Clive Cussler - Treasure

"Sounds good."

"Have any luggage?" Pitt asked.

"I traveled light. Only a briefcase and a small tote bag."

"Al Giordino will bring them down."

"The helicopter pilot?"

"Yes, Al will see that your gear is taken to your quarters. Now if you'll follow me, I'll see you get something warm in your stomach and pick your brain on an intriguing puzzle."

"After you."

Dr. Mel Redfem towered over Pitt and had to duck halfway to his navel when he passed through a hatch. His blond hair had receded to a widow's peak and he wore designer glasses in front of gray-blue eyes. His long body was still reasonably trim for a man of forty with a slight but noticeable paunch.

A former college basketball star who passed on playing for the pros to earn his doctorate in anthropology, Redfem later turned his considerable talents to underwater exploration and became one of the world's leading experts in classical marine archaeology.

"Did you have a good flight from Athens to Reykjavik?" asked Pitt.

"Slept through most of that one," answered Redfem. "It was the ride in the navy patrol plane from Iceland to the Eskimo settlement a hundred miles to the south of here that damned near turned me into an ice cube.

I hope I can borrow some cold-weather clothing. I packed for the sunny islands of Greece and didn't plan for a rush trip to the Arctic Circle."

"Commander Knight, the ship's skipper, can fix you up.

What were you working on?"

"A second-century B.C. Greek merchant ship that sank with a cargo of marble sculptures." Redfem could not contain his curiosity and began to grill Pitt- "You didn't state in your radio message what the ship was carrying."

"Except for the bodies of the crew, I found the cargo hold empty."

"Can't have it all your way," Redfemn said philosophically. "But you did say the ship was basically intact."

"Yes, that's true. if we repair a hole in the hull, restore the mast and the rigging and hang new steering oars, you could sail her into New York harbor."

"God, that's astounding. Has Dr. Gronquist been able to determine an aPProximate date on her?"

"Yes, by coins minted arOUnd A.D. 390. We even know her name. SeraPisIt was carved in Greek on the sternpost."

"A completely preserved fourth-cen Byzantine merchant ship," Redfem murmured in wonder. "This has to be the archaeological find of the century. I can't wait to lay my hands on her."

Pitt led him into the officers' wardroom, where Lily sat at a dining table copying the wording from the wax tablets onto paper. Pitt made the introductions.

"Dr. Lily Sharp, I)r. Mel Redfem."

Lily rose and extended her hand. "This is an honor, Doctor. Although my field is land science, I've been a fan of your underwater work since grad school."

"The honor is mine," said Redfem politely. "Let's cut the fancy titles and stick with first names."

"What can we get you?" asked Pitt.

"A gallon of hot chocolate and a bowl of soup should thaw me out just fine."

Pitt relayed the order to a steward.

"Well, where's this puzzle you mentioned," asked Redfem with the anxiousness of a kid leaping out of bed on Christmas Day.

Pitt stared at him and smiled. "How's your Latin, Mel?"

"Passable. I thought you said the ship was Greek."

"It is," answered Lily, "but the Captain wrote out his log on wax tablets in Latin. Six were inscribed with wording. The seventh has lines like a map. Dirk recovered them during his initial entry into the ship. I've transposed the writing into more readable form on paper so it can be run off on a copy machinne. I drew an enlarged scale of the tablet depicting a chart of some kind. So far we haven't been able to pin down a geographical location because it lacks labels."

Redfem sat down and held one of the tablets in his hand. He studied it almost reverently for several moments before setting it aside. Then he picked up Lily's pages and began to read.

The steward brought a mug of hot chocolate and a large bowl of Boston clam chowder. Redfem became so engrossed in the translation that he lost his appetite. Like a robot, he raised the cup and sipped the chocolate without taking his eyes from the handwritten pages. After nearly ten minutes, he stood up and paced the deck between the officers'

dining tables, muttering Latin phrases to himself, oblivious to his rapt audience.

Pitt and Lily sat in utter silence, careful not to interrupt his thoughts, curiously watching his reactions. Redfem stopped as if mentally placing a problem into proper perspective. He returned to the table and examined the pages again. The air fairly crackled with expectancy.

Several more minutes dragged by before Redfem finally laid the pages on the table with trembling hands. Then he stared vacantly into the distance, his eyes strangely blurred.

Redfem had been rocked right down to his toenails.

"You look like you just found the Holy Grail," said Pitt.

"What is it?" asked Lily. "What did you find?"

They could barely hear Redfem's answer. His head was down.

He said, "It's possible, just possible, your chance discovery may unlock the door to the collection of art and literary treasures the world has ever known."

"Now that you have our undivided attention," Pitt said dryly, you mind sharing your revelation?"

Redfem shook his head as if to clear it. "The story-saga is a better definition-is overwhelming. I can't quite comprehend it all."

Lily asked, "Do the tablets tell why a Graeco-Roman ship sailed far beyond her home waters?"

"Not Graeco-Roman, but Byzantine," Redfem corrected her. "When the Serapes sailed the ancient world, the seat of the Empire had been moved by Constantine the Great from Rome to the Bosporus, where the Greek city of Byzantium once stood."

"Which became Constantinople," said Pitt.

"And then Istanbul." Redfem turned to Lily. "Sorry for not giving you a direct answer. But, yes, the tablets reveal how and why the ship came here. To fully explain, we have to set the stage, beginning with 323

B.c., the year Alexander the Great died in Babylon-His empire was split up by his generals. One of them, Ptoleiny, carved out Egypt and became king. A canny guy, Ptolemy. He also managed to get his hands on Alexander's corpse, encasing it in a gold-and-crystal coffin. He later enshrined the body in an elegant mausoleum and built a magnificent city around it that surpassed Athens. In honor of his former king, Ptolemy called it Alexandria."

"What does all this have to do with the Serapes?" asked Lily.

"Please bear with me," replied Redfem gently. "Ptolemy founded a massive museum and library from scratch. The inventory became monumental. His descendants, through Cleopatra, and later successors all continued to acquire manuscripts and art objects until the museum, and especially the library, became one of the largest storehouses of art, science and literature that has ever existed. This vast collection of knowledge lasted until A.D. 391. In that year, Emperor Theodosius and the patriarch of Alexandria, Theophilos, who was a religious nut case, decided all reference to anything except newly fanned Christian principles was paganism. They masterminded the destruction of the library's contents. Statues, fabulous works of art in marble, bronze, gold and ivory, incredible paintings and tapestries, countless numbers of books inscribed on lambskin or papyrus scrolls, even Alexander's corpse: all were to be smashed into dust or burned to ashes. "

"What kind of numbers are we talking about?" Pitt asked.

"The books alone numbered in the hundreds of thousands."

Lily shook her head sadly. "What a terrible waste."

"Only Biblical and church writings were left," continued Redfem. "The entire library and museum was finally leveled after Arab and Islamic rebbels swept Egypt sometime around A.D. 646."