Lost Empire

CHAPTER 14

ZANZIBAR

THE CONFEDERATE STATES SHIP SHENANDOAH HAD LONG FASCINATED Sam and Remi, but they’d never had the time to explore the mysteries behind the saga. Now it appeared fate had handed them a bronze invitation in the form of a ship’s bell.

A 1,160-ton steam cruiser, Shenandoah was launched at the Alexander Stephen amp; Sons shipyard in River Clyde, Scotland, in August of 1863 under the name Sea King. Iron-framed, teak-planked, and black-hulled, Sea King was fully rigged for both sail and auxiliary steam power, designed as cargo transport for the East Asia tea trade routes. Tea hauling did not lie in her future, however.

A year after her commissioning, in September 1864, Sea King was covertly purchased by agents of the Confederate Secret Service, and on October eighth she sailed with a full complement of merchant sailors, ostensibly headed for Bombay on her maiden trading voyage. Nine days later Sea King rendezvoused near the island of Madeira, off the African coast, with the steamship Laurel, which had been lying in wait. Aboard Laurel were the officers and the nucleus of the Sea King’s new crew, all loyal and experienced sailors, either Southerners or sympathetic British citizens. Their captain was Lieutenant James Iredell Waddell, a forty-one-year-old North Carolinian and graduate of the United States Naval Academy.

The Laurel’s cargo of naval guns, ammunition, and general stores were quickly transferred aboard Sea King , whose dumbfounded and angry crew were given the option of joining this new expedition at higher wages or being transferred to the Laurel and subsequently deposited on Tenerife, an island in the Canary Archipelago off the coast of Morocco. In the end, however, Waddell was only able to enlist enough of Laurel’s seamen to bring the newly commissioned commerce raider Shenandoah to half her normal sailing complement. Despite this, Shenandoah left the Madeira Islands on October twenty-first and set about her task of destroying or capturing Union ships wherever she found them.

Through the fall of 1864 and into the winter of 1865 Shenandoah sailed through the South Atlantic, around the Cape of Good Hope, and into the Indian Ocean and across to Australia, destroying and capturing Union-flagged merchant vessels before setting her sights on the Union’s Pacific whaling grounds, sailing north from New Guinea into the Sea of Okhotsk and the Bering Sea.

In the nine months Shenandoah sailed under the Confederate flag as a warship, she accounted for the destruction of some three dozen enemy ships. On August 2, 1865, some four months after Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, Shenandoah learned of the war’s end by the passing British barque Barracouta. Captain Waddell ordered Shenandoah disarmed, then set a course for Liverpool, England, where he and Shenandoah ’s crew surrendered in November 1865. The following March she was sold through intermediaries to Sayyid Majid bin Said al-Busaid, the first Sultan of Zanzibar, who renamed her El Majidi, after himself.

For Sam and Remi it had always been this part of the Shenandoah’s history that they found so intriguing. There were three accounts of El Majidi ’s final disposition. One had her being scuttled in the Zanzibar Channel shortly after being damaged in the 1872 hurricane; the next, her sinking six months later while being towed to Bombay for repairs; the last, her going down in November of 1879 after striking a reef near the island of Socotra on the way home from Bombay. “This raises more questions than it gives answers,” Sam said. “For starters, was it Blaylock or someone else who renamed her Ophelia?

”“And why was she renamed?” Remi added. “And why is there no record of her anywhere?”

“And the biggest question: Why did we find the bell at all?”

“What do you mean?” asked Remi.

“After Waddell surrendered the Shenandoah

, wouldn’t she and everything aboard her have been the property of the Union?”

“Including the bell.”

“Including the bell,” Sam echoed.

“Maybe the Union sold her to the Sultan of Zanzibar, lock, stock, and barrel.”

“Could be. But that was in 1866. The El Majidi didn’t sink for another six or thirteen years, depending on which account you go with. Hell, the Sultan named the ship after himself. Does he sound like someone who would hang on to a bell with another ship’s name on it?”“No, he doesn’t. Maybe whoever refitted her just tossed the bell overboard. For the sake of expediency.”

Remi was the devil’s advocate of the couple. She often did her best to poke holes in their thinking; if after going through the “Remi Gauntlet” the theory remained afloat, they then knew they were on to something.

Sam considered this. “Possible, but I’m trying to put myself in the shoes of the Sultan’s shipfitter. He’s probably not the wealthiest of guys-overworked and underpaid. Unsurprisingly, the Sultan demands the ship meet his royal standards, including a shiny new bell. What would this shipfitter do with a ninety-pound, solid bronze bell?”“Sell it,” Selma chimed in.

“Let’s put a pin in that,” Remi said. “It seems safe to assume Blaylock himself came across the bell at some point. If it was still attached to the vessel, he either bought it or stole the ship, then changed the name to Ophelia. If the bell had been discarded by the Sultan, it means Blaylock salvaged the bell, blotted out the Shenandoah name, and engraved it with Ophelia .”“And did what with it? Stared at it?”

“The charcoal sketch at the museum suggests he saw that ship as the Ophelia .”

Sam snapped his fingers. “We’re overthinking this. Remi, boot up your laptop. Selma, e-mail us pictures of the Shenandoah and the El Majidi.”

As they were waiting, Sam plugged his camera into Remi’s laptop, and she called up the photo they’d taken of the Ophelia sketch. “No Wi-Fi signal,” Remi said.

Sam stood up and walked around, checking beneath nearby tables. “There are Ethernet plug-ins,” he said, then walked toward the hostess. He returned two minutes later with an Ethernet cable, which he first plugged into Remi’s laptop, then into the closest plug. “It’s dial-up Internet, but it should do,” Sam said.Over the phone, Selma said, “Images on the way.”

It took four minutes for the JPEG images to load. Remi arranged the pictures on her screen, and they spent a few minutes rotating and zooming and playing with colors until they were certain. “Same ship,” Remi said.

“I agree,” Sam agreed. “Blaylock’s Ophelia is also the Shenandoah and the El Majidi. The question is, at what point in the time line did Blaylock appear and why are there no records of any of this?”“Clearly, Rivera and his friends are interested in our bell. But is it the bell itself or the ship or ships it had once been attached to?”

“There’s only way to find out,” Sam said. “We have to steal it back before Rivera destroys it or loses it.”

THEY IMMEDIATELY REALIZED that, like many things in their line of work, this task was much easier said than done. Sam rummaged around in his pack and came up with a pair of binoculars. He stood up and aimed them out the window. After thirty seconds, he lowered the binoculars. “She’s still headed south, about to slip behind Pingwe Point. Still in no big hurry.”“They know they’ve got us beat.”

Sam grinned. “Never say die.” He picked up his phone and dialed Rube Haywood.

“Sam, I was just about to call you,” Rube said.

“Great minds. I hope we’re on the same wavelength.”

“I have information on the yacht, the Njiwa .”

“Bless you.”

It belongs to a guy named Ambonisye Okafor. One of the ten richest men in the country. You name a Tanzanian export, and he’s got a major stake in it: cashews, tobacco, coffee, cotton, sisal, precious gems, minerals . . .”“How did a hatchet man like Rivera get hooked up with someone like Okafor?”

“Hard to say, exactly, but I did a little digging. In the last five years, the Mexican government has sharply increased its importation of Tanzanian goods, most of it from companies controlled by Ambonisye Okafor. That tells me Rivera has powerful friends in Mexico City. Sam, you two aren’t up against a few mercenaries. You’re up against a government and a Tanzanian millionaire with a whole lot of influence.”“Trust me, Rube, we’re not going to ignore that, but right now all we want is to get back that bell-”

“What does that mean?”

“They stole it. All we want is to get back the bell and head home.”

“That may be easier said-”

“We know. What else can you tell us about the Njiwa ?”

“It’s one of two yachts Okafor owns. This one is homeported on Sukuti Island, about thirty miles south of Dar es Salaam as the crow flies. Okafor has a vacation estate there. Owns the whole island.”“Of course he does.”

Over the years Sam and Remi had found one of the most common traits among megalomaniac millionaires was their aversion to fraternization with the “great unwashed masses.” Owning a private island was an exceedingly effective way to accomplish this.Rube said, “I don’t have to ask what you’re going to do next, do I?”

“Probably not.”

“Okay, but I’m going to throw in my obligatory ‘Be careful.’”

“We’ll call you when we can.”

Sam disconnected and recounted the conversation to Remi. After a few moments’ thought, she said, “Can’t hurt to check it out. On one condition.”

“Name it.”

“That discretion will trump valor. If we get in over our heads-”

“We’ll retreat.”

“Of course, we’re assuming the Njiwa is headed to Sukuti.”

Sam nodded. “If she’s not, we’re probably out of the game. If she is, we need to get to the bell before they do something nasty to it.”