by Alex Archer
“How did he know about the yacht?” Goraksh asked. “If we’d have been seen, the police would have arrested us.” The mere thought of that turned his spine to ice.
“I don’t know. It doesn’t matter.”
“How can it not matter? They’re closing in on us.”
Rajiv gestured at the chairs in front of his desk. “Sit. We’re not going to stay here,” Rajiv said. “We can walk away from this warehouse at any time and start up business somewhere else. As long as we’re near the ocean, I can stay in business.” He stubbed out his cigarette. “Besides, most of our money isn’t made through this warehouse. Like our ancestors before us, we take our bounty from the sea.”
Knowing his father referred to piracy didn’t make Goraksh feel any better. Pirates, when caught, were often given the death penalty.
“You said this man’s name was Fleet?” Rajiv asked.
Goraksh nodded.
“Do you know where he’s staying?”
“No. I only encountered him minutes ago.”
Rajiv sighed. “Perhaps you could have asked him.”
That had to have been a joke. Goraksh was certain of that, but his father never smiled.
“The time may have come to leave this place anyway,” Rajiv said.
Goraksh tried not to think of his college or the fact that he was being told he would have to give up his life. He wanted to argue the point, but he knew his father wouldn’t let him win.
“It appears the woman archaeologist, Annja Creed, might have truly found a shipwreck out there,” Rajiv said.
Mention of the woman’s name reminded Goraksh of the men he’d sent after Annja Creed’s computer. The failure of the men had surprised him. Seeing the shape they’d been in and hearing about the sword she’d used had shocked Goraksh even further.
“If she’s found the ship I think she’s found, we’re going to have to take it from her,” Rajiv said.
Disbelief rattled Goraksh. “You—we—are being watched. How can you even think about something like that?”
“Because that ship holds the secret to the remnants of Kumari Kandam.”
It took Goraksh a moment to realize what his father had said. Even then he couldn’t believe he’d heard him right.
“Kumari Kandam? The Sunken City?” Goraksh shook his head. “That’s a myth.”
“It has become a myth,” Rajiv said. “But once Kumari Kandam was real. And somewhere it still exists. That ship may hold the secret to where it is. If they find what I think they will find, we’re going to have to relieve them of that treasure.”
“How are you going to know what they find?”
Rajiv smiled. “Because I have a man among their crew. I wasn’t counting on those idiots you sent after the woman. If they had succeeded, perhaps we might have learned something, but we wouldn’t have learned everything.”
25
Annja swam through the deep water.
She took several pictures of the sailcloth, the skeleton and the necklace. Two other divers had joined Paresh in the search. All of them had experience in working archaeological dives.
While swimming close to the sea floor, they waved their hands and stirred up the loose silt. The effort removed the loose debris and revealed what lay beneath.
No one tried to remove the artifacts they’d found. That would be the final step after they were certain they’d learned everything they could from the site.
However, the site integrity had already been fouled by the tsunami. Annja’s real concern was that they didn’t miss anything.
The divers swam in a pattern much like the Casablanca Moon sailed. Two divers swam east-west routes while the other two swam north-south.
By the time Annja brought the search to an end, they’d found two more objects covered in concretion. One of them was probably a cannonball, judging from the shape, but there wasn’t any way to tell for certain. Another was an amphora. The container was likely used to transport myrrh, oil, wine, olives or grain.
They attached lifting bags from the equipment chest they’d brought down to the objects they wanted to take up to the surface. A blast of air to displace the water inside the lifting bag insured that it would carry to the top where the men in the support boat would reel them in.
Annja took the necklace, seven gold coins of different sizes and a ring they’d found. She dropped them into another bag and tied it onto her belt.
Paresh and one of the other divers bagged the loose bones of the skeleton in a net. Then the lifting bag drifted up with its ghoulish collection. The skull rolled loosely at the bottom of the bag as the shifting water currents moved it.
“I THINK THE JEWELRY is Roman,” Lochata announced.
Annja stood under the awning on the Casablanca Moon’s main deck. Lanterns powered by the boat’s diesel engines threw light over the skeletal remains she’d assembled on the folding conference table. She took video of the bones from head to toe.
Most of the crew sat around them while the boat rocked at anchor. The dark sea spread out in all directions.
“Why do you think it’s Roman?” Annja asked.
“Because it fits with what we know of the area and the techniques in use at the time,” Lochata answered. “And due to the style of jewelry that’s been found. Although I’m no expert, I’ve cataloged a lot of the finds.” She held up the ring. “I believe this profile is Athena’s.”
“Athena would make it Greek.” Annja turned and smiled at Lochata.
“Minerva, then.” Lochata put her hands on her hips and stretched her back. “I think I’m more tired than I’d believed possible.”
Annja knew Athena was the Greek goddess of wisdom. The Romans had renamed her Minerva.
“The style fits with what we’ve seen of ancient Roman jewelry,” Lochata continued. “It’s formed from a hollow hoop that flares out into an oval bezel containing the intaglio of Minerva.”
“I’d noticed that.” Annja joined the professor and picked up the ring. She ran her fingertip over the intaglio and felt the depression where it had been carefully excised.
“Forgive me, ladies,” Shafiq interrupted, “but I’m new at this. What’s an intaglio?”
Annja took the ring over to the captain. “Do you have a coin?”
Shafiq produced one.
“Usually jewelry, and other decorations, has an intaglio or cameo styling,” Annja said. “A cameo is left when everything else is cut away or an object is deliberately pressed to leave an area higher than the rest of that object. Like a coin.” She pointed to the profile that rose from the coin. “This is a cameo.” She handed the coin back to him, then handed him the ring.
“The depression in the center of the gemstone?” Shafiq asked. “That’s the intaglio?”
“Yes.” Annja saw the interest in the man’s dark eyes. “The designer cuts the image out of whatever the material is he—or she—is using.”
“What’s something like this worth?” Shafiq asked.
Annja looked at the captain and wondered what had prompted the question. The crew was all ears.
“A few hundred dollars at most,” Annja answered. “Unless you can find a collector willing to pay more.”
“And that’s hard to do,” Shafiq said.
Annja nodded. “Especially since I’ve sent images of these pieces to the ASI. If they are stolen, the ASI can make a case to get them back.”
“So it’s not worth a man’s time to steal it and risk serious consequences,” the captain said.
Understanding dawned within Annja then. The information wasn’t for the captain—it was for the crew. She restrained an appreciative grin.
“Exactly,” she replied.
Shafiq dropped the ring back into her waiting palm. “Too bad. You’d think we could all be millionaires from something like this.”
“Only in the movies, I’m afraid. This is just a dead man’s ring. Worth more for historical value than for intrinsic value,” Annja said.
“I’D
PUT THE RING at third or fourth century,” Lochata said, “but the necklace, the pendant at least, is older.”
Annja held up the gold-and-glass pendant. The blue glass bead was teardrop-shaped and held fracture lines that caused it to glint in the light. The double-grooved suspension loop was soldered to the horizontal base plate.
“How much older?” Annja asked.
“Probably first century B.C., maybe a little older. I also think it was a piece of something else. Pendants like this are usually used when terminating necklaces or bracelets. This looks like someone broke up a set and pieced them out to family, friends or business acquaintances. Do you see the intaglio on the side of the bead?”
Annja hadn’t until the professor had pointed it out. The carved glass showed a centaur wielding a sword.
Carefully, Annja put the glass bead pendant onto a square of soft blue velvet and wrapped it before giving it to Lochata. She did the same with the ring.
“The skeleton is male.” Annja led the way over to the bones lying on the conference table.
A few of the sailors hadn’t been happy about having the remains on the boat. They’d felt the dead man would bring bad luck. Sailors and superstitions, Annja had found, generally went together like waffles and syrup.
Annja had been able to determine the skeleton’s gender primarily from the hips, but there were other indicators.
“He probably stood only a few inches over five feet,” Annja said. “Judging from the fact that all of his teeth are here, he was probably in his early twenties when he died. Maybe only his teens. The xiphoid process has calcified with the rest of the bones.”
The xiphoid process, the last few inches of the sternum, was one of the last bones that hardened in the human body. Forensic anthropologists often used any present flexibility as an indicator of age.
Lochata touched the skull. “I’d hate to think some mother waited in vain for her young son to come home.” Her voice sounded sad.
Annja felt the same way. It was one thing to study bodies that turned up on a dig as indicators of time or situation, but remembering that they’d once been people could be an emotional experience.
“However old he was, he’d had some experience fighting.” Annja took her flashlight from her pocket and played it over the skeleton’s left arm.
The strong beam brought three score marks into view along his forearm.
“Those are scars from a knife or a sword,” Lochata said.
“That’s what I’d guess. When I was working Hadrian’s Wall in England, we studied skeletons and bones that had been recovered from the battlegrounds. There were a lot of wounds like this,” Annja said.
“Swords and knives often got past the small bucklers they carried.”
“Those are hard to use.”
“You’ve fought with a sword and buckler?” Lochata looked up at Annja in surprise.
“I’ve done all kinds of weapons training. I’ve fought with blades and even jousted.”
“From horseback?” Lochata asked.
“There’s no other way to do it.” Despite her fatigue, Annja couldn’t help grinning at the professor’s amazement. “Our unknown sailor suffered other damage, as well.” She moved the flashlight down to his left thigh bone.
Metal gleamed under the flashlight’s beam.
“What’s that?” Lochata moved her eyeglasses forward to use one of the lenses as a magnifying glass.
“Unless I miss my guess, that’s an arrowhead,” Annja said.
“Iron would have rusted away.”
“Iron would have rusted away,” Annja agreed. “We’ll have to take samples to know for sure, but I think it’s flint.”
“Flint?” Lochata looked at her. “Judging from this wound and the scarring on the arm, our young sailor was at one time a soldier.”
“That would be my guess.”
“The Romans used metal arrowheads.” Lochata rubbed at the gleaming material in the thighbone. “This came from action outside Rome. Perhaps North Africa.” She sighed. “I wish there was some way we could talk to the people we find. The stories they could tell would be amazing.”
“I know,” Annja agreed.
“Can you imagine living so many years ago?”
“I can imagine it,” Annja said.
“But to be able to experience it. Wouldn’t that be something?”
“It would,” Annja agreed, and she thought about the hundreds of years of history Roux and Garin had locked up in their minds that she couldn’t get to. She pushed that thought away. There was another story here. She could learn about it.
“With no other apparent injuries done to him,” Lochata said, “I’d say he went down with whatever vessel he was on and drowned.”
Annja nodded. A chill ghosted across her shoulder blades and neck. She’d seen drowning victims. It was a horrible way to die.
SHARP RAPPING on the door woke Annja. She blinked against the harsh sunlight slanting through the window beside her hammock and knew immediately that she’d slept longer than she’d intended.
“Who is it?” Annja asked.
“It’s Talat, Miss Creed,” the young man’s voice said. He was Shafiq’s quartermaster. “Miss Rai—”
“Professor Rai,” Annja corrected automatically.
“She wants you to come quickly,” Talat said. “She says they have found the ship.”
26
Excitement filled Annja as she stepped up onto the deck. She ran her fingers through her hair and pulled it back into a ponytail.
It was later in the morning than she’d thought. The sun was well up and heated air whirled in from the sea. She checked the surrounding water out of habit, expecting their good fortune to have drawn predators.
Lochata sat hunkered over the side-scan sonar terminal. The crew stood in a knot around the professor and tried to peer over her shoulder.
There was nothing above water to indicate a ship below. The dhow sat at anchor, turned into the wind so she was streamlined.
Shafiq stood nearby with his arms crossed over his chest. His eyes met Annja’s and he nodded. A smile stole onto his face.
The crew separated at Annja’s approach. When she stood at Lochata’s back, she peered at the terminal.
Revealed in ghostly gray and white, the ship’s body lay on the sea floor. It had broken into two pieces, either when it went down or when the tsunami had heaved it back to the surface.
“Can you tell what it is?” Annja asked.
Lochata looked over her shoulder, smiled in triumph and shook her head. “No. Not yet. The image is too ill-defined. But you were right about the ship being there, Annja.”
“We were lucky,” Annja replied. “It could just as easily have not been there.”
“But it is.”
“How far down is it?”
“One hundred feet,” Lochata answered.
Some of the dread in Annja’s stomach unknotted at that. The depth was within reach of regular diving equipment without having to worry about decompression problems.
“I’d thought it would be out of range.” Annja peered at the faraway coastline.
“According to the charts I have,” Shafiq said, “the sea floor is generally twenty feet farther down in this part of the ocean.”
“Twenty more feet would put us in a totally different place to do this,” Annja said.
“I know,” Shafiq replied. “Then you’re getting into the realm of commercial diving, and the men you have here aren’t trained for that.”
“I am,” Paresh replied. His eyes remained fixed on the screen.
“Not to mention the fact that we’d need different equipment,” Annja said. “But this is doable.”
DESPITE THE IMPATIENCE that twisted and turned inside her, Annja delayed her dive until the water eductor was deployed from the Casablanca Moon’s stern. The eductor would help her find more than she could on her own.
Paresh, however, wasn’t so easily curbed. He paced the dhow’s deck and cursed
lividly. Everyone ignored him until Shafiq ordered him to help out or shut up.
Also called a water dredge, the eductor was a long metal tube that was used—in effect—like a vacuum hose. Once the seawater started cycling from one end to the other, the flow would continue.
Once it was in place and functioning satisfactorily, Annja suited up with a rebreather and flipped over the dhow’s side. The four other divers joined her. In seconds, they were all swimming along the water eductor tube.
The ship took form as a dark shape in the water. It mimicked the sight that had been revealed on the side-sonar terminal.
The sea’s salinity had turned the wooden ship black, but it was better preserved than Annja had thought it would be after all the centuries it had remained trapped on the sea floor.
Annja struggled to keep her breathing normal. If she got too excited, she’d burn through her oxygen even with the reclamation and scrubbing properties of the rebreather.
The ship looked like a Roman trade ship. She had a flat deck with a small stern castle and an artemon, a small raking mast at the ship’s prow. It had been designed to sail with a beam wind and increase maneuverability. The mainmast had snapped off and only a broken stump remained.
Besides being broken in two, the front piece of the ship was upside down at a three-quarter turn. The stern, all but shattered, sat scattered in a mostly upright position.
Look at it, Annja thought to herself. I found it. I found a shipwreck.
She’d seen pictures and video of several of them over the years, but she’d only been able to guess at what finding something like that might be like.
Her imagination hadn’t even been close.
With the shark stick in hand, Annja swam alongside the shipwreck just to get the feel of it. She guessed that it was something over ninety feet long and had a twenty-five-foot beam. Accurate measurements would be hard given the destruction the vessel had suffered.
What did you carry? Annja wondered. From what she’d studied, she knew that the Romans generally brought precious metals to India, gold and silver, to trade for textiles, gemstones, glassware and herbs. For a time, the Indo-Roman trade had been a flourishing business. Then, around 200 B.C., the Roman side of the trade had lapsed, leaving industrious Indian merchants to carry on.