The Last Odyssey: A Thriller Page 5

  She stared down at the scatter of other pieces of broken pottery across the bottom of the hold. Her gaze swept toward one of the towering earthenware pots that lined the boat’s hold. While this pot had broken a long time ago, the others appeared to be intact, topped by clay lids.

  Mac noted her attention. “We examined them. They’re sealed with wax.” He pointed his flashlight to the shattered one. “From the petroleum smell still lingering there, I’m guessing they’re filled with some type of fuel. Maybe whale oil. We didn’t want to break one to find out.”

  She appreciated his caution and prayed she lived long enough to discover if he was right. As she started to turn away, a soft tapping drew her attention back to one of the intact pots. It sounded like something was inside.

  What the hell?

  “Let’s go,” Nelson urged, clearly deaf to the noise.

  Mac swung his light away and followed. She kept with them, shaking her head, dismissing the tapping as an acoustic trick in the darkness.

  Probably just water dripping on the deck overhead.

  She and the two men hurried toward the captain’s cabin.

  Nelson reached it first, climbed the stairs, and entered the cramped room. He quickly crossed to the closed metal box atop the desk.

  Elena lingered in the doorway, remembering the geologist’s warning about the radioactive nature of the device. Its internal gears were still ticking as it rested on the desktop. When they had fled earlier, they must have left its tiny lever turned to the “on” position.

  As Nelson reached the desk, Elena warned him. “Maybe we should turn the device off. I don’t think it should be moved while it’s operating. Any jarring could damage the internal mechanism.”

  Nelson scowled. “What does it matter? So, the thieves leave with a broken map. I’m not going to cry over their loss. I expect they’ll just strip it and melt the gold and silver down for a quick sale.”

  Mac passed Elena his flashlight and shoved up next to Nelson. “Still, let’s turn the thing off.”

  In their haste, the two men got in each other’s way. Nelson ended up elbowing the frost-mummified body of the captain. The chair toppled, taking the corpse with it.

  Elena cringed at the crash, at the leaden thud of frozen flesh. With the impact, something flew off the captain’s lap and landed near her toes. She crouched and picked up a rectangular package. It was wrapped in sealskin, with the edges hardened with old wax. Clearly someone had tried to preserve the contents against the elements, and the captain had kept it close, all but cradling it with his own body as he died.

  Sensing it was important, she pushed it into her coat and tugged her waterproof zipper higher. She straightened and watched Nelson and Mac lift the large map box. From her low vantage, she spotted a bronze rod pop up from the desk’s surface, apparently spring-loaded and held in place by the weight of the gold map.

  Uh-oh . . .

  She had read of booby traps being sprung by careless trespassers in Egyptian tombs. She tried to warn them. “Don’t mo—”

  A loud gong sounded inside the desk.

  Startled, both men tried to back away. Nelson lost hold of one corner of the heavy box. It tilted wildly in his arms. The unlatched lid fell open.

  Time slowed as Elena watched the delicate silver astrolabe roll out of its cradle in the map and drop toward the floor. Mac spotted it fall. He crashed to one knee, balanced the box on his thigh, and caught the softball-sized sphere in one large hand.

  He expelled a huge sigh of relief.

  In the stunned silence that followed, a new noise erupted. The Geiger counter hanging from Nelson’s belt burst forth with rapid clicking, far more furious than before.

  “Close it up!” Nelson shouted.

  Mac shoved the astrolabe into his parka’s pocket, and the two men regained a secure hold on the box. Nelson flipped the lid shut, but the Geiger’s clicking continued unabated. They all shared scared glances. Had the booby trap ignited something volatile in the heart of the device?

  Mac nodded toward the cabin’s door and got them moving. “Let’s get this dumped outside before it blows up or something.”

  Elena led the way, guiding with the flashlight. The beam lit the dark depths of the ship’s hold. Motion drew her eye to the roof. Large bronze hammers, hidden among the deck rafters, swung down on levered wooden beams. One after the other they slammed into the tall earthenware pots. The hammerheads punched holes in the sides. Cracks splintered outward from the impacts.

  As she stood there, a black oily liquid flooded out of the giant pots, spilling across the curved bottom of the boat.

  “Go, go, go!” Mac shouted.

  Elena got moving again and rushed forward. As she crossed the ship’s hold, the flashlight illuminated phosphorescent green veins streaming through the black oil. There was an unnaturalness to that sheen. Definitely not whale oil.

  This was confirmed when Nelson’s Geiger counter clicked even faster, matching the pounding of her heart.

  “Christ, it’s glowing,” Mac said.

  It took Elena another breath to understand. As the men passed with the radioactive box, the oil responded. The green veins shone with a sickly radiance, as if the emissions from the map were exciting an unstable component in the oil.

  Elena slowed, but Nelson forced her from behind. “Keep moving!” he shouted. “Just get the hell out of here!”

  “Wait,” she said. “Listen.”

  Above the ticking of the Geiger counter, a strange sound echoed throughout the hold. She had heard it before. A quiet tapping. It seemed to rise from several of the pots now and sounded more like scratching—as if something was trying to claw its way out of those pots.

  She stared back at the men. “What is—?”

  A loud boom made her jump and swing around.

  Across the hold, John fired his shotgun again.

  Oh, no.

  Mac set the box down. “You both stay here,” he warned and skirted low toward the crack in the hull.

  Clutching the flashlight, Elena watched the toxic oil seep toward her. Despite the Geiger’s clicking, all she heard was that macabre scratching, like scabrous nails on a chalkboard. Goose bumps pebbled her arms. She did not know what they had triggered with that booby trap, but in her bones, she knew one certain truth.

  We should not be here.

  10:59 A.M.

  Mac dropped flat next to John.

  The Inuit elder loaded two more shells into the shotgun’s breech without looking down. His gaze remained fixed on the cascading flow of the neighboring meltwater channel. Multiple glows lit the icy depths, marking the presence of divers. Closer at hand, a dark body bled on the icy shore, outfitted in an insulated dry suit.

  The bastards swam here.

  Or at least, a forward assault party.

  Mac heard the rev of an engine deeper down the channel, growing louder with every breath. Clearly others were coming, dashing any hope that John’s cousins had survived.

  To either side of the channel, two of the underwater glows grew brighter. Black assault rifles rose low in the azure waters and strafed the side of the ancient ship. But the icy timbers held fast.

  John blasted toward one of the snipers, but the shooter sank away, while the other focused his fire at the Inuit elder. Rounds peppered closer, ricocheting off the rocks. John rolled and aimed toward the source, but the second assailant was already sinking back into the depths. Elsewhere, another trio of lights brightened the water.

  Mac knew the combatants could keep up this deadly game of underwater Whac-A-Mole until John ran out of shells. He placed a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Leave it,” he warned. “Save your ammo until it can do the most good.”

  John grunted in acknowledgment as he reloaded.

  Mac settled next to him.

  Let’s see how this plays out.

  Clearly these were not simply thieves. This team was too organized, too well outfitted.

  The grumble of an approac
hing motor filled the tunnel. A black Zodiac pontoon boat sped into view—then hung in place in the current, hovering just at the edge of the meager light.

  A bullhorn blasted from it.

  “HAND OVER THE STORM ATLAS AND YOU WILL LIVE!”

  Mac frowned. He pictured the gold map. Was that the Storm Atlas? If the attackers already had a name for it, they clearly knew far more about it than Mac’s group.

  So, definitely not ordinary thieves.

  This was further confirmed by the next command: “HAVE DR. CARGILL CARRY IT TO MY MEN.”

  Mac flinched. How did the bastards know Elena was here?

  “FOLLOW THESE SIMPLE INSTRUCTIONS, AND ALL WILL END WELL.”

  Yeah, right. Try telling that to John’s cousins.

  “YOU HAVE ONE MINUTE TO DECIDE.”

  A scuffle and scrape behind him drew his attention. Elena and Nelson came forward, hauling the map box between them.

  “I’ll do it,” Elena said. “It’s not like we have much choice. They can easily take it if they want to.”

  Nelson nodded. “We don’t have the firepower to stop them.”

  Mac rolled to face the pair. “That atlas—or whatever it’s called—is the only reason they haven’t come in here guns blazing. They clearly don’t want to damage it. But once they have possession of it . . .”

  “Then all bets are off,” Elena finished.

  “Still, we can buy extra time by cooperating,” Nelson said. “Every minute we’re still breathing, we have a chance. Otherwise, we’re dead already.”

  Mac considered this. If nothing else, the enemy seemed to want Elena, maybe for her knowledge, maybe because she was a senator’s daughter and they planned to use her as leverage. Either way, if the shit hit the fan, she might still live. And besides, Mac could think of no other solution. Especially with everything happening so fast. And maybe Nelson was right. With more time, he might think of something.

  The bullhorn sounded a final warning. “TEN SECONDS!”

  Okay, he definitely needed more than ten seconds—but one step at a time.

  “Fine,” Mac conceded. “We’ll play along.”

  For now.

  11:12 A.M.

  Elena struggled with the box as she crossed from the ship toward the water’s edge. The large map weighed at least seventy to eighty pounds, far too much for her to manage on her own, so Nelson had agreed to accompany her. Despite her terror, a corner of her mind dwelled on the mystery in her hands.

  The Storm Atlas. Why was it called that? And how did these strangers know its name?

  Curiosity tempered her terror—but only slightly.

  As she and Nelson neared the meltwater river, a trio of divers rose from the icy stream. Assault rifles were fixed to their cheeks. Tiny lamps flanked their masks, shining brightly in the dim light.

  The centermost figure approached. Once close enough, he waved his weapon’s barrel from Nelson to the ancient dhow. “Put down. Go now.”

  “All right, all right,” the geologist mumbled.

  She and Nelson lowered the map box to the rocky shore. The geologist gave her a worried look and retreated toward the dark shelter of the ship. As he did, the gunman aimed his rifle at her chest. He didn’t need to tell her to stay.

  She stood, shivering.

  One of the attackers, standing calf-deep in the current, lifted a wrist radio to his lips. She heard a smattering of what sounded like Arabic. Though fluent in a handful of dialects, she could not make out the man’s words due to the rumbling cascade behind her.

  In response to his call, the motor of the pontoon boat growled to a higher pitch. The vessel shot forward, aiming straight for her. As it neared, she counted five on board. All outfitted in dry suits. One manned the tiller in the stern. Two leaned out over the black pontoons with deadly rifles raised. Between them, in the bow, stood a mismatched pair. A wall of muscle towered over a smaller, slim figure with a bullhorn in hand.

  Clearly the team leader.

  As the nose of the Zodiac reached the water’s edge, the leader tossed the bullhorn aside and leaped gracefully to shore. Only now did Elena realize it was a woman. The tight-fitting black wetsuit left little doubt as to her gender. A neoprene hood covered most of her head, but from her ample cheekbones, dark eyes, and a caramel complexion, she had to be Middle Eastern.

  Elena glanced back at the ancient dhow, then to the map.

  Is that why this group—clearly all Middle Eastern—knew so much about this treasure?

  She couldn’t help but be intrigued by the historical mystery here.

  Without a word, the dark woman came forward, dropped to one knee, and opened the box. Gleaming gold greeted her. Elena studied the map once again. It seemed to have reverted to its original state. The tiny silver boat had returned to a port in what appeared to be the coastline of Turkey. Looking down from above, she suddenly guessed that city.

  “Troy,” she whispered aloud.

  The woman turned to her, cocking her head slightly, her dark eyes twinkling.

  “It seems whoever brought you here had not been misguided.”

  Elena took little solace from this assessment. She noted the scar that split the woman’s lower lip and carved a pale path down her chin, along her throat, and vanished under the edge of her wetsuit. It made her no less attractive. Still, Elena sensed a palpable danger wafting from her, like the radiation off the golden map.

  Both were beautiful but deadly.

  The woman’s penetrating eyes fixed on Elena. “Where is it?” she asked.

  “What are you talking about?”

  The team leader pointed to the hollow space in the map that once held the silver sphere of the astrolabe. In the depths of the empty cradle, bronze gears shone brightly. Elena pictured those cogs and wheels turning the astrolabe like the hands of an intricate clock.

  “Where is the Daedalus Key?” the woman pressed.

  The Daedalus Key?

  Elena let her confusion show in her face and used it to reinforce her lie. “I don’t know what you mean. That’s all we found.”

  The leader straightened and commanded in Arabic to someone behind Elena. Elena made out one phrase. Taelimuha. Which meant “teach her.”

  She turned and found a hulking figure standing silently at her shoulder. She had not even heard the large bodyguard leave the Zodiac. He stood over seven feet, and surely suffered from some form of genetic gigantism. His face was all crags and scars. His brow heavy and thick. His eyes as dead and cold as those of a great white.

  The man balled a fist and slammed it into Elena’s side.

  She cried out and crumpled to the ground. Sharp pain radiated outward, making it hard to breathe. The tears she had been trying to hold in check burst forth hotly.

  The woman stared down at her. “Do not lie again.” She then pointed to the ship and barked to her men in Arabic, loud enough for Elena to easily translate. “Secure the key. Kill them all.”

  4

  June 21, 11:18 A.M. WGST

  Airborne over the Denmark Strait

  Too wired to sit, Kowalski paced the length of the P-8 Poseidon’s cabin. It was his fourth circuit over the past twenty minutes.

  He finally reached the “wine racks” at the stern of the aircraft, which held rows of cylindrical sonobuoys. He leaned on a barrel-sized rotary launcher that shot the buoys into the seas to assist the maritime patrol plane in monitoring Russian subs in the area. He tapped a finger on the launcher’s canister. His other hand—still in a pocket of his long leather duster—crinkled the cellophane around a Cuban cigar.

  Maybe they won’t catch me back here if I took a couple puffs . . .

  No one was around. The large jet had a crew of only nine, all of them stationed up front. With the crew busy at their monitors, it was aggravatingly quiet aboard the plane, which only got on his nerves.

  Across the length of the bird, he spotted the Poseidon’s commander exit the cockpit and head toward the monitoring stations amidships. He
stopped to say something to Maria, who was belted into a seat beside one of the two observer’s windows. The man laughed at something she said. His hand rested too long on the back of her seat.

  Kowalski felt a bit of heat rise in his neck. The commander was young, smiled often, and looked way too much like Tom Cruise in Top Gun.

  He left his cigar in his pocket and headed aft.

  He marched past the sections of the plane that housed its avionic compartments and antisubmarine armaments. He ended up meeting the commander at the row of five seats lining the port side, where a team of four men and one woman were bent over various glowing screens, monitoring the aircraft’s sophisticated APY-10 multi-mode search radar and ALQ-240 Electronic Support Measures Suite.

  Earlier, upon learning that he was former navy, the tactical coordinator of the group had tried to explain to Kowalski some of the equipment and its capabilities. He barely understood every third word. It reminded him how much of an old sea dog he actually was. Apparently modern warfare had outgrown him.

  The commander nodded to Kowalski. “I just came back to tell you we’ll be landing in ten minutes, so it’s best if you join Dr. Crandall and get strapped in. We’re due to hit some weather along the coast.”

  As if the gods had heard him, the jet bucked underfoot. Kowalski kept his feet by grabbing a seatback. The commander seemed to have managed to stay upright by merely smiling wider.

  Bastard . . .

  “Like I said,” the commander warned, “time to buckle up.”

  Kowalski straightened and began to shoulder past the man when the tactical coordinator turned in his seat and slipped off a set of large earphones.

  “Commander Pullman, I just received a report from another Poseidon heading back to Reykjavik. They picked up a possible bogie, running periscope depth along the coast ahead. But with the storm behind them and the seas full of broken ice, they lost it and never made a full ID. They’re asking us to run a search pattern before landing.”

  Kowalski checked his watch. “No good. You can play cat-and-mouse with the Russkies another time. We need to be on the ground ASAP.”