The Navigator

“That’s the best offer I’ve heard all day,” Gamay said in a weary voice.

Zavala hitched onto the line behind Gamay. Trout and Saxon towed the two tired divers into shallow water. The divers removed their tanks and fins and slogged onto shore. They dropped their weight belts, climbed to the edge of the grassy banking, and sat down to rest.

Saxon hauled the raft onto shore. Trout opened a cooler and passed around cold bottles of water. He was unable to contain his curiosity. “Don’t keep us in suspense. Did you find King Solomon’s mine?”

A faint smile came to Zavala’s lips. “He’s your husband,” he said to Gamay. “Maybe you should break the bad news.”

Gamay sighed. “Someone beat us to it.”

“Gold prospectors?” Trout said.

“Not exactly,” Zavala said. He got to his feet and retrieved the carrying bag from the beached raft. He pulled out the pewter box, which he handed to Trout. “We found this in the mine.”

Paul’s eyes blinked rapidly as he stared with speechless disbelief at the name embossed on the lid. He handed the box to Saxon.

Saxon was less restrained. “Thomas Jefferson!” he burst out. “How can that be?”

Gamay slipped a small knife out of a leg sheath and gave it to Saxon. “Why don’t you do us the honors?”

Despite his excitement, Saxon exercised extreme care as he picked away at the rusted fastener. The lid had been sealed with wax, but it opened easily. He gazed into the box for a few seconds, and then lifted out two soft squares of vellum, wrapped in stiff waxed paper and marked with lines and Xs and tightly written script. He put the squares together where their ragged edges matched.

“It’s the rest of the Phoenician map,” he whispered. “It shows the river and bay.”

Gamay took the vellum from Saxon’s trembling hands and studied the markings without comment before passing them to her husband.

“The plot thickens,” she said.

“This plot is as thick as clam chowder,” Trout said with a shake of his head. “Where exactly did you find this stuff?”

Gamay described their dive into the cave and down the shaft. Zavala picked up the narrative, laying out their exploration of the cave tunnels and the chamber where the box rested on a stone platform.

Saxon had recovered from his shock and put his mind to work again.

“Fascinating,” Saxon said. “Any indication of gold?”

“Nothing that we could see,” Gamay said.

Saxon’s eyes narrowed. “Either there was gold and you didn’t see it or the mine had been played out and abandoned.”

“In either case, how does what they found fit in with the stories of King Solomon’s fabled gold mine?” Trout said. “Is this Ophir or not?”

“Yes and no,” Saxon said. He chuckled at Trout’s puzzled expression. “Some people believe Ophir was not a specific location, but the name given to several different sources of the king’s gold. This may have been one of his mines.”

Gamay stared out at the placid surface of the lake. “What better place to hide something than an abandoned mine with nothing of value in it?”

“Which brings us back to the Phoenician expedition,” Saxon said. “Its purpose was to hide a sacred relic.”

“Which raises the question of what happened to that relic,” Trout said.

Gamay picked up the metal box. “Maybe we should ask Mr. Jefferson.”

Saxon had been holding the vellum squares. He held them up for a better look at the markings and said, “This is interesting. I believe the map is a palimpsest.”

“A palim what?” Trout said.

“It’s a term for vellum that has been used more than once,” Saxon said. “Byzantine monks perfected the practice of washing and scraping writing from vellum so it could be used again, but the process could be much older. See there, when you hold it to the light, faint writing is visible.”

He passed the vellum around for the others to examine.

“Too bad we can’t retrieve the original message,” Trout said.

“Maybe we can,” Saxon said. “The curators at the WaltersArt Museum in Baltimore recently deciphered a thousand-year-old message that had been hidden in a palimpsest. They may be able to do something with this. I wish Austin were here to share these wonderful discoveries. When will he be back from his errand?”

Zavala had been thinking about Austin even in the subterranean depths of the lake. Austin was a survivor, but by allowing himself to be kidnapped by the ruthless Baltazar, he was jumping into the abyss. As he got to his feet and prepared to collect his dive gear, he said, “Soon. Damn soon, I hope.”

Chapter 50

AUSTIN AND FLAGG SAT IN the Bentley with the motor running, eyeing the entrance to Baltazar’s estate.

“I thought you said these folks were unfriendly,” Flagg said. “Looks like they’re expecting us.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Austin said.

They had spent the last hour trying to find another way into Baltazar’s estate but encountered heavy woods and electrified fence. They got lost in the maze of dirt roads around the property and found themselves back at the main gate. It was wide-open.

Austin leaned on the steering wheel. “This must be what goes through a lobster’s mind before he crawls into the trap. Carina’s my friend, not yours. We can still wait for reinforcements.”

“Reinforcements will just get in the way,” Flagg scoffed. He produced a third pistol. “Go slow. I’ll watch the bushes for redskins.”

Austin put the car into gear and drove through the gates. Flagg sat up on the back of the seat with a gun in each hand. No one tried to stop them. The road broke out of the woods, and Austin headed for the jousting field. The tents had all been leveled. The fabric was ripped and covered with tire tracks. The reviewing stand was unchanged, except for an added feature.

As they neared the stand, Flagg tensed. “What the hell is that?”

A human figure was hanging from the front of the stand, its chin touching its chest. Arms and legs dangled loosely.

Austin clutched the Glock in one hand and drove closer.

“Aw, hell,” he said.

“Anyone you know?”

“I’m afraid so,” Austin said.

It was Squire. A lance pinned him to the stand like a butterfly in a display case.

Austin continued on past the reviewing stand and its macabre decoration and came to the SUV he had played chicken with and the vehicle it had crashed into. Both were heavily damaged.

“What happened here?” Flagg said.

“Demolition derby,” Austin said. He continued on to the gorge.

The field that had been crowded with vehicles and Baltazar’s men was deserted. Even the horses and their trailers had vanished. There were deep tire tracks in the grass, indicating intense truck activity.

Austin described his joust with Baltazar and his encounter with the Carina stand-in. Then he turned around and drove back to the reviewing stand. He told Flagg that he owed Squire a favor. They pulled the lance out and gently wrapped Squire in a piece of tent fabric. After placing the body in the reviewing stand they explored some side roads and came upon a vacant hangar and airstrip, which explained Baltazar’s fast escape.

They decided to check out the house. Austin turned up the driveway to the mansion. The two-story hacienda looked as if it had been plucked from the Spanish countryside. The walls were light brown smooth stucco. Rounded parapets decorated the corners of a roof covered in red tile. Arched windows framed a large, intricately carved porch.