The Treasures of Suleiman

by The Treasures of Suleiman (retail) (epub)

  Abbas led India to the helicopter and they climbed into the rear seat. A few minutes later, they were airborne and flying out over the Mediterranean.

  ‘Where are we going now?’ asked India over the microphone.

  ‘You are going to meet Mr Hundar,’ said the pilot. Again the language was English, but this time flavoured with a Turkish accent.

  ‘Why couldn’t we go by plane?’

  ‘Where we are going, there is no room to land a plane,’ said the pilot, ‘but this helicopter will be fine.’

  ‘And where exactly is that?’

  ‘We will be there in ten minutes,’ said the pilot. ‘You will just have to wait and see.’

  Abbas and India stared down at the sea below and the many vessels criss-crossing the calm waters. All shapes and sizes were evident, ranging from small sailing boats to the giant cruise ships that visited the many ports along the historic coastlines. Finally they started to descend and India could see they were heading toward a black luxury yacht that seemed to be stationary in the water below. A man in a high visibility yellow vest stood alongside a bright red ‘H’ sign on a helipad at the rear of the yacht.

  ‘Is that our destination?’ asked India.

  ‘It is,’ said the pilot.

  ‘Wow,’ said India.

  The boat loomed larger below them as the helicopter closed in.

  ‘It looks like we have a welcoming committee,’ said Abbas.

  India peered out and saw three people standing on a deck above the helipad. The first two, a black man and a tall leggy blonde, were both strangers to her, but as she recognised the third, her hand flew to her mouth in astonishment.

  ‘Oh my God,’ she cried, ‘it’s Brandon.’ She waved frantically and laughed out loud when Brandon returned the wave, seemingly just as excited as she was. A few minutes later, she ran from the helicopter and up the wooden stairway toward Brandon. With a squeal of delight she threw herself into his arms.

  ‘Brandon,’ she shouted, ‘I thought you were dead.’

  ‘Same here,’ he said holding her tight. ‘Where have you been?’

  ‘It’s a long story,’ said India. ‘I’ll tell you everything later.”

  ‘Are you OK?’ asked Brandon.

  ‘Fine,’ she said. ‘Apparently I have been brought here to meet a certain Mr Hundar.’

  ‘Me too,’ said Brandon.

  ‘Have you met him yet?’ asked India,

  ‘No, he’s not on board, didn’t he come with you?’

  ‘No, it’s just me and Abbas,’ said India.

  ‘Yeah, I noticed him. He’s got a lot of explaining to do. He left me for dead at Kom-Ombo.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yup. He pushed me into the well. As far as he was concerned, I should have died, but when he saw I survived, he just left me there.’

  ‘Be careful, Brandon, he’s a professional assassin, don’t mess with him.’

  Brandon stared over at Abbas, who was shaking hands with the pilot. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘It will wait, but before this is over, he and I are going to have words. We have unfinished business.’

  They turned around and watched as a crew of deck hands raced to secure the aircraft.

  A voice spoke behind them and India turned to see another woman had approached.

  ‘Hello, Miss Summers,’ she said, ‘I am Diane Ellicott, Mr Hundar’s assistant. Welcome aboard the Horus.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said India. ‘This is some boat you have here.’

  ‘It is,’ said Diane. ‘Can I get you a chilled drink? Champagne, perhaps?’

  ‘Water will be fine,’ said India.

  When the drinks arrived a few moments later, India quenched her thirst before turning once again to Diane.

  ‘So,’ she said, ‘when do we get to meet the main man?’

  ‘You already have, Miss Summers,’ said Diane. ‘Please can I introduce your host, His Excellency, Mr Mehmed Hundar.’

  India spun around to see the pilot standing behind her; he had removed his flight suit to reveal an immaculate pair of cream chinos and white Lacoste polo shirt.

  ‘Miss Summers,’ he said. ‘Good to meet you properly at last.’

  India stared at the man and for a moment was rendered speechless. He was the most extraordinarily handsome man she had ever laid eyes on.

  Chapter 16

  Lunch was a buffet served around the pool, and after she had settled in to her room India joined Brandon on one of the decks where he sat enjoying a coffee. They hadn’t seen Hundar or Diane since the helicopter had landed and were somewhat surprised to find they were left relatively alone. India ordered her own coffee and they made small talk until the waitress had left.

  ‘So,’ said India eventually, ‘how long have you been on here?’

  ‘Since yesterday,’ said Brandon.

  ‘And have you found anything out?’

  ‘No, not really. They have made me very welcome, but have been very non-committal about why I was brought here or where we are going. I suppose this Hundar chap will have all the answers.’

  ‘So where have you been since your little adventure in the well?’

  Brandon filled her in about the events since Kom-Ombo and listened intently as India recounted her story. Finally, when they were both up to date, they paused to absorb the information.

  ‘That’s all very interesting,’ said Brandon, ‘but where does it leave us?’

  ‘Well, in summary,’ said India, ‘it would seem that this Mr Hundar sees himself as the true heir to the Sultancy of Turkey and believes that the Piri Reis map is actually a map to a fortune left by Kemal Reis.’

  ‘And do you believe this Kemal Reis thing?’ asked Brandon.

  ‘Well the characters and the map are true enough,’ said India. ‘Kemal Reis was indeed Piri Reis’ uncle, and it is also tme that both men, at some time in their lives, were pirates on the Mediterranean. Due to the elusiveness of Kemal Reis, the sultan gave him a pardon on condition he led the royal fleet on his behalf, a role which he embraced completely, and became one of the most successful admirals of his time. There was always a rumour that he had a fortune in plunder hidden away and it is thought that when he disappeared off the scene for a few years, he took the opportunity to hide it somewhere in this part of the world. He claimed that he had been imprisoned in Portugal during that time but it was never substantiated.’

  ‘And Piri Reis?’

  ‘He was also an admiral in the sultan’s navy, albeit many years later. He commissioned the map and it has become one of the most famous maps in the world.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Several reasons, ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous.’

  ‘The sublime?’

  ‘Well, first of all, it is a map using many others as reference sources. Some diagrams are attributed to sources as far back as Ptolemy, thousands of years earlier, while other references have definitely been taken from charts made by Christopher Columbus during his explorations. All Piri Reis did was take a range of different references and have one big map made, including all the relevant information available at that time. Some experts claim they have identified over fifteen different source maps included within the Piri Reis document. It shows the west coast of Africa, along with some coastal areas of Western Europe but the most important thing is that it shows the Atlantic Ocean and the eastern coast of the South American continent. It even shows some features further inland.’

  ‘I suppose that information came from the charts of Columbus?’ asked Brandon.

  ‘Probably, along with the records of other conquistadors at the time. Anyway, however he came about the information, Piri Reis was the first man that ever put it all into one document, and it became the most comprehensive and accurate seagoing chart of the age. The only thing is, at some point in the past, half of it was lost, either by design or by accident. The half depicting the eastern half of the known world at that time, the Mediterranean and surrounding countries, has been lost.’


  ‘Until now,’ said Brandon.

  ‘It would seem so,’ said India. ‘I think that the document we found in the Nileometer is indeed the missing half. Gatilusi had done all the hard work and all we did was follow his information. He would have been so excited to find out it was all true but was murdered before he had time to follow it through. It’s very sad.’

  ‘And worrying,’ said Brandon.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, we are out here in the middle of the ocean with one murderer that we know of and possibly more.’

  ‘Do you think Hundar had something to do with Gatilusi’s death?’

  ‘Absolutely. He has already threatened your safety to obtain my silence, and anyway, there are too many coincidences. If you count Abbas, his father and an obsession with uncovering a fortune, then it all fits. The only reason we haven’t been thrown overboard is that they think you can decipher the map.’

  ‘And if I can’t?’

  ‘Fish food,’ said Brandon bluntly.

  ‘Can’t we ring someone?’

  ‘Like who?’

  ‘Some of your secret service friends, perhaps?’

  ‘I left the SAS after the Mortuus Virgo episode, remember?’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘Anyway, they have confiscated my phone along with my passport. It looks like we are going to have to see this thing through to the end.’

  ‘Then let’s hope I can make some sense of the map,’ said India, ‘otherwise that’s it. It’s all over.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it, India,’ said Brandon. ‘If it doesn’t make sense, just make something up that looks right, but let them know you are keeping something back. That way, they’ll keep us alive until the last minute, and by then, I’ll have thought of something.’

  ‘OK,’ said India.

  ‘Anyway,’ continued Brandon, ‘what about the ridiculous?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘You said there are many theories about the map, ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous. Tell me about the latter.’

  ‘Oh, that? Well, as you know, Antarctica is covered with snow and ice, in some places miles thick. The actual coastline of the continent is hundreds of miles from the ice edge and can only be seen by special imagery from orbiting satellites. The thing is, along the bottom edge of the Piri Reis map, the coastline of Antarctica seems to be fairly accurately depicted. Now there is no way that Piri Reis or any of his sources could ever have known what that continent looked like unless someone had charted it over twenty thousand years earlier, before it became covered with ice.’

  ‘Perhaps they did.’

  ‘Brandon, at that time, most of humanity were hunter-gatherers and living in caves. We are talking about a time before the last great ice age. Anyway, that’s the controversial part. There are those who say that one of the maps used as a reference by Piri Reis must have been from around that time and is evidence of an advanced, seagoing race during what we now call the stone age.’

  ‘Fascinating,’ said Brandon.

  ‘Perhaps, but some of the documents used by Piri Reis refer to sources that were reputed to have been ancient at the time of Alexander, so if even one of those maps was indeed that old, there is a possibility they may be correct.’

  ‘Do you believe that?’

  ‘I’d certainly like to, but it seems more likely that the cartographer ran out of room at the bottom of the document and just continued the coastline of South America along the bottom edge. ‘

  ‘Oh, that’s a bit of an anticlimax,’ said Brandon.

  ‘I know, sad but true.’

  ‘Perhaps that is where this treasure is,’ said Brandon.

  ‘No, definitely not. Despite the romance of the idea, there is no way Kemal Reis sailed that far south. I doubt he travelled far outside of the Mediterranean, that sort of voyage was mainly carried out by the Spanish or Portuguese. The Ottomans had a huge fleet but were masters of the Mediterranean only, nothing more.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘As sure as we can be, but there is no record of any ship of the Ottoman Empire capable of sailing the Atlantic Ocean, let alone south into the Antarctic Ocean.’

  ‘So this treasure has to be in the Mediterranean?’

  ‘Not necessarily, it could be anywhere around the coastlines of the Mediterranean, the Black Sea, the Sea of Marmara or the Aegean.’

  ‘What about the Red Sea?’

  ‘No, the Suez Canal didn’t exist back then, and don’t forget Kemal Reis had the sea in his blood. He wouldn’t have gone far from water.’

  ‘What happened to him?’

  ‘He disappeared from history in 1511. It is thought his ship sank in a storm off the coast of Morocco.’

  ‘And his secrets died with him?’

  ‘Well, that brings us back to the map. If the Piri Reis map is actually a record of where he hid the treasure, then Kemal Reis must have shared the information with his nephew before he died.’

  They heard someone approaching and saw Basil walking along the walkway.

  ‘Mr Walker, Miss Summers,’ he said formally, ‘Mr Hundar would like you to join him for dinner this evening. Dress is formal and you will find something suitable in your staterooms. If you could both be ready, I will pick you up and escort you to the dining room. Drinks are at seven thirty and we dine at eight sharp. Do you have any questions?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Brandon. ‘Was it really an invitation, because that sounded suspiciously like an instruction?’

  ‘Attendance is compulsory, sir,’ said Basil with a smile. ‘Is there anything else?’

  ‘No,’ sighed Brandon, ‘we’ll be ready.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ said Basil. ‘Mr Hundar will be very pleased. Can I get you another drink?’

  ‘No, we are fine,’ said Brandon.

  ‘Then good day,’ said Basil, and disappeared down a nearby stairwell.

  ‘Well, this is it,’ said Brandon, when they were alone. ‘At last we are about to find out exactly why we are here.’

  * * *

  Brandon showered and found a dinner suit in his wardrobe. He pulled a beer from the mini fridge as he waited, and at seven thirty sharp, there was a knock on his door. He heard Basil’s crisp English accent from the other side.

  ‘Sir, drinks are being served.’

  ‘OK,’ he answered, and left the room to join Basil in the corridor. India was already there, wearing a long red dress with inlaid black panels at the sides, accentuating her already perfect figure. Her hair shone and hung down past her shoulders.

  ‘Wow,’ said Brandon, ‘you look stunning.’

  ‘You’re not too bad yourself,’ said India. ‘Courtesy of Mr Hundar, I assume?’

  ‘Yup,’ said Brandon. ‘You?’

  ‘No, I always carry dinner gowns through the desert,’ she replied with a sarcastic smile.

  ‘Point taken,’ said Brandon. ‘Right, shall we go?’

  ‘This way, sir,’ said Basil, and led the way toward the front of the yacht. A few minutes later they entered a lounge area where Helga was waiting for them along with the pretty waitress from the pool. Both were wearing blue blazers and white skirts. The waitress was holding a tray of drinks.

  ‘Good evening,’ said Helga, nodding to them both, ‘and welcome. Please make yourself comfortable.’

  The waitress walked over and offered the tray.

  ‘Champagne, Miss Summers?’ she asked with a smile.

  ‘Thank you,’ said India and helped herself to a flute from the tray. Brandon followed suit and they stood talking to Helga about the yacht for a few moments before the door opened and Abbas entered the lounge.

  ‘Hello again,’ said Abbas to India, and turned to face Brandon. ‘Mr Walker, we meet again, though this time in much more pleasant circumstances.’ He offered his hand to Brandon but shrugged when it was ignored by the Englishman. He turned to take a drink from the tray.

  The door opened again and Mehmed Hundar entered the room in a
pristine white tuxedo, contrasting with his sun-darkened skin wonderfully. His gleaming black hair fell to his shoulders and he picked up his own glass of champagne before joining the group. Diane followed a few moments later. Hundar took India’s hand and kissed it gently.

  ‘You look enchanting, Miss Summers.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Hundar,’ she said.

  ‘Mr Walker,’ continued Hundar, shaking his hand, ‘your reputation precedes you. I hope we can work together to resolve this awkward situation to everyone’s benefit.’

  ‘Well,’ said Brandon, ‘I hope so too, but it has to be said, it is difficult to forget that you tried to have me killed a few days ago.’

  ‘Yes, an embarrassing incident,’ said Hundar, glancing toward Abbas, ‘but tonight is not for recriminations or bad feeling. Tonight, we relax and get to know each other better.’

  ‘To what end?’ asked Brandon.

  ‘To achieve a suitably fair outcome that will benefit all,’ said Hundar. ‘But enough small talk, shall we go through?’

  They walked into a sumptuous dining room completely lined with shining walnut and gleaming brass. At the centre, an equally impressive dinner table was set for seven. Each person took their place, with Hundar and Diane sat at each end, Brandon and India on one side and Abbas and Helga on the other.

  ‘Are we missing someone?’ asked Brandon, indicating the empty seat alongside Abbas.

  ‘Yes,’ said Hundar, ‘but our final guest has been delayed. Basil, could you remove the setting please?’

  Basil cleared the unrequired place setting and removed the extra chair. When he was done, he walked around the table pouring chilled water into one of the three glasses before each person and then continued the same exercise with white wine. Within moments, two waitresses walked in with Mediterranean salads and warm bread rolls. As soon as they had left, Hundar picked up his glass.