Chapter 13

The older boys were a little later than usual returning, explaining that they had set out one line of pot traps for octopi along the north side of the reef and one line of baited traps for octopi on the south side.

They eagerly showed the research team where the wreck was on a map and gave them the GPS coordinates. “I think the ship that sank looked like this,” I said, handing them a picture I’d sketched.

“How,” the Captain started to ask and then stopped. “That’s right, they told me about you,” he said, looking at me appraisingly.

“How accurate is this?” he asked.

“If it’s the ship that’s down there, it should be accurate,” I replied.

He had one of the researchers look at the sketch.

“Looks like a dhow,” he commented, “and a big one at that, what with having two masts and looking at all the men aboard. There would probably be about thirty men aboard a ship that big, and your sketch confirms that. I count twenty-eight men. The men are dressed like they’re Egyptian--pre-Alexander Egyptian. That would provide evidence that the dhow was in use before 323 BCE.”

“How can you tell all that?” I asked.

“Dhows originated in the area between India and the Red Sea. This one had to have been built in Egypt, or at least completed in Egypt. Either that, or it will provide conclusive evidence that there was a functional canal from the Red Sea to the Nile.

“There are a lot of theories and counter theories, but nobody can show conclusively that a canal was or was not completed and used, even though there were at least three different canals begun.

“The men aboard are dressed and armed like Egyptians were. If this had been post-Alexander, there would have been some Greeks aboard the vessel.”

“Good point,” I agreed.

Poor Temel wasn’t one of the two boys able to go with us the next day. The old man who’d called the boy to guide the ship to the dock had the six boys guess a number between one and twenty. The two who were closest got to go. The other four had to work.

By the end of July, much of the cargo from the wreck had been salvaged, even the broken pottery. The results from the university confirmed what I’d suspected. The majority of the clay jars contained wheat, a common commodity traded by ancient Egyptians.

There were some surprises, however. What must have once been wooden crates contained five hundred kg of crude iron ingots and six hundred kg of copper ingots. One of the sealed clay amphorae held about four kg of gold nuggets. That one had probably been hidden among the amphorae of wheat to disguise it.

Aside from a pair of elephant tusks, there were about twenty smaller pieces of ivory, six of them carved.

Twenty-six clay amphorae were filled with frankincense, and nine with myrrh, both of which probably originated in Punt, an ancient country in what is now Eritrea and northern Somalia.

The date they gave us for the wood was between 368 and 353 BCE, shortly before Alexander the Great began his reign, and eventually conquered Egypt, along with conquering damn near everything all the way into India.

The day before I left, I made one final tour around the ancient port they were still uncovering. So far, they’d found no signs that the port had been attacked and razed. Given the reasons for the demise of other ancient ports, my guess was that it had been abandoned when the river had dumped enough silt into the port that ships could no longer use it.

As to where the missing stones went, my guess was the fishing village. I bet they’d been used to build the two-meter-high wall around the village, as well as some of the homes inside the wall. I mentioned to Dr. Safar that they could probably analyze and compare the rocks at both places. What would be compelling evidence would be finding some of the same ancient mortar on the sides of some of the rocks used in the village.

The fourteen-hour flight from Istanbul back to Atlanta was both mind and butt-numbing and included a one-hour refueling stop in Paris. We had to remain aboard the plane, so I stood and walked up and down the aisles. Since we had left Istanbul at 4 a.m., I had slept for most of the four-hour flight to Paris. Aside from a quick nap mid-flight, I spent the rest of the flight from Paris to home transferring my sloppy handwritten notes to my computer so people could read them. Between my messy writing and my personal shorthand, they’d have as much trouble deciphering what I’d written as most people would have deciphering the ancient Mayan language.

I’d been so engrossed in my typing that I was surprised when the pilot announced that we were beginning our descent into Atlanta. It was about 10:30 the same morning that we left Turkey, although my body clock told me it was dinner time. My gear had preceded me aboard a cargo jet, arriving yesterday. Ray had promised to have it picked up and taken to my house. He had a key and he and his wives had driven my car and truck at least once a week while I was gone.

Since all I had was a carry-on, clearing customs didn’t take long. It had taken far longer to go through airport security leaving Turkey in Istanbul.

I hadn’t been expecting anyone to pick me up and Ray’s appearance in the baggage claim area was a surprise. “All hail the conquering hero,” he teased, making a half-bow with his arms extended.

“Seriously, though, even the naysayers are starting to take notice of you. You’ve already received six more requests for help,” he warned as he shook my hand. “One is from Iran,” he said quietly.

“No way, no how, not gonna happen,” I said adamantly. “I don’t care if they have irrefutable proof that they’ve found the location of the Garden of Eden. I refuse to set foot in an adversarial country, especially one that likes to imprison Americans.”

“Good, that was going to be my recommendation,” he agreed. “Are you ready to start on your doctorate?”

“Yeah, but I still haven’t decided what area to specialize in or what topic my dissertation should cover. I suppose that the best thing would be to keep going out in the field and helping at different digs. If I choose ones that have classes, I can take the classes while I’m there and learn even more. I learned how to interpret and combine GPR scans this summer. It’s much different than when I use mine in the water.

“I also learned how to combine GPR scans to make a 3-D image, so the summer wasn’t a total waste.”

Ray gave me a ride home in my Honda. As I dropped him off at school, he reminded me that he could use my help tomorrow with the freshman orientations. The first part of the orientation was a general welcome to the school for all incoming freshmen or transfer students, and then a short tour around the campus. The part I helped with last year was taking groups of prospective archaeology majors on a tour of the Archaeology buildings and answering their questions about the archaeology program.

Each autumn semester, we had over eight hundred students take the archaeology department’s tours since one in six freshmen and a third of the transfer students applied for the school’s archaeology program. Half of the archaeology students were from foreign countries, so the department had one person who kept track of them to make sure their student visas were current, and that there were tutors available in as many foreign languages as possible to help foreign students with their English.

Once I was home, I could tell that my gardener had been here because the grass had been mowed recently. When I was inside and had turned off the alarm, I could see that the cleaning lady had also been here recently as everything was spotless.

I heaved a sigh of relief when I saw that my gear was stacked neatly in the spare bedroom that I used for storage. When I had this set of crates built for my equipment, I’d taken the width of the doorways into consideration. I’d also chosen a home with a sliding glass door between the family room and the back yard. Since that door was only ten feet from the end of the driveway, it was easy to wheel everything inside. My contractor built a wooden ramp to make it even easier to take the wheeled dollies over the threshold and into the house.

At that point, I decided to treat myself to lunch at Tandy’s, my favorite off-campus restaurant. I enjoyed a bacon cheeseburger, onion rings, and a vanilla shake. This place had the best onion rings and shakes that I’d found, and their burgers were also among the best. The food was far different from what I’d eaten during the last several weeks, and I must admit, I think the Turks have the right idea about breakfast--except they need coffee to go with it. I wondered if I could find a Turkish cook.

After a satisfying meal, I returned home and called my folks to let them know that I was safely back in the country. I made sure not to mention anything about the terrorist attack since Mom had a hissy fit about the Cartel attack at Montabala. I showered and set my alarm before crashing, even though it was only 4:00.

Monday

Given how much I slept on the flight home and how early I went to sleep, I wasn’t surprised when I woke up at 2:28, even though it was the equivalent of 9:28 in Turkey. I knew I wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep, so I finished transcribing my scribbled notes. After emailing a set to the NGS, I burned three sets of CDs with my notes and photos. One set was for Dr. Parker, one set was for the records in my study, and one set for the floor safe I used to protect them. The Tribunal had told me they would be safe, no matter what happened to the house.

I kept the notes and photos for Ecuador and Montabala on separate sets of CDs, in separate binders. A copy of the notes for each location were in the binder with the CDs. I even had a binder for the cenote documentary. That reminded me that the documentary was supposed to air last Thursday. I’d completely forgotten about it, not that I had access to a TV. Finally, I uploaded a copy to my secure web page which allowed me access to my records from anyplace that had internet access.

Since I had failed to shop for groceries yesterday, I stopped and bought a fast-food breakfast on my way to school, once again missing the Turkish breakfasts. I wondered if there was a Turkish restaurant in the area that served breakfast. Even though it was only eight o’clock, I felt like it should be mid-afternoon since my body clock was still off by several hours. Gratefully, I had most of this week to acclimate before classes began.

I smiled when I entered Dr. Parker’s office and rubbed the head of the idol on his desk, remembering dealing with it at the dig in Montabala. As usual, the idol greeted me mentally. Ray’s wives were all there and hugged me, welcoming me back. They insisted on a more detailed description of the battle with the terrorists.

It was easy to see that the Parkers and the other students helping them were still busy compiling the data from this summer.

After giving my first tour, I was sitting in Ray’s huge office and eating my lunch when Kai walked in. I was surprised to see him since he had graduated two years ago and had returned to Hawaii to live. He still invited me to visit them every summer, even though he was married now. He and his family also sent me a Christmas card every year, one with a family photo on it. I felt bad because my summers had been so busy that I was barely able to visit my own family for a few days, let alone make the trip to Hawaii.

As I stood to greet Kai, an excited squeal of, “Johnny!” erupted from behind him as his sister Kiana rushed through the door, nearly knocking Kai over. I’d been preparing to shake Kai’s hand and barely had time to brace for the impact as Kiana jumped on me.

“Princess!” I exclaimed as she hugged me around the neck and wrapped her legs around my waist. Even before I had a firm grip on her that didn’t include grabbing her ass, her lips were sealed to mine for a lengthy kiss that included a lot of tongue.

The moment her lips touched mine, I KNEW. I wasn’t sure how I knew, but I just knew she was meant to be my wife. I wondered how upset the native Hawaiians would be when one of their Princesses married a Haole. I wondered how upset my friend Kai would be.

That brought back memories from Hawaii. Kiana had spent a lot of time hanging around me. Kai had commented on it, warning me that she seemed interested in me. “Not going to happen, Buddy,” I replied. “First, she’s your sister. Second, I’d rather not have to fight all the native Hawaiian guys who will be upset about a Haole seeing a native girl. Finally, she’s jailbait.”

Kai had laughed at me. “We’ll see. The women in this family tend to get what they want.”

He didn’t tell me they might wait years to get what they wanted, not that I intended to complain.

While we kissed, I shot a brief look at Kai to see how upset he was. He was grinning.

“Hi,” Kiana panted when she finally broke the kiss.

“And hello to you, too, Princess,” I replied.

“I’m an archaeology major and I’m here for the orientation tour,” she explained, still clinging to me.

“I’ll be heading over to lead the next tour group in about fifteen minutes,” I told her. “Have you guys had lunch yet?” I asked Kai.

“Yeah, we just finished,” Kai replied.

“I should finish my lunch,” I told Kiana as I let go of her. She looked at the ground and slid down my body, taking hold of my arm once her feet touched.

“You’re a marked man,” Kai laughed at me. “Since you left, she’s been counting the years, then months, then weeks, and then days until she could come here. She was upset that you didn’t come back to visit us.”

Clinging to my arm, Kiana followed me as I returned to the desk where my lunch was waiting. Ray shook her hand and each of his wives hugged her, causing her to momentarily lose her grip on my arm. As she passed Ray’s desk, she reached out to touch the statue of Ah Kinchil. She quickly jerked her hand back like she’d been burned and stared for a second at the statue, then at Ray, and then at me.

“What did it tell you?” Ray asked.

“Huh?” Kiana replied, again staring at the statue.

“From your reaction, I take it that the statue spoke to you. What did it say?”

“Is this some sort of practical joke?” she asked, glaring at me.

“Was what you heard spoken aloud?” I asked, making her think. Cautiously, she reached out and touched the statue again.

“I heard, ‘Welcome, Princess Kiana,’” she said apprehensively.

“Then it likes you,” Ray said. “It only speaks to people who are destined to work with us.”

“What does it say to you?” she asked me.

“It calls me Priest Johnny Campbell,” I replied.

“What about you?” she asked Ray.

“It calls me Shaman Parker, and my wives Priestess Parker,” he answered.

“Is this the artifact you recovered in Montabala?” she asked me.

“Yeah, but it was a lot bigger originally, nearly four times the volume. When I originally moved the thing, it was fifty cm high, twenty cm wide, and twenty-five deep. Aside from receiving otherworldly assistance, I have no idea how I moved it. It originally weighed almost five hundred kilograms.”

“You guys deal with some weird stuff,” she said, looking back and forth between Ray and me.

“That we do, Princess,” I replied.

Now grinning again, she came over and scooted my chair back enough that she could sit on one of my legs. “You were too far away from me,” she explained, making everyone in the office laugh.

“How you doing?” I asked Kai.

“Good. I’ve been working as a news cameraman at one of the local television stations in Honolulu. It usually leaves my mornings open to surf. Man, you missed some righteous waves earlier this month!” he exclaimed.

“I managed to do a little surfing where I was working along the coast of Turkey, but the biggest waves I could ride were only six feet. That, and I had to use a handmade wooden board. I managed to do a lot of diving on an ancient wreck though. They think it sank about 350 BCE. The wood was sewn together. A Turkish team was still salvaging and documenting the wreck when I left.”

I finished eating lunch and managed to scoot Kiana off my lap so I could stand up. “Ready?” I asked her. Once again, she grabbed my arm and clung to it tightly.

“You coming?” I asked Kai.

“Nah, I’m going to look up some old friends. She can call me if she wants me to pick her up, which will only be when you’re tired of her clinging to you,” he laughed.