The Admiral's Mark (Short Story) Read Online Free

The Admiral's Mark (Short Story)
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answers are not here
.
    That’s what the older man, Simon, had said in Atlanta.
    Something else caught his eye.
    A printed catalog for a local auction to be held at another hotel, La Villa St-Louis, tonight. He thumbed through. Mostly antiques. Some jewelry. Furniture. All from an estate being liquidated. Contrary to popular misconception, there was wealth in Haiti.
    He noticed blue ink on one of the pages.
    Numbers. 5,000. 7,000. 10,000.
    Above the writing was an item for sale.
    Small volume (215 × 130mm), 62 leaves with hand printing in dark ink, another 12 blank. Fine original leather over wood binding. Significantsoiling and browning, occasional spotting and staining. Dutch vellum, gilt edges, extremities rubbed. Provenance still in question, but verified to mid- to early-16th-century origin.
    A color photo displayed the book. He’d seen many like it before. Books were a love of his. He collected them by the hundreds, all encased in plastic sheaths, lined on metal shelves in his basement back in Atlanta. Pam hated them, as they took up a lot of room, not to mention the money he spent on them. But he was a hopeless bibliophile. A dream that he allowed himself to sometimes enjoy was to one day own a rare-book shop.
    He wondered what it was about this book that was so interesting.
    The brochure noted that the auction began at 6:00 P.M . His watch read a little after two. He decided that his anonymity could be stretched a little further, so he’d be there to see what happened.
    He left the room, relocked the door, and made his way downstairs to the lobby. He needed to find Dubois. His ally had said he’d wait outside the main gates, on the street. People streamed back and forth through the hotel from the courtyard, two restaurants, and a bar that was doing a brisk businessfor the middle of the afternoon. He turned for the main doors and was immediately flanked by a man on either side. Both were young, clean-shaven, with short hair, dressed casually, their shirttails out.
    “Mr. Malone,” one of them said.
    So much for being anonymous. He said nothing and waited for them to make the next move.
    “You need to come with us.”
    He stopped walking. “I hope you have a better reason than that.”
    “Like I said. You
need
to come with us.”
    He could take them both. No problem. So he held his ground. “I don’t need to do anything.”
    The other man reached into his back pocket and produced a leather wallet. He opened it and displayed an identification.
    One he’d seen before.
    HaMossad leModi’in uleTafkidim Meyuchadim.
    Institute for Intelligence and Operations.
    Israeli.
    “What’s the Mossad’s interest in Haiti?” he asked.
    “We need to talk. But not here.”

    He stepped from the car, the two agents also exiting. He’d ridden with them a few miles outside of Cap-Haïtien to a spot he’d read about but never visited.
    Sans-Souci Palace.
    Henri Christophe, or King Henri I as he’d labeled himself—tall, strong, smart, and unruly—built it in the early part of the 19th century, part of his plan to show Europe and America the power of the black race. Eventually, scattered around the island, were six châteaus, eight palaces, and the massive
citadelle
, but none compared to Sans-Souci. An earthquake toppled much of the building in 1842, the ruins never rebuilt. Once the equivalent of Versailles, with fifty rooms, a Baroque staircase, and stepped gardens, home to a grandiloquent court of dukes and duchesses, centuries of neglect had allowed nature to again take control. But though gutted by flames, roofless, exposed to tropical wind and rain, the shell seemed in harmony with its surroundings.
    He followed his minders toward the ruin across a carpet of green grass. He recalled that
sans souci
translated to “without care,” which did notaccurately describe the current state of his emotions. Though the Israelis were allies, he’d never liked dealing with them. The fact that they were here, watching him,
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