by Alex Archer
“Aye. I’d been told he was setting sail,” Rohan said.
“You’ve got men watching him, too?”
Rohan grinned. “Captain Mahendra likes to keep apprised of situations he’s involved with.”
Fleet started to object. He wanted to point out that he was heading up the stakeout team and that unnecessary duplication of effort resulted in increased probability of being seen.
But he hadn’t seen anyone else watching Rajiv. At this point there was no foul. Besides that, he understood the captain’s desire to keep abreast of things. Fleet had handled things the same way when he could.
“We’ve got a sat link on Rajiv’s ship?” Fleet asked.
“Aye. Our comm is locked in.” Rohan gestured toward the forward hatch. “Captain Mahendra retired early so he could be rested for the voyage.”
“Smart man, your captain.”
“Aye, sir. He’s also assigned you a berth in officers’ quarters.”
“I’ll have to thank him. A ship this size, space is at a premium.”
“Aye. It is. But it won’t be any hardship. When we put out to sea, we’ll be busy.”
Fleet felt the ship sliding sideways through the water and gently bumping up against the pier. He’d missed that feeling. For so many years that sensation of being suspended had been a part of his everyday life. His sea legs had come naturally. They still did. Once he stepped onto a boat or a ship, it always felt as if he’d been freed from shackles.
“I’ll show you the way to your berth.” Rohan started off.
Fleet followed.
“Do you know why Rajiv Shivaji is setting sail? Has the archaeology crew found something?” Rohan asked.
“I’ve received word the archaeology team made visual confirmation on a Roman galley.” Fleet had been in touch with one of the men in Captain Shafiq’s crew. That had been a bonus, but it also implied that Rajiv could just as easily have managed the same arrangement.
Rohan nodded as he walked down the narrow, lighted hallway belowdecks. “I admit I have some reservations about leaving those people out there when we know Shivaji is so interested in them.”
“What do you think we should do?” Fleet asked.
“Protect them.”
“India’s coast guard and navy are shorthanded as it is,” Fleet pointed out. “Putting a guard over a civilian ship is a waste of manpower.”
“Isn’t that what we’re doing anyway?”
“We’re setting a trap,” Fleet said. “We don’t know for certain that Rajiv will even be interested in those people.”
“But the odds are that he will.”
“Aye.”
“Those people could still get hurt.” Rohan pulled open the door to the berth.
“Making sure they don’t will make us heroes.” Fleet grinned a little, not really feeling the bravado he was talking up. He still remembered the faces of the victims Rajiv and his pirates had left behind.
“And if we can’t prevent that?”
“We’ll be late. And properly regretful.”
“Then let us hope we’ll be heroes,” Rohan said.
“I will.”
The young lieutenant paused for a moment. “Captain Mahendra wanted to make sure you were armed.”
“I am.” Fleet’s pistol and assault rifle were in the duffel bag.
“Do you want to be topside when we set sail?”
Fleet tossed his duffel onto the narrow bed. “I would.”
“Then I’ll send for you. We’ll leave within the hour.” Rohan excused himself and departed.
Fleet emptied his bag automatically and stored his clothing in the cubbies. He left the HK 53 assault rifle and SIG-Sauer P-226 pistol on the bed.
As he sat on the bed, he took out his gun kit and began cleaning both weapons. Like his sea legs, taking care of his tools was second nature.
But he couldn’t help thinking how helpless those people on the archaeology ship would be when Rajiv made his move.
He hardened himself to the fear that vibrated inside him. Being late to rescue them wasn’t an option.
THE SECOND DAY of the site recovery went much more smoothly. Annja was glad Paresh and the other divers had fallen into the rhythm once they’d realized they were going to find something. But the real trick was to find it all.
Annja understood their anxiety. She still struggled with it herself. The hardest part of any excavation was proceeding at an appropriate pace. So many things had to be done first. Success wasn’t measured just by how many artifacts were uncovered. Equally important were how they’d been found and where they’d been found.
Grids had to be laid to mark the area into searchable, organized quadrants. Videotape had to be shot. Pictures had to be taken. Drawings still had to be made. And all of it had to be documented with written reports.
Normally when a ship went down, it scattered and broke apart. If it hit a reef and tore the bottom out, it sometimes took quite a while before the ship took on enough water to go completely under. During that time the frantic crew could take steps that would allow them to sail on for quite some distance. Cargo, all of it important from a historical sense, could end up scattered for miles.
Annja knew those were challenging maritime archaeology excavations. Sea currents became a major factor in where things eventually ended up.
The Roman trader had gone almost straight to the bottom and been buried until the tsunami brought it forth again. As Annja swam over the top of the ship, she got a chill just thinking about what the last few minutes aboard the ship had been like.
“I THINK I KNOW what took the ship down.”
After taking a bite of her cucumber sandwich made Indian-fashion with slices of boiled potato and seasoned with mango chutney, Annja looked up at Lochata. They sat on the Casablanca Moon under the tarp.
Annja and the other divers had been underwater for hours. Shafiq had insisted on regulated rest periods. Annja had only put up token resistance. During her rest she busied herself with her journal, notes and inspection of the artifacts.
And she ate.
“According to the history I’ve looked up regarding this area,” Lochata said, “there was a tsunami around 500 B.C. that wiped out much of Kaveripattinam.”
“I don’t recognize the name,” Annja said.
“It’s now called Poompuhar,” Lochata said.
Annja recalled that name. Poompuhar wasn’t far from where they were now. It was almost equidistant from Kanyakumari.
“I called a friend of mine who teaches there,” Lochata said. “He researched the tsunami records and found that a tsunami struck the coast in 500 B.C.”
“That fits with the time frame we’ve been able to establish with the coins,” Annja said. “But tsunamis don’t usually take down ships. The wave displacement out at sea is gentle to ships. Rogue waves are the problems out in deep water.”
“I know. But it also depends on the cause of the tsunami. In addition to volcanoes and underwater earthquakes, there are also ruptures in the earth that produce giant gas bubbles. The ship down there could have had the great misfortune to be sitting directly atop such a venting.”
Annja thought about that. “The ship is broken in two.”
“A violent heave, if strong enough, could have produced that result in an overburdened ship past its prime. You could have gotten such a heave from an erupting gas bubble.”
Annja considered that thought while she chewed on her sandwich. It was possible, even if highly improbable.
“It’s also possible that ship was hit by another vessel—a larger vessel—during the tsunami,” Lochata said. “But we have to consider the tsunami was the most likely natural event that occurred that could bring it down.”
“You’re right. All we have in the end most of the time are theories. We can’t know,” Annja said.
“Until those times that we can say with certainty what happened,” Lochata said.
“I know.” Annja sipped some water. “The problem
is, we’re guessing at answers in history almost as much as we’re figuring them out.”
“That’s part of what makes this job so enjoyable. Remember? I believe you told me that a few days ago when I was complaining about the Shakti dig.”
“You’re right.”
“So we dig,” Lochata said, “and we keep digging until we have all the answers or we run out of questions.”
ANNJA WAS THUMBING through the pages of the book she’d recovered when the phone rang. She’d just finished shooting images of the pages with her digital camera and transferring them to her notebook computer.
She checked the number on caller ID but didn’t recognize it.
“Hello,” she answered.
“How is our investment coming?” Garin asked in his deep, rumbling baritone.
“Fine,” Annja said as she closed the book.
“You found the ship.”
“I did.”
“You could have told me. I’m the silent partner in this. Not you.”
“We’ve been busy.” Annja reached into the ice chest and pulled out a bottle of flavored water. “Besides, I don’t have your number.”
“You still have the one that you called me on a few days ago.”
“I thought you were getting rid of that one.”
“Isn’t it amazing how you conveniently phoned that one when you wanted to?”
“Did you call just to harangue me? That’s usually Roux’s shtick.”
“No, I actually called to congratulate you. But I knew you wouldn’t believe I’d do something like that without at least delivering a minimum of haranguing.”
Weird, Annja thought, but she said, “Thank you.”
“I’ve also been putting some people on this project,” Garin went on. “I’ve got a production studio and a director lined up that will treat this well.”
“As long as you’re happy,” Annja said. She shifted focus. “Have you ever heard of Kumari Kandam?”
“The Isle of Snakes?” Garin asked.
“I haven’t heard it called that.”
“It was. For a time. And, yes, I have heard of it.”
“What have you heard?” Annja asked.
“It sank.”
“Terrific. How about before it sank?”
Garin laughed at his own wit. “It was a den of iniquity, by all accounts.”
“What accounts? Why haven’t I seen those accounts?” Annja asked.
“They are stories I was told hundreds of years ago when I was first in India, then again in the nineteenth century when I was amassing a fortune before the opium wars in China. It was a fascinating bit of business. Taking poppy plants from China, raising them in India, processing them aboard ship, then selling the opium back to the Chinese. After the Chinese emperor finally got his troops rallied around him, I plowed most of that fortune into legitimate pharmaceutical companies.”
“Less with the I Wanna Be A Millionaire and more with the Isle of Snakes,” Annja replied.
“They were cannibals,” Garin replied.
29
“Cannibals?” Annja couldn’t believe it. If the people of Kumari Kandam had been cannibals, wouldn’t that have been mentioned somewhere? she wondered.
“As in, people who ate other people,” Garin said. “Yes. That would be them. Luckily they didn’t survive in a large number. Just be glad you got there after the island sank. I’d been told they made defensive walls of the bones of their enemies.”
“Why were they cannibals?” Annja reached for her journal and opened it to a new page. She took a pen from her pocket and started making notes.
“Because they liked the taste?”
“That doesn’t make sense,” Annja said. “Nearly all of India is vegetarian. They don’t even eat livestock.”
“I know. It’s sad. They’d rather watch a cow starve to death in the street than feed their own starving children.”
Annja frowned. “Okay, Supreme Lord of Sarcasm, maybe we could stick to the cannibalism aspect.”
“The stories I remember mentioned that the Kumari Kandam people were xenophobic.”
“They didn’t care for foreigners. That’s natural for island populations. Strangers brought new diseases and new ways of thinking that disrupted the hierarchy in existence there.”
“Like Columbus’s foray into the New World,” Garin said.
“The Vikings were here before him.”
“Of course they were. So were the Yoruban people from West Africa. And someone taught the various cultures in South America to build pyramids and do mummification for their dead.”
Annja checked the time. She still had a half hour to go before she could dive.
“Columbus brought pestilence to the Native Americans that wiped out millions of them. He also introduced the concept of land ownership. Kings of island empires tend to be territorial. And what better way to deal with strangers than to eat them?” Garin said.
“Not what I would suggest,” Annja said.
“Perhaps not, but it was effective. They became known as headhunters, and that’s a way of life that’s still maintained in various parts of the world. Raiding parties occasionally went to the mainland to bring back trophies.”
“I haven’t read anything about that.”
“Have you heard of the naga men?” Garin asked.
Annja thought for a moment. She’d exposed herself to a lot of information over the past few days. She had good retention. It was in there somewhere.
“Nagaland,” she said when she remembered. “In northeastern India. West of Myanmar.”
“Exactly. Headhunters still practice there,” Garin said.
“Headhunting has been banned.”
“Only since the 1990s.” Garin chuckled. “Warriors take heads in battle,” he said.
“Some warriors,” Annja agreed.
“The Celts were headhunters. They nailed skulls to walls and used them to accessorize their horses and chariots. Their culture and bloodline has ties to that part of the world.”
Annja knew many historians and anthropologists agreed that the Celts had come out of India at some point.
“Maybe it’s something about that part of the world,” Garin suggested. “When the United States established economic and military interests in the Philippines in the 1930s, they made an effort to eradicate the practice of headhunting. But a few short years later in World War II, American soldiers took Japanese heads in battle and sent them home to family and friends.”
Annja hadn’t known that. She made a note to look it up later.
“Of course,” Garin said, “the Japanese ate American soldiers. Prison camps during World War II became livestock pens. They cut off limbs of their victims to keep the meat fresh.”
A slight sickness twisted Annja’s stomach at the thought. It was one thing to view dead bodies and quite another to think about what people might have suffered before their deaths.
“But cannibalism isn’t a result of war,” Annja said. “It’s a way of life.”
“Islands have limited resources. Some historians believe the population of Easter Island, after they’d eaten everything else on the island and fished the surrounding waters barren, turned on and ate each other.”
“It was three thousand miles to the mainland. And they didn’t trust anyone outside the island because slavers had captured over half their people at different times.” Annja took a breath. “Aside from the cannibalism, what else do you remember?”
Garin thought for a moment.
Annja thought she heard a young woman’s voice in the background. Maybe more than one voice. She felt suddenly annoyed.
“They were snake worshipers,” Garin said. “Those figurines you first found could be from the Kumari Kandam people.”
“Then why aren’t there more traces of them?”
“The island sank, Annja. It’s hard to recover anything when your world gets swallowed up and dropped to the bottom of a very deep ocean. And there may be more traces
of them around than you’re aware of. Don’t feel badly, because no one else might be aware of them, either. Artifacts often get mislabeled. Or altered. Like the piece of the sword you and the old man found in France.”
When Annja had found the last piece of the sword, it had been turned into a necklace.
“Anyway,” Garin said, “I have to be going. I’ve got empires to pillage. All electronically these days, of course, so the satisfaction isn’t the same, but it’s something. I just wanted to see what progress you were making.”
“How did you find out I’d located the ship?” Annja asked.
“It was on the Internet. Chasing History’s Monsters is carrying the news, as well.”
Terrific, Annja thought. So someone aboard the ship was feeding information to the outside world.
FLEET CAME AWAKE instantly when his name was called. He’d slept in the bed with his back to the wall after the coast guard cutter had left the Kanyakumari harbor. Sleeping like that was more of a doze, and he’d found over the years that he could wake more easily.
Lieutenant Rohan stood in the doorway. The young man’s eyes were on Fleet’s prosthetic foot standing upright on the floor next to the bed.
“What’s going on, Lieutenant?” Fleet asked.
“Captain Mahendra would like you in the control center, sir. It appears Rajiv Shivaji’s ship is approaching the archaeological vessel.”
“Tell the captain I’ll be right there.”
“Aye, sir.” Rohan left.
Fleet pushed himself to the edge of the bed and began strapping on his foot. When he stood, whole again, he quickly slipped the P-226 into the holster high on his hip and slung the HK 53 over his shoulder. Until he was safe back in port, he wouldn’t be without either weapon.
He went up onto the deck and slipped his sunglasses on before he stepped out into the bright, hard sunlight. The crew noticed him at once. He sensed the edginess about them and realized it was the same feeling he felt inside himself.
An armed guard stood by the door leading to the control room. He acknowledged Fleet with a small nod.