Angela was fast on her feet. “Oh, hi, Helen. We were discussing the fact that Jefferson had slaves even while he was saying all men are equal.”
“Fascinating. Won’t you introduce me to your friends?”
“Sorry. This is Paul and Gamay Trout. This is my boss, Helen Woolsey.”
They shook hands. Woolsey glanced at the clearly labeled Jefferson file folder on the desk. “Is that the same material you brought to me the other day, Angela?”
Gamay reached out and retrieved the file, holding it on her lap with her hands on top. “This is our folder,” she said. “Angela has been helping us with some background on Meriwether Lewis.”
“Paul and I are with NUMA,” Paul said, figuring a half-truth was better than a whole lie. “We’re conducting historical research on the importance of the Pacific Ocean to the United States. We thought we’d start with Lewis, who led the first expedition to reach the ocean.”
“You’ve come to the right place,” Woolsey said.
“Angela has been most helpful,” Gamay said.
Woolsey said to let her know if she could be of help.
Gamay watched her walk across the reading room. “Cold fish,” she said.
Angela laughed. “I call her Miss Smarty-Pants, but I like your name better.” Her face grew serious. “Something’s up. I gave her a copy of the Jefferson file days ago. She said she was going to tell the board of directors but didn’t do anything with it that I know of.”
“She zeroed right in on the Jefferson file.”
Angela gathered up the Lewis material. “I’ll dig into the slave angle. Could you come back in a couple of hours, when Miss Smarty-Pants isn’t snooping around?”
“We’ll be glad to,” Paul said.
Angela watched them leave. She was newly energized. She locked the Lewis folder in her desk and tended to some routine chores, until Woolsey came back into the reading room, obviously checking on the Trouts. When she had gone, Angela got on her computer.
With a few strokes of the keyboard, she turned the clock back to 1809.
Chapter 32
ZAVALA FINISHED HIS DETAILED inspection of the Subvette and stepped back from the trailer, his mouth widening in a broad smile. Austin took his friend’s expression as a good sign. On the return trip to the abandoned boatyard, Zavala had tried to be upbeat, but he couldn’t hide the sadness in his eyes at the damage to his creation.
He said, “I built her like a tank, so the frame is intact, and the propulsion system is in good shape, but the lights are cockeyed and some of the sensors were damaged. She’s going to be out of commission until I get back to the States.”
Austin put his hand on Zavala’s shoulder. “She was wounded in a good cause. We’d be dead meat otherwise. You can always build another and donate this one to the Cussler car museum. Looks like your ride is here.”
A tow truck had turned into the boatyard. Austin had asked Mustapha to line up something more suited than Ahmed’s chicken truck to the task of towing the submersible trailer back to the airport. The captain had made a few phone calls and found someone willing to do the job. While the truck hooked up to the trailer, Austin thanked Mustapha again for all his help. Zavala rode in the tow truck, Austin and Carina got into their rental car and followed the trailer along the coastal road to DalyranAirport.
Austin and Carina hitched a ride to Istanbul on the transport plane with Zavala. They parted company at the airport. Zavala would be working late to prepare the submersible for its trip home and planned to stay near the airport. Austin and Carina went back to the hotel, where they had spent their first night in Istanbul. This time, they shared the same room.
THE NEXT MORNING, Austin caught a cab to the Bosphorus archaeological dig and walked down a makeshift wooden ramp that had been set up for wheelbarrow traffic. He wove his way past the hundreds of workers who were hacking away at the exposed sea bottom with picks and shovels.
Hanley knelt in the hardened mud, examining pieces of broken pottery. The archaeologist got to his feet and extended a mud-caked hand.
“Good to see you, Kurt. Ready to get back into some good old Marmara muck?”
“I’ll have to take a rain check,” Austin said. He surveyed the activity on the site. “Looks like the project is going well.”
Hanley’s face flushed with excitement. “This is the most fantastic dig I’ve ever participated in.”
“I hope you won’t be too busy to do me a small favor,” Kurt said.
“I still owe you and the young lady for your volunteer work. Where is Carina, by the way?”
“Freshening up. I’m meeting her for lunch.”
“Please give her my best regards. Now, what can I do for you?”
Austin reached into a canvas bag he had borrowed from Captain Mustapha and pulled out the latex molds of the second Navigator. “Could you make plaster of paris casts from these?”
Hanley held a mold at an angle to view the relief. “No problem. It will take a couple of hours for the stuff to dry.”
“We’ll come by after lunch.”
Hanley took the bag and its contents. “Where’s Joe?”
“Nursing his submersible. It got a bit banged up on a dive and probably won’t be of use to you.”
“Sorry to hear that,” Hanley said. “It would have helped us explore the site’s perimeter, but, as you can see, most of the excavation is dry.”
Austin said he would be back after lunch. He hailed a taxi and told the driver to take him to the TopkapiPalace. The sprawling complex of buildings, courtyards, pavilions, and parks dominated Seraglio Point, a hilly promontory at the junction of the Golden Horn, the Sea of Marmara, and the Bosphorus. The Ottoman sultans and their retinues had lived at Topkapi for four hundred years during the heyday of the Ottoman Empire.
The palace grounds had been transformed into a museum. Austin strolled between the twin turrets into a park shaded by leafy trees and teeming with tourists from every part of the world. He passed the treasury, which guarded a fortune in precious jewels, and made his way to the building housing the Konyali Restaurant.
Carina sat at a table in the courtyard, gazing out at the sun-sparkled water. She had changed from the casual outfit she wore on the TurquoiseCoast and wore a long-skirted dress of dark russet that complemented her cinnamon-and-cream complexion. Austin wore tan slacks, foregoing his standard Hawaiian color riot for a more-conservative dark green polo shirt.
He pulled up a chair. “The sultans really knew their real estate. Location, location, and location.”
She greeted him with a dazzling smile. “It’s spectacular!”
“The prices are exorbitant and the food is less than five-star. The service is cafeteria-style. But the dining view is the best in Istanbul. You can’t go wrong with the salad or the kebabs.”
Austin offered to do the honors. He carried two fresh green salads and lemonades back to the table.
Carina took a dainty bite of lettuce. “An excellent recommendation. Is there any place you haven’t been?”
“I get to travel a lot in my job.”
“What exactly is your job?”
“As I said before, I’m an engineer.”
She cocked a finely arched eyebrow. “NUMA is world renowned for its study of the oceans. But you and Joe spend most of your time fighting bad men and rescuing maidens in distress, thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” Austin said. “I’m also head of the NUMA Special Assignments Team. It consists of Joe and two others who investigate mysteries on, under, and above the sea, that don’t fit easily into any mainstream category.”
“And how does this mystery stack up with your past experience?”
Austin gazed off at the queue of cargo ships that stretched off into the distance.
“Looking at events objectively, I’d say that this is a case of someone wanting something, ready to destroy anything or anyone in the way. Subjectively, I’m afraid it goes deeper than that.”
“What do
you mean?”
“You get a sixth sense when you spend a lot of time under water. It’s telling me that there is more to this than what we see. There’s evil lurking behind the violence.”
“As if things weren’t strange enough,” she said with a nervous smile. “What do we do next?”
“Enjoy our lunch, savor the view and the sunshine, and then check out the plaster of paris casts Hanley is making for us.”
“Do you think the casts will tell us anything?”
“That’s my hope. Someone didn’t want us to find the second statue. I think we’ve got all we can out of Turkey. The NUMA plane is heading back to the States tomorrow. We can regroup at home. I’d like to look deeper into the Baltazar question.”
“And I’ve got to salvage the pieces of the national tour. Kurt,” she said, lowering her voice. “Don’t turn around. I think one of those men who attacked us on the boat is sitting at a table.”
“Maybe you’ve got the jitters.”
He rose from his seat and came around behind Carina. He put his hands on the back of her chair and quickly scanned the other tables. A man sitting alone saw Austin glance his way and raised a newspaper as if he were reading it.
“You’re right. I’ll see what he’s up to.”
Carina looked on in horror as Austin strolled over to the table. He peered over the top of the newspaper directly into the man’s face. “Peekaboo!”
The man lowered the newspaper and his lips curled into a snarl.
“We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” Austin said. “I don’t even know your name.”
“The name is Buck. You won’t have to remember it for long. You’re dead meat, Austin.”
“How’d you get out of the woods?”
“We called in backup.”
Austin sized up the husky physique and the military brush cut.
“American accent. Green Beret or Delta Force?”
“Neither one, smart-ass. Navy SEALs,” he said with a proud smile.
“That explains why you swam so well. The SEALs are a good outfit. Why’d they throw you out?”
Austin must have struck a nerve with his wild guess because the smile vanished.
“Unnecessary roughness.”
“Who are you working for now?” Austin said.
“Someone who wants you dead.”
“Sorry I can’t oblige your employer.”
The man gave him a nasty chuckle. “They want you to suffer, but I’m going to make it quick. I owe you. When you killed Ridley, I became squad leader. Look around.”
Austin surveyed the courtyard restaurant. He picked out the other men he had last seen swimming for shore. One lounged against a wall. A third man sat at a table. They stared at Austin as if they wanted him on a dinner platter.
“I see you’ve brought along the rest of the Turkish swimming team.”
“Go along with us. You can make it easy on the lady.”
“You’ll kill her quick and easy too?”
Buck shook his head. “My employer has other plans for her.”
“Nice chatting with you, Buck. I’ll explain the hopelessness of our situation to Ms. Mechadi.”
Austin sauntered back to the table where Carina sat, her face frozen in fear.
“Good spotting,” he said. “There are three of them. They want my hide, but they want you alive.”
“Dear God! What do we do?”
“They won’t try anything now. It’s too public. Let’s go for a stroll.”
Austin guided Carina in the direction of the palace gate. His pursuers kept pace a hundred or so feet behind. He scoured his memory and tried to recall the layout of Topkapi and the palace grounds, searching for a hidey-hole where they would be temporarily safe.
An idea came to him. Not a total escape, but it might gain them valuable time.
Carina saw the faint smile on Austin’s face and wondered if her friend had gone mad.
“What are you thinking?” she said in an anxious voice.
“No time for questions. Just do exactly what I tell you.”
Carina was an independent woman who bridled at anyone telling her what to do, but Austin seemed to have the knack of getting them out of tight places. She felt him tug gently on her arm and walked faster to keep up.
Austin guided her through the camera-toting crowds milling in the courtyard outside the treasury. They ducked around the corner of an elegant stand-alone marble building that once housed the sultan’s library and broke into a run. They ran through the ornate Gate of Felicity into another expansive courtyard. Austin guided her to the right, dashing through an open chamber where the sultan’s viziers used to meet, his eye fixed on a long row of colonnades and a ticket gate for the Topkapi harem.
They were in luck! The ticket taker who normally manned the gate had wandered off to have a smoke.
Hardly breaking stride, Austin pulled Carina past the untended gate to a door. It was unlocked. Austin opened the door, pushed Carina ahead, and stepped through the portal into the sultan’s harem. He closed the door behind them.
“What do we do now?” Carina said. She was breathless from their last-minute dash. Austin’s wound was kicking up again. He put his hand to his ribs.
“I’ll let you know just as soon as I figure that out,” he said.
Chapter 33
IN OTTOMAN DAYS, when the Topkapi harem was filled with hundreds of veiled beauties, an uninvited entry into its forbidden precincts would have been met by razor-sharp scimitars in the hands of the African eunuchs who guarded the place.
As Austin and Carina stepped into a long courtyard, the handsome young tour guide stopped his spiel and gave them a steely stare that was almost as cutting.
“Yes?” he said.
Austin put on his best Gomer Pyle grin. “Sorry we’re late.”
The guide frowned. The harem tours were conducted on a strict timetable. No one from the ticket booth had called to say there were two add-ons.
He clicked his hand radio to call the security guard.
Carina stepped over and gave the guard her most beguiling smile. She fumbled in her pocketbook and extracted a hundred-lira bill. “Do we tip you now or later?”
The guard smiled and clipped the hand radio onto his belt. “It is customary to tip at the end of the tour, but only if you are satisfied.”
“I’m sure I’ll be satisfied,” Carina said with a flutter of her long eyelashes.
The guide cleared his throat and turned back to the mixture of about two dozen Turks and assorted foreigners clustered around him.
“At one time, the harem housed more than a thousand concubines, slaves, sultan’s wives, and the sultan’s mother. The harem was like a small city, with more than four hundred rooms. On your left are the quarters of the Black Eunuchs and the chief eunuch, who guarded the harem. Other doors lead to the quarters of the imperial treasurer and the chamberlain. You can go through that door and inspect the apartments of the eunuchs,” he said.
The guide gave the same speech in Turkish, and then led the way into the guards’ dormitory like the Pied Piper of Hamelin.
Austin held Carina back until they were alone in the courtyard. His blue-green eyes scanned the doors, searching for a possible escape route. He tried one door handle. The door was unlocked. He was hoping they could lose their pursuers in the vast labyrinth of apartments and courtyards.
“Kurt,” Carina said.
The Carriage Gate door had opened. Buck stepped into the courtyard with his hard-faced friends and signaled to his men to spread out. They moved three abreast toward their prey.
The guide and the tour group poured out of the eunuchs’ living quarters into the courtyard, creating a human barrier of camera-toting tourists. Austin and Carina merged with the group as it went through a door that stood in a vestibule at the far end of the courtyard.
Austin glanced over his shoulder. Buck and his men were shouldering their way through the crowd.
“What should we do?”
Carina whispered.
“Enjoy the tour for now, and when I say run, run.”
“Run where?”
“Still working on that,” Austin said.
Carina muttered in Italian. Austin didn’t need a translator to tell him she was cursing. He saw her anger as a good sign that she hadn’t given in to despair.
The guide led the way through a square-domed chamber. Stopping every few minutes to deliver a speech in Turkish and in English, the guide pointed out where the concubines lived, where the children of the harem went to school, and where the food for the vast complex was prepared.
Austin glanced longingly at the doors and corridors that offered possible escape routes. There was no way he and Carina could break away from the crowd. With each stop, Buck and his friends drew closer.
Austin put himself in the shoes of the pursuers. The three men would move in and separate him from the crowd. Two men would finish him off with their knives. The third would grab Carina.
Buck and his thugs were all former special ops men. Their training would have included knife fighting and assassination. A hand clamped over his mouth to prevent him from calling out. A quick thrust of a blade between his ribs. By the time bystanders realized murder had been done, Austin would be breathing his last. Buck and company would slip away in the confusion that would follow.
If he was going to make a move, he’d better do it soon.
The tour group stepped into a large carpeted room. The walls were decorated in seventeenth-century blue-and-white tile. A wide sofa covered in gold brocade sat on a platform under a gilded canopy supported on four columns. The walls were decorated in a combination of baroque and rococo style. Light filtered through the stained-glass windows in the upper section of the domed room.
The guide said they were in the throne room, or royal saloon. At one end of the chamber was another platform where the concubines, wives, and the sultan’s mother sat during affairs of state or to enjoy music and dancing.
The crowd began to break up, removing the human buffer Austin and Carina had been using to fend off Buck and his gang. As the group dissipated, Austin faced the three men with only a few tourists in between them.
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