by Alex Archer
During this retrieval dive, she discovered another item embedded in a timber. Only a glint from the underwater lamp she carried enabled her to see it. At first she thought the thing might have been part of the ship.
It was a red-gold pipe the length of her hand from middle fingertip to the base of her palm. Using her knife, she dug the pipe out of the timber. With the dark blue around her, she couldn’t examine the pipe very well even with the lamp. She put it into her net bag for the time being and continued her search.
* * *
“WHAT DO YOU have there?” Roux asked, joining Annja at one of Kestrel’s workstations.
“A piece of pipe, I think, but it’s not made of any metal that I can identify.” She handed it to him.
One end was closed, embossed with the head of a bull with a ring in its nose. The other end was open and packed with some kind of wiring that she didn’t understand.
“This isn’t electrical?”
Annja shook her head. “This is old, Roux. I found it stuck in a ship’s timber. It went down with that bireme. I don’t know what the wires are. Maybe some kind of decoration.”
Roux handed it back to her. “Curious.”
Her phone rang and Thodoros Papassavas’s phone number and picture showed up on the viewscreen. Annja scooped up the phone and answered it.
“What is it exactly you’re working on, Annja?”
“You tell me. Did you translate the book I sent you?”
“I did.” Papassavas sighed. “But this is only the beginning of the story. I’m afraid I’ll never hear the end of it.”
“If I find out, I promise to tell you. What do you have?”
“The book is a journal by presumably the same Centurion Gabinius, whose inscription I translated earlier. The code was the same.”
“Probably one he and Caesar created for this mission.”
“Mission?”
“I don’t know what else to call it.”
“Well, the term certainly fits. According to the book, Caesar sent Gabinius in search of an island that supposedly housed, and I quote, ‘the works of Michalis the Toymaker.’ I have never heard of such a man.”
Annja’s excitement started to spike. “Why was Gabinius sent to find Michalis’s island?”
“Because Michalis was supposed to have weapons there that Caesar planned to use in his conquests. Caesar learned information about Michalis, who lived nearly four hundred years before Caesar, and thought he had discovered where to look for the man. So he sent Gabinius to discover if the stories were true.
“Gabinius found the island, based on Caesar’s direction, but they encountered several problems there. Gabinius promises a full report at a later date, but doesn’t elaborate, other than to say there were many dangers and many traps. And that he had brought a key stamped with a bull’s head on it.”
Annja looked at the piece of pipe with even more curiosity. “Key?”
“Yes. It’s supposed to be to one of the doors in Michalis’s workshop. But there are other doors, Gabinius says. They barely got out with their lives, but he was planning to return after reporting to Caesar. He and his men had been away for a long time and he felt they didn’t have enough warriors to deal with everything that was ahead of them.”
That doesn’t sound good.
“Does he mention the location of the workshop?”
“He does. There is an island ‘not far from Lesbos that bares much in common with Lesbos,’ including a lagoon in the center of it. Caesar had discovered that Michalis was of Mycenaean Greek heritage. Gabinius was from that area, too, which is why Caesar assigned him the job of tracking down Michalis’s lair.” He hesitated. “There’s also a very disturbing passage. A warning, if you will.”
“What does it say?”
“‘There, in the master’s workshop, the shade of Michalis guards his creations. If you disturb the master, death will come to any who trespass and do not come in peace.’”
“Okay, that’s creepy.” Annja pulled her tablet PC over to her and opened a webpage to a map of the Greek islands. There were a lot of islands. She would have to find some way to winnow down the list. “Can I get a copy of your translation?”
“Of course. It’s already in your email.”
“Let me read it and get back to you if I have any questions.”
“Read it and get back to me because I have questions.” Papassavas laughed. “Lots and lots of questions.”
* * *
BY THE NEXT morning, Annja thought she had the island picked out of the dozens in the Aegean Sea. To the best of her ability, she’d recreated Gabinius’s voyage from his journal, using landmarks that still existed. She’d also gone through several topographical maps of the area, as well as nautical charts.
“You’re sure this is it?” Garin asked after she’d made her case.
“It has to be.”
They sat in the galley drinking wine.
“If it’s not, we’re wasting a lot of time getting there.”
Roux shook his head. “I think she’s right, Garin. I’ve read the journal translation.”
“The translater she used could have been wrong.”
“Either way, we can’t stay here. If there were anything here to find, I would know it.”
Garin grinned. “Spidey senses.”
“As you will. The point being, this is a solid lead, and we can’t continue to sit idle here. The Andrianous will find us eventually. I’m surprised they haven’t already.”
Cursing under his breath, Garin nodded. “All right. Whether we find this toymaker’s hidden shop or not, I’ve already made a fortune off this.”
Roux smiled at him. “With the Andrianou family after us, you still have to live long enough to spend it.”
“I’ll have the captain get us under way.”
Annja flipped through the translation again on her tablet PC, hoping she was right...and at the same time fearing she was right.
* * *
“GRANDFATHER?” MELINA STOOD in the harbormaster’s office next to the cooling corpses. She scanned the ship’s manifest in the computer system.
It had taken her two days to find a young official susceptible to her charms, who was also married and too cheap to have an affair at a hotel. Melina had persuaded him to take her back to his office so they could have privacy. The instant he’d gotten her there, she’d put a knife to his throat and forced him to tell her the codes to the records.
Then she’d slit his throat, careful to not get any of his blood on her.
“Yes?” her grandfather answered through her earbud.
“I have found Garin Braden’s ship, Kestrel. It has just left the isle of Elba.” Melina watched the dot floating across the digital representation of the Mediterranean.
“Then they have found what they were looking for.”
“Possibly.” Melina didn’t care about that. Roux would be on Kestrel. She seethed to kill the man. “We could take a plane and bomb them. Be done with all of it.”
“No.” Her grandfather’s response was sharp and immediate. “I want to learn the secret of the clockworks, kopela mou. I’ve had Titan ready since they left Genoa. We can catch them when they get to their destination. There’s no sense in picking them up early and missing out on the clockworks. Meet me at the pier. We’ll get under way at once.”
“All right.” Melina sent Garin’s ship’s coordinates to her grandfather, then she stepped over the dead man and left the office. Soon, she promised herself. Very soon now.
29
The chill of the Aegean Sea nipped at Annja despite the protective swimsuit as she dove in. She powered up the Pegasus Thruster propulsion vehicle attached to her air tanks and headed toward the bottom where everything looked blue. With her dive belt r
igged for neutral buoyancy, the DPV shot her smoothly through the water, pushed by the thruster’s small but powerful fan blades. The DPV assist at one hundred and seventy feet a minute made it feel like she was flying and required nothing from her except occasional changes of direction.
Here in the lagoon, the ocean floor sank more quickly than she would have expected. Instead of a gentle slope from the island, the descent was a straight plunge to three hundred feet, like the land mass had been squeezed up from the bottom.
When the gathering gloom got so dark she could no longer see well, Annja pulled the portable lamp out of her belt and switched it on. The bright cone of light pierced the gloom and lit several of the schools of small fish that hugged to the safety of the island. A three-foot squid bolted out of Annja’s path and retreated toward the coral reefs that stretched at least twenty feet up from the ocean floor.
Annja switched off the DPV and righted herself with her swim fins, hanging effortlessly a few feet above the reefs. She played her light around the area, searching for the cave mouth that had been described in the journal. The light and the darkness, combined with the distortion created by the depth, made it difficult to judge distances accurately or see surfaces clearly.
Roux and Garin joined her, followed by the five-man security team Garin had ordered to dive with them. Another security team had set up on the banks of the lagoon. Kestrel waited above just outside the lock a half mile away, lying at anchor and too far away to be of any immediate help. The security team took up positions around them, holding their spear guns at the ready.
Garin swam forward, adding his light to Annja’s. “Are you sure this is the place?” His voice over the radio sounded thick inside the full-face scuba mask.
“I don’t know. Maybe.” Avoiding the sharp coral, Annja swam closer to the rocky base of the island. “You read that journal the same as I did. Papassavas could have missed something in the translation. And there have been a number of earthquakes in the Aegean Sea. More frequent because of continuing activity between the African and Eurasian tectonic plates. If that kind of friction can make the Pyrenee Mountains in Spain and the Zagros Mountains in Iran, it can also erase any sign of a cave mouth here.” She floated above the reefs, then swam down behind them as much as she could.
Garin snorted. “You keep track of earthquake activity?”
“A little.”
“That speaks ill of your personal life.”
“Hey. Tracking artifacts and nearly getting killed is my personal life. It’s also yours, I might add. Who got me into this?” Annja swam farther down, trailing a gloved hand over the slick walls of the island foundation. Several colorful fish exploded out of nearby nooks and crannies, seeking other shelter. “The Aegean Sea is a hotbed of earthquake activity because it’s landlocked over the plates. Since the ocean levels have risen in the past few thousand years, several ancient cities are now underwater. Earthquakes and tsunamis turn over the ocean floor and bring remnants of those cities to the surface. That makes me very interested.”
Reaching the craggy rock, Garin separated and swam in the opposite direction from Annja. Two of the security men swam after him. “There are remote operation vehicles aboard Kestrel. Perhaps, since the opening isn’t ready to hand, we might withdraw and let my people search with those.”
Annja wasn’t ready to abandon the hunt yet, though. “We’re down here now. We can search till we have to go up for air. A ROV isn’t the same as being here.”
Ignoring Garin’s grumbled response, Annja pulled herself along the stone wall, hoping for some indication the cave existed—or had existed. They couldn’t have traveled this far, risked this much, for nothing. She wouldn’t accept that.
“Annja.” Garin’s voice was suddenly very quiet, very tense. “Stop moving and crowd in against the rock.”
Annja did so immediately. “What do you—”
Abrupt movement cut through the water only a short distance out in front of the reefs. For a moment, Annja couldn’t make out what the creature was, but just almost seeing it triggered an automatic flight response in her that she had to resist.
The shark twitched languorously, coming closer. The long body was unmistakable, as were the first and second dorsal fins that distinguished it from a dolphin. The head was an angled wedge with a slash of a mouth. The great white was close enough now that the gill slits on its side were visible. The lamplight caught the black eyes for just a moment.
Annja let go of her lamp and reached into the otherwhere to pull out her sword. Even having it there in the sea with her, she didn’t feel safe. The great white was the apex predator, pure death in the sea.
With a casual flick of its tail, the shark changed direction and disappeared into the deep blue.
“Annja?” Garin said quietly.
“I’m okay. It’s gone.”
“Good. I’ve never been face-to-face with one of those, and I really don’t want to entertain the opportunity. That thing was at least twenty feet long.”
“From here, it looked bigger.” Annja released the sword and let it vanish, but she remained still for a while longer. “Do you think it’s really gone?”
“For the moment. It was only curious. Not hungry.”
“Good thing.” Annja took a deep breath, not sure she had been breathing through that near-encounter.
Then Roux said calmly over the radio, “The door is here.”
The announcement chased the residual fear from Annja’s mind. Catching hold of the rocky crevices and kicking her fins, she whirled around. The DPV scraped along the stone wall.
Roux floated ten feet away, hanging in the water with an outstretched hand. Below him, Annja looked up, seeing him as a shadow against the bright surface a hundred feet above. His hair floated in the water.
Garin swam over to Roux. “How do you know?”
Pulling back his hand, Roux swam toward the craggy surface. “I know.”
“Spidey senses,” Garin said.
Ignoring the jibe, Roux grabbed hold of the stones and settled in against the wall. He searched the fissures with his right hand, then drew back. “Annja?”
Kicking her fins, Annja swam close to Roux and latched on to the rock, as well. She played her light over the surface, wondering how the old man had found anything in the darkness of the water.
The light glinted off a dull metallic surface almost hidden by the rocks. As she peered at the spot, though, she made out the small head of a bull that wasn’t much larger than her fist. Once she’d seen it, she didn’t know how she had missed it.
Intricately detailed, the bull’s face glared out from the rocky surroundings. Annja couldn’t tell the color of the device for certain, but she was willing to bet it was that same reddish gold composite as the one they’d found off the coast of Elba. A nose ring dangled beneath the bull’s heavy chin.
“It looks like the translation was correct.” The LED lights inside Roux’s face mask lit his smile. “Now let’s see if the mechanism still works.”
Annja hesitated. “You think there’s a door here?”
“I do.”
Glancing around the surface, Annja tried to spot any definitions that broke up the natural rock. “I don’t see a door.”
“Cunning artifice—you wouldn’t.”
Annja shook her head. She could be wrong about the island. It might have been pushed up from the ocean floor in the beginning, but it had sunk down, as well. “Even if there is a door, it can’t be airtight. When Michalis lived here, this part of the island was above the water level. Whatever’s behind that door is probably flooded.”
“We still need to go inside, Annja. The device that lies within must be found.”
“If the area beyond the entrance isn’t flooded, it will flood when we open the door.” Frustrated, she checked her watch. They had forty-seven
minutes left before they had to head to the surface. They had extra air tanks there, but subsea pressures took a toll. Extended diving wasn’t an answer.
“Move aside.” Garin swam up, holding a rock in one hand.
Roux and Annja gave ground reluctantly. Garin clung to the wall and slammed the rock into the area where they believed the door to be. Then he listened intently. He repeated the effort twice more, then looked at Roux.
“It’s submerged in there. Do you agree?”
“I do.” Roux turned to Annja. The helmet’s LED lights highlighted his determination. “Annja, open the door.”
Disappointed, she thought of all the treasures that would have been destroyed inside. The sea was unmerciful. Ships, wood as well as metal, were often preserved if the water was cold enough. Gold remained untouched, but tons of silver from lost cargo had broken down in the salt water, fortunes lost forever.
Papyrus, parchment and clay scrolls, which someone like Michalis would have been using given the time that he lived, would be long gone. All lost.
A small hope kindled in her that Michalis might have committed some of his work to copper pages like those they’d found in Elba. If so, there was a chance some of his work might remain. At the very least, there would be other automatons like the clockwork butterfly. Roux certainly believed whatever he was looking for was inside the cavern.
And whatever it is, Roux believes it’s dangerous. Annja reached into the bag affixed to the back of her weight belt and drew out the curious pipe they had found in Elba. She affixed the open end to the bull’s head.
Nothing happened.
The pipe slid over easily, then twisted just as easily around the bull’s head.
Frustrated, Annja drew the pipe back and examined it in the lamplight. “It’s not working. If this is even supposed to work.” She ran her fingers along the pipe’s surface, searching for any imperfection that might offer a clue as to how she was supposed to proceed.
She fitted the pipe back over the bull’s head, twisting again with the same result. Then, remembering the coiled mass of wiring inside the pipe, inspiration struck her and she held the pipe steady and pushed the end of it with her hand.
