Free Grand Cayman Slam by Randy Striker Page A

in 1788. A couple of other rusted hulks, oil barges, sat partially submerged off Roger Wreck Point.
    “This wee island has seen the world’s sailors and pirates come an’ go in the last four hundred years,” the Irishman mused. “An’ some o’ them that came never made it away again. No one will ever know how many vessels rest broken below that bloody reef line. Divers find new ones every year.”
    We skirted the island and headed west toward North Sound. The landmass was lush and green, edged with white beach across the expanse of turquoise water. Twice a helicopter angled across the island in front of us—part of the search for the son of Sir Conan James.
    “On an island as small as this, ye’d think it would be very hard to hide anything—let alone a human bein’,” O’Davis said. “But as ya kin see, Yank, there’s a lot of untouched swamp and jungle on Grand Cayman. That’s why I wanted ta take ya fer this little ride.”
    The Irishman was right. Traveling by car, I had gotten the impression that you were never far from a road or a house. But once past the eastern point of the island and the sparse settlements of Gun Bay Village and Spotter Point, there were nothing but desolate expanses of beach backdropped by palm trees leaning in windward strands and the deeper green of tropical forest.
    The only other boats to be seen were some kind of barge—a dark smudge on the rolling horizon—and a large sailboat, outward bound.
    A few miles north, we began to see more houses. O’Davis rummaged through the little dunnage box and handed me a chart of Grand Cayman. It was weathered, soft as tissue, and there were rum lines with compass headings showing wrecks and reefs penciled in.
    “We’re coming up on Old Man Bay now?”
    “Aye. An’ that’s Grape Tree Point jest ahead. There’s only one road connectin’ the south side of the island with this—the north side. If I was wantin’ ta hide, I’d try to disappear west off that road.”
    “The chart says it’s pretty high ground.”
    “Locals call it a mountain. O′ course, it’s not really a mountain; more a series of bluffs than anything. The only real mountains are below us. All submerged. The island herself is a part of the Cayman Ridge, a range of submarine mountains which extend from the Sierra Maestra range of Cuba westward to the Misteriosa Bank toward British Honduras.”
    “Very interesting, professor.”
    The Irishman grinned. “Part of me speech to the tourist divers.”
    “And a good speech it is—but I want to know more about the inland bluffs. A person really could hide there for a time without being found?”
    “I’m afraid I’m not well schooled on the mountain. Few islanders are, Yank. All sounds very romantic, explorin’ bluffs, an’ all, but when it comes right down to it, the sun’s hot and the rocks are sharp and it’s about as easy as walkin’ through a thousand acres of brambles.”
    “Then that seems the place we ought to search.”
    “An’ what do ya think the helicopter is for, mate?”
    “They can see everything from the air?”
    He shook his head. “No—not everything, certainly. There be caves up there. Nobody knows how many fer sure. Back in the seventeen hundreds Edward Teach used one of the caves as a hideout. Somethin’ of a tourist attraction now. Some say it was where Teach shot his first mate, Israel Hinds.”
    “I remember the story. Treasure Island. And Teach is known as . . . ”
    “Aye. Blackbeard. The pirate Neal Walker came to Grand Cayman a few years later. History says he robbed the galleon Genoese of sixteen thousand pieces of eight. Legend says he buried it somewhere on the island.”
    “And that’s another part of your speech to the tourists?”
    “They do warm to the idea of buried treasure,” he said, smiling.
    At Rum Point, Grand Cayman’s even shoreline suddenly gave way to the ragged, massive indent of North Sound. The Irishman banked southward along the tropical wilderness,