Pompeii's Ghosts (A James Acton Thriller, #9) (13 page)

“Don’t
you see?” he asked the room, his hands and arms opened wide, begging for
someone to get it. “Misenum was a city on the Bay of Naples where the navy for
that area was stationed. Pompeii was on the other side of that bay. Pliny the
Elder was the Prefect who sailed the Roman Navy to Pompeii to try and rescue
the citizens. His nephew, Pliny the Younger, provided the written accounts of
the eruption.”

Silence,
then finally Tucker spoke up. “Meaning?”

“Meaning
if this man’s uniform says he was under Pliny’s command, then this ship could
very well be from Pompeii!”

“Pliny the Elder” Residence, Misenum, Roman Empire
August 25
^th
, 79 AD

Gaius grabbed his mother, Plinia, holding her tight as the ground
quaked beneath their feet. It was approaching morning and none had slept, the
terror across the bay now spreading quickly. The stars overhead had been blotted
out throughout the night, the hint of the morning sun normally expected at this
time lost in the orange glow pulsing against the bottom of the dark cloud from
Vesuvius now covering the entire sky. A steady accumulation of ash, drifting down
like a heavy snowfall, had begun hours before and was now several inches high
already, with no sign of abating.

And then
there was Herculaneum.

Hundreds
of evacuees had already reached Misenum, telling of the horrors they were
seeing, fewer still with word of Pompeii farther to the south. But if
Herculaneum was as bad as described, Pompeii must be an absolute nightmare.
Most of the household that remained after their master Plinius’ departure sat
or stood on the veranda overlooking the bay, watching the calamity on the other
side as if some great Greek tragedy were playing in a theatre, the characters
an angry, erupting mountain, its true nature long forgotten, several towns
built ignorantly in its shadow the victims, and Gaius and the others the
audience, the orchestra provided by nature herself, rumbles and booms the
percussion, the trumpets creatures fleeing in terror, perhaps wiser than their
human counterparts who instead watched in horrific fascination.

“Are you
two mad!” exploded a voice from behind that had Gaius and his mother spinning.
Gaius smiled as Barbatus stormed in, his usual tempestuous self, a comical foil
to his uncle’s usually calm demeanor. How the two had become friends he would
never understand, but in the field of battle strange bedfellows indeed were
made.

“Barbatus,
so good of you to come. To what do we owe this honor?” asked Gaius, letting go
of his mother and motioning for their guest to sit. Barbatus shook his head,
waving off the seat, but taking a glass of water brought by one of the
servants, which was when Gaius noticed the family friend was covered head to
toe in Vesuvius’ dust. He motioned to one of the servants. “Bring water and
towels so our guest can properly clean himself.”

The
servant bowed and disappeared into the bowels of the house, returning moments
later with the requested items, and as Barbatus washed his exposed skin, his
mouth continued to run.

“Do you
not see what is happening out there?” he demanded of them, not waiting for an
answer. “Your Uncle,
your
brother”—he took a moment to stab the air
between him and Gaius’ mother—“would want you safe, not sitting here, watching
the happenings as if it were a play and you were immune to its effects.”

“I will
not leave while my brother’s fate is unknown,” said Gaius’ mother, sitting
resolutely with her arms crossed, her eyes on the horizon.

“Nor I,”
replied Gaius as he returned to his seat, picking up his volume of Livy with
the intent of defying the gods by reading in the face of their wrath. As he
tried to read the next paragraph, he could feel Barbatus’ eyes upon him, but he
was determined to ignore him. Perhaps it was the impetuousness of a seventeen
year old boy, desperate to be a man, demonstrating to a real man how ill
prepared he was for that role, but he found the glare continued to eat at him,
forcing him to distraction as he read the same few sentences over and over,
absorbing nothing.

He
snapped the volume shut, returning it to the table then turned to Barbatus.

“Must
you stare at me like that?”

“You’re
fortunate I don’t put you over my knee!”

“You
wouldn’t dare!”

“Don’t
tempt me.” Barbatus turned his focus to Gaius’ mother. “And you, how dare you
put your only son at risk like this!”

Plinia
blanched slightly, turning away from the criticism, her mouth opening to reply
when Gaius jumped in, saving her the embarrassment of on excuse.

“I stay
by choice!” he yelled, leaping to his feet, his chest shoved forward, shoulders
back, chin jutting outward, as fierce a look as he could conjure plastered on
his face like a mask used by an actor in the theatre, the terror he felt on the
inside hidden behind the façade he desperately tried to project.

Barbatus
swelled by merely taking a deep breath, his muscles rippling as he clenched his
fists, the man a veteran of innumerable battles with real men, not words on a
page that had been Gaius’ foes, his uncle pushing him mentally rather than
physically.

He felt
his bladder muscles relax and if he hadn’t just relieved himself minutes
before, he might have stained his robes right there. Instead he spun around and
stormed toward his uncle’s study just as his mother screamed. He rushed to her
side, as did they all, she pointing across the bay.

And what
he saw would have terrified even the bravest of warriors.

“Uncle,”
he murmured, unable to find the air to give the word volume.

He felt
a hand on his shoulder, gentle, comforting, and he looked over to see Barbatus
by his side, his own jaw dropped, his eyes glistening with the knowledge of
what was happening across the bay.

There
will be no survivors.

Tekezé River, Eritrea
Present Day, One day before the crash

“That’s quite the leap, isn’t it, Doc?”

Acton
recognized the voice immediately, but couldn’t find the owner. The crowd parted
as someone stepped forward and when the face was revealed, Acton’s eyebrows
jumped with surprise.

Command
Sergeant Major Burt “Big Dog” Dawson, leader of the Delta Force’s elite Bravo
Team, stood before him, along with Sergeant Carl “Niner” Sung. Acton stepped
toward them, hand extended, smile on his face as he suddenly felt a whole lot
more secure. “Sergeant Major, great to see you!” They shook hands, as did he
and Niner as Laura gave them both pecks on the cheek. “I wasn’t expecting to
see you.”

“I’ll
explain later,” replied Dawson for the benefit of the room. Acton nodded,
realizing their reunion could wait. “You were saying,” prompted Dawson,
motioning toward the screen.

“I was
saying that this vessel could potentially be from the eruption of Mount
Vesuvius.”

“And
I
thought that was a leap.”

“In his
expert
opinion,” added Niner. “He’s renowned worldwide for his expertise in
archeological matters.”

Acton
had come to know many of the Delta Team Bravo members over the years, but had
to admit Niner seemed to deliver more jokes than serious lines by an alarming
proportion. He was sure some psychologist somewhere would accuse him of
overcompensating for some missing aspect of his childhood, but Acton never paid
too much attention to that sort of thing. Niner was an expert in his field, and
had saved Acton’s life the last time he had seen him. If it wasn’t for Carl
“Niner” Sung, Acton might very well be dead.

“There’s
no way to be certain, we’ll need to do a proper excavation of the site,”
replied Acton. “But the time period definitely fits, and might explain how a
boat became lost.”

“Lost?”
asked Tucker. “I’m not sure what you mean, Doctor.”

“Well,
the likelihood of a Roman vessel of the time sailing to this point and
beaching, then abandoning a cargo like this is next to nothing,” explained
Acton. “Most likely the crew either died, or the boat slipped its moorings,
unmanned. If the latter were the case, ships would be sent to immediately
retrieve it, unless there was some disaster occurring that either prevented a
retrieval, or prevented those in the area from knowing the boat had left.”

“Seems
unlikely that a boat with this much gold on it would ever have been left
unmanned,” said Dawson.

Acton
nodded. “Agreed, which is why I think this vessel
was
manned, at least
initially.”

“You
mean they might have abandoned ship?”

Acton
shook his head. “No. Remember, at the time Ancient Egypt was a part of the
Roman Empire and a major power. There is no way a vessel of this size would
have been able to enter the Nile and sail down it this far unchallenged. If the
vessel were abandoned, it would have been boarded, searched, and with this
cargo, claimed in the name of the Empire.”

Niner
raised his hand as if in school. “If it didn’t leave port unmanned, and it
wasn’t abandoned by its crew, then what are you suggesting.”

“I’m
suggesting it’s a ghost ship.”

Tucker
raised his hand, Niner having set the precedent. “A what?”

“I’m
suggesting that this vessel was manned, that all of the crew were killed
somehow, and that it sailed itself south and into one of the many entrances to
the Nile, was challenged by Roman vessels of the time, and allowed to continue
on its way, unmolested.”

“What
makes it a ghost ship?” asked Niner.

“If they
had just been killed in battle, they would have been boarded. Something spooked
those who challenged it. What, I’m not sure, but a thorough examination of the
find might reveal the cause.”

“And
just how long will that take?” asked Tucker.

Acton
exchanged glances with Laura. “To do it properly, months.”

The room
erupted in protest, and didn’t calm down until Tucker raised his hands to calm
them. “Professor Acton, we don’t have months.”

Acton
nodded. “No, you don’t have months with respect to the gold. Remove the gold,
and nobody cares about this site again, correct?”

Tucker
nodded, smiling. “You have a keen grasp of the situation.”

“Good.
Then I don’t see why, if we use manpower rather than machine, we can’t empty
the hold of its cargo beginning almost immediately.”

“That
could take days!” exclaimed someone in the back of the tent.

“Then
let it take days!” replied Tucker. “Part of our job here is to preserve the
find from an archeological standpoint, not just evacuate the gold.”

“Just
whose decision is it?” asked the same voice. “Yours?”

Tucker
shook his head. “Nope, not mine.”

“It’s
mine,” said Reese, stepping forward. “As the ranking member of UNESCO ultimate
authority has been handed to me.”

Acton
turned to her. “Then what’s your decision?”

“We
begin removing the gold immediately under your and Dr. Palmer’s direction,
until either it is all removed, or until the situation on the ground changes to
make it too dangerous to proceed slowly,” she replied, stepping in front of the
monitor, taking center stage. “Remember, the priority here is the recovery of
the gold. The secondary priority is preserving the find.”

“And
what about the hundreds of Ethiopians massing on the other side of the river
who believe this is their territory?” asked the same voice, the woman it
belonged to stepping forward, her black jumpsuit with Chinese flag on the
shoulder suggesting she was one of the two there to represent this permanent
member of the UN Security Council. It made Acton wonder immediately if that was
why Dawson and Niner were there.

And if
Dawson and Niner, two Special Forces operators had been sent, then most likely
the same type of personnel had been dispatched from all five Security Council
member states. Acton had to wonder how these ten people could possibly work
together. The Americans and Brits, no problem. The French? Probably. The
Chinese? Most likely not. The Soviets—scratch that, Russians? He wouldn’t trust
them with a ten foot pole. In fact he had come to think of them as Soviet Union
2.0 over the past few years, recent events in the Ukraine only confirming his
long held belief that the Russian President was a man who simply couldn’t be
trusted, the ex-KGB spy yearning for the “good old days” where the CCCP acronym
was feared, the hammer and sickle certain to raise heart rates around the
world.