed.

Hurricane Hanna was a Category 4 hurricane. It had formed before the others, spun up north and then, incredulously, started to veer back down south. According to the text book definition, just before it collided with Isaias, Hanna had a sustained wind speed of between 130-156 mph. Isaias, on the other hand was a Category 5 hurricane... exhibiting wind speeds of well over 157 mph. Isaias had formed a thousand miles away from Hanna, had also moved north, grown in strength, and then started to veer south towards Central America, colliding with Hanna en route.

Hurricanes Josephine and Kyle were younger than Hanna and Isaias, but had already grown to Category 3, which meant that internal wind speeds had reached over 111-129 mph.

The satellite images that Derek and Mick were studying showed the typical storm spirals of clouds spinning outwards in an anticlockwise direction.

As Hanna and Isaias had collided, the size of the new superstorm had initially grown, covering a much larger geographic area, but then it had rapidly shrunk in size.

It was hard to imagine what was actually happening inside the storm. The instruments before them that lined their laboratory, told them facts and figures, and the satellite images showed them what the storms 'looked' like...but this was on a massive scale... What was actually, really, truly happening inside these storms?

Staring at the images of the storms taken from 550 miles above the Earth's surface, Derek felt like a little child, totally inadequate and useless. The scientific equipment in this room at the Bush Center for Geo-Electromagnetic Studies represented the state-of the-art knowledge of mankind. It was the most advanced equipment anywhere on the planet, connected and communicating with aircraft, submarines, satellites, and spacecraft that represented the pinnacle of human advancement and achievement...and yet, basically, in spite of all their clever machines...they hadn't really got a clue what was going on out there in the ocean today.

They had ideas ...theories ...suggestions ...guesses,yes, but really nothing more.

The conditions that led to four separate hurricanes being established and then sustained at the same time in the Atlantic Ocean were not clearly understood by contemporary science.

On a more positive note, Derek knew that in the years to come, the events that were happening now would be studied, dissected and modeled ad infinitum until the existing models that predicted weather patterns and hurricane formations could be successfully updated and refined, making today's events predictable and fully comprehensible. But that was the future... for now they could only watch, record everything and try to understand it all later.

As Isaias and Hanna collided with Josephine from the north, Kyle pushed into and merged with Josephine from the east.

Mick lifted his hand and wrapped an arm around Derek's shoulder. This was the moment that Professor Derek Martin had been waiting and watching for, for most of his adult life.

In Switzerland, atomic physicists had spent billions of dollars building a research center to watch and observe what happened when atoms collided together. At the completely other end of the scale, the reason why the Bush Center for Geo-Electromagnetic Studies had been built was almost purely to observe the next few moments: what would happen to the electrodynamic energy of the storms when they collided? Eight years before, Derek had predicted that under conditions similar to those being witnessed now, they should observe the creation of unstable singularity in space that he had called a 'Hunraken Vortex'.

When Derek had first conceived of the Hunraken Vortex he was a Ph.D. student studying atmospheric physics at the University of Delaware. When he had presented his final thesis to the professors in his department for his Ph.D. examination, he had initially been met by silence. At first this led him to believe that he had just failed his Ph.D. and that the past five years of his life had been wasted. But then, after several minutes of silence, three out of the five professors in attendance had stood and given him a standing ovation. The other two professors had remained seated, and had given the impression that they did not agree with Derek's findings. Derek had been asked to leave the room, and await the decision of the panel, forced to endure three hours of waiting whilst the professors debated his work and his thesis and decided whether or not to award him his doctorate degree.

When the professors had finally emerged from the room in Sharp Lab where the presentation had taken place, they had surrounded him, congratulated him, and commented excitedly upon the quality and scope of the work. They had then all retired to the Blue Hen Club, drank lots of beer and spent the rest of the day and evening debating and arguing excitedly whether or not a Hunraken Vortex was possible and could ever be created naturally or manufactured by large-scale experimentation.

Since that day physicists and mathematicians the world over had continued to debate and theorize over the possibility that the Hunraken Vortex could ever exist.

If it could, the implications were truly mind-blowing.

When Mick Samuels had first heard about the Hunraken Vortex, he had been attending a guest lecture by Professor Martin at MIT. Having just graduated with a Ph.D. from Harvard, and specializing in both Electrodynamics and Quantum Mechanics, he had been fascinated by what he had heard, and had later studied everything that Professor Martin had written. A conversation had then developed between the two over email, and when funding for the Bush Center had been granted, Mick had been Professor Martin's first hire.

Together they had built the laboratory, hired other scientists, and launched a new field of research into the effect that ultra-high electromagnetic fields would induce in solid state, gaseous and liquid matter.

In essence, in much the same way the Atomic Bomb became the visible, tangible proof that matter could exist either as mass or as energy, the bomb being the catalyst that converted the matter back into energy, the Hunraken Vortex, if ever observed, would be the tangible proof that a much wider study of quantum electrodynamics also had a physical effect on the real world that people could observe and experience.

During 2011 and 2012, the Higg's Boson was much sought after in Cern to prove the existence of one universal force in Physics, yet scientists always struggled to explain in simple terms what the Higg's Boson was or why it was important. The same became true of the Hunraken Vortex: for a while it became the lovechild of the media. Everyone talked about it and wrote about it, but no one could ever explain in simple terms just what it was.

The reason for this was simple: any explanation of the Hunraken Vortex, by necessity, would be complex. Essentially, it required an understanding of quantum mechanics, quantum electrodynamics, nuclear physics, and meteorology.

At its simplest level Derek Martin had hypothesized that when the magnitude of an electrodynamic field increased beyond a specific level, known as the Hunraken Amplitude, the structure of the electrodynamic field that held together the sub-atomic particles that make up matter, would begin to deteriorate, or effectively 'shatter'. At this transition point any physical matter would either transform to an unstructured plasma of energy and matter which would be formed at that point in time and space into a form of 'cosmic goo', or, the matter would essentially 'flip' from one point in the space time continuum to another point in time or space where the 'electrodynamic pressure' was lower.

In other words, when the electromagnetic field got too great, matter in the center of the field could theoretically be squeezed from one point in space and time to another, making it jump from Point A to Point B: the Hunraken Vortex.

Derek had first hypothesized the existence of the Hunraken Vortex in an attempt to resolve an anomaly he found in the work of a professor he had previously studied under at Delaware: its existence had effectively popped out of the mathematics as he fought to find an answer to another problem.

It had taken Derek a while to understand the full implications of what he had discovered.

There were now many scientists who were interested in his work, and funding to continue and expand the field of research he was developing was surprisingly simple to come by.

In particular there were two main sources of the funding. The first was NASA. The second was the American Military.

The latter being very interested indeed.

As Derek and Mick watched the screens, Mick noticed that Derek was shaking.

"Nervous?"

"You betcha."

"So am I."

Nothing more was said. In the years leading to this point in time, countless hours had been spent in discussing exactly what might be seen if the formation of a Hunraken Vortex was ever observed.

Basically, after all the debate, still no one knew what to expect.

The vortex was an electromagnetic effect: according to the calculations they had run on the supercomputer, the electromagnetic field necessary to create the conditions under which it might manifest itself, if indeed such a phenomena was possible, was beyond the capability of being generated by any existing machine on earth that Derek yet knew of.

A hurricane, on the other hand, was made by Nature. And Nature was infinitely more powerful than man.

In effect, a hurricane was a machine, a large heat engine that fed on the incredible amount of heat absorbed from the sun by the waters of the tropical oceans, and then later released tremendous amounts of that heat -or energy- into the air. As the air heats up, storms form and grow.

As the storms moved, they carried that energy with them, dissipating it slowly as the storms spun away from the source from where the power had originally been fed into the machine: the waters of the tropical oceans.

Professor Martin had seen the potential of these 'weather machines' to carry vast amounts of 'heat': energy which could, under specific circumstances, be released instantly instead of being dissipated slowly over a large area. He had calculated that should several storms collide together from different directions, the effect would be to focus the electromagnetic energy contained within the storms into a small, confined area of space: an electromagnetic cauldron of intense energy: the 'Hunraken Cauldron'. Under the right conditions, this energy would have nowhere to go, and as the storm systems compressed together, the electromagnetic energy within that focal area would rapidly increase and intensify until it passed over the Hunraken Amplitude, and a Hunraken Vortex was initiated.

Professor Martin's theory predicted the possible creation of either a 'cosmic goo', or a vortex from one point in space and time to another: but if either of these was formed, what would it look like?

And how large would it be? In a hurricane, what volume of space would it occupy? Would it be at all visible, or would it be so small that you could not really see it without a microscope?

There were a lot of unanswered questions, but everyone at the Bush Center for Geo-Electromagnetic Studies knew that each new journey into unchartered territory had to begin with a single step.

The first step was always the hardest.

As the two professors stared at the images on Screen 'A' they saw the eye of the hurricane in the center of Josephine crumple as the newly formed mega-storm made up of Isaias and Hanna smashed into it from the north. Almost simultaneously Hurricane Kyle penetrated the eastern side of Josephine, rapidly moving inwards to where the eye of Josephine had been just moments before.

It was a dark night, and only starlight and moonlight from a crescent moon were reflecting back from the layers of turbulent cloud below, making it difficult to see what was happening in the normal spectral range.

Two of the images on the screens were therefore showing what the satellites above were observing in the infra-red and micro-wave frequency ranges, on Screens 'B' and 'C' respectively. Both of these images were also rather dark, but as the hurricanes collided, the area around the collision between the hurricanes, suddenly started to light up with activity in the infra-red and micro-wave ranges. As the hurricanes merged, the center of the newly created superstorm started to glow.

On Screen 'A', the area around the center of the new superstorm began to shimmer, and tiny pulses of light seemed to glitter across the area at its core.

A moment later a sudden burst of intense visible light appeared on the image projected onto Screen A. For a tiny fraction of a second, a pulse of light as bright as the sun flashed on the screen, making both men watching exclaim involuntarily.

"Wow!" shouted Derek.

"Did you see that?" replied Mick.

But it was not over yet.

As the first pulse of light disappeared from the area around the center of the superstorm, a second pulse of light flashed and formed a ring of light which then spread outwards, decreasing in intensity as it expanded: it reminded Derek of the ripple you saw when you dropped a stone into a bowl of phosphorescent water.

But as fast the ripple of light spread outwards, the storm clouds left behind on the inside of the expanding circle of light seemed to blur for a moment, then disappear altogether.

It only took a moment for the circle of expanding light to wash outwards across the surface of the storm and fade away, but in those few seconds, almost all the storm cloud vanished, leaving behind only patches and wisps of dark cloud that rapidly grew lighter in color and then vanished as well.

Professor Derek Martin and Mick Samuels stared dumbstruck at the screens, both of their jaws gaping wide open.

"Bloody hell!..." Derek eventually said, breaking the silence. "Where did they go? What happened to Hurricane Josephine and Kyle and Isaias and Hanna?"

"They're gone! They've disappeared! EXACTLY like you predicted they would!"

"It's incredible... I was right! My theory was right...! One moment the storms were there...the next moment they weren't! And all the energy...it HAD to go somewhere!"

"Did you see the pulses of light? The radial wave spreading outwards...?"

"I've never seen anything like that before. No one has...But where did the energy go?"

"Through a Hunraken Vortex! It's the only explanation!"

"Mick... I think you're right. That has to be the answer!"

"Let's watch it again..."

But before Mick could wind back the video streams to the moment just before the collisions took place, the phones began to ring.

Most were people calling to congratulate them, and to join in the excitement of the moment, or to try to be the first television or radio station to get a quote which they could rush onto the airways as they reported that the dangerous storms in the Atlantic no longer posed a threat to the Eastern Seaboard of the United States.

But then the red phone on Derek's desk rang, the first in a chain of events which would soon threaten the survival of mankind itself.

Derek picked it up.

It was the Flight Operations Center at NOAA.

Stormchaser 3 had gone missing.

Chapter 8

Bush Center for Geo-Electromagnetic Studies

New York

Monday

00.48 a.m.

Professor Derek Martin put the red phone down, walked around his desk and sat down hard in his leather armchair. He leant forward and wrapped both his hands around the back of his neck and rocked back and forward.

"Oh shit!.." he exclaimed loudly.

"They confirmed it was missing?"

"Yes."

"Fuck..." Mick replied.

For a moment neither said anything more, both lost in their own thoughts.

"And it was definitely the Stormchaser 3, not Stormchaser 1 or 2?" Mick spoke again.

"Definitely..."

"I'm sorry, Derek, I know you liked Kate a lot." Mick struggled with finding the right words to say. What should you say at a time like this?

"It was a long time ago...almost five years to be precise. But we were close. Very close...for a while."

"What exactly did they say?"

"That they lost all contact with the Lockheed WP-3D Orion at about twenty-nine minutes past midnight. One minute they could see it on their radar, and then the next it was gone. They lost all radio contact, and all instruments on the plane that were transmitting stopped abruptly. Apparently the G-IV Gulfstream was flying almost directly above them, and they saw a sudden flash of intense light coming from where the flight operations center said Stormchaser 3 was. And the satellite above also lost its microwave contact with the plane at the exact same moment. One moment the plane was there...and the next it wasn't. Maybe it blew up...or was hit by lightning...?"

"Come on Derek, it was in the middle of the most intense electromagnetic storms we've ever recorded. I think that it's more than likely that we've just lost contact with it for now...perhaps there is still too much electromagnetic noise in the air for any communications to get through?"

"Mick, you know as well as I that NOAA has been using the new high-powered MTS microwave communications system that can track the position of the aircraft almost to within a yard, even when normal radio contact can't get through. The NOAA Aircraft Operations Center in Florida just confirmed that they've lost contact with it on MTS too."

"Do we know its last position?"

"Yes... According to the last satellite contact it was flying through the eye of Josephine when Hanna and Isaias and Kyle collided with Josephine and pushed through the eyewall at 00:29 a.m. That puts them dead center of the collision, right in the middle of..."

Mick's eyes lit up. "...right in the middle of the Hunraken Cauldron!"

Derek jumped up and walked over to the wall of video screens, punching a few numbers on the virtual keyboard on the screen. "Let's look at the videos once again..."

A few seconds later they were both scrutinizing reruns of the satellite video images which showed the moment the eyewall collapsed at the center of Hurricane Josephine and when the other three superstorms pushed through, crushing the column of space at the epicenter and focusing the energy of the most powerful multi-megastorm ever recorded into a focal area from which it could not escape.

Once again they saw the area around the center of the new megastorm begin to shimmer and glow as a myriad of tiny pulses of light sparkled in the area around the collision center.

"Any second now..."Derek said excitedly, his hand outstretched towards the screen, waiting to point at the image the moment the strange pulse of light flashed at the heart of the storm. "...There! There, it is! Wow...do you think..."

"Wait,...hang on a second...remember, there were two flashes... Let's see the second....THERE! That one! What is that one? What was that second wave of light that flashed and spread outwards from the center?"

They quickly replayed the video sequence again, zooming into the picture and enlarging it as large as possible, straining to see any more detail that could tell them more.

Twenty minutes later the floor was covered with high-definition color photographs that they had printed off and were studying on their knees.

On one of the images, taken just before the eyewall collapsed, they were sure they could see the tiny, dark outline of Stormchaser 3 flying across the eye of the hurricane. The next images showed the area now covered by the storm clouds as they smashed into each other from the different directions. A few images later in the sequence of photographs laid out on the floor, they examined the position where the first pulse of light was seen by the satellite and realised that on a line of forecasted trajectory of the flying Lockhead WP-3D Orion aircraft it was almost directly ahead of where Stormchaser 3 had last been seen. The Orion had been flying straight towards it!

The second pulse of light that had appeared and spread out as a wave had started from a different position in space, somewhere behind and slightly to the south of where the first pulse had been recorded. From their reckoning, they related to two separate events, ...whatever they were.

Mick stood up and walked over to the water fountain, pouring himself a plastic cup full of cool refreshing water, before he said what both of them were thinking but not voicing aloud.

"Derek, what exactly were we expecting to happen? We were looking for a Hunraken Vortex... hoping for a Hunraken Vortex to be created. And stupidly, we sent an airplane into the area to search for it! Idiots! Your theory predicted that any physical matter caught in the Hunraken Cauldron would either be ripped apart and transformed into plasma or flipped to other dimensional coordinates where the e-pressure was lower. Well, I think we just saw the latter happen. Stormchaser 3 flew right into the Hunraken Cauldron and was pushed out of this world into some other point in space and time..."

Derek stood up and walked back over to the screen bank on the wall, his back turned to Mick.

"I know what you're saying. We both know it. Fuck...I think I just killed eleven people. I just sent Kate and ten other people through a Hunraken Vortex! They're gone. Probably dead. And it's all my fault!"

.

\--------------------

.

Of the two Lockheed WC-130s from the United States Air Force Reserve's 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron that had been loaned to the Bush Center, one had already returned to base. The second had been ordered to fly back over the area where the four superstorms had collided just over thirty minutes before: the crew had been twenty minutes into the flight home when an order had come directly from the Pentagon instructing them to return to the collision area.

Colonel Brian Patterson had been monitoring the events taking place over the Atlantic with great interest. It was his money that covered the cost for over half of the Bush Center to be built, and although he had begun to wonder if the money had been well spent, at last it seemed that his investment may have paid off: their military satellites had shown that Stormchaser 3 had disappeared and was now nowhere to be seen. Which gave him great hope that after almost a decade of failure, the seemingly impossible had just happened.

Colonel Brian Patterson, or Professor Patterson, as his other title from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology alluded to, was an intelligent man who did not believe in fairies, wizards or ghosts, but who did believe in the miracles that could be performed from the proper application of the laws of physics and mathematics.

It was Colonel Patterson that had seen the potential of the work that Professor Derek Martin had done, and had then realised just what it could mean. His secretive Research and Development department buried deep in the hills in Colorado, had already spent billions conducting research into finding a way of making teleportation a reality, before Professor Martin had even published his thesis.

The research that his department was conducting was based on a completely different concept, and quite frankly, in theory it was more likely to succeed, but what made Professor Martin's ideas of interest to Colonel Patterson, was his proposal that in order to harness the power necessary to make teleportation possible, you would have to find a power source in nature that could unleash the required energy on such a large scale. Until now, their approach had been to start building a very large nuclear power station from which eventually, enormous amounts of power could be switched into their laboratories to enable them to conduct their experiments.

Interestingly, as Professor Martin had explained in his thesis, whereas mankind would really struggle to create such power themselves, Mother Nature routinely could and did. Such power was frequently collected from the sun by the waters of the Earth's oceans, stored and then released into its atmospheric system through a simple, natural process called a 'Hurricane'.

What made Professor Martin's theories additionally interesting to the U.S. Defense Department, was the possibility that as well as explaining a possible way to transport matter from one point to another, it also alluded to the just as real possibility of travelling from one point in time to another, either back, forward, or sideways!

Whereas, only twenty years ago most scientists would never have seriously entertained the possibility that time travel could actually happen, breakthroughs in physics and mathematics now described several ways in which, under specific circumstances, time travel could actually take place. Although few would ever admit to it, Governments and scientists the world over, were now spending billions of dollars each year in pursuit of realizing this dream.

In one of his laboratories in Colorado, Colonel Patterson himself had over sixty scientists dedicated to this task.

In addition he funded several external projects that also showed potential, and he kept a very keen eye on their failures...and successes.

Such was in his interest in Professor Martin's endeavors that behind the scenes he had negotiated on his behalf to have resources in the 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron made available to Professor Martin whenever needed. In addition for this experiment he had also secretly placed several members of his scientific team in NOAA: one was aboard Stormchaser 2, and another aboard Stormchaser 3.

Each knew the risks they ran, but were nevertheless committed to their tasks.

And should any experiment ever prove successful, and transportation through space or time through a Hunraken Vortex was ever achieved, his agents were fully trained as to what they must do, in the name of the United States of America.

Until now, this had been an eventuality that Colonel Patterson had never dared to let himself believe could happen.

Yet, rerunning the video footage of what had occurred over the Atlantic, and listening to the commentary that was coming back live by radio from the Lockheed WC-130 over the now peaceful 'storm-area', the hairs were beginning to rise on Colonel Martin's neck.

There was no sign of Stormchaser 3.

The indestructible military transponder that one of his agents had smuggled aboard the research airplane had stopped transmitting at twenty-nine minutes and forty-four seconds past midnight: the exact same moment the satellites had recorded the light pulse from the position where the transponder had last transmitted from.

NOAA had already requested for help from the US Navy to redirect some sea craft to the area to look for any signs of wreckage, but deep down, Colonel Patterson knew that they would find nothing, simply because there was nothing there to find.

Exactly where Stormchaser 3 now was, he had no idea. But he knew it was not anywhere in the Atlantic...or in this time frame.

Colonel Patterson was convinced they had just witnessed the impossible: the formation of a Hunraken Vortex.

At last, after all these years, Step 1 of the Rainbow2 project had been completed. An aircraft had been transported through space and time, and thanks to his advanced planning, it was carrying a member of the U.S. military.

Colonel Patterson was not an overtly religious man, but for the first time in years he said a silent prayer: he prayed that the crew of Stormchaser 3 had survived, and that his agent aboard would soon be able to complete the top secret task she had been sworn to complete on the other side of the vortex.
Chapter 9

The Sea Dancer

Captain McGregor's Pirate Ship

Sunday Evening

In the shadow of the Black Rock

1699

The Sea Dancer, the Royal Thistle and the Eagle lay at anchor in the lee of the volcano at Black Rock Island.

Captain Rob had ordered Mr Bones to come aboard the Sea Dancer from the Thistle to inspect some men who had begun to feel out of shapes, and then, and definitely most anticipated of all, a measure of grog had been issued to all Able Bodied Seamen in his pirate fleet to celebrate the success of the day.

Afterwards, Captain McGregor had summoned the Captains from the other ships to his cabin to drink some claret and toast the success of the day, ...as well as to say a few words about the Albatross. He did not want to simply forget the loss of its crew without a word of remembrance.

Although most other pirate captains in the Caribbean would simply accept a lost ship without so much as by or a leave, James Silver had noticed there was quite a lot about Captain Rob that was different and made him stand out from any of the other pirate captains he knew. Begrudgingly he admired the man's education and many of his mannerisms, but increasingly he was become more suspicious of the true identity of Captain Rob McGregor, and who he really was.

As the first light of dawn crept over Puerto Bello de la Cruz earlier that morning, Captain Rob had led his men to repel the attack of Captain Kidd's men by advancing on them with progressive lines of disciplined musket fire: 'Advance....Kneel, ...raise....FIRE!' he had calmly shouted at his men in the thick of battle, guiding them in a maneuver they had practiced repeatedly on the deck of the Sea Dancer at sea.

James Silver had watched the whole episode, and marveled at it. Yet, at the same time, he knew that this betrayed something about Captain Rob's past that he could not yet easily discern. Where had the Captain that the men loved so much learned such things? He was not like any pirate that James Silver or any of the other men knew, that much was certain.

Silver had once questioned the Captain about his past over a glass of claret, inquiring as to whether he had ever had any military training, or spent time in His Majesty's Forces, but McGregor had denied it. It would have been simple enough to have said 'yes', and then explain his way out of it, but he had not. The truth was that many pirates had spent time in the English navy after being pressed into service and then later escaping. It was nothing to be ashamed off.

Yet, McGregor denied it.

There was a lot about his Captain that Silver admired, which frustrated him, because that made it harder for Silver to dislike the man, and dislike him he did.

One day James Silver would seize his chance and take command, but until that day came, he would ensure that he learned as much from his master as he could.

The three Captains sat around the mahogany table in the center of McGregor's room, laughing and retelling tales of the day's activities in Puerto Bello de La Cruz, and each boasting of the prizes that their men had discovered and captured, and which now lay securely in their holds.

Each Captain had been down to study and marvel at the booty stored in each of the other's holds. Now all they could think of was making it safely back to their hidden harbor that lay amongst the islands off the southern tip of Florida, where they would resupply their ships and split the treasure! Each man in McGregor's fleet was going to be rich beyond their wildest dreams!

They had toasted the Captain of the Albatross and his men who had been lost that day, and were just about to receive another glass of claret poured by the hand of their Captain into their goblets, when a loud peel of thunder cracked almost directly above them.

"Ye Gods!" shouted Captain Wainright of the Thistle. "That caught me off guard!"

"Me too," exclaimed Captain Jones of the Eagle. "I was a mind that the storm had passed. That sounded mighty like it's back, to me!"

The men stood up and walked up the ladders to the quarterdeck where they appraised the heavens and were dismayed to discover that the storm was rolling back on top of them again, but this time looking far darker and more ominous than before.

As they each quickly finished their goblets of claret, the first drops of rain began to land on the decks.

Within minutes it had become a deluge, accompanied by lightning, thunder and a driving wind that scared Rob, such was the speed with which it materialized and the ferocity by which it bit.

With swift instructions to weigh anchor and follow him around the island in search of calmer seas and deeper water, Captain Rob dismissed his Captains and sent them back to their ships.

When they had dropped anchor several hours before, the sun had been shining, morale was high, and the future looked wonderful.

Yet, in the space of two hours the world had become a very different place: as each second passed by, the strength of the winds continued to grow and increase, the relatively calm sea of two hours before had vanished, and in its stead soon rose tall mountainous waves whose peaks stood thirty or forty feet above the deep troughs that they left behind.

The speed and ferocity with which the storm returned, caught them all off guard. The wind was also playing tricks on them, one moment coming in strong 100 mph gusts one moment from the north, and then the next from the west or east.

Whereas the Sea Dancer and the Eagle had successfully made it to deep waters and away from island, the Thistle had not been so lucky.

As it had turned and started to follow the Eagle, a train of unusually large waves had picked up the Thistle and pushed it too close to the island, where some jagged rocks hidden just beneath the surface had ripped its belly out.

The others were powerless to help, and were not able to turn around and even consider looking for survivors.

By thirty minutes past the seventh hour, the Royal Thistle had been lost, smashed to smithereens on the rocks and sunk with all hands, and all its treasure.

Captain Rob McGregor watched it go down, and swore loudly.

He had now lost two ships in less than twenty hours.

Cursing, he realised that they had been premature in celebrating the success of the mission.

.

\--------------------

Sunday

8.30 p.m.

As the events of the next few hours transpired, Captain Rob McGregor's luck went from bad to worse. He had never known a day like it in all his life. It had started that morning with such promise and success, but then progressively turned itself into the second worst day of his life. A day of hell.

It was as if their raid on Puerto Bello de la Cruz had been an attack on the devil himself, and now Beelzebub was exacting his revenge. Slowly and painfully.

At 8.00 p.m. Captain Rob had watched as the third ship in his fleet, the Eagle, had been capsized by a train of large waves and then sunk before his eyes, with all hands and another quarter of the treasure.

Almost immediately afterwards, Captain Rob had heard the devil himself laughing in the stormy winds, and then the topsail of the rear mast had ripped from top to bottom leaving them wallowing hopelessly in the fiercest storm that anyone in the world had ever witnessed.

Hailstones, lightning, and even snow started to rain down on them from above, driven by unimaginably strong winds that would have ripped any remaining sails off, had the Sea Dancer still got any on its masts.

And just when Rob was convinced that the weather could not deteriorate any further, the storm got worse.

Gusting winds, faster and more powerful that anything he had ever experienced before, began to rake across the ocean, and the lightning and thunder intensified until the dark night around them was almost as bright as day.

Waves the size of mountains began to run in front of them, leaving gaping holes in their wake that the Sea Dancer fell and crashed down into, before being mercifully picked up and spat back out onto the next wave behind it.

No longer did the Sea Dancer dance across the ocean. Instead, inside the hull of the great ship, men were bailing water with any utensil they could find, fighting with every ounce of energy they had to scoop out seawater and rain, and trying to keep their vessel afloat and stop it from joining the others from their fleet in Davey Jones' Locker.

Hour after hour the men fought against what began to seem the inevitable and soon they tired, ...and with the tiredness and fatigue came talk of a curse.

"It's all Captain Rob's fault. It were his idea to attack Captain Kidd and to steal his treasure. And now Captain Kidd has asked the devil himself to find and destroy us. We're doomed!"

As the winds intensified, the temperature dropped and snow began to lie on the ships planking, an event which was unheard of by any pirate in the Caribbean in living memory. At the sight of the snow, some men began to succumb to fear and started to talk of throwing their treasure overboard to get rid of the curse.

"Captain McGregor broke the Pirate Code and has angered the gods! We're all going to die! Quick, throw the treasure over the side. It's cursed!"

A gang of men crossed the ship and hurried down the ladders with the intention of going below and ridding the ship of the gold and silver they had stolen from Kidd, but Captain McGregor intercepted them.

Captain McGregor followed shortly after them. A short fight commenced, in which Captain McGregor re-established calm by killing the main protagonist with a thrust of his cutlass to the man's chest. As the man lay dying McGregor recognised him as Seaman Sharpe, the sailor they had rescued from the Albatross earlier that morning.

Captain McGregor knew that the situation on board was deteriorating and that now the whiff of fear and the supernatural had entered the minds of those on board, something drastic had to be done to restore the rule of order before all was lost, and chaos reigned.

He grabbed the second man who had stood with Sharpe as they had gone for the treasure, and recognising him as another from the crew of the Albatross, he dragged him topside onto the snowy deck. The others followed.

Soon, in spite of the terrible weather, the word had spread and all the seamen were mustered on deck. "There's going to be a walking!" they shouted amongst themselves, spreading the word.

Addressing the crew with a speech in such conditions was difficult: the roar of the wind was too loud, and the tossing of the ship in the storm meant that what would follow had to be a short affair, not a show that lasted long. It had to be short, sweet and effective, putting into their hearts a greater fear of their Captain than of the gods above whom they had never met.

Captain Rob was a tall and powerful man. Few men were stronger than him, especially not the Master Gunner of the Albatross, who at five foot four was a good six inches shorter that Captain Rob. Captain Rob him held him easily in his arms as he dragged him up into the center of the men who then circled around him, in fear and anticipation.

Some had already watched the Captain run Sharpe through below decks, and they had smelt blood.

Momentarily at least, the focus was no longer the storm. All eyes were on Captain Rob.

"Men of the Sea Dancer, ye listen close now. Ye all know me to be a fair man, and a good Captain. You bastards elected me to lead you, and lead you I will! Today I will make you rich beyond your wildest dreams! That I promise you!...But, ye all know that I will stand no disobedience in my crew. None whatsoever. Do as I say, or answer to my rules: obey and prosper, or mutiny and die! Are there any other mutinous bastards aboard my ship who do not agree to my rules?" Captain Rob shouted at the top of his voice, his eyes searching the pirates around him, looking for any further signs of dissent or disobedience.

As he turned around, looking at those circled around him, all eyes avoided direct contact. Except one.

James Silver stood on the edge of the circle, looking on, thinking.

He was as scared as any man on board, shivering in the cold, tired, and hungry, yet his mind was crystal clear. An opportunity was presenting itself here where, if he was brave and clever, he could stand against the Captain, seek the crew's support, and if he won it, overthrow the Captain and take his place.

James Silver scanned the crew around him, quickly appraising the situation. It was a chance. The men were superstitious and scared: if he promised them certainty of salvation they may step over to him. He knew he could count on at least ten of the men to favour him, but that was not enough to be sure of success.

But what if he was elected? Would he be able to navigate them through the storm with no sails? Silver knew that the Captain was a better sailor than he himself was, and he also knew that his own personal chances of survival would be better if Captain McGregor was to continue his leadership.

No, for sure, this was a chance, but others would come. At another time, in another place.

James Silver blinked, and wiped some melting snow away from his face. He looked up and saw that all eyes and the Captain were staring directly at him. James Silver looked back, wondering if the Captain had read his mind and discerned his intentions.

"Mr Silver," he shouted. "Hurry up man! Lest we all freeze to death! Bring me some iron! Mr Mate, a yard of ripped sail, if ye will! And Mr Nail, set a plank of yer wood over the side. And make it fast!"

Realizing that the Captain did not show any signs of having read his thoughts, James Silver hurried below decks with another pirate and returned with two large cannon balls. They pushed their way into the center of the circle, and dropped the two balls into the square of old canvas sail that the Mate had cut and lain on the deck. Quickly they wrapped the canvas around the balls and tied it up with some line, fastening the other end of two yards of line to the left leg of the prisoner from the Albatross. Meanwhile Mr Nail, the ship's carpenter, had brought a long length of birch planking up from below decks and was now sliding it out from the center rail to form a gangway over the port side of the ship.

The Gunner from the Albatross was screaming now, and striving to wrestle himself free of the grip of the Captain, but to no avail. Captain Rob's grip clamped him firmly in place.

"Men," he shouted aloud." This is no time for a long speech, or a jury. This man stood with Mr Sharpe and sought to throw your treasure over board to appease the gods. Make no mistake, aboard this ship, you obey no one else but me. If it is God's will, it is I who will deliver you safely back to port, and no other. I find this man guilty of mutiny and I pass sentence. Watch and witness the execution of my judgement!"

With that, the Captain hoisted the man to his feet and dragged him to the edge of the boat, Silver and Mr Nail carrying the sail and the cannon balls behind him.

Captain McGregor jumped up onto the section of the plank that hung over the inside of the ship and the men gasped, some reaching forward to grab him, scared that in the tumultuous seas he might fall forwards along the plank and overboard, but the Captain brushed them away.

In a single movement he reached down and grabbed the condemned sailor, hoisting him up by his arms and putting him on the plank in front of him nearest the gunwales and the edge of the ship. The man was screaming, tears streaming down his face.

Captain McGregor pulled out his cutlass from his belt and prodded the man in his abdomen, cutting the flesh beneath his coat, and drawing some blood. The man stumbled backwards along the plank, away from the cutlass, Silver and Mr Nail following on the deck and carrying the canvas sail and the cannon balls closer to the edge of the gunwales.

The ship lurched in the storm and the man staggered backwards towards the Captain, falling off the plank and back onto the deck. The pirates nearest him stepped backwards, leaving him to sprawl on the snow covered wooden planking. Again Captain McGregor reached down and once more hoisted him up in his arms and set him down on the plank, closer this time to the edge of the ship.

"Walk or be sliced open by my blade!" Captain McGregor shouted, reaching forward to prod the man one more time.

The man looked up at Captain Rob, the terror in his eyes obvious even in the dark night. Captain Rob realised that the man was incapable of thought, of choosing between a death by cutlass or drowning, so he prodded him again with his cutlass, this time slicing open his coat, through his tunic and vests and exposing the flesh beneath.

The gunner stepped backwards from the Captain, his arms flaying wildly as he sought to maintain balance on the slippery plank of wood. He stood now directly on the edge of the gunwale, with one foot on the inside of the boat, and the other on the outside, only a three inch piece of wood separating him from the air and the waves beneath.

Captain McGregor looked down at James Silver and nodded. Mr Nail and Silver then reached out and placed the canvas containing the cannon balls on the edge of the plank beyond the gunner's feet.

Inside the canvas, one of the cannon balls began to roll towards the edge of the plank on which it now sat.

The gunner saw the movement and panicked, bending down away from the ship to try and catch the ball before it rolled off the edge of the plank. In that moment, the ship rolled back into a trough on the port side of the ship, and the sailor stumbled forward, losing his balance and falling down onto the plank, desperately scrambling for a grip. One leg slipped over the edge, and his body fell over the side, just as his arms managed to wrap themselves around the edge of the plank.

For a second he hung half suspended in mid air, one leg dangling in the air, the other still lying on the plank. Then the first of the cannon balls in the canvas bag rolled over the edge, pulling the canvas and the other cannon ball behind it.

The weighted bag fell down towards the waves beneath, the line stretching out behind it as it went, until when fully extended it whipped tight and forcibly yanked the gunner clear of the plank, his fingers grasping at thin air as he fell.

His scream lasted but a second, and was swallowed by the wind. One moment he was there, and the next he was gone, sinking fast beneath the waves. Another life claimed by the curse of Kidd's treasure.

The Captain jumped back down onto the deck and shouted once more at his men.

"Let that be the last of such rough discipline amongst my men. The matter is now closed. The hour is now late, the storm is far from over, and we have a long night ahead of us. Abide with me my men, and I shall deliver ye to safe shores. This much I promise you. Fear not of sinister things and talk no longer of curses and bad luck. This storm is of nature's making and has nowt to do with any curse from the treasure of Captain Kidd. Together we will ride this storm out, and together we will survive. I am your Captain and this much I promise you!"

As Captain Rob said the last of his words, he raised his cutlass aloft, pointing it at the heavens.

Whether by coincidence or divine intention, at that same moment in time, a bright fork of lightning jumped upwards from the top of the mast and reached up to the sky and clouds above.

The men gasped, and James Silver stared aloft.

What trickery was this?

Captain Rob McGregor saw the lightning and acted immediately.

"See men, it is an omen. We will be delivered! By God's will, I will lead us to safety!"

As he spoke, forks of lightning started to dance along the yardarms, sparking from their tips and the tops of the masts and bursting skyward in a display of light and power that left the men below struck dumb with wonder.

Below on the deck, Captain Rob McGregor showed no sign of fear. He knew not what this display of nature meant, but he was certain of one thing: it was a natural phenomena of the storm and had no devilish or supernatural connection. He knew immediately that he could turn this to their favour.

"See men, observe how the lightning jumps from our ship and to the sky! No lightning shall strike us, for we are protected from the lightning of the storm. It is an omen. Do not fear, for we shall be saved! This is the sign!"

The mood on the ship quickly changed. The snow and rain had ceased and a sense of relief and excitement spread throughout the men. Captain Rob and James Silver sensed it themselves, the hairs on their arms and faces quite literally rising and tingling in the air.

Around them on the deck, some of the men began to laugh, as the hair on their heads began to rise and spread out, pointing skyward like the bristles on a porcupine.

Suddenly the strong winds around them dropped and ceased altogether. The sails stopped flapping and the roar of the wind disappeared. The men stood around on the deck, gaping at each other, speechless.

A moment later the ship started to settle in the water and the seas calmed, the waves around them abating and becoming as small as anyone would normally expect to see in an ocean on a fair day.

Suddenly a bright light from above lit the deck, and one of the men shouted, pointing skyward. "The moon! I can see the moon! The sky is clear! The storm has vanished! The Captain has saved us!"

All eyes were turned skyward, including the Captain's and those of James Silver. A cheer went up from the men, and even James Silver joined in.

Captain McGregor raised his arm, waving his cutlass in salute to the moon.

Above them there was clear sky, the stars above sparkling around a full moon in the night sky, with moonshine illuminating them so brightly that it almost felt like day!

Some of the men on deck began to dance a jig, but it was short-lived as they slipped on the melting snow and others landed on top of them, laughing.

In a second, the fear had gone.

Captain Rob walked away from the center of the men where he still stood, ascended to the quarterdeck and walked over to the stern.

The pirates on the deck were still singing, laughing and clapping hands, their relief at their deliverance from the storm taking over their senses and making them behave more like babes than men.

One of the men shouted "Three cheers for Cap'n Rob!", and all the men followed with three loud, raucous cheers.

The men believed that Captain Rob had delivered them from the storm. That, thanks to him, God had saved them all: but Captain Rob was sure of one thing -a miracle had just happened. A miracle that was not of his making or had anything to do with him.

A sense of elation began to rise within him, a warmth that spread slowly throughout his body, until even the corners of his lips began to curl upwards into a smile.

He lifted the hat off his head, threw back his head and laughed, looking upwards at the moon.

Now that his eyes were accustomed to the light, it was then that he saw that truly, God had performed a miracle to save their lives.

As God had parted the Red Sea for Moses, so now had God parted the storm for them, providing safe seas on which to sail.

For as Captain Rob McGregor looked at the sky above, he realised that the whole sky was not clear. Only a portion of it. It was as if a round hole had been punched in the storm, and they were looking up through a massive porthole at the sky above.

Looking around, Rob saw that around the edges of this porthole, a circular wall of dark cloud fell vertically from the sky above to the sea below.

Captain Rob and the Sea Dancer were sitting in the middle of a vast tunnel of clear air that rose from the sea to the heavens above, the storm being held back by an invisible force that God had put in place to protect the Sea Dancer and give it clear passage.

Captain Rob was not a religious man, and he had not prayed since the death of his wife, when he had held her in his arms as she had expired from the plague, passing from this life to the next. Since that day, Rob had turned his back on God, filled with anger, and confusion.

But now, in this moment of divine intervention, in the face of a miracle larger and more impressive even than the one that God sent to Moses himself, Captain Rob McGregor bowed his head, closed his eyes, and said three words.

"Thank you, Lord."
Chapter 10

The Sea Dancer

Monday

00.05 a.m.

AD 1699

The men on the Sea Dancer worked through into the night, taking advantage of the relative calm waters, warm air and lull in the storm winds. They worked hard on getting the Sea Dancer shipshape and able to sail under canvas from the one remaining main mast. They repaired the ripped sail, replaced broken rigging, and made ready for any wind when it returned.

When all was complete, Captain Rob ordered a hearty meal to be served, and issued another measure of grog to the men. They deserved it. For now he was quite happy for the Sea Dancer to remain in the becalmed waters of the miracle that the Lord had created to save his men and his ship, protected from the fierce storm that continued to rage all around them.

The Watch sounded midnight, and Captain Rob gathered the men before him on the deck, and prepared to address them.

It was a much changed band of men who stood before him now. Dry, cheerful and smiling, the comparison to earlier that same evening could not have been more stark.

"Men of the Sea Dancer, I stand before you now humbled by the grace of the Good Lord, who has seen Himself fit to save the sorry lives of a motley band of pirates such as yourselves. I ain't a man of the cloth, and it's been years since I said any public prayers, but afore I send you off to your hammocks and bunks to catch whatever sleep you can, I wanted to do something that no other pirate ship in the history of the Caribbean has ever done before..."

The men looked at each other, wondering what was coming next.

"...I wanted to gather you all together, and give thanks to the Lord for our deliverance this night. So, come now lads, bow your heads with your Captain, take of your caps, and say 'Thank you!' "

Some of the men laughed, but still bowed their heads after looking over at the Captain and catching his stern gaze. Others, however, quite willingly took to their knees, removing their caps and placing them on their chests, with their heads bowed.

A murmur of voices saying 'Thanks' and 'Amen' rose amidst the men, and then they stood up, and the Captain dismissed them. Most of the men disappeared below decks, leaving only the Night Watch behind.

"That...," said James Silver, "...is something I ain't ever seen afore. To see my fellow pirates gathered together like that to give thanks to the big Almighty, was something I never, ever thought I would see on board any pirate ship that I sailed on!"

Captain Rob turned and looked at Mr Silver.

"Me neither. Today has been a day of peculiar sorts, one which I ain't never seen the like of before. The winds have gone for now, but we're a long way from port, and we've no reckoning on how long the good Lord will keep us cocooned here in the safe waters of the parted storm. Best keep on His good side, say I!"

Only an hour ago the decks had been wet and white with snow, but now the air temperature had risen significantly the wooden planks were dry, and warm air forced the crew to remove their jackets and strip down to their tunics.

Captain Rob remained on deck while he sent Silver and the others to get much needed rest. It had been a long day, like none other he could remember in recent years.

The attack on Puerto Bello del la Cruz earlier that morning had reminded him of days gone by, and he realised just how much he missed the excitement and adrenaline he felt when leading troops in combat.

But that was another lifetime, and there was no going back.

Ever.

Captain Rob stood at the stern of his ship, thinking to the future, and for the first time since the raid, planning the weeks ahead.

When they made it back to their port, they would first divide the treasure. Fairly and evenly, according to the lore adopted by the pirate community, with he as Captain and James Silver as quartermaster receiving the largest share of all his men.

The only 'good' news was, that along with the loss of the treasure on the other ships, they had also lost their crews, so the proportion that each surviving man would receive had not been altered.

It was to be a fortune. Even with the major share deducted and given over to their original benefactors, as needs would dictate, that which was left over in the pirates' pot for distribution amongst his own men, was a sizeable fortune larger than any man could ever imagine.

His men would be rich beyond their wildest dreams.

Captain Rob expected that most of the pirates would then vote to leave, determined to start new lives somewhere in the prospering Americas, or perhaps to buy an island and lure some women to be their wives, with the promise of luxury and gold coin aplenty!

He for one, would not blame any man for that!

Captain Rob would also one day find a piece of land and a stretch of beach that he could call his own, and then settle down to grow tobacco for sale to England, smoke a pipe, and swim in the sea.

However, before that dream could become true, he had to fulfill another.

He would return to England, and complete the mission he had begun so many years before.

Nothing would give him more pleasure!

"May I join you?" a voice said behind him, bringing his thoughts back to the present.

Captain Rob turned to find Richard Tyler standing beside him.

"Certainly, Mr Tyler. I apologize, I did not see you come. I was lost in my own considerations."

"Here, I have brought you some claret. I noticed that you did not drink grog with the men earlier, and I wanted to raise a toast to you, in thanks for today."

"Thanks? Why?" Captain Rob said, taking the glass from Tyler's outstretched hand.

"For trusting me, and believing in me. I think there are few Captains indeed, who would have. You did not know me, and yet you realised that you could trust me. You risked the lives of yourself and your crew, on my word."

"And I would do it again, Mr Tyler. I judge you to be a fair man, Mr Tyler. One who was aggrieved and seeking just revenge. And besides, it made for good business."

"Was there no more to it?" Richard Tyler asked inquisitively, raising his eyebrows as he spoke.

Captain Rob hesitated before replying. "No."

"Nothing to do with Captain Kidd? There are others in your crew who leapt at the opportunity to even with the bastard. Are you not also so aggrieved by the man?"

"No longer. Today made good recompense."

They each sipped from their goblets.

"I have been watching you, Captain McGregor, and you are a fair and just man. Perhaps the best Captain I have been fortunate enough to meet!"

Captain McGregor coughed, and feigned embarrassment. "Why, sir, you flatter me. But alas, your share of the booty shall not increase, no matter what other compliments you give!"

They both laughed.

Captain McGregor raised his metal goblet to take another sip of the claret, when a spark jumped off the handle and landed on his nose. It so startled him that he dropped the goblet to the ground, spilling the claret onto the wooden planks.

They both stepped back from the copper goblet, and stared at it on the ground. Little sparks and tiny forks of lightning were jumping across the surface of the drinking vessel.

"Ye gods," Richard Tyler exclaimed. "What on earth is the cause of that?"

As they knelt down to take another look and prod the goblet with an outstretched pointed finger, the vessel in Richard Tyler's hand also started to sparkle, and he too dropped in to the ground. A small flash of light then jumped from his gold earring.

"What manner of trick is this?" the accountant asked.

"Look to your jerkin, Mr Tyler!" Captain McGregor said. "The metal buttons are sparking too!"

"And yours!" Richard Tyler replied, pointing to the flashing sparks of light that were now jumping from the metal buttons on Captain Rob's breeches and the buckles on his belt and shoes.

They both stood, examining each other.

The hair on Richard Tyler's head slowly rose proud of his skull, reaching up to the sky, and as Captain Rob removed his own hat, he immediately felt his own hair rise up in sympathy with Tyler's.

For a moment they both stared at each other, and then almost simultaneously they burst into laughter.

"I know not what is the cause of this, but I am bound to say that you do look rather ridiculous Mr Tyler!" the Captain announced.

"And you, likewise, Captain McGregor!" the accountant replied.

At that moment a cry went up from the watch in the crow's nest.

"Cap'n Rob! LOOK!" he heard the man shout loudly, and when he looked up he saw the man gesticulating wildly up into the sky, towards the middle of the miraculous hole in the storm.

Richard Tyler and the Captain both looked up, not believing what they saw.

A bright light was moving high up across the sky at great speed, coming directly towards them. Captain McGregor, Richard Tyler and the seaman at the tiller of the boat, stood transfixed as they watched the light come closer.

Slowly they saw the light spread wings, and it changed shape into a enormous bird, -larger than a ship- which hung in the air and moved without flapping it wings.

Suddenly the bird began to roar!

The sound that the bird emitted was so loud that both Richard Tyler and Captain Rob immediately covered their ears in shock, and the man at the tiller prostrated himself on the ground in fear.

A giant eagle, larger than a Cathedral, soared over their heads at great speed, colored lights flashing from underneath its belly and from its beak and wings.

As it swooped overhead, the tiller man started to cry, his breeches now wet and sodden from fear. Captain Rob and Richard Tyler abruptly turned and followed the sight of the giant Albatross as it flew over and past them.

They watched in fear and awe as it swept through the sky towards the wall that held the wrath of the storm at bay, but as it neared, its massive beak penetrated the wall of cloud, slicing it open, and the bird flew straight into the cloud, disappearing from sight.

Immediately the roar in the sky was gobbled up by the storm, and silence returned.

"An Albatross! A giant Albatross!" Richard Tyler exclaimed excitedly. "It is the crew of the Albatross returned in spirit form! It is an omen!"

Captain Rob removed his hands from his ears, and bent down to help the tiller man to his feet.

"Calm yourself, lad. Whatever it was, it is now gone. Swallowed up by the storm, and killed. We are safe now!"

The young pirate, stood up slowly, still shaking, and whimpering with fear.

Captain Rob took him by the shoulders, looked into his eyes, and said, "Young man. Today we have seen many strange things,...this is just one more. But we have God's protection now, \- like Moses we are - and nothing will harm us. So wipe your tears, and take your place again at the helm of my ship!"

He smiled. The young man smiled back.

Captain Rob turned back to Richard Tyler, intending to comment on his exclamation about the giant Albatross.

But before the Captain could say another word, the boat became alive with light, as every metal object, large or small, began to bristle with a myriad, tiny sparks of lightning.

A strange pressure began to build up in the air around them all, and Captain Rob felt suddenly very light headed and dizzy.

He felt himself falling, and reached out to catch himself on the stern gunwale. Beside him, Richard Tyler fell to the ground, his eyes closed, and his body shaking lightly, as was true also of the tiller man, who had once more deserted his post, and was now lying flat on the deck, unconscious.

Captain Rob's legs went out from under him, and he fell down onto his knees.

He felt a tremendous pressure in his ears, as if the world was pressing down upon him.

Suddenly they could hear a loud, high pitched whistle, which grew progressively even louder and more intense.

Men began to spill out onto the deck from the ladders leading up from below decks, with both hands covering their eardrums. As they emerged onto the deck they fell to their knees and then rolled over onto their backs, screaming loudly.

Within minutes most of the crew were lying unconscious.

Only Captain Rob and another young man, the youngest pirate on board, still remained conscious.

Captain Rob tried to stand, but found he couldn't.

As he looked around him, trying to locate the source of the noise, he saw with horror that the Holy barrier which held back the storm from destroying them had begun to crumble.

All round the northern rim of the circular barrier between them and the storm, the invisible barrier holding back the storm crumbled and pushed inwards, the cloud behind pouring into the empty hole that God had created in the middle of the storm.

A wall of cloud came rushing towards the boat, the whistling growing louder and louder and the pressure in the air and his ears increasing beyond any point of endurance.

Bright forks of lightning again started to jump from anything made of metal on the ship, no matter how large or small. Lightning forks jumped from one piece of metal to another, forming vivid arches in the air. Slowly the boat became covered in a myriad of lightning bolts, some forming arches of light that traveled from one end of the ship to the other.

Captain Rob fell to the ground, screaming with pain, his hands pressing hard against his eardrums in a futile effort to block out the whistling.

Just before the world went black and his eyes rolled back into his skull, a bank of cloud swept over his head, extinguishing the beautiful twinkling stars above as the protection that God had offered them was removed and quashed in the blinking of an eye.

As the storm swept over the Sea Dancer, the cloud swept down from the heavens and blanketed the Sea Dancer in cloud, mist and fog.

Instantly the high-pitched whistling stopped, and was replaced instead by the roar of the storm.

The sea underneath the Sea Dancer started to rise and fall violently, tossing the Sea Dancer around like a tiny piece of wood.

The pressure in the air continued to build, and the lightning that blanketed the ship increased in intensity.

Suddenly the air itself started to glow, at first in patches, but then more uniformly as lightning jumped between those areas that already glowed, with each fork of lightning leaving a path of glowing air behind them that further connected the individual light patches together.

Quickly the patches of light grew in size, joining together and coalescing into larger areas which in turn morphed with the others around them.

A moment later, all the air above, around, below and inside the Sea Dancer glowed with a light so bright that had any member of the crew been conscious to witness it, they would have feared that the Sea Dancer had been swallowed by the sun.

And still the light grew brighter. And brighter. And yet brighter.

Then all of a sudden, it vanished.

The light was gone.

As was the Sea Dancer, the treasure, and every man on board.
Chapter 11

The Sea Dancer

Atlantic Ocean

Monday

When Captain McGregor finally opened his eyes, the sunlight came as shock, the bright morning sun shining down on them from a clear blue sky.

Captain McGregor blinked, raising his hands to shield his face, and turned on his side away from the sun, so that he could look around.

He blinked several times, put his hands back on the deck and pushed himself up into a sitting position.

All around him, men were slowly waking up and coming to. Some men were already bending over the gunwales of the ship, retching repeatedly.

Captain McGregor tried to stand up, and immediately a wave of nausea swept over him.

He staggered quickly to the stern and vomited into the sea below: once, twice...three times, until there was nothing more to come up, and his stomach hurt.

McGregor turned around and staggered over to the tiller, bending down to help up the young sailor on the deck beside it. No sooner was he up, than he too staggered to the stern of the boat, followed rather swiftly by Richard Tyler.

McGregor walked down onto the main deck, and walked amongst his crew, helping some to their feet and ushering them promptly to the gunwales.

By now, the Captain was beginning to feel slightly more clearheaded, and he was beginning to notice detail.

The first unmistakable piece of detail to assail his brain had been the sunlight: it was daytime - and by the position of the sun it was probably around nine of the clock in the morning. Which meant that he and his crew had just slept through the night.

Secondly, the storm was gone. Vanished. Not a trace of cloud hung in the sky, the air was warm, the timber underneath his feet was dry, and there was a pleasant breeze.

And thirdly, the ship was partly underway, the front sail was half-filled, propelling it through the water slowly north-west.

Some of the crew were gathering around him now, rubbing their heads, cleaning the vomit out of their beards, and looking like the sorriest bunch of men he had ever clapped his eyes on.

"Captain McGregor," one of the gunners opened his mouth to ask the most obvious yet important question. "What happened, Cap'n?"

"Aye, Cap'n," the other men joined in. "What happened?"

Richard Tyler and James Silver had now both joined the group, standing beside him, but their eyes as much on him as any other mans.

The Captain looked up and saw a seagull flying overhead, squawking loudly: they were close to land.

"Can ye not recall, lad? Last night we prayed to God, and gave thanks, and now He has delivered us safely to calm oceans, unharmed and alive! Thanks be to God!"

Even as he spoke the words, Captain McGregor was not sure how much he believed them. In truth, the reality of what had transpired that morning evaded him. It was beyond his understanding. Yet, he could not admit that to his men. They had elected him to lead them, and lead them he would. To admit no understanding of what had occurred may unsettle some amongst them and serve no ultimate purpose.

"Mr Silver. Please take Mr Tyler and one of the crew below, and check and witness that our booty is intact! And hurry ye back, so that ye can give the others assurance and some cheer!"

Mr Silver tapped the closest of the pirates on the shoulder, and the three of them disappeared below decks, returning a few minutes later wearing the first smiles of the day.

" 'Tis all present and correct, Cap'n!" the quartermaster shouted, and a loud cheer went up from the men on the deck.

"Mr Silver, get the men to fall in on deck. All of them, so that the ship's doctor, Mr Bones, can inspect them all, and see who is fit for duty, and who is not. Mr Baker? Yes, you man. Take the helm. Mr Tanner, ye are still the Sailing Master, are ye not? What are ye waiting for? Set a course for home!"

Another cheer went up from the men. They all understood what that meant.

Soon they would distribute the booty, and by nightfall each man amongst them would be rich.

As Mr Tanner went below to get his charts and then returned on deck to check their position and work out the course, the seaman on deck set to trimming the sails, swabbing the decks and getting everything shipshape. The Captain was a stickler for cleanliness and everything being in its place.

"Mr Tyler, Mr Silver, please follow me below decks to my cabin."

Captain McGregor stood at the large glass window at the back of his stern cabin, looking out at the wake of the Sea Dancer as it began to pick up speed.

As the other two men entered his cabin, he bade them sit at the table, and they obeyed. They sat silently, waiting for the Captain to speak.

The Captain said nothing, his back now turned to them, lost deep in thought.

At last, he turned around.

"Mr Silver, please give me the benefit of your wisdom and experience. In your own words, what would ye say happened last night?"

"That I cannot say, Cap'n Rob. But I am of the mind that whatever happened was not of man's making."

"Aye, Cap'n. Can you recall the Albatross we saw? Or did I dream it all on my own?" Richard Tyler agreed.

"If it were a dream, or even a vision conjured up by Lucifer himself, then we all shared it, Mr Tyler. I say it was real, but as to what it was, that I also cannot say."

Neither man said anything for a few moments.

"Tyler, please fetch Mr Tanner below. I would like to hear his report on where he believes us to be. And more importantly, how far we are from home!"

Silver disappeared, but quickly returned with the Sailing Master in tow behind him.

"So, Mr Tanner. Where the devil are we, at your best estimate?"

"With the present wind, probably two day's from home. Almost exactly where we were when the storm caught us, give or take twenty leagues."

"Good. At least we haven't lost too much time."

Just then there was a knock on the cabin door.

"Who is it?" Captain McGregor called.

"Mr Bones, Cap'n. With the report you wanted on the condition of the men."

"Enter."

The door opened and a small, plump bald man entered the cabin carrying a little black bag, a monocle in his left eye, and a rather round, protruding belly.

"And what is the situation, Mr Bones?"

"We now have a hundred and twenty officers and men aboard, Cap'n McGregor. We picked up a few from the Albatross. You decreased their number by two... ," the doctor coughed. "...And Smith, the apprentice Boatswain was swept overboard. Two men and a cabin boy died last night. I don't know why, but they had blood pouring out their ears and..."

"Spare me the details Mr Bones. You are the quack, not I. If they are dead I believe you. Frankly, I am surprised there are not more. I was amazed that anybody would survive the stress that the events of last night enacted upon us all! And the rest? Are they fit and well?"

"No, one had a broken leg, and another a broken arm. I will set them this afternoon, if you will allow a measure of grog to be issued to these men so that I can operate?"

"Certainly. Take what you need, but not a drop more. And make sure you give it to the patients and not yourself, Mr Bones! Do y'hear?"

Everyone knew that Dr Bones hated the sight of blood, and that whenever he had to treat someone where blood was involved, he would often find courage to operate in the bottom of a glass of grog: a practice which was not welcomed by the other pirates, who were the main source of all his patients.

Mr Bones coughed, as if trying to get the Captain's attention.

"Is there something else, Mr Bones?" Captain Rob asked.

"Two of the men are sick."

"How sick, Mr Bones? The men are often sick."

"Sick. Fever, headache, chills... I've separated them from the men. They can't help us anymore just now. I will be keeping an eye on them."

"You do that, Mr Bones. And keep me informed as to their condition."

Mr Bones turned and walked back out of the cabin, the others looking after him. As soon as the door closed, Silver and McGregor burst into laughter.

"I wager a piece of eight that he will be drunk within the hour!" Mr Silver said.

"Done. I've warned him about that before. And it will not bode well for him if he is!", the Captain accepted the bet.

In actual fact, Mr McGregor felt sorry for the funny little man. He had once been the ship's doctor aboard a merchant ship that McGregor and his men had taken captive off the coast of Africa en route to the Caribbean. In spite of the fact that he disliked the sight of blood, he was a good doctor. Given the choice of being set adrift near the African coast or joining his happy band of buccaneers, Mr Bones had chosen the latter, and had since quite taken to the pirate life. He now had the respect and admiration of the men, even though they were quick to make fun. Mr Bones was not his real name, but rather it was one given to him by the ship's men: it was much easier to say than Percival Snythe.

"On a more serious matter, Cap'n, we do have another problem," Mr Silver said.

"Which is?"

"Water and provisions. As you will recall, we were running low before the attack on Puerto Bello de la Cruz. You instructed Captain Wainright to gather what he could from the merchant men and other ships in the harbour, but we lost the Thistle before we were given the chance to bring our share across to the Sea Dancer. I didn't want to alarm the men, but we've only enough left for another two meals. We were dependent upon Wainright to..."

"Which means, Mr Silver, that we won't head straight home yet. We will have to stop somewhere en route to borrow some supplies. Study your maps Mr Tanner, and let me know where you suggest?"

"The men will be disappointed..."

"I will not have my men starve. We cannot eat gold."

"Aye, aye, Cap'n."

"Don't worry, Mr Silver. Your gold is not going anywhere. But we'll not distribute it until we have food in our bellies, and grog in our goblets..."

Before the Captain could finish his sentence, a tremendous deep roar filled the cabin, shaking the windows, and rattling the plates and cutlery in the Captain's ornate mahogany dresser.

Richard Tyler and James Silver jumped to their feet, and rushed to the window, following the Captain who was already staring out after the source of the sound.

"Ye Gods!" Richard Tyler exclaimed loudly, as a big, glistening metal bird flew past overhead and disappeared quickly into the distance. "Another Albatross!"

Taking the rungs two at a time, Captain McGregor rushed up the ladders to the quarterdeck, just in time to see another metal bird swoop overhead, roaring so loudly that his ears rang for several seconds afterwards.

McGregor followed the trail of the bird, watching it taking only seconds to fly from their ship to the edge of the horizon: one moment it was there, and the next it was gone, leaving no sign that it had been there.

All his life Captain Rob McGregor had heard sailors telling tales about the strange sights that they had seen out at sea: mermaids, trolls, great serpents and fantastic sea monsters large enough to swallow ships. But never had he heard any tales told about monsters in the air.

From now on, Rob McGregor would have a story to tell that would beat any other. As would any of the other hundred and twenty men on the Sea Dancer who had just seen and heard the same monster.

Captain Rob turned around, looked Mr Silver in the face and laughed.

" 'Tis your turn, Mr Silver. You tell the men whatever you want. I'll leave this explanation to you!"

And with that, the Captain left the quarterdeck, leaving Mr Silver surrounded by pirates who all had the same, single question: "What in Heaven and on earth, was that?"
Chapter 12

Room 3B18

The Pentagon

Monday

2 p.m.

The name on the door said simply "Colonel B. Patterson." Inside the room, the walls were sparsely decorated except for a single, framed photograph of a rainbow, taken at sea, and showing the complete arc in all its vivid colors.

That was the only clue as to the responsibilities held by the owner of the office.

His filing cabinet and cupboard were locked and barred, and no papers ever covered his desk.

Colonel B. Patterson always entered the office on a Monday lunchtime at 12.35 p.m. He brought with him a small black attaché case, carrying all the papers that he would need for that day. The office was empty for the rest of each week.

Before he sat down in his chair, he closed his door, took out his pen scanner and walked slowly round the room, studying the light on the top of the pen: if the light turned red, the room had been bugged, but if it stayed green, the room was clean and he could work freely without fear of eavesdropping.

After the green light came on, as it had done each Monday for the past two years since he had been given the office, he would open up the attaché case, take out his iPad, his pen, his secure mobile and his encrypter, and arrange them neatly on his desk.

Always in the same pattern. Always spaced regularly apart, in exactly the positions that he found best optimized the desk space before him.

Then he would take the lid off his Starbuck's coffee, sit down and begin to work.

The first call of the day was to the President of the United States of America. President Gains had supported the Rainbow2 project from the first day, eager to be kept up to date with every development and willing to do anything he could to support his research.

When he had initially been briefed on the project just after he came to office, he had immediately understood the significance of it, and the threat that lack of funding would pose, were the project theoretically sound and technically possible.

In short, if instantaneous inter-dimensional temporal travel - through space and time - were ever to be realised, it was essential to ensure that those who patrolled and guarded the portals of time, were Americans and not citizens of its enemies. Otherwise, one day Americans might wake up to find that America had never existed, and that they were still English, ... or Russians or belonging to whatever nation it was that carried the keys to time.

In reality, most people believed the Rainbow2 project would be a complete failure. Yet, the risk was there, and success could not be left to another superpower.

Furthermore, such was the threat that any success in the project could pose to world peace, that every step forward that they took, and any success they had within the project, had to be kept strictly under wraps.

No one must ever know if the project succeeded.

It was strictly on a need-to-know basis. And most people did not need to know.

Which was why the President of the United States of America still did not know about all the successes they had had in their laboratory to date: he simply did not need to know it all.

Just enough to keep the funding flowing, and support from the White House visible, whenever questions were asked about the huge budget they spent, year after year.

There was a knock at the door.

Colonel B. Patterson apologized profusely to the President for the interruption, put down the phone on the desk, opened the door and asked Professor Derek Martin to wait outside a few minutes more.

"I am sorry, Mr President. I have a meeting in a minute with Professor Martin who originally proposed the Hunraken Vortex, and he has arrived slightly early. May I call you later, as soon as we have any more news? I'm afraid we have nothing confirmed as of yet, but I am very optimistic."

The President accepted his apologies and Colonel Patterson hit the red button on his phone, placed it in his attaché case and closed the lid.

"Come!" he shouted, rather abruptly.

The door opened, and Derek Martin walked in, leaving his armed escort behind in the corridor. Colonel Patterson stood up, and offered Derek his hand over the desk.

"Welcome to the Pentagon, Professor Martin. Is this your first visit?"

"Yes... It's very..."

"Confusing? All these offices? I agree. But once you know the room number and the code, it's all quite easy really. There are five floors in the Pentagon, with an additional Basement and Mezzanine. The first letter of each room number is either a 'B' or an 'M' or numbers '1' to '5'. On each floor there are five pentagonal concentric rings which are connected by ten spoke-like corridors. The 2nd letter in a room number indicates which 'ring' the room is on: A,B,C,D or E. The next number indicates which of the ten radial corridors the room is on. And the last one or two digits indicates which room it is. Do you see? It's very simple when you know how. This room, 3B18, for example. This room is on the third floor, in the first corridor on the B ring, in room eight. Make sense? Good!"

Derek had met Colonel Patterson several times in the past. He could never quite decide if Colonel Patterson was suffering from a severe case of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, or if he was just a highly structured man. He always ended up giving him the benefit of the doubt, and in return Colonel Patterson always gave him as much money as he needed.

"Please, sit. Would you like me to order you a coffee? It's rather a long walk back to the cafeteria, but I can ask your escort in the corridor to go and get it for you, if you wish?"

"No, thanks, I'm fine. So, getting straight to it, because I'm very worried and rather scared...have you been able to locate Stormchaser 3?"

"I'm sorry. The quick answer to that question is 'no'. We have not found any trace of it at all. It looks like it just vanished into thin air. The Navy was kind enough to immediately send two ships down to the area. They got there an hour ago, and they have started searching visually and electronically but so far without any success. I have also had planes flying sorties from the USS Nimitz which left port this morning and is now heading there at full steam. She'll be on site tomorrow night. In addition, we have run computerized scans of the area from our satellites. The net outcome of it all, is that we cannot see any wreckage, life-rafts or flotsam anywhere, and the plane itself does not seem to have landed anywhere close by where they may have found some form of landing strip. We did, however, locate a few ships that miraculously seem to have survived the storm, and didn't heed our warnings. Or perhaps they never heard them in the first place...Nevertheless, they may have seen something, so when our ships find them, we will try and intercept them and question them. But bearing in mind they are in international waters and may not want to talk to us..."

Colonel Patterson could see the concern written all over the Professor's face.

"I'm sorry about Kate Schwartz. I hear you were close."

The colonel saw the surprise on the professor's face.

"How did you know about that?"

"It's our job to know everything. Don't worry. We are also discrete. We will not be telling anyone about your relationship, certainly not her husband, please do not be concerned."

"Is that a threat?"

"A threat? Oh...I'm sorry...I certainly didn't mean it to sound that way. I just wanted to say, sincerely, that you should not be worried, about us knowing..."

"Enough. Okay, I will not worry about it. But please, if you have not got anything else to tell me, can you tell me why you invited me all the way down here to meet with you?"

"Certainly. But I do have something to tell you. But, before I can, I have to invite you to sign a Form WM-745E. It's our version of the Espionage Act of 1917. It's quite similar to the Canadian Security of Information Act, if you are familiar with that at all? No? Well...what I have to tell you, few people in this country know, and if I do tell you, and you then repeat what you learn to anyone else, the United States Government could press for the death penalty....But I think you will find what I want to tell you very interesting. Very interesting indeed. It's to do with your work on the Hunraken Vortex."

Professor Martin looked slightly shocked, but Colonel Patterson could tell that he was already hooked. He would sign.

"Here," the Colonel said, opening us his attaché case and pulling out a few slips of official looking printed paper. "This is Form WM-745E. Even the form itself is a secret so I can't allow you to leave the room with it. I would like to suggest that I give it to you now for you to read, and that I step outside the room for thirty minutes. I will give you a chance to study the form, think about what I said, and hopefully you will decide to sign it so that we can continue the conversation? Does that sound fair?"

Derek smiled."Yes, although, perhaps can I ask you to get that coffee for me now? I think I'm going to need it!"

Eight minutes later, the Colonel knocked on the door, handed Derek a coffee, and left. He returned, as promised, exactly twenty-two minutes later. Not a second earlier and not a second later.

Derek had been sitting watching the minutes tick by on the clock on the wall. It took him ten minutes to read the form, one minute to decide to sign it, and the rest had been spent in anticipation.

The office was empty. There were certainly no secrets here to be given away.

His eyes were repeatedly drawn back to the only picture in the room: an excellent, photograph of a full rainbow, captured above the sea, in all its glory.

The picture reminded him of an experience he had had when he was a teenager, whilst kayaking on the Chesapeake Bay in Delaware with his father. It had been raining heavily on the other side of the Bay, but he was in bright sunshine. A rainbow had appeared, its colors so bright and vivid, that they had imprinted on his brain and were still clearly visible to him today all those years later. It had been a magical moment that he had never forgotten.

The picture also reminded him of something else, but although he tried hard to figure out what it was, it remained elusively out of touch.

Drawing his eyes away from the picture of the rainbow, he watched the second hand tick out the minutes, lost in his thoughts, eventually counting down the last few seconds of the time remaining.

Five, four, three, two...

Knock. Knock.

The door opened.

Colonel Patterson stepped into the office, and Derek smiled, holding out Form WM-745E, with the signed part of the form facing the Colonel, his signature clearly displayed in blue ink.

"Aha...excellent, Professor Martin, you have signed! Now we can talk business. There is a lot I have to tell you..."
Chapter 13

The Sea Dancer

Atlantic Ocean

Tuesday

1 a.m.

Richard Tyler couldn't sleep, even though he felt exhausted. Since he had awoken yesterday morning, he had been feeling dizzy, and slightly strange. He had spoken to the ship's doctor, the aptly named Mr Bones, but apparently everyone else was feeling the same way. The little man had recommended that he should try and get as much rest as possible, but he was finding that difficult for several reasons.

Firstly, he was starving. Apparently the ship had very little provisions left and would be looking to put ashore as soon as possible to find some more.

Secondly, the heat. It was almost unbearably hot and humid. Richard Tyler was a confessed landlubber. Being stuck in the small confines of a ship which was constantly moving was not his idea of fun. To Tyler, it was more akin to a subtle form of torture. He hated the gentle rolling of the ship backwards and forwards, and detested the more violent motions caused by the storm or rough waters. He longed to be back ashore. He was an accountant, not a pirate!

Thirdly, he was very excited. Everyone on board the ship, himself included, could not stop thinking about the booty in the hold, and how much their individual share of it would actually amount to when it was distributed.

They all knew they were going to be rich, but the question on everyone's lips was : 'How rich?'

Deciding that he needed some fresh air, he climbed the ladders and emerged out onto the deck.

At the bottom of the main mast, a small group of men had gathered, and were conversing animatedly. As Richard Tyler approached, a couple of the men stepped aside and let him join the group. They were all looking skyward, and when Tyler asked what they were doing, one of the men pointed upwards and directed him to a small object in the sky. It seemed to be very high up, and was moving across the sky quite quickly towards them, and every now and again, it seemed to flash a different color of light.

As they watched, it moved steadily across the sky, and the eyes of the pirates followed it eagerly.

When it disappeared from sight, the conversation between the pirates grew very excited. "What on Earth is it, Mr Tyler? You're an educated man! Surely you can tell us what it is? That's the twenty-eighth flashing bird that we have seen since the sun went down. They're popping up every few minutes."

"Aye, Mr Tyler? What say you?" another of the pirates asked, and the others joined in loudly with a chorus of "Tell us, Mr Tyler, sir," and "What is it, Mr Tyler?"

"I'll be dammed if I know. I haven't ever seen anything of the like, have I!" the accountant replied.

"I say it is a devil's bird. Sent here to spy on us, like. And then they disappear back to their master and tell him just where we are, and next thing Lucifer himself will appear and claim all our souls, he will!", one of the riggers chimed in.

"Aye, Billie, you're right, man. Never said a truer word, have you! I say we ask the Captain to put us ashore as quick as he likes, so that we can hide amongst the trees and the bushes!"

Another voice spoke up. This time it was the voice of one of the powder monkies, one of the youngest men in the ship, whose role it was to make sure that all the cannon crews had enough gunpowder during a battle, running up and down the ladders during a battle, back and forward to the gunpowder store.

"I'm scared. I think we have been cursed! Ever since we stole the booty from Captain Kidd..."

"Hush, now boy. There'll be no more talk of curses and bad luck onboard my ship." The voice of Captain Rob surprised them all. "So long as a sailor has a few cannons, a good seaman makes his own luck. And we've got lots, so from now let's be more bloody positive! Do y'hear!"

"Aye, aye, Cap'n Rob," they all chimed in, surprised and shocked to see the Captain on deck at this time.

"...And besides," the Captain continued. "Whatever these things are, they are so high up and far away, that they have no power to see and take any heed of us. We're safe from whatever they are!"

James Silver joined the group.

"Evening Cap'n... I couldn't help overhear what the lads were saying. I'm with the lads on this one. I think we should put ashore as soon as we can, and hide from these birds until we know what they are and who their masters are!"

"Well, Mr Silver. I for one am certainly not running and hiding from anything in the sky which is smaller than a fly? Are you?"

The others laughed. Then the Captain continued: "... But I am of the mind to go ashore as soon as we pass land to bring aboard new provisions and some water. Mr Silver, wake Mr Tanner, and accompany him to my cabin please."

As soon as the Sailing Master entered the Captain's Cabin, he was sent aloft to take readings from the stars and to work out their position as best he could. He returned, beaming, the first time he had smiled in days.

" 'Tis good news, Cap'n Rob. 'Tis a clear night, and I am able to see the stars. They are strangely dimmer than normal, in spite of the complete lack of cloud. But I was still able to plot a position. By my reckoning we should be sighting the coast of Puerto Rico soon. We have to pass it on our way west to Florida. Staying well clear of San Juan, I suggest we make our way along the coast and go ashore in or near the town of Arecibo. If this wind keeps up, we should be there just before dawn."

Almost as if the watchman up in the Crow's Nest had been listening to the conversation, a shout went up : "Ahoy, land ho!", and a few moments later there was a knock on the cabin door, a seaman bringing the news to the Captain and to wake him if he were asleep.

Captain McGregor asked the men in his cabin to sit down at this table and agree a plan. He included Richard Tyler in the conversation, a man he had grown to respect and like, and whose counsel he appreciated.

James Silver coughed nervously as he realised that Richard Tyler would yet again be remaining for conversations which until now had largely been the preserve of himself, the Captain, the Sailing Master and the Boatswain. Unfortunately Mr Peters had been taken ill that evening and was now confined to his bunk with fever, headache, chills and sweating, another of the crew to fall sick with the mysterious illness that Mr Bones had reported yesterday.

Although he had originally found the man amusing, Silver had now begun to dislike Mr Tyler: he didn't like the way Captain McGregor was taking him into his confidence, or how the men had also taken to him: they knew that it was thanks to him that they were all soon to become rich, and since the raid on the Fort in Puerto Bello de la Cruz, tales had been spreading below decks of how Tyler had single-handedly faced the garrison of the fort and persuaded them to open their gates.

"So, Mr Silver, what say you to Mr Tanner's suggestion of landing at the town of Arecibo?"

"Are we going to attack it or seek to trade with the locals?" Silver replied.

"A good question. I personally know little of the town, but is it not true that you once spent some time in the fort of San Juan, as the guest of the Spanish Governor there?"

Richard Tyler and Mr Tanner laughed.

"'Twas no laughing matter. A month of hell, it was, before I escaped, and found a berth with a merchantman headed for Jamaica. I have no desire to go back there, I can tell you. But I also know little of Arecibo. However, we have a man aboard who probably does. Mister Felipe Aznar, one of the gunners, is Spanish. He can act as a guide and translator."

"Good idea, Mr Silver. Please fetch him here, so that he can give us counsel."

Over the next hour, a plan came together. The Sea Dancer would stay well out to sea, running parallel with the island until it was sure that it had passed by the Spanish stronghold of San Juan. Further along the coast it would make for land, and track the coast until it found the inlet to the harbor of Arecibo. They would enter the port under cover of darkness, and send a single pinnace ashore under the command of Mister Aznar. He had agreed to play the part of quartermaster of the Sea Dancer, a merchantman seeking fresh provisions. Richard Tyler had offered to go with him, as one of the landing party, but feeling immediately threatened, Silver had argued against it, and volunteered in his place: an action he had immediately regretted and which caused him to dislike Richard Tyler even more.

When the landing party returned, using the intelligence that they had gained, they would decide whether or not to trade with the town's merchants, or to attack the town and take what they needed and desired. The consensus was that if possible, it would be best to buy what they could, instead of risking a battle in which more men could die, and their ship, now full of treasure, could be damaged or captured if the battle was lost.

If the landing party did not return by midday, they would bombard the town with their cannon, and send men ashore.

There was a small risk, but Mister Aznar had been to the town many times, knew it well, and was sure that the inhabitants would be keen to trade. Being so close to the heavily defended Fort of San Juan, they would not be expecting an attack. As long as the Sea Dancer posed no threat, their trade would be welcomed. In theory.

Under normal circumstances the taste of blood and battle would excite most of the crew and spur them onto a more physical and violent solution to their needs, but the knowledge that their holds were full of treasure tempered even the most hot-headed of them aboard.

For today at least, diplomacy and trade would be the order of the day.

It was 5 a.m. when the Sailing Master turned the Sea Dancer towards the island. As they came closer inland, Mister Aznar recognised the silhouette of the land and congratulated Mr Tanner for bringing them within three leagues of the harbor entrance.

At 5.40 a.m. Captain McGregor ordered the raising of a Flemish flag, captured from a Dutch merchantman several years before.

They were sailing closer to the island now, able to make out the coast clearly. Mister Aznar was standing alongside Silver, Richard and Captain McGregor on the Quarterdeck, and Mr Tanner was manning the tiller.

They were sailing in silence. No man spoke, the only sounds being the wind in the sails, the creaking of the ropes, and the ship plowing through the waves.

All eyes were on the shoreline.

Strange lights glowed like fireflies along the coast and above the small cliffs and outcrops of rocks. As they neared the headland where Mister Aznar indicated the entrance to the harbor at Arecibo would be, the glowing lights started to group together into clusters, or form lines of lights along the shore.

The lights glowed so brightly, and so constantly that they struck fear into the men who were watching from the Sea Dancer.

No man had ever seen such a sight before.

It was still dark as the Sea Dancer approached the entrance to Arecibo.

Such was the alarm that the crew felt at the strange lights they saw on the shoreline, that Captain McGregor ordered Mr Tanner to keep the Sea Dancer a league off shore as they passed the entrance to the harbor. He was keen that they should not commit themselves to entering the harbor before they were first able to survey it on passing by.

Mr Aznar was clearly anxious.

"I do not understand this," he said, almost apologetically. "This is the entrance to the port, I swear it, but the town is very different. It is awash with unnatural lights...what devil of mischief are the Spanish up to now? The town burns with fires, yet it is not consumed! There is no smoke, but the fires burn brighter than the sun!"

As they passed the entrance to the port, their field of view into the town suddenly became alive with light. Hundreds, maybe thousands of lights, of all different colors, burned in the town and along the water's edge.

Weird sounds, like music, but loud and very alien to anything the men had ever heard before, carried across on the water.

Occasionally, there was a loud 'beep', like a hunting horn being blown loudly and quickly, ... and the occasional dull roar, which sounded nothing like anything the men had ever heard before.

As they passed the entrance to the harbor mouth, McGregor studied the port with his spyglass. He stared in disbelief at what he saw.

They were too far offshore to make out great detail, but through his spyglass he saw tall towers that held great fires at their top, the light flooding the harbor beneath, and making it possible to see as if it were daytime, even though it were night.

There were 'ships' floating on the water in the harbor too. The tallest and biggest ships he had ever seen. Or perhaps they were not ships at all, because they were of a design and construction that would never be able to float or cross the oceans. Yet, they sat on top of the water, and clearly floated. It made no sense!

For a second he considered passing the spyglass to Mister Aznar or Mr Tanner, but then quickly decided against it.

Even if this was the port of Arecibo, Captain McGregor was not going to take his ship into such a harbor. And if the others were to see what he saw, their fear would rise beyond all calming. What would it profit the Captain to share such sights with the others?

Instead, he ordered Mr Tanner to sail straight on.

They would find somewhere else to go ashore.
Chapter 14

Room 3B18

The Pentagon

Arlington

Monday

Virginia

5 p.m.

Professor Derek Martin shook the hand of Colonel Patterson at the security gate on the third level, then stepped into the elevator and rode it down to the parking lot.

Ten minutes after leaving the Pentagon he parked his rental by the banks of the Potomac River, and got out and started to walk along the river's edge.

He needed to walk. And to think.

The events of the past few day were weighing on him hard. He could not stop thinking of Kate. It was only this morning that her plane had gone missing. It was hard to believe that the last time he had seen Kate was only a few days ago, over a high-definition video-conferencing link, when they had briefed the NOAA team.

Memories of their shared past flooded his mind, - her smiles, their shared kisses, her laughter - , and the grief threatened to overwhelm him.

He shook his head, and forced himself to focus on other thoughts, refusing to allow himself to think the worst. He switched his thoughts back to his laboratory.

If the Colonel had not insisted that Derek Martin make his way to the Pentagon, Derek would still be back at the laboratory immersing himself in his work. Although they had perhaps lost the Stormchaser, with Kate on board, the effort the Bush Institute had put into observing the collision of the four superstorms, had been well rewarded. They would spend the next few years analyzing the information that had been gathered yesterday, and Derek wanted to start today.

When he received the phone call earlier that morning, he had at first refused to come to the Pentagon, but the Colonel had insisted. He had promised to explain everything upon his arrival. Derek had argued that he needed to go back to the laboratory to commence the work of understanding just what had happened last night.

"That can wait until another day. You need a break. Come to the Pentagon. I promise you, Professor Martin. You will want to hear what I have to say!"

Derek had immediately called Mick, who was just leaving for the lab. "The timing is not brilliant, but I say go. I've got it covered for today. You need some time to think about Kate, by yourself. The trip might do you some good." He had a point, but it was when Mick had reminded him that a new round of funding would soon need to be negotiated, that Derek had finally consented to visit their most important benefactor at such short notice.

Now the visit was over, it was hard to take in everything that the Colonel had just told him, and yet there was no real reason to disbelieve any of it.

According to the Colonel, they had already succeeded in conducting experiments in their laboratories to transport physical matter from one location to another: teleportation.

The Colonel had not given away any detail on how their work had been completed, or even said much about what had been achieved, but he had said enough. Enough to share with Professor Martin the importance and essence of the work that they had been conducting.

According to the Colonel, the first successful teleportation experiment had been conducted in 2002, although it had not been classified as a success for the following reason: the object used in the experiment, a small cube of copper, had spontaneously disappeared and the scientists conducting the experiment had no idea where it had gone to. If indeed it had gone anywhere.

There was a body of thought within their group that the object had 'gone nowhere', i.e. that it still occupied the same place in space, but at another time coordinate. In other words, that it had somehow traveled through time.

Others believed that it had indeed been transported from one place to another.

In the following years, the scientists in the Colonel's laboratories had formed into two distinct camps. One group who believed that the cube had traveled 'spatially' and the other which believed that it had traveled 'temporally'. Each group had pursued independent tracks of research, developing new theories and experiments to explain, predict and ultimately be able to replicate such teleportation experiments at will.

Until 2009, success had been elusive. At least a billion dollars spent, with no other significant achievements.

Until 2009.

In April 2009, the team developing the concept of temporal teleportation had succeeded in transporting a small copper ball about a half-inch in diameter from one point in time to another. They had been experimenting with creating large magnetic fields around the copper ball, when it had spontaneously disappeared. What made the experiment a success, was that it reappeared in the same place, twenty-seven days later. The scientists had hoped to transport it only a few hours into the future, and at first the experiment had been considered another partial failure, - a repeat of 2002 -, but when it had suddenly materialized again in exactly the space place it had been in, prior to the magnetic field being initiated, everything changed.

After the initial euphoria of the experiment had subsided, a lot of work had been spent understanding why 'several hours' had become twenty-seven days. Painstakingly, the formulas had been refined, the experiments repeated and repeated, and through blood, sweat and even a few tears, great progress had been made.

Exactly what level of progress, the Colonel declined to elaborate on.

In contrast, Team 'B', the group focusing on the theory of spatial teleportation had not had any significant success. They had been able to repeat the experiment of 2002, and each time they were successful in making the copper cube disappear. Yet, they were never able to discover where the cube went to.

Spatial teleportation would only become real 'tele-portation' when the object could be enticed to disappear from one place and then re-appear in another, preferably in a location that was predictable and measurable. The 'trick' would be in discovering how to transport matter from an initial to a final set of predetermined coordinates. The science would be in how to make that happen, particularly in coaxing the matter to reappear exactly where you wanted it to go, at the time you wanted it to arrive.

In other words, you needed to build a 'transmitter' and a 'receiver'. So far, Team B had been good at 'transmitting', but spectacularly unsuccessful at 'receiving'. After five hundred million dollars spent on that particular line of research, the Government was considering pulling the plug.

Colonel Patterson had been following Professor Martin's work for a long time. Derek already knew that, as they had met several times before in the lead up to funding being agreed, and up until now the U.S. military, via Colonel Patterson, was the chief source of their funding.

What Derek hadn't realised was exactly why they were being funded. It turned out that his Institute was pursuing a course of research, which although different from the Colonel's, ultimately could have the same outcome. The Colonel had realised that early on. And rather than build another team internally to replicate Professor Martin's works, he had effectively 'outsourced' the research to independent minds who could potentially realise the Colonel's goal faster.

The difference between their lines of research was fundamental, but at the same time, on another level, almost negligible. The Military were investigating the effect that high-intensity magnetic fields could have on the structure, state and spatial location of matter, whereas Derek's team was looking at the effect of high intensity electric fields. Yet, as any physicist would tell you, the electric and magnetic fields are essentially different manifestations of the same force: one is inescapably linked to the other.

One simple example of the difference in approach to their research was that the military were attempting to create their own magnetic fields, whereas the Bush Institute under Derek was currently, for now at least, focusing most of its resources on looking at the capability of Nature to generate the high-energy electric fields which Derek and his resources would never be able to create by themselves, unless billions of dollars were spent. Funding which was simply beyond their reach.

What had made the Colonel particularly excited was the concept of Derek's Hunraken Amplitude and the Hunraken Vortex : "This theory essentially captures what we need to achieve!" the Colonel had explained, becoming very animated and enthusiastic. "If we can create a Hunraken Vortex in our laboratory, predetermining where the vortex is initiated and where it terminates, and then inject matter into that vortex, then we will be able to transport it from 'A' to 'B', and measure the outcome of the experiment! But, even better, is that your theory could easily bridge the divide that currently exists between our two separate approaches to this problem. The best scientists in our team all agree that your Hunraken Vortex could be established in one set of four dimensional coordinates and be terminated in any other. In other words, in your initial target coordinates, either the spatial coordinates 'X,Y,Z' could vary, or the fourth dimensional coordinate: 'Time'. That way, an object could be transported, spatially, temporally, or both! Which is exactly what I believe has happened to Stormchaser 3."

The Colonel had then become more subdued, and said nothing for a few minutes. Derek was silent, recognising that he wanted to say more, but that he was thinking about what he was going to say next.

"The problem I have," the Professor had continued, "...Is that not only do I have to be able to verify the result of every experiment, and understand whether or not it is line with the theoretical predictions...but I also have to demonstrate, prove and explain everything to the Defense Department...to those who fund me. Especially if I want more funding to continue the work!" The Colonel had paused, looked at the Derek straight in the eyes and then continued. "How close were you to Kate?"

The question caught Derek completely off guard. "Kate?...I'm sorry...I don't see the relevance? That's a personal matter, and I thought we weren't going to discuss that anymore."

"Actually, it is relevant. I'm sorry. Maybe I should have clarified earlier the reason we know about your relationship with her. You see, the thing is...Kate works for me."

The Colonel let the sentence hang in the air for a moment before making any attempt to clarify it.

"For you?" Derek asked, confused.

"Yes."

"I thought she worked for NOAA..." Derek protested.

"Well, technically,...she does. As well as for me. But I recruited her a number of years ago, to ...help out....sometimes, with information about observations made whilst at NOAA, both scientific and otherwise. I'm afraid, I can't really elaborate too much."

"Kate was a spy?"

"No. I wouldn't call it that. She was not doing anything that would harm any other Americans. Not at all...but, and let me get to the point here, she was my man on board the Stormchaser, if you pardon the expression...my eyes and ears."

"I don't understand, what was so special that you needed to know about..."

Even before he had finished the question, the answer dawned on Derek. It was beginning to make sense. The Colonel saw the recognition in Derek's eyes.

"Ah, so, I think you understand now. The Stormchaser was flying into the center of the storm, and we were hoping that it would observe a Hunraken Vortex. We couldn't tell NOAA what to ask their teams to look out for, simply because it's all classified and the very fact that we are looking for such a thing is classified. So, we had to ensure that someone on the flight would be our eyes and ears. Someone we could trust."

"Kate was looking for a Hunraken Vortex? She knew about it?"

"Yes. The thing is, none of us knew what it would look like, or in particular how large it would be. I am pretty sure that even you were looking for something very small, and that you had never even considered the possibility that a whole plane could fly through one, or be sucked into it, should one be created?"

"No...stupidly we were looking for something very small...we were looking for something on a completely different scale all together..."

"Exactly. So don't blame yourself. But, and this is the thing, a couple of us at ...in our laboratory... had considered the possibility that such a thing, if created, could actually be large enough to transport something quite large. So..."

"So what?" Derek had said, standing up from his chair and looming over the Colonel? "What did you do?"

"Well,...it was me actually. I met with Kate and we discussed the possibility of something extraordinary taking place, and what she should do if it did happen."

"And what was that? What did you tell her to do if 'something extraordinary' happened?"

"Before I tell you, first think back to what I just told you about the need to verify the result of any experiment. To be able to prove that something took place, both for the purposes of scientific enquiry, and to satisfy the Generals in the Pentagon so that they continue to fund the project."

"I remember... so what is your point?"

"The point is, that in the eventuality that Kate's plane observed a Hunraken Vortex, and in the unlikely event that the plane was caught in that vortex, ...or even if she was able to deliberately 'fly' into one..., then it was of prime importance that when she came out the other side..."

"IF she came out the other side... there is no proof..." Derek interrupted.

"Yes, that IF she came out the other side," the Colonel carried on, determined to finish his point, "...then, wherever she materialized, she should endeavor to make contact with me to describe the experience, and document what had happened."

"I can't believe you....did you ask her to fly into the vortex? That's insanity. Transporting a half-inch ball of copper from one point to another is nothing like transporting a live, incredibly complex, human being!"

"I know, Derek, I know. And don't ask me how I know, just suffice it to say that I do. My point...my point in all of this is that she knew the risks, and she knew the importance of what could happen, if it did. And she knew the incredible importance of contacting me as soon as possible, if anything did happen.

"So, what are you saying? That you have heard from her? Is she alive?" Hope suddenly soared within Derek, only to be dashed a few seconds later.

"No, I'm sorry. That's not what I meant. What I was going to say was that we have not heard anything back so far, so either she is dead, or she was transported somewhere else, either spatially to somewhere where she can't reach us yet, or possibly, just possibly, temporally to either the future or the past. Quite frankly, if she was transported into the future, I can't see any way of her communicating with us now, so we may never know. But, on the other hand, if she was transported back in time...then... there is a possibility that she could let us know."

"Colonel, this is getting ridiculous... This is becoming the stuff of fairy tales and children's stories. This is not science..."

The Colonel stood up from his desk, leaned across the desk and raised his voice slightly.

"Professor Martin, let me ASSURE you, that this is not the stuff of fairy tales or fiction. This is reality. Why on earth do you think the United States government has spent over $1billion dollars on this so far? Because it is real, that's why, because we KNOW it's possible. We..."

The conversation was getting heated.

"Excuse me, Colonel, and just exactly HOW do you know this is all possible? How?"

For a second, just a second, Derek saw the Colonel's eyes glance over his shoulder at the picture on the wall behind Derek, before coming straight back. "Please sit down, Professor Martin, let us both calm down."

The Colonel gestured with his hand, indicating that Derek should sit before the conversation continued.

Derek hesitated, and then sat down. The Colonel resumed his place opposite him.

"Please believe me when I say that we know this is not as ridiculous as it seems. And let me suggest, most respectfully, that you start believing a little more in the theory that YOU created. You need to start thinking a little more creatively about what it is that you have discovered. You were not the first, but you are perhaps, the most accurate in describing..."

"What do you mean I am not the 'first'?" Derek asked.

The Colonel stopped what he was saying in mid-sentence. He stood up again, and walked to the window and looked out.

"Professor Martin, honestly, I cannot say any more. At least not now. But I do want to share with you one thing. Kate agreed with me, that should such an unlikely thing like 'being caught in a time travelling H-Vortex'...as she called it... ever happen, and if she went back in time, then if it was the last thing she ever did, she would find a way to leave me a message telling me that she had survived and what had happened to her."

"How?"

"Last week we agreed that she should strive to leave a message somewhere where it would survive the course of time. We agreed twenty locations throughout the world where such a message could be left, just in case she was also transported spatially as well as temporally, and she ended up in some distant part of the world with no means to travel between continents. At least, there would be some possibility of travelling across a continent,... if there were the will to succeed. Incidentally, Kate is not the only person trained to do this. We also have others on the other Stormchasers, but it just so happened that it was Kate that was affected."

"This is incredible...absolutely ridiculous..."

"Let me stop you there, immediately, Professor Martin. This is NOT incredible, or ridiculous. And please never think like that again. There are more people interested in the outcome of these experiments than you could possibly imagine. You may be at an elementary stage in your work, but others are not. Believe me, when I say that this is not a game we are playing. Perhaps, at another time, we can talk more about certain aspects of this, but first we need to focus on what just happened in the Atlantic Ocean!"

The Colonel took a few visible deep breaths and then sat down in his chair placing both hands on the table in front of him.

"I know your next question will be, if we have heard from her yet or not, and the answer is no. As we speak, I have agents checking the places that we have pre-agreed would be drop-zone locations for messages to be delivered. However, with each agent we always agree a wild-card drop zone, which is basically somewhere which is personal to that person. Just before the flight, on Sunday, Kate called me. She changed her wildcard location."

"So? What has this got to do with me? I don't understand."

"You will. I have agents checking everywhere else apart from Kate's wildcard. I don't know where Kate's wildcard location is. You do."

"I'm sorry? I still don't understand."

"You will. As part of the security check we did on Kate before we brought her into the program, we identified you as being a former lover. We know a lot about you, Professor Martin, and your relationship with Kate. She knew we knew, and she also found it rather funny,..actually 'cute'...those were her words, not mine,...that she was flying this mission to essentially investigate your theories. She was very proud of you. That's why she suggested that if the mission was successful, and if the Stormchaser was caught in a vortex and sent back in time, then her wildcard location would be exactly where you first told her how much you loved her. I know, it's embarrassing,... but I think you know that Kate has a bit of a wild side to her, and this was her idea and not mine. But basically, it leaves me with no choice, and I have to ask you please to tell me a little more about your relationship with her, and if you can remember, to tell me exactly where you first told her that you love her! It may sound stupid now, but this could, quite literally, be a matter of national importance."

Derek laughed. This was so typically Kate.

The Kate who he had once loved with all his heart.

And still did.

The past twenty-four hours had been hell, wondering what had happened to Stormchaser 3 and assuming that she was dead. But if there was any hope...any...that she could still be alive, even though in another time, then Derek needed to know.

"Please pass me a pen and paper. I will draw you a map of where I first told her. If she is anywhere in the Caribbean she will make it to this place. This will be the place where she will leave her message."

The Colonel opened his attaché case, pulled out some paper and a pen, and slid it across to Derek.

As Derek started to draw a map, he asked, "So, Colonel Patterson, when will your agents go and look for this message of yours?"

"Tomorrow. I leave tomorrow."

"You're going personally?"

"If it's in the Caribbean I will go myself. I'll fly down at dawn."

Derek finished the diagram, pushed it over to the Colonel and explained it.

"Promise me, the moment you find anything, you will call me personally?"

"I will. You have my word."

Thirty minutes later, Derek was sitting on a bench on the banks of the Potomac, looking out across the river, and thinking of Kate.

A tear welled up in the corner of his eye, and Derek wiped it away on the back of his hand. Then he closed his eyes and bowed his head, and for the first time in years, he prayed, asking for Kate to have been delivered safely through space and time to wherever the Hunraken Vortex had taken her.
Chapter 15

The Sea Dancer

Atlantic Ocean

Tuesday

4.45 a.m.

Captain McGregor, Mr Tanner, Mr Bones, Richard Tyler, and James Silver were all below, sitting round the Captain's table, discussing what they should do next.

James Silver was having second thoughts about going ashore. He had just voted to bypass the island of Puerto Rico altogether and head straight back home to their hidden port on an island off the Florida coast.

"Let the men starve for a few days. They are all too fat anyway. A little fasting will do them all good!" Silver had argued. "And this island is possessed by the devil. I for one say that we must not step foot ashore, lest we too become possessed. The devil himself must have lit those fires. They are his work!"

Mr Tanner shrugged his shoulders. "I am just as scared as the rest of you, but we are desperately short of food and water. If another storm whips up from nowhere, who can tell how long it will last, and where it will take us. No, I vote we go ashore this morning. As soon as we can. We need provisions now."

"I second that," Mr Bones agreed. "Another man has fallen sick with the fever. I am worried. They are consumed by thirst and we have precious little water left to give to them. If we don't get more water soon, and if more men catch the fever, I fear for their lives. I fear for our lives!"

"And you Mr Tyler? What say you?" Captain McGregor enquired.

"This is a difficult question, and I can see Mr Silver's point of view. In fact I am inclined to agree with him. But...I know the Christian thing to do would be to find water for the others as soon as possible. So, I vote, let us find somewhere quiet and go ashore there today. Find provisions and water, and then run from here as fast as the wind will take us!"

Captain McGregor nodded slowly.

"I am in agreement with you all. I too hear what Mr Silver has to say. However,... Mr Tanner makes a very good point. If the storm should return we would have to change course away from the coast, and who knows how long it would last, or where we would end up. We need to take prudent precautions now. I sense that unrest is growing within the crew moment by moment, and nothing helps fuel unrest and discontentment more than an empty belly, and a raging thirst. I am of the mind, therefore, that while we are all still sane and able, we should go ashore and seek the provisions we need. If James Silver will not lead the landing party I will send Richard Tyler. He has already proven his bravery and..." Captain McGregor said, deliberately taunting Mr Silver, and goading him into submission.

"Cap'n Rob," Silver interrupted. "There will be no need for that. I will go. Richard Tyler does not have the experience, and..."

"Then it is agreed, Mr Silver. Excellent. We will go ashore within the hour. Please make the preparations. Tyler, I suggest you nevertheless accompany Mr Silver, and learn what you can from his command. You will learn a lot."

Silver smiled at the compliment, and rose to leave, but as he neared the cabin door, it dawned on him that perhaps he had just been hoodwinked.

He stopped momentarily in the doorway, considering the matter, but then he felt a heavy hand upon his shoulder and Captain McGregor's voice was in his ear: "Come now, Mr Silver. Let us go up and ready the pinnace and the lads. Make it sharpish, man."

As they emerged up on the deck, the Captain was confronted by a group of men who flocked to his side, eager to hear the decision that had been made below decks.

Captain McGregor held up a hand, quietening them all down, and then spoke aloud.

"Lads, strange things have been happening these past few days. I will not deny that. But what shall we do? Shall we stay here and watch the unnatural lights in the sky with an empty belly and a dry tongue, or go ashore and find somewhere where we can fill our guts, and drown our thirst with pure mountain water and grog? I for one would rather help myself to what I can find on land, than sit here and cry and hide my tail between my legs. And just in case there are any of you who cannot yet decide if you are a man or a mouse, I shall issue a single ration of grog for any man that volunteers to join the landing party. Or, if you prefer, and you are a mouse, I will ask the cook to find each of you a small piece of cheese!"

A chorus of laughter went around the men, and instantly the tension of the moment was dissipated.

"So, who is for the landing party then, my lads?"

Every hand went up.

"Mr Tanner," the Captain shouted loudly. "Bring us about and take us in closer to the shore, and keep your spyglass and your eyes trained. Find us a nice, quiet bay were we can sneak in, drop anchor, and put the men ashore. We are going a-hunting!"

Almost immediately the deck became alive with activity, with Tanner and Silver each shouting their own orders and commanding the men to trim the sails and make preparations to land.

In an instant the fear was abandoned and the pirates prepared for the shore raid, idleness and boredom being replaced with excitement and the anticipation of what was to come.

"I envy you, Mr Tyler. I wish I were also going ashore with you. I reckon the adventure in del la Cruz has wetted my appetite for more sport."

"So why do you not come, Captain McGregor. You could leave Mr Silver in charge of the ship."

The Captain laughed.

"Aha...I fear you have not been aboard long enough to sense the enmity that Mr Silver feels towards me. When I was elected and chosen as Captain by the men, Silver was likewise elected as quartermaster. But it is well known amongst the lads that Mr Silver would gladly see himself Captain of the Sea Dancer. Being mindful of this, I do not care to put too much temptation before the man, and myself lead a landing party on shore, leaving Mr Silver behind in charge of the richest treasure in Christendom and the fastest brig on the sea. I fear, that were I to do so, Mr Silver and our booty would be long gone even before the pinnace landed on the beach!"

"Do you speak in jest?"

"Sadly not, Mr Tyler. Sadly not. Which is why I am sending you with Mr Silver. To watch him, to learn from him, and to make sure he comes back."

For a moment Tyler studied the Captain's face, and then the Captain winked and smiled, and they both laughed.

"Aye, aye, Cap'n Rob!" Tyler replied, and then went below to gather up his cutlass and dirk, and make the other preparations necessary to go into battle.

The wind had moderated, filling the sails with just enough wind to push them steadily but quickly along the coast, half a league offshore.

Mr Tanner and Captain McGregor stood on the forecastle, studying the coast on their port side. Long sandy shores, and forests hugged the coastline, with occasional rocky outcrops or small cliffs. Occasionally they got a glimpse of what looked like rooftops poking above the trees, and here and there they saw more bright fires that burned constantly without flickering or going out. There were fewer of them here than in the port of Arecibo, but the sight of them still instilled fear within the hearts of the pirates. Not a man amongst the men had ever seen such a thing before.

All the men were gathered on deck, the lucky few who had been chosen to go ashore standing staring over the port side, every eye trained on the coastline.

The Sea Dancer carried two pinnaces, and both would be set ashore carrying around fifteen men each. As soon as they landed they would return and ferry over another thirty men, thus conveying a sizeable landing party of sixty men.

Luckily some cloud now covered the sky, giving the men a respite from having to worry about the birds in the sky that regularly flew over with flashing lights on their beaks and their wings.

As Mr Tanner looked for somewhere to land, Silver went amongst the men of the landing party, passing out a goblet of grog to each, thus giving them courage to go ashore and providing something medicinal to help them forget about the strange sights they had seen.

The ship sailed on in silence, the air tense with both excitement and anticipation. It was almost an hour before Mr Tanner waved at the Captain and pointed at an outcrop of rock they were just passing.

Captain Rob strained his eyes through his spyglass, and felt a surge of adrenaline pump through his veins as he saw the land beyond the outcrop receding rapidly behind it, curving around into a beautiful circular bay. It not only formed a wonderful, natural harbour, but it was shielded from view from everyone but those on a ship passing directly in front of the mouth of the bay.

Scanning the beach, Captain Rob could make out a number of houses beyond the beach, hidden amongst the trees.

"Mr Tanner," the Captain said quietly. "Take her in and drop anchor just inside the bay in the shelter of that rocky outcrop." The Captain said, pointing with the spyglass in his hand.

"Mr Silver, as soon as the anchor is down, lower the boats, and take the first party ashore. Remember, when you hit the sand, get everyone to lie flat on the ground in the trees, and send the boats back for the others."

Mr Silver nodded.

"And wait for the others, Mr Silver. Don't go ahead without them. Now listen, and listen ye well. Our hold is full of more treasure than you or I will ever be able to count. And we want to keep it so. Your mission is to find food and water, and perhaps some grog, if ye can. Make sure your men don't start fighting and killing the locals for sport. Appraise the situation first when you go ashore and send out a few men to get the lie of the land and determine how many locals there are and where they be. And then decide what to do and make your plan. Above all, make sure you don't start any fights you can't win, and don't do anything that might escalate. Keep control of the lads and make sure there's no womanizing today, no matter how pretty and plentiful they may be. We only want food and water. Money and anything else, we have a plenty in our holds already. Do ye understand, Mr Silver? I want ye back and us all gone within the hour! Now get ye gone, and don't return empty handed."

Captain McGregor held out an open hand towards Mr Silver to wish him luck, and for a moment Silver didn't know how to respond. Then he saw the friendly twinkle in the Captain's eyes, and the broad smile on his face, and for a brief second in time, Mr Silver felt a warmth within his chest and realised he was smiling back. He took the Captain's hand in his, shook it, and then turned to face the men assembled on the deck. He raised his cutlass aloft, and the men responded by silently lifting theirs and shaking them in the air.

Turning into the bay and letting the wind out of the sails, the Sea Dancer came to rest and they dropped anchor.

As quietly as they could they lowered the boats into the water, and the men climbed down the lines until each of the boats was full, and they started rowing for the shore.

Silver sat in the bow of the first boat as it headed slowly in towards the sandy beach. Richard Tyler was sitting amidst the men, rowing with the others. The second boat was not far behind.

Each of the men was armed with a cutlass, a loaded musket tucked into the sash around their waists, and a dirk strapped to their calves. They wore dark clothes, dark bandannas or hats, and their faces were blackened with grease and candle soot.

Several of the larger men carried heavy wood and metal mallets, to help persuade closed doors to open before them.

It was a calm evening. Gentle waves lapped the sand as the boats came into land, James Silver and the men jumping out and splashing through a few feet of water as they ran up onto the beach.

As soon as the boats were empty and all the men were ashore, Silver waved them off and they turned around and headed back to collect the second wave.

Following Silver's instructions the men ran quickly up the beach, seeking shelter and cover from the first line of coconut trees that lined the edge of the beach.

Above them the moon had begun to poke through the thinning cloud, and white light began to flood the sand.

As the men crossed the beach, they past several rows of what looked like strangely shaped low lying bunks or beds, covered in canvas that just cleared the sand beneath.

Two of the men who were staring at these strange objects then ran head on into a large net that was strung out between two large poles across the beach.

In fright and alarm, the men pushed back from the net and lashed out at it with their cutlasses, slashing it to pieces.

At the top of the beach, just before the trees began, there was a small, square wooden building with a covered wooden veranda sheltering several tables and chairs. There was a door to the side of the building, locked and further secured with a padlock.

Silver nodded to two of the men beside him, and they set to the door with the mallets, quickly knocking the padlock off. Unfortunately, the door still would not open. Silver looked closer and saw that in the wood of the door itself there was a tiny hole for what must be the smallest key in the world.

Silver pointed at the door again, and the men with the mallets swung several times at the wooden paneling, smashing it to pieces.

Silver stepped through the hole in the door.

Inside, he found himself standing behind what was obviously a bar which served grog and beer. The hatch to the covered drinking area outside was closed, but behind him there were several shelves with row upon row of bottles and glasses.

Silver turned and picked up the nearest bottle, and was about to pull the cork out when he discovered that it had none. Instead, there was a metal cover stuck to the top. He tried pulling it but it would not give. As he wrestled with it, trying harder to pull it off, he accidentally turned the cover around, and it moved. He turned it again, and again, and the cover swiveled and then actually came off.

Silver lifted the metal cover up to his eyes and studied it. He couldn't help but wonder at it. It was an amazing piece of engineering. He put it back on the bottle, turned it around in the opposite direction, and the cover swiveled in the opposite direction, closing the opening to the bottle. He turned the bottle upside down and the liquid inside did not run out.

One of the large men with the mallets who had also stepped inside, picked another bottle of one of the shelves and copied Silver, turning the metal cover until it came off in his hands. Silver and the man smiled at each other. Whatever the device was, it was amazing!

The other man lifted his bottle up and stared at its contents. He put the open bottle against his lips, and lifted the bottle slowly, tasting the liquid slowly.

"It's rum, Mister Silver!"

Silver reached out, pulling the bottle out of the man's hands and tasting it for himself.

Both men smiled at each other.

"Ye gods, this is fine rum, if I do say so myself!" Silver exclaimed.

For a second he stared at the rows of bottles on the shelves and then made a decision.

"Mr Samson, quick as ye like, get two of the others. Go through everything here, and try to find any water or food. Carry whatever ye find down to where the boats will be. And make sure ye take a few bottles of this grog too...But mind ye don't sample it, do y'hear?"

Silver stepped outside, passing the bottle of grog to the men under the trees and giving permission for each man to take a sip then pass the bottle on.

He pointed to three of the men and told them to follow him, instructing the others to wait until he returned.

Waving his men forwards, Silver ran quickly from tree to tree, scanning the ground in front as he went, bent double and keeping low.

Almost immediately the forest thinned out and disappeared, and the three men found themselves running towards the edge of a large curved lagoon of water, the edges perfectly shaped and defined, the lagoon lined with marble, with several elegant curved metal ladders disappearing over the edge of the ground into the water beneath.

Around the lagoon were many more of the low-lying beds that they had seen on the beach. In the middle of the lagoon there was a small, half-submerged tavern, with a curved row of stone seats arranged around it, on which people would sit and drink grog from the bar, whilst sitting in the water.

James Silver and the others came abruptly to a halt on the edge of the lagoon, their jaws dropping with surprise. For a moment they stared at the dark blue, crystal clear water.

One of the men bent down and dipped his hand into the water, drawing up a handful and tasting it, before spitting it out.

"It's not salt-water. It tastes a little sour, but much better than the rancid water we have left in the barrels on our ship. If we can find some barrels, we can fill them and take some of this water back to the Sea Dancer!"

"Good thinking, Mr Wright. Keep an eye out for them. If we can't find any, we must send a message back to the ship for the empty barrels to be sent ashore."

"There..." one of the other two men said quietly, pointing to a path that led away from the lagoon. It was lit by strange fires on the end of small silver poles. Silver and the three pirates crept forward in a line, the man at the rear looking behind and around him, covering their flank with his cutlass at the ready, just as Cap'n McGregor had taught him.

When they came to first of the fire poles, the men approached it cautiously. The object glowed brightly and lit the night around it, but there was no obvious flame.

The men inched closer.

Mr Wright bent slowly forward, his hand outstretched, his fingers ready to touch the fire-stick. Silver and the other two men crouched on the ground around it as Mr Wright advanced forward. The fire seemed to burn from inside a large, upturned, opaque glass jug, the silver pole stuck through its mouth at the bottom. The light coming from within was bright, but not so bright that it burned your eye to look at it. The line of fire-sticks cast a bright, but pleasant light on the path leading away from the lagoon.

As his finger touched the glass jug surrounding the fire within, Mr Wright was surprised to find that the glass was not too hot to the touch, but warm like a baby's bath.

Mr Wright turned to Silver and the others, and smiled.

The others crept forward and touched the fire-stick too, fondling it gently with their hands, and peering at it closely with their faces.

Deciding that such a fire-stick would be very useful to own and have, Mr Wright bent over and tried to pull the fire-stick up out of the ground. At first it wouldn't budge, so he gave it a quick kick with his studded boot at the base of the silver pole. The pole bent over, the fire-stick crashing onto the ground, the light going out and the surrounding glass jug breaking.

The pirate bent forward, peering into the inside of the fire-stick through the broken glass, wondering where the fire had gone, and what it was that had been burning.

Inside the glass jug there was another tiny little stick that sat at its very center.

Mr Wright turned to look briefly at Mr Silver, then pushed his fingers, still wet from the water of the lagoon, into the center of the fire-stick to touch the little stick at its center.

It was the last thing that Mr Wright ever did.

As his fingers found contact with the center of the fire-stick, there was a bright blue flash, and Mr Wright was forcibly thrown backwards and pushed up into the air. He fell heavily on top of Mr Silver and the others, bowling them over like skittles in an alley.

Silver screamed, as did the others, and quickly they fought to wrestle the heavy Wright off from on top of them.

They scrambled out from underneath his dead weight and stepped back from him staring at the man on the ground below.

A terrible stench of burning filled the air, and a wisp of smoke rose from Mr Wright's fingers, which were now blackened and charred.

Silver bent forward over Mr Wright to get a closer look. His mouth was wide open, as were his eyes, which stared lifelessly at the sky above, the look on his face one of shock and incredible surprise.

Mr Wright was as dead as dead could be.

Silver and the other two men stumbled backwards away from the body. Before he could say a word, the other two men turned and ran back to the cover of the trees, and Silver followed close behind.
Chapter 16

Flight 5742

Monday

23.10 p.m.

United Airlines flight 5742 circled above La Guardia airport in New York and prepared for its final descent.

Derek Martin checked his watch, noting that they would be right on time. As he looked out of the window he marveled at the sight of New York, his favorite city in the entire world, and once again felt relieved that he had made it back home tonight. He had come so close to missing his plane, and had only just made it with seconds to spare.

After his walk along the Potomac River, he caught a cab over to George Town, and walked into Martin's Tavern just in time for his 6.30 p.m. reservation, made on his iPhone earlier that morning.

He had first come to Martin's Tavern when he was a post-grad student, visiting Washington to give a speech about atmospheric physics. It was at the conference that he had met Kate Schwartz, although at that time her name had been Kate Cohen.

She was a young and beautiful student studying physics at Penn State, fascinated by Atmospheric Physics, and after his speech, also fascinated by Derek.

She had waited for him after his speech had ended, and approached with a few questions. The moment Derek had seen her, he had fallen in love.

She was slightly taller than he was, had glossy, black hair, beautiful piercing blue eyes, was slim and had a fantastic smile.

They say that you only ever truly fall in love once in your life. Derek believed that this was true. It had happened to him then and there, and never again.

His had been the last speech of the day, and as the hall had emptied out, and the cleaners had come to prepare the venue for the next day's presentations, Derek and Kate had sat on some seats at the back of the hall and talked.

He had answered all of her questions, and then asked a few of his own, starting with: "Would you like to continue this conversation over dinner?"

The answer had been 'yes'.

Leaving the hotel, they had walked and walked, eventually ending up in Georgetown, where Kate had suggested they go for a steak at Martin's Tavern. She wanted to show him the famous 'Rumble Seat', a booth for one person where President John F. Kennedy frequently used to sit and eat Sunday breakfast.

The Rumble Seat was just inside the door on the right hand side. When they visited, it was the only seat free in the whole house: using her charm and incredible smile, Kate had persuaded the manager to let them both sit there, squeezed tightly together. Derek had not objected.

"Over there," he could remember Kate pointing to another booth beside the window a few booths away, "...Is where JFK proposed to Jacqueline Bouvier and asked her to become the future wife of the 35th President of the United States!"

Derek had watched her as she spoke, noticing the twinkle in her eye, the freckles on her cheeks, and the way she raised one eyebrow before she laughed.

Only hours after he had met her for the first time, he put his hand on her thigh under the table, and kissed her gently on the cheek. She had stopped speaking, turned towards him, kissed him gently on his lips, and put her hand over his on her leg.

That night he had walked her back to her hotel room, and forgotten to leave. They had made love all night long, sleeping only briefly. Derek had an early morning flight, and had to rush away just after six o'clock to make it back to his hotel, collect his stuff and get out to the airport in time.

Unfortunately, he had made the flight. He had spent the next ten years wondering what would have happened, and how different life might have been if he had not made it and if he had been forced to spend another day in Washington, with Kate.

They were living on different sides of America, he in California, and she on the East Coast.

For six months they wrote to each other every week. Twice Derek flew to see her in Pennsylvania. It was whilst visiting her for the second time that Derek found out that Kate was Jewish. To him this was not a problem, and it did not affect the way he felt for her, but when Kate had told him this, she was sad.

From then on their relationship had gone downhill. Not because he loved her less, and also, Derek believed, not because her feelings for him had changed either. But in her last letter to him that year, she had explained that her parents, whom she loved with all her heart, were putting tremendous pressure on her to marry a 'good Jewish man'. Although she had been rebelling for most of her life, she knew that her parents were probably correct, and felt she had no choice but to stop seeing Derek. They had to find new lives without each other: "This has been a wonderful, wonderful dream, but now I have to wake up, and live the life that God and my family expect of me."

The next three months had been the worst in Derek's life. His heart had been broken. He tried to contact Kate, but couldn't. She had left Pennsylvania.

Years later, he had managed to track her down on LinkedIn. Her pictures showed that she was still as beautiful as ever, even more so, but the name beside her photograph and on her profile said Kate Schwartz, not Stone, as it used to be. She had been married for a year, to a stockbroker from New York.

She was smiling in her photograph.

Six months later, out of the blue, he had received a connection request from Kate, stating:- 'We've done business together', citing her time at Penn State for when they had met.

He had accepted the request, and she had mailed him a single sentence: "Please can we meet?"

They arranged to meet back in Washington, at Martin's in Georgetown. It was her idea. Perhaps she was hoping to rekindle memories from the past, or maybe it was innocent, and just because she liked the restaurant.

Derek thought it was the former.

They met, they hugged, they talked, and later that evening Derek had walked her back to her hotel room. And forgotten to leave.

Kate was desperately unhappy. She had married because she thought she was in love. Joshua was a good, kind man. A good Jewish man from a good family. And when they had met, Kate was actively looking for a good Jewish man from a good family. When she had eventually taken him to meet her parents, they had both loved him.

It was only after they were married that she realised that she had been swept away with the idea of the romance, rather than the romance itself.

And yet, she could not leave him. To do so would be to break her parents' hearts, and it would probably kill them. And Joshua was a good man! He provided security and warmth. If she left him, it would destroy him, and he did not deserve it. He had given her everything... yet sadly, in spite of how 'good' he was, the spark that had existed with Derek was sadly absent from her relationship with Joshua.

She was stifled, suffocating... and bored. But she couldn't bring herself to leave him. Surely this must be her fault? If only she could change, become a better wife...

Over the next two years, Derek and Kate had met several times: at conferences, on work-related business trips, and several times for weekends when Joshua was out of the country visiting business clients.

Whenever they met, they did their best to forget Kate's other life, and lived only for the moment, having fun, eating and drinking in romantic restaurants, and making love for hours on end. Until the time came to go home. Back to the real world.

Then one day, Kate said she could not do it anymore. The guilt was too much. She could no longer go behind Joshua's back anymore.

She ended it.

Kate joined NOAA and found new sources of excitement, and Joshua moved with her, opening up his own business near NOAA headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland, so that Kate could be happy and close to her new job. He was a good man.

For a few years, Kate and Derek never spoke, until late last week, when Derek had started to finalize preparations for the project.

Whether or not it was fate, destiny, or pure coincidence, their lives had intersected again: Kate Schwartz was flying one of the Stormchasers that would look for Derek's Hunraken Vortex.

And because of him, she was now missing, dead or possibly transported trough time and space to only God himself knew where.

Flight 5742 touched down safely, the plane bumping gently onto the runway as the pilot conducted a flawless landing.

It was then that Derek realised the hopelessness of it all: if Kate's airplane had flown through a Hunraken Vortex and had been transported back through time to before the twentieth century, how would they land the airplane without a runway?

They couldn't.
Chapter 17

Blue Emerald Bay Resort

Puerto Rico

The first of the two boats was just arriving back at the shore when Silver got to the beach.

As the second wave of men poured out onto the sand, Silver ran down to the boat and sent it straight back to Sea Dancer, telling them to bring back as many empty barrels as possible to transport, water, food and grog!

The men had already started emptying the stores they had found in the first building on the beach, and they were making good progress in piling it up on the sand near the water's edge. They now started to load the first boat.

James Silver was scared. He had felt uneasy about coming ashore even before he had left the Sea Dancer, and now already one of his men had been killed by the devil's magic.

As soon as they had what they needed and were gone from this place, the better!

Just then, one of the men came running up to Silver, gesticulating wildly at something towards the wooden hut on the beach.

"Fresh water!" he shouted. "I've found a fresh water spring! We will soon have all the water we need!"

Silver followed the man back to the side of the hut, where he showed the quartermaster a metal tube coming out of the ground with a cross on the top: when you spun the cross around, water would start to shoot out of the tube, pouring onto the ground below.

Silver stuck his head underneath the hole from where the water poured forth, and drank the water, gulping it down. It was sweet and fresh and deliciously cold.

Filling his hat with water, he poured it over his head and face, washing away months of dirt and grime.

Feeling immediately refreshed, he clapped the sailor on the back and told him to fill as many barrels with this water as he could. Silver was relieved not to have to go back to the lagoon where the body of Mr Wright still lay.

By this time the men from the second boat were ready, and the full complement of men were now waiting for him under the trees.

Silver could see the sky beginning to lighten on the horizon, and he knew the sun would soon be rising. They would have to make haste.

Hurrying over to the trees, he signaled for the men to divide up into three groups, appointing two other leaders from the men, and instructing them to be back within the hour at the latest.

"Follow me now, until I give the signal to separate. And then grab only what you can, and do not engage the locals. They are devils!"

Silver set off through the trees, emerging beside the lagoon. Sprinting around it along the path, he quickly passed Mr Wright's body. The others followed.

The path led past two other curved lagoons, surrounded by the strange, low-lying beds. As they ran along, it struck Silver as odd that there were so many beds, yet no one was sleeping on any of them.

The path led back into some more trees, and then emerged in front of a set of buildings, the like of which he had never seen before.

The buildings were three levels high, and built with beautiful workmanship. Silver could not make out if they were constructed of stone or wood, their appearance being smooth. Even though the sun had not yet risen, the dark of the night was cast away by more fire-sticks around the buildings, whose light illuminated them and showed that they had all been painted a light yellow.

Wooden balconies were built into the walls, and empty seats and a table were positioned on several of the balconies that he could see.

Brightly colored clothes and small, skimpy articles of clothing hung on pieces of rope that were stretched out across some of the balconies.

But what struck Silver most were the big portholes that were spaced out regularly along the walls and set into the walls themselves: large pieces of glass covered the holes in the walls, the glass flat and transparent - and HUGE! He had never seen so much flat, clear glass in his life.

As the pirates ran out from the trees onto a patch of beautiful grass, just in front of a row of these buildings, Silver gestured to the men, and the three groups split up. Each of the groups headed in different directions, leaving behind them a few good men to protect the path and their escape route back down to the beach.

Silver contemplated smashing one of the huge windows and trying to climb into the room beyond to explore the building and see if there was food there.

He and his men ran over to one of the buildings, and Silver tentatively reached out and touched one of the flat, smooth, yellow walls. He pointed at one of his men, indicating that he should kneel on the ground, and then Silver stepped up onto his back, looking in through of one of the windows. On the inside, a piece of hanging cloth obscured much of the view, leaving only a small gap through which he could see a large room and a bed.

Silver's eyes opened wide.

On the bed, a man was making love to a woman. Silver gawked, pressing his face closer to the glass trying to get a better look.

Beneath him the pirate groaned as Silver pushed the heels of his boot deeper into his back. The pirate swore loudly.

Inside the bedroom, the woman looked up from her nuptial activities, saw the face at the window and screamed.

Silver fell backwards off the pirate beneath, landing awkwardly on the ground and rolling over, before picking himself up and running with his men around the side of the building and deeper into the devil's lair.

They ran along another path lined with ornamental shrubs, palm trees and fire-sticks, past more beautiful houses and another lagoon full of water.

A man was coming towards them across the grass. He was dressed in black in tight figure hugging breeches and a tunic. As they ran down the path towards him, the man started waving at them, obviously scared by the sight of so many pirates running towards him.

"Who are you?" he shouted at the top of his voice. "Are you guests here at the Resort?"

As they came closer, the man pulled out a small black box from his breeches, lifted it close to his mouth and started speaking at it.

Silver was only a few feet away when he heard the man say something about 'Intruders' and 'Terrorist Attack'. Then suddenly, there was a loud cackle and a voice spoke back to the man in English.

The sound of the voice emerging from the little black box in the man's hand startled the pirates, and some of the men beside Silver slowed down. Silver sped on, the man now only a few feet in front.

As he drew closer, he raised his cutlass above his head, and in a single, powerful motion, he swung it downwards, hitting the man across the jaw with the metal basket that surrounded his hand, instantly knocking him unconscious. The man fell heavily to the ground.

Without stopping, or faltering, the men ran on.

Suddenly a tremendous smell of food filled the air. Silver stopped running, and sniffed the air. The other men ran up behind him, sniffing the air too.

Quickly Silver looked around him. Seeing a man walking away from him through a door about a hundred yards ahead, he followed after him, the open door being the obvious source of the smell.

Eighteen pirates followed after him, pouring inside the building, their mouth's watering at the delicious aroma of food wafting through the air.

They entered into a large darkened building, a spacious hall filled with empty tables and chairs. Large windows filled with the biggest pieces of glass that the men had ever seen surrounded the hall, with a view of the open sea and the bay on the other side.

Outside the sun was just beginning to rise, a beautiful dawn heralding a magnificent day ahead. The view of the bay and the sea beyond was stunning. The pirates had never seen the like of such a building before.

There could only be one explanation. This was the palace of a Spanish King!

There was a sound behind them and the men turned around to see a man with dark black skin, carrying a tray of goblets filled with an orange colored liquid. He looked up at the pirates in surprise when he saw them, and then walked into the middle of the hall, put the tray down on a table, said something to them that nobody understood, and then walked back out of the hall through the door he had just come from.

On the right of the door through which the pirates had entered, there were what looked like several shops, their wares on display and open for anyone to help themselves to! The men streamed towards them. There were many different displays of food, some in colored boxes, some lying displayed on flat surfaces, with ice and green leaves surrounding them. There were also many different types of fruit, some of which Silver recognised, others which he did not. The smell of fresh bread filled the air, and Silver saw one display offering nothing else than what looked like thirty or forty different types of bread.

Another display showed a banquet of meats, and eggs, and other things he simply did not recognise.

Bottles of water and colored liquids lined one of the walls. There was a silver metal barrel on a table, and when he turned the lever that protruded from it, expecting beer or grog, boiling water poured out of it, the water splashing onto his hand, scalding him and making him jump back with shock.

The men had never seen a banquet like this before. Slowly they edged forward until at last Silver started to pick up pieces of meat and eat them, the mission temporarily forgotten and hunger and greed getting the better of him.

A second later the other men followed his example, the band of smelly, dirty pirates descending upon the King's feast and devouring it as if it was the first time they had seen food in years.

Suddenly there was a loud shout, and a man dressed in a white suit with a tall white hat emerged from the door through which the previous man had disappeared.

"Gentleman," he shouted. "Are you members of the hotel? If not, stop! Immediately. Breakfast is only for hotel guests, and we are not open for service until 6.30 a.m.!"

Silver looked across at the man, his mouth stuffed with meats and eggs, and a strange looking fruit in his free hand. Without further thought Silver threw the fruit at the man. The man stepped aside, and the fruit missed. A guffaw of laughter went up from the men.

The man raised his right hand, stepped over to the wall behind him, and pushed something on the wall.

Instantly the hall was filled with the light of a thousand suns, the light so intense and bright that the laughing pirates dropped the food in their hands, bent and cowered on the floor and lifted their hands above their faces to shield themselves from the bright fires which burnt down on them from the roof above.

Silver immediately fell to the floor, and crawled under one of the nearby tables, and he quickly shouted to his men to do the same. They immediately followed his command.

"What devilry is this?" Silver shouted loudly, his mind flooded with fear.

The man who had summoned the fires from hell, walked towards Silver. He was laughing. He was laughing at him and his men!

Silver slowly stuck his head out from under the table, pulling his pistol free from his belt and pointing it at the man in white.

"Devil, I command you. Extinguish your flames of fire immediately, lest I blow your head off with my trusty pistol. Do it now!"

The man in the white suit turned towards Silver and knelt down, looking for the source of the voice. When he saw the barrel of the pistol pointed directly at him, he drew back, stood up, turned and ran.

No doubt to summon his King and warn him of the pirate's attack.

Silver knew he had to do something, but as he scuttled out from under the table he looked up at the fires burning from the roof covering their heads, and for a second he was blinded by their brightness. He whimpered in fear and pain, and hurried back under the table, his face buried in his hands.

The pirates were trapped.

They could not escape.

If they moved from under the cover of their tables, the devil's fires would fall down upon them and they would burn in hell!

\--------------------

Paddy O'Brian, one of the two pirates selected by James Silver to lead the other raiding parties, raised his musket and fired.

The man in front of him fell to the ground, the little musket ball having entered his forehead and buried itself deep into his brain.

The weapon that the man had carried and fired loudly in the air in warning, fell to the ground. Paddy hurried forward, and picked it up, turning it around and pointing it at the other men dressed in black that were now hurrying towards him.

Paddy was a clever man. He had noticed that just before the dead man had fired his weapon, he had depressed a small lever underneath it. With his own musket now spent, he hung it across his shoulders on its strap, and took hold of the dead man's musket with both hands.

As the other men in black ran towards them, he pulled the little lever underneath the barrel. The weapon kicked backwards like a horse, fire erupting from the barrel of the musket, its mouth roaring as loudly as three wild bears screaming at the same time. One of the oncoming men fell, and the others dispersed, disappearing into the night.

Paddy was spun around by the force of the beast in his hands. In fright, he depressed the lever again, and once again, the weapon kicked and roared, and more fire erupted from its mouth.

Two of the pirates beside him instantly dropped to the ground, blood pouring from their bodies. Paddy stared at the weapon in his arms in disbelief. He glanced back towards the two pirates he had just killed, then dropped the devil's weapon to the ground and ran.

Thirty minutes earlier, Paddy had left James Silver and led his men around the side of a building and found themselves in front of a field covered by metal carriages. He had once been to London and had seen the most advanced carriages of the day, but none of them compared to these. Whereas the carriages in London were made of wood, these were made of shiny metal. Instead of wooden wheels, the carriages sat upon solid wheels with black rims as thick as a human arm.

Lighted fires burned from several tall poles sticking out of the ground like ships masts, illuminating the carriages all around. There were green carriages, red carriages, purple ones, blue ones...every color you could image. Big carriages, small carriages, huge carriages with many, many wheels.

All the carriages had large, transparent windows which let you see directly in, giving the occupants no privacy at all. Strangely, all of the carriages were empty.

The carriages - there were at least a hundred of them - sat in the field, waiting for the horses to be brought to them and attached.

Paddy looked at the front of the carriages again: but where would you attach the horses to? Paddy could not see how this could be done.

Paddy and the other pirates stood on the edge of the field of carriages, staring dumbstruck at what they were seeing.

Slowly Paddy walked towards the first carriage. He looked inside. There was a small wheel at the front of this carriage, just in front of a seat.

He walked to the next carriage. It too had a wheel. As did the next carriage, and the others beside it.

In fact, as Paddy and the pirates advanced into the field and walked amongst the metal carriages, they saw that each carriage had its own wheel. It reminded Paddy of the helm of a ship.

So, were these boats or carriages?

The other pirates were peering through the windows of the carriages, some fascinated by what they were seeing, and others looking to see if there was anything inside that they should take back to the ship.

One of the men quite close to Paddy saw something that fascinated him, lying on the back seat of the carriage. He wanted it. He raised his musket and brought the base of it down heavily against the glass, which broke immediately upon impact.

Suddenly the air around them was filled with an incredibly loud scream, the like of which no man had ever heard before. For a second the pirates froze, staring at each other and looking for the source of the screaming.

The car itself had begun to flash with light, little candles on the sides of the carriage burning brightly one moment, and then extinguishing themselves again, but instantly relighting themselves again. Over and over again.

The pirates turned and ran, banging into the other metal carriages as they did so, which caused many of them to whine and scream and roar in sympathy with the others.

Within moments, the air was filled with the sound of a thousand banshees screaming and wailing. Filled with terror, fear and surprise, the pirates ran and hid in the trees surrounding the field, prostrating themselves flat on the ground so that the evil screaming spirits would not be able to see them.

From their position of concealment, they saw people in strange attire running out of the buildings towards the wailing carriages. The people - they were of many colors and appearances - talked excitedly together, whilst pointing their hands in the sky towards the carriages. Slowly the banshees stopped wailing, and the candles on the carriages stopped flashing. One by one the carriages went back to sleep, and the people began to disperse, disappearing back into the buildings from whence they came.

After a while, Paddy stood up and motioned for the other pirates to follow him. Cautiously the pirates began to stand up too, and slowly they emerged from the undergrowth and the trees. Paddy was worried that time was passing, and that soon they would have to return to the boats. Time was running out, and so far they had not found any food to take back with them.

The men crept forward, their cutlasses held out high in front of them in one hand, their muskets or pistols in the other.

Paddy knew the other men were as scared as he was. But he also knew they were hungry. He could tell just by looking at the quality of the buildings around him that there were rich pickings here aplenty if only they could be found.

Where would these people keep their food?

There was no choice but to break into the living quarters of the inhabitants of this place, and take the food from their tables and their larders.

He gathered the men around him and issued his instructions. There were thirteen people in his group. He split the men into six groups of two, and pointed at the buildings they should explore and attack. He would stand outside to direct and guide the men.

"Do not harm anyone, lest they attack you first, or unless ye are in jeopardy. Those are Cap'n Rob's orders. We only want food, water, and grog. Jewels, coin and rich clothing we do not need. Take only that which we can eat or drink! And there shall be no womanizing or whoring! Any man that takes pleasure with a woman will be left behind. Is that clear and understood!"

The men grunted agreement, separated and disappeared into three different buildings.

Moments later, he heard the first of the men banging on the doors to the dwellings within the buildings. The banging was followed by screaming and shouting, and slowly people began to emerge from the buildings, crying and screaming, many in different degrees of attire: some naked, others with clothes wrapped around them, or wearing strange looking tight fitting trousers and jackets.

The pirates soon followed, carrying meager amounts of rations, surprising Paddy in the lack of there being anything substantial. The pirates pushed through the screaming inhabitants, reporting back to Paddy with their insubstantial discoveries.

A small and pathetic pile of food began to grow on the ground in front of Paddy as the men dropped what they had found and went back into the buildings for more.

By now the inhabitants that had been displaced from the beds and houses were becoming less scared, and increasingly angry and more boisterous.

Paddy ordered some of his men to remain and corral the people into a circle and force them to lie down on the ground, and to enforce order before they lost control.

To set an example, Paddy lifted his pistol and fired a shot into the air. For a second, everyone fell silent, and all eyes were on him. Then once again the women started to cry. In response, the pirates pushed and prodded them to lie down, brandishing their cutlasses at them and prodding them with the tips of their blades, commanding them to be quiet and not to protest. Slowly order was gradually enforced.

Unfortunately, the amount of food being recovered from their dwellings did not grow. Paddy was getting more desperate with every minute that passed.

In desperation, he grabbed a woman from the group lying flat on the ground and pulled her up by her hair.

"Woman, tell me where ye keep yer food? Explain to me why yer houses are empty? How do you feed yer men folk? Where do ye cook?"

The woman looked at him blankly. She was shaking from head to toe, and as the pirate held her, pushing the blade of the cutlass against her cheek, she soiled her clothing.

One of the men lying on the floor, slowly stood up, both his hands held up in an act of obvious submission, and requested to speak.

Paddy beckoned for him to come forward.

"Ye have something to say?"

"Yes. Sorry, I couldn't help but overhear you asking the lady about food? You want to know where our food is? Food? You want to know where we get our food from? From the restaurants, man. This is a holiday resort. We don't cook any fucking food in our bloody rooms or villas. We just go to the restaurants and choose anything we want! It's All Inclusive. We don't..."

"Take us to where you get your food from. Show us. Now!"

Paddy didn't understand everything the man was saying. He was using strange words, whose meaning were not known to Paddy, but he understood enough.

Paddy pulled out a ship's whistle and blew it, and within moments all the other pirates returned, emerging from out of their buildings and running towards him with pathetic amounts of food in their arms.

He ordered several of the pirates to force several of the men they had captured to pick up the pile of food they had collected and carry it down to the beach. It was not much, but it would help.

Then he instructed the rest of the pirates to form a circle around the inhabitants of the town that they had captured so far. Once everyone was ready, Paddy forced the man he had spoken with to lead them all to one of the 'Rest Orant's that he had spoken of.

They had only managed to move a hundred yards when two men in strange black clothing appeared in front of them, shouting for them to stop, and waving muskets in the air.

One of the men fired his musket at the sky, and it roared louder than any weapon that Paddy had ever heard before.

Paddy had fought in many battles, and had killed men often, both in skirmishes at sea, as well as on land.

He recognised the situation that was developing now. The other group of men with the more powerful muskets were vying for control. They looked well fed. Paddy's men were hungry and desperate.

Paddy raised his musket and fired.

The man opposing them fell to the ground. Dead.

After picking up the man's musket and firing it himself, killing another of the enemy and two of his own men, those that wanted to oppose him vanished into the night. Out of shock, fear and confusion, Paddy dropped the weapon in his hands and hurried forward, prodding the man who knew where the 'Rest Orant' was with his cutlass, and waving for the other pirates to follow with their captives.

Their captive led them to a large building that they entered through two palatial doors made of amazingly flat and clear glass. As they walked up to the doors, they opened magically by themselves, sliding backwards and receding on either side into the walls! Paddy stopped in his tracks, speechless with fear and wonder. He grabbed the man by the arm and instructed him to step backwards out of the building.

The doors closed before them.

This time Paddy took a step forward by himself and the doors slid open again, once more disappearing into recesses in the walls on either side, and allowing him entry.

Paddy stepped inside and quickly looked around to ensure that there were no servants or slaves on the inside who had opened the doors without him seeing them. There were none.

"What manner of trick is this?" Paddy asked, prodding their captive with his cutlass. "How is this done?"

"C'mon man. Don't be stupid. They're electric doors! What, like, you've never seen electric doors before?"

" 'Electrik' doors? And who opens them? Tell me this?"

"You do, man. You step on that mat, and the doors know you want in, and the electric motors open the doors for you. Listen, I'm not a bloody engineer. They just work, okay. Accept it, this is the Twenty-First Century, man!"

The man laughed, and stepped through the doors and walked past Paddy. Immediately the doors closed again.

The other pirates were hesitating outside, too scared to walk through the doors.

Paddy waved at them, but none came forward. So Paddy swallowed hard and stepped back towards the doors, and they opened again. Paddy stared at them, and laughed nervously.

"This is powerful magic, indeed!"

He reached back and grabbed the arm of the nearest pirate, dragging him forwards. "Hurry men. Bring everyone inside. You stand here, Levi, and don't let the doors close again."

Paddy hurried after the man who had gone inside.

"Hey, Mister. Tell me what your name is!"

"Sandy Weiss."

"What century did you just say this is? And don't lie to me, lest I let you feel the cold of my steel as I run you through!"

"The Twenty-First Century, man. And like as if you didn't know!"

"The Twenty-First? Are you mad? This is the Seventeenth Century. The last year of the Seventeenth Century!"

"Yeah, right. Sure is. Whatever you say so, man. And when you get back to the real world, this year, in 2014, do you still want me to show you the restaurant, or what?"

"2014? Anno Domini? You jest!" Paddy said, prodding the man with the cutlass.

Sandy winced, immediately feeling his body to see if the blade had actually cut him or not.

"I kid you not, man! And what's with, like, all this funny speech, business? What country are you from anyway?"

"England."

"No kidding, man. My friend went there last year. He loved it! Do you know a Mr Carter? My friend stayed at his hotel in Poole?"

Paddy was taken aback. Actually, he did know a Mr Carter, but he was sixty years old, and he had never lived in Poole. "I don't think so..."

"Fine. Just thought I'd ask... Anyway, here is the restaurant. It won't be open for another ten minutes though. They are very strict..."

"Go in. Take everyone in with you. We need to find food now!"

Paddy stood aside and helped usher all their prisoners deeper into the building. The pirates filed in after them, brandishing their cutlasses menacingly to keep their captives moving forward in order.

As Paddy followed Sandy through another doorway into a massive hall, bigger than he had ever seen before, he was temporarily blinded by bright fires which shone down on them from the ceiling of the hall. The other pirates hesitated before going in, gathering at the doorway, and just pushing their prisoners in before them.

"Is that you Paddy O'Brian?" the voice of Mr Silver surprised them, coming from somewhere inside the hall.

"Silence!" Paddy shouted at his captives, who were all talking loudly inside the hall.

"Mr Silver? Is that you? Where are you?"

"We are under the tables. Command someone to extinguish the fires in the ceilings, immediately, so that we can come out. We are trapped!"

Sandy laughed, turned and stepped back towards the wall on the inside of the entrance to the grand hall. He pushed something on the wall, and the fires on the ceiling were instantly extinguished.

"What...?" Paddy said, stepping forward, and studying Sandy, reappraising him. "You have powers over the fires from hell? How did you manage this feat?"

"I just turned the bloody electric lights off man!"

"Elektrik Lights? Who is this god 'Elektrik' that can perform all this magic?"

"It's just lights man. Just lights. Look!", and Sandy reached forward again, switching the lights on once more. Immediately there were cries of shock and pain, as the pirates who were now emerging from under the tables, dived back down for more cover, some banging their heads in the process.

Paddy recoiled, looked up at the roof from where the fires burned, and then still watching them, he copied the actions that Sandy had just done: he pushed the little levers on the wall. The fires went out.

"Thanks be to God!" Silver shouted. "We are saved..."

But Paddy wasn't listening to Silver, and in amazement at his new found powers he pushed the levers on the wall one more time and once again the fires burned bright.

There were more sounds of anguish as the pirates dived under the tables again.

"Enough! Stop!" Silver shouted.

Paddy extinguished the fires once more, a smile growing on his face. He burst into laughter. Hurrying across to the table under which Silver was hiding, he laughed again loudly and said, "Mr Silver. You may come out now. I have conquered the fires of hell, and I have saved your wretched skin!"

Sandy stepped up beside Paddy, offering a hand to help up Mr Silver from his kneeling position on the floor.

"Are you guys for real?" he asked, half in amazement and half in confusion.

"For real, what?"

"Like, this is for a TV show, or Candid Camera or something?"

Silver and O'Brian looked at each other questioningly.

"I have no comprehension of what you speak, Mister." James Silver replied. "But I will tell you only that we are from the Sea Dancer, and that we seek food and water and grog. And you will help us find it, if you want to remain alive!"

"Look in the kitchen, then!" Sandy replied, pointing to the kitchen doors. "That place must be stuffed with anything you want."

"Wait! We will go together." Silver ordered, then shouted a command at the other pirates, telling them to push aside the tables in the center of the room, gather all their prisoners together, and make them all sit cross-legged on the floor, with their hands underneath their legs. Then Silver followed Sandy and Paddy through the door into the room beyond.

The smell of cooked meat and food assailed their nostrils immediately they stepped through the door. A couple of men in white hats and white suits looked up, saw them come in and dropped their pots and plates on the floor, and ran out a door at the back of the kitchen. Silver walked after them, and noticing bolts on the door, he pushed them closed, locking the others out.

Paddy and Silver walked around the kitchen, marveling at the banquet of food that was being prepared. Sandy had entered the kitchen behind them with several of the other pirates, and was watching them with a combination of amusement and wonder.

Silver turned to Sandy Weiss. "Which King is this feast being prepared for?" he demanded to know.

"King? What the hell do you mean? This is just the breakfast buffet for everyone at the resort. Honestly, where are the cameras?"

"Breakfast? All this is to break your fast?"

"Absolutely. This is a five-star resort. It ain't free. We're paying for it."

Paddy was exploring the rest of the kitchen behind Silver, when he let out a triumphant shout. "Here! Over here...See what I have found!"

Silver hurried over to Paddy. He had opened a door at the back of the room and was staring inside. The room was a massive larder, containing many boxes full of a large selection of fruit and vegetables, many of which they had never seen before. At the back of the larder there was another door, and when Paddy pulled it open, he discovered that it was another large chamber, but the air in it was incredibly cold. Freezing cold mist rose from the ground as he stepped inside and discovered that it contained shelves laden with boxes and boxes of meat, all of which were frozen solid. Sandy reached out to touch some, and his fingers almost froze to the boxes as he did so!

Inside the kitchen, another pirate had opened another door, and discovered a large cupboard full of food which, although not frozen, was cold to the touch.

Silver was ecstatic! They had hit the jackpot. Everything they needed, everything was here! Now all they needed to do was to transport it back to the ship.

He walked back to the door from the kitchen to the great banqueting hall, surveying the scene before him: thirty-two pirates standing in a circle around about a hundred people who were all lying or sitting on the floor in the center of the palatial hall.

So far, they were remaining in control, but how many others were in this palace, and how long before their soldiers came to rescue their prisoners?

"Paddy, quick, we need reinforcements from the ship. It's only a matter of time before the palace guards arrive and we have a fight on our hands. Somehow we have to get all this food back to the beach and to the Sea Dancer, but I can't spare any men just now to help you. I want you to run as fast as you can back to the beach, and send a boat back to the Cap'n, and tell him to send as many men as he can. Give him a full report and tell him we have found all the food we require...We just need to get it out of here!...And by the way, if you come across Mr Tyler, tell him to get his men here as fast as he can!"
Chapter 18

Blue Emerald Bay Resort

Puerto Rico

When James Silver had split the men up, the first of the pirates he had chosen to lead one of the other groups was Richard Tyler. Silver could no longer stand the sight of him, and sending him off with his own team of pirates was one sure way of getting rid of him.

Tyler was an accountant, not a pirate. He had no experience of battle. With any luck, Tyler would get into a fight with some local inhabitants, and they would kill him. Problem solved.

As Richard Tyler stood with his group of thirteen pirates facing the trees and the paths around the lagoons illuminated by the devil's fires, he began to wonder what exactly he had got himself into. For a moment he began to panic. He knew the eyes of the other pirates were on him now, and he realised this was an opportunity to demonstrate leadership, and gain their respect. Yet, the truth was, he had never led men before, especially not on a raiding party into Spanish territory.

He closed his eyes, breathing deeply. Focusing.

"Think man, think..." he said to himself.

Did Tyler lack the courage to take his men straight into the heart of the local village, or was such a move just plain crazy? Surely, the sensible thing to do would be to first ascertain the size and strength of the village before attacking it? Forewarned was surely forearmed?

"This way men," Tyler said quietly, indicating that instead of going deeper into the village, they would first go along the beach and then cut inland when they passed the last house. "First we will go around the village, and then cut back into it from the other side!"

The first rays of the sun were just beginning to crawl up the beach when Tyler and his team set off to the left, hurrying along the sand in the shade of the trees. After about two hundred yards, they saw that they had passed the last of the buildings and came to a large and solid metal net about three yards tall that was strung between regularly spaced posts and which extended from further inland down to the tree-line, leaving the beach clear. The posts were driven deep into the ground, and when Tyler pushed on the net he discovered that to his surprise it was solid and immoveable: it looked like a net, but was more like a metal wall with hundreds of large holes punched out of it. How could the Spanish build such a thing? It was truly impressive. Several of the other pirates were also mesmerized by it, and stood staring at it and touching it gently with their fingers.

"Ahoy, this way, men!" Tyler called after them, urging them to follow him, and he turned and headed inland following the line of the metal wall. Instinctively Tyler knew that this wall was a form of protection put up by the villagers to protect them from the outside world, and he guessed that it would run all around the village. If Tyler and his men followed the metal wall, they would be able to discover just how large the village was, and what the defenses were.

They followed the metal wall directly inland for about two hundred yards, until abruptly it connected to a large, solid wall made out of stone or bricks but which had been covered with plaster and painted gold. The wall was four yards tall, and every twenty yards there was a small turret built into the top, giving the impression that it was a defensive wall for a castle.

As they hurried further inland, they passed large, three-storied buildings on their right, but kept well away from them.

Slowly the wall began to curve to the right, and they found themselves bent double running around it on a path that was illuminated here and there by the same bright fires of the devil that they had seen before near the lagoon at the beach.

The men stared at the fires as they passed, but word of the death of Mr Wright had spread like wildfire amongst them, and no man dared approach or go near them.

A few minutes later they heard the first large report of musket fire. It came from the right, bouncing around and echoing off the buildings. It was swiftly followed by several other loud volleys of fire, and then the sound of continuous screaming.

It had begun.

Time was now of the essence.

Twenty yards further on, the wall curved sharply to the right, and as they approached, they could see that it ended in a large, thick tower, beside a tall wooden gate which was standing open across a road that led out of the village. Or was this a palace? This was no ordinary village gate. This was far too grand. On the other side of the gate, there was another tower, linked by a section of wall that ran across the top of the gate and connected the two towers together. Beyond the second tower the wall continued, and in the distance Tyler could see that it began to curve around to the right, back towards the sea.

As they approached the first tower, several men dressed in black ran out and made haste towards the sound of where the musket fire had come from. Tyler immediately gave signals for the men to drop flat on the ground amongst the fauna and flowers that decorated the grass on the inside of their path.

After a few minutes, with no further men emerging from the tower, Tyler and one of the other men crept forward, leaving the other pirates behind.

At the base of the nearest tower, there were several large, clear windows. Inside there was a small room, and Tyler could hear voices coming through the window.

Slowly he stood up, leaving the cover of the fauna and crossing the path, pressing himself hard against the wall, and edging along it until he came to the base of the tower.

The tower itself was round, like the turrets at the top of English Castles - in fact there was much about this palace that reminded him about an English Castle. With his body pressed hard against the wall, he took a deep breath, and poked his head out, taking a quick look into the room.

A single man in a black uniform sat a table. He was looking at a set of boxes which were stuck to the wall. For a moment, Tyler was dumbstruck by what he saw, and momentarily feared that he may be about to lose his reason. There was already much that was very strange about this village or palace, but looking now at the sight of the little boxes on the wall which were full of little people, talking and shouting, he had to steady himself and take a deep breath.

Tyler stared at the boxes and at the tiny people inside them. What magic was this? This was final proof that the devil was at work here!

In disbelief Tyler suddenly recognised several of the images: James Silver and Paddy O'Brian.

They had been caught and the devil had put them in the little boxes! Tyler immediately knew that it was down to him to rescue them!

He ran quickly back to the other pirate and told him his plan.

It was simple.

On the far side of the room in which the palace guard was keeping watch over the now tiny Mr Silver and his fellow pirates, captured and now imprisoned by the devil King, Tyler had seen an open door, probably left open in haste as the guards had run into the palace.

As Tyler crawled along the ground around the edge of the tower towards the door, the other pirate knelt before the window.

After counting to ten three times - the pirate could not count higher than ten, he suddenly stood up and knocked on the window, smiling.

Inside the tiny room the palace guard jumped to his feet, and hurried across to the window to the pirate who was demanding his attention. At that exact moment, Tyler jumped up and ran through the open door, raising his pistol and bringing the metal ball at the base of the handle down on top of the guard's skull.

The man immediately fell to the ground, unconscious or dead, Tyler did not know or care.

His next thought was to rescue James Silver and his men, and to set them free from the boxes on the wall.

Turning to them and reaching out to wrench the doors to the boxes open, a surge of fear rushed through him.

The boxes were closed with a strange form of glowing glass. He would have to break the glass to let James and the others out. Raising his pistol one more time, he smashed the glass with the butt of the handle.

There was a loud bang, and the box went immediately black. Smoke came out from within, and suddenly the images of James Silver and Paddy and the others were gone.

Tyler peered into the hole in the glass and realised that he had been tricked. There was no space beyond the glass. There were no small people trapped or imprisoned behind it. It had just been an image, a picture or illusion conjured up by the devil himself! Tyler shook his head and stepped backwards in shock and fear away from the magic trick. His foot met the head of the guard lying on the floor and he tipped backwards, almost falling over, but catching himself at the last moment on the edge of the table.

Richard Tyler pulled himself up, and stared again at the other boxes on the wall, in which images of other tiny people could still be seen and even heard, their voices muffled but loud enough to hear.

Just then a sharp, shrill, whistling sound came from behind him, and as he turned and urgently sought its source, he realised that it was coming from an object on the table.

Instantly, Tyler drew his cutlass and brought his blade down across the top of the ringing object. Part of the object bounced onto the table under the impact of the blade upon it, a cable running from its base to another object which had survived Tyler's attack and still remained atop the table.

What happened next was most strange: a voice spoke loudly from the object on the table. By now the other pirate had entered the room, and together they both stared at the talking object: two small hemispheres connected together by an arch.

"What is it?" the pirate asked.

Tyler shook his head. He took a step closer, cautiously, then bent over it, lowering his ear closer to the sound of the voice which came from one of the small hemispheres.

"Hello? Hello? Winston, are you there?" the voice said, loudly.

Curiosity was now beginning to overcome Tyler's fear. He could not resist it any further. Slowly he began to extend his hand towards the arch that connected the two small hemispheres, and gently his fingers wrapped themselves around it.

He was still alive!

Emboldened, Tyler carefully picked the object up, bringing it closer to his face and examining it.

"Winston? Did you hear gunfire? Can you see anything on your CCTV? Are you okay, man? Shall I send a Response Team over to help? Answer man, answer!"

The voice urged Tyler to answer.

Gingerly he put the speaking hemisphere to his ear so that he could hear it more clearly.

"Winston, for the last time, man, shall I send a Response Team over to help? Is everything okay, man?"

Before he knew what he was doing, Tyler shouted back at the object:

"Everything is okay, -man-! Do not send a 'PONSE' team. ...Man."

Tossing the talking box back onto the table, he ran out of the tower, shaking with fear and excitement.

Tyler knew they were in real danger now. Someone was sending a 'PONSE team'. What that was, Tyler didn't know. But it did not sound good.

"When I say push, PUSH!" Tyler shouted loudly, instructing the other pirates in his team to close the large wooden gates, and help block the entrance to the palace. "Push!"

The wooden gates were large, but they closed surprisingly easily, responding to the combined strength of Tyler's pirates.

Once closed, Tyler and a few of the other pirates lifted several wooden planks up and put them across the gates, inserting them into supports built into their back.

In the center of the gates there was a large, ornate lock. He turned the lock, and pulled out the heavy key. It was a large key, exactly like any other he would expect to see. It was perhaps the only 'normal' thing about the whole experience so far.

Tyler then instructed several of the men to close all the windows in the towers, and block all the doors, making it as difficult as possible for anyone outside the palace walls to find a way in.

He then ordered one of the pirates to climb up inside the steps of the first tower, and keep a look out for any signs of trouble, which Tyler was sure would soon head their way.

He stationed half the others inside the towers, their muskets and pistols primed and ready to defend their position from any advancing guards.

It was their job to defend the rear guard of their attack on the palace.

With the main gate to the palace now secured, Tyler led the rest of the men down the entrance road that led from there into the palace itself.

He had never been so frightened in all his life.
Chapter 19

Police Headquarters

San Juan

Puerto Rico

Sergeant Trevor Bolt put down the phone and pushed back in his chair. Something was definitely wrong across at the Blue Emerald Bay Resort, the most exclusive five star resort on the island.

That was not Winston on the phone, and the answer the man had given to his question had provided no assurance whatsoever. On the contrary, it had confirmed that something strange was happening.

Only five minutes ago he had received a phone call from a staff member.

Apparently she had heard what sounded like shots being fired within the grounds of the resort. It may be nothing, but until they had better intel, Sergeant Bolt thought it better to be safe than sorry.

The Blue Emerald Bay often had important residents staying there, which sometimes included U.S. politicians and film stars. True, the Blue Emerald had its own security force, but Sergeant Bolt had always worried that they were not up to standard. At least, not his standards.

The sun had just risen, and normally this was one of the quietest times of the day: the drunk tourists were either all back in their beds in their hotels, or were locked up in the cells: the drug dealers were getting too lazy to stay up this late, and the gangs didn't fight each other so early on in the week.

The only problem was that since it was a slack time, they were under resourced: the night shift was just about to go home, and the next shift wouldn't be fully operational for another forty minutes. In addition, a lot of men who had been on emergency standby for the past few days, or had been working overtime trying to keep the public safe during the high winds they had experienced from the edge of Hurricane Josephine, had now all taken some time off.

Retirement was coming soon. He only had another year to go before he could buy that fishing boat, and spend the rest of his days fishing in the deep blue waters off the coast of Puerto Rico, his favorite country in the whole world. Sergeant Bolt had led an exemplary career so far, and he knew he couldn't afford to ruin it now by making the wrong call.

He made his decision. As soon as he had made it, he knew it was the right thing to do.

Picking up the phone, he called the Rapid Response Helicopter and instructed them to take off and fly over the Blue Emerald Bay. It would only take five minutes for the helicopter to get there, and as soon as it was overhead, Trevor would get a live feed of the area from the helicopter camera.

Just in case, he would also contact the police station nearest to the Blue Emerald Bay and tell one of their cars to do a drive by, and stop and talk to the main gate, before they finished their shift.

They wouldn't like it. The guys up there were a lazy bunch. Nothing ever happened there, and that's the way they liked it, and they would probably already be changing out of their uniform to go home.

If nothing was wrong, Trevor knew the boys would give him a hard time about it tomorrow night.

Still, it was better to be safe than sorry. He only had a year to go...

\--------------------

Suite 217

The Blue Emerald Bay Resort

Puerto Rico

Sally-Anne Davis stepped out of the shower, and toweled herself down. She liked to have a long shower in the mornings, before she headed down to breakfast and started the day.

At twenty-nine, Sally became the youngest manager that the Nicolson Hotel Chain had ever appointed. She knew she had the eyes of the board on her, and the responsibility of running the third largest resort complex in the Caribbean was something that she did not take lightly.

She had worked twice as hard as any other Hotel Manager she knew, and for the past three years, hotel profits had risen by an average of thirty percent each year.

Now thirty-four, she was determined to up the game and increase profits in the next year by forty percent. That would herald unprecedented growth and assure her promotion to the manager's role at the new Blue Emerald Bay Resort in Dubai, that was due to be open in eighteen months time and was widely predicted to be the most exclusive hotel resort in the world.

When she had been chosen for the job at the Blue Emerald in Puerto Rico, she had been under no illusions that it was purely down to her management skills. As a former Miss World contestant, and a Vogue cover girl, she had once been called 'the most beautiful businesswoman in the world'. The Nicolson team had considered her a catch, and maximized the free publicity it provided by allowing Time, Vogue and Business Week, amongst others, to each do interviews and full cover spreads of her and the resort. There had been numerous appearances on TV and radio, and by the time the publicity had run its course, bookings were up twenty percent.

Sally had been given two gifts when she was born: her looks and her brains, and she used both of them to their full effect to achieve what she wanted.

Yesterday had been a long day, and last night had been a late night for her.

During the day she had overseen the clean-up of the hotel resort. Luckily the hurricanes that had threatened to devastate the Caribbean Islands if they had continued further west had mysteriously petered out, and effectively disappeared.

Still, they had experienced the edge of Hurricane Josephine, with high-winds and rain causing a lot of mess, but thankfully not much damage. And in case the worst had happened, the hotel had been in lock-down for the past three days. Everything mobile had been cleared away, and large windows had been covered over. Yesterday they had spent a whole day uncovering everything which they had just covered over, and putting back everything they had put away.

Then in the evening, she had been playing catch-up until 2 a.m., working on details and plans to decorate the newly built extra wing at the hotel, and had not fallen asleep until 3 a.m. Exhausted. She knew she would be tired today, but that was not an excuse not to be present to check the executive breakfast bar in the main restaurant before they opened at 6.30 a.m. as she did every day before she started her duties.

When the first phone had rung in her room, she was just getting into the shower. She had missed that call, as she had the second and third. To be fair, in the three years she had run the hotel, she had only been disturbed once between the hours of 3 a.m. and 6 a.m., and that was due to the death of a very famous actor who had overdosed on cocaine, and Sally had been called to deal with the situation before the news got out.

In the end, his death had been reported as a heart attack taken whilst making love to his wife. She had been flown in just in time to speak to the cameras.

Sally was sitting at her breakfast bar, just finishing her muesli, orange juice and toast when the phone rang for the fourth time.

Within two minutes she was out of the door, and within four she was approaching the entrance to the main restaurant.

By the time five minutes had passed, she was sitting in a circle on the floor in the center of the hall, a pistol and cutlass persuading her to keep quiet.

This was not going to be a good day.

\--------------------

The Blue Emerald Bay Resort

Puerto Rico

The Blue Emerald Bay Resort catered for three hundred guests, offering them the amenities and services of the most exclusive five star resort in Puerto Rico. There were six restaurants, ten bars, fifteen pools, a nightclub, an entertainment theatre, spa, beach house, sports complex, a water sports center and a golf club.

Only the rich could afford to come to the Blue Emerald , and only the rich did.

It was 6.30 a.m. Guests were beginning to turn up at the doors to the main restaurant hall for breakfast.

James Silver welcomed them all into the hall. In spite of the orders from Captain Rob, he had begun to realise just how rich the inhabitants of this palace were, and as he instructed them to join the others and sit on the floor in the middle of the great banqueting hall, he had offered them the opportunity to relieve themselves of their jewelry and amulets, and any coins they may be carrying. The bag that had been circulated around their captives was slowly beginning to fill up. It was already surprisingly heavy.

James Silver was an enterprising man, and he was sure the other pirates would appreciate the decision he had made to take advantage of the situation as it presented itself.

At 6.35 a.m. Richard Tyler walked through the door to the hall, marshaling in four palace guards that they had just captured. One had been wounded, and was bleeding profusely from a chest wound. Blood was everywhere.

Silver instructed one of the pirates to take him to another room they had found at the back of the hall. Richard Tyler reported that when they had stumbled upon the palace guards outside the banqueting hall, one had threatened them with his musket. In response, one of the riggers in his party had thrown his dirk, landing it deep in the guard's chest. A few shots had been exchanged, and then the palace guards had surrendered. Surprisingly they had not put up much resistance.

Tyler had explained quickly what they had seen and done.

Silver had fought in many battles, and he knew that although they were in command at that moment, it was only through the earlier element of surprise that they had achieved this.

Now the palace was waking up, there were potentially hundreds of people beyond the confines of this hall who would soon start to realise what was happening and organize themselves against them.

Until they had transported the food back to the ship, Silver did not want to leave: because of their lack of food and water, he and his men were desperate - things could only really improve by holding on to what they had found.

He now also regretted having not enough knowledge about the size and scope of the palace. Silver knew nothing of its defenses, or how many guards the palace had. Begrudgingly he recognised and affirmed the strategy that Richard Tyler had adopted, and he sent him and two of his men back out to complete their circumnavigation of the palace and ascertain its true size.

He then sent a further five men out to round up any other residents they found in the palace and accompany them back to the banqueting hall for imprisonment.

Hopefully, if they were able to capture a sufficient number of hostages, their own security may be assured until they were able to transport all the food and water back to the ship, enabling the Sea Dancer to leave with the provisions they so urgently needed.

With the decision made, the nature of their mission changed from 'search and find food' to 'catch and imprison as many hostages as possible'.

Silver looked at the hall. The banqueting hall was soon going to get very full indeed.

Just then one of the pirates behind James Silver sneezed.
Chapter 20

The Sea Dancer

Puerto Rico

6.50 a.m.

Captain Rob was worried. Mr Bones had just visited him in his cabin, and broken the bad news. Three more of the crew had come down with the mystery illness that was beginning to affect those sailing on the Sea Dancer. That brought the total to six. Mr Bones had also explained that the condition of two of those already suffering from the sickness had deteriorated significantly. Mr Bones feared that they would expire before the next sunrise.

Captain Rob had ordered that everyone who was affected by the illness should be moved to the cabins at the rear of the ship, and that the other crew members should not socialize with them in any way at all.

Whatever this sickness was, Captain Rob needed to stop it spreading. He ordered two of the crew to go below decks and swab the cabins and stairwells, and check for any dead rats. Any that they found should be thrown overboard immediately.

Illness was common amongst seafarers, particularly after visiting a new port in a new country. Captain Rob had often wondered about the connection between visiting new places and the number of crew who would get ill within a week or two after leaving a new port.

It was not uncommon for some sailors to spend months at sea or crossing the Atlantic Ocean, only to die from an unexplained illness within weeks of arriving in the Caribbean. Captain Rob did not know where illnesses came from, or how they spread, but he did know that sometimes going ashore in a landing party held unseen risks that you could not predict. In hindsight, it was often better to remain aboard rather than visit new places and come into contact with new people.

He had once heard tell of a fully laden ship being found drifting in the mid-Atlantic. When the ship was boarded, they found that everyone on board had died from a mysterious disease: the ship had recently visited an island off the coast of Africa, and two weeks later there was no one left alive.

Although he could not tell anyone else of his fears, Captain Rob was beginning to worry that the treasure was not the only thing they had taken with them from Puerto Bello Del la Cruz.

Just then, Captain Rob was ripped from his thoughts by a voice coming from the sea below.

"Captain Rob, sir. Permission to come aboard?"

Looking over the side, Captain Rob saw that it was Paddy O'Brian, returned with the last boat to go ashore.

"Aye, lad. Come up and make yer report. Join me in my cabin!"

"So, Mr O'Brian. You say this is a palace belonging to a Spanish King? And that you have found all the food and water we will need for a year? Well, that's sounds wonderful, just wonderful. Congratulations!...But tell me more of the musket shots that we heard. What resistance have you encountered?"

Captain Rob smiled when he heard that the resistance so far had been almost non-existent, but he frowned when he heard of the hostages that Silver had taken and marshaled into the banqueting hall.

"So, in summary, Mr Silver wants me to send ashore as many men as I can afford, along with all the remaining empty barrels and containers that we can find. I have already sent two score of barrels ashore to be filled with fresh water, but I fancy we can find a few more. As for men, well, let me see, we have almost fifty able bodied men left on board, and could spare about forty. But I will lead them myself. If this palace is as great and strange as you say, I have to see it with my own eyes - particularly the fires that burn from the ceilings of the palace banqueting hall and have Mr Silver burrowing holes in the ground to hide like a rabbit! I will leave you in charge Mr O'Brian. Mr Simons is below deck, made ill by the fever, and I fear that he will not be leaving his bed for a while. You are the next able bodied man who I would trust to manage the ship in the absence of Silver, and myself. Mr Tanner will answer to you in my absence. I will see to it. I will leave immediately. For now, please check all the cannons on the port side. I have trained them on the shore. The tide is changing now, so ensure that they are kept ready and targeted on the shore and the buildings beyond. Borrow the spyglass from Mr Tanner and keep checking for any signals from myself from the beach ...And it goes without saying, but keep a guard on the booty. Repel any boarders who you do not recognise and do not give the codeword. And unless I am with them, no one is to be given access to the hold. Do you understand?"

"Aye aye, Captain. That I do."

The sun was making good progress above the horizon as Captain McGregor strode ashore, jumping into the water from the prow of the boat, and helping to drag it up onto the sand.

He helped unload the first ten barrels, and hoisted one on his shoulders and started carrying it towards the center of the palace, as previously described and directed by Mr O'Brian. The other men followed him.

With an inkling of trouble to come, McGregor had loaded another two pistols and stuffed them both into his belt, giving him a total of three, as well as his cutlass and his dirk. Strung across his shoulder was also the large Spanish musket that O'Brian had at first abandoned after using it to accidentally kill two of his men en route back to the boat, O'Brian had seen it being carried by another of the pirates, and had taken it off him. He had given it to the Captain with a word of warning and caution.

"If you press the lever underneath its belly it will destroy anyone in its path, but it kicks like a donkey, and will likely kill you too, if you are not careful. Fear it, as I do, but I believe that once mastered, it will be more useful than a cannon!"

After spending a few minutes marveling at the spring of water that flowed through the pipe whenever they so desired it, he was within two feet of the tree line when a tremendous roar rose from out of nowhere. Dropping the barrel onto the sand, he drew his cutlass and prepared to be attacked, searching frantically for any aggressors. Suddenly an enormous bird, bigger even than their ship's pinnace, flew out from above the trees. It stopped abruptly above the boats and the men loading barrels of water, and it hovered stationary like a kestrel in the air.

The men looked up, dropped their barrels and ran in all different directions. Some dived into the water and started swimming frantically towards the ship. Others ran past McGregor into the trees.

A tremendous wind blew down from the bird, knocking his tri-cornered hat off and blowing it back into the scrub underneath the coconut palms.

Looking up at the bird, McGregor was stunned to see the almost humanoid form of two creatures sitting inside the bird, looking down at him. Human in shape in all but one consideration: their heads were enormous- big round balls of black that sat upon their shoulders, their form reminding him of ants' heads in all but magnitude. One of the creatures raised something onto his shoulders and pointed it at the boats below. As he did so, a hand went up to the big black ball on his shoulders and it pushed the front of the ball upwards. Immediately McGregor could see that there was a human face within. The big black ball was some form of hat! As he stared in disbelief, the man turned towards him, and it seemed as if their eyes met. The man moved the weapon on his shoulders and pointed it towards the Captain.

Instinctively, the Captain pulled one of the pistols from his belt and let lose a shot at the man sitting in the bird.

He saw the man visibly recoil, and knew that his ball had flown straight and true: the man had been hit!

A second later, the monster bird turned on its side and flew swiftly away from him towards the Sea Dancer. It circled the ship once, hovered momentarily above it, and then flew further out to sea, turning right beyond the entrance to the bay, and flying back along the coast until it was lost from sight.

A cheer went up from the men behind him, who now slowly emerged from the trees and ran to the Captain, praising him and congratulating him on his marksmanship.

"Captain. You wounded the bird with one shot of your pistol!"

"Three cheers for the Cap'n! Slayer of monsters!"

"Gratitude men, but make ye haste back to your duties. There is a lot to do, and the sooner we leave this devil's lair behind, the happier I will be! The rest of ye, follow me quickly."

With each man carrying a barrel or empty wooden box on their shoulders, they hurried around the blue lagoons, past the body of Mr Wright, and soon made contact with some of the other pirates who were busy rousing locals from their slumber and accompanying them as hostages to the banqueting hall.

"More hostages?", the Captain cried aloud in frustration and anger. "Are we to eat people? We need FOOD and WATER, not Spaniards!"

As Captain McGregor entered the hall with another forty pirates - after first marveling with all the others at the doors that swept open in advance of their coming - he dropped his barrel loudly at the entrance to the large hall, staring in disbelief at the sight before him.

Whilst hundreds of people lay on the floor and watched on, Silver was engaged in a shouting battle with the most beautiful woman that Captain McGregor had ever seen!

\--------------------

The Blue Emerald Bay Resort

Main Restaurant

Puerto Rico

As Sally had hurried towards the main restaurant of the Blue Emerald, two men brandishing cutlasses and guns, had stopped her in her tracks and forced her to the ground. Handling her roughly, they had bent her arms behind her back, lifted her to her feet and then frog-marched her into the main hall.

She was aghast by what she discovered there: at least a hundred and fifty guests sitting on the floor, surrounded by a horde of dirty, disheveled and disgustingly smelly bandits. The guests were obviously petrified. They sat quietly, many white with fear. Some had vomited, and the smell combined with the rank smell of the bandits to form a concoction of aromas she would never forget for the rest of her life.

How could anyone smell so bad, and not be disgusted with themselves? Why did they not wash?

Some of the regular guests and the staff who were being held hostage immediately recognised her. She smiled at them, and then made a face which conveyed her wish to remain anonymous for now: she wanted to appraise the situation before she tried to take any action.

Her anonymity did not last long. A few minutes after she arrived, some more bandits came into the hall, leading in a couple of the hotel's security guards. One looked as if he had been mortally wounded.

The bandits marched their captives up to a bald man with a silver beard, who wore a red bandanna across his head. From the way the others deferred to him and responded to his commands, he was obviously the leader of the bandits. Or were they terrorists?

Why they were here or what they wanted was not yet clear.

As she watched, the silver bearded man pointed behind him, and the bandits dragged the bleeding guard into one of the private rooms at the back of the hall.

Beside the silver bearded man, one of the guests was standing...the only guest in the hall who was. Occasionally, the bandit leader turned to him and they talked together. Sally recognised him. Sandy Weiss. He was a regular. A wealthy young man from a wealthy family.

Although she would have preferred to have more time to observe the dynamics of the drama unfolding around her, she couldn't wait any longer.

This was her hotel. These people were on her turf, and they were invading her space! Furthermore, all these people in the hall...and everyone else outside and still at liberty within the resort...they were all her responsibility. And one of them was wounded. She had to go to him, and make sure he got help urgently.

And then she had to find a way to call for help: she had to alert the police and most probably, the army.

Looking around at some of the famous people and diplomats in the room, all cowering on the floor and being terrorized by the bandits, she knew this was already an international incident.

Sally was petrified. Her legs and hands were shaking. She felt sick and nauseous.

But without further thought for her own well being, she pushed a mental button in her mind, and stood up.

As she rose to her feet, she changed from being Sally-Anne Davis, and became Manager of the Blue Emerald Resort Puerto Rico, on whose shoulders rested the responsibility of all the lives in the complex.

Having risen to her feet, the manager of the Blue Emerald brushed herself down, shook her head clear, and walked purposely over to the bandit with the silver beard, all before anyone could stop her.

She stood in front of him and declared, "I am the manager of this resort, and I demand to know what you are doing here? And I insist that we give medical help to the security guard that you have injured!"

The points of five separate cutlasses immediately prodded her in her ribs and back, and a rough hand on her shoulder urged her to step backwards away from the man and sit back down on the floor. She resisted.

The man with the silver beard turned around, saw the beautiful woman in front of him, and waved the other bandits away. He spoke in a language which although Sally at first did not recognise, she quickly realised was in fact English. But English spoken with a curious accent that she had not heard before.

"Manager? Resort? I do not understand what it is that you wish to say to me, woman. You seek medical help for your palace guard? You value his life?"

"Of course I do. Let me send for our doctor. Immediately!"

"And he can save his life? I think not, I saw the wound. The man will die. If not today, by tomorrow night when the fever takes him. No one can survive such a wound!"

"Let me prove you wrong."

"Perhaps we can barter. I will let your doctor attend your man, if you will fetch the King, and bring him to me now."

"Which King?"

"The King to whom this Palace belongs."

Sally fell silent for a moment, thinking. She looked around at the other bandits. If it were not for the wounded and dying guard she might have suspected that this was all one giant prank that had gone sadly wrong.

"There is no King. There is only a Queen."

"Then fetch her, woman. Now!"

"There is no need. She is already here. I am that Queen."

Silver stepped back from her, looking her up and down. He smiled, and then whistled.

"You are the Queen?"

"Yes. I am. And I demand to know why have invaded my 'Palace' and what the hell you think you are all doing!"

Silver's smile slipped from his mouth, and he stepped closer to Sally, his face only inches from hers. His breath stunk to high heaven, and she pulled back in uncontrollable disgust. The leader of the bandits immediately reached out behind Sally and grabbed her by the hair. Although he was slightly smaller than she was, he was very strong. He pulled her down slightly, pulling her head to the side, and beneath his.

"You will demand nothing. Your kingdom is forfeit. It now belongs to us. We will take what we wish, and then we will leave. Cooperate and we will be gone before you know it. Protest and resist, and you will wish you had never been born. Do you understand me, my Queen?"

A large hand landed on Silver's shoulder, and he felt the warmth of a human's breath on his cheek.

"Mr Silver, I would suggest that you immediately release the Queen." Captain Rob whispered in his ear. "Allow the woman to find her quack. Let her go."

Silver was stunned. He had not seen the Captain arrive. But even before the Captain had finished his sentence, Silver had started to smile and had released the woman, whose silken hair now slipped through his fingers.

"On the other hand, dear Queen, perhaps, as a symbol of our good faith, I will allow you to fetch your quack. I will send three of my men with you, to help assist. Be back within ten minutes of the clock, or I will personally see that your injured guard will have no further need of a doctor. Now go!"

The woman ran her fingers through her hair, flicked it out and shook her head. She smiled at Silver, half-turned to look at Captain Rob, and left. Silver clicked his fingers, pointed at three men, and they immediately followed her out.

"And now, Mr Silver, whilst your requested reinforcements start to pack the food and take it down to the beach and the boats, I think that you and I should talk," the Captain announced, draping his arm around the quartermaster's shoulder and guiding him gently but forcibly back out of the hall and into the courtyard in front of the building. As they walked out, the newly arrived pirates went to work. With minutes the edible contents of the kitchen were being carried, box by box, and barrel by barrel, down to the beach.

"So now, Mr Silver," the Captain summarized the situation after his quartermaster had given his report. "...instead of a lightning raid on a sleeping village, moving swiftly in and out, taking only food, water and grog,... we are now entrenched in the Palace with hundreds of hostages, with dead and wounded littering the grounds all around? And still you do not know the size of the army which will no doubt counter attack at any moment?" It was a rhetorical question. No answer was needed.

Captain Rob turned his back and walked away from Silver, thinking. As a rule, he did not argue with his second-in-command in front of his men, especially during any form of engagement with an enemy. Everyone knew Captain Rob ruled with an iron fist, when necessary, but discipline and order was better shown and encouraged, than enforced. Captain Rob led by example, and others always followed.

At that moment, Richard Tyler came around the corner of the nearest building, saw the Captain, and hurried over.

"Aha, Mr Tyler. You have finished reconnoitering the Palace? Good, then make your report. But sharpish. I fear the sky is about to fall on our heads."

Richard Tyler spoke quickly, not wasting words, imparting only the necessary facts.

The Palace was large, covering many acres of land, but most of it was contained within tall, thick walls which should be easily defensible. Where they stood now was the center of the Palace, the arrangements of the living quarters and other buildings being symmetrically distributed on either side. A guard had been captured and forcibly questioned, and he had provided valuable intelligence: the Palace had three hundred guests, and one hundred and fifty servants. The Palace Guard was made up of twenty men, each of whom were armed with pistols and repeating muskets, the like of which Richard had never seen before, but an example of which he then held out and presented to the Captain. It was identical to the one that the Captain already carried over his shoulder. Captain Rob acknowledged the gesture but pushed it gently back. "Keep it and learn to use it. And find whatever others you can. I fear we may need them, sooner rather than later. And now, Mr Tyler, tell me the name of the Spanish King? Or is it really a Queen, as Mr Silver has already found out, to his cost?"

"In truth, Captain, I do not know. I asked such questions, the like of which you have asked me now, but I never comprehended the answers. The man used words that are of no meaning to me. Even when we tried to persuade him further. It is all a nonsense to me." Mr Tyler paused, then continued. "There is much about this place that I find unholy. Strange. Unnatural. I have seen things I do not understand, and cannot fathom. The quicker we are apart from here, the better."

The Captain nodded.

"Thank you Mr Tyler. And what of your men?"

"I have placed them strategically around the walls. If an attack comes, they are not strong enough in number to repel it, but they will be able to delay it. However, I would suggest, that if we can spare any more, the men are better placed on the walls in defense, than in the hall."

"I agree. And so does Silver. I shall send twenty men back with you Mr Tyler. If an attack is coming, I wish you to send word to me immediately."

"And if an attack comes from the beach?" Silver asked.

"Then it will be covered by Paddy O'Brian and the cannon on the Sea Dancer." Captain McGregor replied, almost in annoyance.

Captain McGregor fell silent. Planning. He needed only a minute.

"Okay, what's done is done. The situation is not the best, but we shall make it work for us until we are ready to leave. Hopefully within thirty minutes. An hour at the most. Mr Silver, I wish you to follow Mr Tyler back to the main gate, and ascertain the range from there to the beach. Pace it out if you must. Consider how best to arrange a spread of cannon fire across the extremes of the Palace. We need to know if the balls from our cannon can fly so far, and if we can defend the Palace with our cannon from the ship. If we can, and they are in range, I wish you to pass instructions back to the ship on the elevation and the range, but you yourself must not leave the shore. I wish you back in the hall at the earliest possible moment. But before you return, make a round of inspection of Mr Tyler's defenses. He is, no insult intended, a man of little experience in battle. That is your domain, Mr Silver. Make improvements where you see fit. You have half of the men at your disposal. We shall split our resources between defense and preparing for departure. As soon as we have all the food, I will fire a single cannon, and everyone must return to the beach. Is that understood?"

They both nodded.

"Then go!"

At that moment, the Queen rushed past them back into the Banqueting Hall, her quack and her guard in tow.

Captain Rob followed.
Chapter 21

The Blue Emerald Bay Resort

Main Restaurant

Puerto Rico

7:20 a.m.

Sally-Anne Davis knelt beside Dr. Paul Mitchell, following his instructions and doing exactly as he said, passing him his surgical instruments as necessary, and helping to put pressure on a vein as directed until it had been sewn back together. Dr Mitchell worked fast. The guard had lost a lot of blood, and would need a blood transfusion and antibiotics as soon as possible if he were to survive. However, he managed to stem the loss of blood, and stitch him up as best he could, given the lack of facilities and poor operating conditions.

Sally was not scared by the sight of blood. Her uncle had been a vet, and for a while she had even considered becoming one herself. But after spending some time with her family on holiday in a hotel in Jamaica when she was fifteen years old, she had fallen in love with the hotel industry. From then on, she knew that one day she would own her own hotel. That was still her dream.

"Well," Dr Mitchell said, looking up at Sally. "That's all we can do for now. We need to get him to a hospital. And soon. Somehow we have to persuade these bastards to let us get help."

"Leave that to me," Sally replied, standing up. "You've done your part. And I think that there are a few other people who have been wounded and need your help."

Sally turned and walked back out of the door, from the relatively peaceful seclusion of the private room to the chaos of the main restaurant.

"How is he?" a tall man asked, approaching Sally the moment she entered the room. Sally looked at him. He was the man who had been standing with the bandit leader earlier on. He was obviously one of the bandits, but he was not like the others. He was not dirty. On the contrary he was quite clean. His clothes were smart, although rather comical, he carried a large tri-cornered hat tucked under his arm, and from where she stood, it seemed as if he did not smell. The man smiled at her, his voice warm and authoritative, but not threatening. His blue eyes twinkled in the restaurant lights, long, light brown hair tied in a pony tail, his face rugged and tanned. An old scar ran upwards across his right cheek bone, and Sally felt a strange but compelling urge to reach out and touch it.

In spite of the stressful circumstances around her, she recognised the instant attraction that she felt to him. He was a handsome man, there was no denying it.

"He will live, for now, but only if we get him to a hospital as soon as possible. I need to speak to your leader, the man with the silver beard? Please take me to him."

"I am sorry, that will not be possible for now. I have sent him elsewhere."

"You sent him..." Sally repeated, the dynamic of the situation dawning on her. "So you are the leader of these bandits?"

"Bandits is a bad word. I would prefer to call ourselves privateers."

"Privateers? What, as in 'mercenaries' or as in 'pirates'? What the hell type of bandits are you?"

"Pirates is perhaps acceptable, although personally, I still prefer 'privateer.'"

Sally shook her head in disbelief.

"To be quite honest, for now, I don't care what you call yourselves. What I care about it is that this is my hotel, these are my guests, and I'm responsible for them. Including the guard that one of your men has tried to kill."

"He fired his musket first. My men acted only in self-defense. I am sorry that your guard has been injured."

"So, can I send my guard to hospital or not?"

"What is a hospital? And where is it? And how can it save his life. The man will surely die. His wound is..."

"Stop this game. Please...it's gone far enough. We need to get this man to hospital and soon!"

"And I repeat. What is a hospital? And where is it?"

Sally took a deep breath, counting to ten, and exhaling slowly. For now, she would play the game, but only so that she could save a life.

"A hospital is a large building full of doctors and nurses, where specialist care can be administered to those in need. The doctors there are experts in saving lives. They can treat almost any ailment, and make you well again."

The man's eyes lit up.

"There is much that is strange about this place...much that I have never seen before, so I am inclined to believe in what you say. I apologize again for your guard being wounded, and I will agree to the sending of him to this hospital. However, there will be conditions."

"Which are?"

"Firstly, that you order your guards to desist from further resistance. There shall be no more fighting. We mean you no harm, and I would prefer it if no more harm would come to your courtiers and guards or to my men. Secondly, that you ask a man of medicine to come here to attend to some men on my ship. They are poorly, stricken down by I know not what, and they too are in need of this hospital."

Sally hesitated. She was reluctant to order her security to surrender. The man saw it and read her mind.

"There are many of us, and few of your guards. Only twenty I am told. We are much more, and we are desperate. We have much to lose and will fight hard for what we have come to take. We seek only food and water. My men are thirsty and hungry, and your men will die needlessly if they oppose us. We mean you no harm. Please ask them to surrender, and I promise that no further harm shall come to them. I give you my word."

The man in front of her held out his hand, his face serious, but not threatening.

Sally knew the man was right. The bandits had taken so many hostages that it would need professional, expert help to resolve the situation. The hotel security team were not trained in such matters. They would likely only make matters worse.

"I agree," she said.

The man pushed his hand further forward and nodded at it, indicating that she should shake it.

Tentatively she put her hand in his. His grip was warm and firm, and as she shook it, in spite of herself, she felt a small tingle of electricity pass up and down her spine.

"Good. The deal is sealed. The only question now is of how we can convey your man to this hospital, and how you can pass the order to your men to surrender."

"I am worried," the Captain continued, "...that unless you recall your guards sooner rather than later, there could be more deaths. So I propose that you first recall your guards, and then we shall seek a way to move your man to this hospital that you mention."

"Okay. I agree. Please come with me."

The bandit leader waved his hand graciously in front of her, indicating that she should lead the way. She nodded, and turned and walked towards the entrance to the hall.

They walked out through the magical doors that swept open before them, and he followed her, admiring the to-and-fro of her hips, and the tightly clinging clothes that she wore, which both showed her comely figure and retained her modesty.

Almost as if she could feel his eyes boring into her, she turned, catching his gaze, and for a moment Captain Rob felt himself blush.

"A blushing pirate?" Sally teased him.

"I was caught, and I am guilty. But I shall not apologize for admiring beauty," the bandit leader replied.

"In here," Sally mentioned, stepping aside to led the bandit leader walk in front. He overtook her, and walked up to the door and straight into it, banging his face against the glass panel.

"Sorry," Sally laughed. "This one is not automatic. You have to push it...," and she lent in front of him and pushed the door open.

They passed through the doorway, walked down the corridor on the other side, and then emerged into a grandiose hallway, with a sweeping marble staircase disappearing upwards on either side of a large, cream colored marble table, behind which two women stood.

"This is the hotel reception. I will send out a message to all the guards on their pagers."

The bandit leader nodded and smiled then said, "Please do. Although, in truth, I know not of which you speak."

As soon as the women behind the desk saw Sally, they rushed up to her excitedly across the reception area. One was crying, and the other was obviously visibly shaken.

"Miss Davis! Thank God you are okay? Have you heard...did you see..." and then they both noticed Captain Rob.

Sally embraced the women one by one, and whispered something into each of their ears.

Then she turned to the bandit and ushered him to follow her.

She walked to a door in the hallway to the right of the reception desk, took a key out of her pocket and opened the door to a large, impressive room.

"This is my office," she said. "Please come in and sit down."

Walking behind her desk, she opened one of the drawers and pulled out a large black block which she held in one hand, while she tapped on it with the fingers of the other.

A moment later she turned to the bandit leader and said, "There that part is done. I have sent a message instructing the remaining guards to surrender to your men in the main restaurant hall in the next few minutes. I trust you will keep your word. And if you would care to look out of that window, you can already see two of the guards walking away from their posts and towards the restaurant."

The bandit leader stood up and walked towards the window as suggested.

As soon as his back was turned, Sally reached under the desk and pressed a black button: five miles away in the local police station a loud alarm began to ring.

"And now," Sally said. "You shall keep your bargain, and I will call for a doctor for my guard."

"You will call for one? From so far away? You must have a very loud voice. But you have my permission to try!" the bandit replied, and then laughed to himself.

Sally picked up the phone on her desk, pressed the three digit short-code, and waited for the voice at the other end.

"Hello, yes...this is Sally Davis, the General Manager at the Blue Emerald ..." she said, but before she could continue the bandit leader darted across the room from the window and grabbed the handset out of her hand and dropped it onto the top of Sally's desk.

He lent forward and said to her quietly..."I do not know by what devilry it is that you are speaking to someone, but I accept that you are...there is so much strangeness in this world of yours, that I fear that nothing will surprise me now...but I caution you woman, say NOTHING of the hostages or our presence here. Say ONLY that there has been an accident. A man is injured and that they should send the hospital to help him!"

"I understand," she whispered back. "But it is the other way around. We must send him to the hospital. But they should first send the ambulance to pick him up."

"Ambulance? Is he to walk? I don't understand..."

"Trust me. Please. And let me make the call?"

The bandit leader stood back, and nodded.

He could hear a voice talking to Miss Sally from within the little box that she held in her hand. Sally answered.

"Sorry, I dropped the phone...it got all tangled up. As I was about to say, there has been a bad accident at the Blue Emerald. One of our guards was accidentally stabbed. Dr Mitchell has stabilized him, but he will need emergency medication and a blood transfusion. Can you send an air ambulance to pick him up from the beach?"

Five minutes later, Sally, the bandit leader, Dr Mitchell and two of the bandits, -or privateers-, as the bandit leader kept insisting she should call them, carried the wounded guard down to the beach, to await the air ambulance.

As they emerged through the tree-line onto the beach, Sally and the doctor stopped in their tracks and stared at the bay: two hundred yards offshore, a large sailing ship was anchored, its sails furled, and its boats being rowed towards the shore.

"She is beautiful is she not?" the bandit leader said. "That is our ship, the Sea Dancer..., the fastest..."

"....pirate ship on the high seas?" Sally-Anne Davis completed the sentence for him.

She turned and stared at the bandit leader.

"Aha, at last you begin to understand, Miss Sally. Pirate ship? Perhaps, but as I have mentioned before, I would prefer the term 'privateer.' There is a big difference after all."

"...So..., if that is your ship," Sally replied, a strange realization dawning on her. "Then, if you are the leader of these men,...then you must be the Captain?"

"...And never was a truer word said, Miss Sally. That is I. Their Captain. Apologies for not introducing myself sooner..."

"And your name, Mr Captain? What is your name?"

"I am Captain Rob McGregor, master of the Sea Dancer,...and leader of the most feared band of buccaneers in the Caribbean," at which point he smiled, winked, and swept his tri-cornered hat from his head and across his chest as he performed a mock-bow in front of her.

Sally found the introduction both charming and confusing. Did this man sincerely believe he was a Captain of a band of pirates, or was he mocking himself in some way?

Sally looked from the Captain to the ship and back to the Captain, and was just about to open her mouth to say something else, when the air ambulance swept out from over the tree tops, deafening them all.

Chapter 22

Police Headquarters

601 Franklin D. Roosevelt Avenue

San Juan

Puerto Rico

7:40 a.m.

Sergeant Trevor Bolt had watched in disbelief as the MD 500 police helicopter flew over the beach. He had been viewing the live video feed coming back from the helicopter as it flew over the Blue Emerald Bay resort. His initial impression had been that it seemed to be strangely quiet, with few guests or personnel moving around the resort. Then he had seen the first of the men in fancy dress. At first he had dismissed them as revelers from a party that the Blue Emerald must have staged, but then he saw a couple of them emerge from a building leading a number of guests forward in front of them, marshaling them forward with what appeared to be old fashioned cutlasses and pistols.

When the helicopter had circled back over the front entrance, he had seen that the gates were locked tightly shut, and that several men were positioned at the top of the gates looking out over the approaching roads. At least one of them seemed to be carrying a long rifle.

The local police car from the nearest police station had still not made its drive-by, and when Trevor Bolt tried to raise them on the radio, he couldn't. He called the Captain at their station, and told them to contact him immediately the car arrived and called back into the station with a report.

As the helicopter flew over the trees and swept over the beach, Sergeant Bolt was both stunned and alarmed by the sight of more men on the beach, dressed up as what could best be described as 'pirates'. They were loading barrels and boxes into a boat.

As the helicopter tried to film the beach activity in more detail, one of the men looked up at the helicopter and fired at it.

The cameraman was badly hit, and the helicopter immediately withdrew and flew to the nearest hospital. As it headed out to sea across the bay, the camera caught sight of a large, old-fashioned sailing ship. Men were clambering up and down nets and lines which had been lowered over the ship's side, and a pulley was busy pulling up boxes and barrels from a boat which was tied up alongside to the ship.

The men on the ship looked up as the helicopter flew overhead.

If it had not been for the fact that one of the 'pirates' had just fired upon and wounded one of his men, Sergeant Trevor Bolt may have wondered if the hotel was actually being used as the setting for a film, however the moment a weapon had been discharged, the situation took on an entirely new dimension.

Even before he had managed to place a call to his superior, a policeman came into the room with several new pieces of news: firstly, someone at the resort, presumably the resort manager, had pressed the alarm button that was linked directly from the resort to the local police-station. Secondly, several guests and staff members at the resort had dialed emergency numbers and called both the local police station, and the police headquarters in San Juan: there had been two reports of the sound of gunfire, and one had called claiming she had been taken hostage and was now sitting with hundreds of other guests on the floor of the main restaurant, being watched over and threatened by armed terrorists.

Without further hesitation, Sergeant Trevor Bolt picked up the phone and dialed the number of the Police Superintendent, the highest ranking police officer on the island.

Within thirty minutes, a task force had been assembled and its first meeting was underway. The police in Puerto Rico had been training for the possibility of a Mumbai style terrorist attack on a hotel for several years, and once the Police Superintendent had given the order, the rather aptly named Operation Cutlass had been put into action.

The room was full of senior police officers, a couple of politicians, the Associate Superintendent, the Auxiliary Superintendent of Field Operations, and the Police Superintendent himself.

As all the selected police officers and resources throughout Puerto Rico were being assembled and put on alert, Sergeant Trevor Bolt addressed the task force, first briefing them on the chain of events so far, and then replaying and showing them all a video of what the helicopter had seen on its flight over the resort.

As soon as the video had been viewed, the Superintendent stepped into a private office and called his superior in the US.

Within minutes of explaining that the hotel under attack was the Blue Emerald Bay, sections of the FBI and the Puerto Rican National Guard and the U.S. Army had been alerted.

Ten minutes later, the President of the United States of America called the Superintendent of Puerto Rico personally.

Ever since he had seen a copy of the guest list from the hotel, the Superintendent had been expecting the call: one of the guests staying at the Blue Emerald was the President's nephew.

As the air-ambulance flew towards the beach of the Blue Emerald Bay, all eyes in the Operation Cutlass incident room were on the large video screen: both the pilots and one of the medical staff on the air ambulance helicopter had been swapped for experienced policemen, trained and skilled for operations such as these. Their job was to learn as much as possible about the situation in the Blue Emerald and to brief the task force with as much local intelligence as possible, before the army or police response unit was sent in.

\--------------------

The Blue Emerald Bay Resort

The Beach

Puerto Rico

As the air ambulance lowered itself gently onto the sand, the pirates on the beach ran in panic to the shelter of the trees. On the boat being rowed towards the shore, two of the pirates dived into the water and started swimming back to the Sea Dancer. Both the pirates who were helping carry the stretcher with the wounded guard on it, hurriedly lowered their charge to the ground, and were about to run away too, when Captain McGregor reached out and grabbed them.

"If this woman is not scared of the Sky Monster, then we must not be either. Stand your ground, or answer to me!"

The two men looked hurriedly up at the 'Sky Monster' now touching down on the sand, back at their Captain and then dived to the ground where they stood, burying their heads underneath their arms and their faces in the sand.

In spite of the fear that Captain Rob felt himself, he managed to pluck up the courage to stand his ground, albeit minus his hat which had once again been blown off his head and across the sand.

Sally stared at the pirates, amazed by their reaction.

"Have you never seen a helicopter before?" she asked the self-declared Captain of the most feared pirates in the Caribbean.

"A 'heli-kopter'?" he asked, looking back at the sky monster. "So that is what you call the Sky Monster? ...The Sky Monster will transport this man to your hospital? It will not eat him or kill him?"

"Eat him?" In spite of everything, Sally could not help but laugh.

In front of them, a door to the side of the helicopter slid open and three men jumped down onto the sand.

Two of the men rushed toward the guard on the stretcher, while the other walked across to Sally and tried to speak with her.

Captain Rob stepped forward, introducing his cutlass between the man and Miss Sally, and pushing him gently back

Instinctively Captain Rob recognised something different in the demeanor of the man wishing to speak with Sally. The man looked at him, showing no signs of fear, but when Captain Rob held his gaze, he stepped slowly backwards, turning instead to survey the beach. After glancing around, he bent down to speak with the doctor who was helping to get the wounded man into the belly of the Sky Monster 'heli-kopter'.

Once again Captain Rob stepped forward and pushed the man backwards with the cutlass. McGregor then stepped up beside Sally's doctor, now standing, and put a firm hand on his wrist, saying loudly: "Doctor, you will stay here. I need you to come aboard my ship and attend to my men!"

They pushed the stretcher with the wounded man firmly into the helicopter, and stepped back.

The man standing at the point of Captain McGregor's cutlass shouted, "How many more men are wounded or in need of assistance?"

Captain McGregor replied, "None that you need concern yourself with. You may depart now. Away with you! And don't come back unless ye want us to shoot your bird down out of the sky!"

The man hesitated, and then turned around and climbed back into the Sky Monster with the others. As the Sky Monster began to roar louder and louder, the wind around those left on the beach started to swirl the sand around in circles in the air. Dr Mitchell pulled Captain McGregor away from the downdraft, and they stood under the trees watching the helicopter rise into the air and fly out of the bay, getting smaller and smaller until eventually it disappeared from sight.

"Come now, Doctor. And please bring your magic bag of tricks that I have seen you carry. I wish that you now practice your magic on my men, and save their lives too. I will give you a gold doubloon for every man that you cure! And to prove that I am a man of my word, here is one for you to consider as down payment for the first life!"

The Captain unfastened a small leather bag which was attached to his breeches, reached inside and pulled out a single, bright colored coin. He tossed it through the air to the doctor, and smiled.

"Don't worry," the Captain laughed. "There is plenty more where that came from!"

As they sat in the pinnace, being rowed out to the Sea Dancer by two men, surrounded by several barrels and boxes full of food, the Doctor studied the coin in his hand, marveling at its weight and luster.

"Is this real?" he asked the pirate leader.

"Are you calling me a liar and cheat? I am a man of my word! That doubloon is almost as new as a babies rear-end! See how it shines..."

"But the date on the coin says '1698'!"

"Exactly, it less than a year old!"

"Where did you get it from?"

"A friend who wanted to share his fortune with others less fortunate than himself. I was merely happy to oblige him in his philanthropic desires..." the Captain replied, and then laughed.

The Doctor tossed the coin across to the resort manager, and watched as she too studied the coin.

"If, as you say, Captain McGregor," Sally began to ask. "...you have a number of these gold coins, why did you not seek to buy food and water, like normal people – instead of stealing it? These are very valuable!"

"Buy? Food and water from the Spanish, with Spanish coinage that we took from Spaniards? A novel idea, I grant you that, but not one that we considered too seriously. For obvious reasons."

"What obvious reasons? We are not Spanish. We are Americans. This is Puerto Rico not Spain!"

"A-mericans? Who? You jest, and you mock me, do you not? Think ye that I am not a learned man? I know well who owns Puerto Rico, and it is not these A-mericans you speak of, or the British. Do not take me for a fool."

Sally sat silently for a moment, studying the pirate leader's face and features.

"Captain McGregor, Puerto Rico has belonged to America since it was successfully invaded and captured during the Spanish-American war in 1898. And since 1917, all Puerto Ricans have been U.S. citizens, thanks to the Jones Act of that year. This is very much American soil now, and has nothing more to do with the Spanish."

The Captain's face became serious.

"1917? You jest again. I tire of your jokes, and I do not understand that of which you now speak. This is not 1917, this is but 1699!"

"1917? Sorry, that was almost a hundred years ago...the year is now 2014..."

"STOP! Enough! I have heard enough. The year is 1699, and I wish you now to remain quiet."

Sitting beside Sally and facing the Captain, Dr Mitchell reached into his pocket and pulled out a coin, tossing it across to the Captain.

"You gave me one, and now I return the favor. That is a dime, one of the coins we use in Puerto Rico. Turn it over, and look at the date, just underneath the bottom of the head."

Captain McGregor raised the coin up and stared at it, looking for the date as suggested. Sally and the doctor both watched the expression on his face, easily noticing the moment when the Captain found the date, and his jaw dropped open, his eyes looking up and staring first at Sally and then the doctor.

"2005? What does this number mean? What does 2-0-0-5 mean?"

"It means that it is an old coin. It is almost nine years old now."

"Show me another!" the Captain demanded.

The doctor reached back into his pocket and pulled out a couple of coins, passing them across to the Captain, who grabbed them and glanced rapidly at each one in turn.

"...And, look at this," the doctor continued, reaching into his bag and pulling out a bottle. "This is disinfectant to clean wounds. Look here," the doctor pointed to some writing on the bottle. "This tells us the date the medicine has to be used by. What date does that say?"

The Captain took the bottle from the doctor's outstretched hands, and hastily looked at the number he had pointed to.

"2015. What trickery is this?"

"None. It is telling us that the medicine it contains has to be used within the next year. Before the year 2015."

The Captain became silent, and both the doctor and the resort manager noticed the obvious signs of confusion that registered on the man's face. Several times he opened his mouth to speak, then said nothing.

Eventually he spoke.

"Miss Sally, are ye a Christian lady?"

"Yes, I am."

"And ye would not blaspheme? Or take the Lord's name in vain?"

"Unlike a pirate, I would not."

"Then swear in the name of God, that what you tell me is the truth. That this is not a trick! That you are not a witch, and that all...", the Captain gestured wildly with his hands, sweeping them through the air, "...that all of this is real!"

"Captain McGregor," Sally replied. "I swear to you, in God's Holy name, that this is truly the year 2014. 2014 Anno Domini. The two thousand and fourteenth year of Our Lord. And as you are a man of your word, I promise you that I am a woman of mine, and that I now tell you the truth!"

The Captain was studying her face with an intensity that she had seldom seen on any person before. As she replied, his eyebrows lifted wide above his eyes, and he whistled.

"Then, if this is the year 2014, I know now why my men are sick and so hungry! We have not slept or eaten for over three hundred and fifteen years! God help us all!"
Chapter 23

Aboard the Sea Dancer

8:15 a.m.

As Sally and Dr Mitchell climbed up the netting to the deck of the Sea Dancer, they couldn't help but feel confused. A lot was happening, and very little of it made any sense.

The men who had invaded the Blue Emerald Resort did not claim to be terrorists, or thieves, or bandits, or anything else, for that matter. They claimed to be privateers or pirates! They did not ask for money, a ransom, or for any political goals to be met, and they gave no religious demands. They stated clearly that they wanted only food and water. They promised that once they had what they needed, they would leave. And Sally believed that they meant what they said.

It seemed too preposterous for their claim to be true, simply because it was not possible. And yet...

As they climbed aboard the ship and made their way onto and across the deck, their eyes were opened to the possibility, - no matter how slight that possibility was - , that this could be the ship of a pirate crew,...that this could be a genuine pirate ship!

They looked at everything with inquisitive eyes. Appraising and evaluating everything they saw. Considering whether or not something they looked at could indeed be a genuine pirate artifact, or, more likely, if it was something bought in Walmart and part of a great, fantastic hoax!

From the clothing on the pirates, the cannons on the ship, the utensils that they saw some of the pirates using as they busied themselves in some chores on the deck, everything became a point of scrutiny, ... and wonder.

As Dr Mitchell looked at the 'pirates' about him on the deck, he started to evaluate them from a medical point of view, looking at their physical conditions, their hair, their skin, their height, and casually examining their wounds, many of which were obvious.

The results were staggering.

Almost everyone he looked at as he passed them by on the deck, exhibited peculiarities that he would never expect to see in humans from the Western World, unless they were very poor and had no access to proper medicine.

Immediately obvious was the fact that the men stunk. To high heaven. They were not over dirty, and most looked clean, as if they did make an effort. Yet, their clothes, their odor, everything about them, reflected that modern day soap and cleaning materials were not on their daily agenda!

Their hair was covered in lice. You could see them jumping up and down and doing summersaults on almost every man's head that he looked at, with the exception of those who were bald ...including Captain McGregor's.

On average the men were smaller than you would expect contemporary grown adults to be. Notably so.

When the men smiled, which they seemed to do a lot - they seemed to be a happy bunch - their teeth were terrible. The doctor had never seen such bad teeth in all his life. Almost all of the men who he saw smile, revealed gaps in their mouths from missing teeth, and on those they still possessed, decay was apparent.

The scars that were visible on their faces or arms showed no sign of the neat repairs that people in the modern world would expect: their scars were crude, ugly and highly visible.

Curiously, Sally and the doctor noticed that the men onboard the ship seemed to be as fascinated by their appearance as they were by theirs.

They had reached the center of the main deck and come to an involuntary standstill, staring and looking at everything around them. It felt as if they were in one giant museum. There were objects all around them that they had either seen in museums or in films, and others which they had never seen before and were unable to guess the purpose for which they were intended.

Sally suddenly became very aware of the fact that Captain McGregor was looking at her, studying her from head to toe. He was sitting on a crate of food that had been freshly delivered from the shore, one foot crossed over the other, both arms crossed over his broad chest, and a smile on his face.

Sally smiled back.

"Miss Sally, please, would you be so kind as to tell me what that object is that you are wearing on your left arm,...on your wrist? I have noticed that many of your subjects are wearing them, yet I cannot fathom their purpose!"

Sally looked down at her wrist, wondering what on earth...

"You mean, my watch? ...This?" she said pointing to her Rolex with her right hand and forefinger.

"Yes! That is what 'I mean'," he nodded, his eyes glinting in the sunshine. "What function does it serve?"

"My watch? Are you joking?" she asked, before she could stop herself.

"I speak earnestly, not in jest. Genuinely I am intrigued to know, what purpose it does serve?"

"This is a watch. It tells me the time. See,..." she said, walking over to the Captain and sitting beside him on the crate. "There are two big hands on my watch, and the position of the hands relative to the numbers that are painted on the faceplate tell me what time it is. Right now, for example, it is 8.25 a.m., on Monday morning. And this thin hand that is moving all the time, this one tells me how many seconds are going past in each minute."

"Aha! It is a pocket watch on a strap! But for what do you need a 'watch' ?"

"To tell me the time."

"Why?"

"Otherwise I will be late..."

"But why can't you tell the time by looking at the sky, the sun and the flowers when you are on land? That's how we do it, and none of us needs a watch!"

The Captain held out his hand, and she placed hers in his.

He smiled at her, then slowly turned the hand over until he could clearly see the watch, face forwards.

" 'Tis a thing of beauty. Like it's owner."

Sally laughed, and pulled her hand gently back.

"Ah, Captain McGregor! You are back aboard!" a voice cried out, interrupting them, and they all turned to see a rather odd, small man with a big smile emerge from the ladders and come out onto the deck. The man came quickly towards the Captain, but when he noticed that he was with guests, he slowed down.

"A woman? You have brought back guests? Oh dear, I do not think that is wise... May we speak, Captain, in private?"

Captain McGregor nodded, and then walked with Dr Bones onto the forecastle, where he took his report.

Two of the men had died, their condition having deteriorated much faster than they expected. Another two had been stricken badly, and four others were beginning to show the initial signs of the strange sickness that was beginning to ravage the Captain's ship. And they were in addition to the nine others who were already sick.

"And,...have you seen this illness before? Do you recognise it?"

"Perhaps," Mr Bones replied. "In fact, yes, I think I have." And with that Mr Bones bent towards the Captain, beckoning him to bend down so that he could whisper something in his ear.

As soon as the Captain obliged, and the little man spoke into his ear, the Captain's face went as white as a sheet.

"Mr Bones, let me introduce you to Mr Mitchell, a doctor like yourself. I have seen him work magic ashore, with medicines that you, unfortunately do not have. I have invited him aboard to assist you in your work, and to save my crew." Captain McGregor said solemnly, as he took Mr Bones back over to Sally and the doctor.

Sally sensed that the Captain's mood had changed. It was like as if a cloud had descended upon him, and his face had lost all of its color.

"Mr Mitchell, sir, your presence is actually not a complete surprise. The Captain just mentioned to me in private that you are aboard, and I welcome you. In fact, I would be grateful if I could avail you of your assistance in a matter that I believe you may be well versed in. It is a matter of medical opinion."

"Certainly," Mr Mitchell agreed, thinking that for a supposed pirate, the ship's doctor was certainly very polite and formal.

"Please, then, if you will follow me. We must go below decks..."

As the two men turned to go, Sally stepped forward to follow them, but was immediately stopped by Captain McGregor.

" 'Tis best, if you remain aloft. You may not go below," he said, his voice suddenly very authoritative.

Sally turned, "Why not? My uncle is a vet. There is nothing that could surprise me..."

"...Because I do not want you to go below." He replied. "Now come, I think it is best if you were to leave the ship immediately. You have been here too long already. It is best if you were to wait in the boat. I will send the doctor straight back to you, once he is finished looking at my men."

"Certainly not. I am not going anywhere until he returns. And don't even think of trying to force me. I will not..."

"So be it. I could have you thrown over the side, but I fancy you would not forgive me for it. If you will not leave of your own free will, then I must insist that you accompany me to my cabin, and there wait in private. Follow me!"

"You wish to take me to your cabin? I'm sorry, but I must decline the offer..."

The Captain turned, looked her up and down, and then stooped forward and picked her up over his shoulders, carrying her to the ladders leading down to the door to his cabin.

"Fear not, I will not harm you. I give you my word. Now, either you climb down these ladders yourself, or I will drop you down. Either way..."

She looked at him, and then down the ladders to the dark passageway beneath. The Captain stepped towards her, and she turned, scurrying down the steps to whatever fate awaited her below.

At the bottom of the ladder there was a dark corridor that led through the rear end of the ship. There were three doors in the corridor, the first and largest being immediately in front.

"In here, if you please," the Captain said, opening the door and stepping aside, and waving with his hand for her to go through the largest doorway.

She opened her mouth to protest, but thought better of it.

Slowly, she stepped through the doorway into the room beyond.

No sooner was she through the doorway, when she heard the sound of the door closing and being locked behind her. Turning swiftly around, expecting to find the Captain, she discovered that she was alone.

She dived for the door, turning the handle and trying to force it open. It would not give. For a second she considered screaming and banging on the door, but then realised the futility of it.

Stupidly, Sally-Anne Davis had just walked straight into the Captain's trap. She had been imprisoned. In a pirate ship almost four hundred years old. With no hope of escape.

After taking a moment to control her emotions and steady her breathing, Sally walked around the Captain's cabin, marveling at the things she saw. It was as if she had been left locked inside a museum by herself when all the guards had gone home. She could pick up and examine any of the exhibits, at will, and no one was there to tell her not to touch, or to drop anything. Everything she looked at was old, but curiously new. If that made any sense.

She wandered around, staring incredulously at all she saw. The candlesticks, the candles, the shoes, the plates on the table, the table itself, the bunk, the clothes folded neatly and placed on the chair. The tiny pictures encased in small glass jackets, the few old coins left lying on a small brass plate, the telescope....wow, a real, pirates' telescope.

After looking at the dates on the coins - none of which were more recent than 1684 - , she was just picking the telescope up and trying to focus it and look out through the window back towards the beach, when she heard the lock in the door behind her rattling, and the sound of loud, excited voices.

The door burst open, and Dr Mitchell burst through, breathing heavily, and as white as a sheet.

He ran across to the window, fumbled with a latch, and just managed to open it before he vomited out of the window and down the stern of the Sea Dancer.

Following immediately behind him came the Captain and Mr Bones, the ship's surgeon.

"What?" Sally asked, "What is wrong?"

Dr Mitchell turned to her, his eyes wild, his face twitching. She had never seen him like this before.

"For goodness sake! Tell me, what is wrong!"

"I'll tell you in a second. Listen, I left my cell phone in the resort. Have you got yours here?"

"Yes," she replied, reaching inside her pocket in her shorts, switching it on and unlocking it. "Here..."

The doctor practically grabbed it out of her hands. He immediately started to dial a number, but cursed loudly when he misdialed the numbers in haste and had to start dialing them again.

"What are you doing?" Captain Rob asked, stepping forward.

The doctor lifted his hand upwards, showing the Captain his palm and feigning a pathetic smile.

"Nothing bad, Captain McGregor. I promise you,...I give you my word. Let me explain in a moment... please... Hello, hi!" the doctor said to a voice at the other end.

"Is that the Dr Wilson? Yes, great! This is Doctor Mitchell, from the Blue Emerald. Has the helicopter you sent over to collect our injured guard returned yet? What...it's just landing? Okay, listen. And please listen to me very carefully and then immediately do everything I tell you."

The doctor paused, taking a deep breath, his eyes jumping nervously from one to the other of those in the cabin with him.

"I am currently on-board a ship in the bay of the Blue Emerald attending to some sick people, and examining the bodies of some sailors who have just died. Do not ask how or why, but please just believe me. Two have died already, and there are at least fifteen others who are now infected with what I am entirely convinced is what we would now call the plague. The two dead sailors, I believe, died of bubonic plague, but from what I can tell, most of the others are infected with pneumonic plague. I've seen the plague before...there are cases every year in the US and in the Caribbean. But this one is very different. This seems to be a more virulent form. More deadly. I'm sure that almost everyone else who is infected is going to die too..." The man at the other end of the connection tried to say something, but Dr Mitchell shouted him down. "LISTEN TO ME, and DON'T interrupt. You must STOP anyone getting off the helicopter. Let NO ONE come in contact with the men. And you must order them to fly back to the beach here, and follow my orders when they arrive. If any man steps out of the helicopter, and refuses to obey, you must shoot them dead. And then you must go nowhere near the body. Just burn it! Immediately! Do you understand? And as soon as you have done this, get the Superintendent of the island to call me back on this number. I will be waiting for his call. And then instruct the police to seal off the resort completely. They must let no one in, and no one out. Shoot to kill if necessary. Dr Wilson, you must get this right. We must not cause panic, or tell anyone else who does not need to know, but if I am correct, we could be dealing with one of the greatest threats to the survival of the human species that the world has seen in over seven hundred years. If this is the pneumonic plague as I believe it is, no one in the world today will have any immunity against it. If it starts to spread, we could be wiped out, in our billions! Now go...stop them leaving the helicopter, or you will be the next to be infected and the first to die!"

### END OF PART ONE

### You have now reached the end of Book One of 'Time Ship.' If you have enjoyed reading this book and would like to continue the story, please return to your ebook provider and download 'Time Ship (Book Two)'.

In Part Two, you will find the answers to the following questions:

1: Will the infection on the Sea Dancer spread to others in the complex? Is it as serious and deadly as the doctor believes it is? Will it threaten the survival of mankind itself?

2: What is the secret that is kept hidden aboard the Sea Dancer? What will happen when others learn of the secret?

3: How will the authorities react when they discover that the infection in the resort has the potential to wipe out humanity? What is the Top Secret 'Piras Plan' and will the American President sanction it to be used against the Pirates?

4: What will happen to the Pirates of Puerto Rico?

### 5: Is Kate Schwartz dead?

### 6: What is the truth behind the secret project that Colonel Patterson is conducting deep underground beneath the mountains of Colorado?

7: Is time travel possible?

8: Why does Derek Martin hold the key to saving the world?

### For this and more, download **"Time Ship (Book Two) "**

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If you would like to be kept informed of any new books I will be publishing, may I invite you to sign up to my mailing list at CLICK HERE.

Other Books by Ian Irvine

Haunted from Within

Haunted From Without

The Orlando File

Crown of Thorns: The Race to Clone Jesus Christ

London 2012 : What If?

The Sleeping Truth : A Romantic Medical Thriller

Alexis Meets Wiziwam the Wizard

If you have any comments, please contact the author at :- iancpirvine@hotmail.co.uk

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To connect with Ian C.P.Irvine on Twitter, connect with Ian at @IanCPIrvine

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To keep up to date with other news, events and ebook releases, please visit the website at: www.iancpirvine.com or sign up to my mailing list at CLICK HERE.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

For advice and guidance as to aspects of U.S. Law, I am indebted to Charles Waterbury, of Waterbury Law, P.C. in Dallas, Texas. charles@waterburylawpc.com

I am also indebted to my friend Moira Cerny, for help in reviewing this book, and whose namesake can be found within these pages! Thanks, as ever, also go to Linda, and to my wife!

My other friend throughout the writing of this book has been Wikipedia. A great source for everything.

