hundred and twenty feet deep. She consulted the chart and frowned. 'We won't have that much time at the bottom. We'll need to start our dive right on top of the village.' Turning to Okan again, she asked him if he had anything that showed its location.
The little man's brow furrowed, pondering the matter. 'You must talk to Rustem,' he finally said.
'He lived in the village before it was flooded, and he never left the area. If anyone knows where the church is, he will.'
Reilly waited for Okan to step outside the room for a moment before turning to Tess. 'This is crazy.
We should bring in some pros.'
'You're forgetting something. I am a professional,' she insisted. 'I've done this a hundred times.'
'Yes, but not like this. Besides, I'm not too happy about having both of us down there without anyone keeping an eye topside.'
'We've got to give it a shot. Come on, you said it yourself. There's no one around. We've beaten Vance to it.' She leaned into him, her face lit with anticipation. 'We can't stop now. Not when we're this close.'
'One dive,' he relented. 'Then we make the call.'
She was already heading for the door. 'Let's make it count.'
They carried the gear up the staircase and piled everything into the back of the Pajero. Okan invited Tess into his rusty white Fiat, asking Reilly to follow him with the old man. Reilly looked at Tess, who winked conspiratorially before folding her legs into the small car to the obvious delight of the engineer.
The Pajero followed Okan's car along an asphalt service road for about half a mile until the engineer pulled off and stopped beside a chain-link compound inside which were piled concrete blocks, drainage pipes, and dozens of empty oil drums; all the usual clutter left over at the end of any building project. Inside the compound, an old man in traditional headdress and robe was pottering around. Reilly guessed that a littie bit of private enterprise was in operation here and wasn't at all surprised when Okan introduced the recycler, Rustem, as his uncle.
Rustem smiled toothlessly at them, then listened intently as his nephew rattled off some questions before answering with lots of arm waving and enthusiastic nodding.
Okan turned to Tess and Reilly. 'My uncle remembers the remains of the village very well. For many years, he brought his goats to this place. He says only parts of the church still stand.' He shrugged, interpolating a comment of his own. 'At least, that's how it was before the valley was flooded. There was a well close to the church, and he remembers a . . .' Okan frowned, searching for the words. 'The dead root of a very big tree.'
'A tree stump,' Tess said.
'Stump, yes, that's it. The stump of a willow tree.'
Tess turned to Reilly, her eyes blazing with anticipation.
'So, what do you think? Is it worth a look?' he deadpanned.
'If you insist,' she grinned.
They thanked Okan and the old man who drove off, the engineer flashing a reluctant last glance at Tess and, before long, she and Reilly had pulled on their wetsuits and lugged their gear to the water's edge, where Rustem kept a couple of small rowboats. They clambered aboard, then Rustem pushed them off and scrambled in himself. Picking up the oars, he began to row with the easy movements of someone for whom this had been a lifelong practice.
Tess used the ride out to remind Reilly of the routine procedures he vaguely recalled from his only previous diving experience, during a short holiday in the Cayman Islands four years earlier.
Rustem stopped rowing when they were roughly halfway between the east and west shorelines and about three-quarters of a mile from the dam. Muttering to himself as he squinted first at one nearby hilltop, then at another and another, he used one of the oars as a paddle to make a succession of careful positioning movements. As he did this, Reilly reached over the side and swirled both of the masks in the water.
'What do you think is down there?' he asked.
'I don't know.' She looked solemnly at the water. 'Right now, I'm just hoping it's there.'
They stared at one another in silence, then realized that the old man had stopped and was displaying his gums in a triumphant beam. He pointed downward. 'Kilise suyun altinda,' he told them. The words sounded similar to those used by the frail man from the restaurant.
'Siikmn' Tess said.
'What did he say?'
'Damned if I know,' she replied as she climbed onto the edge of the boat before adding, 'but I'm pretty sure kilise means church, so I guess this must be it.' She cocked her head at him. 'You coming or what?'
And before he could answer, she had pulled down her mask and let herself roll backward into the reservoir with barely a splash. After a glance at Rustem, who raised a thumb in a decidedly modern gesture, Reilly followed her, far less gracefully, into the dark water.
Chapter 58
A s they descended into the cold gloom of the lake, Tess was overcome with a familiar rush, one that she craved badly. There was something almost mystical in knowing that she may be about to see things that had not been seen by human eyes for many years. It was already a heady feeling on land, closing in on the remnants of long-lost civilizations that lay hidden beneath centuries of sand and earth. When the site was buried under a mountain of water, the exhilaration was even greater.
This dive, though, trumped them all as far as she was concerned. If most excavations or dives at least began with the promise of some great discovery, they more often than not proved disappointing. This one was different. The trail of clues that had brought them to this lake, the nature of the coded message, and the lengths to which people were prepared to go to get to it all pointed to her being on the verge of an archaeological discovery of far greater significance than anything she had ever realistically expected to make.
They were now twenty feet down and descending slowly. Between the cold and the anticipation, it was as if every last pore on her body had suddenly come alive. She looked up at where the sunlight dappled the surface. The bottom of the old man's boat was suspended serenely above her, the water gently lapping against it. The water clarity was good considering they were basically in a blocked-up river, but the darkness was quickly closing in around them.
There was still no sign of the bottom. Tess switched on the light rig she held, its high-intensity discharge light taking a few seconds before reaching its full output and illuminating the eerie blackness ahead of her. Small particles danced in the water before her, slowly gliding by in the current, heading for the dam. She glanced at Reilly sinking down beside her as a small school of trout weaved in curiously before darting away into the dark.
She noticed Reilly gesturing below and saw the bottom of the lake slowly coming into view. It was disconcerting at first: even with the years of silt and settlement since the dam had been built, it didn't look like the seabeds she was used to. In fact, it looked just like what it was: a submerged valley, strewn with rocks and the bare trunks of long-dead trees. Thick, dark algae covered most of it.
They swam side by side, spiraling out, scanning the bottom, then her trained eyes spotted it first.
The old man had been true to his word; there, barely noticeable in this otherworldly landscape, were the ghostly remains of the town.
At first, all that she could make out were clusters of eroded stone walls, then gradually she began to get some sense of shape and purpose and could see how the stones formed uniform, linear shapes.
She led Reilly down further and now she could make out a street and some houses. They glided ahead, looking down at the remains of the old village, suspended over it in the stygian darkness like explorers hovering over an alien land. It was a surreal sight, the leafless branches of dead trees swaying in the faint current like the beckoning limbs of captive souls.
A sudden movement swung her eyes to the left. A school of small fish that had been feeding off clumps of algae were scattering into the shadows. Turning back, she noticed that the houses gave way to an open space. Pushing toward it, she saw the black stump of a huge tree, the spindly remains of its rotted branches barely swaying. There it was: they had found the willow. She unconsciously let out a burst of air, a small cloud of bubbles coursing out of her regulator and racing up to the surface. Her eyes feverishly scanned the surroundings. She knew it had to be close. As Reilly joined her, she spotted it: the crumbled remains of what must have been the well, a few yards upstream from the stump. She pushed forward, the beam from her light penetrating the wall of darkness
