The Emerald Key - By Christopher Dinsdale Page 0,10
as he was told. He made his way toward the front of the ship, past two towering masts, and handed his ticket to a young purser who was waiting for him at the doorway.
“Welcome to the Independence, sir.”
The porter led him down a narrow hallway to a finely crafted door with a brass handle. Jamie opened the door and had to step over a tall ledge to enter the room.
“Safety reasons,” commented the purser, nodding to the ledge at base of the door. “Keeps the water out of your cabin should the weather get bad.”
“Then let’s hope for good weather, shall we?” said Jamie, who then offered the young lad a coin, which he gratefully accepted.
After lowering his single bunk away from its stored position on the wall, Jamie collapsed onto its mattress and stared up at the freshly painted ceiling.
“Hold on, Ryan. I’m only a week behind you.”
Jonathon Wilkes was a very patient man. Waiting on the docks at Cork with a young boy standing by his side, he realized that he would not be closing in on one of the greatest treasures in Europe if he had not planned every step of the way with painstaking precision. Somewhere in this crowd was the missing piece of the puzzle that was required to find Ireland’s fabled ancient treasure. After all of his work and effort, a few more hours of waiting in a restless crowd would not bother him in the least. In fact, he rather enjoyed it. It was all part of the exhilarating game of the hunt, and he was the one controlling all the pieces.
As Wilkes eyed the crowd, he let his mind drift back to his first big payday. It had taken him three years, eleven months, and fourteen days to wait out the Buddhist monks in Tibet before he finally struck the motherlode. The Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of the monks, had left his palace compound with his entourage as if he were a ghost, in the dead of night and with remarkable silence. The only reason Wilkes had discovered his silent departure was through one of his ingenious tripwires, which he had stretched across several paths that he had suspected might lead to the treasure. It was the tinkling of a soft bell that had woken him from his light sleep. He quietly rolled out of his covers, grabbed his machete, his unlit torch, and his gun, and by the light of the quarter moon ran for the marked path.
It was difficult to follow the mountainous trail at night with only sparse moonlight to guide him, but he had memorized the terrain so well, he knew exactly where the monk he was following was taking him, deep into the steep Himalayan cliffs that surrounded Tibet’s capital city of Lhasa. The path quickly became treacherous and narrow, but Wilkes could sense that the monk was just ahead, and he was not about to let up on the chase.
His life nearly ended as he rounded a protruding crag in the mountain and his foot came down on nothing but air. The path had vanished at the edge of a cliff. Wilkes had not sensed the sudden drop and he began to fall toward his death. His flailing arms swung wildly for anything to help stop his fall. A lip of stone smacked against his right palm. He grabbed hold. It was not enough to stop his momentum, but it was just enough to swing him across to his right. While dangling on one arm, he controlled his panic long enough to allow his body to make the half turn. His head and body crashed hard into the towering rock face next to the path. With his right hand remaining on the protrusion, his left groped desperately along the rock for any purchase. Miraculously, it found the rough root of a plant jutting out into the darkness. He grabbed hold and prayed that it would take his weight. For a moment, Wilkes hung with his feet hovering three thousand feet above an invisible jagged valley far below.
Wilkes quickly recomposed himself and assessed his situation. Even in the inky darkness, he knew that the path he had taken up the mountain must be somewhere just to his right. He swung out a foot and felt for it. Yes! His boot caught the edge of it, but it was too far away for his foot to get a proper grip. He had only one chance. Before his