So far, so good . . .
Nearing the top, David paused and peered across the deck’s flat expanse, relieved not to find anyone within his immediate line of sight. Satisfied, he hoisted himself up and over the railing, confident his dark shirt and slacks drew no attention in the dim light. Here the sounds were distinctly louder, and he knew from where the sustained noise emanated.
Not twenty feet away was the first of four raised cargo holds running up to the ship’s central bridge and associated superstructure, each giving direct access into the hull. Per Ken’s blueprints, beyond this would be an equal number approaching the bow. But those did not concern him. Of the four he could see, all appeared securely capped and sealed with the exception of just one. Here the cover hatch to the closest was visibly detached and set to one side. Intentional? He guessed this was an attempt to infuse a margin of fresh air circulation to those working below.
Regardless of motive, it gave him the opportunity he needed.
Crouching, he darted over to the low steel ledge surrounded the rectangular opening. There he crouched, pulling his cell phone from his shirt pocket and getting his first glimpse at the bustling activity below.
His original interpretation of the noises proved true.
A dozen or more crewmembers—most with hammers, the rest utilizing power saws to cut lumber and plywood—appeared in the final stages of finishing the last of many crates spread out across the hull floor. His timing couldn’t have been better! An hour from now would’ve been too late! The most exposed one was a marble relief lying flat on a fresh-cut bed of support beams, a battle scene of some sort involving a formation of helmeted Greek warriors. After capturing this in photos, he quickly concentrated his attention on the still partially open crate soon to be closed from view. It unquestionably contained a massive bronze freestanding piece entailing more than just one figure. The dark greenish patina was unmistakable. Viewed almost directly from above, it was near impossible to distinguish what it represented—and yet, strangely enough, even from this angle it somehow struck him as being vaguely familiar.
His imagination?
No time now to ponder it. He possessed the evidence he sought.
While rising, however, he spun to the sound of someone having suddenly come up directly behind him. A short, burly man with a fearsome expression was staring at him angrily. More threatening still, in his hand was a black Makarov pistol pointed straight into his chest. Being somewhat familiar with the weapon, David saw the safety was already off, the weapon ready to fire. The sharp command for him to freeze was clear—thus by relaxing his stance and facial expression he conveyed the image of complete submission. If he was to get out of this situation, he needed to employ every possible advantage. The fellow displayed no military training, standing much too close to his captive. A simple crewmember put on guard duty? It seemed so. Now the inexperienced man reached for the cell phone David held purposely loose in his left hand.
It was his second mistake.
David appeared to comply, then allowed the cell to slip from his fingers just before it could be grasped. Choosing the split second of inattention when the man’s eyes shifted to the dropped phone, David lunged for the gun, twisting his opponent’s wrist up and around so forcefully in a clockwise motion that it jerked the fellow off his feet—but not before he managed to squeeze off one round before the weapon was ripped from his hand.
Before the dazed man could manage to scream out a warning to other crewmembers, David silenced him with a hard fist to his exposed jaw, leaving him unconscious for the immediate future. Had the gunshot been heard? There was no way of immediately knowing—and he damn sure wasn’t going to wait around to find out!
He grabbed the cell phone and pistol, then ran to the deck railing. Exiting the ship in the same manner he boarded was no longer an option. Much too time-consuming! After clutching the heavy metal tubing he took a deep breath and vaulted out into the darkness.
Though he struck the water with his legs locked in a standing position, the hard impact from the thirty-foot fall still drove the air from his lungs—and he came up gasping to refill them. It made him wonder if Elizabeth was right. Perhaps he really was getting too old for this!
Seeing him resurface twenty feet away, a vigilant Omar loosened the dingy and met David halfway, helping him onto the craft. He then immediately threw open the throttle of the outboard and steered back toward Benitses.
“Are you alright? I heard a gunshot.”
“With luck, you’re the only one that heard it.”
“So don’t leave me hanging. What about the evidence?”
David pulled the wet cell from his pocket.
“All in here, my friend. Supposed to be state-of-the-art. I just hope to hell it’s as waterproof as they claim.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
At dawn they were back in the Potamaki Hotel, closely scrutinizing all the images as David downloaded them into his laptop. Thankfully, his cell phone had proved as water-resistant as advertised. There were eighteen photos in all; the images remarkably clear considering the unusual lighting conditions in which they were taken. He’d feared the quality might be poor, but his concern proved unwarranted.
The process didn’t take long.
“Not counting the last two crates still being worked on,” said Omar, taking a moment to re-check his notepad, “I put the tally at twenty-plus finished boxes, agreed? The overall shapes of the others vary somewhat.”
David gave a thoughtful nod.
“Possibly even more,” he mused aloud. “Maybe a great many others are positioned outside my line of sight. But just by the quantity of what we can see, such speculation is a moot point, isn’t it? I mean, if those finished crates all contain ancient artifacts—and the implication is they almost certainly do—then the items they’ve retrieved from the seabed is bloody enormous.”
Elizabeth found this perplexing.
“Is it believable,” she asked, “that so much came from just one location? If so, then surely there must be multiple other wrecks on the same site to account for all this. I can’t imagine a single vessel from over two thousand years ago able to single-handedly transport such a huge cargo.”
It was Lana who responded.
“Actually, many such immense ships were available. Called muriophoria, they were built primarily to haul vast quantities of grain to the markets in Italy throughout the entire Roman period. It took well over a thousand years after the final collapse of their empire before anything even remotely comparable was again possible. During the dark and middle ages in Europe, the need for vessels of comparable capability simply didn’t exist.”
While listening to this exchange, David now focused his attention on the photos of the other crate the crew of the Varna was scrambling to complete. There was no doubt of what the framed sides encased, for the pictures were taken almost directly from above, giving the clearest possible view of its soon-to-be-hidden contents. Without question, it was a large grouping executed in bronze of at least two adult figures—possibly even three—all physically entwined in such a contorted manner as to defy interpretation at this extreme angle.
As these particular images were basically identical, he selected one at random and blew it up on the screen. He then further enlarged the middle section, isolating the center so to better concentrate on the exposed bronze. Once again he experienced a distinct feeling of familiarity, which struck him as odd considering his general lack of knowledge regarding classical Greek sculpture. Unlike his friend, Nick Travlos—who’d long made it one of his life’s passions—it simply wasn’t part of David’s area of expertise.
What the hell am I looking at? he wondered.
He posed this conundrum to the three others, only to elicit shrugs and blank stares. A glance at his wristwatch told him it was fast approaching 6 am, leaving little time to do what was still necessary. Still and all—
The memory of what he’d recently perused now popped back into his mind, and he t
ook a moment to locate Nick’s copy of the Vatican Museum literature. There! What he sought was prominently featured on the first page, which he then quickly shared. It was the Laocoon Group, perhaps the most studied and revered work of ancient art ever put on display in the Vatican. Standing eight feet in height and constructed from seven interlocking pieces of white marble, it represented the Trojan priest, Laocoon, and his two sons being attacked by a giant sea serpent. According to the descriptive write-up, the marble statue was in all probability a brilliant duplicate of a much older Greek Hellenistic bronze that had been copied for some wealthy Roman customer.
“Do you think what you saw was the actual original?” asked Omar.
David shrugged.
“It’s a possibility,” he said. “It was definitely made of cast bronze, the greenish color distinctive and quite unmistakable. Too, the overall size seems to match up when you factor in the height of those workers busy closing the crate.” He paused, setting the piece of literature aside. “If true, between Nick’s statue of Aries by Myron and now this, the Varna may be literally packed with uncounted originals of inestimable value.”
Shaking his head in frustration, he turned to Elizabeth.
“Hon, you’re quicker at file creation than I am. Can you put all of this into a PDF for me?”
“No problem.”
He tapped the screen as he relinquished his place. “And we’ll definitely need to include this last enlargement.”
As Elizabeth began the process, Omar asked, “So what’s next? The Greek authorities will have to be notified as soon as possible, right? By the look of it, I’d say the freighter is damn close to lifting anchor and heading home—and may have already done so as we speak.”
David agreed.
He’d already given this considerable thought, acknowledging the necessity of having to go through proper channels so as not to unintentionally step on any government toes. Yet time was of the essence here! Though he was no fan of Andreas Stephanidis—and hadn’t been during all his previous years working in Salonika—protocol pretty much demanded he begin the process by contacting the office of the long-serving Minister of Culture.
When he informed Omar of his intent, the older man’s eyes narrowed.
“You seem reluctant to make him your starting point, my friend. Is it because of his recent cozy relationship with the Russian Oligarch?”
“That’s part of it, yes.”
“But not all?”
David hesitated only briefly.
“Stephanidis has been in office for so long I don’t know if he’s even capable of quick action when it comes to something like this. He always struck me as a procrastinator, a man who survived by taking a cautious approach where and whenever possible. The problem here, of course, is there’s no leeway for bureaucratic vacillating on his part.” He paused, “If I’m right about Talanov and where he intends going with this shipment, he’s now positioning the Corrina to lead the freighter back through the Aegean and eventually into the Black Sea. And once they’re safely inside Russian territorial waters . . . well, it would be game over.”
“So how do you intend handling the minister? Any options?”
“Just two I can think of. Since we can’t actually prove Talanov has ownership links to the Varna, I see no reason to even bring his name into the equation. Doing so will only muddy the waters and delay Stephanidis from moving decisively.”
“But that omission only helps if you assume Stephanidis is presently ignorant of Talanov’s ties to the ship. He may already know. They’re long-time friends, after all. Didn’t Ted say he was instrumental in authorizing Talanov’s purchase of the nearby island several years back?”
“True enough. I suspect the odds are at best fifty/fifty. Which now leads me to my second option . . . not one I particularly like, but critical if I’m going to spur the minister into immediate action.”
“Which is what?”
A tight smile crossed David’s lips.
“Essentially, a veiled form of blackmail,” he replied. “It’s going to be another couple of hours before I can phone him in Athens and transfer over the PDF file of my photos. I’m not precisely sure how I intend to phrase the conversation, but I definitely want to leave him with the distinct impression any delay in intercepting the freighter is totally unacceptable. He’ll have to believe in no uncertain terms that if I deem it necessary, the media and other government offices will be alerted and given the same evidence. If it came to this, the minister’s smart enough to know any inaction on his part would put him in a very bad light.”
Omar saw the logic.
“Nice touch. If that’s not an incentive to override his admiration for the oligarch, then I don’t know what would be. But it will have to be subtle—and to be honest, subtlety isn’t exactly one of your strong points.”
David’s smile deepened.
“No argument there,” he admitted. “Thankfully, I’ve got a few hours left to work on my delivery. Once that’s out of the way, I’ll need to get hold of Nick and bring him up to speed on all this. And also Ted, of course—but since Boston is seven time zones behind us that will have to wait until this afternoon.”
A glance at Elizabeth told him she’d completed the PDF file.
“Okay, I don’t know about you guys,” he said, “but I think it’s about time we rouse Jake and head over for breakfast. Afterward, you can all catch up on some well-deserved shuteye while I make those calls. What do you say?”
Omar spoke for all of them.
“Sounds like a plan.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
With both his early morning calls complete, David found himself too unsettled to even contemplate a few hours of sleep. Though physically tired from his overnight endeavors, the growing concern he now felt following his lengthy phone conversation with Minister Stephanidis wouldn’t allow him the luxury. His every instinct told him something was decidedly wrong. But try as he might, he couldn’t quite put his finger on any one single reason. Instead, it was the overall accumulation of several things he found disturbing.
Was it just his imagination, he wondered, or did the minister’s general reaction come across as too guarded? His response to the clear evidence of the freighter’s activities somehow lacked the expected sense of urgency it so obviously demanded. True enough, he did verbally give David assurances his office would make all necessary arrangements for the Varna to be boarded and fully inspected. However, Stephanidis’ statement left the vague impression of being somewhat hollow and insincere. According to him, what his department required was at least a full day to study the photo evidence and set everything into proper motion—at which point he promised to then get back to David with all follow-up information. Just leave everything to him, the minister had said before severing the connection.
Yet this pledge of decisive action likewise struck David as being rather loosely phrased and open-ended, almost condescending in tone. By this alone, the statement raised doubts. A full day or more for his department to issue an order for the ship’s interdiction before leaving Greek territorial waters? Considering the minister’s elevated position and authority within the government, this made no real sense.
Unless, of course . . .
An intentional stalling tactic?
The more David thought about it, the more likely this seemed.
He simply couldn’t wait another two hours to make his last call. Though it was barely 5 am in Boston, he used his cell to send a brief text to Ted, requesting to be contacted at his very first opportunity.
The return call came through less than twelve minutes later.
“Something urgent, David? You caught me heading for the shower.”
“My apologies—but yes, I believe it is. Got a pen and pad handy?”
“Always. Shoot.”
David spent the next ten minutes relaying all the pertinent details that happened over the past twenty-four hours, plus took the time to transmit the PDF to Ted’s laptop while the
y spoke.
Not surprising, Ted had some things he wanted clarified.
“So your gut feeling is that Stephanidis—for God knows what reason—is purposely stalling for time?”
“I don’t know how else to interpret it. No proof, but that’s my honest suspicion.”
“Seems strange,” Ted mused, “—but I know better than to question your instincts.” He paused on his end, then asked, “Is it possible he didn’t fully understand or appreciate your intention to take all this to the media if he didn’t move quickly?”
“I’ve considered this, but I’m sure I made myself perfectly clear on that specific point—which makes it all the more disturbing. In his position, you’d think he wouldn’t wish to appear the least bit derelict in his duties when it came to saving national treasures from being looted.”
“I agree. Yet in your opinion, this appears to be precisely what he’s doing. Most curious, indeed. Makes one wonder if perhaps there might be something a bit deeper here than anyone has so far suspected between him and his billionaire friend.”
“That’s what I was thinking.”
“Did you run any of this by Nick Travlos in Salonika?”
“No. His was the first call I placed this morning. My conversation with Stephanidis came later. Now I’m reluctant to phone Nick back with my suspicions until I have more to go on. No point in alarming him needlessly.”
“Okay, what do you need to be done, my friend? I and my people are at your service.”
“Actually, several things, Ted. For openers, I need the latest satellite images you can muster on the current positions of both the Varna and the Corrina. If the freighter has already lifted anchor—which I believe it probably has—and is heading southeast, we need to know as soon as possible. If so, can your people calculate the timeframe it would require navigating through the Aegean Sea into Turkish territorial waters?”
“Can do. You still believe they intend to slip through the Bosphorus and back into the Black Sea?”
The Ionian Paradigm Page 9
