Crescent Dawn (25 page)

Summer heard the man behind her clear his throat, then turn and lean over their table.

“Pardon me for overhearing, but did you say Kitchener?” he asked with a disarming smile.

“Yes,” Summer replied. “My friend Julie is writing a biography of the field marshal.”

“My name is Baker,” Ridley Bannister lied, obtaining introductions in return. “Might I suggest that a better source of Lord Kitchener historical documents may be found at the Imperial War Museum?”

“Kind of you to say, Mr. Baker,” Julie replied, “but I’ve already exhaustively searched their materials.”

“Which brings you here?” he asked. “I wouldn’t expect a military hero’s influence to stretch very far into the Church of England.”

“Just tracing some correspondence he had with the Archbishop of Canterbury,” she replied.

“Then this would indeed be the place,” Bannister said, smiling broadly.

“What is the nature of your research?” Summer asked him.

“Just a bit of hobby research. I’m investigating a few old abbey sites that were destroyed during Henry VIII’s purge of the monasteries.” He held up a dusty book entitled
Abbey Plans of Olde England
, then turned again toward Julie.

“Have you uncovered any new secrets about Kitchener?”

“That honor belongs to Summer. She helped prove that the ship he was sunk on may have had a planted explosive aboard.”

“The
Hampshire
?” he said. “I thought it was proven that she had struck a German mine.”

“The blast hole indicates that the explosion originated inside the ship,” Summer replied.

“Perhaps the old rumor of the IRA planting a bomb aboard may have been true,” he said.

“You know the story behind that?” Julie asked.

“Yes,” Bannister replied. “The
Hampshire
was sent to Belfast for a refit in early 1916. Some believe a bomb was inserted into the ship there and detonated months later.”

“You seem to know a lot about the
Hampshire
,” Summer commented.

“I’m just an obsessive World War One history buff,” Bannister replied. “So, where is your research taking you from here?”

“We’ll be going to Kent for another pass through Kitchener’s personal papers housed at Broome Park,” Julie said.

“Have you seen his last diary?”

“Why, no,” Julie said, surprised at the question. “It has always been presumed to have been lost.”

Bannister looked down at his watch. “Oh my, look at the time. I’m afraid I must run. It was a delight to meet you ladies,” he said, rising from the table and offering a faint bow. “May your quest for historical knowledge meet with profound fulfillment.”

He quickly returned his book to the librarian, then waved good-bye as he left the reading room.

“Quite a handsome fellow,” Julie gushed with a grin.

“Yes,” Summer agreed. “He was certainly knowledgeable about Kitchener and the
Hampshire
.”

“That’s true. I wouldn’t think too many people would be aware that Kitchener’s last diary went missing.”

“Wouldn’t it have gone down with him on the ship?”

“Nobody knows. He traditionally captured his writings in small bound books that covered the period of a single year. His writings from 1916 were never found, so it’s always been presumed that he carried it with him on the
Hampshire
.”

“What do you make of Mr. Baker’s claim that the IRA may have bombed the
Hampshire
?”

“It’s one of many outlandish assertions that arose after the sinking that I’ve found has no historical justification. It’s difficult to believe that the
Hampshire
would have been carrying a bomb aboard for over six months. The IRA, or Irish Volunteers as they were known at the time, certainly wouldn’t have known that far in advance that Kitchener would set foot on the ship. They didn’t actually become a very militant group until the Easter Rising in April of 1916, well after the
Hampshire
had left Belfast. More telling is the fact that they never actually claimed responsibility for the sinking.”

“Then I guess we keep digging,” Summer said, opening up a new folder of the Archbishop’s papers.

They worked for another hour before the stacks grew thin. Nearing the bottom of her last folder, Summer suddenly sat upright when she read a short letter from a Bishop in Portsmouth. She read it a second time before passing it over to Julie.

“Take a look at this,” she said.

“‘The parcel has been delivered and the messenger sent away,’” Julie said, reading the letter aloud. “‘The item of interest shall cease to be a concern within 72 hours.’ Signed, Bishop Lowery, Portsmouth Diocese.”

Julie set the letter down and gave Summer a blank look. “I’m afraid I don’t see the relevancy,” she said.

“Look at the date.”

Julie gazed at the top of the letter. “June 2, 1916. Three days before the
Hampshire
sank,” she said in a surprised voice.

“It would seem,” Summer said quietly, “that the plot has thickened.”

A
FTER EXITING THE LIBRARY, RIDLEY BANNISTER MADE his way across the Lambeth Palace grounds to a small brick building adjacent to the main living quarters. Entering through an unmarked door, he stepped into a cramped office, where a handful of men in security uniforms stared at video surveillance monitors or worked at desk computers. Ignoring the quizzical look from a man seated near the door, Bannister stepped toward a private office in the rear and walked through its open door.

A falcon-eyed man with greasy hair was seated at a desk watching a live video feed on his computer. Bannister could see the figures of Julie and Summer seated at a table in the reading room. The man looked up, shooting Bannister a disappointed look.

“Bannister, there you are. You were supposed to check in with me before the ladies arrived. Now you’ve blown your cover.”

Bannister slid into a wooden chair facing the desk. “Sorry, old boy, they forgot my wake-up call at the Savoy this morning. I do want to thank you for the airline tickets, though. Glad you remembered first class this time.”

The Archbishop of Canterbury’s chief of security ground his teeth in contempt.

“You did purge the files before they were turned over to them?” he asked, motioning toward his computer screen.

“I’ve been through those files before, Judkins,” Bannister said, picking a piece of lint off his jacket. “There’s nothing incriminating in those files.”

Judkins’s face turned red. “You had orders to review and clean those files.”

“Orders? Orders, you say? Have I unknowingly been conscripted into the Archbishop’s private army?”

There had been an immediate dislike between the two men the instant they had met, and the feelings only festered over time. But Judkins was Bannister’s appointed contact, and there was little either man could do about it. The archaeologist pushed the line with Judkins as far as he dared without jeopardizing his contractual arrangements with the Church.

“You are an employee of the Archbishop and you will obey his requests accordingly,” the security chief responded, his eyes aglow.

“I am nothing of the sort,” Bannister retorted. “I am a simple mercenary for historical truth. While it may be true that the Archbishop has enlisted my services from time to time, I am under no obligation to ‘follow orders’ or even bow or curtsy in the esteemed Archbishop’s general direction.”

Judkins withheld responding, staring silently at Bannister while he waited for his blood pressure to decrease. When his face finally lost its red bluster, he spoke in a direct tone.

“While it certainly wouldn’t be my choice, the Archbishop has elected to retain your services to inform and advise him of historical discoveries, particularly in the Middle East, that may have a bearing on existing Church doctrine. This alleged Manifest, and its prior association with the Church, has been deemed extremely sensitive. We, I mean the Archbishop, needs to know why this Cambridge researcher is inquiring into the records of Archbishop Davidson and at what risk to the Church.”

Bannister smiled thinly at Judkins’s forced deference.

“Julie Goodyear is a historian from Cambridge who has written several highly regarded biographies on leading figures of the nineteenth century. She is currently writing a bio on Lord Kitchener. Miss Goodyear and the American woman, Summer Pitt, have apparently discovered that Kitchener’s ship, the
Hampshire
, was destroyed by an internal explosion. They seem to think there may be some remote connection to the late Archbishop Davidson.”

Judkins physically paled at the news.

“My dear Judkins, is there something wrong?”

“No,” the security chief replied with a violent shake of his head. “What about this Manifest?”

“The Archbishop knows that I made a diligent search for the document several years ago. At a considerable cost, I might add,” he said with a wink. “I am relatively certain that it vanished along with Kitchener on the
Hampshire
.”

“Yes, that is the Archbishop’s understanding. However, there may be some related historical events that could prove, shall we say, troublesome to the Church and embarrassing to the Archbishop. I want you on those two women now.”

“You want me?” Bannister replied, raising a brow.

“The Archbishop wants you,” Judkins replied angrily. “Track them closely and extinguish things if you have to before they become a problem.”

“I’m an archaeologist, not an assassin.”

“You know what to do. Just handle it. You’ve got my number.”

“Yes. And you’ve got my number?” Bannister asked, rising to his feet. “The number of my Bermuda bank account, that is?”

“Yes,” Judkins grumbled. “Now, get out.”

The security chief could only shake his head as Bannister bowed to him gracefully, then marched out of his office like he owned it.

T
HE BRIGHT MORNING MEDITERRANEAN SUN HAD ALready begun baking the
Aegean Explorer
’s deck when Rudi Gunn stepped into the sunlight with the day’s first mug of coffee. He was startled to see an unfamiliar stretch of Turkish coastline just a mile or two off the ship’s side railing. He heard the whir of an outboard motor in the distance and squinted until he spotted the ship’s Zodiac bounding over the waves toward shore.

His groggy mind suddenly focused on the research project at hand, and he scurried to the stern of the ship. Making his way past a white submersible, he was disappointed to find the autonomous underwater vehicle lying securely in a padded rack. A large torpedo-shaped device, the robotic AUV contained a variety of sensors used to sample the water as it ran free of the ship. When he had staggered to bed six hours earlier, the
Explorer
was tracking the AUV as it surveyed a large grid ten miles from shore.

Gulping a large swallow of coffee, he turned and made his way forward, then climbed two flights of stairs to the bridge. There he found Pitt studying a coastal chart with the ship’s captain, Bruce Kenfield.

“Good morning, Rudi,” Pitt greeted. “You’re up early.”

“I could feel the engines throttle down from my bunk,” Gunn replied. “How come we pulled off-line?”

“Kemal received word that his wife was in a traffic accident. It’s apparently not serious, but we put him ashore so that he could go check on her.”

Kemal was a marine biologist with the Turkish Environment Ministry who had been assigned to the NUMA vessel to monitor and assist with the water-sampling project.

“That’s unfortunate,” Gunn said. “After the Zodiac returns, how long will it take us to return to the grid and resume operations?”

Pitt smiled and shook his head. “We technically can’t resume the survey until Kemal or a replacement is on board the ship. Our invite from the Turkish government specified that a representative from the Environment Ministry must be aboard at all times while we are conducting survey work in Turkish waters. At this point, it looks like we might be down for three or four days.”

“We are already behind schedule. First our sensor flooded and now this. We may have to extend the project in order to complete the areas we agreed to survey.”

“So be it.”

Gunn noticed that Pitt seemed to share none of the frustration that he was feeling. It was uncharacteristic for a man that he knew hated to leave things unfinished.

“Since you returned from Istanbul, we’ve only had two full days of surveying on the new grid,” Gunn said. “Now we go idle again, and you’re not even upset. What gives?”

“It’s simple, Rudi,” Pitt replied. “Halting work on the algae bloom project means resuming work on an Ottoman shipwreck excavation,” he said with a wink.

LESS THAN FOUR HOURS after the Zodiac was hoisted back aboard, the
Aegean Queen
reached Chios, dropping anchor a hundred yards from the site of the Ottoman shipwreck. Little time had been spent examining the site after Pitt and Giordino’s initial dive, barely allowing the ship’s underwater archaeologist, Rodney Zeibig, the chance to stake an aluminum grid over the exposed portions of the wreck.