Not far from the sub, a turboprop plane sat on a makeshift runway scraped into the ice. After she and six members of the assault team had offloaded, the submarine quickly submerged, plainly not wanting to be spotted. She was transferred to the turboprop, which took them to a nondescript island. There she had been forced into this jet.
Movement drew her attention back to present. The assault team leader came down the cabin’s aisle. The jet’s interior was appointed in rich finishes of ash wood and blond leather. A bar at the back was lined with Baccarat crystal. She only knew that because of the fancy water goblet resting on the table between her and the seat facing her. Clearly the attack in Greenland had nothing to do with the value of the ancient map’s precious metals.
Something bigger was afoot.
The woman dropped into the seat opposite. Elena noted how drawn and silent the team leader had become. The caramel of her features had paled; her eyes looked haunted. After the rush of escaping Greenland, she clearly must have been dwelling on the events, digesting them more fully, trying to come to terms with the horrors unleashed from the ancient dhow’s hold.
“We will be landing soon,” the woman said.
Elena stared back at her, too curious to stay silent, willing to risk punishment, suspecting that now might be the time to get some answers. “Who are you?”
The leader answered with a stretch of silence, studying Elena, as if judging whether she was worthy of such knowledge. She finally spoke. “You can call me Bint Mūsā.”
Elena translated the name. “Daughter of Moses.”
She got a nod of confirmation. The woman absently traced a finger along the scar. “A title that is hard-earned.”
Elena swallowed, not doubting the woman. She also fought to keep her face expressionless. She was suddenly too conscious of the pressure at her lower back. So far, the others had not discovered what she had kept hidden. Apparently assuming she was no threat, they had only patted her down, making sure she had no weapons, and confiscated her phone before locking her up in the sub.
They had failed to find the small sealskin-wrapped package tucked in an inner pocket of her parka, the artifact she had taken from the ship captain’s corpse. While aboard the submarine, anxious and needing a distraction, she had risked examining the object. She cracked its wax seal, parted the old skin, and found two preserved chapbooks inside, with leather covers stitched together with thick cords.
She had been too afraid of damaging the brittle books to open them, but long ago their titles had been burned into the ancient leather and remained legible. Both were inscribed in cursive Arabic. The first was a single word—ملحمة—which meant Odyssey. At the time, she wondered if it could be a written translation of Homer’s epic poem, but she could not risk opening it to find out.
Especially as the second title was even more intriguing.
Even now that line of Arabic burned in her mind’s eye, along with its translation.
The Testament of the Fourth Son of Moses.
Elena had imagined it must be the dead captain’s log, an account of how his ship ended up in a sea cave along the coast of Greenland, why it had stayed there, and where it had come from to be carrying such horrific cargo. She had wanted to crack that journal open, but she feared damaging such a vital historical record, the final words of a Son of Moses.
She stared at the scarred woman across from her, who claimed the title of Daughter of Moses. What could be the connection? She had no doubt there was one. Her kidnappers certainly seemed to know far more about the dhow and the golden map than anyone else.
The pilot radioed back to the passenger compartment, speaking Turkish, which surprised Elena, considering everyone else spoke Arabic. “We’ll be landing in ten minutes. Fasten your seat belts.”
Elena had already done that, so she turned to the window and stared below. A coastline appeared ahead. If she was right about the blue waters below being the Aegean Sea, she guessed that the rocky shore ahead marked the coast of Turkey. To keep her fears in check, she tried to determine where along the coastline they were headed. She searched for landmarks, took account of the sun’s position, and felt a chill, born of certainty and trepidation.
A wide waterway cut to the northeast. That has to be the Dardanelles Strait. In classical antiquity, it was named the Hellespont, or the Sea of Helle. The strait cut through northwestern Turkey and connected to the Sea of Marmara.
It seems I truly have traveled full circle . . . from Helheim to the Sea of Helle.
She returned her attention to the approaching coastline. She recognized that deep carve of a bay, the towering cliffs sweeping to either side. She had recently seen a depiction of this port. She pictured the golden map’s tiny silver ship resting along this very stretch of coast. Back at the dhow, she remembered naming this place and getting confirmation from the woman seated across from her.
The plane reached the coast and dropped lower.
Acres of ancient walls and foundations came into view below, further solidifying her conviction.
She knew this place.
It’s the ruins of Troy.
She glanced back to the woman, to Bint Mūsā, this Daughter of Moses. Dark eyes studied Elena in turn.
What the hell is going on?
10
June 22, 11:08 A.M. EDT
Washington, D.C.
Gray dropped back into the leather chair in front of the director’s desk. “We’d better find his daughter.”
Senator Kent Cargill had just left, escorted by Kat.
Painter remained standing, his expression pained. “Agreed. We don’t need to make an enemy of this man, especially if he ends up in the White House.”
The director had spent the past forty minutes updating the senator on their search efforts and the plans going forward, involving intelligence and policing agencies around the world. Cargill took in these details, asked pertinent questions, and offered his resources as head of the Committee on Foreign Relations in the Senate.
Gray had simply listened, letting these two men discuss everything. He had expected the panicked father—a senator surely used to getting his way—to throw his weight around, to butt heads with the director, to make demands. And certainly, Cargill’s eyes were haunted, his lips drawn and pale with worry, but the man stayed on task, perhaps knowing that the best chance to recover his daughter would not be served by bluster and threats.
Gray tried to imagine how he’d act if someone kidnapped Jack. I’d be knocking walls down. Considering the senator’s judicious calm in the face of such a crisis, he would make a great president. There was steel in his spine, and he had a mind as sharp as a bear trap.
As to Sigma’s culpability in involving his daughter, he readily acknowledged his daughter was headstrong and as passionate about her work as he was. There was even a glimmer of interest when Painter told him about the ancient dhow discovered buried in the ice of Greenland, a discovery that could prove Arab explorers reached the New World centuries before the Vikings.
Cargill had shaken his head upon hearing all of this and admitted with a sniff of amusement: Once Elena caught wind of this, you couldn’t have kept my daughter away.
Now that matters had been resolved with mutual respect, Painter rounded his desk and returned to his chair. He sank down and stared pointedly at Gray. “As you can see, we definitely need our best people on this case.”