“Have at last discovered the clue for which I’ve been praying. With God’s help I will discover the fountainhead of my great green jeweled bird and collect my long-delayed reward. Sailing tomorrow for Sunda Strait. Expect 23-25 day voyage. Will write again as possible.
“Yours,
“W.”
“You said the Sunda Strait, correct?” Sam asked.
“Yes.”
Sam paused. He closed his eyes for a moment, a half smile on his face. Remi asked, “What is it?”
“Blaylock left Bagamoyo on August 3, 1883. Based on his estimated transit time, he would have arrived in the Sunda within a day or two of August twenty-seventh.”
“Okay . . .”
“The Sunda Strait was where the Krakatoa volcano was. August twenty-seventh was the day it exploded.”
CHAPTER 41
ASHISTORY BUFFS, SAM AND REMI WERE WELL FAMILIAR WITH the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa. The archipelago, which covers roughly eight square miles of ocean, sits almost dead center in the Sunda Strait between Java and Sumatra and consisted of three islands prior to the cataclysm: Lang, Verlaten, and Rakata—the largest island in the group and home to the three volcanic cones collectively known as Krakatoa. Having undergone three major eruptions in the centuries prior to 1883, Krakatoa was no stranger to turmoil.
On May twentieth, three months prior to the final explosion, a great slash appeared in the side of Perbuatan, the northernmost cone, and steam began venting, along with plumes of ash that rose twenty-two thousand feet into the atmosphere. The residents of the nearby towns and villages, having witnessed such activity before, paid little attention, and by the end of the month their disinterest seemed validated. Krakatoa settled and remained mostly quiet for the next month.
On June sixteenth the eruptions began again, blanketing great swaths of sea and land with jet-black smoke for nearly a week. When the haze cleared, massive ash columns could be seen streaming from two of Krakatoa’s cones. Tides in the straits began running high, and ships at anchor had to strengthen their moorings lest they be beached.
Three weeks passed. Krakatoa’s two cones were joined by the third, and soon ash began accumulating on nearby islands, in some places up to two feet thick, killing flora and fauna and turning once-lush forests into moonscapes.
The eruptions continued through the end of June and into mid-August. On the twenty-fifth of August, at one o’clock in the afternoon, Krakatoa went into its paroxysmal phase. Within an hour, a black cloud of ash had risen eighteen miles into the sky, and the eruptions were nearly continuous. Fifteen and twenty miles away, ships were bombarded by hot pumice stones the size of softballs. By early evening, as darkness fell over the strait, minor tsunamis were rolling ashore on Java and Sumatra.
The next morning, just before sunrise, Krakatoa went into its final death throes. A series of three eruptions, each one more powerful than the next, shook the area. So loud were the explosions that they were heard in Perth, Australia, two thousand miles to the southeast, and in the Mauritius Islands, three thousand miles to the west.
The resulting tsunamis, one for each eruption, radiated outward from Krakatoa at speeds up to one hundred twenty-five miles per hour, bulldozing their way onto the shores of Java and Sumatra and inundating islands as far away as fifty miles.
AT 10:02, KRAKATOA ISSUED its final salvo with an explosion equal to twenty thousand atomic bombs. The island of Krakatoa tore itself apart. The erupting cones, having ejected all their magma, collapsed in on themselves, taking with them fourteen square miles of the island and gouging out a caldera four miles wide and eight hundred feet deep. The resulting tsunami wiped out whole villages, killing thousands within minutes. Trees were uprooted, and the land stripped of every scrap of vegetation.
Following on the heels of the massive wave came the pyroclastic flows, gargantuan avalanches of fire and ash that roared down Krakatoa’s flanks and into the Sunda Strait. Traveling at eighty miles per hour and reaching temperatures in excess of twelve hundred degrees Fahrenheit, the surge boiled the ocean’s surface below it, creating a cushion of steam that carried it thirty miles or more, charring or entombing everything in its path, man-made and natural alike.
Within hours of final explosion, what remained of Krakatoa fell silent. In the space of thirty hours, between 36,000 and 120,000 people lost their lives.
CHAPTER 42
SUNDA STRAIT,
JAVA SEA, INDONESIA
THE LOUDSPEAKER IN THE CORNER OF THE PATIO CAFE CAME TO life: “Attention, all ticketed passengers: The Krakatau Explorer will be departing the docks in five minutes. Please board via the aft gangway.” The message repeated in Indonesian, French, German, then once more in English.
Sam and Remi, sitting at a corner table beside a trellis covered in blooming bougainvillea, finished their coffee and stood up. Sam dropped a pair of five-thousand-rupiah notes on the table, and they stepped out from under the awning and onto the dock.
“Any sign of them?” Remi asked.
“No. You?”
“No.”
Earlier that morning, as the Krakatau Explorer tour van pulled out of the Four Seasons turnaround, Sam thought he’d caught a glimpse of Itzli Rivera, but they’d seen nothing more during the ninety-minute ride from Jakarta to the Carita Beach Resort docks. While riding in a van packed with other tourists wasn’t Sam and Remi’s preferred style of adventuring, they were keenly aware that if Rivera and his men were, in fact, here, being caught alone on a lonely road in the Javan rain forests could be disastrous.
Moreover, this boat tour of what remained of the Krakatoa volcano and the newly opened Krakatau Museum was not only a first step in following Blaylock’s ill-fated trail—if there was one left to follow—but also an efficient way of drawing Rivera out and forcing his hand. The last thing the Mexican needed was to lose his quarry yet again. For Sam and Remi, it was akin to swimming with sharks: Better to have them in sight than wondering when they were going to swim out of the gloom and attack.
They joined the line of last-minute boarders at the aft gangplank, then boarded and chose a spot at the starboard rail. The Krakatau Explorer was a hundred-twenty-foot flat-bottomed skiff ferry with an oblong, pitch-roofed wheelhouse nestled high on the forecastle. The afterdeck, measuring eighty feet by forty feet, was divided into rows by blue-vinyl-covered bench seating.
Sam kept one eye on the docks while Remi scanned the other passengers; she estimated there were sixty aboard. “Still nothing,” she said.
“Here too.”
On the dock, a pair of workers detached the gangplank and pulled it away from the ferry. A crewman on deck shut the gate. The mooring lines were singled up and hauled aboard. Three more crewmen appeared at the rail and pushed off the dock with poles. With a blare from the Explorer’s whistle, the engines started, and the ferry chugged away from the docks and headed west into the strait.
THREE HOURS LATER an Indonesian-accented voice came over the intercom: “Ladies and gentlemen, shortly the captain will be bringing the Krakatau Explorer around the island’s headland for our approach to the museum.”
As promised, within minutes the ferry turned to port and headed east along the island’s north shoreline. Passengers crowded the rail to stare up at the sheer, two-thousand-foot-high cliff—all that remained when the majority of the island collapsed into the sea.
THE FERRY PULLED ALONGSIDE the museum’s dock, and the mooring lines were secured and the gangplank lowered. Sam and Remi disembarked and headed toward the main building. Anchored to the seabed at the western edge of the caldera, the five-thousand-square-foot museum was constructed of inch-thick tempered glass and white-painted steel crossbeams. According to the brochure Sam and Remi had picked up at the Four Seasons, the museum contained the single largest collection of Krakatoa memorabilia and source material in the world.
The inside was fully air-conditioned, the decor minimalist, with bamboo floors, taupe walls, and vaulted ceilings. The space was divided into section
s by three-quarter walls that displayed period photographs, artwork, and illustrations, while freestanding platforms held artifacts that survived the disaster. Each section also contained a multimedia kiosk, complete with an LCD monitor and touch-screen controls.
Sam and Remi strolled around on their own until they were approached by one of the guides, a young Indonesian woman in an aquamarine dress. “Welcome to the Krakatau Museum. May I answer any questions for you?”
“WE’RE PARTICULARLY INTERESTED in what ships might have been anchored in the strait at the time of the explosion,” Remi said.
“Certainly. We have an alcove dedicated to just that. This way, please.”
They followed the woman through several alcoves before arriving at one labeled THE MARITIME EFFECTS. Two of the walls were devoted to enlarged daguerreotype photos of the straits and surrounding bays and harbors. The third wall held copies of pages from ships’ logs, newspaper accounts, letters, and illustrations. On the platforms in the center of the room was a collection of salvaged hardware, presumably from vessels caught in the explosion.
“How many ships were in the area at the time?” asked Remi.
“Officially, fourteen, but on any given day in 1883 there were hundreds of small fishing vessels and cargo boats sailing back and forth. Of course, it was easier to account for the ships because of insurance claims. Also, we were able to cross-reference captains’ logs to account for all the vessels present.”
Standing before a plaque on the far wall, Sam asked, “Is this a list of the ships and their crews?”
“Yes.”
“I recognize one of these names: the Berouw.”
The guide nodded. “I’m not surprised. The Berouw is somewhat famous. She was a side-wheel steamer that was anchored in Lampung Bay fifty miles from Krakatoa. She was picked up by one of the tsunamis and carried several miles up the Koeripan River. The ship was found almost completely intact, but her entire crew was killed.”
“There are only thirteen names,” Remi said.
“Pardon me?”
“On this list. You mentioned fourteen ships, but there are only thirteen listed here.”
“Are you sure?” The guide stepped up to the plaque and counted the names. “You’re right. That’s odd. Well, I’m sure it’s an administrative error.”
Remi smiled. “Thanks for your help. I think we’ll wander around a bit.”
“Certainly. If you’re so inclined, feel free to experiment with the kiosk. All of the documents in our collection—even those not on display—are available for viewing.”
Remi walked over to the wall of photographs where Sam was standing. She said, “I was half hoping the Shenandoah’s name would be on the list.”
“Would a picture do?” Sam said.
“What?”
He pointed at the uppermost photo on the wall, a four-by-six-foot enlargement. The plate beside it read:
LOOKING NORTHEAST FROM THE DECK OF
BRITISH CARGO VESSEL SALISBURY,
ANCHORED ELEVEN MILES EAST OF KRAKATOA,
AUGUST 27TH, 1883.
SHOWN: PULAU (ISLAND)
LEGUNDI AND MOUTH OF LAMPUNG BAY
“Do you see it?” Sam asked.
“I see it.”
In the foreground of the photo against the backdrop of Pulau Legundi was a square-rigged, three-masted clipper ship, her upper hull painted black.
“It doesn’t mean anything,” Remi said. “I’m sure there were plenty of ships of that era that looked identical to the Shenandoah.”
“I agree.”
“Let’s find out. Shenandoah was two hundred thirty feet, twelve hundred tons, and rigged for battle. I guarantee you that a ship like that sails into the Sunda Straits, any captain or officer of the watch worth a damn is going to make note of it.”
THEY WALKED TO THE KIOSK, played with the touch screen for a few moments, then began searching the museum’s archives, which were organized and cross-referenced by subject, date, and key word. After an hour of trying various word combinations, Sam found an entry made by the captain of a German merchant ship named Minden.
He brought the translated text up on the screen:
26th August 1883, 1415 hours: Passed close astern by sail & steam clipper ship, identity unknown. Eight cannon ports observed on starboard beam. Vessel declined to return hail. Anchored on south side of Pulau Legundi.
Sam scrolled through a few more entries, then stopped again:
27th August 1883, 0630. Eruptions worsening. Nearly swamped by rogue wave. Have ordered crew to prepare for emergency departure.
“Here we go,” Sam murmured. He tapped the touch screen and another log entry filled the screen:
27th August 1883, 0800. Proceeding flank speed, course 041. Hoping to reach leeward side of Pulau Sebesi. Unidentified clipper ship still anchored south side of Pulau Legundi. Again refused hail.
Sam kept scrolling, then stopped. “That’s it. The Minden’s last entry. Could be her. The time frame is right; so is the description: eight cannon ports. The same number as the Shenandoah.”
“And if it was?” Remi replied. “The Minden’s last entry was two hours before Krakatoa’s final eruption. Whatever ship they saw probably made a run for it and either got clear or was overtaken by the tsunami or the pyroclastic flow.”
“There’s one more possibility,” Sam replied.
“Which is?”
“She suffered the same fate as the Berouw. She was picked up and carried inland.”
“Wouldn’t she have been found by now?”
“Maybe, maybe not.”
“Sumatra’s a big island, Sam. Where do you propose we start?”
Sam pointed up at the picture again. “The last place she was anchored.”
“Hello, Fargos,” a voice said behind them.
Sam and Remi turned around.
Standing before them was Itzli Rivera.
Sam said, “We keep running into each other. Frankly, it’s something we could do without.”
“I can arrange that.”
“As long as we help you finish what you haven’t been able to on your own.”
“You read my mind.”
“The problem with that plan,” Remi said, “is that it ends with you killing us.”
“It doesn’t have to be that way.”
“Yes, it does,” replied Sam. “You know it, and we know it. Even now we know enough about Garza’s dirty little secret to topple his government. Compared to your other victims, we’ve got a mountain of information. You murdered a woman in Zanzibar just because she found a sword.”
“And eight others for much less, probably,” Remi added.
Rivera shrugged and spread his hands. “What can I say?”
“How about, ‘Where’s the tallest building I can jump off of?’”
“Here’s a better question: Why don’t you give me all your research, and I’ll tell my boss I killed you?”
Remi said, “After all we’ve been through together, you still think we’re that gullible? You’re a slow learner, Mr. Rivera.”
“You’ve been lucky so far. It won’t happen again.”
Sam said, “Let me see if I’m understanding you correctly: Option one, we give you everything we’ve got and you murder us; option two, we give you nothing and see how much farther our luck takes us.”
“When you put it that way, I can see your point,” Rivera replied. “So let’s change the terms: You give me what I want and I promise to kill you quickly and painlessly. Or we continue to play our cat-and-mouse game, and I will eventually catch you and torture your wife until you give me what I want.”
Sam took a step forward. He stared hard into Rivera’s eyes. “You need to learn some manners.”
Rivera pulled back his jacket a few inches to reveal the butt of a gun. “And you need to learn some discretion.”
“So my wife tells me.”
“You’re stubborn. Both of you. We’re going to leave together right now. If you figh
t me or try to attract attention, I’ll shoot your wife, then you. Let’s go. I have a boat outside. We’ll walk outside and—”
“No.”
“Pardon me?”
“You heard me.”
“I’m not bluffing, Mr. Fargo. I’ll shoot you both.”
“I believe you’ll try. Don’t think I’ll make it easy.”
“Nobody will stop me; I’ll be gone before the authorities arrive.”
“Then what? Did you really think we’d come here carrying all our proof? You’ve really got a problem with underestimating people. You’ve searched our hotel room and found nothing, correct?”
“Yes.”
“All we’ve got with us is a few pictures, and they’re nothing you haven’t already seen. If you kill us here, everything goes public. By the time you get back to Mexico City, every news channel will be running the story.”
“You wouldn’t be here if you had everything you needed. You don’t have what Blaylock found or what he was after.”
“That makes two of us.”
“What you’re forgetting is, I’ve dedicated myself to keeping this secret for almost a decade. You’ve been involved for a few weeks. Whatever you find, whatever story you tell, we’ll spin it the other way. You know who I work for and you know how powerful he is. Even if you manage to survive, by the time we’re done with you you’ll be a pair of money-hungry, spotlight-seeking treasure hunters who created a fantastic lie for their own personal gain.”
“We’ll still have our health,” Remi said sweetly.
“And our sense of humor,” Sam added. “If you’re so confident, why don’t you go home and let the chips fall where they may?”
“I can’t do that. I’m a soldier. I’ve got my orders.”