Knight's Cross (The Shipwreck Adventures Book 3)

by Christine Kling

  “Look,” she said. “I know the climb was difficult, but from here we have a view all the way to the sea.”

  He opened his eyes and turned his head. He lay there staring at the sea as she worked.

  Arzella made a fire with wood from their wrecked ship. She heated water in her silver pilgrim’s flask and made a tea for Alonso with nettles she’d picked at the river’s edge.

  She shifted him so he could sit with his back against the cliff. He took a few sips of the tea when she held the flask to his lips.

  “I need to talk to you.” His voice startled her. Those were the first words he had spoken since the shipwreck.

  “Please, don’t tire yourself. We will find a doctor for you tomorrow.”

  He reached out and touched her hairline. “My beautiful Arzella, your hair has changed.”

  “Shhhh,” she said. She held the flask to his lips again. “Drink some more of this tea.”

  He tried again to drink, but most of the liquid spilled out of his mouth. He shook his head. “I don’t have much time, Arzella.” His words came slowly as he labored to breathe.

  “You will have plenty of time, my love.”

  “No, I will not return to Malta with you.”

  She grasped his hand and held it to her cheek. “Don’t say these things.”

  “I cannot protect you. You might be robbed.”

  “The people here will be kind, I am sure of it.”

  “The journey will be arduous for a woman alone.”

  Tears wet her cheeks as she said, “I will not be alone.”

  “I swore an oath.”

  She nodded.

  “One day tell our son about his father. Give him the shield.”

  “Alonso—”

  “Promise me,” he said.

  “I promise.”

  That night, she lay curled next to him, listening to his breathing and the whistling noise made by the wind as it blew past the rock pinnacle above them. She drew his cloak around them as the night wind grew cold. She feared sleep, and yet exhaustion overcame her. When she awoke, the first rays of sun were touching the rock overhang above. When she heard nothing more than the sound of the wind, she knew he was gone.

  The earth on the hillside was dry, rocky, and hard, so it took her most of the day to dig a grave with his sword. Her Alonso would rather be up there with the view of the sea than down by the river. She wrapped him in sailcloth and kissed his sweet face one last time.

  “Good-bye, my love,” she said aloud before she rolled his body into the grave. She climbed down into the hole and settled him comfortably, then she reached for the shield. She ran her fingers over the design she had added. She had done it for Alonso, not for the Knights. It was her best work—only a very keen eye would discover the figures she had engraved in the design. But such a valuable piece of silver might endanger her and the child she carried. She set the shield on Alonso’s chest.

  Filling the hole took almost no time. She tamped the dirt and placed several rocks atop the grave. She decided against any grave marker. She looked up at the rock pinnacle. That would be his gravestone. One day, she would tell her son. He could choose whether to return to find his father’s grave and the secret buried within.

  She packed the remainder of her belongings into a sack she’d fashioned out of rope and sailcloth and slung it over her shoulder. Shading her eyes, she looked up at the sun. There were perhaps three hours of daylight left.

  At the bottom of the ravine, she turned left and began walking upriver. She rubbed a hand over her belly. There had to be a village on this river, and they would tell her how to start her journey back to Malta.

  The Sunken City of Simena

  Kekova, Turkey

  April 29, 2014

  Riley munched on one piece and wrapped the rest of the gözleme in a napkin while Cole paid their bill. They motored the dinghy out to Bonefish, and, while Cole put the sextant away, Riley collected her gear in a backpack. After only a couple of minutes, they were back in the inflatable and up on a plane heading across the less-than-a-mile of blue water to Kekova Island.

  As they neared the island, the water changed color, and soon the sea floor grew visible. They watched the water as the boat slowed. When they could first see bottom, they passed over yellow-green stones that were scattered about randomly on the sea floor. Then the sharp angles of a man-made wall appeared just a few feet beneath the inflatable. The fragment stood alone in the rubble, but just to be cautious, Cole cut the outboard and tilted the prop up out of the water. He pulled the oars out of their rubber brackets and rowed them over the shallow water.

  “Look over here,” Riley said.

  On the other side of the boat, a large rectangle of stone walls appeared. On one side was an opening. The door. They were looking into the interior of a house in the sunken city of Simena.

  Cole rowed east in the direction of the entrance to the secret harbor Lukka had told Riley about. On the shore, they now saw many fragments of walls, and higher up on the hillside stood a tomb. Cole pulled at the oars, and they kept discovering more bits and pieces of the city that had been destroyed over two thousand years before. A white staircase wound down the cliff, and they could see the steps continuing down into the blue-green water.

  “People lived in these houses,” Riley said. “Children played here. Mothers cooked meals and lovers made love. Generations and generations of them, and they’re gone, but their houses remain. It’s kind of creepy.”

  “That’s the way it always feels when I dive on a wreck. It’s almost like you feel their ghosts.”

  Riley put her hand on Cole’s knee as he pulled at the oars. He smiled at her, then shifted his eyes to the castle. Then looked back over his shoulder at Kekova Island.

  “I understand now why they call the bay ‘hidden,’” he said. “I still can’t see the entrance, but it must be right around here.”

  He’d barely finished saying the words when the opening appeared in the shore. High rocks on either side made it appear like the entrance to a miniature fjord. He tugged at one oar to turn the boat, and they slid inside the cove.

  Once through the entrance, the bay opened up into a cove much larger than she would have thought. The Bonefish could anchor inside with room to spare, and it would be difficult for anyone to spot her unless they found the slit in the coast.

  Around most of the small bay, the hillsides rose gradually, speckled with rocky outcroppings and short bushes. Closer toward the shore they saw a few ruins. Only one wall fragment was still standing, but there were several foundations, some awash in the shallows. On the hillside behind the little beach Riley saw a couple of freestanding sarcophagi like those they had seen up at the castle. But in the back-left corner of the cove, a sheer reddish-and-gray rock face rose straight out of the water to a height much higher than the surrounding hills.

  “There it is,” Riley said.

  Three-quarters of the way up the rock face was an elaborately carved facade around the black hole of a tomb opening.

  Cole said, “Now that’s a brilliant hiding place. We could only see it from the beach across the way because the hill in front of it is lower.”

  “Think of the craftsmanship to carve that out of stone on the side of a sheer cliff.”

  “The Lycians aren’t the only ones who used rock-cut tombs,” Cole said. “You’ll find them all around the Med. That one is what they call a house-type tomb. It’s got the columns on both sides and the triangular structure at the top carved to look like the roof on a house. There are two carved doorways, but only one of them is an actual opening. Originally, it probably had a sliding stone door to cover the opening. If the door had been on there and closed, you probably wouldn’t have seen the black hole of the opening through the sextant’s scope from the beach.”

  “Come on. Let’s not waste time.”

  Cole rowed them over to the small sandy beach between the ruins and the cliff face. When the hull grounded, Riley picked up her backpack w
hile Cole pulled the dinghy up the beach. She sat on a rock and pulled her climbing shoes out of her pack.

  “That cliff face is straight up and down,” he said. “I can’t even look up there without getting nauseated. It must be over two hundred feet high.”

  She glanced up at the cliff. “It’s not bad. Looks like there are plenty of handholds. I’ll be extra careful, though. Don’t worry. I brought all my gear.”

  “I feel like a wuss making you go up there alone.”

  “Remember? It’s like I said last night. I need to feel useful, too. You’re the archeologist. This is where my talents come in.”

  She pulled her climbing harness out of her pack and stepped into it. When she’d cinched up her belt, she hung her chalk bag by a carabiner clip.

  Cole said, “They did so much stonework around here because this stone is soft and easy to work. This isn’t granite.”

  “I know.”

  “I wish I could do it instead of you.”

  “I know.”

  “Listen, when you get to the tomb, you’ll probably find an open chamber with one or several stone couches around the edges. That was where they would put the bodies and the offerings. When you’re inside, take photos. And if you have to cut or damage the tomb in any way, photograph what you’re doing.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll try not to damage anything, but if this manuscript is there, and it’s stayed there for two hundred years, it’s probably well hidden.”

  Cole pointed up at the dark opening in the cliff. “It’s not like it’s in the most accessible place.”

  “Agreed, but that wouldn’t keep somebody like me out.”

  “You can bet it’d keep me from ever trying it. Just be careful, Riley.”

  “You, too. This might take a while, and we don’t know if we’ve been followed.” She took her flare gun out of her backpack and handed it to him. “This is a German Geco flare gun. It fires a 26.5 millimeter flare. Most flare guns won’t seriously injure a person, but this one packs a wallop. Remember, though, you’ve only got one shot.”

  “Riley, you take it.”

  She shook her head. “It’s not like I’m going to get jumped up there.” She pointed at the tomb in the cliff off to their left. Then she stood up and slung her rope over her head. “I’ll be back soon.”

  The terrain straight back from the beach was a more gentle slope of rocky ground, with patches of bushes and trees. She considered going up there and making her way to the top of the cliff. Then she could rappel her way down to the tomb.

  But the thing was, it would be hot, dirty work in prickly bushes, and it would probably take her twice as long.

  Whereas climbing the cliff face—that would be fast and fun.

  She walked along the rocky beach until she got to where the water pressed right up against the base of the cliff. The rock face really was almost straight up.

  The climb started out easy. There were plenty of hand- and toeholds, and she made fast progress moving across as well as up, since the tomb was more in the center of the cliff. About a third of the way up, she came to a small ledge with a stunted tree and several bushes growing out of it. The tree felt strong, and she considered tying her rope to it, but she didn’t like knots. They limited her options.

  After taking a drink from her water bottle, she continued her climb. She didn’t think she was going to need to use any bolts at all, but about twenty feet short of the tomb entrance, things got a bit more dicey.

  The problem was how soft the rock was there. She had two close calls where footholds just crumbled beneath her, and she almost fell the second time. She decided she needed at least one solid anchor, so she took out her handheld drill, found a spot that looked good, and began the long process of drilling into the rock.

  The good thing was that the rock she drilled into seemed solid and hard. The bad thing was that meant it took longer to drill. Finally, she got a decent bolt into the wall and hooked herself on. At least now, if she fell, she could belay and slow herself down.

  It took her another half hour to make it up that last twenty feet, but she managed not to fall. When she got one hand onto the ledge, she felt the groove at the base of the entrance where the old stone door would slide. She pulled herself up and swung one leg onto the rock ledge.

  The front of the tomb stretched nearly fifteen feet across. It looked as though there were two doors. And each door had three carved frames around it, with each frame getting increasingly smaller. Riley thought that style looked Hellenic, but maybe she was just thinking of the familiar facade of so many Greek restaurants she’d seen. Only one of the two doors was an actual opening, and it was only about five feet tall. She supposed the sliding door that was now long gone must have been carved to look similar, so from the ground, both would look like closed doors.

  Riley bent over and stepped down to enter the dark tomb. Inside, the temperature dropped a good ten degrees. The air smelled musty and earthy but dry. It reminded her of the smell in the catacombs in Rome with Diggory. She shivered at the memory.

  As Cole had described, there were two separate stone couches along the rear wall. It was quite easy to see the one opposite the door with the light from the opening, so she examined that one first. The bench was decorated with carvings of several women holding hands. The base was carved with floral designs at the two ends. She didn’t see anything that looked like a hiding place.

  She retrieved her headlamp out of her pack and pulled the elastic band over the top of her head. She switched it on in order to take a better look at the darker end of the chamber off to her right. While the tomb wasn’t dug very deep into the cliff, it was more than fifteen feet wide inside. The darkest corner was to her right, behind the second ornamental door, which had no real opening. On the second bench were carvings of two lions. The detail was more fine. Since that area would have been more protected from sun and rain, the carvings had not eroded as much. When she shone the light on the base of the second stone couch, she held her breath. The same floral designs decorated the two ends, but in the middle was the faint outline of a Maltese cross.

  On the Docks

  Kaş, Turkey

  April 29, 2014

  “I need to rent the fastest boat you have,” Virgil said.

  He was standing inside the travel-agency office several blocks away from the new marina in Kaş, and he was losing patience with the Turk on the other side of the counter.

  “They told me in the marina I could rent a boat here.”

  “I was just trying to show you the selections you have.” The man pointed to a large laminated card on the countertop and began going through each vessel, detailing the various attributes, from seat cushions to ice makers to swim ladders. “And all our captains are very good.”

  Virgil interrupted him again. “I don’t care about anything but speed. Rent me the fastest boat you have. And I don’t want a captain. I’ll drive myself.”

  The man shrugged and pulled a form with multiple carbons out from under the desk. “Fill this out,” he said. “And we don’t rent boats without a captain.”

  “Well, I won’t fill out your antiquated forms.” Virgil reached for his wallet and began laying five-hundred-euro bills on the counter. “But I am willing to pay. Are you sure you won’t rent me a boat without a skipper?”

  Virgil strode out the long dock, looking for the thirty-five-foot dark-blue power cruiser. Most of the other docks were populated with super yachts, while the one he’d been directed to was filled with smaller, plastic-looking sailboats. He had to walk almost to the end before he saw the sleek-looking speedboat.

  He jingled the keys in his hand as he stepped out onto the finger pier, looking the boat over. He approved. He jumped aboard and unlocked the door to the small cabin. Hot air poured out. The interior looked to be nothing more than a V-berth in the bow, a head, and a small galley.

  Canvas covered the front window, and he set to work removing that as well as the covers over the instruments. He foll
owed the instructions he’d been issued for powering up the chart plotter, then turned the ignition and pressed the starter. The two outboard engines purred to life.

  This shouldn’t be that difficult, he thought as he hopped onto the dock to untie the dock lines. He was leaning over, unwrapping a line off the last of the cleats, when he felt cold metal press against his neck.

  “Stand up slowly and hand me that line.”

  He knew that voice. But it wasn’t possible.

  “Priest?”

  “Now raise your hands.”

  He followed instructions. The man patted him down and took his Glock.

  “Climb aboard and take the controls.”

  “But how—”

  “Virgil, Virgil.” Priest nudged him with the gun, and they both stepped aboard. “You never were the brightest bulb, and now in your old age, you’re really slipping.”

  When Virgil turned around, he saw that Priest had changed his appearance considerably since the last time they’d met. He now wore a smart haircut and fashionable black clothes. He looked more like the man who had once worked for the CIA. Except for his face.

  “You left me tied with zip ties and your little bomb waiting to go off. But you didn’t even bother to frisk me. You and the girl weren’t gone thirty seconds before I had my knife out and freed myself.”

  “So you’ve been following me?”

  “I knew you had the resources and the motivation. You’d do the work for me. You haven’t even been checking for a tail. You used to be better than that.”

  Priest was right. Virgil silently cursed at himself. It had never occurred to him someone would follow him, and he hadn’t been checking. He was losing his edge.

  Virgil backed the boat out of the slip. He kept to the speed limit in the long harbor, but as soon as he cleared the point and could turn southeast, he pushed the throttle forward, put her on a plane, and headed for Kekova Roads.