The Explorer's Code

by Kitty Pilgrim

  Call me if you need me. Joel sends his love.

  Love, Susan

  Grand Bazaar, Kuşadasi, Turkey

  The market square in Kuşadas1 was filled with tourists perusing the wares. The cacophony of Turkish street vendors was an exotic touch. Rugs were everywhere, a kaleidoscope of colors hanging from shop doorways. The open-fronted stores led off into cavernous back rooms, where stacks of carpets were piled waist high.

  “Please, sir, come inside, sir.” Sinclair looked at the man, who was clearly the proprietor of the shop. He looked respectable and prosperous, with a gold pen in his jacket pocket. Sinclair stepped into the store, holding on to Cordelia’s arm.

  “Give us a moment to look,” Sinclair said. “We’ll let you know if we see something.”

  The man drifted away. A young boy came by, holding a round brass tray with two steaming cups of apple tea.

  “Compliments, sir, lady.” They accepted the beverages and lingered in the store, looking over the carpets.

  “We have a couple of minutes before we are supposed to meet Frost in that courtyard across the square,” Sinclair indicated, sipping his tea. “I want to keep my eye on the entrance before we walk in there.”

  “All right,” Cordelia answered. The pungent tea was restoring her. She had been feeling shaky all morning, worried about the scheduled meeting.

  “We will be fine,” he said. “It’s broad daylight. We are meeting in the middle of a public space. I called the federal authorities in the States this morning. Thaddeus Frost checked out. He’s legit.”

  She gave a tight smile.

  The proprietor was back with two young teenagers. They began flinging the rugs on the floor and shaking them open. The man extolled the fine quality of each carpet as it was unrolled. Cordelia and Sinclair watched the performance. Carpet after carpet was laid at their feet.

  “Pick one,” said Sinclair.

  “What?”

  “Pick one. It’s easier. I’ll buy it and we can get out of here.”

  “I don’t know which to pick.”

  “Pick any one. Pick the next one they roll out.”

  Cordelia pointed at a beautiful beige-and-persimmon prayer rug.

  “That one.”

  “Madam has excellent taste,” said the proprietor. “I can give it to you for the special price—discount, you understand, discount.”

  He was punching numbers on a calculator and held it up for them to see. “Ten thousand dollars.”

  “That was an expensive twenty minutes,” Cordelia said as they rushed across the square to the Garden Court.

  “Well, I managed to haggle him down, so it wasn’t that bad. Besides, I needed a rug for my place in Ephesus. Unless you want it?” he offered.

  “On a boat? A five-thousand-dollar rug? You must be joking.”

  They walked through an archway and into a courtyard. Coming from the din of the bazaar, the plaza was an oasis of calm. Café chairs and tables were placed in the shaded spot, for lunch service. Palm trees stood in large stone containers and a small fountain burbled, the sound of running water creating a relaxing atmosphere.

  The courtyard was empty at this time of the morning except for a tall, rangy man sitting at a table nursing a Turkish coffee. Extraordinarily striking, he had dark olive skin and blue black hair that was thick and tousled. He could have come from any part of the world. A perfectly cropped stubble hid his features. He was dressed in appalling taste, as if to conceal his stunning looks: baggy shorts and a mud-colored T-shirt. His Birkenstock sandals were an attempt to replicate the look of a classic expat.

  But something countered the visual impression of the awkward clothing. This was no corporate middle manager living abroad. He looked entirely too fit. The way he raised his arm as he consulted his watch was graceful and powerful. He looked at them expectantly.

  “Thaddeus Frost?” said Sinclair.

  “Yes,” the man replied. “Would you like to talk here, or shall we go somewhere more private?”

  Vlad and Anna surveyed the entrance of the courtyard from the vantage point of the Kuşadas1 Grand Bazaar.

  “Where are they going?”

  “Wait here, I am going to check something,” Anna said, darting into the carpet store.

  “Excuse me,” said Anna. “I am the personal assistant to Mr. Sinclair. I need to make sure his carpet is shipped to the correct residence.”

  The owner of the shop looked Anna up and down.

  “You are Mr. Sinclair’s personal assistant?”

  “Yes, I am, and he just instructed me to make sure this is delivered properly. I need to see the shipping information.”

  The owner of the shop showed the bill of sale to Anna.

  “He said he wanted it sent locally,” the shop owner said defensively. “He just told me that himself.”

  Anna’s eyes raked over the address.

  “Excellent. See that you ship it out as soon as possible.”

  “No cause for worry,” said the proprietor. “I have it written down.”

  “Thank you,” said Anna briskly. “Mr. Sinclair appreciates it very much.”

  She came out of the shop and pulled Vlad along the alleyway.

  “He sent his rug to an address in Ephesus. Give me a pencil and paper so I can write it down before I forget it.”

  Vlad searched the inside of his jacket breast pocket for a notebook and pen, and Anna jotted it down quickly.

  “Why would he buy a rug?” Anna mused.

  “I want to know who they are meeting. That’s a better question.” Vlad lit a JPS cigarette and blew the smoke out in irritation. “We need to keep them in sight. I can’t see a thing from here,” he complained.

  “The café over there will give us a clear line of sight to the entrance. We can wait there. Besides, I want a Turkish coffee.” Anna clacked her way across the plaza on her high-heeled sandals.

  Sinclair settled into an armchair and looked around the office of the Bodrum Import/Export Company. The room smelled of new carpet. Thaddeus Frost said he had borrowed the office from a firm he was associated with. At least that was the story.

  A ceiling fan whirred overhead and the rough plaster walls were newly whitewashed. Whoever put this office together had just done it. Everything looked new. There were beautiful kilims on the walls, carved wooden furniture, an antique brass lamp. The wooden shutters were open.

  Outside in the courtyard, children were kicking a soccer ball around, creating the sound of normalcy. The noise of their play relaxed him. Sinclair hadn’t realized how on edge he had been.

  “Sorry about the carpet fumes,” Frost said. “You know they’ve proved that the styrene-butadiene carpet adhesive can have toxic side effects. I kept the window open.”

  “It’s fine,” said Cordelia.

  “Cigarette?” Frost offered an ebony box.

  “No thanks,” said Sinclair.

  Frost took one for himself, lit it efficiently, and exhaled, blowing the smoke toward the window. His movements were controlled and deliberate. When he spoke he had a quiet voice, and beautiful manners, but underneath the polish he projected the clear impression he was a very tough guy—not someone to cross.

  “What can we do for you?” asked Sinclair.

  Frost barely looked at him; his attention was on Cordelia.

  “You undoubtedly got our e-mails,” Frost said.

  “Yes,” she answered.

  “We wanted to talk to you in person. This deed is of vital importance.”

  “Well,” interrupted Sinclair, “you are aware that Miss Stapleton has not committed to any course of action regarding the deed.”

  Frost looked sideways at Sinclair with some irritation.

  “We would like to convince Ms. Stapleton that the best policy is to keep the vault in neutral territory.” He turned back to Cordelia. “That is what I am here to do.”

  “I see,” she said.

  “Let me play devil’s advocate for a second,” said Sinclair, reachi
ng forward to pick up the carved lighter. “Why not give the deed back to Norway?” He flicked the lighter open and the flame sprang up, blue. He put the lighter back. He picked up a pencil and began to doodle on the legal pad on the desk.

  Frost’s nostrils flared in anger and his eyes hardened.

  “Norway, Russia, the United States, and Canada have been increasingly upping their stakes in the region. It’s a land grab at this point.” He turned to Cordelia again. “You must be aware that the Russians have claimed the pole.”

  “Yes,” said Cordelia. “I followed Alexandrov’s expedition.”

  She spoke firmly, but her body language relayed her nerves. Her shoulders were rounded and her hands were clutched together in her lap. Sinclair didn’t look at her, and kept drawing circles, then dissecting them into eight parts with lines. He listened, seemingly absorbed in his task.

  “You know the Russians are petitioning the United Nations for sovereignty of the pole. And that would involve control of the seabed,” continued Frost.

  “How can they do that?” Sinclair asked Cordelia.

  “A UN Convention says no country can claim jurisdiction over the North Pole. It’s an international site and the geological structure of the seabed doesn’t match the continental shelf of any of the surrounding countries,” she answered.

  “So how can they claim the pole?” he asked.

  “The Russians are making their claim based on Alexandrov’s expedition to the seabed. The UN has agreed to review it.”

  Frost cut in. “By international law every country controls resources under its coastal waters for up to two hundred miles offshore. The Russians are claiming another million square miles of the Arctic, saying the underwater ridges are a continuation of Russia’s continental shelf. They have made two expeditions to try to prove it: one to the Mendeleyev underwater chain in 2005 and another to the Lomonosov Ridge just recently.”

  “It’s about the minerals and other resources,” added Cordelia. “Natural gas, oil, tin, gold. When the ice cap melts, the seabed will become more accessible. In the next ten years this area may be all open water, and everyone will want the mining rights.”

  “Mining rights? In the Arctic?”

  “Yes,” said Cordelia. “Right now, commercial mining companies are trying to locate mineral deposits on the seafloor. It’s a potentially lucrative source of all kinds of rare minerals as well as oil and gas.”

  “Which brings us to the seed vault again,” said Frost, leaning back in his chair. “This property would be a foothold for Russia or Norway to claim more territory in the region.”

  “Forgive me, but if the seed vault was built by Norway, and Cordelia owns the land, it seems to me it’s a matter between Cordelia and the government of Norway,” pointed out Sinclair. He stopped doodling, his pencil poised as if to take notes on the answer.

  “We believe she should give it to the Bio-Diversity Trust,” said Frost. “That way it would be neutral.”

  “How neutral?” asked Cordelia.

  “Bio-Diversity Trust helps all countries prepare, package, and transport their seeds for storage. The vault has three separate areas, and each one can store a million and a half seeds. They are being kept in case of a world catastrophe—to maintain biodiversity if there is some cataclysmic event. We don’t take sides.”

  “Let’s stop the fiction, shall we?” said Sinclair. “Bio-Diversity Trust may be neutral, but you don’t really work for them. You work for the U.S. government.”

  Frost coolly blew smoke toward the window.

  “We believe it’s important to keep the vault politically neutral. As a scientist, I am sure you can understand that,” Frost said to Cordelia.

  Cordelia started to answer, but Sinclair cut her off.

  “We understand more than you think,” he said.

  “We especially feel it’s important to keep this property away from the Russians, because of their territorial ambitions in the region,” Frost explained to Cordelia, ignoring Sinclair’s outburst.

  “Other than their undersea expedition, how else could they claim the land?” asked Cordelia.

  “That is where the deed comes into it. If your deed is lost, they will file for sovereignty based on the claims of Russian miners who were there as early as 1890,” explained Frost.

  “So I have to produce the deed to prove the land belongs to me?” said Cordelia.

  “Yes. The original land records were destroyed in a fire in Oslo in 1954. So your deed is the document of record.”

  “And if I produce it that proves I own the land and can do with it what I want?” asked Cordelia.

  “Yes. And if you can’t produce it, Norway will reassert its sovereign right to the land under eminent domain. And the Russians would fight it in court,” added Frost.

  Sinclair realized Thaddeus Frost was talking as if he knew the deed was missing.

  “Anybody else in on this?” asked Sinclair.

  “Sure. You have the crazies,” said Frost. “There is a doomsday cult that thinks God will punish the world if it stockpiles seeds.”

  “You know about them?” asked Sinclair angrily. “Is that who threatened Cordelia?”

  “Of course we know about them.” Frost was acidly polite.

  “So the answer is, according to you, we just get the deed and give it to Uncle Sam,” Sinclair said flatly.

  “My advice is to give the deed to Bio-Diversity Trust,” said Frost emphatically, looking Cordelia in the eye. “But I am authorized to say certain U.S. government organizations would greatly appreciate it if you could see the issue from our point of view.”

  Sinclair threw his pencil down. He looked at Frost with open hostility. Cordelia tried to answer, but Sinclair cut her off.

  “The hell she will! I won’t have her pressured like this.” Sinclair’s voice echoed loudly in the sparse office.

  “Look!” Cordelia burst out furiously. “I’m not going to sit here while you treat me and my land like a bargaining chip! I’ll do what I want with my land, when I make up my mind.”

  There was tense silence. The sound of children playing filled the room. Sinclair took a deep breath and spoke more reasonably.

  “What assurances of safety can you give her?”

  Thaddeus Frost took another cigarette out of the ebony box and lit it, squinting his eyes against the smoke.

  “Assurance of safety?” he said thoughtfully. “Yes, I think it can be arranged.”

  Cordelia was walking rapidly across the street, ignoring traffic. Two cars swerved to avoid her, both blasting their horns. Sinclair stood on the curb, helpless, cut off by traffic, watching her run away from him. She had a good lead and kept going, toward the bazaar, her strides abrupt and angry. He watched her disappear down the crowded street, her dark hair flapping as she moved. Sinclair found an opening in the traffic and sprinted across.

  “Cordelia,” he shouted. “Wait. Stop!”

  He saw her turquoise shirt moving among the shoppers, weaving in and out of the tourists. Clusters of people blocked his way as they looked at the carpets and brass goods in the alleyway.

  “Cordelia!” Sinclair dodged like a soccer player. He finally caught up with her and grabbed her arm.

  “Wait,” he said. “What is wrong?”

  She turned, furious.

  “How dare you!”

  “How dare I what? What did I do?”

  “How dare you speak for me! I can handle my own affairs.”

  Sinclair stepped back, stunned.

  “I was trying to help,” he explained. “Cordelia, how can you think I was doing anything but acting in your best interest? I was protecting you!”

  “You were not. You were taking over.”

  “I wasn’t taking over,” Sinclair said. “I just wasn’t letting that guy bamboozle my girl. That’s all.”

  “Your girl?” she spat out, wrenching her arm away from him. “Your girl?”

  “OK, I’m sorry. That didn’t come out right.”
<
br />   “You’re damn right it didn’t!”

  “Cordelia,” he said in frustration, “one minute you want me to help, the next minute you are angry when I do.”

  She glowered and didn’t respond.

  “Let’s take a minute to calm down, shall we?” Sinclair pleaded. “Can we just get a coffee and talk? There is a café there, just beyond that square.”

  They walked across to the tables. She sat in icy silence as he ordered. Then she spoke.

  “I don’t want you to push people around on my account,” she said. “I have been taking care of my own business for a long time.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Sinclair. “You’re perfectly right.”

  “I understand what is going on here, I am not a child,” she fumed.

  “Of course,” he agreed.

  “Just because that guy in there thought he was being slick doesn’t mean I was buying it. You never let me open my mouth!”

  “That was wrong of me,” Sinclair admitted.

  “You kept cutting me off. Don’t do that, John, I am not going to stand for it!”

  “Understood, you are perfectly right,” Sinclair said.

  She sat there for a moment, her face set. She was still fuming, but then, inexplicably, her mouth cracked into a wobbly half smile.

  “Did you just say, ‘I’m sorry. You’re perfectly right’?” she asked.

  He nodded, puzzled.

  “Whoever trained you did a good job. Hats off to that woman.”

  He smiled back in relief.

  “I learned a long time ago, in certain circumstances it’s better to just shut up and agree.”

  Finally she smiled. They sat quietly for a moment while the waiter served the coffee in little china cups. When he left, Cordelia leaned forward, taking a sugar packet and tearing it open, but she didn’t pour it in. She held the sugar, suspended in thought. Sinclair stirred his coffee and let her think.

  “John,” she said after a few moments. “I’m sorry.”

  “I didn’t mean to come off as controlling back there,” he replied.

  “The truth of the matter is, I don’t know what to do,” she admitted.

  He reached for her arm to stop her.