Straits of Power

older man had opened them without asking permission, and started searching the contents. They pulled out clipboards resembling the ones used at the wreck site, improvised from what had been available on Challenger; the ship’s vast on-line e-book library of tour guides for crewmen on leave had told Felix this much, the same way it let him and Gerald Parker identify this site and assess its probable present active status.

Like many items in the bags — including pencils, an underwater camera with blank film, and Mohr’s quantum computer and tool case — the clipboards were damp with saltwater. Everything had been soaked while still on Challenger, to appear more authentic when examined. Were they authentic enough?

Felix and those with him stood on the deck, dripping. Their compressed-air tanks and weight belts were heavy out of the sea. Standing upright in the head-to-toe loose-fitting wet suits was serious labor. They had to squint in the bright sun reflecting off the Med, because their hats and sunglasses were in side pouches of the gear bags. Even with a light onshore breeze, and the temperature in the seventies, Felix felt much too warm as he waited to see what happened next.

“What’s in these cases?” the boat owner demanded.

Felix’s tension worsened. Explaining the cases couldn’t be avoided. Neither could Mohr keep mute forever, and Meltzer was too junior to lead a major university archaeological expedition, even a last-minute add-on by a school not a principal dig sponsor.

“May I show them to you?” Mohr asked politely.

The soldier pointed his rifle angrily at Mohr, stepping back to keep the foursome covered. His partner held his own weapon pointed at the men still in the water. Felix had seen that the rifles were Galil ARs, with their safeties off. Long, curved magazines projected down and forward from their receivers; each held fifty rounds of the same ammo as an M-16. Felix did not want to take a bullet — or a burst of bullets. None of his team wore body armor.

“You have a German accent,” the soldier said to Mohr, his voice thick, bloodcurdling, hate-filled.

“So?” Mohr answered back aggressively. “And I suppose that no Israelis speak with German accents? Hmm?”

“You are not Israeli.”

“Did I say I was?”

“What are you?” The soldier had his Galil’s unfolded stock on his shoulder now, and peered down its sights at Mohr’s head.

Uh-oh, Felix told himself, sweating, here’s the punch line.

“I’m German. And an adjunct professor at New York University. And not a supporter of Imperial Germany or I wouldn’t be here, would I?” Mohr advanced on the soldier, loaded Galil and all, in a rage that he summoned from deep inside himself. “Don’t you know there are good Germans? Do you know how many of my friends were shot for resisting tyrants last year in Germany?” Spittle began to fly from Mohr’s mouth. “Do you think I like having to explain myself wherever I go, as if I’m some kind of vile insect? Do you think I like it?” His nose almost touched the flash suppressor at the Galil’s muzzle now.

Felix thought that if they survived this, Mohr deserved an Oscar for his performance.

“Where are your papers?”

“At the hostel. We don’t take them with us on dives.”

“What are these boxes?”

“Magnetometers, gravimeters. For finding and mapping out underwater wrecks. I’m testing them on working sites to calibrate them. You understand the word ‘calibrate’?” Mohr folded his arms across his chest defiantly, over the straps of his scuba and his uninflated buoyancy vest.

For an uncomfortable minute the soldier kept his rifle trained on Mohr. Then his eyes drifted to the equipment cases sitting on the deck. His eyes darted back to Mohr, testing for a reaction, any excuse to open fire. The tactic was as transparent to Mohr as to Felix. Mohr gave the soldier a dirty look, then spoke quietly and evenly. “Get us a ride to the beach, or shoot me. Make up your mind.”

The soldier lowered his rifle, snapped the selector onto safe, and shouted to the wheelhouse, then to his partner. The other soldier safed his weapon. The boat owner talked on the radio; a response crackled in Hebrew. Soon a young woman on the beach, at the primary camp north of the minefield, pushed a rubber raft into the water and started its little engine, heading for the boat.

The soldier glanced at Meltzer. “Eight people and those bags, you need two trips.” The deck’s pump and vacuum engines came back to life, making noises and giving off smelly exhaust.

Chapter 43

Chief Costa and the enlisted SEALs had already gone to the beach with some of Mohr’s gear. Now Felix, Meltzer, Salih, and Mohr rode the raft steered by the young woman. She’d spoken to Meltzer briefly in Hebrew, but ignored her other passengers. To her, Felix could tell, he and Salih were underlings. Klaus Mohr kept his mouth shut, not pressing his luck. The woman, her expression serious, purposeful, handled the raft with skill.

They approached the shore quickly. To the left of the beach the land rose to gray cliffs, with an indentation forming a cove. There were structures and activity on the cliffs. Felix knew this was Tel Dor, one of the most extensive ongoing land-based archaeological digs in Israel. Farther north was a promontory, topped by a Crusader fortress crumbling from neglect. South by a few miles, also directly on the shore, lay another Crusader ruin, with the base of what had once been a tall, massive tower.

Large rocks stuck out of the water near the beach. The rubber raft wove between them, kicking up cool spray that sprinkled Felix’s body and face. The sea altered from deep blue to turquoise green, the surf was barely three feet high, and white water lapped against yellowish sand. The raft ran up on the beach. The woman turned off the outboard to save scarce gas.

“Todah,” Meltzer said. Thank you. The woman nodded, then went about checking the raft. The narrow tide line here was mostly free of detritus from naval battles a hundred-plus miles to the west; Felix saw bits of charred driftwood, and small blobs of oily gunk, easily sidestepped.

He scanned the setup on the beach. Open-sided canvas tents gave shade, where people at long tables rinsed artifacts, then immersed them again in buckets for preservation; records were kept on laptops. A close-sided tent had a sign that said “East Carolina University Underwater Archaeology Group.” Another such tent had a sign in Hebrew and English; the English part said “University of Haifa.” Farther off, a generator purred. Cables were strung over tall planks driven into the sand, providing power to different parts of the encampment. A tank trailer with diesel fuel sat near the generator. A bigger trailer had “Fresh Water Do Not Drink” marked on its tank. One open- sided tent held coolers, coffee urns, and food; workers wolfed down snacks there.

Closer to the multilane coastal highway stood a row of chemical toilets, and a few parked vans and cars — Haifa was twelve miles straight north. Felix also noticed a big stack of white PVC pipe, a pile of empty compressed-air scuba tanks near the highway, and rows of filled tanks standing upright on wooden pallets close to the water. The sand in many places was wet; it was crisscrossed by countless footprints and sets of tire tracks.

Rolls of barbed wire stretched along the whole south edge of the area, from the surf to the highway. Portable floodlights on poles, switched off now, pointed both at the encampment and toward the deserted beach beyond the wire. Hundreds of yards off, on a twisting corridor through the minefield, Felix saw a sandbagged heavy machine- gun emplacement.

He went to the co-ed shower area. Burlap screens on stakes gave minimal privacy. Chief Costa and his men had by now washed off, cleaned their gear, and changed into casual civilian clothing from dry side pouches in their bags. Felix and those with him did the same, then strapped dive knives near their ankles, under their slacks.

They carried their dive gear to an open-air spot with wooden tables and clotheslines equipped with plastic hooks. All sorts of gear was piled on the tables; wet suits hung from the hooks; an attendant kept an eye on