“Amen to that,” Costas said, wincing as he held his arm. “And a big finger to the Nazis and their schemes. Whoever once might have owned that gold, this is the best place for it.”
“So what about the Ark of the Covenant?” Rebecca said.
Jack said nothing. He was staring out to sea, looking south toward the huge stretch of coast that the ancients called the Runs of Azania, toward the island of Madagascar and the very extremity of Africa, to the cape where a Phoenician adventurer had put up a bronze plaque with an extraordinary message to posterity more than two and a half thousand years ago. In his mind’s eye he imagined the scene, saw Hanno tapping in that final symbol as the wind howled and the sea churned against the rocky headland below; for a moment, gazing out to sea, he saw not Seaquest and the two warships but a lone Phoenician vessel battling its way up the coast, carrying a cargo to a secret destination in a covenant with a people who knew they might not see their most sacred treasure for many generations to come. He was convinced that what he was imagining was real, not just a flight of fancy; he had seen the plaque with his own eyes, as real as the flecks of gold on the animal hide that Maurice had excavated in Carthage. And he remembered standing with Zaheed in front of the Chapel of the Tablet at Axum, sensing with sudden clarity why it was that the ancient prophets of Israel had wanted their treasure concealed, and why the time was not yet right to reveal it, even though their descendants ruled once again in the Holy Land and might need the strength of their covenant more than ever.
Costas laid the first of the fillets on the grill, and they watched as the steam rose above them into the darkening sky. “Another one of those biblical passages I can remember,” Costas said, staring into the embers. “Jeremiah, chapter three, verses sixteen and seventeen. ‘And it shall come to pass, when ye be multiplied and increased in the land, in those days, saith the Lord, they shall say no more the ark of the covenant of the Lord; neither shall it come to mind: neither shall they remember it; neither shall they visit it; neither shall that be done any more. At that time they shall call Jerusalem the throne of the Lord; and all the nations shall be gathered unto it.’”
“What does it mean?” Rebecca asked.
“There’s another passage in Second Maccabees, chapter two,” Costas continued. “You won’t find it in the King James version, but it’s considered canonical by the Greek Orthodox Church. After the Ark is sealed up in its cave, the prophet Jeremiah reprimands his followers for leaving waymarkers to it. He tells them that the place shall remain unknown until God finally gathers his people together and shows mercy to them. ‘The Lord will bring these things to light again, and the glory of the Lord will appear with the cloud.’”
“I’m just a dirt archaeologist,” Jack said, “but I do believe in the power of artifacts for their symbolism, for maintaining hope and strength in times of adversity. And sometimes that’s best maintained when an artifact is just beyond our reach, a hidden treasure that forever fires up our imagination. It’s the yearning for it, the quest, that keeps us going, not the thought of actually holding it in our hands.”
“And the world of peace the prophets hoped for, the time for the revelation, has not yet come about,” Rebecca said.
Jack nodded grimly. “The Middle East is a cauldron, worse than it ever has been before, worse even than at the time of Nebuchadnezzar and the destruction of the Temple, when the Ark was spirited away. All the peoples of the Holy Land, whatever their beliefs, need symbols of hope to sustain them. The Ark is where it should be.”
“So what’s going to happen to Landor?”
Jack paused again, pursing his lips. “Captain Ibrahim assures me that he’ll be put on trial for conspiracy to murder, attempted murder, and aiding and abetting piracy. They hold him responsible for the deaths of Zaheed and the two marines killed during the kidnapping shoot-out, as well as the casualties here.”
“Do you think it will stick?”
“I doubt it. With the Badass Boys history now, the Somalis may be unable to find anyone who can testify that Landor ordered the kidnapping. He’s a wily customer, very experienced at covering his back, no paperwork or emails, everything done by word of mouth and payments in cash. Deep Explorer Incorporated may go under, but not Landor. He’ll probably never walk again, but he can do what he does just as well from a wheelchair. He’ll spend some unpleasant months under guard in a Mogadishu hospital, then his lawyers will get him bail on a technicality and he’ll be out of the country before you can say treasure wreck. He did the same thing in Colombia early in his career, and will doubtless do it again before he gets on the wrong side of someone really big-time — the Russian or Chinese mafia perhaps — and someone puts a bullet in the back of his head.”
“And Deep Explorer?”
“That’s a happier outcome. I don’t think there’s any chance the investment consortium are going to try to reclaim their ship. They’ve cut their losses before and moved on under a different name, and they’ll do the same now. This morning Ibrahim and I had a teleconference with the British ambassador in Mogadishu to discuss the possibility of UK aid funding to convert her to a fisheries patrol and research vessel, run by the Somali navy but with a scientific role as well. She’d be modeled on Seaquest and Sea Venture, and we could do the conversion in our own yard. I think we’ll get the go-ahead.”
“The situation with fishing remains the critical factor out here,” Costas said.
Jack nodded. “I talked about that with the ambassador just before the gun attack that killed Zaheed. We agreed to work up a strong case for an aid package that would see surplus UK equipment go to the Somali navy, as well as more personnel secondments and training initiatives. The UK has put a big commitment into Somalia with the new embassy, and the ambassador thinks there’s a good chance of our package being approved. She thinks the US will come on board as well, once they re-establish their presence in Mogadishu.”
“Have you been in touch with Zaheed’s wife yet?” Rebecca asked.
Jack stared into the embers. “I’ll be visiting her in Mogadishu as soon as we’re out of here. The embassy people have been with her and her daughter round the clock. They know that IMU will look after them financially for as long as is necessary, including her daughter’s education and their relocation to the West, if that’s what they want. We’ll provide for them as Zaheed would have done had he lived.”
“Zaheed talked to Lieutenant Ahmed, you know,” Costas said. “Outside the naval headquarters before we took our fateful drive. They were planning to present you with a proposal for a beefed-up IMU presence in Somalia, with Ahmed’s club providing the divers.”
“Ahmed’s spoken to me about it, and it’s already green-lit,” Jack said. “That’s part of the plan for Deep Explorer as well, to serve as an operational base for wreck investigation. It allows us to make use of quite a lot of the existing equipment in the ship, redirecting its purpose from salvage to archaeology. I’ve invited Ahmed to spend his next leave with us in Cornwall. If only Zaheed had been able to come with him. But it’s great to see something good emerging from all this.”
“Ahmed’s still on the island and is coming up here shortly,” Costas said. “Apparently he’s got something to show you. He’s pretty excited.”
“Where are you going next?” Rebecca said to Jack, resting her head on her knees and hugging her legs.
Jack looked again at Seaquest, and then around to the north, following a dark streak of cloud that seemed to envelop the horizon. Somewhere up there, somewhere beyond the Arabian shore, a black hole of destruction was threatening to swallow the cradle of civilization itself, sucking into it the very essence of history. Ever since returning from the clutches of extremism in Egypt, Jack had known that his destiny was to return, not to Egypt but to the very maw of the hole itself, to the place where history was being wiped clean. Nothing else he could do now, no other quest, was as important as trying to protect the treasures of the oldest civilizations from desecration, a task he could no longer stand by and watch others fail to achieve while knowing that he might have the ability and resources to make a difference.