As Liang En and his team examined the new wreckage, in an inconspicuous house on the island, the boat rental merchant, Mr. Speer, was angrily talking on the phone.
"You told me everything was normal, but now it's clear that unexpected changes have occurred. At least I don't think that group of police officers was just a coincidence."
"But it was indeed an accident. I never thought the police would react so quickly," said a middle-aged man's voice on the other end of the line.
"Yelling at me won't help, because I can't control the police. What you should do now is figure out a way to solve the current problem."
"Don't you have any solutions?" Speer laughed angrily. "You can mobilize the Israeli military to silence people, but now you're telling me you can't handle the Greek police? Do you expect me to believe that?"
"Different places have different situations, so you can't generalize," the hesitant voice on the other end replied. Speer's words had hit a sore spot.
In the past, it wasn't their people who could mobilize the Israeli military; they had tampered with the gang's boat by altering GPS data and modifying the radio communication system, causing them to accidentally enter an Israeli military restricted area and lose contact with Israeli communications.
Everyone knows the Israeli military is on high alert, so when they see a boat entering a restricted area and it doesn't respond to radio calls, they won't investigate closely but will open fire directly.
As a secret organization, they controlled their subordinates and peripheral members through threats and incentives to maintain a sense of mystery, making them useful out of fear and reducing the chances of betrayal.
Thus, they kept the operation secret to create an illusion of invincibility, capable of mobilizing military cooperation.
But now, there was a glaring flaw. Speer began to doubt why an organization that could mobilize a national military couldn't foresee a police raid.
Especially since the police arrived on the island in a ferry, wearing uniforms openly without much effort to hide. The lack of any forewarning was suspicious.
"I don't care about the specifics, but our plan is ruined now," Speer said, taking a deep breath. "My boat and equipment, and the divers I hired, are all detained by the police. They've found evidence of my illegal salvaging and issued a warrant for my arrest."
The person on the other end fell silent, genuinely surprised at how bad things had gotten, with no contingency plans for this scenario. More crucially, an entire international archaeological team was now on the island. If they couldn't find what they wanted first, they'd have to abandon the operation.
"I'll send the knights over," said an older voice after a pause. "You'll cooperate with them from now on."
"Alright, I'll do my best to cooperate," Speer exhaled in relief. "I hope everything goes smoothly this time."
"It will. We've prepared for three years. Those outsiders won't find our target so quickly," the voice reassured him, offering both comfort and encouragement.
"If we fail this time, we'll be the second-to-last group in the association. Normally, our group, responsible for the Eastern Mediterranean, is one of the best."
"Only second-to-last after three years of planning?" Speer was curious, as an outsider, he wasn't familiar with the association's internal workings.
"A major incident happened in Central Europe. Their entire team was arrested by the police, so even if we fail, we won't be worse off than them," the voice sighed before continuing.
"That's why I could quickly arrange for knights to support you, because the association doesn't want two failures in one year."
"Understood," Speer replied, gripping the phone. "I'll work with the knights and hope things improve."
While Speer was secretly contacting the association, Liang En and several scholars were discussing the recent findings in the hotel conference room.
More scholars joined today's discussion because Professor Harry brought his students to the island and participated in analyzing the items salvaged from the seabed.
"These items should belong to Crete," Mr. Harry said, examining the softened pottery shards.
"We found these pottery shapes resemble those unearthed in Crete's ruins, and we can clearly see bullhead markings on two shards."
"Yes, this is indeed from the Cretan civilization," agreed a scholar from the Irish Museum, nodding.
"We also found a small part of wooden ship planks from the sea, scientifically proven to be from the Cretan era."
"So, this was a merchant ship trading with Crete," Liang En concluded after summarizing the findings.
"If that's the case, the ship might not be special. Crete was a dominant maritime power in the northeastern Mediterranean. A sunken merchant ship wouldn't be very valuable."
"You're right, but the brass we found on the ship suggests otherwise," Mr. Harry said, adjusting his glasses.
"To my knowledge, brass was rare in that era because humans hadn't mastered brass smelting. The small amounts of brass were mostly produced accidentally."
"So this metal was very precious, and a ship carrying it was likely a royal vessel."
"Exactly!" The Irish scholar agreed. "Besides the brass, the broken ceramics also provided more information."
"We found that some of the pottery had crests. The bullhead mark on Crete represented royalty, indicating the ship's importance."
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