Island of Thieves by Josh Lacey

saying that he’d borrowed the car from a friend.
    Otto asked a few questions, then thought for a moment, his hands folded in his lap. We watched him in silence, waiting for his verdict. Finally he lifted his head and looked at us.
    â€œMaybe I just kill you,” he said.
    â€œWe’re very close to finding the treasure,” replied Uncle Harvey, smiling slightly and speaking calmly. You’d never have guessed that he was arguing for his life. “We know where it is. Well, we
almost
know where it is. We just need a little more time.”
    â€œHow much time?” said Otto.
    â€œI don’t know exactly, but I should think we could do it in a day. We’ve got to read the manuscript and find the rest of the instructions. If we’re lucky, and we work fast, we might be able to do it in a few hours.”
    â€œYou can find this treasure?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œYou’re sure?”
    â€œI’m sure,” said Uncle Harvey.
    Otto thought for a moment. Then he said, “You find it, I don’t kill you. OK?”
    â€œBut we had a deal,” said Uncle Harvey. “We were going to—”
    â€œYou want that I kill you?”
    â€œOf course not.”
    â€œThen shut up. OK?”
    â€œOK,” said my uncle.
    â€œGood. Now come with me.”
    We followed Otto out of the room. Miguel walked behind us and a couple more guards came after him, just to remind us not to do anything stupid.
    Otto took us to the library, a large room at the back of the house. There were several comfortable leather armchairs, a couple of long wooden tables, and hundreds of books crammed into shelves around all four walls.
    I didn’t know Otto very well, but he didn’t look like much of a bookworm. Maybe having a library is a big status symbol for South American mafiosi. Even if Otto spent all his free time watching TV and playing computer games, he wanted people to think he loved curling up with a good book.
    The manuscript was sitting on a table, waiting for us. There was no sign of our bags. While we were talking to Otto, someone must have gone through them, taken out the manuscript, and brought it here.
    â€œWhat more you need?” asked Otto. “Food? Drink?”
    â€œSome coffee would be nice,” said Uncle Harvey. “And juice for him.”
    Otto spoke Spanish to one of his men, then turned back to us. “What more?”
    â€œNothing,” said my uncle.
    â€œGood. You need something, you tell Miguel. I come back soon, you tell me what you find. OK?”
    â€œOK,” said my uncle again.
    And that was that. Otto went out, leaving us in the library with two thugs, a few thousand books, and a manuscript. We sat down at one of the tables and started reading.
    Our mission was simple. The original page—the one that Uncle Harvey had been given in that junk shop, wrapped around his necklace—had ended midsentence:
We placed them at the Northern tip of the Islande in a line with th—
    We were now looking for another page that could follow on from that and tell us where to dig for treasure. I hoped Francis Drake had chosen a landmark that had survived the past five hundred years.
    I pulled a page toward me and skimmed through the first few words:
We had fayr wether but scant wynd, yet I was seasike, I know not why. For two daies now I have ate nothing but brede and drank onlie water.
    That was a no, then.
    I dumped it with the rejects and took another:
Nycolas Tindal having stoln a shirt was tyed to the maste and whipt. I begged the Captayne for mercie on his behalf but my pleas were ignored and he was beat till he bled.
    The Captayne. Who was the Captayne? Wouldn’t that be Drake? If so, this journal couldn’t have been written by him. The writer must be one of his crew.
    Opposite me, Uncle Harvey was reading and rejecting too, although he was getting through the pages much faster. He skimmed the first sentence of the paper,