“I want the room with the shower!” Sam shouted the moment he laid eyes on the glimmering shower screen in the dark of the first room down the corridor.
“I think they all have en-suite bathrooms, Sam,” Purdue laughed. “Sorry, no special treatment for Pulitzer Prize winners.”
“That’s wonderful news,” Nina said, as she went down the dark hallway to the stairs to find a room on the second floor of the abode that possessed walls resembling a plaster of Paris finish with kitschy framed paintings of shells and starfish, sea urchins and mermaids. “Anything good up there, Nina?” Crystal called as she watched the historian look around the upper floor through a thick Perspex pane that served as a modern banister.
“Aye! Come see!” Nina answered from inside a room where she had just switched on the ceiling light. “It’s quite lavish for a place that usually hosts people who just tread sand and lug fishing gear in, I suppose.”
Crystal raced up the stairs, her long legs easily carrying her skinny body — the body of a master diver. Purdue and Sam used the time to set up their equipment in the living room, which exited right onto the deck that overlooked the road that separated them from the beautiful oceanfront. Two wooden door frames fitted with glass opened up to the outside eastward to the sea. To the north a sliding door opened to the lawn with a fire pit, where they could have a barbecue.
“They call it a braai here,” Sam remarked after he explained the steel grid on the pit to Purdue. "It's a barbecue of sorts. Around here people apparently look for any excuse to throw a braai to spend time with friends outside. At least, that's what Dr. Malgas told me.”
“Well, in this climate it’s perfectly understandable,” Purdue smiled as he surveyed the distance to the beach from where he perched on the low masonry that surrounded the fire pit. “My God, this is a perfect piece of heaven, isn’t it?”
“Aye,” Sam agreed.
“And somewhere just ahead of us is a hidden treasure. I only find it hard to believe that the coast guard or geo-engineers have never noticed it. Admittedly that part of the story is a bit weird to me. What say you, Sam?”
“I agree. But Dr. Malgas has always been a very solid, even-keeled academic. He is not a man to jump at shadows or just embrace hearsay at a whim. To be honest, it was his integrity that had me approach you about this find,” Sam declared.
“You know, that is not as far-fetched a method to prompt decisions as you might think. A lot of my explorations, friendships, relationships…”
“Nazi ships…” Sam jested. “Couldn’t resist,” he shrugged.
Purdue laughed. "Yes, most of my decisions are the product of an equal helping of logic and intuition. Reputation is more important than anything in business. Therefore, it is always important not to burn bridges without careful consideration."
His eyes pierced into Sam, perplexing the journalist somewhat. Was that a secret message he hid in his words, meant especially for Sam?
“But some bridges left untouched could spell disaster,” Sam replied.
“That, my friend, is where the bloody problem lies!” Purdue avowed. “Sometimes the worst of bridges left could serve as the only path out of a bind… if the enemy is not crossing them, of course.”
“Aye. Gospel truth.”
"Nothing is ever easy when it comes to decisions. No matter what resources one has, no matter how well things are going. One wrong decision can obliterate years of achievement. Has that ever crossed your mind?" Purdue asked. He stood with his arms folded across his chest, scrutinizing Sam's face as if he was interested in his opinion.
Sam was now convinced that Purdue was trying to tell him something. Either that or he was using the discussion to prepare Sam for some revelation.
“Perhaps such decisions should be thrown onto the table among trusted friends, to ascertain the general consensus in that matter," Sam winked. He was trying to keep the conversation from getting weighty and thick, but he maintained a serious tone as not to trivialize Purdue's apparent predicament. "Get a second opinion, perhaps," he shrugged, looking over the waves that were rapidly disappearing under the veil of darkness and reduced to only the burbling sound of a salty breath.
Purdue’s countenance remained unchanged as he looked at Sam, “What if it’s too late for that?”
Chapter 13 — The Eye of the Storm
Turmoil prevailed on the salvage tug, Aleayn Yam. It had been three days since it departed from its home port of Safaga on the east coast of Egypt. Crystal Meyer owned several salvage operations across the globe, especially in locations and countries of historical significance where wreck salvages were common and dives for long lost scrolls and treasures were almost daily occurrences. On the Red Sea, the sun stung whoever stayed out on deck for too long, but the fishermen and dock workers of the coastal settlements were used to it.
There was always work to be done, and hiding from the scorching heat of the climate here would interfere with their productivity. No-one could wait for the day to grow cool enough for comfort — nothing would ever get done that way. The incessant, almost year-round heat was part of the weather of Arabic countries and Africa in general. Most of the people here had grown accustomed to temperatures people from other regions couldn’t bear without falling victim to heat exhaustion.
German master diver, salvor, and maritime lawyer Crystal Meyer owned the small tug operation in Safaga and had summoned the crew to sail south toward Madagascar for a project — the salvage of a World War II vessel, which was supposed to be conducted in secret.
Many tribulations had troubled the tug boat since it left Safaga, but the worst struck just as it navigated into the waters of the Gulf of Aden. A freak storm ensued from the heat of the past day, which had been abnormal even by their standards. But the vessel stayed on its course as best as its crew could, considering the swells and currents that would have put any other ship with a less than competent skipper into serious trouble.
Overhead, the clouds hung heavily even after spewing down torrents of rain into the heavy sea below. Ships and boats barely stayed afloat with every squall and leviathan breakers that battered them, but what disturbed the crew most was the storm itself. It was a rather rare occurrence, like the category III tropical cyclone that had hit the Arabian Sea a few years prior; but unlike back then, there had been no warning of these conditions by the weather stations in Yemen or India this time around. As a matter of fact, this insidious weather system had developed as if some malevolent god under the sea had summoned it.
At least, the latter was what Ali Shabat, skipper of the tug, believed. His bloodshot brown eyes scanned the instruments before him, unable to make sense of what was happening outside. His leathery brown skin tingled with the bite of cold air that had come with the storm as he and his first mate Manni tried to keep the tugboat from crashing into a wave trough.
The crew was terrified, but each man kept to his post while they pulled out the rum and khat for the nerves in the galley. On the tug, there were two engineers and eight permanent crew members, among which two mechanics, who handled countless tasks on the vessel, from cleaning and cooking to manning the cranes and checking the engines.
“Hold course!” Ali commanded his first mate. He left the bridge and ran for the head. In the chaos of the sea storm, his stomach had turned on him. He bemoaned the awful timing of his digestive system as he just made it to the door before the fountain of bile surged.