A glance over his shoulder confirmed that the others had not left the golden ship. He raised the headphones to one ear and switched on the radio, making a note of the frequency to which it was tuned. He then adjusted that knob to another position and sent out a brief message, nothing more than a greeting, but using code words in the Russian language. He continued to do this, nudging the tuner until he received a reply. He then rattled off several sentences, all of which would have seemed harmless and not especially noteworthy to any eavesdroppers. He waited for a confirmation then switched the set off, after which he quickly loosened the antenna wire. He had almost passed from the wheelhouse before remembering to return the tuner to its original frequency. As he departed the wheelhouse a second time, his gaze fell on a battered electric lantern, powered by a large dry cell battery. Deciding that the lamp was better suited than his MagLite to the pretense upon which he had made his exit, he scooped it up then raced back to the golden ship, painfully aware that he had been gone for nearly five minutes.
"Here it is," he called, waving the light like a trophy. He pushed past them into the hold and switched the lamp on. Its beam shot through the darkness, glinting off of the now dormant metal and was reflected throughout the structure.
"It's beautiful," gasped Irene.
The cargo had not shifted dramatically during the ascent. The ship had rolled over almost right away, guided to an upright position by the air bladders strategically positioned on the hull. The cask which had contained the Golden Fleece itself had tipped over, and was now lying in the aisle at the center of the hold. "Give me a hand here."
With Anatoly's help, he turned it over so that the opening he had made was facing up. He then set the lantern down, and thrust both hands into the crate. "It's still here," he said, grinning.
It felt profoundly heavier as he lifted it from the confines of the box. Anatoly and Irene reached out to help him lay it out flat on the empty crate.
"So that's the Golden Fleece," Irene remarked.
Spread out before them, Kismet had to admit that it seemed rather ordinary; an animal skin, maybe large enough to be worn as a shawl over the shoulders but for the prodigious weight of the gold. He brushed a hand through the gilt wool, and then inspected his fingertips in the lamplight. Tiny particles of metal dust glinted in the whorls of his fingerprints. Impelled by curiosity, he flipped back one corner of the Fleece, revealing sodden leather.
"Not what you were expecting?" Anatoly inquired.
"I'm not sure what I was expecting," confessed Kismet. He played the beam of the flashlight around the hold once more, inspecting the dozens of almost identical cargo crates that lined the walls.
"Shall we open them?"
"Maybe in a minute. First, I want to test a theory." He set his flashlight down beside the Fleece and switched it off, plunging them into darkness. Irene's sigh of irritation was audible in the sudden blackness that filled the hold.
"Scientific method," he muttered. His fumbling fingers unscrewed the wire leads from the battery terminals. He then brought the wires in contact with the Fleece and was instantly rewarded with illumination. "Aha! I think we can safely say that it is an electrical phenomenon at work here, not a magical…"
The light at his fingertips suddenly flared with blinding intensity. Before he could even think about letting go, the bulb imploded with a pop that startled all of them and returned them once more into darkness.
"Was that part of the experiment?" remarked Irene.
"As a matter of fact, it was," he replied, matching her sarcastic tone. "Anyway, there's not much more we can do in here now. We'll wait until we're safely ashore to find out what other secrets this ship is hiding."
"I agree," rumbled Anatoly, breaking his long silence. "I don't like the feel of this wind. I don't want to have to navigate the harbor, towing this ship, in the middle of a storm." The big Russian turned to leave the hold, but Kismet forestalled him.
"Wait. We can't go back there."
The fisherman faced him, his features growing stern. "We must. There's nowhere else to go."
"We've got to get this ship away from Russian waters. Severin's jurisdiction extends to the Georgian Coast. If we go back, he'll just kill us and tow the ship back to Sevastopol."
"I don't believe that would happen," Anatoly replied in a grave voice. "But it does not matter. This discovery belongs to my people, Nikolai Kristanovich. Surely you must respect that."
"I'm afraid I agree with him," Irene intoned. "If you take the ship away from Georgia, then you'll be no better than Grimes and his thugs."
"Under normal circumstances, I would agree. But these aren't normal circumstances. Listen, I don't care who claims ownership of this galley. But if we don't let the world know what we've found, then no one will ever learn of it. This is a secret that the Russians would kill to protect."
"You're being paranoid."
"I don't think I am. Severin tried to do away with me once already. Not only that, if we take this ship back to harbor, do you think Grimes won't notice? Our only hope is to get into Turkish waters. Then, when I've announced the discovery to the world under the aegis of my office, we can worry about whose property it is."
As he spoke, Kismet became increasingly aware of the ship's undulations. The sea was no longer the calm surface it had been during the salvage. Anatoly had been correct about one thing: a storm was rising.
"We must put into port," Anatoly urged. "I understand your concerns, but the sea is not a safe place for us to be right now. As long as my boat tows this ship, both vessels are in danger of being battered against each other."
Kismet couldn't argue with the immediacy of the threat posed by nature's fury. "You're right. You take Irene back to Poti. I'll ride the storm out aboard the galley."
Irene jumped forward, shouting into his face. "Are you out of your mind? You'd never survive."
"It's either that, or we sail for Turkey. You decide."
Anatoly's eyes drew into narrow slits. "You risk all our lives with this foolishness, but I will do as you ask."
"Great. You go back to the trawler and let out the tow cable. Irene and I have some work to do here."
Both the Russian and Irene asked simultaneously. "What?"
"An ancient Greek galley, overlaid in gold is a bit obvious, don't you think? We'll try to rearrange the tarps to camouflage it. Make it look more like an ordinary boat. We'll float over on the inner-tubes as soon as we're done."
As they moved out onto the gangway, it became apparent that the weather was changing more rapidly than Kismet would have thought possible. "Storms rise quickly on the Black," Anatoly shouted over the roaring wind. Nevertheless, Kismet could not believe that the clear night had so quickly become filled with thunderheads. Distant lightning licked at the water, and the rolling detonations of thunder, followed quickly. The storm was not far off.
Anatoly loosened the ropes binding the two vessels and the galley immediately began to drift away. Larger and heavier than the trawler, the golden vessel seemed a perfect target for the tempest; the wind and swells quickly pushed it away to the full length of the towrope. The cable snapped out of the water, springing taut, and then the galley, driven by the persistent wind, started pulling the fishing boat along backwards through the water. Anatoly corrected this problem by revving the engine, but the strain on the tow cable was audible over the howl of the storm.
Kismet and Irene worked quickly, first stowing the inner-tubes between the columns and the hold, then draping tarpaulins and nets along the hull. The gusting wind made this task all but impossible. At one point, a sustained blast tore a canvas blanket from their combined grip. It sailed away into the night, skimming along the waves like a magic carpet.