trigger each time the revolver returned from the recoil, aiming high. The final bullet hit the target and sent it spinning crazily above the waves. He lowered his arms, pressed the thumb catch and broke the gun open, ejecting the spent cartridges into a bucket at his feet. He pulled off the ear protectors and hung them round his neck, raised his arm again and listened for the tannoy blasts to signal the end of firing. As he waited, he stared at the horizon, at the line of open sea to the south between the island and the Turkish mainland.
He braced his tall frame against the roll and pitch of the ship, and swallowed hard. The sea swell was making him feel uncomfortable, though he hated to acknowledge it. Captain Macalister had deactivated Seaquest II ’s stabilizer system as he reacquired their position over the site. The sea had been calm that morning, but the wind had picked up as usual in the early afternoon and the waves were now racing over the crests of the swell, sending occasional swirls of spindrift above the whitecaps like horses’ manes as the sea drove towards the shore. Jack concentrated on the low coastline where the F-16 had disappeared. For a moment he wished he was over there with the other team, on dry land, excavating the most fabled archaeological site in history, the ruins of an ancient citadel once thought to be no more than a figment in the imagination of a blind poet. Then he remembered what he had seen that morning, almost a hundred metres deep on the sea bed, a shape barely discernible on the edge of the darkness. He still did not know if it was a hallucination, the fulfilment of a dream that had obsessed him, the dream that had drawn so many to this place and left them yearning for more, for one more discovery to transform the legend into rock-solid reality. He thought of Heinrich Schliemann, almost a century and a half before. Schliemann had come here chasing a dream. And he had found Troy.
Jack stared at the grey sky that seemed to hang over the shoreline of Troy like a shroud, and then looked down into the darkness below the waves, straining to see deeper. He had excavated many fabulous wrecks in his years as an undersea explorer, but this one could be the most extraordinary ever. This time they could be stepping back into the world of myth, to the time when men had not yet learned to cast off the yoke that tied them to the fickle judgement of the gods. What they found today could reignite the passion that had driven Schliemann, the conviction that the Trojan War was historical reality. Jack whispered the words to himself. A shipwreck from the Age of Heroes. A shipwreck from the Trojan War.
‘Jack! Don’t shoot! I surrender!’
Jack turned, and saw a stocky figure making his way up the foredeck, waving at him. Costas Kazantzakis swayed from side to side as he walked, a gait born of generations of Greek fishermen that seemed to allow him to barrel on in defiance of all the natural laws. Jack had even noticed it in their dives together, as Costas hurtled down to the sea bed regardless of currents or any other obstacle. Jack stared in disbelief as Costas came closer. He was wearing sandals, some kind of pyjama pants, a Hawaiian shirt, aviator sunglasses and an extraordinary hat, a faded leather affair with ear flaps. Jack bit his lip to stop himself from smiling. Costas stopped in front of him, and saw Jack’s expression. ‘What?’ he said defiantly.
‘Nothing.’
‘It’s the pants, isn’t it? Mustafa gave them to me.’ Costas had a distinctive New York accent, picked up despite every effort of his wealthy parents to shield him from the reality outside his exclusive school. Jack had always loved it, and with Costas he never felt conscious of his own accent, a result of a peripatetic childhood in Canada and New Zealand as well as England. ‘They’re Ottoman Turkish. Just blending in with the local culture.’
Jack cleared his throat. ‘The Ottoman Empire crumbled a little while ago. About a century ago, to be exact. Anyway, no, it wasn’t those.’
‘The hat? A present from your old digging buddy Maurice Hiebermeyer. You gave him those baggy British Empire shorts he loves wearing, and he gave you your beloved khaki bag. So he gave me the hat when I took the heli out to Troy yesterday and saw him. He said it made me an honorary archaeologist. Only honorary, of course. He found it in the Egyptian desert while he was looking for mummies. It’s an Italian tank driver’s hat from the Second World War. He said Italian gear had real style. Said it suited me.’
Jack looked at Costas unswervingly. ‘He said that.’
‘You bet.’ Costas wiped his stubble with the back of his hand, and then thrust a phone at him. ‘Text message from your daughter.’
Jack looked at the screen. It was one word. Paydirt. He looked up, his eyes gleaming. ‘They must have found it,’ he exclaimed. ‘The passageway under the citadel. Maurice knew it was there. I’ve got to get over there as soon as we finish the dive.’
Costas shook his head. ‘Mission creep.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, first your old professor James Dillen finds some clue on an ancient papyrus, something about a shipwreck from the Trojan War. You get all excited. Seaquest II gets booked. A few weeks go by. Then Mustafa pulls all the strings and the authorities grant us a blanket permit to excavate the entire north-west corner of Turkey. Before you know it, Maurice Hiebermeyer arrives with Aysha and their team from Egypt. Rebecca somehow gets off school and flies here even before asking you. Even my buddy Jeremy leaves his beloved Anglo-Saxon manuscripts, and is over there right now at Troy, neck deep in dust. What starts off as a long-shot recce ends up as a campaign to solve the entire mystery of the Trojan War. That’s what I call Mission creep.’
Jack grinned. ‘Big questions deserve big resources.’
‘Big questions? You mean big treasure.’
Jack laughed, slapping Costas on the back. ‘Treasure? Me, an archaeologist? Never.’ He snapped shut the revolver, unclipped the lanyard from the metal ring on the butt, eased the cord over his head and opened the holster. Costas gestured at it. ‘Having fun? Not your usual Beretta.’
‘It’s an old Webley service revolver, naval issue. Captain Macalister keeps it in his day cabin. The. 455 slug was designed to knock down fanatical tribesmen, and Macalister reckons that’ll do for any modern-day pirate. You can see the 1914 date stamp when it was refurbished, at the beginning of the First World War. It could have been used in the Gallipoli campaign the following year. Macalister says holding this makes him feel close to that, to the horror and tragedy out here in 1915.’
‘Sounds like you’ve infected him with your passion for artefacts.’
Jack holstered the revolver and shut the flap. ‘It’s what I always tell you. Artefacts sing the truth of the past. Have you ever noticed if you put your ear to an old gun barrel and open the breech, you can hear an echo of the past wars it’s fought in? It’s haunting. You should try it.’
‘It’s called the wind, Jack. And I’m not in the habit of playing Russian roulette.’
‘I thought we did that all the time.’
‘You’re a father, remember. I have to keep you alive. It’s not like the old days.’
‘You mean not like five months ago, searching for the celestial jewel in Afghanistan, pinned down on a mountainside by the world’s most lethal sniper?’
‘When I saved your life. Again.’
‘As I recall, it was my shot that took him out.’
‘I mean before that. All those times diving. Stopping you from taking that extra plunge into the abyss.’ Costas squinted over the bows, and pointed. ‘Anyway, if saving my life’s your job, it looks like you got rusty. The target’s only wounded, Jack.’
‘I had Ben make up some reloads. The bullet weight’s a little off.’
‘It makes a nice change when our security chief has the time to do that.’
Jack gestured at the vapour trail dispersing above them. ‘It helps being in a restricted military zone. I don’t think anyone who might be shadowing us is going to mess with the Turkish armed forces.’
‘That’s what I came up here to talk to you about. Our permit from the Turkish navy only allows us to maintain position on one spot for three hours continuously. We’ve just come back on site now. Macalister says that gives us time either for a sidescan survey, or for a dive. A scan gave us that beautiful image of the Byzantine wreck yesterday, down to individual pots and blocks of stone. A great find, but we knew it wasn’t what we were after even before we got in the water this morning to check it out. The Byzantine wreck’s seventh century AD. We’re looking for something almost two thousand years older than that. Macalister says a scan might give us all we need this time too. He’s worried about the wind picking up this afternoon. It’s your call.’
Jack squinted at Costas. ‘We’ll do it the old-fashioned way. See what’s down there with our own eyes. Whatever the sonar might show, I’d want to dive anyway. And that way we don’t have preconceptions. If you think you know what you’re going to be looking at, your mind sometimes only seeks confirmation. You miss vital
