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Clive Cussler - Trojan Odyssey

Here you can read online Clive Cussler - Trojan Odyssey full text of the book (entire story) in english for free. Download pdf and epub, get meaning, cover and reviews about this ebook. City: New York, year: 2003, publisher: G. P. Putnam's Sons, genre: Detective and thriller / Adventure. Description of the work, (preface) as well as reviews are available. Best literature library LitArk.com created for fans of good reading and offers a wide selection of genres:

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Clive Cussler Trojan Odyssey

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Long hailed as the grand master of adventure fiction, Clive Cussler has continued to astound with the intricate plotting and astonishing set pieces of his novels. Now, with a surprising twist, he gives us his most audacious work yet. In the final pages of *Valhalla Rising*, Dirk Pitt discovered, to his shock, that he had two grown children he had never known-twenty-three-year-old fraternal twins born to a woman he thought had died in an underwater earthquake. Both have inherited his love of the sea: the girl, Summer, is a marine biologist; the boy, himself named Dirk, is a marine engineer. And now they are about to help their father in the adventure of a lifetime. There is a brown tide infesting the ocean off the shore of Nicaragua. The twins are working in a NUMA(r) underwater enclosure, trying to determine its origin, when two startling things happen: Summer discovers an artifact, something strange and beautiful and ancient; and the worst storm in years boils up out of the sky, heading straight not only for them but also for a luxurious floating resort hotel square in its path. The peril for everybody concerned is incalculable, and, desperately, Pitt, Al Giordino, and the rest of the NUMA(r) crew rush to the rescue, but what they find in the storms wake makes the furies of nature pale in comparison. For there is an all-too-human evil at work in that part of the world, and the brown tide is only a by-product of its plan. Soon, its work will be complete-and the world will be a very different place. Though if Summers discovery is to be believed, the world is already a very different place

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Clive Cussler

Trojan Odyssey

In loving memory of my wife, Barbara,

who walks with the angels

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am extremely grateful to Iman Wilkens and his revealing book Where Troy Once Stood. He has truly shown the way toward a more practical solution to the mystery of Homer's Trojan War.

I would also like to thank Mike Fletcher and Jeffrey Evan Bozanic for their expertise regarding underwater rebreathers.

PROLOGUE

Night of Infamy

About 1190 bcA CITADEL ON A HILL NEAR THE SEAIt was a setup created with - photo 1About 1190 bcA CITADEL ON A HILL NEAR THE SEAIt was a setup created with - photo 2About 1190 b.c.A CITADEL ON A HILL NEAR THE SEA

It was a setup, created with simplicity and an acute insight into human curiosity. And it fulfilled its function flawlessly. The ugly monstrosity stood twenty feet high on four stout wooden legs propped on a flat platform. The housing, mounted on the legs, sat triangularly with open ends. A rounded hump rose on the front of the peaked housing, with two forward slits for eyes. The sides were covered with cowhides. A platform supporting the legs lay flat on the ground. It looked like nothing the people of the citadel of Ilium had ever seen.

To some with a good imagination, it vaguely resembled a stiff-legged horse.

The Dardanians had awakened in the morning, expecting to see the Achaeans surrounding their fortress city, and ready for battle as they had been for the past ten weeks. But, the plain below was empty. All they could see was a thick haze of smoke drifting over the ashes of what had been the enemy camp. The Achaeans and their fleet had vanished. During the dead of night they had loaded their ships with their supplies, horses, arms and chariots, and sailed away, leaving only the mysterious wooden monster behind. Dardanian scouts returned and reported that the Achaean camp was abandoned.

Overjoyed that the siege of Ilium had ended, the people threw aside the main gate of the citadel and poured across the open plain where both armies had clashed and spilled their blood in a hundred battles. At first they were mystified. Several of them suspected some kind of trick and argued in favor of burning it. But they soon discovered it was simply a harmless housing on four legs crudely constructed of wood. A man climbed one of the wooden legs, entered the structure and found it empty.

"If this is the best the Achaeans can do for a horse," he yelled, "small wonder we won."

The crowd laughed and chanted with glee when King Priam of Ilium arrived in a chariot. He stepped to the ground, and acknowledged the cheers of the onlookers. Then he walked around the odd-looking edifice, trying to make sense of it.

Satisfied it presented no threat, he declared it a spoil of war and decreed that it be dragged on its rollers across the plain to the gate of the city, where it would stand as a monument to the glorious victory over the raiding Achaeans.

The happy event was interrupted as two soldiers escorted an Achaean prisoner through the crowd who had been left behind by his comrades. His name was Sinon, and he was known to be the cousin of the mighty Odysseus, king of Ithaca, and one of the leaders of the great raiding party that had besieged Ilium. At the sight of King Priam, Sinon prostrated himself at the elderly king's feet and pleaded for his life.

"Why were you left behind?" the king demanded.

"My cousin listened to those who were my enemies and cast me out of the camp. If I had not escaped into a grove of trees when they were launching the ships, I would have surely been dragged behind until I drowned or was eaten by the fish."

Priam studied Sinon intently. "What is the story behind this aberration? What purpose does it serve?"

"Because they could not take your fortress and because our mighty hero Achilles was killed in battle, they believed they had fallen from the favor of the gods. The edifice was built as an offering for a safe journey home across the seas."

"Why so large?"

"So you could not take it inside the city as a prize, where it would be a reminder of the greatest Achaean failure of our time."

"Yes, I can understand their vision." Wise old Priam smiled. "What they failed to predict was that it can serve the same purpose outside the city."

A hundred men cut and trimmed logs for rollers. Then another hundred gathered ropes, formed two lines and began dragging their prize across the plain between the city and the sea. For most of the day, they sweated and hauled, more men taking their place on the ropes as they pulled the ungainly monstrosity up the slope leading to the citadel. Late in the afternoon, the effort ended and the great effigy stood before the city's main gate. The populace emerged en masse and for the first time in over two months passed freely outside without fear of their enemy. The crowd stood and stared in awe at what was now called the Dardanian horse.

Excited and jubilant that at last the seeming endless series of battles was over, the women and girls of the city went outside the walls and picked flowers for garlands to decorate the grotesque wooden creature.

"Peace and victory are ours!" they cried joyously.

But Priam's daughter, Cassandra, who was thought to be mentally unbalanced because of her dire predictions and foresight into future events, cried, "Don't you see? It's a trick!"

The bearded priest, Laocon, agreed. "You are beguiled by rapture. You are fools to trust Achaeans offering gifts."

Laocon reeled back and with a mighty heave threw his spear into the belly of the horse. The spear pierced the wood up to its shaft and quivered. The crowd laughed at the crazy display of skepticism.

"Cassandra and Laocon are mad! The monster is harmless. Nothing more than boards and logs tied together."

"Idiots!" Cassandra. "Only a fool would believe Sinon the Achaean."

A warrior stared her in the eyes. "He says because it now belongs to Ilium, our city will never fall."

"He's lying."

"Can you not accept a blessing from the gods?"

"Not if it came from the Achaeans," said Laocon, pushing his way through the milling throng and striding angrily to the city.

There was no reasoning with the happy mob. Their enemy was gone. To them, the war was over. Now was the time for celebration.

The two skeptics were ignored in the euphoria that swept the crowd. Before an hour passed, their curiosity waned and the people launched a great feast to celebrate their triumph over their Achaean foe. Music from flutes and pipes soared within the citadel walls. Song and dance swept every street. Wine flowed through the houses like streams down a mountain. Laughter rang as they lifted and drained their goblets.

In the temples, the priests and priestesses burned incense, chanted and made offerings to the gods and goddesses in thanksgiving for ending the terrible conflict that had sent so many of their warriors to the underworld.

The joyous people toasted their king and the heroes of their army, the veterans, the wounded and the revered dead who had fought the brave fight. "Hector, O Hector, our great champion. If only you had lived to enjoy our glory."

"For nothing the Achaeans, the fools, attacked our magnificent city," shouted one woman as she whirled and danced wildly.

"Like chastened children they have fled," cried another.

So they babbled as the wine coursed through their blood, the royalty in their palace, the rich in their large houses built on terraces and the poor in their simple hovels huddled against the interior city walls for protection against wind and rain. They feasted throughout Ilium, drinking and eating the rest of their precious food supplies hoarded during the siege and making merry as if time had stopped. By midnight the drunken orgy subsided and old King Priam's subjects fell into a deep sleep, their befogged minds at peace for the first time since the hated Achaeans had laid siege to their city.

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