“Don’t look so depressed. All is not lost,” Summer replied consolingly.
“But we have so little left to go on. We’ll probably never find out the true meaning of the Manifest.”
“To quote Aldrich, poppycock,” Summer replied. “We’ve still got Sally,” she added, holding up the doll.
“What good is that?”
“Well, our friend may have stolen the left leg, but we’ve still got the right.”
She held the flayed doll toward Julie, yanking away a small piece of cotton stuffing. Peering inside, the historian could make out the tip of yet another scroll of paper, this one in the right leg.
She said nothing, her eyes ablaze, as Summer gently worked the object free from the doll’s interior. As Summer laid it on the bench and carefully unrolled it, they could both see that it was not a sheet of parchment or papyrus like the other scroll. Instead, it was simply a typewritten letter, with the heading “University of Cambridge Archaeology Department” emblazoned across the top.
32
“Divers are still down,” Gunn announced.
Standing on the bridge of the Aegean Explorer , he peered through a pair of binoculars at an empty Zodiac tied to a drop line that ran down to the Ottoman shipwreck. Every few seconds, he spotted a dual set of air bubbles breaking the surface a few feet from the buoyed line. Gunn swung the glasses past the Zodiac, refocusing the lenses on the large blue Italian yacht that was stationed close by. He noted curiously that its bow was facing him, which put the yacht perpendicular to the current. A partial glimpse of the rear deck showed some men scurrying about in activity, but Gunn’s view was quickly obscured by the vessel’s superstructure.
“Our nosy friend is still perusing the neighborhood,” he said.
“The Sultana ?” Pitt said, having earlier deciphered the Italian yacht’s name.
“Yes. Looks like she’s crept a little closer to the wreck site.”
Pitt looked up from the chart table, where he was examining some documents.
“He must be rather hard up for entertainment.”
“I can’t figure out what he’s up to,” Gunn said, setting down the binoculars. “He’s got his side thrusters on, positioning himself crossways to the current.”
“Why don’t you call him on the radio and ask him?”
“The captain tried a number of friendly calls last night. Couldn’t even get a response.”
Gunn stepped over and took a seat at the table opposite Pitt. Lying on the table were two tiny ceramic canisters that had been recovered from the wreck site. Pitt was comparing the items with an archaeological assessment of a merchant ship excavated by famed underwater archaeologist George Bass.
“Any luck dating these?” Gunn asked, picking up one of the canisters and eyeing it closely.
“They’re very similar to some pottery found on a merchant ship that sank near Yassi Ada in the fourth century,” Pitt said, showing Gunn a photograph from the report.
“So Al’s Roman crown isn’t a phony?”
“No, it would appear legitimate. We’ve got an Ottoman-era wreck that for some reason is carrying Roman artifacts.”
“A nice find any way you slice it,” Gunn said. “I wonder where the items originated?”
“Dr. Zeibig is assessing some grain samples that were embedded in one of the potsherds, which may indicate the vessel’s point of origin. Of course, if you’d have let us uncover the rest of your monolith, we might already have an answer.”
“Oh no you don’t,” Gunn protested. “That’s my find, and Rod said I could recover it with him on our next dive. You just keep Al away from it. Which reminds me,” he said, looking at his watch. “Iverson and Tang should be back up anytime now.”
“Then I better go rouse Al,” Pitt said, rising from the table. “We’re scheduled for the next dive.”
“I think I saw him napping next to his new toy,” Gunn said.
“Yes, he’s been anxious to test-dive the Bullet .”
As Pitt made his way across the bridge, Gunn gave one last warning.
“Now, remember. You two keep your hands off my monolith,” he cried, waving a finger at Pitt as he departed.
Pitt retrieved a dive bag from his cabin, then stepped to the rear deck of the ship. In the shadow of a white, aerodynamically shaped submersible, he found Giordino napping on a rolled-up wet suit. Pitt’s approaching presence was enough to wake Giordino, and he cocked open a lazy eyelid.
“Time for another trip to my soggy royal yacht?” he asked.
“Yes, King Al. We’ve been assigned to examine grid C-2, which appears to be a ballast mound.”
“Ballast? How am I to add to my jewelry collection from the ballast mound?” Sitting up, he began slipping into his wet suit while Pitt unzipped his dive bag and followed suit. A few minutes later, Gunn came rushing up with a concerned look on his face.
“Dirk, the divers were due up ten minutes ago, but they’ve yet to surface.”
“They might be taking a cautious decompression stop,” Giordino suggested.
Pitt gazed toward the empty Zodiac moored a short distance away. Iverson and Tang, the two men in the water, were both environmental scientists who Pitt knew to be experienced divers.
“We’ll take the chase boat and have a look,” Pitt said. “Give us a hand, Rudi.”
Gunn helped lower a small rigid inflatable that was barely big enough to hold both men and their dive gear. Pitt quickly strapped on his tank, mask, and fins as Giordino started the outboard motor and drove them at full throttle toward the Zodiac. There was no sign of the two divers when they pulled alongside the larger inflatable boat.
The chase boat was still slowing when Pitt rolled over the side and into the water. He quickly swam over to the drop line, then descended alongside the rope. He expected to find the two men hanging on to the line ten or twenty feet beneath the surface in decompression, but they were nowhere to be seen. Pitt cleared his ears as he approached the fifty-foot mark, then kicked harder, pushing to reach the bottom. In the depths below, he could faintly make out the yellow aluminum excavation grid pegged into the sandy bottom. He flicked on an underwater flashlight as he approached the base of the drop line, where the visibility dimmed to a greenish murk.
He briefly searched the perimeter around the anchored line, then swam over the grid, following the length of the shipwreck. He hesitated as he crossed over the fourth grid box, noting that there was a large indentation in the sand where Gunn’s beloved stone monolith had previously rested. Scanning ahead, he spotted a blue object near the ballast pile. Thrusting his fins sharply, he quickly kicked over to the prone figure of one of the divers.
The body was wedged beneath the aluminum grid, with a number of ballast stones rolled onto the chest. A glance into the wide unblinking eyes behind the mask told Pitt that the NUMA scientist named Iverson was quite dead. Pitt searched the man’s equipment and noticed he seemed to be missing his regulator. A few yards away, Pitt spotted it on the seabed, a clean cut in the line indicating that it had been severed.
Pitt noticed a light above him and was thankful to make out the stout figure of Giordino descending upon him. Approaching within a few feet, Giordino motioned toward the body of Iverson. Pitt responded by shaking his head, then held up the severed regulator, showing where it had been cut. Giordino nodded, then pointed toward the stern of the wreck, and Pitt joined him in swimming aft.
They found the body of Tang drifting above the seafloor with a finned foot caught in the grid holding him anchored. He had drowned like Iverson, though he appeared to have flailed more wildly in his last moments of life. His mask, weight belt, and one fin had been torn away, and his severed regulator was visible in the nearby sand. Pitt drew his flashlight to the dead man’s face, revealing a large purple welt on the right cheekbone. The scientist had probably seen what happened to Iverson and tried to defend himself, Pitt thought. Only the assailants had been too powerful or too many. Pitt turned the light to the deep around them, but the waters were empty. The attackers had already returned to the Italian yacht.