Crescent Dawn (Dirk Pitt 21)

“And you?”

Pitt held up the hammer. “I’ll be knocking on the door upstairs.”

35

ZEIBIG HAD NOT FEARED FOR HIS LIFE. HE WAS CERTAINLY distressed at being abducted at gunpoint, handcuffed, and locked in a cabin on a luxury yacht. Reaching the cove, he had his doubts as he was roughly herded ashore and into the old stone building, where he was directed to sit in an open conference room. His captors, all tall, pale-skinned men with hardened dark eyes, were certainly menacing enough. Yet they had not yet proven to be abusive. His feelings changed when a car pulled up in front and an austere Turkish couple emerged and entered the building.

Zeibig noted the guards suddenly assume a stiff, deferenti

al posture as the visitors stepped inside. The archaeologist could hear them discussing the freighter and its cargo with a dock foreman for several minutes, surprised that the woman seemed to be making most of the demands. Finishing their shipping business, the couple strolled into the conference room, where the man glared at Zeibig with angry contempt.

“So, you are the one responsible for stealing the artifacts of Suleiman the Magnificent,” Ozden Celik hissed, a vein throbbing out from his temple.

Dressed in an expensive suit, he looked to Zeibig to be a successful businessman. But the red-eyed anger in the man bordered on psychotic.

“We were simply conducting a preliminary site investigation under the auspices of the Istanbul Archaeology Museum,” Zeibig replied. “We are required to turn over all recovered artifacts to the state, which we were intending to do when we returned to Istanbul in two weeks.”

“And who gave the Archaeology Museum ownership of the wreck?” Celik asked with a furl of his lips.

“That you’ll have to take up with the Turkish Cultural Minister,” Zeibig replied.

Celik ignored the comment as he moved to the conference table with Maria at his side. Spread across the mahogany surface were several dozen artifacts that the NUMA divers had retrieved from the wreck site. Zeibig watched them peruse the items, then he suddenly became wide-eyed himself at the sight of Gunn’s monolith lying at the far end of the table. Curiosity caused him to crane his neck, but it was too far away to make out the inscription.

“To what age have you dated this shipwreck?” Maria asked. She was dressed in dark slacks and a plum-colored sweater but unstylish walking shoes.

“Some coins given to the museum indicate that the wreck sank in approximately 1570,” Zeibig said.

“Is it an Ottoman vessel?”

“The materials and construction techniques are consistent with coastal merchant vessels of the eastern Mediterranean in that era. That’s as much as we know at the moment.”

Celik carefully reviewed the collection of artifacts, admiring fragments of four-hundred-year-old ceramic plates and bowls. With the experienced eye of a collector, he knew that the wreck had been accurately dated, confirmed by the coins now in his possession. Then he approached the monolith.

“What is this?” he asked Zeibig, pointing to the stone.

Zeibig shook his head. “It was removed from the wreck site by your men.”

Celik carefully studied the flat-sided stone, noticing a Latin inscription on its surface.

“Roman garbage,” he muttered, then examined the remaining artifacts before stepping back over to Zeibig.

“You will never again plunder that which belongs to the Ottoman Empire,” he said, his dark eyes staring madly into Zeibig’s pupils. His hand slipped into his coat pocket and retrieved a thin leather cord. He twirled it in front of Zeibig’s face for a moment, then slowly pulled it taut. Celik moved as if stepping away from Zeibig, then turned and whipped the strap over the archaeologist’s head as he whirled behind him. The cord immediately constricted around Zeibig’s neck, and he was jerked to his feet by a firm upward yank.

Zeibig twisted and tried to drive his elbows into Celik, but a guard stepped forward and grabbed his cuffed wrists, pulling his arms forward as the cord tightened around his neck. Zeibig could feel the cord bite into his thorax, and he struggled for air while the blood pounded in his ears. He heard a loud pop and wondered if the sound was his eardrum bursting.

Celik heard the sound as well but ignored it, his eyes ablaze with bloodlust. Then a second blast erupted nearby, shaking the entire building with the accompanying force of a thundering boom. Celik nearly lost his balance as the floor vibrated and window glass shattered upstairs. He instinctively released his grip on the leather garrote.

“Go see what that was,” he barked at Maria.

She nodded and quickly followed the foreman out the front door to investigate. Celik immediately tightened his grip on the leather strap as the guard remained stationary, holding firm to Zeibig’s wrists.

Zeibig had managed to suck in a few breaths of air during the interlude and renewed his efforts to break free. But Celik jabbed a shoulder into his back, turning as he pulled on the leather strap and nearly pulling the archaeologist off his feet.

Turning red and feeling his head pounding as he gasped for air, Zeibig gazed into the eyes of the guard, who smiled back at him sadistically. But then a puzzled look crossed the guard’s face. Zeibig heard a muffled thump, then felt the leather strap suddenly slip free from his neck.

The guard let go of Zeibig’s wrists and quickly fumbled inside his jacket. In the fuzzy, oxygen-deprived recesses of Zeibig’s brain, he knew the man was reaching for a gun. With a sudden impulse that felt like it was happening in slow motion, Zeibig leaned forward and grabbed the guard’s sleeve. The guard hastily tried to shake the hand free before finally shoving the archaeologist away with his free arm. As he gripped his handgun in a shoulder holster, an object whizzed by and struck him in the face. He staggered a bit until a second blow hit home and he crumpled unconscious to the floor.

Zeibig turned with blurry vision to see a man standing beside him, holding a wooden mallet in his hand, a grim look of satisfaction on his face. Coughing and sputtering for air, Zeibig smiled as his senses revived and he could see that it was Pitt.