The Navigator (Cussler novel)

Last updated
The Navigator
The navigator (novel).jpg
First edition (US)
Author Clive Cussler, with Paul Kemprecos
LanguageEnglish
SeriesNUMA Files
Genre Thriller novel
Publisher Putnam (US)
Michael Joseph (UK)
Publication date
June 2007
Publication placeUnited States
Media typePrint (hardback & paperback)
Pages448 pp (first edition, hardback)
ISBN 978-0-399-15419-5 (first edition, hardback)
OCLC 86117794
813/.54 22
LC Class PS3553.U75 N38 2007
Preceded by Polar Shift  
Followed by Medusa  

The Navigator is the seventh book in the NUMA Files series of books co-written by best-selling author Clive Cussler and Paul Kemprecos, and was published in June 2007. The main character of this series is Kurt Austin. [1]

Contents

Plot summary

Around 900 BC, a Phoenician merchant ship sails to a remote and abandoned colony and conceals an unidentified treasure in a cave. On departing, they are approached by another vessel. The first ship's captain, Menelik, meets on shore with the other ship's captain, his half-brother Melqart. Melqart ambushes Menelik and his men, who fend them off and destroy Melqart's ship.

In 1809, Thomas Jefferson prepares to return to Monticello at the end of his second term as president. A thief boards a river barge carrying his possessions with orders to destroy Jefferson's research on American Indian languages. However, some materials survive, including a vellum with Phoenician writing Jefferson obtained from the Unkechaug tribe on Long Island. Jefferson believes the vellum reveals that the original tablets of the Ten Commandments were concealed in King Solomon's Mines in North America. Worried that the discovery will lead to unchecked westward expansion, he sends Louisiana Territory governor Meriwether Lewis a coded message concealed as an article about artichokes. Lewis dies under mysterious circumstances shortly after receiving the message.

After the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Italian-Ethiopian UNESCO investigator Carina Mechadi arrives at a museum in Baghdad [lower-alpha 1] to investigate the looting of antiquities in the chaos of the invasion. Senior curator Dr. Nasir says that many items were looted by a group that had planned in advance to exploit the confusion. Dr. Mechadi meets with Iraqi antiquities smuggler Ali who she believes is responsible to seek the return of the items. After she leaves, professional assassin Adriano meets with Ali to discuss the purchase for businessman Viktor Baltazar of the Navigator, a bronze statue that shows an ancient Phoenician mariner using a compass. Ali tries to get more money from Adriano, who murders him to keep the statue from being sold to another buyer.

Baltazar anonymously provides Dr. Mechadi with unlimited funds for the recovery of Iraqi antiquities. Mechadi locates a cache of looted antiquities including the Navigator in Egypt. She purchases them with Baltazar's funds and places them on the container ship Ocean Adventure to the U.S. where she plans a museum tour to raise awareness on losses to Iraqi heritage. In the north Atlantic, Adriano and other mercenaries hijack the ship. After tying up Mechadi and the crew, they prepare to remove the Navigator by helicopter and set the ship's autopilot on a collision course with an oil rig to eliminate evidence of their attack and kill witnesses. A Canadian International Ice Patrol ship picks up a distress call from the oil rig. National Underwater and Marine Agency employees Kurt Austin and Joe Zavala, who were on the ice patrol ship to learn about iceberg wrangling, intervene. With Zavala's aid, Austin boards the container ship from a boat, frees Mechadi and the crew, and prevents the hijackers from taking the Navigator although they escape. The ship's captain regains control of his vessel and avoids a collision with the oil rig. Austin and Zavala borrow a helicopter from the oil rig to pursue the hijackers and locate the ore carrier Sea King that has been modified by mercenary company PeaceCo to launch helicopters.

At the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia, assistant librarian Angela Worth helps writer Norman Stocker research a book on artichokes. Stocker finds Jefferson's message to Lewis, misfiled due to its appearance as a simple message about artichokes. Stocker shows the material to Worth, who identifies it as an encoded message from Jefferson. Worth brings the Jefferson file to her boss Helen Woolsey, who claims she will investigate it. However, Woolsey is paid by Baltazar to suppress any material found on the subject. She reports the findings to Baltazar while Worth investigates on her own. Worth, an amateur cryptographer, meets with a friend at the National Cryptologic Museum. With the aid of Professor Pieter DeVries at the National Security Agency, they break the cipher. DeVries brings the decrypted message to the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs of the U.S. State Department. Devries and State Department staffer Hank Douglas agree that the discovery may destabilize the Middle East, especially if it leads to Israel deciding to build a Third Temple on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, a site contested by Muslims and Jews.

At the Iraqi embassy to the U.S., Mechadi attends an event to promote the museum tour which is to use the Navigator as its central feature. Also present are Baltazar and Anthony Saxon, an amateur archaeologist who has written books arguing Phoenicians actively traveled to North America. He has long been interested in the Navigator. Mechadi invites Baltazar and Austin to see it at a Smithsonian warehouse in Maryland. Although uninvited, Saxon also arrives and extensively photographs the statue. Mechadi accepts Baltazar's offer to arrange secure transportation for the statue in the future. However, the men who arrive to transport the statue are actually Baltazar's mercenaries. They steal the Navigator after Adriano incapacitates Mechadi. Austin is contacted by State Department staffer Elwood Nickerson, who asks him to investigate the Jefferson file, hoping that if Austin discovers something less significant than the Ten Commandments they can avert any unrest in the Middle East.

Austin and Mechadi visit Jon Benson, a National Geographic photographer who documented the 1972 excavation of the Navigator in Syria. They find Adriano has already arrived, assaulted Benson and stolen his negatives of the dig. Austin notices Benson has a small figurine of the Navigator which he purchased in Istanbul. Hoping that the figurine was modeled from another version of the Navigator that may reveal why someone is so interested in the statue, Austin and Mechadi decide to locate it. Austin and Mechadi travel to Istanbul and meet in the Basilica Cistern with antiquity smuggler Cemil who directs them to a shop in the Grand Bazaar selling the figurines. The storekeeper buys them from a sculptor in Kayaköy, an abandoned village turned tourist attraction. They meet with the sculptor who says that he bases the figurines on a statue found in a Lycian tomb on the Turquoise Coast; the tomb later fell into the sea due to an earthquake. Austin and Mechadi elude two Turkish pursuers and travel to Fethiye. They hire a boat and are joined by Zavala, who was in Istanbul helping to excavate ancient harbor facilities and brings a wet submersible resembling a Corvette. Using the Subvette, they locate the relatively undamaged second Navigator. However, while Austin and Zavala are submerged, Balthazar's men seize their boat. Austin and Zavala fight them off. They then make a plaster mold of the statue and dump it back into the water. Back in Istanbul, Dr. Hanley, the director of the harbor excavation, helps them create a full plaster of Paris reproduction.

They find that the statue contains a concealed map revealing the location of a Phoenician wreck in the Chesapeake Bay. They locate the ship and find the remains of another wreck diver who was wearing World War II-vintage diving gear. Using the serial number on his dive helmet, they locate his widow who reveals that he recovered gold and an amphora from the wreck. Saxon purchased the amphora earlier that day, having located her first using his photos from the Maryland warehouse. Saxon and Austin salvage a parchment inside the amphora which reveals the relic was placed in a Phoenician gold mine in St. Anthony's Wilderness, an undeveloped area of modern Pennsylvania which Saxon previously investigated as a possible location of Solomon's mines. Saxon suggests a specific cave that yielded some gold in the 19th century. Zavala and fellow NUMA employees Paul and Gamay Trout dive in the now-flooded cave and find the relic was previously removed by Jefferson, who used the site to conceal the complete map of Solomon's mines instead.

Mechadi meets with staff at the Metropolitan Museum of Art to plan the Navigator exhibition, but Adriano kidnaps her after the meeting and brings her to Baltazar's estate in upstate New York. Adriano believes both he and Mechadi are descendants of King Solomon and proposes they have children to continue their line, but she rejects him. He lures Austin to his estate by saying he will exchange him for Mechadi. Austin arrives and Baltazar makes him joust with him to win Mechadi's freedom. Although Austin wins the joust, Baltazar tries to kill him. Austin escapes and Baltazar flees to his ancestral home, a castle in Cyprus, planning to sacrifice Mechadi to Baal, a Phoenician deity still worshiped by his family. Austin beats Baltazar to Cyprus with the aid of a friend in the CIA who allows him to use an SR-71 Blackbird. He and some CIA agents overpower Baltazar's mercenaries, rescue Mechadi, and kill Baltazar. Subsequently, Austin lures Adriano to Solomon's cave and traps him underwater to die.

Austin and Mechadi learn that Jefferson concealed the relic at Monticello where it is watched over by a secret society, the Artichoke Society, who will decide when and if it can safely be revealed to the world. Saxon plans on continuing his long-running search for the tomb of the Queen of Sheba and Mechadi agrees to assist him.

Reception

Kirkus Reviews described The Navigator as "A small—very small—step up from Saturday morning adventure cartoons." [2] Publishers Weekly described it as one of the weaker titles in the NUMA Files, criticizing it for predictable action and describing the writing as "often less than Cussler's best." [3]

Notes

  1. ↑ More specifically, the Iraq Museum.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cádiz</span> Municipality in Andalusia, Spain

Cádiz is a city in Spain and the capital of the Province of Cádiz, in the autonomous community of Andalusia. It is located in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula off the Atlantic Ocean separated from neighbouring San Fernando by a narrow isthmus.

<i>H. L. Hunley</i> (submarine) Submarine of the Confederate States of America

H. L. Hunley, also known as the Hunley, CSS H. L. Hunley, or CSS Hunley, was a submarine of the Confederate States of America that played a small part in the American Civil War. Hunley demonstrated the advantages and dangers of undersea warfare. She was the first combat submarine to sink a warship (USS Housatonic), although Hunley was not completely submerged and, following her attack, was lost along with her crew before she could return to base. Twenty-one crewmen died in the three sinkings of Hunley during her short career. She was named for her inventor, Horace Lawson Hunley, shortly after she was taken into government service under the control of the Confederate States Army at Charleston, South Carolina.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pillars of Hercules</span> Phrase used in antiquity to label the promontories of the Strait of Gibraltar

The Pillars of Hercules are the promontories that flank the entrance to the Strait of Gibraltar. The northern Pillar, Calpe Mons, is the Rock of Gibraltar. A corresponding North African peak not being predominant, the identity of the southern Pillar, Abila Mons, has been disputed throughout history, with the two most likely candidates being Monte Hacho in Ceuta and Jebel Musa in Morocco. The term was applied in antiquity: Pliny the Elder included the Pillars of Hercules in his Naturalis historia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Melicertes</span> Greek mythological figure

In Greek mythology, Melicertes, later called Palaemon or Palaimon (Παλαίμων), was a Boeotian prince as the son of King Athamas and Ino, daughter of King Cadmus of Thebes. He was the brother of Learchus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Iraq Museum</span> National museum of Iraq

The Iraq Museum is the national museum of Iraq, located in Baghdad. It is sometimes informally called the National Museum of Iraq. The Iraq Museum contains precious relics from the Mesopotamian, Abbasid, and Persian civilizations. It was looted during and after the 2003 Invasion of Iraq. Despite international efforts, only some of the stolen artifacts have been returned. After being closed for many years while being refurbished, and rarely open for public viewing, the museum was officially reopened in February 2015.

<i>Statue of Freedom</i> Sculpture by Thomas Crawford on top of the US Capitol

The Statue of Freedom, also known as Armed Freedom or simply Freedom, is a bronze statue designed by Thomas Crawford that, since 1863, has crowned the United States Capitol dome. Originally named Freedom Triumphant in War and Peace, a U.S. government publication now states that the statue "is officially known as the Statue of Freedom." The statue depicts a female figure bearing a military helmet and holding a sheathed sword in her right hand and a laurel wreath and shield in her left.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Astarte</span> Middle Eastern goddess, worshipped from the Bronze Age through classical antiquity

Astarte is the Hellenized form of the Ancient Near Eastern goddess ʿAṯtart. ʿAṯtart was the Northwest Semitic equivalent of the East Semitic goddess Ishtar.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Battle of Himera (480 BC)</span> Battle of the Sicilian Wars

The Battle of Himera, supposedly fought on the same day as the Battle of Salamis, or at the same time as the Battle of Thermopylae, saw the Greek forces of Gelon, King of Syracuse, and Theron, tyrant of Agrigentum, defeat the Carthaginian force of Hamilcar the Magonid, ending a Carthaginian bid to restore the deposed tyrant of Himera. The alleged coincidence of this battle with the naval battle of Salamis and the resultant derailing of a Punic-Persian conspiracy aimed at destroying the Greek civilization is rejected by modern scholars. Scholars also agree that the battle led to the crippling of Carthage's power in Sicily for many decades. It was one of the most important battles of the Sicilian Wars.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tanit</span> Goddess of Carthage

Tanit or Tinnit was a chief deity of Ancient Carthage; she derives from a local Berber deity and the consort of Baal Hammon. As Ammon is a local Libyan deity, so is Tannit, which she represents the matriarchal aspect of Numidian society, whom the Egyptians identify as Neith and the Greeks identify as Athena. She was the goddess of Wisdom, civilization and the crafts; she is the defender of towns and homes where she is worshipped. Ancient North Africans used to put her sign on tombstones and homes to ask for protection, her main temples in Thinissut, Cirta, Lambaesis and Theveste .. She had a yearly festival in Antiquity which persists to this day in many parts of North Africa that was banned by Muammar Gaddafi in Libya ruling it as a pagan festival.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ancient history of Cyprus</span>

The ancient history of Cyprus shows a precocious sophistication in the Neolithic era visible in settlements such as at Choirokoitia dating from the 9th millennium BC, and at Kalavassos from about 7500 BC.

<i>Kyrenia</i> (ship) Ancient Greek merchant ship wreck

Kyrenia is a 4th-century BC ancient Greek merchant ship that sank c. 294 BC.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kayaköy</span> Ghost town in Muğla Province, Turkey

Kayaköy is a neighbourhood of the municipality and district of Fethiye, Muğla Province, Turkey. Its population is 975 (2022). Situated 8 km south of Fethiye, it is mostly abandoned. It was anciently known in Greek as Karmylessos, shortened to Lebessos and pronounced in Modern Greek as Leivissi. From Ancient Greek the town name shifted to Koine Greek by the Roman period, evolved into Byzantine Greek in the Middle Ages, and finally became the Modern Greek name still used by its townspeople before their final evacuation in 1923.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Punic religion</span> Religion in Carthage

The Punic religion, Carthaginian religion, or Western Phoenician religion in the western Mediterranean was a direct continuation of the Phoenician variety of the polytheistic ancient Canaanite religion. However, significant local differences developed over the centuries following the foundation of Carthage and other Punic communities elsewhere in North Africa, southern Spain, Sardinia, western Sicily, and Malta from the ninth century BC onward. After the conquest of these regions by the Roman Republic in the third and second centuries BC, Punic religious practices continued, surviving until the fourth century AD in some cases. As with most cultures of the ancient Mediterranean, Punic religion suffused their society and there was no stark distinction between religious and secular spheres. Sources on Punic religion are poor. There are no surviving literary sources and Punic religion is primarily reconstructed from inscriptions and archaeological evidence. An important sacred space in Punic religion appears to have been the large open air sanctuaries known as tophets in modern scholarship, in which urns containing the cremated bones of infants and animals were buried. There is a long-running scholarly debate about whether child sacrifice occurred at these locations, as suggested by Greco-Roman and biblical sources.

<i>Serpent</i> (novel) 1999 novel by Clive Cussler and Paul Kemprecos

Serpent is the first book in the NUMA Files series of books co-written by best-selling author Clive Cussler and veteran of mystery books Paul Kemprecos, and was published in 1999. The main character of this series is Kurt Austin and Joe Zavala.

<i>White Death</i> (novel) 2003 novel by Clive Cussler and Paul Kemprecos

White Death is the fourth book in the NUMA Files series of books co-written by best-selling author Clive Cussler and Paul Kemprecos, and was published in 2003. The main character of this series is Kurt Austin.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ancient Carthage</span> Phoenician city-state and empire

Ancient Carthage was an ancient Semitic civilisation based in North Africa. Initially a settlement in present-day Tunisia, it later became a city-state and then an empire. Founded by the Phoenicians in the ninth century BC, Carthage reached its height in the fourth century BC as one of the largest metropoleis in the world. It was the centre of the Carthaginian Empire, a major power led by the Punic people who dominated the ancient western and central Mediterranean Sea. Following the Punic Wars, Carthage was destroyed by the Romans in 146 BC, who later rebuilt the city lavishly.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kition</span> Ancient Helleno-Phoenician city in Cyprus

Kition was an Ancient Greek city-kingdom on the southern coast of Cyprus, one of the Ten city-kingdoms of Cyprus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mississippian stone statuary</span> Polished stone artifacts found in the Midwest and Southeast, US

The Mississippian stone statuary are artifacts of polished stone in the shape of human figurines made by members of the Mississippian culture and found in archaeological sites in the American Midwest and Southeast. Two distinct styles exist; the first is a style of carved flint clay found over a wide geographical area but believed to be from the American Bottom area and manufactured at the Cahokia site specifically; the second is a variety of carved and polished locally available stone primarily found in the Tennessee-Cumberland region and northern Georgia. Early European explorers reported seeing stone and wooden statues in native temples, but the first documented modern discovery was made in 1790 in Kentucky, and given as a gift to Thomas Jefferson.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Phoenicia</span> Ancient Semitic maritime civilization

Phoenicia, or Phœnicia, or the Phoenician city-states, were an ancient Semitic maritime civilization originating in the coastal strip of the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean, primarily located in modern Lebanon. The territory of the Phoenicians expanded and contracted throughout history, with the core of their culture stretching from Arwad in modern Syria to Mount Carmel. The Phoenicians extended their cultural influence through trade and colonization throughout the Mediterranean, from Cyprus to the Iberian Peninsula.

<i>Devils Gate</i> (novel) 2011 novel by Clive Cussler and Graham Brown

Devil's Gate is an adventure novel in author Clive Cussler's The NUMA Files. Co-written with Graham Brown, this installment is the ninth of that series which features the main character Kurt Austin. The story follows employees of NUMA who discover someone is developing a directed-energy weapon and thwart the dictator of Sierra Leone, Djemma Garand, and the mercenary group led by Andras the Knife before they are able to use the weapon. The hardcover edition was released November 14, 2011, it was subsequently released as a paperback, audiobook and ebook. It appeared on several best-seller lists and was describe by reviewers as being suitable for fans of Cussler and action-adventure stories.

References

  1. ↑ Cussler, Clive (2007). The navigator : a novel from the NUMA files . New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons. ISBN   9780399154195.
  2. ↑ "The Navigator". Kirkus Reviews. Kirkus Media. Retrieved 28 November 2022.
  3. ↑ "The Navigator: A Novel from the NUMA Files". Publishers Weekly. Retrieved 28 November 2022.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.