QUENTIN HALE COULD THINK OF FEW THINGS BETTER THAN slicing through white-foamed crests under a towering glide of sail. If seawater could actually be a part of someone’s blood, that was surely the case with him.
Sloops had been the ocean workhorses of the 17th and 18th centuries. Small, single-masted, their spread of sails had made them quick and maneuverable. Shallow drafts and fast lines only added to their suitability. Most carried around seventy-five men and fourteen cannons. His modern incarnation was larger, 280 feet, and instead of wood the latest composite materials made her light and sleek. No cannons weighed down this beauty. Instead, she was delightful to the eye, soothing to the soul-a bluewater vessel built for comfort and loaded with toys. Twelve guests could enjoy her luxury cabins and sixteen were employed as crew, many of them descendants of those who’d served Hales since the American Revolution.
“Why are you doing this?” his victim screamed. “Why, Quentin?”
Hale stared at the man lying on the deck, shackled in heavy chains and encapsulated in a gibbet-a cage constructed of flat bars of iron, three inches in breadth. A rounded portion enclosed the chest and head, while the thighs and legs were barred within separate enclosures. Centuries ago the cages were made to fit the victim, but this one was more off the rack. Not a muscle could move besides the man’s head and jaw, and he’d purposely not been gagged.
“Are you insane?” the man yelled. “What you’re doing is murder.”
Hale took offense to that charge. “Killing a traitor is not murder.”
The chained man, as had his father and grandfather before him, kept the Hale family ledger. He was an accountant who lived in coastal Virginia on an exquisite estate. Hale Enterprises, Ltd., spanned the globe and required the attention of nearly three hundred employees. Many accountants were on the corporate payroll, but this man worked outside that bureaucracy, answerable only to Hale.
“I swear to you, Quentin,” the man screamed. “I gave them only the barest information.”
“Your life depends on that being true.” He allowed his words to carry a measure of hope. He wanted this man to talk. He must be sure.
“They came to me with subpoenas. They already knew the answers to their questions. They told me if I didn’t cooperate I’d go to jail and lose everything I had.”
The accountant started crying.
Again.
They were the Internal Revenue Service. Agents from the criminal enforcement division who’d descended one morning on Hale Enterprises. They’d also appeared at eight banks around the country, demanding account information on both the corporation and Hale. All the American banks complied. No surprise. Few laws guaranteed privacy. Which was why those accounts were supported by a meticulous paper trail. That was not the case with foreign banks, especially the Swiss, where financial privacy had long been a national obsession.
“They knew about the UBS accounts,” his accountant hollered over the wind and sea. “I only discussed those with them. No more. I swear. Only those.”
He stared past the rail at the churning sea. His victim lay on the aft deck, near the Jacuzzi and dip pool, out of sight from any passing boaters, but they’d been sailing for the better part of the morning and, so far, had spotted no one.
“What was I to do?” his accountant begged. “The bank caved.”
United Bank of Switzerland had indeed yielded to American pressure and finally, for the first time, allowed more than fifty thousand accounts to be subject to foreign subpoenas. Of course, threats of criminal prosecution to the bank’s U.S. executives had made that decision easy. And what his accountant said was true. He’d checked. Only UBS records had been seized. No accounts in the other seven countries had been touched.
“I had no choice. For God’s sake, Quentin. What did you want me to do?”
“I wanted you to keep to the Articles.”
From the sloop’s crew to his house staff to the estate keepers to himself, the Articles were what bound them together.
“You swore an oath and gave your word,” he called out from the railing. “You signed them.”
Which was meant to ensure loyalty. Occasionally, though, violations occurred and were dealt with. Like today.
He glanced out again at the blue-gray water. Adventure had caught a stiff southeastern breeze. They were fifty miles offshore, headed south, back from Virginia. The DynaRig system was performing perfectly. Fifteen square sails formed the modern version of the once-square rigger, the difference being that now the yards did not swing around a fixed mast. Instead, they were permanently attached, the masts rotating with the wind. No crewmen had to brave the heights and release the rigging. Technology stored the sails inside the mast and unfurled them by electric motor in less than six minutes. Computers controlled every angle, keeping the sails full.
He savored the salt air and cleared his brain.
“Tell me this,” he called out.
“Anything, Quentin. Just get me out of this cage.”
“The ledger. Did you speak of that?”
The man’s head shook. “Not a word. Nothing. They seized UBS records and never mentioned the ledger.”
“Is it safe?”
“Where we keep it. Always. Just you and me. We’re the only ones who know.”
He believed him. Not a word had so far been mentioned of the ledger, which relieved some of his anxiety.
But not all.
The storms he was about to face would be far worse than the squall he spotted brewing off to the east. The entire weight of the U.S. intelligence community, along with the Internal Revenue Service and the Justice Department, was bearing down upon him. Not unlike what his ancestors had faced when kings, queens, and presidents dispatched whole navies to hunt down the sloops and hang their captains.
He turned back to the pitiful man in the iron cage and stepped close.
“Please, Quentin. I’m begging you. Don’t do this.” The voice was racked by sobs. “I’ve never asked about the business. Never cared. I just kept the ledger. Like my dad. And his. I never touched a penny that wasn’t mine. We never have.”
No, his family hadn’t.
But Article 6 was clear.
If any Man shall violate the Company as a Whole he shall be shot.
Never had the Commonwealth faced something this threatening. If only he could find the key and solve the cipher. That would end it all and make what he was about to do unnecessary. Unfortunately, a captain’s duty sometimes entailed ordering unpleasant things.
He gestured and three men hoisted the gibbet, hauling it toward the railing.
The bound man screamed, “Don’t do this, please. I thought I knew you. I thought we were friends. Why are you acting like some damn pirate?”
The three men hesitated a moment, waiting for his signal.
He nodded.
The cage was tossed overboard and the sea devoured the offering.
The crew returned to their posts.
He stood alone on the deck, his face washed by the breeze, and considered the man’s final insult.
Acting like some damn pirate.
Sea monsters, hellhounds, robbers, opposers, corsairs, buccaneers, violators of all laws human and divine, devils incarnate, children of the wicked one.
All labels for pirates.
Was he one of them?
“If that’s what they think of me,” he whispered, “then why not?”