Golden Chariot Page 16

  They’d attracted the attention of the shop owner who came outside. Middle-aged with a thick, black mustache shot with grey, a shaved head, and pink-tipped ears that stuck out, he excitedly invited them in to see additional merchandise. Atakan stood in front of the used DVD players on display in the window. Now, the owner wanted to show them the “very good, very fine, brand new” players he carried.

  Atakan politely declined and the owner appealed to Charlotte who also declined. Then, the owner tugged on Atakan’s arm and walked him a few feet away to speak in private. The man lowered his voice, but she still heard every word. He described the various pornographic DVD’s he could obtain. “Beautiful Russian women, young blondes,” he whispered.

  Again, Atakan declined. The owner gave him a disappointed sigh. He shot a glance at Charlotte and said low, “Maybe you come back later, alone, yes?”

  Atakan shook his head and said, “No.”

  The owner looked Charlotte up and down, smiled, turned his back to her and said something to Atakan she didn’t hear.

  Atakan chuckled. “I appreciate the offer, but no thanks,” he said, smirking at Charlotte.

  The owner shrugged and went inside.

  “What did he say?” she asked.

  “He said he had a source who could make me a ‘personal’ DVD for ‘my pleasure’...of you.”

  “You mean a dirty movie?”

  “That was the general proposition.”

  “Disgusting,” she said, a little hurt and more than a little offended Atakan found the suggestion laughable. She wasn’t a head-turning Victoria’s Secret model, but she wasn’t the dog’s breakfast either.

  “We were discussing your fixation with Damla before we got interrupted,” she said, tight voiced.

  “I am concerned with cause. He isn’t what he claims. I question his sudden appearance here.”

  “He said he shares a family farm. You question that?”

  “I shook his hand. It was too soft for a farmer. Their hands are always rough and calloused.”

  Charlotte thought he picked a superficial thing to base an opinion on. “You haven’t seen him before and his hands are in good shape, so what? Maybe he lived in the city for awhile.”

  “Maybe, but he bears watching.”

  “Whatever makes you happy.” Charlotte started walking.

  “Don’t go yet.” Atakan hooked Charlotte’s arm and pulled her back. “I need your help.”

  “To do what?”

  “Go back to the bakery. Buy a loaf of bread or a dessert, something that requires the woman to spend a minute to wrap. While you wait, make small talk with Damla to distract him.”

  Atakan pointed her in the direction of the bakery and gently nudged her forward.

  “Not so fast,” she said, resisting. “Where are you gonna be while I’m chatting with him?”

  “I’ll be out of sight but nearby.”

  She groaned, wrinkling her nose at him. “I don’t want to.”

  “Just do what I say...please.”

  “How nearby?”

  “Close.”

  “The master of the non-answer. I’m not real crazy about this. He stinks. What if he thinks I’m flirting? I don’t want Damla getting any twisted ideas.”

  “I didn’t ask you to kiss him. But, if I were you, I wouldn’t stick my tongue out at him--opinion only.” He ignored her, “you’re a riot,” comment. “Just talk while I circle to the rear. I want pictures.” He unclipped his cell phone.

  “Fine, but make it fast. This won’t last long.”

  Grinning, Atakan said, “He might surprise you. With the right encouragement he might offer to bathe for you.”

  “Very funny. Go.” She shooed him away and headed for the café.

  Charlotte bought two Bounty Bars and all the mini bread loaves the bakery woman had in her counter. She kept the candy and asked the woman to wrap the loaves separately. She nibbled on one Bounty and started a casual conversation with Damla. She’d steered the conversation to the family farm he’d mentioned, asking general questions about their crops and the location. She tried to pin down where it was which she’d report to Atakan. Damla’s answers were too vague to be of much use. He boldly scanned her breasts and body as they spoke and kept his answers enigmatic.

  Atakan might be onto something with this guy.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Ursula stepped into the small market and out of sight. Across the street, Charlotte exited the bakery, checked her watch, and began to pace. A moment later, Atakan came from behind the building and joined her. Charlotte broke off part of a candy bar and gave it to him. She shifted position, blocking Ursula’s view as they huddled, heads bent over an object in his palm. After a brief discussion, he slid the item into the pocket of his shorts and they continued on their way. Neither looked in her direction.

  When they rounded the bend in the road, Ursula left the store. She hated her role as contact and didn’t rush. Barsi Damla made her nervous. In their first meeting, he eyed her as though she were a piece of meat. It disturbed her and made her feel unclean. She told Stevan how she felt, but he insisted there was no other way to handle things.

  Damla immediately noticed her at the café’s entrance. He said something to the man sitting with him, who nodded and moved to another table.

  Like before, Damla scanned her as she approached. His eyes lingered too long on her breasts and between her legs for decency. She resisted a shudder as she sat opposite him.

  “How old are you?” he asked.

  “What difference does it make?”

  “None, I’m merely curious.”

  “Let’s stick to business.”

  He finished his beer and relaxed back in the chair. “You’re a pretty woman with a few good years left. I have a shrewd eye for female flesh. You should be flattered by my interest.”

  Female flesh--The verbiage bothered her as much as his leering. He scratched his beard with dirt packed fingernails. A repulsive visual of those filthy hands touching her skin flashed through her mind. She pushed it from her thoughts.

  She ignored his comments. “Atakan has an impressive cell, high end.” Ursula pulled a notepad from her purse and read the specs. “Thuraya SG-2520, a Sat phone with GPS plus all the other usual features, camera, email, and GPRS-internet access. I checked online with a few companies. As good as the phone is it’s not immune to tapping into with a digital recording card. Getting your hands on the phone for the install is the problem. He carries it with him except when he’s on a dive or in the shower.”

  Damla wrote the information on a paper napkin as she read it. “You have a schedule right?” he asked.

  “Yes. The dives are only posted twenty-four hours in advance. You’d have to work fast. People are always in camp, either in the conservation lab or kitchen.”

  “Does he always lock his phone up, do you know?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  “Find out.”

  There was no easy way for her to obtain the information. She’d have to sneak into the men’s quarters while Atakan was gone and no one else was around. What excuse could she use if she got caught?

  “I can try.”

  “How’d you learn the make and model?”

  “I told him mine was recharging and asked to borrow his.”

  “Can you use that excuse again and I’ll show you how to install the card?”

  “I doubt he’ll let me wander away with his phone. Even if I could, I’m afraid if I screw it up and take too long, he might catch me. Besides my sister is on the project, he’ll wonder why I don’t borrow hers. I got lucky the first time. She was on the boat.”

  Ursula meant to give Damla the information and split. In spite of her aversion to him, she was curious about the phone system.

  “How’s this card thing of yours work?”

  “It’s referred to as a DRC.” Damla sat forward and took his wallet out of his rear pants pocket. “Basically, I enter his number i
nto a password protected switching station.” He used his cell phone to demonstrate without completing the process.

  “All calls to and from Vadim’s phone go through the relay first and are recorded. The system captures the numbers of outgoing and incoming calls at the same time. No visible device is attached to the phone, which makes detection almost impossible. Even if he discovered the tampering, without my password, he cannot access the station to find what was recorded.”

  “I assume Stevan has the password too.”

  Damla held the empty beer bottle up along with one finger indicating he wanted another. “Stevan?”

  “Stevan Kryianos, the man who hired you,” Ursula said, puzzled by his response.

  Stevan was at the center of the plan, the connection between the buyer and the artifact. She assumed everything went through him. It hadn’t occurred to her someone acted as an additional go-between. Rethinking the situation, it made sense. Damla was too much of a peasant to get anywhere near Stevan.

  “Who’s your contact?” she demanded, sharply. Her role was integral to the success of the operation. She was entitled to know who the other players were.

  “You ask too many questions.”

  She dismissed the warning in his voice. The common thug wouldn’t dare hurt her. She had the power to ruin everything.

  “Since I’m your source inside the camp and to Stevan, the man who is paying you indirectly, I can ask anything I want.”

  Damla’s hand shot across the table. She gasped and flinched when he squeezed her wrist in a painful grasp.

  “And, I can take you places beyond the worst your imagination has conjured. You would learn how valuable you are. Careful how you speak to me.”

  He jerked her half way across the table, grinned and rose from his seat just enough for his face to be next to hers. “I may take you still,” he said low in her ear, and then licked her cheek.

  He let go and Ursula slumped in the chair. She wiped her cheek and then bowed her head to put her sunglasses on so he wouldn’t see her hands shake and how terrified of him she was. He scared her more than anyone she’d encountered before.

  Chapter Forty

  The need for the second Bounty Charlotte bought and saved for later arrived sooner than expected. She’d emailed Dr. Mortensen after she and Atakan returned from the café. In her mind, the committee wouldn’t respond for a day or two, while they debated the importance of the new discoveries. She stared at her email inbox and ripped the paper from the candy bar. She ate half before opening Mortensen’s immediate response.

  Charlotte,

  Thank you for the update. The committee appreciates the timely manner of your progress reports. Dr. Auerbach is the least happy with the finding of equine bones. However, he is not unhappy either. We all feel there might be some merit to your conjecture regarding the bones and Troy’s reputation as horse breeders. We want concrete evidence not speculation. Find it.

  Dr. Mortensen

  Chapter Forty-One

  “Did you send the pictures?” Charlotte adjusted her tool belt. Stressed over Mortensen’s email, she’d forgotten to ask him last night at dinner.

  “Yes. Ankara will run him through our enforcement sources. If any of those agencies dealt with him in the past, he’s on file,” Atakan said. “Although, I’ll be surprised if the search has positive results. The poor quality of the photos is a problem. You saw them.”

  “You did the best you could. From that distance, the guy’s sitting in the shade, not to mention his head is a giant hairball obscuring his features. They’re okay.”

  She and Atakan scrambled out of the way as Talat and four other divers hauled the underwater dredge onto the deck. Three of them struggled to maneuver the unwieldy hose. Talat kept careful control of the steel exhaust pipes and suction tube. If the heavy metal end caps banged against the dive platform any damage repairs would cost precious time.

  Refik stored the water pump for the dredge in the equipment room, then came and stood next to Charlotte and Atakan.

  “We cleared as much as of the area surrounding the grids where we found the bones as we dared. It’ll be interesting to see if we locate more buried in the sand,” Refik said.

  “Think we’ll find human bones?” Charlotte asked.

  “It’d be rare. Most of the wrecks we’ve worked went down close enough to shore for the crew to swim to land.”

  “That’s a relief.” She said it light-heartedly, she meant it sincerely. “For a moment the specter of a skeleton floating in front of my face came to mind. It’s enough that eels and fish spring out of the dark to startle you.”

  The crew lugged the dredge to the port side storage area. When they finished, the sweat drenched group spread out over the bow, resting in what shade was available.

  Charlotte and Atakan hopped down to the platform and into the water. Each carried additional labels. Artifacts and ship remains at the original wreck site had been documented prior to excavation. The unexpected recovery of the bones far from the perimeter grid required additional mapping. There was no way to guess what the dredge uncovered.

  Early in the morning, Refik relocated the Suraya and anchored over the bone yard. Divers placed the new guidelines and established the decompression stations. By mooring over the site, the scooters weren’t needed. It was a straight shot down to the grid to everyone’s disappointment.

  Atakan lit the way. He and Charlotte swam to the farthest point where the bones appeared. Slowly, they canvassed the small zone. He held the lamp as she worked on her hands and knees without gloves, digging into the sand with her fingers.

  Everything that felt promising to the touch she pulled out. She recovered a small pile of buried boat litter, a beer bottle, bent sunglasses, and a cheap watch. She tossed the junk aside. People had no respect for the environment. Charlotte gave up on scooping deeper when nothing of worth turned up. She resorted to hand-fanning again or using a brush.

  If the ship transported royal treasure a representative of the royal house accompanied the shipment. No king sent valuable cargo to another port without an escort. Passengers on merchant ships during the period generally slept on deck. It was possible their personal possessions could’ve floated or been carried by the currents as far as the horses swam.

  Frustrated by her fruitless effort, she threw her hands in the air and switched places with Atakan. He handed her the lamp and took her brush. Like Charlotte, he worked left to right on his hands and knees, fanning and sifting. Within minutes he found four scarabs the size of the tip of his thumb. He held one out to her. She examined the carved piece in the light.

  It wasn’t made from gem material or another popular stone like obsidian or hematite. She rolled the scarab over her fingers trying to identify the dull yellow material. The shape was fairly uniform but didn’t have the quality finished edges of a jeweler’s tool. The edges had been fashioned into an oval but felt rough to the touch, as though crudely filed. The workmanship was common to pieces found in bazaars and markets frequented by ordinary citizens. The wealthy wouldn’t purchase a poor scarab such as this.

  Atakan tagged the spot. Charlotte set the pieces inside the bag attached to her belt. They took turns holding the light while the other one put on fins and gloves before returning to the surface.

  Onboard the Suraya, they stripped off their equipment and headed for the lab. Refik joined them to have his own look prior to the stones going into the desalination tank.

  “Filed down animal teeth of some kind, from the feel and color,” he said, studying them under a strong magnifying glass. “We’ve recovered teeth on previous wrecks in the area.”

  “Good luck talisman,” Atakan said.

  “You think?” She thought they’d come loose from a bracelet or necklace setting.

  “Yes, I believe so.”

  “More than likely,” Refik said.

  “Ancient sailors in this part of the world all used them,” Atakan explained.

  “Still do.” Refik d
ropped the scarab into the tank. “Very superstitious people--sailors.”

  “Refik,” Talat and Uma called simultaneously from outside.

  Both crowded the doorway arguing about who had the greatest urgency to speak with Refik first. Refik passed between them without a word and turned toward the bow. Talat and Uma trailed after him talking over each other.

  “Time to go. We’re due in the lab,” Charlotte reminded Atakan.

  He grunted his agreement but didn’t move. Instead, he remained by the tank, his attention fixed on the scarabs.

  “What are you doing?”

  “This is where we differ. You weep for horse bones. For me, when I held these, I felt a connection to the men who kept such talisman close, a fleeting empathy. They may have survived.” Atakan turned to Charlotte. “But what of the ones who didn’t? Where did they call home? What happened to their families? What did they dream about when they laid on the deck at night?”

  Like the rest of them, Atakan possessed an inexplicable fascination with the past, an archaeologist’s inexorable desire to define history’s people.

  Debate about their fascination arose among the scientists between those who believed in reincarnation and those who explained the obsession on DNA. The reincarnation folks, of course, maintain the memory of past lives draws them to search out ancient clues. The DNA advocates allege a memory gene or genes passed on from our ancestor’s influences our preoccupation.

  “I favor reincarnation.” Charlotte added her voice to the discussion. “Only reincarnation explains Deja-vu.” She didn’t go as far as some who revealed specific times and past life details they experienced. At various times, she felt a deep connection to places and suspected she had lived in those places before. She avoided consuming the amount of wine necessary to blurt her suspicions out.

  Atakan listened to the discussion with an air of detachment, a thin smile on his face when she spoke about reincarnation. When asked, he refused to offer an opinion on either theory. To hear him express such emotional thoughts regarding the hopes and dreams of long dead sailors was so out of character Charlotte wasn’t sure how to respond. She never viewed him as particularly philosophical when it came to the personal lives of the ancients. He impressed her as someone who saw things as black or white with little shade of grey. The poignancy of his questions both touched and intrigued her.