Crescent Dawn (Dirk Pitt 21)

“Your discovery today proved that there are still cultural riches to be found. I was actually more concerned about the grave site, which a local reporter foolishly publicized in the press. The presence of someone masquerading yesterday as an antiquities agent doesn’t help my radar any, either.”

“Well, at least we haven’t uncovered any gold or treasure. Any looter ransacking our site is apt to be sorely disappointed.”

“You’d be surprised at the varied desires of the high-end artifact collector. Many collectors value cultural antiquities as much as treasure, to everyone’s detriment. Those scrolls of yours would fetch a small fortune on the black market. I know I’ll feel a lot better when Professor Haasis has all of the artifacts safely transported to the University of Haifa.” She glanced at her wristwatch.

“I really should get back and coordinate our evening reconnaissance.”

Dirk poured her a half glass of wine.

“How about a small one for the road?”

Sophie nodded and took the glass as Dirk sat close beside her with his own glass. The surf pounded the rocks around them as a deep blue twilight settled over their heads. It was a relaxing romantic moment, the kind that had escaped Sophie’s life for quite some time. She turned to Dirk and whispered, “I’m sorry I yelled at you today.”

He leaned over and kissed her softly, letting their lips linger.

“You can make it up to me another time.”

Snuggling close, they finished the wine before Sophie forced herself to end their time together. Holding hands, they retraced their steps across the beach and up the hill toward camp. A generator-powered string of lights swayed over the assembly of tents, illuminating the campsite in a chalky glow. Sam was settled on a rock wall to one side, speaking to two men in dark clothes.

“I’m in the last tent on the left,” Dirk said to Sophie. “Make sure the grave robbers don’t disturb my sleep, will you?”

“Good night, Dirk.”

“Good night.”

Dirk watched Sophie join her colleagues, then turned toward the row of tents. Before turning in, he stepped over to the large artifact tent, which was still ablaze with light. Haasis was back at it, hunched over a scroll of papyrus with a magnifying glass in one hand.

“Uncover any secrets for the ages?” Dirk asked.

Haasis looked up momentarily, then gazed back at the papyrus.

“Nothing that weighty here, but still fascinating. Come take a look, I think you will appreciate this.”

Dirk stepped closer, looking over Haasis’s shoulder at the thin layer of fibered paper lined with a bold flowing script.

“It’s all Greek to me,” he said with a smirk.

“Oh, sorry,” Haasis replied. “I’ll give you a rough translation. This scroll provides a description of port activity sometime around 330 A.D., I believe. There is a brief description of a damaged Cypriot marauder that was captured adrift by an imperial Roman trireme. The vessel was subsequently towed to Caesarea, where the port authorities discovered that its decks were covered in blood and that a small cache of Roman armament was aboard. Many of the crew bore evidence of fresh wounds from an earlier battle.”

“They were pirates?” Dirk said.

“Yes, apparently so. The incident created a stir, it says, as the personal armaments of a centurion named Plautius were found aboard. He was identified as a Scholae Palatinae, whatever that was.”

“Probably didn’t result in a nice consequence for the Cypriot crew.”

“No, it didn’t,” Haasis replied. “The vessel was impressed into service as an imperial merchant ship, while the crew were summarily executed.”

“Swift justice, indeed,” Dirk said, picking up one of the ceramic boxes. “Do all of the scrolls contain such gripping accounts?”

“Only to an antiquities voyeur like me,” Haasis said with a grin, then rolled up the scroll and put it back in one of the boxes. “I’ve reviewed most of the scrolls, and they are primarily bureaucratic records of port revenues and the like. Nothing too astounding individually, but collectively they will provide an important snapshot of daily life here nearly two millennia ago.”

He wrapped the box in a loose cloth and placed it on top of a filing cabinet, then turned off an adjacent overhead light. The other boxes had all been carefully wrapped and stored in plastic bins for transport to the university.

“I’ll leave something to look at in the morning,” he said with a yawn. “You think

you found everything in the chamber?”

“I believe so,” Dirk replied, “but I’ll borrow one of your trowels and take a second look, just to be sure.”