Clive Cussler - Lost Empire

“I agree.”

“As much as I’d love to explore, I think this is one of those ‘discretion equals valor’ moments.”

Remi nodded. “This will take a full archaeological team and years of work.”

They walked aft, their footfalls clicking dully on the deck and their murmured voices echoing off the bulkheads. They stepped through the berth-deck hatch and found themselves facing another mast, this one the main; on the other side of this were a bulkhead and a ladder leading up to the main deck.“Dead end,” Remi said. “Unless we want to push through to the main deck and tunnel our way aft to the wardroom.”

“Let’s call that Plan B. According to the blueprints, on the other side of this bulkhead are the coal bunkers, the upper level of the engine room, then the aft hold. The Sultan was known to deal in illicit cargo from time to time. Let’s see if he made any covert adjustments to the layout.”

The bulkhead was six feet high and ran the width of the thirty-foot deck. Using their headlamps, Sam and Remi scanned the bulkhead from one side to the other. Directly below the spot where the ladder pierced the deck above, Remi spotted a quarter-sized indentation in one of the planks. She pressed her thumb into it and was rewarded with a snick. A hinged hatch swung downward. Sam caught it, then lowered it the rest of the way. On tiptoes, he peered into the opening.“A crawl space,” he said.

“It’s heading in the right direction.”

Sam boosted Remi through the hatch, then chinned himself up and followed. They headed aft, knees and hands bumping along the wood.

“We’re over the coal bunkers, I think,” Sam said.

Ten more feet, and Remi said, “Bulkhead coming up.”

They stopped. The sound of Remi’s fingers tapping and probing the bulkhead filled the crawl space.

Snick .

“Eureka,” she said. “Another hatch.”

She crawled through this opening and disappeared. Sam heard the clang of her feet hitting grated steel. He crawled to the hatch. Directly ahead was a stanchion; he grabbed it and used it to ease himself out.They were standing on a railed catwalk. They walked to the edge and shined their headlamps down, illuminating shadowed shapes of machinery, girders, and piping.

They walked along the catwalk to the aft bulkhead, where they found a short ladder leading upward to yet another hatch; once through this hatch, they found themselves hunched over in the four-foot-tall aft hold.Sam panned his light around, trying to orient himself. “We’re directly below the wardroom. There’s got to be another-”

“I found it,” Remi called from a few feet away.

Sam turned to see her standing before a dangling ceiling hatch. She smiled. “Crafty devil, the Sultan,” she said. “Do you think this was for his harem?”

“I wouldn’t put it past him.”

Sam waddled over and formed stirrups with his hands. “Up you go.”

ONCE ON THE DECK ABOVE, they found themselves standing in a thirty-foot-long corridor. At their backs was the Shenandoah’s third mast, the mizzen. Along the starboard side of the corridor were five doors. These would be officers’ quarters.Sam checked the first door. “The head,” he whispered.

In turn, they checked the remaining doors. The second and third rooms were empty, but not so with the fourth and fifth. Lying faceup in each of the tiered bunk beds was a skeleton.“Buried alive,” Remi murmured. “My God, I wonder how long it took?”

“However long it took, it must have been a nightmare.”

AT THE END OF THE CORRIDOR, they turned right through another doorway and into the port-side corridor heading forward. One side was lined with more quarters. On the other, a single door led into the wardroom.“Do you want to look?” asked Sam.

“Not particularly. It’ll be more of the same.”

“One more room to check, then.”

They turned around. A few feet aft was a thick oaken door with heavy wrought iron hinges and a matching latch handle.

“Captain’s quarters,” Sam said.

“My heart’s pounding.”

“Mine too.”

“You or me?” Remi asked.

“Ladies first.”

Sam aimed his headlamp over Remi’s shoulder, helping to illuminate her path. She stepped up to the door, placed her hand on the latch, and, after a moment’s hesitation, depressed the thumb lever and pushed. Half expecting the cliched creak of hinges, they were surprised when the door swung noiselessly inward.

From their research they knew the captain’s quarters aboard the Shenandoah measured eighty square feet: ten feet long by eight feet wide. Compared to the officers’ berths, and especially the enlisteds’ bunk rooms, it was luxurious.Sam and Remi saw him at the same time.

Directly ahead of them, facing the four mullioned stern windows, was a rocking chair. Jutting above the chair’s headrest was a skull, bare save a few strands of whitish yellow hair and some bits of scabrous flesh.Remi stepped across the threshold. Sam did the same. Headlamp beams focused on the figure in the chair, they paced forward, then circled around either side of the chair.

Winston Blaylock was dressed as they had imagined him for the past three weeks: calf-high boots, khaki pants, and a hunting jacket. Even as a skeleton, his stature was impressive: wide shoulders, long legs, barrel chest.

His hands were lying palms up in his lap. Cradled there, staring up at Sam and Remi, was a football-sized maleo statuette, its facets sparkling green in their flashlight beams.

WITHOUT A WORD between them, Sam gently reached down and lifted the maleo from Blaylock’s lap. They stared at the man for another full minute, then searched the cabin. They found neither a log-book nor documents, save three sheets of parchment. Blaylock’s neat scrawl covered both sides of each sheet. Remi scanned their contents.“Three letters to Constance,” she said.

“Dates?” Sam asked.

“August fourteen, August twentieth, and . . .” Remi hesitated. “The last one’s dated September sixteenth.”

“Three weeks after the Shenandoah

was buried here.”

THEY RETRACED THEIR STEPS forward through the starboard corridor, down through the hatch, back through the engine room, and through the crawl space to the berth deck.

Remi climbed up through their excavated shaft, waited for Sam to secure the maleo to the end of the rope, then hauled it up to the surface. She dropped the line back down, and Sam went up.Together, they collected an armload of twigs and small branches, then built a latticework over the shaft and covered it with loam.

“It doesn’t seem right just leaving them down there,” Remi said.

“We’ll come back,” Sam replied. “We’ll make sure that he’s taken care of-that they’re all taken care of.”

EACH LOST IN HIS or her private thoughts, the climb back up to the plateau passed quickly. Three hours after leaving the Shenandoah they were picking their way down the trail Sam had hacked. Remi was in the lead. Through the trees Sam glimpsed the white sand of the beach.

Their pinisi was gone.“Remi, stop,” Sam rasped.

On instinct, he shrugged off his pack, unzipped the top pocket, grabbed the maleo, and tossed it into the brush. He donned his pack again and kept walking.

“What is it?” Remi replied, turning around. She saw the expression on her husband’s face. She stiffened. “What’s going on?” she whispered.

From somewhere to the right, hidden in the trees, came Itzli Rivera’s voice: “It’s called an ambush, Mrs. Fargo.”

“STEP BACKWARD,” Rivera ordered. “Five more feet, and you’re on the sand. Mr. Fargo, there’s a rifle trained on your wife. One more step, Mrs. Fargo.”