The Navigator (NUMA Files 7)

“Yup. No gold, Kurt, but we found another treasure hidden in the mine. The other piece of the vellum map in a box apparently owned by Thomas Jefferson.”

“Jefferson again. I’m going to let you and the Trouts work on that one. Baltazar’s still got Carina. I need to talk to Saxon.”

Zavala passed the phone to Saxon, who said, “Kurt, can you believe it?”

Austin cut him short. “I’m interested, but not now. Baltazar left me a message. I’m going to let you hear his exact words. If there is any hint of his plans, no matter how slight, I want you to tell me.”

Austin clicked the television remote and held the phone up so Saxon could hear Baltazar’s chilling good-bye.

There was a stunned silence at Saxon’s end, then he said, “He believes Carina is descended from Solomon?”

“Apparently so. What’s the reference to Ba’al mean?”

He quickly regained his composure.

“He said he’s going to offer Carina to Ba’al. It can only mean one thing. He’s going to sacrifice her to the god Ba’al. The bastard! We’ve got to find her before it’s too late.”

“You’ve known the man longer than I have. Any ideas where could he have taken her?”

“Not specifically.”

“His company owns a mercenary ship. Is that where he’s taken her?”

“I don’t think so. He mentions his family roots. That implies dry ground. He could be talking about Spain, where the Baltazars moved after the Crusades. Although their ancestral home was on Cyprus. That’s where they prospered for many years. It’s either Spain or Cyprus. I’d stake my life on it.”

“Make up your mind, Saxon. It’s not your life I’m worried about.”

“Sorry. Um—wait. After my boat was torched, I learned what I could about the Baltazars. A shadowy bunch. But I found references to them in the history of the Knights Templar. The Baltazars were connected to the Templars but apparently broke off or they would have been wiped out with the rest of the Knights. The order’s symbol was the bull’s head, which can also represent one of the incarnations of Ba’al.”

The bull’s head.

Austin let his mind drift back to the helicopter flight he and Joe had taken after the containership hijacking. The chopper had come in low over a mineral ship and he had seen the bull’s-head symbol for the first time. Below the ship’s name was its port of registration.

Nicosia. Cyprus.

“Thanks, Saxon. You’ve been a great help. Tell Joe I’ll keep in touch.”

Austin clicked off and relayed the substance of his conversation to Flagg.

“Cyprus,” Flagg said. “That’s the other side of the world.”

“Close to the Turkish coast. If I had known Baltazar might be headed that way, I would have stayed in Istanbul. Do you have anyone there?”

“We’ve got a guy in place who grew up on the island. We’ve got additional assets in that region. I could spring a few guys to give the gentleman a big surprise.”

“Baltazar’s dangerous. He’s not going to let anyone get in the way of his family destiny. He’ll kill Carina before anyone can get to him. Have your guys track him down and move in only if they have to. I’ll see if I can commandeer a NUMA plane in the meantime. I’ll only be a few hours behind him.” Austin shook his head. “Unfortunately, he can cause a lot of trouble in that time.”

“That’s why I was thinking you might get there ahead of him.”

Austin was in no mood for jokes. “I didn’t know the CIA had mastered teleportation.”

“Nothing that sophisticated. I was thinking of the Blackbird.”

Austin was well acquainted from his CIA days with the avian nickname for the SR-71, a high-speed, high-altitude aircraft that had flown secret reconnaissance missions for the CIA before it was succeeded by drone aircraft and satellites in the late 1990s. The legendary plane could make a transatlantic crossing in two hours.

“I thought they retired the whole flock of Blackbirds,” he said.

“That’s the cover story,” Flagg said. “We kept one to transport personnel in emergencies.”