Pirate Latitudes
The new thriller from Michael Crichton, one of the most famous authors in the world, the most exciting, anticipated publication of Christmas 2009.Jamaica, in 1665 a lone outpost of British power amid Spanish waters in the sunbaked Caribbean. Its capital, Port Royal, a cuthroat town of taverns, grog shops and bawdy houses – the last place imaginable from which to launch an unthinkable attack on a nearby Spanish stronghold. Yet that is exactly what renowned privateer Captain Charles Hunter plans to do, with the connivance of Charles II's ruling governor, Sir James Almont.The target is Matanceros, guarded by the bloodthirsty Cazalla, and considered impregnable with its gun emplacements and sheer cliffs. Hunter's crew of buccaneers must battle not only the Spanish fleet but other deadly perils – raging hurricanes, cannibal tribes, even sea monsters. But if his ragtag crew succeeds, they will make not only history … but a fortune in gold.
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Pirate
Latitudes
Michael
Crichton
This is entirely a work of fiction. Any references to real people, living or dead, real events, businesses, organisations and localities are intended only to give the fiction a sense of reality and authenticity. All names, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and their resemblance, if any, to real-life counterparts is entirely coincidental.
HarperCollinsPublishers
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London SE1 9GF
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2009
Copyright © Michael Crichton 2009
Endpaper map © Andrew Ashton
Cover photographys © Amulf Husmo/Getty Images (sea)
Ed Simpson/Getty Images (sky); Nobuaki Suminda/Sebun Photo/Getty Images (island)
Michael Crichton asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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Ebook Edition © NOVEMBER 2009 ISBN: 9780007346103
Source ISBN: 9780007329083 Version: 2017-05-08
Table of Contents
Part V THE MOUTH OF THE DRAGON
READ ON FOR AN EXTRACT FROM THE GRIPPING NEW NOVEL FROM MICHAEL CRICHTON
SIR JAMES ALMONT, appointed by His Majesty Charles II Governor of Jamaica, was habitually an early riser. This was in part the tendency of an aging widower, in part a consequence of restless sleep from pains of the gout, and in part an accommodation to the climate of the Jamaica Colony, which turned hot and humid soon after sunrise.
On the morning of September 7, 1665, he followed his usual routine, arising in his chambers on the third floor of the Governor’s Mansion and going directly to the window to survey the weather and the coming day. The Governor’s Mansion was an impressive brick structure with a red-tile roof. It was also the only three-story building in Port Royal, and his view of the town was excellent. In the streets below he could see the lamplighters making their rounds, extinguishing streetlights from the night before. On Ridge Street, the morning patrol of garrison soldiers was collecting drunks and dead bodies, which had fallen in the mud. Directly beneath his window, the first of the flat, horse-drawn carts of water-carriers rumbled by, bringing casks of fresh water from Rio Cobra some miles away. Otherwise, Port Royal was quiet, enjoying the brief moment between the time the last of the evening’s drunken revelers collapsed in a stupor, and the start of the morning’s commercial bustle around the docks.
Looking away from the cramped, narrow streets of the town to the harbor, he saw the rocking thicket of masts, the hundreds of ships of all sizes moored in the harbor and drawn up to the docks. In the sea beyond, he saw an English merchant brig anchored past the cay, near Rackham’s reef offshore. Undoubtedly, the ship had arrived during the night, and the captain had prudently chosen to await daylight to make the harbor of Port Royal. Even as he watched, the topsails of the merchant ship were unreefed in the growing light of dawn, and two longboats put out from the shore near Fort Charles to help tow the merchantman in.
Governor Almont, known locally as “James the Tenth,” because of his insistence on diverting a tenth share of privateering expeditions to his own personal coffers, turned away from the window and hobbled on his painful left leg across the room to make his toilet. Immediately, the merchant vessel was forgotten, for on this particular morning Sir James had the disagreeable duty of attending a hanging.
The previous week, soldiers had captured a French rascal named LeClerc, convicted of making a piratical raid on the settlement of Ocho Rios, on the north coast of the island.
On the testimony of a few townspeople who had survived the attack, LeClerc had been sentenced to be hanged in the public gallows on High Street. Governor Almont had no particular interest in either the Frenchman or his disposition, but he was required to attend the execution in his official capacity. That implied a tedious, formal morning.
