The Mask of Troy jh-5

by David Gibbins

  They entered the chamber. It was the very last one before the tunnel disappeared underwater. Above the pool was a string of suspended light bulbs, trailed down on the cord they had followed from the upper chambers. On the left side three men sat kitted up in diving suits and SCUBA twin-sets, filled with the oxygen, helium and nitrogen mix tailored for their dive by Costas at IMU the night before. They had their hoods on, so Jack saw only three constricted faces, barely distinguishable from one another. He made out the red letters tattooed on the hands of one of the men: Chechnya. He remembered what had happened in the war in Chechnya, to the children, and he felt physically repulsed. These men, others like them, were holding Rebecca. There would be a price to pay. He stared at them, and then followed Costas a few steps to the right, where their own equipment was bagged and locked. Costas gave the bags a quick inspection, then unlocked them. They quickly pulled out their gear and silently kitted up. Jack stripped down to his underwear and T-shirt and pulled on his e-suit, turning to let Costas zip up the neck seal, then he did the same for Costas in return. They helped each other don the rebreathers and yellow Kevlar helmets, each with a sealable visor instead of the conventional face masks the other three men were using. They hooked in the intake and exhaust tubes to the base of the helmets and then sat down by the water’s edge, pulling on their fins and letting their legs dangle in the water. Jack looked into the green haze. He could barely see his legs. At least they had the 3-D navigation system, following the route Wladislaw had mapped in.

  He activated his rebreather and helmet computer system, testing the mouthpiece and cross-checking with Costas, then strapped on the wrist computer he always carried as a back-up. He still liked to see his dive time and depth on his wrist, as he had been trained to do before the advent of dive computers and all the technology they were using today. He glanced at the time. There was no way of knowing how long the dive would last. If they were going to a hundred metres’ depth, it would be twenty minutes, twenty-five maximum. The rebreather would minimize nitrogen intake and decompression problems, but they had no safety margin.

  Costas glanced at him, then put up his hand. ‘And now for the best part,’ he bellowed. ‘For the real men.’ He sat heavily by the water’s edge, then reached back ostentatiously to his bag, clanging together some glass bottles. He pulled one out, and held it up to the light. It was a half-bottle of vodka. ‘Ah,’ he exclaimed loudly, smacking his lips. ‘Krepkaya. The best.’ The three Russians watched in amazement as Costas knocked the cap off on a rock and put the bottle to his lips, gulping down half of it. He let out a long gasp, then passed the bottle to Jack, who put it to his lips, tasted it with relish, then drained it. He gasped, nodded appreciatively, then tossed the bottle into the pool, before turning back and checking his equipment. The Russian with the tattoo got up and took a few steps over to them, lumbering in all his gear. He pushed Costas’ shoulder roughly. ‘So,’ he said, his English guttural and heavily accented. ‘A little drink for the nerves, no?’ He jerked his head towards the pool, then turned back to the other two Russians, smirking. ‘A little too much fear, eh?’

  Costas stopped adjusting his helmet and slowly gazed up at the man, a look of utter contempt on his face. He suddenly erupted in laughter, and turned to Jack, barely able to control his mirth. ‘This moron thinks we’re afraid of that little puddle.’ Jack shook his head, snorting in derision. Costas turned back to the man. ‘You idiot. We always drink alcohol before a deep dive. It dilates the blood vessels. Stops us getting the bends. Learned it from the old French navy divers. Really tough guys. They’d break a Spetsnaz like a matchstick.’

  The man leaned heavily over and took Costas’ chin in his hand, twisting it. ‘I’ll fucking break you before today is over.’

  Costas pushed him away. ‘So that’s what your boss ordered? At least we know where we stand.’

  The man reached back to Costas’ bag, where two more bottles were visible. Costas shot out his arm and put it over them. ‘Only one bottle for the three of you. Dr Howard and I are used to it. It’s extra proof Krepkaya. You won’t have the stomach for it.’

  ‘Fuck you. We’re Russian.’ The man pushed Costas’ arm aside, and yanked out the two bottles. He broke open the lids with his teeth, first one, then the other, and passed one to the nearest of the other two men. Then he tipped up the other bottle himself, drinking deeply. As he wiped his lips, gasping, Costas spat on the rocks beside him. ‘Hey. Chechnya. Don’t drink too much. I don’t want to swim in your vomit.’ The man snarled at Costas, then tipped up the bottle again, nearly draining it. He gasped, then passed the remainder to the second man, who finished it, then did the same with the bottle from the other man. The air stank of alcohol. The Russians donned their face masks and put in their regulators, then followed the tattooed man into the pool, staggering and slipping on the salt. Costas shouted at them, ‘Test your regulators. Go under the surface for three minutes.’

  They all disappeared under the surface, leaving only a maelstrom of bubbles. Wladislaw came up quickly and knelt down between Jack and Costas, whispering urgently. ‘What the hell was that all about? Sure alcohol dilates the blood vessels, but it also dehydrates. That causes the bends. What were you doing?’

  Costas peered at him. ‘What we were doing, Jack and I, was keeping hydrated.’

  Wladislaw knitted his brows. He suddenly understood. ‘You mean your bottle was water.’

  Costas nodded. Wladislaw stared at him. He stared at the bubbles. ‘So who the hell are these guys? What’s going on here?’

  Jack turned to him, speaking low, quickly. ‘We didn’t want to tell you. In case they realized that you knew. Your life would be in danger.’

  ‘Knew what?’

  Jack clicked on his visor monitor and paused. He saw that Costas was ready. He made the ‘okay’ sign, and Costas repeated it. Jack kept his visor open and turned to Wladislaw. ‘Do you have children?’

  ‘Three.’

  ‘My daughter’s been kidnapped. Whoever’s running these three guys is extorting us. There’s something down there they want.’

  ‘ Your daughter. My God.’ Wladislow looked stunned. He spoke in a whisper. ‘So this has all been a set-up? It wasn’t IMU who contacted us after all. You’re not searching for Neolithic remains.’

  ‘Not this time.’

  ‘This has something to do with the Nazis.’

  Jack nodded.

  ‘I knew it,’ Wladislaw exclaimed. ‘ I knew it. From what the old Jewish survivor told me, I knew something sinister had gone on down here.’

  Jack spoke urgently. ‘I was given instructions by phone yesterday after my daughter was abducted. They’re using us to find a hidden Nazi treasure because they think it’s down at the very base of the fissure, more than a hundred metres below water level. We’re expert divers and know how to find treasure. They got hold of some old Nazi document. Their leader, the one with the Chechnya tattoo, knows the details. We’re supposed to follow him, and he’ll point the way. Costas thinks he knows where it is already, from his talk with the man earlier and from your plan of the mine he’s programmed into our helmet computers, which shows only one possible route beyond this pool. Then they stay at the maximum safe depth for their breathing gear, and wait. We find what they want, then they dispose of us on the way back up.’

  The head of a diver bobbed up on the surface, breathing noisily from a regulator, staring at them. Costas shut his visor and gave the thumbs-down sign, moving to the edge of the water and pushing off. The diver who had surfaced descended beside him. Wladislaw turned to Jack, helping him with his helmet. ‘Quickly. Tell me anything I can do. I’ve got a pistol in my office.’

  ‘Too late for that.’

  ‘Do you have any weapons?’

  ‘Costas has tools for bomb disposal. He thinks that whatever’s down there might have been booby-trapped by the Nazis.’

  Wladislaw nodded. ‘The Nazis did that when they concealed stolen treasures, works of art.’ He paused. �
�Is that what this is all about?’

  ‘I’ll tell you. When we surface. Here’s what I want you to do now. Take my phone. It’s in my fleece pocket. Don’t answer it if anyone rings. But there’s a text message ready to send to our security chief. It says Das Agamemnon-Code. It means we’ve gone under, and everything is as planned. Go back to the surface, send it, then leave this place immediately. Don’t call the police. Go home, collect your family and take them away somewhere safe, somewhere far away. Don’t tell anyone where you’re going. A sudden little holiday while the mine is shut. Then call IMU. They’ll look after you. Use your own phone, not mine. Leave mine on your desk, where I can find it. It’s my only contact with the kidnapper. If we escape this he’ll know about it, and I’ll need to speak to him.’

  Wladislaw put his hand on Jack’s shoulder. ‘Understood.’ He paused. ‘Your daughter.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘What’s her name?’

  ‘It’s…’ Jack swallowed hard. The enormity of it suddenly hit him. What were they doing to her, right now, at this very moment? His voice was hoarse, a whisper. ‘It’s Rebecca.’

  ‘Rebecca.’ Wladislaw knelt up. ‘Good. For Rebecca. You can rely on me.’

  Jack reached up and squeezed Wladislaw’s hand, then flipped down his visor, sealed it and clicked on the intercom. He heard Costas’ breathing, a measured, reassuring sound. ‘Costas. You read me?’

  ‘Loud and clear. You okay?’

  ‘Roger that.’ He slipped into the water, feeling the pressure against his e-suit, his cocoon against the water. He made himself remember how much he enjoyed that sensation, how relaxed it made him feel, the beginning of a dive. He took a few deep breaths from his rebreather, and glanced at the readout inside his visor. Everything was good. He just had to stay in control. To forget about the tunnel, the walls. To stem his anger, his terrible fear for Rebecca, to let the adrenalin work for him, not against him. He would pay back those who had done this. He would relish it. But not yet. He took another deep breath, and clicked on the screen display inside his helmet, showing a 3-D lattice map of the labyrinth ahead of them, their route marked out in red. He dropped below the surface, watching the green water rise up his visor, seeing Costas’ face in front of him. The forms of the other three divers were visible in the gloom beyond, the beams from their headlamps wavering in the water. He switched on his own headlamp, keeping it angled down to avoid it shining directly in Costas’ eyes. Costas put out his right hand and turned his thumb down. ‘Good to go?’

  ‘Good to go.’

  18

  Troy, 18 March 1890

  H einrich Schliemann embraced his wife and left her standing on the grassy knoll at the highest point of the ancient citadel, staring out across the plain of Troy towards the distant waters of the Dardanelles. He took out his fob watch, scratched and battered after almost twenty years of excavating, in Greece, in Egypt, in Italy, here within the walls of fabled Troy, relentlessly searching. He slid it back into his waistcoat pocket. A quarter to seven. It was almost time . The delegates to the conference would be gone by now, departed for Canakkale and Constantinople and their home countries, and the archaeological site would be barred to all comers except the three he had specially invited to join him this evening.

  His pulse quickened, and he took a deep breath. The terrible pain in his head, the sickening earache that had assailed him for months now, the ringing that had tormented him day and night like a thousand mosquitoes swarming round his head, all of that seemed to disappear the moment he stepped back into the citadel. Nobody knew whether it was real or imagined, none of the physicians he had consulted, whether the product of a fevered imagination or some dormant affliction he had released from an ancient tomb. All he knew was that the ache had begun when he knew the time was right to return to Troy, to bring back what he and Sophia had found that night in the royal grave at Mycenae, to return it to the vault of its founders where it might once again serve as a bulwark for the world against darkness and evil war.

  He took a few steps along the rickety plank that served as a walkway over the open excavation, then glanced back towards the knoll. It was the last place on the upper citadel left to excavate, beside the great trench they had cleaved through the mound of Troy twenty years before. He had felt close to Homer on that knoll, closer than anywhere else at Troy. It would be the site of their final excavation, once the great task that lay ahead of them was finished, the excavation of the passageway that would now begin in earnest beneath the citadel. One day he would sit where Sophia was now standing, where he believed there was an excavated room of the great palace: a place where Priam might once have sat and looked out over the walls, where marauding Agamemnon had found him. Like Priam, he would not see the ravages of war but instead would soak in the bounteous richness of the land; not hear the battle cries and shrieks, but instead hear soft music of the lyre, soothing his ears, lulling him into a paradise where Troy was the city of heaven, a city of joy and love, and not a crucible of war.

  ‘Heinrich,’ Sophia whispered after him in Greek, her voice like sweet music on the wind. ‘You must go now. Do you remember what you said at Mycenae, when we lifted the mask? For the sake of our children .’

  Schliemann looked up at her, and smiled. ‘For all the children.’ He blew her a kiss. As she turned away, the gold that bedecked her shimmered, gold they had found here that night in the darkness seventeen years before, digging secretly at the bottom of the great trench. He turned and carried on along the walkway, passing that very spot, peering down. He had told the world they had found the treasure of Priam, but in truth he knew it was a thousand years too old, the treasure of a nameless ancient king who had ruled Troy when the citadel was still young, when bronze was still a modern marvel. He had wanted to divert attention from the truth, from the discovery they would reveal once all the pieces were in place. He remembered the other citadel where he and Sophia had dug secretly, when he had lifted the golden mask of the great king. Now he felt as if he were about to lift a mask off Troy itself. He felt the bulge beneath his coat, where Sophia had swathed the object in silk inside his satchel bag. He felt a rush of excitement, yet a tinge of apprehension. What if it were all to no avail? He thought of those he was about to meet. All that he had done, all that he had found, everything he had put his soul and his energy into, all of that was at stake. This was the most important day of his life. There was no turning back now.

  He heard a rustle in the grass, and saw the silhouette of a man scurry up the slope of the trench and disappear over the top. It was Kemal, the site foreman, who had first shown Schliemann this place as a boy, whose ancestors had known Troy since time immemorial, descendants of Prince Hector himself. He could never tell Kemal to leave this place, nor did he wish to. Kemal was continuity, the future. And that was what this evening was about. The future. The future of the human race.

  Schliemann turned east over the trench, then came down on the path that led around the citadel, from the excavation house towards the entrance to the secret passageway. Sophia had left little candles in tin holders to mark the way, and they flickered in the breeze. Around the corner another man came into view. He was large, wearing a fur-lined overcoat and a trilby hat, carrying a walking stick and one of the lanterns that had been left at the entrance to the site. He stopped and raised the lantern, peering. Schliemann saw the features that had cowed so many, the heavyset face, the bags beneath the eyes, the hint of a scowl, but he also saw in those eyes what those close to the great man knew, the humour, the thirst for knowledge, the humanity. ‘Ah,’ the man said gruffly, moving closer. ‘Herr Doktor Schliemann.’ He spoke in German. ‘I was wondering where you were.’

  Schliemann’s heart raced. He replied in German also, holding out his hand. ‘Your Excellency. I trust you had a felicitous journey.’

  ‘Felicitous!’ the man grumbled. ‘Fortunately, the King of Greece lent me his yacht. The Ottomans would not let an Imperial German warship into the Dardanelles. I
ask you. There will be a war, you know, and the Turks need an ally, what with the Russians on one side, and Gladstone and the English baying for their blood on the other. That infernal man. I hope I never meet him in person. I would not answer for the consequences.’

  ‘Ah,’ Schliemann said.

  ‘What do you mean, “Ah”? And what’s the meaning of all this subterfuge? For years I’ve been asking you for a tour of Troy. Now I’m here, and it’s too dark even to see it.’

  ‘My dear Otto.’ Schliemann took the man by the shoulder, and steered him on the path between the little candles. ‘We were both awarded freedmen of the city of Berlin, yes? We are a rare breed. A secret society. And like all secret societies, we must have our little rituals, our indulgences.’

  ‘Freedman of the city, yes, but I failed to convince those swine to make you a member of the Berlin Academy,’ the man muttered. ‘After all you’ve done for Germany. Donating your greatest finds to the Reichsmuseum. Even the unmentionable Gladstone had you made an honorary Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London, and all you gave them was a few miserable pots.’

  Schliemann smiled. ‘My dear old friend. If I were the type of man on whom academic honours were showered, I would not be the type of man who would have found Troy. And I already have the greatest prize a man could ever ask for.’

  The man stopped. ‘Where is she? Your queen? I wish to kneel before her and kiss her hand.’

  ‘Sophia and the children await you with pleasure. The children remember your skill in woodwork, and I have promised them you will build them a model of the Trojan Horse. But that must wait. Now, we have momentous matters to discuss. And others to meet. Others who may surprise you. Others with whom I fervently hope you will find a common cause, a cause that surpasses all the affairs of state at which you have so excelled. A cause that is greater than any in the history of mankind.’