Byzantine Gold (22 page)

Chapter Forty-Five

Twenty-four hours.

Charlotte sat quiet for a long moment letting Nick’s threat sink in, her mind a dull blank seeing no way around the situation.  Damn Nick, damn Nuray, and damn Tischenko. Damn them all.

She set the phone back on the dresser and dug out her iPod from a drawer. She scrolled through her playlists to the one with sad songs, nothing but sad songs—Bocelli’s
Con Te Partiro,
Delerium’s
Silence,
Il Divo’s
Nights in White Satin.
She thumbed down:
Against All Odds, Drive,
Gold Dust Woman,
Broken Wings,
and of course, Bowie’s haunting
Space Oddity.
She spun through the entire list of the songs. It was her longest playlist. She’d put it together when Atakan was in the hospital. She didn’t realize it at the time, but except for Il Divo, Delerium, and Bocelli, all the artists were from her mother’s generation. Funny, why was that?

Turning to
Tu Quieres Volver
, she put the ear buds in, lay down and hit
play
. She hummed to the opening music and whispered the English translation of the lyrics...Tu Quieres Volver...
You want to return
.

#

The nap she was about to enjoy when Nick called eluded her. A brief respite for her busy mind would’ve been nice. This wasn’t her day to catch a lucky break. When she was halfway through the playlist, she checked her watch. Time to report for the afternoon dive. She put the iPod away, splashed cold water on her face, brushed her teeth and hair, and headed for the shuttle.

She glanced around for Atakan before she boarded the idling shuttle. He exited Refik’s office just as she dropped her backpack on the bench and stepped inside. He called out to her, smiling and waving. She waved back, wondering when or if she’d see that warm smile again.

Onboard the Suraya, Refik asked Charlotte if she and Nassor wanted the AGA masks.

“No thanks, let Talat and Rachel take them.”

Refik looked surprised when she turned down the offer. She normally sought permission to use them. She normally liked having the ability to speak to Nassor as they worked. Today, she didn’t want to talk, not just to Nassor, but to anyone.

As soon as they reached the seabed, a small, covered plastic box was lowered from the surface. The box would secure the coins they gathered.

Sparkle greeted them at the wreck. She’d been busy gathering some of the coins for her personal treasure. The tiny stack sat atop shards of colored glass that had been aboard the ship.

Charlotte smiled and fluttered her fingers answering the octopus’s tentacle hello. Then, Nassor moved quickly in front of her and threw a small net over the animal. He tied the end off and began to attach the net to his utility belt.

Surprise turned to anger. She ripped the net from Nassor’s hands and untied it. The task took longer than she liked. Blackish ink spurted from Sparkle, shrouding the water around the octopus. The defensive ink obscured Charlotte’s vision of the animal and the rope trap and she had to work by feel. The panicked Sparkle writhed and thrashed against the strings, her tentacles catching the tips of Charlotte’s fingers as she tried to loosen the net.

Nassor clamped onto her wrists, fighting to regain control of his prize. Charlotte jerked free and swam several meters away, finally freeing Sparkle, who rapidly shot toward a dark crevice in a pile of rocks to hide.

The fight over Sparkle was silly and she knew it. Octopus was a common dish, served in restaurants from America to Japan. But Charlotte couldn’t bear the thought of the little treasure hunter being clubbed to death on some fishmonger’s table. The odds were one day, probably in the not too distant future, Sparkle would be caught by a fisherman and sold at market.

But
not today.

Charlotte stuck the net into her belt and swam back to Nassor. Anger radiated through his mask. He hated her and she didn’t care. She hated herself for what she was going to do to Atakan. Nassor’s hate couldn’t compare.

Charlotte lost it and shoved Nassor hard in the chest. He took a wavering step backward, flailing in the water. He recovered fast, fist clenched.

Adrenaline ripped through her. She took a step forward, well within his reach. Her mood was dark enough, ugly enough, that she welcomed the confrontation. As suddenly as he’d clenched to hit her, his fingers relaxed. He turned and knelt on the sea floor and began picking up coins.

Charlotte’s chest still heaved from the rush the potential fight produced. She forced herself to calm down and then joined the son of a bitch on the seabed.

The gold solidi were the easiest to see and they gathered those first. Nassor filled his palm and dumped the coins into the plastic box without examining a single one. Charlotte thought it odd since he’d always gravitated to any gold relics. He may not be interested in the coins, but she was. Gold didn’t corrupt in saltwater. The images on the coins and the coins themselves were in excellent condition.

She held two she’d retrieved closer to the light the previous team had setup. One solidus had the image of a solo male, seated on what appeared to be a throne with a halo hammered on it. She thought the halo indicated the man was Christ but she wasn’t sure. She turned it over looking for an inscription with a date but couldn’t see one.

The second solidus held better prospects for dating. On the face were the busts of two men, one bearded, one beardless but both wore crowns. The bearded man wore a jeweled loros and held a Patriarchal Cross. Emperors in the period commonly wore the long scarf on festive occasions—like the minting of coins. Dynastic egos were always evident in history. The beardless male wore a traditional one-shouldered, short chlamys.

Romanus I Lecapanus, who crowned his sons, came to mind. If it was Romanus I, they’d be able to put close to an exact date the ship wrecked. Narrow the date and the team might be able to discover the originating port and destination. Identifying the ship from records of the time gave them a better idea what happened—why it wrecked.

Cheered with the possibility, Charlotte forgot the trouble with Nassor. She dropped the coins into the box and sifted the sand with her fingers searching for more coins. She found a few blackened coins. The obverse side had been nearly rubbed away. She couldn’t make out what the cast images were or the metal used. Not knowledgeable on metallurgy, if she had to guess, she’d say they might’ve been a combination of silver and copper. Her sifting turned up a handful more of gold coins that weren’t solidi. The principal design showed a man in Arab robes, a sword at his feet. The back was covered in Arabic script.

Charlotte sat back on her heels. Did the combination of coins lend additional evidence to Atakan’s theory about pirates using a stolen Dromon ship?

She and Nassor filled the box halfway with coins and then surfaced. Neither spoke to each other about the incident with Sparkle or anything else. They sat at different ends of the shuttle on the return to camp where they went their separate ways.

#

Charlotte’s worries regarding telling Atakan the truth and the negative dive with Nassor pressed on her mind. Tired to the bone, she headed for the women’s dorm to drop her backpack. From there, she couldn’t wait to shower. Maybe standing under the hot water would clear her head and she’d know how to approach Atakan.

She was almost at the dorm when the cook’s truck came to a quick stop next to her. Atakan was behind the wheel. He leaned across the cab of the truck and flung open the passenger door.

“Get in.”

“Now? I wanted to take a shower. How about I meet you in twenty minutes?”

“Get in,” he said, flatly.

Charlotte tossed her backpack in the truck bed and climbed into the passenger seat. He pulled away before she had the door completely closed.

“Where are we going?” she asked, shutting the door.

Atakan didn’t answer as he sped out of camp, spraying dirt and stones behind them.

“What’s going on? Why are you in such a hurry?”

He stared straight ahead, silent.

“Atakan?”

Tight-jawed, he continued down the side road that paralleled the beach, ramming the stick shift into place as he went through the gears and ignoring her questions. She’d never seen him this tense, not with her at least. A bad feeling crept over her. She had a sick sense his mood involved her plan to leave.

They’d gone a kilometer from the camp when he came to a stop. He hopped out, slammed the driver’s door shut and came to her side.

Opening her door, he said, “Get out.”

She did.

“Atakan,” she started to ask the same questions again, but he was already turned and walking toward the sea.

She followed. He finally stopped near the water’s edge with his back to the surf and faced her. She stopped a couple of yards away.

“When were you going to tell me?”

She knew exactly what he was asking about. Who told him? It wasn’t Nick. He’d honor the twenty-four hour rule.

“Who told you?”

“That’s not an answer.” He stood still as a statue, arms crossed, feet apart.

She hesitated, trying to choose her words so he’d understand and not be hurt. She gazed out at the incoming tide. The blue-green waves, effervescent with bubbles, rushed toward shore in rapid succession. White foam droplets filled the air as they crested, framing him like a new, angry version of Poseidon.

“Answer me.”

“Today.”

“You weren’t going to tell me until today, although you’ve been planning to leave me for awhile.”

“Not awhile.”

“Long enough to send job inquiries to several museums.”

So that was how he knew. One of the museums contacted MIAR and they must’ve sent the questionnaire to Refik and he told Atakan. She hadn’t considered the possibility. She’d thought any contact from the museums would be handled by MIAR’s headquarters.

“I’m so sorry you had to find out this way. I intended to tell you if it looked like I’d definitely leave. If none of the museums showed interest, then you never had to know what I’d done.”

“And you believe that is acceptable?”

It killed her to see the look of disgust on his face with the question. “Yes...” she said low.

“Why?”

“Because I’m bad luck for you—everyone can see it, even your--, it’s obvious. There’s something about me, and God knows, I don’t know what, but I’m like a magnet for Tischenko.”

She never cried and she wouldn’t cry now, but she was close. “I can’t bear to see you hurt again, or worse. There are people that bad luck follows, even Iskender thinks so.”

Atakan inhaled deeply and let out a slow breath. Uncrossing his arms, he closed the short distance to where she stood.

“It’s not forever,” she offered, “I’ll return.”

He shook his head. “If you go, you cannot return. You’re either in my life or out of my life. There’s no in between.”

“I’m so afraid. If you were killed--,”

“Charlotte, your belief the characters in the Iliad were real and not fictional is crazy. This I’ve told you many times. But this—this belief you are the bringer of Tischenko into my life again is the craziest thing I’ve ever heard. I explained to you the source of the trouble, the history we share. He, and he alone, is responsible for his actions.”

Without touching her, he quietly asked, “Do you love me?”

“You know I do.”

“Then I ask you now, to love me enough to stay. We will face whatever is to happen together.”

Love me enough to stay.

Love him enough to leave.

The two pleas tore at her heart.

Love me enough to stay.

Love him enough to leave.

If she stayed and Tischenko won, could she live with the idea she caused his death? 

“What is it to be?” he asked.

If she left, she’d lose him permanently. If she stayed, she might still, but she might not. She made her decision. If it came to the worst, she wouldn’t leave him to die alone. She couldn’t.

“I want to be here with you. I never wanted to leave.”

He smiled and put his arms around her in a tight embrace. “Charlotte, believe this. I have no intention of letting Tischenko fulfill his wish. Believe that I will prevail,” he whispered against her temple.

Relieved for the moment by his reassurance, she turned to a flat sandy mound covered with tufts of beach grass. 

“This is where we made love under the umbrellas,” she said.

“Yes, I hoped the memory would influence you.”

“Lack of courage influenced me. I couldn’t bear saying goodbye, knowing you’d hate me.” She refused to acknowledge her other haunting fear...that she might be leaving him to die alone.

Chapter Forty-Six

Maksym snipped the end of his Cohiba and lit it, inhaling deep and slow.

“You shouldn’t smoke. I worry for your health. Your cigarettes are bad enough, but cigars are worse,” Rana chastised.

He blew out a chain of smoke rings. “I enjoy a fine, Havana cigar. I used to smoke them regularly. For awhile I gave them and cigarettes up. No need to now,” he said with an ironic, crooked smile she wouldn’t understand. “You say you haven’t seen Dashiell in three days.”

“No, but I wouldn’t put much store in that. I told you sometimes they come to Ada’s, sometimes they don’t. When I’ve seen Charlotte, the Vadim man you are interested in is with her. The second man joins them on occasion. Other times, he drops her off,” Rana said.

“And you’ve never asked to sit with them?”

Rana shook her head. “I always wave and say hi. Charlotte waves back but never invites me to come over.” She pursed her lips in the petulant manner Maksym had grown used to and then said, “I think it’s very rude of her.”

“Vadim probably doesn’t want you at the table. You’re a stranger to him. He can’t talk to her about plans they have if you’re there, which I give him credit for his caution. He’s not a stupid man.”

“Still...”

“Rana, don’t pout. The woman is not worth it. Go to the cabin, now. I need to talk to Evgeniy in private.”

Maksym snagged her wrist as she walked past him. He tugged and she moved to stand in front of him. Putting his cigar in the ashtray, he took her by the hips and positioned her so she was between his legs and her shapely tush eye level. He slid his hands under her shorts, palming the panty-less cheeks, thumbing the cleft. He pushed one leg of her shorts higher and bit her bottom, enjoying her squeal of delight.

He pulled his hands out and straightened her shorts. “We’ll have champagne in the cabin when I’m done,” he said, patting her on the ass. “You’ll forget all thoughts of the Dashiell bitch.”

Rana turned. She lowered her head and brushed her lips against the corner of his mouth, then whispered, none too quietly, “Come soon Maksy, mon petit chou.”

Over Rana’s shoulder, he rolled his eyes at the smirking Evgeniy. Maksym pressed a hand to her chest. “Go. I’ll see you shortly.”

“Did she call you her little cabbage?” Evgeniy asked after she left.

“Yes. I’ve been called many things, never a vegetable.”

“I didn’t know she spoke French.”

“She doesn’t. She probably saw the phrase in one of her fashion magazines and Googled it.”

“She loves you, you know.” 

Maksym gave a single shrug and began smoking again. “She’s young. She fantasizes we will marry. I will be her first major disappointment.” A pang of unexpected regret sparked, but he quickly pushed the emotion away. He wasn’t responsible for her girlish daydreams. He’d warned her not to love him. She did so at her own risk.

“I have to think of how to get one-on-one with Vadim. Time is growing short,” Maksym said, switching to the main subject.

“How is the pain?”

“Worse by the day.”

“Is the morphine not working?”

“It helps, but I try to limit my intake. I get too fatigued, weak and weary as an old man. Always, there is the lightheadedness. I stand and must hold onto the chair for the dizziness. The worst is knowing that all too soon the time will come when it is the only means for me to get through the day.

“Is it too late to start chemo?”