“Then again,” said Morgan, still the Devil’s advocate. “Suppose this ship we charter does run into trouble. It might be weather, it might be pirates—god only knows. We’re out to investigate the salvage operation for the wreck of the Mentor . Get that? The wreck! I’m sure Lord Elgin wanted to be very discrete himself, and spirit off his ill-gotten marbles as inconspicuously as possible. But then life is what happens to you after you make your plans, isn’t it? His ship got caught in weather, ran aground, foundered on the rocks and went down with all his cargo. Alright… Suppose fate deals us a safe hand, and we play this out to get to Kythros without incident. Then what? How do we get at this Selene Horse without having to get ‘pushy’?”
“I haven’t thought about that yet,” said Elena. “I suppose we’d still have the gold and diamonds.”
“The people running this salvage operation may not be interested in selling anything, not for any amount. After all, this is all supposed to be the property of Lord Elgin. Even if they would take your offer seriously at all, they would certainly have to obtain the good Earl’s permission. That would take time, and more than we have to spend there. Besides, he would certainly refuse. He wouldn’t sell his precious cargo, not for any price, at least not at this time.”
“Probably not. But I won’t be offering to purchase. I’d merely be asking to see the wonders the good lord Elgin has secured. I could make up a story—anything. I could tell the crew I’m affiliated with the British Museum, and that after hearing of the Earl’s ‘acquisition’ of the Marbles, I came all this way to see them first hand.”
“Wasn’t he touchy about his find? He kept referring to the Marbles as ‘stones of no value to anyone other than Lord Elgin.’ Try that line and you’ll be presenting yourself as someone who knows that’s a load of bullshit. The keepers of that salvage might get just a wee bit curious, and touchy. You say it was guarded night and day on that damn beach.”
“True, but we only are interested in one piece—the Selene Horse. Perhaps it’s in one of the eleven boxes they’ve already recovered. Believe me, I can be very persuasive. I’m certain I could persuade the site supervisor to let me have one little look.”
“With a hammer and chisel?” Morgan objected immediately. “Wasn’t this key supposed to be embedded in the base? How do you suppose to get at it without doing deliberate damage to the statue?”
“Actually,” said Elena. “I was rather hoping the piece was in one of the missing boxes, still at the bottom of the sea. That’s where my Argonauts come in handy. We’re bringing along some diving equipment, very compact, but very effective. I could offer the expertise of my team, and speed along their recovery of the other boxes. They would probably be very glad about that.”
“Possibly, but the supervisor might just be a curmudgeon. He might not want us anywhere near his precious charge.”
“We’d change his mind rather quickly,” said Elena. “I’ll just send the men down to have a look. We’ll use the hand-held radar, and believe me, the first box we bring up will change their attitude considerably.”
“OK, then we’re back where we were just a moment ago. They won’t want you mucking about with a hammer and chisel.”
“They won’t even know about it.” Now Elena folded her arms. “We’ll have the men do that while they are still underwater—assuming we get lucky. We have a six in seventeen chance the Selene Horse is still submerged. If not. I’ll come up with a plan B.”
“You have to give it to her, Mack,” said Gordon. “She’s thought of everything.”
“Everything but the unexpected. No offense, Mum.”
“Don’t worry, Mack. You’re doing exactly what you should to wrangle this out with me. We’ll need to really be on our game this time. I’ll want the best men we have, expert seamen, diving experience, and good at hand-to-hand combat. No assault rifles, gentlemen. Pistols would be acceptable, but kept well hidden, and to be used only in a pinch. The last thing we would want to do is shoot anybody.”
Chapter 3
“Most of our Argonauts will fill that bill,” said MacRae. “A pity we just can’t take the whole ship back. Then we’d have the X3 Helos to fly about and make a real grand spectacle as well. Talk about a fly in the teacup then!”
“More like an alligator,” said Elena. “No, the ship stays here—not that we have any choice in that. We go by St. Michael’s Cave. Gordon, see to the details. The two of you are most welcome to join the team. Then we’ll need three of the best we have, and I’ll want to leave as soon as possible.”
“Very well,” said MacRae. “As to the men…. I don’t suppose you’ll want them walking about in TALOS suits.”
“Of course not. Remember, we need to be inconspicuous, or at least look like we belong where we are. Strange garb would be a dead giveaway, and arouse interest and possibly suspicion. I’ve thought about that one too. Mister Churchill mentioned it when I first proposed this idea, and he was kind enough to lend a hand. I have a trunk full of men’s clothing, authentic to the period, and all compliments of the Prime Minister. As for me, I did some shopping in London before I returned from that meeting, and found something suitable—an old Empire style dress—plain white, high waist, with a shawl and an outer hooded cape for travel. We’re about on business, and must look like upper-class merchants. But this is a minor detail. Our man came back with Yellow Fever, and Churchill told me there was a nasty epidemic there that year.”
“Yellow Fever?” said MacRae. “Nasty is half a word for that—chills, sweats, headache, jaundice, muscle spasms, bloodshot eyes and other hemorrhages, and near the end, black vomit, cold sweats and welcome death after all that suffering. You know, the place was called the filthiest post in the empire. Housing was scarce and people lived in crowded dwellings. Many thought the filth and squalor was what led to the disease, and that it was passed from person to person in the hovels. Others thought it was the result of infectious airs. The sad fact is that they were both wrong, and they never knew it was the mosquitoes. It would be another 70 years before they learned that.”
“Well, let’s make certain everyone in our team is vaccinated. Immunity after that is about 99%, and holds for life. I’ve checked my own medical records, and I’m covered. You should both do the same.”
“I’m vaccinated, and I’ve already checked over the roster to make sure all the men are as well. Mack, how about you?”
“Been in the tropics too long,” said Morgan. “I’m covered.”
“Good, because it can take a month or more after vaccination before immunity sets in.” He turned to Elena. “How long will we be there?” He had finally come to feel at home in the 1940s. Now here they were thinking to go all the way back to 1804!
“I’m thinking we’ll need at least two months.”
“That long? Well, I suppose Mister Dean can handle things on the ship for that time.”
“Oh, don’t assume we’d be gone two months’ time here. We could spend months there, and return here to find only three days have passed.”
“But our men were in there for just a few hours as they reported it, and days passed here,” said Gordon. “If that is any guide, then we could disappear for years here. The whole bloody war could be over by the time we get back to the ship—assuming we do get back.”
“That’s one of the wildcards in the deck,” said Elena. “We’ve no way of knowing how much time will pass here, but we’ll just have to risk it. Gentlemen, this is going to be a bit of an adventure!”
“Or a nightmare,” said Morgan.
* * *
They would make the descent into St. Michael’s Cave, and the climb up through the rock crevice on the very next day. It would be a team of six, Miss Fairchild, MacRae and Morgan, with three Argonauts, Sergeant Kane, and two privates, Moran and Foley. The clothing Elena brought was modified to conceal things. Special pockets were sewn in to hold necessities, and also hide them from the eyes of the people they might encounter. They wanted to take along certai
n military equipment, and yet keep it well hidden. Each man would also be wearing special lightweight body armor under their clothing, and sport a small holstered sidearm that would be hidden under their overcoats, and beneath a flap of material added to their waistcoat. Elena declined this, counting on her status as a dignified woman to offer her some protection.
The other side of the rock that hid the inner cavern was now lit up with rigged lighting, and they had a rope ladder fixed to the top of the stone with a few sturdy steel pegs. Elena had not yet donned her costume clothing, wanting to get through the difficult climbing and interior passages before she did that. Then she could simply put the garb on over her traveling clothes. They would be guided by the scout they had sent in earlier, who pointed out the passage they had taken in the labyrinthine cavern.
“Both the left and right passages are dead ends. It’s the center opening there that we took. You won’t be but a hundred yards before it begins bearing up to a chimney that’s been documented for some time. It’s just wide enough to climb up, about three meters. Then you’ll be in a known passage of the cave.”
“Strange,” said Elena. “I wonder why no one ever got down here then, if it opens onto a known passage.”
“They probably did,” said Morgan. “But then never found that crevice above the rock we just climbed over.”
“But we must move through the time fissure in here somewhere—in that central passage if our scout is correct.”
“Aye,” said Morgan. “They may have as well, but seeing o way to proceed, they would have just back-tracked. The rock would seem a dead end to them, so they may have been moving in time, yet never knew about it.”
“Very strange,” said Elena. “The fissure was just hidden in plain sight. Come from our side of that rock, and it leads you back in time. Come the other way and you go forward. This is going to be interesting.”
They moved through the narrow passage, the shadows retreating from their flashlights, then gathering again behind them. Their scout had not been entirely accurate. The passages to either side of the one they took were not dead ends, though they would have seemed so to anyone not trying them with real determination. On one occasion. A British Sergeant had followed a Barbary Ape into one, and caught a glimpse of him slipping away into the rightmost passage. Pursuing, but not finding the beast anywhere, he had good reason to be persistent in his search of that tunnel, knowing that if that Ape got through, then there must be a hidden way, which he eventually found. It took him somewhere else, to a place where that printed candy bar label Elena’s team had found had originated, but none of them knew that just yet. It would not occur to Elena for some days….
It was mostly an upward hike, inclined at an angle, which then reversed its direction before they came to the brief climb up that chimney that made Elena feel something had happened to them. Once at the top, MacRae offered her a hand, pulling her up.
“My,” she said, “I’m feeling very light headed.”
“Aye, we all felt that coming up through that chimney. There’s your time fissure. It’s right there—a three-meter climb that spans more than a century. Gives me the shivers just to think of it.”
Elena now thought it best to get in to her period clothing, feeling very cold, a physical chill to accompany the emotional frost the Captain was describing. The team was all up, and gathered into a tight group. The way forward now was known, and it would take them towards the entrance to St. Michael’s Cave, a walk of about a hundred yards. Along the way there were a few side passages, and they made mental notes of them.
“I count three,” said Morgan. “This is the Cathedral Cave.” He looked back over his shoulder. “We’ll want to bear that way on the way home. Then take the third passage on the right to the Chimney. Anyone finding it here would just think it was all a dead end. Now we know better.”
“Let’s get on with it then,” said Elena.
They moved out, with Sergeant Kane in the lead with his two Argonauts, the others following. It wasn’t long before they saw a figure ahead, and the noise of their coming roused his attention.
“Who goes there?” came a hard voice. “Come on, show yourself, unless you want a musket ball in your gut.” The man was a British soldier, a private from the lack of stripes on his sleeves.
“No need for that,” said MacRae, striding up past the Argonauts and out of the shadows. “Thank God, we’ve found the way out at last. Been in that dank cave for hours.”
“Wot’s that? Been mucking about in the cave? Folks aren’t supposed to be in there, and for just that reason. Too damn easy to get lost, or trip and fall.”
“That’s a fact,” said MacRae. Now Elena came forward, and the man seemed very surprised to see her.
“Wot? I can see your lot diggin’ about, but with a lady?”
“Forgive me, sir,” said Elena. “I pressed this adventure upon these gentlemen, and they were kind enough to escort me. It’s all my doing.”
The soldier nodded, giving her a half smile. “You must be off a ship,” he said. “Come to have a look about the Rock, are you? Well it’s not the time for it, what with the plague an all.”
“Plague?” Elena covered her mouth, looking frightened.
“You haven’t heard? Lots of folks are down with it, and better that dank cave in there than town center. If I were you, I’d get right back aboard the ship that brought you here, and stay there. Otherwise you’re likely to catch your death here.”
“Aye,” said MacRae. “We were warned, but the lady wanted to see the caves, and so…” he nodded, giving the man a wink.
“Look here,” said the soldier. “On your way now, but don’t say nothin’ to my officer if he comes upon you. He’ll berate me for an hour if he thinks I was slack in me watch.”
“Don’t worry,” said Elena. “You are too kind. Our touring being done, we’ve business with the Naval Officer and Storekeeper. Where might we find him?”
“Offices in town,” said the man. “But remember what I said. It’s no place for a lady there with all that suffering. There be bodies in the streets, Mum. You’d be better off back aboard ship.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Elena. “I’ll send these gentlemen in my place.” Seeing his advice well heeded, the soldier nodded, giving her a friendly smile.
They were on their way, and later learned that the man they wanted to see was in the Garrison Library that morning, off Gunner’s Parade, and down a lane past the Boyd Building. That place had been named for Lieutenant General Sir Robert Boyd, the late Governor of Gibraltar, who had died in 1794, his remains embedded in the concrete and stone beneath the King’s Bastion on the western shore near the harbor.
“A mister Edward Pownall?” MacRae inquired when they finally reached the library, past scenes of distress and squalor that they had been warned about by the soldier.
“Mister Pownall? Yes, he’s here, retrieving some records. Might I help you gentlemen?”
“Gordon MacRae,” said the Captain. “We’re looking to book passage to Malta.”
“James Cutworth,” said the man. “I’m an Agent Victualler with business there on occasion. Why on earth are you headed there?”
“Her Ladyship will be touring the Greek Islands, and we thought to find passage from there once we arrive.”
The man eyed Elena, who smiled. “May I have the pleasure,” he said, extending his hand with a bow, which Elena took briefly, smiling. “James Cutworth.”
“Miss Elena Fairchild, house of Fairchild out of England. Mister Cutworth, do say you can be of assistance. Might I find passage to Malta for myself and these gentlemen at a convenient time?”
“Passage to Malta… Well now.” Cutworth seemed to be thinking, his head inclined. “What have we at hand that might fill the bill. A number of transports are in port this morning, Thetis, Latona, Nestor, Lady Shaw Stewart. Those last two will be bound for Malta later today, as soon as the Sophie returns from Lisbon, with some hemp and rope they must convey along with
other stores for the Navy. I suppose you might get passage on one or the other. Then there’s the Portuguese merchantman, the Lassa . That came in with HMS Medusa this morning as well. You’ll want to see Mister Wilkie down at the Harbor. Those transports I mentioned have goods under his charge.”
“Why, thank you, sir,” said Elena. “You are most gracious. Then I expect we shan’t need the services of Mister Pownall after all. Do you think Mister Wilkie can accommodate my party? It’s rather dreadful here at the moment, and the sooner I get out to sea, the better.”
“I understand, M’lady. Yes, dreadful business here with the fever on so many folks and all. That would be wise. Were you off a ship this morning?”
“We came from landward, after touring Spain,” said MacRae. They had determined that would be a safer story, as most ships would have records of travelers booked, and there was no need to leave questions in their wake.
“Well Mister Wilkie can be most accommodating,” said Cutworth.
And he was.
Elena knew that one of the transports Cutworth had mentioned, The Lady Shaw Stewart , was the ship they wanted. That had been the transport Lord Nelson sent to the very island they needed to reach, to pick up the Marbles for Lord Elgin and bring them first back to Malta before arranging further passage to England.
As they made their way to the harbor to find Mister Wilkie, Elena began to think they were very late. She had asked Mister Cutworth what day it was. “My, I’ve simply lost track of the time with all the sightseeing. But Gibraltar was not at all what I expected,” she said. “Pray tell… What day is this?”
“The 28th of August, M’lady. And thank God, the fever seems to be abating here now, but we’ve had a fearful loss. Over 800 died, and that was just in the Army garrison. The civilians took far worse. Nearly a third of the 15,000 or so have perished. You certainly won’t want to linger on here. A pity you had to see this.”
“All the more reason for us to be on our way.”
Nexus Deep (Kirov Series Book 31) Page 3