The Minoan Cipher

CHAPTER SEVEN

Thanks to Abby’s machine-like efficiency, the move from Woods Hole to Cadiz had gone off without a hitch. Before he left town Hawkins had dropped Quisset off at Howard Snow’s house, given her a pat on the head and told her to have fun with Uncle Snowy. He hitched a ride on the truck transporting Falstaff from Woods Hole to JFK airport where the submersible was loaded onto a 747 cargo plane. He climbed aboard the plane for the flight from New York to Frankfurt, then on to Cadiz.

He slept for most of the Atlantic crossing and felt refreshed when the plane arrived in Spain. Abby had thought of everything. A crane truck was waiting at the airport to move Falstaff to the harbor. The submersible was lifted from the truck onto the deck of the Sancho Panza, the forty-eight-foot salvage boat Kalliste had hired for the survey. Hawkins had asked Kalliste to line up a boat that was large and sturdy enough to accommodate Falstaff’s weight. She greeted Hawkins on board with a hug. She said the boat was the best she could find on a limited budget, and the captain had a sterling reputation around the port.

Hawkins grew up on the Maine coast, son of a lobster fisherman. He had explored his father’s boat from the time he could crawl. He knew that a ship-shape vessel was the secret to a long life at sea. The Sancho Panza’s hull had welds and patches, but it was freshly painted. The winches that powered the arm-like cranes on both sides of the deck were free of rust. Every cable or coil of line looked brand new. When the captain introduced himself, Hawkins complimented him on the condition of the boat. The captain beamed at the praise and said he’d been strict with maintenance because the boat had been built in the 1960s. Together, they supervised the job of moving Falstaff onto the stern deck.

Hawkins soon learned why the boat had been named for the sidekick of Don Quixote. The skipper, Captain Alejandro Santiago, was a fanatic admirer of Cervantes, even naming his son Miguel after the famous Spanish author. Over a hearty dinner cooked by Miguel, the captain regaled them with stories of Don Quixote’s creator. He would have gone on all night, but Hawkins politely suggested that they turn in early. The next morning, the Sancho Panza eased from its slip in the gray light of dawn and chugged through the steamy mists rising from the Bay of Cadiz, trailing a creamy wake in the mirror-flat waters. As the boat cleared the harbor Captain Santiago goosed the throttle, ramped up the speed to a steady twenty knots and pointed the bow southwesterly into the Atlantic.

The soft pinkish-gold light from the rising sun fell on the flags fluttering from the mast. Topmost was the horizontally-striped red and orange banner of Spain. Hanging below the Spanish pennant was the blue and white flag of Greece, dominated by its white cross. On the bottom was the familiar Stars and Stripes.

Hawkins wore a Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution T-shirt emblazoned with the picture of a sailing ship, a WHOI baseball cap, tan cargo shorts and high-topped work boots. Hawkins called the look, “Woods Hole chic,” because it was the standard uniform around the world-famous ocean studies center. Kalliste had on white shorts and a sky-blue T-shirt that had a drawing on the front of an ancient square-rigged ship and the word, AEGEO, the name of a Greek research vessel she had worked on.

Nearing the destination, it was easy to spot the buoy that the Spanish coast guard had used to mark the wreck. The captain used the GPS to hone in on the orange foam sphere bobbing in the waves. Cutting power, the boat plowed to a halt and the anchor splashed into the dark green water with a rattle of chain.

“Right on target,” the captain said. “The rest is up to you, my friends.”

Hawkins said, “Thanks, Captain Santiago. We can start as soon as Dr. Kalchis gives the word.”

“We can start immediately as far as I’m concerned,” Kalliste said. “But we are guests in Spanish waters, and it is Senor Rodriguez, as his country’s official observer, who has the final say.”

Rodriguez had been standing behind the captain, a mug of coffee in his hand. He was a short, pudgy man with several receding chins and a completely bald head partially covered by an ill-fitting toupee. He was dressed in a shiny dark suit and tie. He smiled and in a soft voice, said, “I am here as a colleague who wishes to help, not hinder.” Setting the mug down, he pulled a notebook and pen out of his jacket pocket. “Since I am also the official government record keeper, could you tell me what your survey will entail?”

“Dr. Kalchis and I will dive together in the manned submersible, take a look at what’s on the bottom and try to confirm the initial Coast Guard assessment,” Hawkins said.

Rodriguez repeated what he had made clear a number of times since boarding the boat that morning. “My main job on this expedition is to guarantee that the wreck is not disturbed, and to make sure no artifacts are removed.”

Hawkins nodded. “We’ll hover at a safe distance. The only thing we plan on taking is video and photographs to study later.”

Rodriguez licked his lips. “It is my job to see that protocol is followed. If you don’t mind, I will have to make a call to ask for final permission.”

“We hope that will not take long,” Kalliste said. “Your government has given me permission for this survey. You must know, as a fellow archaeologist, that I would hardly risk damaging my reputation by allowing a physical inspection of an ancient site without first carefully mapping every detail.”

“I am aware of that, Dr. Kalchis, but I must follow my instructions to the letter.”

He jotted something down in his notebook and strolled off.

“Sanctimonious self-important little piglet,” Kalliste said. “It drives me crazy the way he wets his lips with his tongue. Ugh.”

Hawkins smiled, but his narrowed eyes watched Rodriguez go to the stern where he stopped to take out a phone and turned his back to them. Three tours of duty as a Navy SEAL in Afghanistan had honed Hawkins’s observational skills. Something wasn’t quite right. The guy was as slippery as an eel. Hawkins knew a number of marine archaeologists and none of them dressed for a shipwreck survey in a suit. Even odder, Rodriguez had shown no interest in the potential archaeological importance of the shipwreck other than to say it could not be disturbed.

Hawkins gave a mental shrug. Maybe he was reading too much into his first impression. Then again, maybe not.

When Rodriguez returned, he paused for a second, obviously enjoying the drama, and dabbed his lips with his tongue before he announced:

“I have secured you permission to make your dive.”

“Very good,” Matt said. “Dr. Kalchis and I will discuss the launch and retrieval procedures with the captain and his son.”

After he was left alone, Rodriguez lit up a cigarette and took a deep drag. He had to watch himself, but the job had been easier than he thought it would be. He had expected to have to use all his considerable experience as a con man. But these scientists were as gullible as the usual victims of his cons.

When he was working a scam, he dispensed with the toupee. He was aware that with his bald head, watery blue eyes, pink face, and negligible chins, he resembled a very large baby. He capitalized on his innocent appearance, offering free counsel to elderly women who willingly turned over their money for investments that never panned out. But he had made a big mistake recently, conning a frail widow who just happened to have been related to a mobster. Which is how he ended up on this junky old scow in the first place.

He had lost all her money gambling. He knew that it was only a matter of time before the mobster sent some thugs to break his legs, so he’d chosen to lay low in his apartment, but after a few days ventured out to buy cigarettes. As he walked back from the kiosk to his apartment he lit up a cigarette and didn’t see the limo until it was too late. The car pulled up to the sidewalk and two husky men muscled Rodriguez into the back seat where the mobster sat. As the limo pulled away from the curb with a screech of tires, Rodriquez knew his life was about to end. Unexpectedly, the mobster had put his arm around his shoulders.

“I’ve been looking for you, Rodriquez,” he said; his breath held a heavy dose of garlic.

“I can pay the old woman back. I just need more time.”

“Don’t worry about that. I need you to do a favor for a friend.”

He shoved a phone in Rodriquez’s face.

The man on the other end of the line had a job offer. Speaking in a smooth-toned voice, he said he wanted Rodriguez to impersonate an archaeology professor working for the government. The job would only take one day. In return, the man would pay him a large sum of money. Rodriguez had agreed. The widow could go to hell. He had already decided to use the money he made from the job to leave town in search of other fertile hunting grounds full of vulnerable women.

Now, as instructed, he had reported the ship’s discovery to his anonymous employer, who said, “Good. Tell them to dive.”

The voice clicked off. Rodriguez shrugged. He didn’t have the faintest clue what this crazy job was about. He didn’t care. He just wanted to get back to Cadiz, then leave town faster than a mobster could shoot.

Which might have come to pass, if not for one simple thing.

By making the phone call, he had just signed his own death warrant.