Blackbeard's Lost Treasure

Prologue 2

April 17, 1982

Travis Cole did not believe in God.

The gun pressed to the back of his head caused that belief to waver.

His parents were professors who worked in the geology department at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Staunchly atheist, the couple had never seen evidence of a god in their studies and imbued Travis with that belief as a child. It was sometimes tough for Travis as he grew up near Raleigh, North Carolina on the fringes of the Bible Belt. When other classmates celebrated holidays such as Easter and Christmas, he abstained. They thought he was weird and oftentimes shunned their brainy peer. When pressed as to why he did not get presents for Christmas, Travis was often met with glassy-eyed stares when he explained to them he didn't believe the person described as the son of God in the Bible could make that claim because there was no God.

Now, Cole hoped he was wrong. He was raised to believe that once a person died, that was it. There was no ascension to heaven. No meeting at the pearly gates with an angel who judged if he were good or bad. Cole knew one of two things would happen upon his death: cremation or burial. He was twenty-four years old and the thought of leaving a will with instructions of what to do with his body in the event of his death had never occurred to him.

What started as a side project in his spare time had spiraled out of control and led to this. He'd stood firm and now it was going to cost him his life. He made a promise he couldn't keep.

Now, he was on his knees. He felt the cold steel of a strange pistol pressed against the back of his head. Sweat poured down his forehead and dripped onto a puddle around his knees. His jeans were soaked with urine and blood.

He couldn't help it. The fear was overwhelming. He didn't want to die. He was too young to die.

But it was going to happen.

The man pressing the gun to his head had killed before. Several times, in fact. Although Cole did not know this. Cole had asked for the man's help in gaining access to the ruins of what was believed to be the last known home of Blackbeard the pirate.

One Day Earlier . . .

As Cole tramped through the underbrush, he looked up to see a snake coiled around a branch in a tree ahead of him. He thought the snake was looking at him, and hesitated for a moment. This was the third snake he had encountered since leaving his car at a guardrail blocking the end of an unnamed road and disappearing into the forest.

His friend warned him of snakes lurking in the marshland. Mosquitoes too. He hoped a liberal spraying of bug repellent would keep that particular pest away. To this point, he didn't think he'd been bitten. He might not learn that until he went back to his motel room and stripped off his already wet clothes. He imagined this decrepit piece of land must have been much more alluring—and habitable—three hundred years ago when it was last tenanted.

He thought his surroundings resembled more of a jungle than an area near the shoreline of the Pamlico Sound. A thick canopy of longleaf pines and oak trees shrouded the otherwise sunny sky above. When he stepped out of his car and grabbed his gear from the trunk, he figured he couldn't have asked for more a more pleasant day to go exploring. Once he stepped into the tree line, it felt like the humidity tripled. His long-sleeved cotton shirt clung to his body, soaked in sweat.

Cole followed in his parent's footsteps and wanted to be a geologist while dabbling in paleontology. After graduating from college, Cole went to work for the North Carolina Museum of Natural Science in Raleigh. He was a low-level research assistant working under the Director of Collections for Geology and Paleontology. It was the first step on what Cole hoped would be a long and winding career.