“Tracking down your ship should be no problem, not with such a helpful description,” Perlmutter responded with dry humor. “Please tell me what you do know about it.” Perlmuttecr jotted down the sparse information Austin was able to give. “I'll do my best, although I may be weak with hunger, a condition easily remedied by the receipt of a certain Turkish recipe.”

Austin again assured Perlmutter that the recipe was in the pipeline, and hung up. He felt guilty for shading the truth somewhat. With all that was going on, he had forgotten Perlmutter's request. He turned to Captain Atwood. “Does anybody in the galley know anything about Turkish cooking?”

While Austin tried to track down the imam, thousands of miles away in his N Street carriage house behind two vine-encrusted Georgetown town houses, Perlmutter was grinning with pleasure. Despite his bluster, he enjoyed a challenge. The Smithsonian would have to wait, although the concept of an obscure twin-hulled ironclad was intriguing. He glanced around the huge combination living room, bedroom and study at the stacks of books occupying every square inch. Although the space looked like a librarian's nightmare, Perlmutter's apartment contained the finest collection of historical ship literature ever assembled.

Perlmutter had read every volume he owned at least twice. His encyclopedic mind had absorbed a numbing number of facts, each connected like the links of a Web site to related caches. He could pluck a book from a dusty pile, run his finger down the spine and remember practically every page.

He knitted his brow in thought; something was eluding him, lurking in a shadowed comer of his mind beyond the periphery of consciousness. He was sure he'd heard of the Odessa Star before Austin mentioned it. He would find it in five minutes or not at all. He dug through his piles of books and periodicals, mumbling under his breath. Damned if he could remember. Must be getting old. He rummaged for an hour before giving up. He picked a card out of his telephone number file and dialed the international code for London and a number.

A moment later, a clipped British accent answered, “Guildhall Library.”

Perlmutter gave his name and asked for an assistant cataloger he had dealt with on previous calls. Like many English institutions, the Guildhall Library had been around for centuries. The original library dated back to 1423 and was acknowledged worldwide for a history collection that went back to the eleventh century.

The library also had the finest collection of wine and food books in the United Kingdom, a fact that had not escaped Perlmutter's attention. But it was the Guildhall's extensive maritime records that Perlmutter often drew upon in his research. England's naval tradition, and the wide reach of the British Empire colonies and trade, made the collection a treasure trove of information about practically every sea-girt country in the world.