Read Online The Tiger Warrior by David Gibbins - Free Book Online Page B

rounds,” he said. “Everyone inside, now.” He ushered them into the bridge and shut the door, pulling down a steel plate over the window. He took out his binoculars and peered through the bulletproof glass of the front screen. “That was a spent round from the gun battle a couple of miles away, but better safe than sorry.”
    “Ben’s been teaching me to shoot with a twenty-two,” Rebecca said.
    “I don’t think you’re going to be taking on the Tamil Tigers with a twenty-two,” Macalister murmured, eyes still fixed to his binoculars.
    “I hope you were wearing ear protection,” Jack said.
    “I can look after myself.” She turned around and walked toward the rear hatch that led down to the accommodation decks.
    “Maybe she does have a bit of me in her,” Jack muttered, looking apologetically at Macalister. “Teenagers.”
    “Come on, Dad,” Rebecca called. “They’re ready for you in the lab. That’s what I came up to tell you. I helped Aysha with the final pieces. You’re going to love this. It’s my present to you for rescuing me from school.”
    Jack felt a surge of excitement, and turned to Macalister. “Okay, Scott. Let me know when we clear the strait, will you? And I want the Zodiac prepared. Our meeting with the Archaeological Survey of India people at Arikamedu is at 0900 hours tomorrow, and I don’t want the schedule to slip.”
    “Will do, Jack.” Macalister jerked his head toward the hatchway. “You’d better follow the boss.”
    The main laboratory on Seaquest II was the size of a school classroom, set below the accommodation block and above the engine room. The wet cleaning and conservation of finds was carried out in a room behind, with a cluster of desalination tanks for timbers and other artifacts too delicate to be taken out of water. Jack thought of the complex like a field hospital for the stabilization of finds that would then be transferred for long-term treatment to the IMU museum at Carthage in the Mediterranean or the IMU campus in England. The lab was a dry facility for the cleaning of finds such as pottery that could safely be removed from water for short periods. Farther forward were rooms for analytical work, including multispectral imagery, thin-section petrology and mass spectrometry. The complex was designed to allow basic questions to be answered during an excavation when time might be pressing.
    Jack followed Rebecca inside. Four long tables had been drawn together to form one surface, their legs locked into runnels on the floor. Above them a cluster of fixed tungsten lights bathed the tables in a warm glow. Aysha and Hiebermeyer were hunched together over a camera stand. Aysha was nudging something into place on the black baseboard under the camera, and Hiebermeyer was poised over the viewfinder, holding the remote shutter control. They looked as if they were performing a strange embrace. Rebecca glanced at Jack, pointing at them as if to rest her case. They both waited silently while Hiebermeyer clicked the shutter, and then Aysha slid the object back onto the table. Hiebermeyer turned toward them. “Jack!” In the tungsten light his face seemed to have a feverish glow, and his eyes were red-rimmed. “Sorry to keep you in the dark for so long. I just wanted to be absolutely sure.”
    Rebecca went around to the far side of the table and sat on a stool, surrounded by the books and notepads she had accumulated over the past few days. Costas had also been summoned and came through the door behind Jack, and they moved to the table. On the surface were hundreds of fragments of pottery, some of them tiny, only a centimeter or two across, others the size of small saucers.
    “We playing jigsaw?” Costas said.
    Jack’s pulse began to race. “Ostraka!” He leaned over the table. Aysha ushered Costas to a stool. “It’s the Greek word for potsherd,” she said. “But archaeologists use it for sherds with inscriptions on them, where the pottery was used as a