The driver was yelling, the watchman now blocked from sight. Osman and I ran back around the museum and collapsed against the outer wall, our hearts pounding.
“B . . . B . . . Bartu to the rescue,” Osman said.
We waited. We could hear the men cursing us, and we prepared to run. But they never did come after us, so after a few moments we peered around the corner. Several men were unloading crates from the truck now, under the watchful eyes of armed guards.
“One . . . two . . . three . . . four,” Osman said. “Four of them, with guns!”
“Gencer didn’t say anything about gunmen!” I said. Clearly, Gencer was right that there was some serious money in this operation. It was just that much more of it had gone toward security than we thought.
Osman groaned. “Gencer’s IQ is lower than his age . . .”
“No . . . ,” I said. Gencer was slimy, but I knew he wasn’t dumb. I went back over Gencer’s actions over the past week in my head. Giving Father up to Feyyaz’s man, rallying Father’s team against him. “Is there something he knows that we don’t?”
“Like what?” Osman asked.
I couldn’t answer him. But this smelled to me like a setup. I just couldn’t figure out why.
No time to wonder now. We had to tell the team. Osman and I ran back to Father and Gencer at the entrance to the museum.
As we told them the news about the truck and the armed guards, Father’s face went red. “It’s over, Gencer,” he said softly. “I’m not going in there to get my head blown off. You didn’t tell me they would have guns. In fact, you made it seem as if they wouldn’t be armed at all.”
“So what if they have guns?” After a quick glance around, Gencer opened his coat to reveal two pistols strapped to his ribs. “So do we.”
Father’s face went pale. “I’m calling it off. Now.”
“Oh?” Gencer’s smile disappeared. “Did someone die and make you dictator? Let’s find the others.”
As we stepped around the building, a jackhammer started up. We all jumped.
On the west side of the museum, huge industrial lights flooded the castle wall with a white glow. A construction team was beginning work on a project. Seeing us, one of the men approached. He wore a hard hat, but his hair was graying and he had little round glasses. About Father’s age, I’d say. “This area’s off-limits!” He did a little double take at Gencer. “Say, haven’t we met?”
“No. Never.” Gencer began pulling Father’s arm, but he stayed put.
“Ah, thank you, sir,” Father said, eyeing a carved stone on the ground. “Good work, I see. Archaeological dig?”
“Come on . . . ,” Gencer said under his breath
“No, sir—just repairs,” the man said, warming up to Father. There’s something weirdly charming about Father when he makes an effort. “This old castle got hit hard by those tremors earlier this week. Several sections of the wall here are quite unstable. And being that we’re on a fault line, you can’t be too careful.”
“That relief,” Father said, gesturing toward the carved stone. “Why is it here?”
The man smiled. “A piece of the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus. It fell into ruins, and the medieval Knights of Malta used some of the pieces in the wall of this structure.”
“Mausoleum?” Father said. “You seem to know a lot.”
“After Mausolus, satrap of Asia Minor,” the man replied, his face opening into a huge grin. “As for me, I’m Nigel, one of the curators here at the museum. The tomb was built for him by Queen Artemisia . . .”
“Satrap again,” Osman murmured, as Father yammered on and on with the man. I wondered why Father was acting so uninformed. We all knew about the Mausoleum. It was one of Father’s favorites, an architectural masterpiece that influenced buildings the world over.
“I probably shouldn’t tell you this,” Nigel said, “but we’ve got quite a bit of material here from Halicarnassus. I’m a bit obsessed. They say the world’s biggest sapphire was hidden in the ruins, and who wouldn’t want to find that?”
As Nigel laughed, I could see Gencer starting to take an interest in the conversation. “The architecture was revolutionary for its time,” Nigel went on. “Rather than adorning the structure with images of gods, they used nature, animals, real people. We believe the site was just down the hill from here. As for that”—he gestured to the huge hunk of carved stone—“you might be interested in seeing that bas-relief lying over there.”
Gencer stepped in between Father and Nigel. “I think we’ve got to be going. Some business to attend to —”
“We’re going to look at the bas-relief,” Father said to Gencer as if he were talking to a child.
We walked closer to the stone. It was a piece of granite, carved with the figure of a long-haired man, clad in intricately carved robes that seemed to turn into clouds around his knees. He was shown reaching out and handing a huge smooth ball to a pair of arms that were cut off by the jagged edge of the wall. The ball was carved deep into the stone, and straight lines radiated away from it at every possible angle.
“Hey, that’s Mausolus giving his queen the magical bauble, Father!” Osman cried. “But where is Artemisia? Sir, what happened to the other piece?”
Father smiled at the man and put a friendly arm around his shoulders. He led the man away, flattering him, peppering him with questions, jokes, and slaps on the back. Bits of conversation reached our ears. “Were you part of the excavation . . . Incredible . . . What I wouldn’t give to have a job like yours!”
As the curator beamed with pride, Gencer’s eyes were slits, his lips tight. Is it bad that I love to see Gencer angry?
Moments later we were at a nearby café, where Gencer’s men were waiting for us at a table in the back. Father sat down, smiling. “My friends, we have some bad news and some good news,” he began. “First, the bad news. The museum is much more heavily guarded than we thought. I see no way to do what we planned without considerable risk and likely bloodshed.”
Ahmet, Dodi, and Ali looked alarmed.
“Don’t worry, boys, Khalid’s got another great plan!” Gencer drawled sardonically.
Father went on, ignoring Gencer. “My friends, I truly believe this is an even better opportunity for us. Far better. You see, there is a ruined tomb just a few miles out of town that the museum’s curator Nigel says is very likely the site of the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus!”
“Of what?” Ahmet said.
“Halicarnassus,” Father repeated.
“God bless you!” said Dodi.
“It’s not a sneeze, it’s a place,” Father said. “Here, as a matter of fact. Long before it was Bodrum. Apparently the excavation of this particular ancient tomb had been very unlucky. Cursed, even. As they dug deeper, accidents started to happen. A tunnel collapsed and killed the dig foreman. Several of the workers hallucinated that they were being attacked by rotting, skeletal men. One man was inexplicably burned. There were two earthquakes. At last, the entire operation was called off. Another was planned, but the funding hasn’t come through yet. Given the workmanship of the pieces they had unearthed, it seemed likely that there were wonderful treasures buried in the ground at the site, but they had not been found.”
“Wonderful treasures?” Gencer seemed intrigued. “Are you sure this isn’t a fairy tale?”
“Think, Gencer,” Father said. “Hallucinations, collapses, invisible fire. This site was trying to protect itself from invasion. Do you know who looted the museum first? The British. My friends, this great nation of Turkey has a history stretching back thousands of years. There were times when we ruled the world!”
Ahmet nodded, his brow furrowed like sand dunes. “I remember that from school.”
“Didn’t know they taught that in first grade,” Dodi muttered.
“We have always been the bridge between East and West,” Father went on. His eyes glowed and his voice took on a deeper note. “Civilizations have risen, flourished, and fallen here. Who even kn
ows what riches they left behind them? We know of the fabulous things that Western explorers have already found here—the great city of Troy, the golden treasure of Priam—but did we benefit from them? No, my friends, we did not! Our heritage has been stolen from us again and again! Is that right, I ask you? Is it just?”
“No!” Ali roared.
Dodi was shaking his head vigorously. Osman’s eyes shone with pride. Even I was finding Father impressive.
“Now we have the opportunity to make our own discovery, to find our own past!” Father leaned forward and lowered his voice to little more than a whisper. “Are we going to let a jewel-filled tomb be found and taken away by Englishmen or Germans? Who has a better right to it, them or us?”
I could see Ahmet, Ali, and Dodi all mentally licking their lips. Father had them in his pocket.
“And what about the curse?” Gencer demanded. “The fire, the hallucinations?”
“Well, if you’re looking for fairy tales, Gencer,” Father responded with a laugh, “look no further. But who were these men who suffered under this supposed curse? Foreigners, despoilers of Turkish heritage. Don’t you think that we Turks would face an entirely different situation?”
“The museum is a sure thing,” Gencer said, folding his arms, “not a fairy tale. We know exactly what we’re facing there.”
“Guns,” Dodi muttered. “I don’t like guns.”
Father clasped Gencer by both forearms. “You know how much I value your input, dedication, and friendship, old boy. So I think about your future. I see a happy Gencer, with money to throw around. Fancy cars! My friend deserves to share in this opportunity. Think. At the very least, we find some valuable stone reliefs that will certainly appease Feyyaz. But we could also find a king’s fortune. More money than our children’s grandchildren could ever spend. All without firing a single shot.”
“I’m for Khalid’s plan,” Ali declared. “If it doesn’t work out, we can always come back to the museum.”
“That’s right,” Ahmet agreed.
Gencer’s eyes smoldered. He may have been a hothead, but he knew when he was licked. “When Feyyaz asks,” he murmured, “this was your idea.”
Friday
AFTERNOON? LATE MORNING? I don’t know . . .
Write.
Burn.
Those are my jobs today.
Write because I must. Burn because no one else should.
Father, Osman, and I arrived at the ruins as the sun was setting. Gencer and the others were following in Ali’s car, but we got there first.
High on a hill overlooking Bodrum, we could see the lights of the tourist hotels blinking on. The ocean liners docked in the bay softly hummed with the noise of American dance music. The air was hot and heavy. One of those strange, warm October nights. I began to feel pinpricks on the skin of my arms.
“Perfect night for dancing,” Father said, hand on his hip, looking over the resort district.
“I think something’s wrong with me,” Osman said, rubbing his arms, hunching his shoulders to his ears. “I’m feeling goose bumps, but it’s really hot outside.”
“I feel it too,” I said. “It’s this place. It’s weird.”
“Weird places,” Father said, “are where the real hauls are.” He put an arm around each of our shoulders and steered us toward the ruins.
We agreed to comb the landscape for patches of smooth ground, abandoned tools, uprooted bushes, anything that would give us a clue as to where to start our search. My arms began to prickle again, and as I turned to Osman, he met my gaze. His eyes said, I’m scared.
“We’ll be fine,” I told him softly, as we started forward.
“There!” Osman pointed to a spot on the ground. “Did you see that?”
“See what?” I peered downward but didn’t see anything unusual.
“That! That smoke!” He pointed again.
Squinting, I saw a tiny spiral of thin blue wisps emerge from the ground. Then it was gone so fast I wasn’t even sure I’d seen it.
“Do you think it’s a signal?” Osman said. “An . . . omen?”
“Maybe a party of moles burned a blueberry cake,” I said.
But my eyes were focused now on a shallow depression, near where the real-or-imagined smoke had come. A large stone jutted out of the center of it. “What’s that?” I murmured.
“A rock?” Osman said.
“I know it’s a rock!” I replied. “But it’s . . . shaped. By a tool. It looks like a carving.”
“Well, whoopee,” Osman said. “If it’s not gold or silver or platinum, I’m not interest—”
But he crept forward with me, giving in to curiosity. A strange mark was carved into the surface of the rock. I stepped forward and reached out to brush some soil from it. “Those tremors last week,” I said. “Maybe they caused a small collapse in the ground.”
As my finger touched the cold stone, a thunderous groan came from deep within the earth. The ground shuddered and pitched beneath me.
“Aliyah?” Osman’s eyes were as wide as saucers. I could see Father running toward me across a field.
I heard a deafening crack, and looked up to see a fir tree falling toward me. I scrambled aside as the trunk hit the ground. Its spidery branches caught my clothes and I stumbled to my knees. As I fell, I felt the ground shudder again. A zigzag opened in the ground between my knees. I heaved myself to the side as the earth ripped apart, spilling soil and gravel downward.
As suddenly as it began, it was over. Everything was silent—but for Osman and Father, both screaming my name. “Here!” I cried out.
Osman clambered over the tree and scrambled to my side. “You’re safe!” he said, opening his arms.
“Are you going to hug me?” I replied.
“No!” he shouted. “Why would I—?”
“Dear lord . . . ,” came Father’s voice from a distance.
He was at the other side of the chasm in the earth—and only now did I get a sense of its size. Osman and I both craned our necks over the edge of a gash at least twenty feet wide. The last bits of sunlight threw our gigantic, gangly shadows out across the chasm as if we were monsters from the center of the earth.
“Are you both all right?” Father called out, running around the crack toward us.
“Fine,” I said.
But Osman was pointing into the darkness. “What’s that?”
Father raced to our side, staring downward, too—at what looked like a piece of metal, deep under the ground, catching the last golden rays of sunlight. Although it must have been buried for centuries, it glowed brightly, untarnished. My breath caught in my throat.
“Our mother lode . . . ,” Father murmured, as Dodi, Gencer, and the others arrived beside us. Father stared slack-jawed into the hole. “Revealed by the quake as if by magic! It’s as if the earth itself wants us to find this treasure . . .”
“I don’t see nothing,” Dodi said, as the sun’s light moved just a fraction of an inch, leaving an inky darkness.
“Men, let’s get some ropes,” Father said.
“And . . . er, flashlights!” Gencer added, trying to assert some control.
As they raced to get the supplies, Osman squeezed my hand. “I don’t want to go down there.”
“What happened to Osman the Brave?” I asked.
“He’s being shielded by Osman the Too-Smart-to-Be-Stupid,” he replied.
I almost laughed. Osman was right. We were staring into earthquake damage, with no reason to think the quake had ended. But for some reason I felt only an overwhelming excitement.
“It’ll be you and me—together,” I said. I could feel his fright, but my own skin was tingling with anticipation. “We’ll be fine as long as we hang together.”
“H-h-hang?” Osman said.
I grabbed him by both shoulders. “We can do this, little brother. We’re kids. We move fast. Think about it. We have access to something under here—something that no one has seen for who knows how long. No looters
. No pirates. We will be the first. And you know what Father says. The first rule of his business.”
Osman nodded. “Finders keepers.”
“This could be it, Osman,” I said. “No more living in a shack. We can buy things. Go back to school—”
“Whaaat?” Osman looked dismayed.
“Okay, maybe not that,” I said. “The point is, we will be in charge of our own destinies! You and me!”
As Osman fell silent, Father’s Jeep coughed and sputtered over a pile of rubble, parking a few meters from where we’d seen the glint. He jumped out of the driver’s seat and began unloading supplies.
“The others will be here in a moment,” he said, heaving a huge coil of rope to the ground. “Are you ready, my little explorers? Remember, two tugs means ‘all okay’ and three means you need help.”
I glanced at Osman. After a long moment, he nodded. We were ready.
“Let’s go,” I said, holding his hand firmly.
The team arrived just as Osman and I finished looping the dark, heavy rope around our waists. Ahmet’s face was ashen. “You kids are—”
“Courageous,” Ali cut in.
“Yeah, courageous,” Ahmet piped up.
Dodi shrugged. “That wasn’t the word I would have chosen—”
His sentence ended in a shout as Gencer poked him in the ribs with his elbow.
Father and Ahmet gave us flashlights and lowered us down into the crack in the earth. After a few meters the crack was narrow enough for Osman and me to brace against each other until we reached the object we’d seen—a metallic opening to a hole in the soil. As I shone my flashlight into the dark, the prickling in my arms grew stronger.
We pushed off the wall of the chasm to stand on the steeply sloping floor of the tunnel. It looked like an old mine shaft, except there were no wooden supports and the walls were eerily smooth. The rope went slack as we found our footing.
I pulled twice on the rope. All clear.
Two gentle tugs from above returned the signal. “Are you all right?” Father’s voice echoed down to us.
“There’s a tunnel down here!” Osman shouted, deafening me for a moment as his voice was amplified in every direction by the smooth, curved walls.