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“You may be right. Only Blaylock could answer that,” Severson said. “But I can tell you this much: I don’t think he went to Africa on a whim. I think he was sent there.”
“By whom?” Sam asked.
“Secretary of War William Belknap.”
REMI AND SAM WERE SILENT for several seconds as they absorbed this information. Finally Sam said, “How do you know this?”
“I don’t know, with certainty,” Severson replied. “At this point my case is circumstantial and based on private letters between Belknap, Secretary of the Navy George Robeson, and the director of the Secret Service, Herman Whitley.
“In a November 1871 letter to both Belknap and Robeson, Whitley cites a recently received intelligence report. He doesn’t mention the source, but there were three lines that jumped out at me. First, intelligence reports that ‘suggest apostles of Captain Jim following in his footsteps’; second, ‘our man in Zanzibar playing us for the fool’; and third, ‘I have it on good authority the anchorage in question is frequently empty.’”
Remi said, “‘Our man in Zanzibar’ could be Sultan Majid II.”
“And ‘Captain Jim’ could be the Shenandoah’s captain, James Waddell,” replied Sam. “Whitley’s choice of language is interesting: ‘apostles. ’ A man like him wouldn’t have risen to his position without a firm grasp of language. An apostle is a firm believer, someone dedicated to following a leader’s example. As for the em
pty anchorage . . .”
“That could refer to where the Sultan had supposedly abandoned the newly renamed El Majidi,” said Remi.
“I agree.”
“There’s more,” Severson replied. “In a letter that followed a few days later, both Belknap and Robeson encouraged Whitley to contact ‘our Quaker friend’—Thomas Haines Dudley, I’m guessing—and ask if he might have any agents that could investigate the ‘vessel in question.’ Six weeks later Whitley replied. According to ‘the Quaker’s sources,’ the vessel in question was spotted, but not at its anchorage. It was in Dar es Salaam, returning to port—and I quote—‘fully-rigged for sail, steam, and cannon, and crewed by skilled sailors of Caucasian descent.’”
Sam and Remi were silent for ten seconds. Finally Sam said, “Unless I’m seeing something that’s not there, I’d say Captain Waddell’s ‘apostles’ remanned the Shenandoah for war.”
“The best part’s yet to come,” Severson said, “In that same letter Whitley informs Belknap and Robeson that he’s ordered the Quaker—Dudley—to dispatch his best man to investigate the situation in Dar es Salaam.”
“And we know who Dudley considered his best agent—Blaylock.”
“Who arrives in Bagamoyo a couple months later,” Remi added.
“It seems to fit, but you said it yourself, Julianne: It’s all circumstantial at this point.”
“I haven’t finished cataloging all the letters, but in the interim I think I know someone who can help. How do you two feel about a trip down to Georgia?”
CHAPTER 25
SAVANNAH, GEORGIA
AFTER LISTENING TO THE REMAINDER OF JULIANNE SEVERSON’S presentation and her hunch about where they might unravel the next portion of Blaylock’s story, Sam and Remi booked an early-afternoon flight out of Dulles. They touched down in Savannah shortly before three.
While Sam stood at the Hertz counter and made arrangements for a car, Remi checked her voice mail. Car keys in hand, Sam walked up to her.
“Selma got the bell this morning,” Remi announced.
Sam smiled and let out an exaggerated sigh. “I have to admit, after all we went through to get that thing, I had visions of it falling off the plane and dropping into the ocean.”
“Me, too. She says it’s in great condition. She called Dobo; he’s coming to pick it up.”
Alexandru Dobo—who preferred to be addressed only by his last name—was a full-time surfer/beach bum, part-time restoration expert, and their go-to guy for projects beyond their expertise. As the former curator of Romania’s Ovidius University’s Architecture, Restoration and Conservation Department and the primary consultant for Constanta’s Romanian Navy Museum and the National History and Archaeology Museum, Dobo had yet to encounter an artifact he couldn’t restore.
As Selma was herself from Romania’s next-door neighbor, Hungary, she and Dobo liked to both reminisce and quarrel about the “old country.”
“She said he’s going to work on it throughout the night,” Remi added.
“What, the surf’s bad?”
“Terrible.”