Crescent Dawn

The illuminated warehouse was nearly in front of them, its open bay door, just a few yards to their right.

“I say we avoid the crowds and go left,” Pitt replied. “Let’s shoot for the other warehouse.”

They turned and walked along the waterfront, passing the narrow stone building. Pitt guessed it had originally been built as a fisherman’s house but now served as an administrative office for the dock facility. Unlike the gunman on the yacht, the man guarding the front door eyed them suspiciously as they passed by the courtyard in front of the house. Giordino attempted to trivialize their presence by casually whistling “Yankee Doodle Dandy” as they passed, figuring the Turkish gunman would be unfamiliar with the tune.

They soon reached the second warehouse, a darkened building with its large waterfront drop-down door sealed shut. Giordino tried the handle on a small entry door alongside and found it unlocked. Without hesitating, he led Pitt inside, where they deposited the ladder against a work desk illuminated by a flickering overhead light. The rest of the building’s interior was empty, save for some dusty crates in the corner and a large sealed container near the rear loading dock.

“That was easy enough,” Pitt said, “but I don’t think waltzing in the front door of the building next door looks as promising.”

“No, that guard watched us like a hawk. Maybe there’s a back door?”

Pitt nodded. “Let’s go see.”

Picking up a wooden mallet he noticed lying on the desk, he walked across the warehouse with Giordino. Adjacent to the loading dock was a small entry door, which they slipped through. They quietly made their way to the back side of the stone building only to find it had no rear or side doors. Pitt approached one of the lower-level windows and tried to peek in, but the blinds had been tightly drawn. He stepped away and studied the second-floor windows, then tiptoed back to the warehouse to confer with Giordino.

“Looks like we’re back to the front door,” Giordino said.

“Actually, I was thinking of trying an upstairs entry,” Pitt replied.

“Upstairs?”

Pitt motioned toward the ladder. “Might as well put that thing to use. The windows were dark upstairs, but they didn’t appear to have the blinds drawn. If you can create a distraction, I could climb up and enter through one of the windows. We can try to surprise them from above.”

“Like I said, surprise is a good thing. I’ll go get the ladder while you work on that distraction.”

As Giordino padded across the warehouse, Pitt stuck his head out the back door and searched for a means to create a diversion. An option appeared in the form of a flatbed truck parked behind the opposite warehouse. He ducked back inside as Giordino approached with the ladder, but then he suddenly looked past him curiously.

“What’s up?” Giordino asked.

“Look at this,” Pitt said, stepping closer to the steel shipping container sitting nearby.

It was painted in a desert-khaki-camouflage scheme, but it was some black-stenciled lettering that had caught Pitt’s attention. Several points around the container were marked, in English, “Danger — High Explosives.” Beneath the warning was stenciled “Department of the U.S. Army.”

“What the heck would a container of Army explosives be doing here?” Giordino asked.

“Search me. But I’d be willing to bet the Army doesn’t know about it.”

Pitt walked to the front of the container and slid across the dead bolt, then swung open the heavy steel door. Inside were dozens of small wooden crates with similar warnings stenciled on their sides, each tightly secured to metal shelves. Near the doorway, one of the crates had been pried open. Inside were several small plastic containers the size of bricks.

Pitt pulled one of the containers out and peeled off the plastic lid. Inside was a small rectangular block of a compressed clear powdery substance.

“Plastic explosives?” Giordino asked.

“It doesn’t look like C-4, but it must be something similar to it. There’s enough here to blow this warehouse to the moon and back.”

“You think that stuff might be helpful in creating a distraction?” Giordino asked, raising an eyebrow in a sly arch.

“I know so,” Pitt replied, resealing the container and handing it carefully to his partner. “There’s a truck parked in back of the other warehouse. See if you can make it go boom.”

“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-ski

Zeibig noted the guards suddenly assume a stiff, deferential 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 Gu

“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.