Read Online The Navigator by Clive Cussler, Paul Kemprecos - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Clive Cussler, Paul Kemprecos
Tags: Fiction, General, Juvenile Nonfiction, Action & Adventure, Adventure fiction, Composition & Creative Writing, Language Arts, Iraq War; 2003-, Archaeological Thefts, Iraq, Austin; Kurt (Fictitious Character), Marine Scientists
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Sapphire martini, and the drink’s astringent sweetness washed the grit out of his throat.
He chatted with a couple of Texas oil company rednecks. A second martini revived his spirits, until one of the oilmen asked him what he was doing in Ma’arib.
Saxon could have responded that it was the last leg of a doomed quest to find the fabled Queen of Sheba among the ruins of old Ma’arib, the city that was said to be her home base.
He said simply, “I’m here to test the waters.”
The oilmen exchanged puzzled glances and then broke into hearty laughter. Before they headed back to their quarters, they bought Saxon a third martini.
Saxon was at that wonderful point where all brain activity was clouded by an alcoholic haze when an elderly bellhop shuffled into the bar and handed him a sheet of hotel stationery with a brief message scrawled on it:
I believe I can introduce you to the man of the sea. If you are still interested in meeting him let me know soonest.
He blinked the blurriness from his eyes and read it again. The sender was a Cairo antiques finder named Hassan, whom he had spoken to by phone before coming to Yemen. He scrawled an answer at the bottom of the note and handed it to the bellhop with a tip and instructions to arrange transportation for a morning departure. Then he ordered the first of several pots of strong black coffee and buckled down to the job of getting sober.
CHAPTER 6
ZAVALA HAD HIS DUFFEL BAG packed and was ready to go when Austin swung by the former library building in Alexandria, Virginia, that his friend had converted to a bachelor pad with a southwestern flair. The two men caught a morning Air Canada flight, and their plane touched down on the tarmac at St. John’s, Newfoundland, late in the afternoon, after a stop-off in Montreal.
A taxi took them to the busy waterfront, where the two-hundred-seventy-foot-long
Leif Eriksson
was tied up. The forty-six-hundred-ton vessel was a brawny ship, less than five years old, its hull reinforced for protection against the punishing North Atlantic ice.
The captain, a native Newfoundlander named Alfred Dawe, knew when their flight was coming in and was waiting on deck in anticipation of their arrival. As the men came up the gangway, he introduced himself and said, “Welcome aboard the
Eriksson
.”
Austin extended his hand in a bone-crushing grip. “Thanks for having us, Captain Dawe. I’m Kurt Austin, and this is my colleague, Joe Zavala. We’re your new iceberg wranglers.”
Dawe was a compact man in his fifties who liked to brag that he’d been born in a place with the forlorn name of Misery Cove, and that his family was so dumb they still lived there. Schoolboy mischief lurked in his clear blue eyes, and he had a dimpled grin that came easily to his ruddy face. Despite his self-deprecating humor, Dawe was an accomplished skipper with years of experience running ships in the cantankerous waters of the Northwest Atlantic. He had often encountered NUMA’s distinctive turquoise-hulled research ships, and knew that the American agency was the most highly respected ocean exploration and study organization on the globe.
When Austin had called and asked to go on an iceberg cruise, the captain had checked with the ship’s owners for permission to have guests aboard. He’d gotten a go-ahead and called Austin back with the date for the ship’s next departure.
Dawe had been eager to meet the two men ever since Austin had faxed him a copy of their résumés. Austin had wanted Dawe to know that he and Zavala were not landlubber dilettantes who’d need constant watching for fear they’d fall overboard.
The captain knew about Austin’s master’s degree from the University of Washington, his training as an expert diver proficient in a variety of underwater specialties, and his expertise in deepwater salvage. Long before former NUMA director James Sandecker had hired Austin away from the CIA, Austin had worked on North
He chatted with a couple of Texas oil company rednecks. A second martini revived his spirits, until one of the oilmen asked him what he was doing in Ma’arib.
Saxon could have responded that it was the last leg of a doomed quest to find the fabled Queen of Sheba among the ruins of old Ma’arib, the city that was said to be her home base.
He said simply, “I’m here to test the waters.”
The oilmen exchanged puzzled glances and then broke into hearty laughter. Before they headed back to their quarters, they bought Saxon a third martini.
Saxon was at that wonderful point where all brain activity was clouded by an alcoholic haze when an elderly bellhop shuffled into the bar and handed him a sheet of hotel stationery with a brief message scrawled on it:
I believe I can introduce you to the man of the sea. If you are still interested in meeting him let me know soonest.
He blinked the blurriness from his eyes and read it again. The sender was a Cairo antiques finder named Hassan, whom he had spoken to by phone before coming to Yemen. He scrawled an answer at the bottom of the note and handed it to the bellhop with a tip and instructions to arrange transportation for a morning departure. Then he ordered the first of several pots of strong black coffee and buckled down to the job of getting sober.
CHAPTER 6
ZAVALA HAD HIS DUFFEL BAG packed and was ready to go when Austin swung by the former library building in Alexandria, Virginia, that his friend had converted to a bachelor pad with a southwestern flair. The two men caught a morning Air Canada flight, and their plane touched down on the tarmac at St. John’s, Newfoundland, late in the afternoon, after a stop-off in Montreal.
A taxi took them to the busy waterfront, where the two-hundred-seventy-foot-long
Leif Eriksson
was tied up. The forty-six-hundred-ton vessel was a brawny ship, less than five years old, its hull reinforced for protection against the punishing North Atlantic ice.
The captain, a native Newfoundlander named Alfred Dawe, knew when their flight was coming in and was waiting on deck in anticipation of their arrival. As the men came up the gangway, he introduced himself and said, “Welcome aboard the
Eriksson
.”
Austin extended his hand in a bone-crushing grip. “Thanks for having us, Captain Dawe. I’m Kurt Austin, and this is my colleague, Joe Zavala. We’re your new iceberg wranglers.”
Dawe was a compact man in his fifties who liked to brag that he’d been born in a place with the forlorn name of Misery Cove, and that his family was so dumb they still lived there. Schoolboy mischief lurked in his clear blue eyes, and he had a dimpled grin that came easily to his ruddy face. Despite his self-deprecating humor, Dawe was an accomplished skipper with years of experience running ships in the cantankerous waters of the Northwest Atlantic. He had often encountered NUMA’s distinctive turquoise-hulled research ships, and knew that the American agency was the most highly respected ocean exploration and study organization on the globe.
When Austin had called and asked to go on an iceberg cruise, the captain had checked with the ship’s owners for permission to have guests aboard. He’d gotten a go-ahead and called Austin back with the date for the ship’s next departure.
Dawe had been eager to meet the two men ever since Austin had faxed him a copy of their résumés. Austin had wanted Dawe to know that he and Zavala were not landlubber dilettantes who’d need constant watching for fear they’d fall overboard.
The captain knew about Austin’s master’s degree from the University of Washington, his training as an expert diver proficient in a variety of underwater specialties, and his expertise in deepwater salvage. Long before former NUMA director James Sandecker had hired Austin away from the CIA, Austin had worked on North
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