Crescent Dawn

“It was all done to achieve our destiny,” Celik replied quietly.

Battal could control his emotions no longer. He grabbed Celik by his shirt and flung him across the room. Celik fell against the hanging laundry, snapping the line as he dropped to the ground covered in towels. He struggled to get to his feet, but Battal was already on him. Grabbing a loose end of the clothesline, Battal quickly wrapped it around Celik’s throat and drew it tight. Celik fought back fiercely, punching and flailing at the Mufti. But Battal was too big and powerful, and too bent on vengeance. Surging with pent-up rage, he ignored Celik’s blows and yanked the line tighter.

The horror of being strangled was not lost on Celik. Struggling to breathe, he saw a parade of his own garroted victims flash before his eyes as the life was slowly choked from his body. Failing in a last desperate attempt to break free, he stared at the Mufti with a combination of fear and defiance before his eyes rolled back and his body fell limp. Battal kept his death grip on Celik for another five minutes, less out of assurance than psychotic fury. Finally letting go, he stepped slowly from the dead man, staggering out of the storage room with trembling hands and a permanently disabled mind.

It was late the next morning when Celik’s body was discovered by a Bosphorus fisherman. Surreptitiously dumped into the harbor, it had floated about the Golden Horn for most of the night before drifting ashore at Seraglio Point.

The expired body of Ozden Celik, the world’s last Ottoman, was found just a few steps from the walls of Topkapi, in the shadow of the glory of his legendary ancestors.

85

Pitt and Giordino found Lazlo on the third floor of the Istanbul Hospital, situated in a pleasant but heavily guarded room overlooking the Bosphorus. The commando was lying in bed, reading a three-day-old copy of Haaretz , an Israeli daily newspaper, when the two men were allowed to enter.

“Don’t tell me you are still front-page news back home?” Pitt asked as he entered and shook hands.

“It is good to see you, my friends,” Lazlo replied, sheepishly putting the paper aside. “Yes, we are still big news in Israel. However, I am sad to report that I seem to be getting all of the credit. It was you who disabled the tanker,” he said to Pitt. “And none of it would have been possible without the Bullet ,” he added to Giordino.

“I think it’s safe to say it was a team effort,” Pitt replied.

“Among other things, the three of us have improved my country’s relationship with Turkey tenfold,” Lazlo boasted.

“Not to mention helping keep Atatürk’s vision of a secular Turkish government in play for a few more years,” Pitt noted.

“I think somebody should put us in for a Nobel Prize,” Giordino said with a smirk.

“I heard they found the body of Celik this morning,” Lazlo said.

“Yes, he was apparently strangled, then pitched into the Golden Horn,” Pitt said.

“Did you beat me to the task?”

Pitt smiled. “Not this time. A police detective told us they are pretty certain Mufti Battal is responsible. An undercover cop at Battal’s mosque reported seeing a man matching Celik’s description and dress in the building about the time of his estimated death.”

“A pair of devils, in my book,” Lazlo said.

An attractive nurse came into the room momentarily to check Lazlo’s medication, then left under his watchful gaze.

“Anxious to get home, Lieutenant?” Giordino asked.

“Not particularly,” Lazlo replied with a grin. “And by the way, it is now Commander Lazlo. I’ve received word of my promotion.”

“Let me be the first to congratulate you,” Giordino said, slipping him a bottle of whisky he had smuggled into the hospital. “Perhaps you can find someone around here to share it with,” he added with a wink.

“You Americans are all right,” Lazlo replied with a wide smile.

“How is the prognosis?” Pitt asked.

“I’m scheduled for surgery in Tel Aviv in another week, then will be subject to several weeks of therapy. But the recovery should be full, and I hope to report back to duty before the end of the year.”

They were interrupted by the entrance of a man in a wheelchair, who rolled in with his leg in a cast.

“Abel, there you are,” Lazlo greeted. “It’s time you meet the men who helped save your life.”

“Abel Hammet, master of the Dayan . Or ex-master, I should say,” he said, greeting Pitt and Giordino warmly. “Lazlo here has told me everything you did. You really put yourself out on a limb, and my crew and I can’t thank you enough.”

“I’m sorry your tanker was still lost in the end,” Pitt replied.

“The Dayan was a good ship,” Hammet said wistfully. “But the good news is that we’re getting a brand-new vessel. The Turkish government has committed to building us a replacement, apparently using the appropriated assets of one Ozden Celik to pay for it.”

“Who says there’s no justice in the world?” Giordino quipped.

As the men laughed, Pitt glanced at his watch.

“Well, the Aegean Explorer is due to shove off in about an hour,” he said. “I’m afraid we’re going to have to be on our way.”

He shook hands with Hammet, then turned to Lazlo.

“Commander, I’d be glad to have you by my side any day,” he said.

“It would be my honor,” Lazlo replied.

As Pitt and Giordino moved toward the door, Lazlo called out to them.

“Where are you headed? Back to your shipwreck?”

“No,” Pitt replied. “We’re sailing to Cyprus.”

“Cyprus? What’s waiting for you there?”

Pitt gave the commander a cryptic grin.

“A divine revelation, I hope.”

PART IV

MANIFEST DESTINY

86

St. Julien Perlmutter had just settled into an over size leather armchair when the phone rang. His favorite reading post was custom-built, as it had to be to accommodate his nearly four-hundred-pound frame. He glanced at a nearby grandfather clock, noting it was nearly midnight. Reaching past a tall glass of port parked on a side table, he answered the phone.

“Julien, how are you?” came a familiar voice over the line.

“Well, if it isn’t the savior of Constantinople,” Perlmutter replied in a booming voice. “I’ve read with glee about your exploits in the Golden Horn, Dirk. I hope you weren’t injured in the affair?”

“No, I’m fine,” Pitt replied. “And by the way, they call it Istanbul these days.”

“Bilgewater. It was Constantinople for sixteen hundred years. Ridiculous to change it now.”

Pitt had to laugh at his old friend, who spent most of his waking hours living in the past. “I hope I didn’t catch you in bed?” he asked.

“No, not at all. I was just sitting down with a copy of Captain Cook’s papers from his first voyage to the Pacific.”

“One of these days, we’ll have to go find what’s left of the Endeavor ,” Pitt said.

“Aye, a noble mission that would be,” Perlmutter replied. “So where are you, Dirk, and why the late call?”

“We just docked at Limassol, Cyprus, and I have a mystery I could use your help with.”

The large bearded man’s eyes twinkled at hearing the words. As one of the world’s foremost marine historians, Perlmutter had a hunger for nautical enigmas that exceeded his appetite for food and drink. Having associated with Pitt for years, he knew that when his friend called he usually had something beguiling.

“Pray tell,” Perlmutter said in his deep bassoon voice.

Pitt proceeded to tell him about the Ottoman wreck and its Roman-era artifacts, then he sprang the story of the Manifest and its list of contents.

“My word, that’s an epic cargo,” Perlmutter said. “A pity that little, if any of it, would survive after two mille