Testament

by David Gibbins

  “What does it mean?” Rebecca asked.

  “There’s another passage in Second Maccabees, chapter two,” Costas continued. “You won’t find it in the King James version, but it’s considered canonical by the Greek Orthodox Church. After the Ark is sealed up in its cave, the prophet Jeremiah reprimands his followers for leaving waymarkers to it. He tells them that the place shall remain unknown until God finally gathers his people together and shows mercy to them. ‘The Lord will bring these things to light again, and the glory of the Lord will appear with the cloud.’”

  “I’m just a dirt archaeologist,” Jack said, “but I do believe in the power of artifacts for their symbolism, for maintaining hope and strength in times of adversity. And sometimes that’s best maintained when an artifact is just beyond our reach, a hidden treasure that forever fires up our imagination. It’s the yearning for it, the quest, that keeps us going, not the thought of actually holding it in our hands.”

  “And the world of peace the prophets hoped for, the time for the revelation, has not yet come about,” Rebecca said.

  Jack nodded grimly. “The Middle East is a cauldron, worse than it ever has been before, worse even than at the time of Nebuchadnezzar and the destruction of the Temple, when the Ark was spirited away. All the peoples of the Holy Land, whatever their beliefs, need symbols of hope to sustain them. The Ark is where it should be.”

  “So what’s going to happen to Landor?”

  Jack paused again, pursing his lips. “Captain Ibrahim assures me that he’ll be put on trial for conspiracy to murder, attempted murder, and aiding and abetting piracy. They hold him responsible for the deaths of Zaheed and the two marines killed during the kidnapping shoot-out, as well as the casualties here.”

  “Do you think it will stick?”

  “I doubt it. With the Badass Boys history now, the Somalis may be unable to find anyone who can testify that Landor ordered the kidnapping. He’s a wily customer, very experienced at covering his back, no paperwork or emails, everything done by word of mouth and payments in cash. Deep Explorer Incorporated may go under, but not Landor. He’ll probably never walk again, but he can do what he does just as well from a wheelchair. He’ll spend some unpleasant months under guard in a Mogadishu hospital, then his lawyers will get him bail on a technicality and he’ll be out of the country before you can say treasure wreck. He did the same thing in Colombia early in his career, and will doubtless do it again before he gets on the wrong side of someone really big-time—the Russian or Chinese mafia perhaps—and someone puts a bullet in the back of his head.”

  “And Deep Explorer?”

  “That’s a happier outcome. I don’t think there’s any chance the investment consortium are going to try to reclaim their ship. They’ve cut their losses before and moved on under a different name, and they’ll do the same now. This morning Ibrahim and I had a teleconference with the British ambassador in Mogadishu to discuss the possibility of UK aid funding to convert her to a fisheries patrol and research vessel, run by the Somali navy but with a scientific role as well. She’d be modeled on Seaquest and Sea Venture, and we could do the conversion in our own yard. I think we’ll get the go-ahead.”

  “The situation with fishing remains the critical factor out here,” Costas said.

  Jack nodded. “I talked about that with the ambassador just before the gun attack that killed Zaheed. We agreed to work up a strong case for an aid package that would see surplus UK equipment go to the Somali navy, as well as more personnel secondments and training initiatives. The UK has put a big commitment into Somalia with the new embassy, and the ambassador thinks there’s a good chance of our package being approved. She thinks the US will come on board as well, once they re-establish their presence in Mogadishu.”

  “Have you been in touch with Zaheed’s wife yet?” Rebecca asked.

  Jack stared into the embers. “I’ll be visiting her in Mogadishu as soon as we’re out of here. The embassy people have been with her and her daughter round the clock. They know that IMU will look after them financially for as long as is necessary, including her daughter’s education and their relocation to the West, if that’s what they want. We’ll provide for them as Zaheed would have done had he lived.”

  “Zaheed talked to Lieutenant Ahmed, you know,” Costas said. “Outside the naval headquarters before we took our fateful drive. They were planning to present you with a proposal for a beefed-up IMU presence in Somalia, with Ahmed’s club providing the divers.”

  “Ahmed’s spoken to me about it, and it’s already green-lit,” Jack said. “That’s part of the plan for Deep Explorer as well, to serve as an operational base for wreck investigation. It allows us to make use of quite a lot of the existing equipment in the ship, redirecting its purpose from salvage to archaeology. I’ve invited Ahmed to spend his next leave with us in Cornwall. If only Zaheed had been able to come with him. But it’s great to see something good emerging from all this.”

  “Ahmed’s still on the island and is coming up here shortly,” Costas said. “Apparently he’s got something to show you. He’s pretty excited.”

  “Where are you going next?” Rebecca said to Jack, resting her head on her knees and hugging her legs.

  Jack looked again at Seaquest, and then around to the north, following a dark streak of cloud that seemed to envelop the horizon. Somewhere up there, somewhere beyond the Arabian shore, a black hole of destruction was threatening to swallow the cradle of civilization itself, sucking into it the very essence of history. Ever since returning from the clutches of extremism in Egypt, Jack had known that his destiny was to return, not to Egypt but to the very maw of the hole itself, to the place where history was being wiped clean. Nothing else he could do now, no other quest, was as important as trying to protect the treasures of the oldest civilizations from desecration, a task he could no longer stand by and watch others fail to achieve while knowing that he might have the ability and resources to make a difference.

  “You’re going back there, aren’t you?” Rebecca said quietly. “Into the cauldron.”

  Jack stared into the fire, watching Costas turn the fish. “I don’t know. But I can’t just ignore it. None of us can.” He exhaled forcefully, then looked at her. “What about you?”

  “Me?” Rebecca took off the headscarf she had been wearing, and gave him a brazen look. Instead of the long, dark hair he was so used to, he saw that she had shorn it almost completely, to above the ears. He stared, flabbergasted, and then slowly smiled. Suddenly she was no longer a girl but a young woman, tough and ready for anything.

  “I had no idea,” he said. “That looks great.”

  “I didn’t do it for the look of it. I did it because it’s more practical in this heat, for what Jeremy and I have planned.”

  “Which is?”

  “We talked it through with Captain Macleod on Seaquest. He has to stay on station for another five days at least, while they finish clearing the pen. The warships will be here as well for our protection, and the Yemeni official in charge of Socotra has given us the go-ahead.”

  “You planning to invade the island? Costas said.

  “Intensive archaeological survey off the south coast. We can put four Zodiacs in the water from Seaquest. The diving units on both warships are excited about it too, an excellent training opportunity for them. With the possibility of war looming, when are we ever going to get another opportunity like this? These islands were bang in the middle of one of the most incredible trade routes of the ancient world, between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea on the one hand and the Indian Ocean and the world beyond on the other. We could get anything: medieval Arab traders, Chinese junks, Greek and Roman merchant ships, you name it. My hope is for an ancient Egyptian ship coming back from India laden with treasures of the East. Maurice thought that would be really cool.”

  “You’ve discussed this with him?” Jack said.

  “It was his idea, actually. Apparently he’s always wanted to explore Socotra.
Something about Egyptian Middle Kingdom artifacts dug up here years ago by a British adventurer, in the mid-nineteenth century, I think.”

  “Ah, yes,” Jack said. “That would be Captain Peter Hall of the Bengal Sappers, one of the men on the 1868 Abyssinia expedition. I found out about his Socotra excursion in one of my great-great-grandfather’s letters, and made the mistake of telling Maurice about it.”

  “Actually, he’s itching to get out here,” Rebecca said.

  “Maurice is coming?”

  Rebecca looked at her watch. “Should be in the air in a couple of hours. Almost all finished at Carthage. He just needs to clean up in his trench and get it backfilled.”

  “Good of you to keep me in the loop.”

  “You and Costas are welcome to join us. That is,” she said, eyeing Jack mischievously, “if you’re not too old for that kind of thing.”

  “That reminds me,” Jack said, suddenly remembering something. “Louise, the Bletchley girl back in England. I owe her an update.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Jeremy said. “I’ve kept her posted since the get-go. She seems to have taken a particular shine to me.”

  “Still, I’ll Skype her tomorrow,” Jack said. “She opened up to us about the war, about her work at Bletchley, and I owe it to her. Finding the gold helps to bring the story of Clan Macpherson and that whole secret operation to a kind of resolution, something she’s been wanting for more than seventy years.”

  “She’ll love to hear what you’re planning to do with it,” Jeremy said. “One up on the Nazis. A lot of people like her who put their all into it back then are still fighting the war, you know.”

  * * *

  Twenty minutes later, Lieutenant Ahmed came along the rocks from the direction of the inlet, wearing Somali navy fatigues and carrying a plastic bag. “A few more for the barbecue,” he said, handing the bag to Costas. “My men did some spearfishing after their final inspection of the inlet.”

  “How goes it?” Jack said.

  Ahmed sat down on a rock and accepted a bottle of water from Costas. “All the radioactive material is now in the frigate, destined for disposal. We’ve got everything set up for the team from the museum who are arriving tomorrow to begin clearing that treasure chamber. Are your people still good with that?”

  Jack nodded. “The IMU conservators are due this evening at Mogadishu and will be brought out by the Lynx from Seaquest in the morning. With any luck we’ll have all the artifacts flown out and in a secure laboratory by the end of the week.”

  “This is going to cause a huge stir,” Ahmed said. “It looks as if those Ahnenerbe men were quietly stealing everything they could find of value in the places they explored in Africa. One of my friends who works for the museum has had a look at the records, and there were items that disappeared mysteriously while this place was under Mussolini’s control in the late 1930s, most of it gold from the ancient Axum civilization. Restoring those artifacts to their rightful place will give a big boost to the sense of identity and pride among the people here, something much needed after the past couple of decades.”

  “IMU will do everything it can to help,” Jack said.

  “There is one other thing.” Ahmed took a swaddled package from his pocket and leaned forward, eyeing Jack intently. “Do you remember I told you my plan to enlist local fishermen in our search for wrecks, a way of getting a program of maritime archaeological research on a proper footing in Somalia?”

  “Putting out an APB,” Costas said, taking Ahmed’s fish and laying them beside the grill. “It’s always the best way. Use local knowledge first.”

  Ahmed nodded. “Well, we’ve already come up with something very interesting. One of the fishermen, a grandson of the man who led us to this island, regularly goes along the northern Somali coast into the Red Sea as far as Eritrea, to Annesley Bay. One of his favorite spots is not far from the town of Zula, near ancient Adulis, the port of Axum.”

  “Where the British landed during the 1868 Abyssinia expedition,” Jack said.

  “Right. It’s a big area of salt flats, and there’s still some evidence of the British engineering works: piles for jetties and the remains of wooden causeways. At one of those places our man came ashore and saw the remains of an old hull poking out of the mud, with strange-looking markings on the bow. He took a picture of it on his phone and forwarded it to me.”

  Ahmed tapped his phone and passed it over to Jack, who enlarged the picture and stared at it, swiping from side to side to get a full view. “That’s old all right,” he murmured. “Very old. Ancient mortice-and-tenon construction.”

  “Could be Egyptian,” Rebecca said, peering over his shoulder. “The ancient Egyptians sailed down the Red Sea to the Land of Punt, and they were the originators of that construction technique. At least that’s what Maurice says.”

  “Not with this on the bow.” Jack passed her the phone, and Jeremy and Costas leaned over to see. “Good Lord,” Jeremy said. “It’s a painted eye. An apotropaic eye.”

  “You don’t see those on Egyptian boats,” Jack said. “But you do see them on ancient ships of the Mediterranean, where the eye is still used today to ward off bad luck.”

  “Specifically, you might see it on a Phoenician ship,” Jeremy said, taking the phone and swiping the screen to get maximum magnification. “Definitely on a Phoenician ship.”

  “What else can you see?” Jack asked.

  Jeremy handed the phone back, pointing. “That.”

  Jack stared at the image. It was a section of planking just below the bow, half buried in mud, with a symbol faintly visible on one of the planks. “It’s a carpenter’s mark,” he said. “The letters alpha and gamma.”

  “The letter A is toppled over on one side,” Jeremy said. “That’s the Phoenician letter A. Can you see it?”

  “What could a Phoenician ship possibly be doing in the southern Red Sea?” Costas said, looking at Jack with a half-smile on his face.

  “Pharaoh Necho’s expedition?” Rebecca said. “Didn’t he employ Phoenicians to sail south down the Red Sea on their expedition to circumnavigate Africa?”

  “Phoenicians came in the other direction too, didn’t they?” Ahmed said. “Circumnavigating Africa from the west. You told me your theory about Hanno.”

  Jack nodded slowly, his mind racing, staring at the photo. “He may not have sailed the entire route back into the Mediterranean, but he made it back to Carthage, and I’m convinced it was from this side of Africa.”

  “Then you’ll be very intrigued with the other thing the fisherman found.” Ahmed unwrapped the package, carefully taking out an encrusted potsherd. “This was in the shallows just beyond the hull. It looks like an amphora sherd to me. I’ve been following the blog on your Phoenician wreck off Cornwall over the past few weeks, so I’m pretty sure I can recognize Phoenician letters when I see them. I think I can read that first word.”

  He passed the sherd to Jack, who held it so the others could see it. One side, the interior, was covered with worm castings and accretion, with some of the pitch lining of the amphora still visible. The other side had the faint lines of letters scratched on it, clearly done in antiquity. Jack stared, astonished. Two words; two brothers. One was the man he had followed on his venture around the coast of Africa, an extraordinary expedition with an extraordinary cargo; the other was a man who had gone to the far side of the known world, whose final moments they had charted in the waters of the cove in England where Jack had been diving less than a week before, where Costas had found the sherd inscribed in the last moments of duress, when that man too could only think of his brother.

  “Hanno and Himilco,” Rebecca said quietly. “Hanno thinking of his brother when he leaves his ship, wondering if he’ll see him again.”

  Jeremy took out a pocket magnifier and scrutinized the sherd, angling it against the firelight. He snapped the magnifier shut and handed the sherd back to Jack. “I thought so,” he said.

  “What is it?” Jack
said.

  “Between the names. You can barely see it, but it’s there. That pictogram.”

  Jack stared. Suddenly he could see it, the image on the plaque from Clan Macpherson that had been on the sherd from the Cornwall wreck. “Well I’ll be damned,” he said, passing it to Rebecca, pointing at the symbol of the two men carrying the box. “That’s incredible. It’s exactly the same.”

  Costas reached over and shook his hand. “Well, you didn’t find the Ark of the Covenant, but then neither did those Nazi bastards. But when it comes down to it, there’s nothing like a potsherd to keep an archaeologist happy.”

  “Oh, but I did find it,” Jack said, taking the sherd again and holding it up. “And you’re right. This sherd is my gold, all the gold I need.” He grinned at Ahmed. “I think I owe you a place on our next big wreck excavation, your duties permitting, of course.”

  “I’d love that.”

  “Right, grub’s up,” Costas said. “There’s beer and water in the bag for everyone. Plates, please.”

  Jack took a bottle of water and uncapped it. He picked up a plate, waiting his turn, and took a deep drink, looking at the stars that were just becoming visible above the horizon. He thought of all those he seemed to have been shadowing: Hanno and the Phoenicians, the soldiers who had scaled Magdala in 1868, the men of Clan Macpherson, and those in Bletchley Park who had decided their fate. For a moment he imagined himself looking down from far above, seeing only the red speck of the fire, the bare rock and the great expanse of the sea around them, imagining those lives that had gone before, all of them navigating routes that seemed to have converged at this place.