"And this means what?"
"Who knows?" He shrugged. "A shipwreck can't be older than the latest thing in it. It could mean we have a shipwreck that dates to the fourth century B.C.E. which carried a cargo with a statue that was already old when the ship sailed, and I have no idea why that would be so; or, more likely, there are two or more wrecks here--they do tend to go down in the same general area--winds, currents, and so on. The debris scatters over a wide field, which also complicates the matter. Perhaps there's one from the fourth century B.C.E., another much earlier."
"I hear what you're saying, but I guess I just find it hard to believe that it would be possible to find ships that old."
"Older ships than that have been found. The Uluburun wreck that George Bass excavated off the coast of Turkey dated to the fourteenth century B.C.E., and recently Robert Ballard--you know, the fellow who found the Titanic--located a pair of Phoenician ships in very deep waters in the eastern Mediterranean. They were dated, using the amphorae again, at about 750 to 700 B.C.E. They were down really deep, fourteen to fifteen hundred feet or so, with no sunlight, and little sediment, so under those circumstances they might be in remarkably good condition. At the depths we're talking about around here, most of the wood would be gone, but ceramic lasts a very long time, virtually forever, and some of the metal, depending on its composition, too. Sometimes, though, even at these depths, parts of the hull have been protected by the cargo on top of it, and so you can find some wood."
"So is Peter still looking for it, too?"
"He is. He calls his outfit Star Salvage and Diving, out of California. They've got a ship in the area, the Piranha. Sorry," he smiled ruefully, "a little slip of the tongue there. The ship's called the Susannah. They showed up here this spring after not having been here at all last season. I heard Peter was on the verge of bankruptcy, but he seems to have recovered quite nicely. Got all the latest equipment, satellite stuff, underwater robots, deep-water tracking equipment, you name it. He must have spent last year raising a lot of money. Makes us look like the Clampetts. Am I ranting, do you think?"
"Maybe just a little," I said.
"Thank you." He laughed. "I hate to think what will happen if they find it first. I know Peter, remember. They'll strip the ship of everything they think is valuable, and destroy the rest. This would be such an important find. You need to understand that. But not if they find it first. There won't be a scrap left when they're done with it."
"But surely they can't do that with a ship that old! There must be a law of some kind that deals with shipwrecks like this."
"Yes, they can, and there is. It's called the Law of Finds. You find it, you get to keep it. It's that simple. Admiralty law would tend to support you, and anyway, when it comes right down to it, who is going to stop you? It's happening all over the world. These companies are only interested in profit, not scholarship. Sometimes, after they've stripped everything they consider of value from a vessel, they raise it, just to prove they can do it, or maybe because they think there's profit in it. Not with one this old, maybe. There wouldn't be much left. But with relatively recent ships--you know, War of 1812 in the Great Lakes, Spanish Armada, that kind of thing. Turn them into tourist attractions for a while, put them outside a seafood restaurant or something. Then, they're gone. These old ships just disintegrate when they're brought up, unless they are stabilized and cared for, and it costs a fortune to look after them, which these people are not often interested in spending. They've moved on somewhere else by then. Maybe ten years after the ships have been raised, they cart them away to the dump. They could almost vacuum them up, really. They're virtually dust. It's a crime. There are lots of organizations and countries that have tried to stop companies like Star Salvage, but it's really hard to do. So I intend to find this ship before they do," he said grimly. "Sorry," he added after a moment. "This is a sore point with me, as you may have guessed."
I looked out over the water. "As you say, there's a lot of water around here," I said. "Kind of a long shot, isn't it? And what's to stop somebody else coming along and looking for it, too, someone else who heard Zoubeeir talking about it? Another of these sponge divers, or whatever."
"It is a long shot," he agreed. "And as for someone else, a third party looking for it, you've touched a nerve there. While no one has announced a big find, there have been a few items coming on the market in the past year that make me wonder whether someone else has found something. Local divers are always on the lookout. As I said, that's how a lot of the wrecks are found. There were a couple of pieces of gold jewelry for sale in Brussels last year that date to that time period: authenticated and all. And a month or two ago, some terra-cotta pieces showed up in Tunis. It's not an avalanche yet, just a trickle, but yes, I do get a little agitated about it from time to time. On the other hand"--he smiled--"it's a helluva good way to spend an afternoon, don't you think?"
"It is," I agreed. "Incidentally, if you're thinking that hearing all about the ship, fascinating though the subject might be, will make me forget my question about Rick Reynolds, you're wrong. What were you two arguing about?"
"Nothing, really," he said, looking out across the water. "We just didn't get along. I thought he was a boring young twerp. He was trying to talk me into investing with his firm. I told him to get lost. I don't have any money to invest, but even if I did, he'd never see it. Now that he's dead, I feel bad we had words."
He's the second person who has lied to me today, I thought. Aziza was lying this morning, and Briars is lying now. He was right about one thing, though. It was nice sitting there, with the sun and the water and the gentle motion of the boat--and the story I had just heard was compelling. I could almost forget for a moment or two the problems that awaited me back at the auberge, and what I had learned from Rob. I could even make the mistake of overlooking the fact that Briars was someone I needed to be very, very careful about.
"It won't happen again, I can assure you," Briars had said to me when I'd first tried to talk to him about his angry conversation with Rick. Maybe he knew only too well at that moment that it could not possibly happen again.
6
B AALHANNO STOOD IN the shade of the rigging and looked about him, a respite from the backbreaking labor. It was always a good idea to keep a sharp lookout, working or not, always interesting things to observe. And hadn't there been some curious goings-on during this voyage? Infinitely more diverting than most. His fellow crew members might regard this as an ordinary journey. He, Baalhanno, did not.
There was Abdelmelqart's demise, surely at the hand of someone onboard. The captain, he was reasonably certain, was of the same mind. He'd seen the way Hasdrubal had examined Abdelmelqart's body, the wound, and the angle of the fall. No doubt Hasdrubal had reached the same conclusion he had: that it was not possible for Abdelmelqart to have hit his head and landed faceup, with a wound on the back of his head. That meant the body had been moved, rolled over, after the accident, or Abdelmelqart had been helped on his way.