Book excerpt: Kurt Austin and the NUMA Special Assignments Team search for an ancient Middle Eastern relic with secret ties to an American founding father in the #1 bestselling New York Times-bestselling series. Years ago, an invaluable Phoenician statue known as the Navigator was stolen from the Baghdad museum, and there are men who would do anything to get their hands on it. Their first victim is a crooked antiquities dealer, murdered in cold blood. Their second target a UN investigator, only survives thanks to the timely assistance of Kurt Austin and Joe Zavala. What’s so special about this statue? Austin wonders. The search for answers will take the NUMA team on an astonishing odyssey through time and space, one that encompasses no less than the lost treasures of King Solomon, a mysterious packet of documents personally encoded by Thomas Jefferson, and a top-secret scientific project that could change the world forever. And that’s before the surprises really begin. . . . Rich with all the hair-raising action and endless invention that have become Cussler’s hallmarks, The Navigator is the best yet from “Clive the Incredible”.