“Let’s back up a bit,” Austin said. “Assume he was behind the theft. Why would he try to prevent us from tracking down the statue’s twin?”
“He obviously doesn’t want anyone to see it, for whatever reason.”
“Maybe we’ll know why after tomorrow.” He glanced at his watch. “Sure you’re satisfied with the sleeping arrangements? We haven’t known each other very long.”
Carina reached out and touched his hand. “I feel as if I have known you several lifetimes, Mr. Austin. Shall we call it a night?”
They took the elevator up to their room, and Austin walked out on the balcony to give Carina time to change. He was gazing at the reflection of lights in the sea when Carina came up and slipped her arm around his waist. He felt the warmth of her body against his. He turned and was greeted by a silky kiss. She was wearing a long, white cotton nightgown, but the simple garment did little to disguise her supple figure.
“What about your jet lag?” Austin said.
Carina’s voice was low and cool as she wound her arms around his neck. “I just got over it.”
Chapter 28
AUSTIN AWOKE FROM A SOUND SLEEP and grabbed his warbling cell phone from the bedside table. He eased out of bed, wrapping the top sheet around his muscular body like a Roman senator. The sight of Carina’s sable hair spread out on her pillow brought an appreciative smile to his tanned face.
He stepped onto the balcony and put the phone to his ear. “The eagle has landed at DalyranAirport,” Zavala announced. “The Subvette trailer is off the plane and ready to go.”
“Good work, Joe.” Austin said. “I’ll meet you in ninety minutes.” He gave Zavala directions to the launch site.
“Might take longer, Kurt. I’m standing by the road looking for a tow truck to pull the trailer. Only little cars for rent at the airport. Gotta go. I think I see my ride coming.”
Austin didn’t doubt for a second that Zavala could pull it off. The soft-spoken Mexican American had a knack for accomplishing the impossible.
The sound of running water came from the bathroom. Awakened by the phone, Carina had slipped quietly out of bed. Austin could hear her singing to herself in the shower.
“I need someone to scrub my back,” she called out.
Austin didn’t have to be asked a second time. His improvised toga went flying. After their shower, they toweled each other off and got dressed. Austin wore tan shorts and a conservative Hawaiian shirt that Don Ho would have been proud of. Carina pulled on a shift of African sun yellow over her black bikini. After a room-service continental breakfast of rolls, hard-boiled eggs, and coffee, they drove to the marina.
Austin had been honest with Captain Mustapha. Before parting the night before, he had told the captain that he and Carina were hunting for an ancient artifact without permission of the Turkish government. He had no intention of keeping the artifact if they found it, but he wanted Mustapha to be aware of what he was getting himself into. On the other hand, the captain would be paid well for the added risk.
Mustapha said he didn’t worry about government rules. Austin had hired the boat. Mustapha would take them wherever they wanted to go. What they did there was their business.
Austin had told the captain he would need a secluded place with a launching ramp. Mustapha had described an abandoned boatyard whose owner had gone into bankruptcy. The boatyard was across the harbor from the marina. Carina would ride with Mustapha and rejoin Austin there.
The boatyard was reached by a dirt road with more craters in it than the dark side of the moon. Austin wandered among the wooden skeletons of unfinished boats and inspected the boat ramp. The blacktop was eroded along the edges, but the main part of the ramp was in relatively good shape.
Zavala was fifteen minutes overdue. Austin stood at the edge of the road wondering whether his friend’s resourcefulness had been put to the test. He cocked his ear at the rumble of an engine. A cloud of dust and feathers was heading in his direction. A truck lurched through the potholes, gears grinding in protest, its engine coughing asthmatically. The truck skidded to a stop in a haze of purple exhaust smoke and amid a cacophony of clucks from the chicken cages piled precariously behind the cab.
Zavala emerged from the truck and introduced the driver, a brawny Turk with a gold-capped smile and heavy five o’clock shadow.
“Good morning, Kurt,” Zavala said. “Meet my pal Ahmed.”
Austin shook hands with the driver and walked around behind the truck. The submersible was under a green plastic tarp lashed down with ropes. Zavala had used additional ropes to improvise a backup system for the ancient trailer hitch. “I had to jerry-rig a tow system,” Zavala said, gazing with pride at his handiwork. “Not bad for government work.”
“Not bad at all,” Austin said with a roll of his eyes. The improvised setup must have made for anxious moments on the coastal road’s tight curves. He wondered how the NUMA bean counters would react if they knew their multimillion-dollar submersible had been roped to the bumper of a chicken truck.
Ahmed backed the trailer onto the ramp. Motorized rollers moved the launch platform off the trailer and into the water, where it floated on two long pontoons.
Mustapha arrived with Carina. He threw out a towline to Zavala, who tied the other end to the launch platform. Austin peeled off a wad of Turkish lira for the grateful truck driver and thanked him for his help.
Before he left to deliver his chickens, Ahmed tucked the trailer into a corner of the boatyard. Austin and Zavala rowed out to the motor cruiser in the skiff, and Mustapha immediately got under way. The motor cruiser steamed out of the harbor and entered the bay with the submersible in tow.
The fishing boats and pleasure craft began to thin out until only a few distant sails were visible. Austin gathered his friends under the shade of an awning on the aft deck. As they sipped cups of strong coffee, Austin filled Zavala in on the escape from the abandoned village and the previous day’s outing with Mustapha.
“You crammed a lot into a short time,” Zavala said.
“The secret is time management,” Austin said.
The boat slowed as it approached the gray-brown swath of exposed rock where the cliff had fallen into the sea. The captain dropped anchor near the base of the cliff. Austin and Zavala rowed the skiff to the floating platform, climbed aboard, and pulled the tarp off.
Austin ran his eyes over the submersible’s gleaming fiberglass body. Zavala had copied every detail of his Corvette convertible except for the color, and added the modifications that allowed it to travel under water.
Austin shook his head with wonder. “It looks like it just rolled off the Chevy assembly line, Joe. How about a five-minute lesson in launch procedure?”
“I can do it in one minute. The Launch, Recovery, and Transport vehicle has its own power. External controls on the starboard side. Flood the pontoons. When the platform reaches dive level, pump out water to attain neutral buoyancy. Fine-tune our positioning with the LRT thrusters. Release the securing clamps. I drive off. You can stay below or take the LRT to the surface.”
“What about recovery?”
“The same procedure in reverse. I come in like a plane landing on an aircraft carrier. You secure the vehicle on the platform and up we go.”
“You’re a genius,” Austin said. “Crazy, maybe, but still a genius.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence. I worried that the project might be seen as a frivolous expenditure of NUMA resources.”
“It’s not exactly the ALVIN,” Austin said, referring to the tubby submersible that dove to the Titanic. “But I’m sure Pitt would approve.” NUMA director Dirk Pitt was a passionate collector of vintage cars. Let’s take the latest addition to the NUMA undersea fleet out for a spin.”
They rowed back to the boat and got into their scuba gear. Austin had asked Zavala to bring along scuba equipment that included an underwater communications setup. The Ocean Technology Systems receivers were attached to the straps of their full
face masks.
Mustapha rowed the two men to the submersible platform. They climbed aboard and pulled on their air tanks. Zavala sat behind the Subvette’s steering wheel. He had modified the seats to accommodate the tanks. Austin took his station on a folding seat built into the starboard side of the launch vehicle. He punched a button on the control panel to start the battery-powered pumps. The pontoons filled with water, and the platform and submersible slowly sank below the surface.
At a depth of forty feet, Austin reversed the pump action to stabilize the platform in a hover. Other controls allowed him to detach the metal clamps that held the submersible on the LRT. The sub’s headlights snapped on. With a whirr of its vertical thrusters, the Subvette rose off the platform and hovered above it.
Austin pushed off from the platform and positioned himself in a sitting position above the submersible. He purged air from his buoyancy compensator and slowly dropped into the passenger seat. Zavala had built extra foot room into the cockpit to accommodate swim fins.
Recognizing the impossibility of working floor pedals with fins on his feet, he had placed the thruster controls on the steering wheel.
Zavala pivoted the submersible around to face inland. Twin cones from the submersible’s high-intensity headlights illuminated the scarred face of a rockslide that sloped down to the bottom at a forty-five-degree angle. The collapsed cliff had broken into fragments that ranged in size from rocks no bigger than a head of cabbage to giant boulders that dwarfed the submersible.
“Your Navigator would have to be one tough hombre to come out of this mess in one piece,” Zavala said. “He’d be crushed down to the size of a beer can.”
“The old guy didn’t survive three thousand years by being a wimp,” Austin said.
Zavala’s gargled chuckle came through Austin’s earphones. “Can’t argue with unreasonable and unjustified optimism. What’s a few hundred thousand tons of rock? Where do we begin the search for our hardheaded friend?”
A flat rock, the size and shape of a banquet table, lay several yards out from the base of the slide. “We’ll use that slab as a starting point,” Austin said. “Work to the right, and move up the slide in parallel tracks until we get near the surface. Then we’ll do a reverse search on the left side of the rock. Keep an eye out for columns, a portico, or pediment. Anything that looks man-made.”
Zavala drove the Subvette along the base of the slide. Startled at the submersible’s approach, schools of feeding fish darted into nooks and crannies. At the outer edge of the rockslide, Zavala put the submersible into a graceful climbing reverse turn. He continued the lawn-mowing pattern, moving back and forth across the face of the slide. Occasionally, he stopped at a promising object and pivoted the submersible so that the headlights could come to bear on the target.
The deep-blue water changed to a shimmering green as they neared the surface.
The submersible dove again and coursed along the base of the slide to the left. Austin saw an object on the bottom that was buried except for an exposed, curved edge. He asked Zavala to blow the surface covering off the object with bursts from the vehicle’s thrusters. The technique was commonly used by treasure hunters to uncover a buried wreck. The clouds of sediment eventually settled to reveal the cylindrical shape of a stone column.
“Try going straight up the slope from the column,” Austin advised.
Zavala narrowed the back-and-forth area of coverage, and the vehicle ascended the slide. On one turn, the headlights swept across a triangular pediment that rested at a drunken angle on sections of columns. Austin’s probing gaze zeroed in on a shadow. He pushed himself out of the submersible and swam closer to the cavelike opening. He flashed the beam of his waterproof torch into the cavity.
A second later, Zavala heard Austin’s laughter.
“Hey, Joe, got any kitty treats?” Austin said.
“Talking crazy is a symptom of nitrogen narcosis, my friend.”
“This is not a case of rapture of the deep. I’m looking at a bronze Phoenician cat.”
A feminine squeal of delight filled their earphones. Carina had been listening to the conversation.
“You’ve found it!”
Austin ran the flashlight beam around the cave’s interior. The statue lay faceup, like a corpse stretched out on a funeral bier. The space was about ten feet across and deep, and three or four feet from top to bottom. Austin squeezed through the opening. The figure’s conical hat was dented, and the arms were broken off. Unlike the original statue, the nose was intact.
Austin backed out, and curled his thumb and forefinger in the universal okay signal.
“He’s in good shape for a crushed beer can. Let’s pull him out.”
“There’s line and lift bags in the portside compartment,” Zavala said.
Austin swam to the launch vehicle and pulled a coil of nylon rope from a storage compartment. He tied one end to the rear bumper of the hovering Subvette. Austin tied four open-bottomed lift bags to the line, and went back and attached the free end of the rope to the base of the statue.
He used air from his tank to inflate the bags, then he waved at Zavala, who gunned the thrusters. The line went taut as a violin string. The statue moved several inches. Austin made a throat-slashing motion and swam back to the cavity. The bronze cat attached to the statue’s legs was wedged against an overhead outcropping.
Austin wriggled past the statue and into the cave. His air tanks scraped against the rocks, and there was barely enough space for him to turn around and face out. He pushed down on the statue and told Zavala to start pulling.
The statue moved toward the opening and stopped again. The jagged stub of the left arm had caught in some rocks. Zavala stopped pulling. Austin used his sheath knife to pry the arm away from the pediment.
On the next try, the statue came free, and Austin guided it through the opening, bracing his feet against the back of the cave. The statue slowly emerged from its prison—but as Austin tried to follow, he discovered that he was unable to move his right foot. A section of the cave wall had collapsed and caught his fin.
Pebbles fell like hailstones from the roof as he reached back with his knife and cut the fin strap. Falling rocks pelted his legs, and bounced off his head with enough force to jar his teeth. He reached forward and grabbed the statue’s head a second before it would have eluded his grasp.
The submersible pulled Austin and the Navigator from the cave just before the roof collapsed.
Seeing Austin was clear, Zavala goosed the thrusters. The cave opening disappeared under the disintegrating wall of boulders.
Austin had his hand to his head, where it had been struck by a fist-sized rock.
“Kurt, are you okay?”
“I’d be better if I had a bronze skull.”
Disregarding the throbbing in his head, Austin swam to the statue. The Navigator hung at an angle, partially buoyed by the lift bags. Zavala powered the sub until the Navigator was above the stationary launch vehicle. Austin guided the statue to a platform on the stern end. He detached the line from the submersible. The lift bags kept the full impact of the statue’s weight from sinking the launch vehicle.
Austin slipped behind the controls and prepared to bring the launch vehicle closer to the surface. His fingers were poised above the control panel when his sharp hearing picked up the high-pitched whine of a motor, amplified by its passage through water.
“Carina,” he called over his communicator. “Do you see any boats?”
“There’s one coming straight at us. Very fast.”
Speaking calmly, Austin said, “Listen carefully. Tell Captain Mustapha to haul anchor and leave right now.”
“We can’t leave you,” Carina said.
“We’ll be fine. Get moving.”
The edge in Austin’s tone was impossible to miss. Carina relayed Austin’s message to Mustapha. Austin heard the captain’s muffled reply. Shouts drowned out Mustapha’s words. Then came the sharp rattle of an automatic weapon f
iring.
The line went dead.
Austin swam back to the Subvette. “Douse the lights,” he said.
Austin was worried about Carina, but he and Zavala knew better than to react too quickly. At the same time, inaction was alien to both of them.
“What now?” Zavala said.
“Bring us up to check out our uninvited guests.”
Zavala elevated the vehicle’s long nose and gave the thrusters minimal power. Austin saw a smaller silhouette on the surface next to that of Mustapha’s boat and motioned for Zavala to stop. The communicator clicked on. They were in contact with the surface boat again.
A Southern drawl came over the communicator.
“How ya doing, fellas? I can see your bubbles. Whyn’t ya join the party?”
“I don’t accept invitations from strangers,” Austin said. “Who’s this?”
“Friend of Ms. Mechadi’s. C’mon up. Your air’s going to run out eventually.”
Zavala unclipped a small slate from his vest and wrote a question mark on it.
Austin paused for a second, thinking. If they did as the stranger wanted, they would get their heads shot off.
He borrowed the slate, and in large block letters he wrote: MOBY-DICK?
Zavala digested what Austin had suggested, and it must have given him a stomachache. He erased the previous message and wrote: OUCH!!
Austin wrote back: SUGGESTIONS?
Zavala shook his head, and scribbled: AHAB, HERE WE COME.
He put the slate away, and dropped the Subvette to the bottom. Zavala spun the submersible around and pointed the nose up at a sharp angle. With a whirr of thrusters, the submersible began its ascent, gaining speed with each foot.
He and Austin braced themselves in their seats.
Chapter 29
MINUTES BEFORE THE SUBVETTE had begun its ascent, Carina had seen the boat round the headland and speed toward Mustapha’s motor cruiser with its bow up on plane, bouncing over the wave tops like a stone skipped across the water.
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