Byzantine Gold

by Chris Karlsen

  “What do you think are the chances of Tischenko attempting another sniper-style attack?”

  “Hard to say without my knowing what the terrain is like or how difficult it would be for him to smuggle a weapon into Cyprus.”

  “The beach area is flat. There are a few hills near the main road.”

  “I’d still have to see for myself.”

  She sat on the bed, disappointed. She wanted reassurance from Nick. In her mind, his ten years with SWAT gave him tactical omniscience.

  The irritating racket of squealing children came from outside, followed by the yelling of the mother. “Were you able to find someone to dig into Tischenko deeper?” she asked and got up to close the window.

  A bright orange soccer ball flew onto the balcony and bounced off the door. A man she figured was the father stomped up the steps to retrieve it. He loudly told the children something in German and made a shooing motion urging them toward the sand.

  “What is that racket?”

  “We’re staying at a family resort until tomorrow and a bunch of kids are out front playing.”

  “To answer your question, I got hold of Interpol information. It’s not much.”

  “Any info helps.”

  “They traced him to Venezuela a short time after he escaped Sevastopol. How he got there is a mystery. I suspect via Russia.”

  “Probably. But if Interpol knows this, then the Ministry does too.”

  “I’m certain they do.”

  Atakan hadn’t said anything to her. No point, since the info was neither important nor current.

  “From there he likely entered Europe by way of Latvia or Lithuania, one of those EU countries you can never find on the map. As you know, it’s easy moving through the other Eurozone countries into France. Sorry I don’t have better news to give you. I need more from your end to get more.”

  “I understand,” Charlotte said.

  “Case, you said they’re doing forensics on your computers.”

  “Yes.”

  “If he monitored the traffic on your computer, their malware can determine where the breach occurred. Once they locate that, they’ll obtain the IP address he used. Send me the information.”

  “Wouldn’t he route the hack job through several servers?”

  “Count on it.”

  “The Ministry analyst will backtrack through those servers and come up with the same information as you. I don’t understand how that helps.”

  “Just get the IP addresses for me.”

  “You know a guy from one of the alphabet agencies who hacks into people’s personal computers, don’t you?” She pictured a techno geek, sitting in a secret, concrete room in the basement of a government building. A guy recruited from MIT or Cal Tech, in a T-shirt with Mr. Spock silk-screened on the front with one of Spock’s Zen-like quotes. She smiled to herself at branding him a techno geek. Nick referred to archaeologists as science geeks perversely fascinated by crap from some ancient granny’s attic.

  “Let’s leave it at I have a friend of a friend.”

  “Okay, I’ll try.”

  “My offer still stands. If you think it’ll help, I’ll take time off and hook-up with you guys.”

  “Thanks anyway, I ran your offer by Atakan and although he appreciated it, he said no. Besides, he needs extra firepower rather than extra muscle and you can’t bring your gun.”

  “Casey, Casey, Casey, my naïve little sister,” he said in his best big brother voice. “There’s always a way to get guns and anything else illegal into a country.”

  “Didn’t need to hear that, Nick.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Camp construction went the same as the season before. The kitchen and conservation lab were put up first. They contained the most important generators. Raw wood walls and grass mat roofs were the basic framework for most structures. Charlotte and Rachel instructed the women on how to fashion the mats for easy attachment to ceiling beams. Atakan’s limited mobility kept him from the major construction work. He fired the generators and handled the electrical lines to them for kitchen appliances and the lab’s desalination tanks. Talat saw to the perimeter fence while Refik found a secure mooring for the MIAR research ship, the Suraya.

  The conservation lab and the area for sorting and labeling broken pottery were large canvas tents with metal support beams. Nassor declined instructions, stating he was familiar with their assembly. He took the lead guiding the Brits, inspecting their work along the way, as the tents went up fast. He insisted any imperfections be redone. All the men worked shirtless in the hot sun. Derek, chest glistening, sweat running down his neck and off the tip of his nose, objected to redoing a connection. Nassor held his ground, his temper flared briefly and his voice rose, practically biting off Derek’s head when he argued. He glanced over and saw Charlotte and Rachel listening and he calmed. He patiently explained the potential problem if a correction wasn’t made. Derek’s shoulders sagged in frustration, but he nodded he understood. He wiped his face with a towel he’d tucked in the waistband of his swim trunks and did as Nassor said.

  Charlotte poked Rachel in the ribs. “Our quiet man has a bark.”

  “It seems he knows what he’s doing though.”

  “Maybe he’s part Bedouin.”

  By late afternoon all the buildings and outdoor work stations were finished.

  Everyone flopped out on the ground in whatever shade they could find and eagerly awaited the arrival of the camp cook. At the first sight of the cook’s mini-truck, the group descended on the kitchen. They dug into the poor cook’s bags, passing around bottles of beer and Coke as soon as she set them down. Charlotte and Atakan were no exceptions. He grabbed a beer and she a Coke.

  Charlotte jogged into the women’s quarters and right out again, holding two Bounty Bars.

  “I’ve been looking forward to this all day,” she said, and handed one to Atakan and unwrapped the other for herself. They sat at a covered picnic table away from the buildings where the warm sea breeze blew steady.

  “The cook didn’t buy these.” Atakan tore his open with his teeth.

  “I stocked up at the resort.”

  “Meaning you bought them out.”

  “I’m saving the teeth of the children there from the misery of cavities.”

  “A noble gesture.”

  Refik came from the kitchen, clipboard under his arm, munching on a handful of dates. Between bites, he told the group to gather around the table where Charlotte and Atakan sat. It was dive partner assignment time.

  “I wonder if I’ll get Rachel or Talat since we’re friends,” Charlotte said.

  Atakan’s don’t be silly expression was her answer. Talat would’ve already secured Rachel as his partner.

  Rachel gave her the required update the night before. She hadn’t seen Talat over the winter. He’d stayed in Bodrum and she’d returned to Miami. However, once they met up again at the resort their affair resumed. “In fact,” Rachel told her, “he and I have plans for later tonight. We’re having a late dinner in his room.”

  “Licking cherry juice off each other’s naked bellies, no doubt.”

  “For starters.”

  Charlotte told Rachel about her life with Atakan in Istanbul and their trip to Paris. She didn’t discuss the shooting. The incident wasn’t general knowledge and neither was the investigation. Refik and Talat knew the truth. They agreed to tell anyone who asked that Atakan’s injury was from a skiing accident.

  Charlotte and Atakan had gone skiing in Bursa over the winter and in the early spring. If asked, they could give details on the Uldag resort, where they’d stayed. However, Charlotte was a little skeptical the story about an accident on the slopes would ring true.

  “What can you say, that you were impaled by a pole or something?”

  “Yes.”

  She tried to envision how this would occur and couldn’t. Atakan didn’t see the problem, maintaining it was his story and he was sticking to it.

  Ref
ik read from his assignment sheet. When he got to Rachel, as expected, she was partnered with Talat. Then, he came to Charlotte.

  “Charlotte you’re with Jafari.”

  Charlotte looked over and smiled at Nassor. Like yesterday, he sat apart from the group. He gave her a slight nod in return and turned his attention back to Refik.

  Dive times would be posted in an hour, Refik said and dismissed everyone and then joined Charlotte and Atakan.

  “Charlotte, I wanted Jafari with you in particular. Your familiarity with how we operate may make it easier for him to open up and ask questions. If you noticed, he’s rather standoffish.”

  “Hard not to notice. I’ve yet to see the guy crack a smile. He watches everyone and everything with keen interest. I think he’s afraid of putting a foot wrong.”

  She suspected he wasn’t standoffish, but shy, and understood how difficult it must be for him to adjust to such close living quarters. The condition wasn’t one she suffered from personally. No one ever called her shy.

  “Encourage him to mingle more, if you can.”

  “Sure.”

  “I have interesting news for you,” he said, turning to Atakan.

  “What?”

  “Tomorrow we’re getting a visitor you know...Saska Valko.”

  A long moment passed before Atakan responded. Finally, he said, “Really? That is...ah...interesting. You didn’t mention this yesterday.”

  “I wasn’t told until early this morning. She asked my administrators to hold off announcing it until she was scheduled to arrive. I think she wanted it to be a surprise. If you know what I mean.”

  A strange look was exchanged between the men with the last comment. If she wasn’t that interested in the conversation before, Charlotte was now.

  “Yes...yes, I do.”

  “Who’s Saska Valko?” Charlotte asked.

  “An American journalist who’s done a number of articles for National Geographic, Smithsonian, and Archaeology magazine,” Atakan said.

  “How do you know her?”

  “She wrote stories on two of the sites I worked.”

  Had Valko written something negative about him? “Did you not get on with her? You don’t seem happy to see her again,” Charlotte asked.

  “We got along,” he said, cryptically.

  “I’ll leave you two to talk in private,” Refik said, showing sudden preoccupation in his clipboard notes.

  Something was up with this woman. A short list came to Charlotte’s mind. Valko hit on Atakan and he shut her down, hurting her feelings. That would bother him, but he’d have said if that happened. Maybe she was rude to some of the team members. No, then Refik would’ve objected to her presence to MIAR. Maybe something she did made Atakan suspicious of her. No, he’d have documented his suspicions to the Ministry and they’d refuse to allow her access to another site. There was another reason and Charlotte did not like the idea...at all.

  “How well do you know her?” she asked, watching his reaction with increased curiosity.

  “Medium well.”

  “Define ‘medium.’”

  He answered with a single shrug of his good shoulder. His face revealed nothing.

  “Don’t move.” Charlotte went to the woman’s dormitory and came back out with her laptop.

  “What are you doing?”

  She ignored the question and Googled Valko. ‘A native New Yorker, regular contributor to the New York Times and Washington Post,’ etc. etc., but no photo came with the bio.

  Charlotte went to the NatGeo website. She searched and found one of Valko’s archived articles on Hattusa. Hattusa was one of Atakan’s previous assignments. She speed read the story.

  “Did you read what she wrote?”

  “Yes.”

  “She mentions you by name more times than the archaeologist heading up the project.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  Charlotte went to Archaeology magazine’s site and searched Valko. She found and spun through the first part of the article on Kerkenes, another site Atakan worked.

  “Quite the flattering story. When was this written? A year and a half ago,” she said, checking the issue date, “just before the project we worked on started.” She cocked her head, locking eyes with him. “You vacationed in New York right around that time.”

  “Yes. As you noted, before our project started, before we met.”

  True. He had a past. Everyone’s entitled to a past. She had a past. That said, her past wasn’t resurrecting itself in order to stir things up in the present.

  “And you said then, that you never date the team members in an on-going project.”

  “I don’t. She wasn’t on the team. She’s a journalist. For the record, I’ve never dated anyone from a project other than you. I would’ve waited until the season was over to approach you, but there were extenuating circumstances. Beside, the project was scheduled for completion in a few days when we got together.”

  “Uh-huh, reading on, ‘Ministry representative, Atakan Vadim provided a wealth of information. The fascinating historical anecdotes one rarely hears on the standard tour’—yadda, yadda. You definitely impressed Ms. Valko.”

  “I suppose.”

  “So, tell me, did you provide a ‘wealth of information’ about Atakan Vadim?”

  “Define ‘wealth of information.’” Atakan tried and failed to sound nonchalant.

  “That’s a yes. Explains why she wanted on this expedition. Tomorrow should prove amusing.”

  “Amusing isn’t the word I’d choose.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Charlotte checked the board Refik posted outside his office. It was a general information report with air temperature, sea temperature, and weather forecast.

  “Sea temp is twenty degrees celsius, I’ll be wearing a full wet suit for this one,” Charlotte said.

  Atakan chuckled. “You and your aversion to diving water even slightly chilly. If it’s not bathwater warm, you’re reaching for a wet suit.”

  “Damned straight. What’s the point of having the suits if we aren’t going to use them?”

  “I find it funny someone from such a cold climate and who grew up by a very cold lake is so sensitive to water temperature.”

  “I only swam in Lake Michigan once, when I was little. I froze. It wasn’t any fun. I was too cold to play or splash around like the other kids. The memory of that frigid water is with me permanently. Ugh.”

  The foursome of British divers came over to read the board.

  “Looks to be brilliant,” Derek, the pink-cheeked one from Liverpool said.

  “If the currents aren’t too bad, it’ll be pleasant, but cold,” Charlotte advised.

  “Cold? It’s roasty-toasty.”

  “You are joking, right?” she asked, looking askance.

  Derek draped a hand over her shoulder. “Clearly luv, you never swam in the Northern Irish Sea. This water is balmy. Right lads?” he said to his countrymen.”

  They agreed and made a few more comments on the waters surrounding Britain and Scotland. Derek removed his hand, smiled and told Atakan they’d see him later. The three left to wait for the shuttle to the Suraya.

  “Crazy Brits.”

  “Come on, I’ll walk you to the dock,” Atakan said.

  Charlotte joined the waiting group. This was the first shuttle of the day to the research ship. She didn’t see Nassor who should’ve been among them.

  “Have you seen Nassor?” Everyone shook their heads no.

  “I’ll see if he’s still in the men’s dorm,” Atakan said and went to check.

  He returned a minute later with Nassor in tow.

  “Sorry, I didn’t realize the time,” Nassor said as he moved next to Charlotte.

  “Don’t do it again. If you miss the shuttle and your dive, Refik will blow his stack,” Charlotte warned.

  Nassor gave her a quizzical look. It took a second for her to realize his confusion. “In other words, he’ll lose his temper. Trust me, th
at’s best avoided.”

  “I understand.”

  Atakan tugged Charlotte’s elbow and made a small jerking motion with his head, indicating he wanted to speak to her in private.

  They moved a few yards away, out of earshot.

  “What? The shuttle’s almost here.”

  “This guy’s an odd fish. Keep safe. Have a care down there.”

  “Odd duck, you mean.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Never mind. I won’t take any unnecessary risks, especially with someone I never dived with before.” What had Atakan seen Nassor doing in the dorm for him to warn her? “Why do you say he’s an odd fish?”

  “He acted strange. His nose was buried in a notebook when I entered. He looked startled to see me and snapped the book shut fast and shoved it into a duffle bag he keeps locked.”

  She didn’t see that as excessively strange. A bit maybe, but who knew what personal papers he was reading and sensitive to anyone else glimpsing.

  “They might’ve been letters from a girlfriend or something and he didn’t want you to see.”

  “In a notebook? No. He wasn’t reading love letters.”

  “Atakan, no offense, but a lot of people are uncomfortable when government agents are around.”

  “Just use extra caution.”

  “You watch yourself. I’m not the one who has someone trying to kill them.

  “I’ll remain diligent. Are you staying on the Suraya until you’re done with your second dive?”

  “No way. I’m coming straight back. I want to be here for Miz Valko’s arrival.”

  “You worry for nothing. I told you I hold no special feelings for her.”

  “Doesn’t mean she doesn’t hold them for you.” Probably wants to hold a lot more than feelings, Charlotte thought.

  Behind them a diesel engine chugged near and then sputtered to a stop.

  Atakan kissed her on the cheek and said, “Shuttles here.”

  Charlotte grabbed her small backpack with sun block and other personal items and stepped next to Nassor.

  “Excited?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he replied. He appeared anything but. Arms folded, he leaned against a support for the dock’s overhang, smoking.