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Behind Selma, Pete and Wendy were sitting at the worktable. They waved.
Remi said, “We’re getting ready to dig in. Do you have anything for us?”
“The last search is finishing now.”
On-screen, Pete walked across to a computer workstation, tapped the keyboard a couple times, then called, “Coming over to you, Selma.” Sam and Remi watched as Selma studied the document, her eyes darting across the screen.
At last she said, “Not much there. We checked all the major shipwreck databases and found only eighteen sites in the waters around Zanzibar. We even extended the grid fifty miles on all compass points. Of the eighteen, fourteen are identified, and only one of those comes even remotely close to the assumed same time frame as the Ophelia.”
“Go on.”
“The Glasgow. Commissioned in 1877 after the Sultan of Zanzibar lost his ‘fleet’ to the 1872 storm. It was delivered in the summer of 1878, but the Sultan was unimpressed, so it sat abandoned and unused at anchor off Zanzibar until the Anglo-Zanzibar War of 1896, when the British sunk her with naval gunfire.
“In 1912 the wreck was reduced to her bottom frames by a salvage company, and the majority of the pieces dumped at sea. In the seventies, the Glasgow’s engine block, propeller shaft, some crockery, and a few nine-pound shells were found on the site.”
“Where’s the site?” Remi asked.
“About two hundred yards off the Stone Town beach. In fact, you were within sight of it at the restaurant the other night.”
“So about fifteen crow’s miles from where we found the Ophelia’s bell,” Sam said. “So scratch the Glasgow. What else?”
“Four of the wrecks in the database are unidentified. One is sitting in the Pangani River thirty-five miles to the north; the next two are in Tanga Bay fifty miles to the north; the last one is sitting off Bongoyo Island in Dar es Salaam’s Msasani Bay. As far as I can tell, none of them is any deeper than thirty feet.”
“Thirty feet of clear water,” Sam added. “We’ll check with area dive shops. Chances are, someone’s identified them but never bothered to say anything. Probably nothing more than dive attractions now.”
“Sorry I came up empty,” Selma said.
“You didn’t,” Remi replied. “Ruling out is just as important as ruling in.”
“Two other things. Mrs. Fargo, you were right about those names, they are Nahuatl, traditional Aztec names. For what it’s worth, it’s been something of a trend in Mexico City for the last few years—”
“The Mexica Tenochca Party,” Remi finished. She saw Sam’s confused expression, then added, “The current president is an übernationalist, a pre-Spanish invasion nationalist. Aztec names, history courses taught in schools, religious observances, art . . .”
“In addition to everything else, Rivera and his pals are political zealots,” Sam replied drily. “Just what we need.”
“What else, Selma?”
“I studied the pictures of the bell you sent. I assume you noticed the clapper?”
“You mean that it’s missing?” Sam asked. “We noticed.”
Sam disconnected, then turned to Remi. “So, newspapers?”
She nodded. “Newspapers.”
SAM AND REMI WERE believers in the pyramid theory of research: Start with the top of the pyramid, the specific, and work your way down to the base, the general. The first search terms they tried were “Ophelia,” “wreck,” and “discovered.” Not surprisingly, all they got were stories Selma had covered. Next they tried “famous,” “shipwrecks,” and “Zanzibar” and got the expected results: fluff stories about the Glasgow and the El Majidi, another ship belonging to the Sultan of Zanzibar that had been lost during the 1872 hurricane, and the HMS Pegasus, sunk in 1914 following a surprise attack by the German cruiser Königsberg.
Ms. Kilembe returned with a carafe of coffee and two mugs, asked if they needed anything, then disappeared again.
Remi said, “We forgot Chumbe Island, Sam. We’re assuming the BBC interview brought Rivera here . . .”
“Right.” Sam combined the previous search terms with “Chumbe Island” and got zero hits. He tried again with the terms “diving,” “artifact,” and “discovery.” He scrolled through the stories, then stopped. “Huh,” he muttered.
“What?”
“Probably no
thing, but it’s curious. Two months ago a British woman named Sylvie Radford was found murdered in Stone Town. An apparent mugging gone wrong. She’d come to do some diving off Chumbe. Listen to this: ‘According to the woman’s parents, Ms. Radford had been having a wonderful diving vacation, having already found several artifacts, including what she thought might be part of a Roman-style sword.’”