The Navigator

  “Fish on!” he yelled.

  He cranked the reel and pulled in a thirty-two-inch-long striped bass. After measuring the fish, he threw it back. Gamay quickly caught a twenty-eight-incher. Again they tossed the fish overboard. They took turns catching stripers in roughly the same size range before the school played out, and they moved to another spot that was equally as productive.

  They kept a running compilation and were in a dead heat when Trout felt a sharp tug on the line that almost pulled his arm out. This was going to be the tiebreaker. He was barely aware of a cell phone chiming. Gamay put the phone to her ear and, after a moment, said, “Kurt needs to talk to you.”

  Trout cranked the reel like a man possessed. The silver body of a huge fish flashed near the surface. Damn. It was as big as a whale. He tried to concentrate.

  “Tell him to wait,” he shouted over his shoulder.

  “He can’t wait,” Gamay said. “He and Joe are on their way to Turkey.”

  Turkey? The last Trout was aware of, Austin and Zavala were off to Newfoundland. In that instant, Trout lost his train of thought, and the fish. The line went slack. Oh, hell. He got up, handed the rod to Gamay, and took the phone in exchange.

  “Hope I’m not interrupting anything,” Austin said.

  “Naw,” Trout said. He stared disconsolately at the ripples where he’d last seen the giant striper. “What’s up, Kurt?”

  “Can you come up with a computer model that will reconstruct a transatlantic ship voyage? I know it’s a tall order.”

  “I’ll give it a try,” Trout said. “I’ll need a date. I can figure in currents, weather, and speed if that information is available.”

  “Actually, very little is available. This was a Phoenician ship. The crossing was made around 900 B.C.”

  Trout was more intrigued than discouraged. “Tell me more,” he said.

  “I’ve sent you a package by special courier. Should be there by now. It will explain everything. This is urgent. I’ll call first chance I get. Bye.”

  “What was that all about?” Gamay said after Trout clicked off.

  He explained Kurt’s request. They would have to call it a day. He stared longingly at another cloud of wheeling seabirds. “Damn shame about that fish.”

  Gamay pecked him on the cheek. “I saw him. It was a monster. I think it’s my turn to buy the beer.”

  THE PACKAGE from Austin was leaning against the front door of the two-hundred-year-old Cape Cod cottage that overlooked a circular kettle pond. Trout had grown up in the broad-roofed house within walking distance of the Oceanographic Institution, whose scientists had encouraged his boyhood curiosity about the ocean.

  He and Gamay sat at the harvest table in the kitchen, munching on the ham-and-cheese roll-ups they had prepared for their picnic lunch as they went over the Jefferson file. At one point, Gamay looked up from her reading and blew a strand of dark red hair out of her eyes.

  “This is unbelievable!”

  Trout took a swig from a can of Buzzards Bay ale. “I’m trying to figure out what we can do. My experience with computer modeling is mostly deep-sea geology. You made the switch from nautical archaeology to marine biology. We could pull something together, but it wouldn’t be pretty. We’ll need help.”

  Gamay smiled, showing the slight space between her front teeth, a dental anomaly that somehow looked attractive on her. “Didn’t we hear some gossip last night?”

  Trout recalled the gentle ribbing he had received from the local barflies who had heard about his fishing contest with Gamay. Then he remembered someone mentioning a familiar name. He snapped his fingers. “Charlie Summers is in town.”

  Gamay handed Trout the phone and he called the research-vessel dock. He got through to Summers, who was working on a retrofit for the Atlantis, and laid out the problem.

  “That’s a lot more interesting than what I’m doing,” Summers said. “Can you come over now?”

  Minutes later, the Trouts were walking out onto the research-vessel dock. A stocky man with a square jaw and thinning straw-hued hair greeted them with effusive hugs.

  Summers was a well-known naval architect who specialized in the design of research and educational vessels. He often consulted in the design of luxury yachts, and was an expert in the stability of large sailing vessels.

  He gave Gamay a big wink. “Thought you two would be out fishing today.”

  “News of our competition got around fast,” Trout said with a smirk.

  “It’s the talk of the town. You know how gossipy fishermen and scientists are.”

  “Paul almost beat me today,” Gamay offered.

  Summers roared with laughter. “Please don’t tell me it was the one that got away.” He wiped the tears from his eyes. “Now, what’s all this about Phoenicians?”

  Trout jumped at the chance to change the subject. “We got a call from NUMA this morning. Someone is doing research on pre-Columbian contact and needed help replicating a voyage. We get a lot of odd requests.”

  “Not odd at all. I’ve read reams of material on Phoenician shipbuilding. There’s no doubt from a naval architect’s point of view that they had the capacity to go almost anywhere they wanted.”

  “Then you can help us plot a course?” Gamay said.

  Summers shook his head. “That’s a tough one,” he said. “The Phoenicians left no maps or charts. They guarded their sea knowledge with their lives.” Noting the disappointment in Gamay’s face, he added: “But we can take a stab at it. Let’s go build us a ship.”

  Summers led the way into a brick building where he had his temporary office. He sat behind a computer and clicked off the schematic diagram of the Atlantis that had been displayed on the screen.

  “I see we’re going to build a virtual ship,” Trout said.

  “That’s the very best kind,” Summers said with a grin. “They never sink, and you don’t have to worry about mutinies.” He called up a computer file and a drawing of a square-sailed vessel appeared on the monitor.

  “Is that a Phoenician ship?” Gamay said.

  “This is one type, based on pictures from vases, sculptures, models, and coins. It’s an early design. It’s got a keel, rounded hull, oars, and a high seat for the steersman.”

  “We’re looking for something capable of deep-ocean travel,” Trout said.

  Summers leaned back in his chair. “Their ship designs were modified by need. The Phoenicians graduated from shore coasting and stops at night to long, uninterrupted voyages. I’m going to use a software program developed for some architects doing research in Portugal and at Texas A&M. They created a methodology to test and evaluate the sailing characteristics of ships where no plans were available. The goal was to come up with a comprehensive image. They used Portuguese naus, the trade ships that sailed from Europe around Africa to India and back. Watch.”

  Summers bent forward and clicked the mouse. A computer-generated image of a three-masted ship appeared on the screen.

  “Looks like a ghost ship,” Gamay observed.

  “This is only the foundation. They fed the info from a wreck survey into a computer. Using the software, they developed plans for the ship’s rigging, sails, and spars. The picture is one of those images. By coming up with a hypothetical reconstruction of the ship’s hull, they figured out how the ship performed at sea and in adverse weather. Once they had that mathematical model, they could test it in a wind tunnel.”

  “And you can do the same for a Phoenician ship?” Trout said.

  “No problem. We’ll use three known Phoenician wrecks that were found in the western Mediterranean and off the coast of Israel. The ships were upright and perfectly preserved in cold water. We used the Jason, the same remote-operated vehicle that photographed Titanic, to come up with a photomosaic. I programmed the specs into my computer.”

  A set of drawings that looked like blueprints for a shipbuilder filled the screen. The drawings showed the ship as seen from above, the side, and head-on.

&nbs
p; “The plans indicate the ship is only fifty-five feet long,” Trout pointed out.

  “This is a composite of the Israel ships. I’ll add some length. I tweaked the program so that it will automatically add in design features that would have evolved with the increase in the ship’s size.”

  A skeletal, three-dimensional image appeared, outlining the ship’s timbers and other structural elements. The spaces between the timbers began to fill in. Decks, oars, rigging, and sail materialized, along with a ramming beak on the prow. The last feature was a carved horse head on the bow.

  “Voilà! A ship of Tarshish.”

  “It’s magnificent,” Gamay said. “The lines are functional yet graceful.”

  “She would be around two hundred feet long, as I reckon,” Summers said. “That ship could go anywhere in the world.”

  “Which brings us back to our original problem,” Trout said. “How do we figure out that vessel’s transatlantic routes?”

  Pursing his lips, Summers said, “It’s possible to back into a solution like those guys did with the nau. You’d need wind, current, and weather patterns, work in the ship’s probable speed, figure out the pilot’s choices according to ship design, and then factor in historical accounts.”

  Gamay let out a heavy sigh. “We’ve got a lot of work to do.”

  Summers glanced at his wristwatch. “Me too. They want the Atlantis ready to sail in three days.”

  THE TROUTS thanked Summers and walked back along the main street of Woods Hole. “Where do you think we should go from here?” Gamay said.

  “Tough to say. Kurt only gave us a few crumbs of information. He’s not going to be happy, but I don’t think we have enough to pull this thing together. We may need another approach.”

  Like many married couples, Paul and Gamay had a way of anticipating each other’s thoughts. Their work for the NUMA Special Assignments Team, where unspoken communication could mean the difference between life and death, had honed their skills to a sharp edge.

  “I’ve been thinking the same thing,” Gamay said. “Every sea voyage starts on land. Let’s go through the Jefferson file again. There may be something we missed.”

  Back at the house, they sat at the kitchen table, read half the file, and then exchanged the sections. They both finished reading at about the same time.

  Gamay put the papers down and said, “What pops out at you?”

  “Meriwether Lewis,” Trout said. “He was on his way to tell Jefferson what he had found when he died.”

  “That intrigued me too.” She riffled through the papers in front of her. “Lewis had material evidence he wanted to show Jefferson. I suggest that we try to figure out what happened to it.”

  “Might be almost as tough as reconstructing a Phoenician voyage,” Trout said.

  “There’s a nexus that might help us,” Gamay said. “Jefferson was president of the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia. He sent Lewis there to prep him in the sciences for his historic exploration. While Lewis was in Philadelphia, Jefferson devised the cipher for them to use.”

  Trout blinked his large brown eyes in a barely noticeable show of excitement and picked up the thread. “Jefferson wrote to members of the society to tell them about his Indian language research and the theft of his papers. He contacted a society scholar, who identified the words on the vellum map as Phoenician. The artichoke file was found at the society.”

  “That’s better than knowing Kevin Bacon or six degrees of separation,” Gamay said. She looked through the file and found a number for the Philosophical Society and the name of the researcher who had discovered the file. She called Angela Worth, identified herself, and made an appointment to meet the next day.

  As Gamay hung up, Trout grinned and said, “You realize our vacation has come to an end.”

  “That’s okay,” Gamay said. “I think I’m getting tired of fishing.”

  Trout gave a weary shrug of his shoulders.

  “I know I am,” he said.

  NUMA 7 - The Navigator

  Chapter 26

  WITH A CRUISING SPEED OF more than five hundred miles an hour, the turquoise-colored Cessna Citation X aircraft flew to Istanbul in three hours after a quick refueling stop in Paris. The raked-tail aircraft touched down at KemalAtatürkInternationalAirport and taxied away from the main terminal. The six passengers went through a special entry gate reserved for VIPs and were politely whisked through customs.

  The Subvette had arrived earlier on a special NUMA cargo plane and was being stored in an airport warehouse. Zavala wanted to inspect the submersible to see how it had fared on its journey. He told Austin he would catch a taxi to the excavation after he arranged for the vehicle to be transported to the dig.

  Two vans awaited their arrival. One vehicle would take their luggage to their hotel while another went directly to the excavation. The NUMA scientists were eager to get to the site. The team’s leader was a veteran nautical archaeologist named Martin Hanley.

  On the transatlantic leg of the flight, Hanley had explained the reason for haste. He had made a preliminary trip to Istanbul to see the port which had been built when the city was still known as Constantinople. The port was found in Yenikapi, on the European side of the narrow Bosphorus Straits, when squatter shanties had been cleared to build a new hub railroad station. The site had been named the Port of Theodosius.

  The archaeological excavation could delay construction of a tunnel connecting the European and Asian sides of the city. Hanley and the Turkish archaeologists were worried that important finds could be overlooked in the hurry to excavate the site. He had returned to Washington to assemble his team.

  The American scientists were greeted warmly by their Turkish counterparts. Round-the-clock shifts were working the muddy excavation.

  “Sure you don’t want to stick around?” Hanley said. “They’ve found a church, eight boats, shoes, anchors, lines, and part of the old city walls. Who knows what treasures they’ll discover next?”

  “Thanks. Maybe after we do some sightseeing.”

  Austin hailed a cab that took them along Kennedy Caddesi, the busy thoroughfare that runs along the edge of the Bosphorus. An unbroken line of cargo ships was queuing up to pass through the busy connector between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. Austin turned to Carina and said, “How long have you known your Turkish connection?”

  “A year or so. Cemil helped me recover some Anatolian treasures that had been stolen from the TopkapiPalace. He used to be a smuggler. No arms or drugs, he says. Cigarettes, appliances, anything that was covered by high tariffs.”

  “Is he connected to the Turkish mafia?”

  She laughed. “I asked him that. He said that in Turkey everyone is in the mafia. He came through for me, but he’s…” Carina’s English failed her for a moment. “How do you say it? Mysterious.”

  “I had concluded that. You’re sure he said to meet him at the ‘upside-down woman with the stone eyes’?”

  “Positive. He likes to talk in riddles. It’s quite maddening at times.”

  Austin asked the cab driver to take them to Sultanamet. They got out of the cab and walked across the busy street. “We’ll find your friend right below our feet if I’m not mistaken,” Austin said.

  “He’s not the only one who talks in riddles.”

  Austin went over to a kiosk and bought two admission tickets to the Basilica Cisterns. They went down a flight of stairs. The cool, damp air that brushed their faces felt good after the heat of the city.

  They were in a huge, dimly lit vault that resembled an underground palace. Fish darted through the murky green water that covered the floor. Elevated boardwalks ran between rows of columns. Voices echoed in the cavelike chamber. Classical music played in the background. The drip-drip of water could be heard from a dozen different locations.

  “The Romans had built these cisterns to hold a water supply for the GrandPalace,” Austin said. “The Byzantines discovered them when people started catching
fish through holes in the floors of their houses. The stone lady is this way.”

  They walked to the end of a boardwalk and descended to a platform. Two thick columns rested on bases carved into the faces of Medusa. One face lay on its side; the other, upside down. A steady stream of tourists came and went, after pausing to take snapshots of the curiosity.

  Finally, the only other person left was a middle-aged man who had been there since they arrived. He carried a camera but hadn’t used it. He was wearing dark slacks and a white short-sleeved shirt with no tie, the standard uniform for many Turks. He wore aviator-style sunglasses, although the light was low in the cistern.

  “Why do you think the Romans put the heads in this strange position?” he asked Carina, speaking English with a slight accent.

  Carina studied the sculptures. “Maybe it’s a joke. One face looks at the world as it should be and the other as it is. Topsy-turvy.”

  “Excellent. Would you be Signorita Mechadi?” the man said.

  “Cemil?”

  “At your service,” he said with a smile. “And this must be your friend, Mr. Austin.”

  Austin shook hands with the Turk. After hearing of Cemil’s underworld exploits, he had expected a Damon Runyon character with a Turkish twist. This man looked more like someone’s favorite uncle.

  “It’s good to meet you after all our dealings, Señora Mechadi. How can I help you?”

  “We’re looking for a statue that’s the twin of one stolen from the IraqNationalMuseum.”

  Cemil glanced at a new group of tourists and suggested a walk. As they strolled between rows of columns, he said, “There’s been a steady stream of Baghdad merchandise through Istanbul. It’s depressing prices. Do you have a photograph?”

  Austin handed over the Navigator figurine. “This is a scale model. The actual statue is almost as tall as a man.”

  Cemil produced a loupe-penlight instrument and examined the figurine. He chuckled. “I hope you didn’t pay too much for this artifact.”