Sahara

THE TEXAS

Two weeks after the siege of Fort Foureau, Admiral Sandecker was seated in a conference room at NUMA's headquarters in Washington at the head of along table. Dr. Chapman, Hiram Yaeger, and Rudi Gunn sat alongside, staring into a large TV monitor embedded in one wall.

The Admiral motioned impatiently at the blank screen. "When are they going to come on?"

Yaeger was holding a telephone to his ear while studying the monitor. "The satellite should be downlinking their signal from Mali any second."

Almost before Yaeger finished speaking, a picture flickered and settled onto the screen. Pitt and Giordino sat together behind a desk piled with file folders and papers while facing into a camera. "Are you receiving us all right on your end?" asked Yaeger.

"Hello, Hiram," answered Pitt. "Nice to see your face and hear your voice."

"You're looking good here. Everyone is anxious to talk to you."

"Good morning, Dirk," greeted Sandecker. "How are your injuries?"

"It's afternoon here, Admiral. And I'm healing nicely, thank you."

After Pitt exchanged friendly greetings with Rudi Gunn and Dr. Chapman, the Admiral launched the discussion. "We have good news," he said enthusiastically. "A satellite survey of the South Atlantic, computer analyzed only an hour ago, shows the growth rate of the red tide as falling off. All of Yaeger's projections indicate that the spread is slowly grinding to a halt."

"And not a week too soon," said Gunn. "We've already detected a 5 percent drop in the world's total oxygen supply. It wouldn't be long before we'd all begin to feel the effects."

"All automobiles from every cooperating nation in the world were within twenty-four hours of being banned from the streets," Yaeger lectured. "All aircraft grounded, all industrial factories shut down. The world was a hair away from coming to a standstill."

"But it appears both our efforts have paid off," acknowledged Chapman. "You and Al, finding and burning the source of the synthetic amino acid that stimulated the dinoflagellate population explosion, and our NUMA scientific team discovering the little critters are fussy about reproducing if they're subjected to a one-part-per=million dose of copper."

"Have you found a significant drop in the contamination streaming into the Niger River since we shut off the flow?" asked Pitt.

Gunn nodded. "By nearly 30 percent. I underestimated the migration rate of groundwater from the hazardous waste project south to the river. It moves more rapidly through the textured sand and gravel of the Sahara than I originally projected."

"How long before the pollution reaches a safe level?"

"Dr. Chapman and I are predicting a good six months before most of its residue has flowed into the ocean."

"Cutting off the pollutant was a vital first step," Chapman spelled out. "It gave us extra time to air drop copper particles over large areas of the tides. I think it's safe to say we've turned the corner on an eco-disaster of frightening consequences."

"But the battle is far from over," Sandecker reminded him. "The United States alone produces only 58 percent of the oxygen it consumes, oxygen mostly created by plankton in the Pacific Ocean. In another twenty years, because of the increase in auto and air traffic, and the continuing devastation to the world's forests and wetlands, we'll begin to use up our oxygen faster than nature can replenish it."

"And we still face the problem we're currently experiencing of chemicals poisoning the oceans," Chapman followed the Admiral. "We've had a bad scare, but the near tragedy with the red tides has demonstrated how critically close human and wildlife are to the last gasp of oxygen"

"Maybe from now on," said Pitt, "we won't take our air supply for granted."

"Two weeks have passed since you took over Fort Foureau," said Sandecker. "What's your situation with the operation?"

"Pretty damned good, actually," answered Giordino. "After cutting off all incoming waste shipments by train, we've kept the solar reactor burning day and night. Another thirty-six hours should see all industrial contaminants that Massarde hid away in the underground storage vaults destroyed."

"What have you done about the nuclear waste storage?" asked Chapman.

"After they had a brief rest from their ordeal at Tebezza," Pitt replied, "I asked the original French engineers who supervised the construction of the project to return. They agreed and have since assembled Malian work crews to continue excavating the storage chamber down to 1.5 kilometers."

"Will that depth keep high-level waste safe from earth's organisms? Plutonium 239, for example, has a half-life of 24,000 years."

Pitt smiled. "Unknowingly, Massarde couldn't have selected a better place for the deep burial of waste. The geology is very stable in this part of the Sahara. The rock beds have been undisturbed for hundreds of millions of years. We're nowhere near crustal-plate boundaries, and far below existing groundwater. No one will have to worry about the waste affecting life ever again."

"How do you intend to contain the waste after it's stored underground?"

"The safety criteria the French waste experts have created are stringent. Before burial in the deep rock it will be encased in concrete and then in a stainless-steel cylinder. This is surrounded by a layer of asphalt and a cast-iron enclosure. Finally, a backfill of concrete is poured around the container before it is embedded in the rock."

Chapman grinned from ear to ear. "My compliments, Dirk. You've put together a world-class waste disposal site."

"Another bit of interesting news," said Sandecker. "Our government and that of Mongolia have shut down Massarde's hazardous waste projects in the Mojave and Gobi Deserts after surprise inspections by a team of international waste investigators found them to be substandard and unsafe."

"The Australian outback installation was also closed," Chapman added.

Pitt sat back and sighed. "I'm happy to hear Massarde is out of the waste disposal business."

"Speaking of the Scorpion," said Giordino, "how's his condition?"

"He was buried in Tripoli yesterday," replied Sandecker. "CIA agents reported that just before he died, he went insane and tried to make a meal of a doctor."

"The perfect ending," Giordino muttered sardonically.

"By the way," said Sandecker. "The President sends his warmest regards and thanks. Says he's going to issue a special citation of merit for your achievement."

Pitt and Giordino turned to each other and shrugged indifferently.

Sandecker chose to ignore the display of distaste. "You might be interested in knowing that for the first time in two decades, our State Department is working closely with the new Malian parliament. Much of the improved relations were due to you turning all profits from the project over to the government to aid their social programs."

"It seemed the proper thing to do since we couldn't profit by it," said Pitt benevolently.

"Any chance of a coup by the army?" inquired Gunn.

"Without Kazim, the inner core of his officers fell apart. To a man they crawled on their knees and swore undying allegiance to the leaders of the new government."

"It's been almost a month since any of us have seen your ugly faces in person," Sandecker smiled. "Your job is finished in the Sahara. When can I expect you back in Washington?"

"Even the turmoil and mess of the nation's capital would look good after this place," muttered Giordino.

"A week's vacation would be nice," Pitt answered seriously. "I have to ship something home and take care of some personal business. And then there's a little historical project I'd like to investigate here in the desert."

"The Texas?"

"How did you know?"

"St. Julien Perlmutter whispered in my ear."

"I'd be grateful for a favor, Admiral."

Sandecker made an act of shrugging condescendingly. "I guess I owe you a little free time."

"Please arrange for Julien to fly to Mali as quickly as possible."

"With Julien weighing in at 180 kilograms," Sandecker looked at Pitt roguishly, "you'll never get him on a camel."

"Much less induce him to trek over blistering sand under a blazing sun," Gunn joined in.

"If I'm right," said Pitt, staring through the monitor at them in amusement, "all I'll need to get Julien to walk twenty paces across desert terrain is a bottle of chilled Chardonnay."

"Before I forget," Sandecker spoke up, "the Aussies were overjoyed at your discovery of Kitty Mannock and her aircraft. You and Giordino are national heroes according to the Sydney papers."

"Do they have plans for a recovery?"

"A wealthy rancher from her home town has agreed to fund the operation. He plans to restore the plane and hang it in a museum in Melbourne. A recovery team should be at the location you provided by tomorrow."

"And Kitty?"

"A national holiday when her body is returned. I was told by the Australian ambassador that contributions are pouring in from all over the country for a memorial over her proposed grave site."

"Our country should contribute too, especially the South."

Curious, Sandecker asked, "What is our connection with her?"

"She's going to lead us to the Texas, " answered Pitt matter-of-factly.

Sandecker exchanged questioning looks with the NUMA men around the table. Then he refaced Pitt's image in the monitor and said, "We'd all be interested in knowing how a woman who's been dead for sixty-five years can pull off that little trick."

"I found Kitty's logbook in the wreckage," Pitt replied slowly. "She describes her discovery of a ship before she died, an iron ship buried in the desert."

"Good lord!" Perlmutter uttered as he peered out the helicopter's windshield at the sunrise illuminating the dead land below. "You walked through that?"

"Actually, we sailed across this section of the desert in our improvised land yacht," Pitt answered. "We're flying our trek in reverse."

Perlmutter had flown into Algiers on a military jet, and then caught a commercial airliner to the small desert city of Adrar in southern Algeria. There, Pitt and Giordino had met him shortly after midnight and escorted him aboard a helicopter they'd borrowed from the project's French construction crew.

After refueling, they headed south, spotting the land yacht just after dawn, lying forlornly on its side where they had left it after their rescue by the Arab truck driver. They landed and dismantled the old wing, cables, and wheels that had saved their lives, lashing the pieces to the landing skids of the helicopter. Then they lifted off with Pitt at the controls and set a course for the ravine that held Kitty Mannock's lost aircraft:

During the flight, Perlmutter read over a copy Pitt had made of Kitty's logbook. "What a courageous lady," he said in admiration. "With only a few swallows of water, a broken ankle, and a badly sprained knee, she hobbled nearly 16 kilometers under the most wretched conditions."

"And that was only one way," Pitt reminded him. "After stumbling on the ship in the desert, she limped back to her aircraft."

"Yes, here it is," said Perlmutter, reading aloud.

Perlmutter paused and looked up. "That explains why you found the logbook with her entries at the crash site. She carne back in the vain hope the search planes had found hers."

"What were her last words?" asked Giordino.

Perlmutter turned a page and continued reading.

When Perlmutter finished, each man felt a deep sense of sadness and melancholy. They were all moved by Kitty's epic fight to survive. Tough guys to the end, they all fought to suppress their glistening eyes.

"She could have taught a lot of men the meaning of courage," Pitt said heavily.

Perlmutter nodded. "Thanks to her endurance, another great mystery may be solved."

"She gave us a ball park," acknowledged Pitt. "All we have to do is follow the ravine south until it opens into an old riverbed and start our search for the ironclad from there."

Two hours later, the Aussie recovery team paused in their task of carefully dismantling the weathered remains of Kitty Mannock's old Fairchild airplane and looked up as a helicopter appeared and circled the ravine containing the wreckage. Smiles broke out as the Hussies recognized the missing wing and landing gear tied to the chopper's landing skids.

Pitt eased back on the cyclic control and brought the craft to a gentle landing on the flat ground above the ravine to avoid covering the recovery workers and their equipment in a tornado of dust and sand. He shut down the engines and checked his watch. It was eight-forty A.M., a few hours shy of the hottest time of day.

St. Julien Perlmutter shifted his bulk in the copilot's seat in preparation for his exit. "I wasn't built for these contraptions," he grumbled as the full blast of the heat hit him upon exiting the air-conditioned cabin.

"Beats the hell out of walking," Giordino said as he surveyed the familiar ground. "Believe me, I know."

A big, brawny Aussie with a ruddy face climbed from the ravine and approached them. "Allo there, you must be Dirk Pitt."

"I'm Al Giordino, he's Pitt." Giordino gestured over his shoulder.

"Ned Quinn, I'm in charge of the recovery operation."

Pitt winced as Quinn's huge paw crushed his hand. Massaging his knuckles, Pitt said, "We brought back the parts of Kitty's aircraft that we borrowed a few weeks ago."

"Much appreciated." Quinn's voice rasped like iron against a grinding wheel. "Amazin' bit of ingenuity, using the wing to sail over the desert."

"St. Julien Perlmutter," said Perlmutter, introducing himself.

Quinn patted an enormous belly that hung over a pair of work pants. "Seems we both take to good food and drink, Mr. Perlmutter."

"You wouldn't happen to have some of that good Aussie beer with you by chance?"

"You like our beer?"

"I keep a case of Castlemaine from Brisbane on hand for special occasions."

"We don't have any Castlemaine," said Quinn, mightily impressed, "but I can offer you a bottle of Fosters."

"I'd be much obliged," Perlmutter said gratefully as his sweat glands began to pour.

Quinn walked over to the cab of a flatbed truck and pulled four bottles from an ice chest. He brought them back and passed them around.

"How soon will you be finishing up?" asked Pitt, moving off the subject of brew.

Quinn turned and stared at the portable crane that was preparing to lift the engine from the ancient aircraft onto the truck. "Another three or four hours before she's snugly tied down and we're on our way back to Algiers."

Pitt pulled the logbook from his shirt pocket and held it out to Quinn. "Kitty's pilot log. She used it to record her final flight and tragic aftermath. I borrowed it for reference on something she found during her ordeal. I hope Kitty wouldn't have minded."

"I'm sure she didn't mind at all," said Quinn, nodding down at the wooden coffin draped in the Australian flag with the cross of St. George and stars of the Southern Cross. "My countrymen are indebted to you and Mr. Giordino for clearing up the mystery of her disappearance so we could bring her home."

"She's been gone too long," said Perlmutter softly.

"Yes," Quinn said with a touch of reverence to his rasping voice. "That she has."

Much to Perlmutter's delight, Quinn insisted on supplying their helicopter with ten bottles of beer before they said their farewells. To a man, the Aussies climbed the steep bank to express their thanks and heartily shake Pitt and Giordino's hands. After he lifted off the helicopter into the air, Pitt circled the wreckage once more in tribute before turning and following Kitty's footsteps toward the legendary ship in the desert.

Flying in a straight line over the meandering ravine that had taken Kitty days of painful struggle to limp through, the jet helicopter reached the ancient riverbed in less than twelve minutes. What had once been a flowing river surrounded by a green belt was now little more than a wide barren wash surrounded by unstable sand.

"The Oued Zarit," announced Perlmutter. "Hard to believe it was a thriving waterway."

"Oued Zarit," Pitt repeated. "That's what the old American prospector called it. He claimed it began to go dry about a hundred and thirty years ago."

"He was right. I did some research on old French surveys of the area. There once was a port near here where caravans traded with merchants who ran a fleet of boats. No telling where it stood now. It was covered over by sand not long after the unending drought began and the water sank into the sand."

"So the theory is the Texas steamed up the river and became landlocked when the river ran dry," said Giordino.

"Not a theory. I found a deathbed statement in the archives from a crewman by the name of Beecher. He swore he was the only survivor of the Texas' crew, and gave a detailed description of the ship's final voyage across the Atlantic and up the tributary of the Niger where it became stranded."

"How can you be sure it wasn't the ravings of a dying man?" asked Giordino.

"His story was too incredibly detailed not to believe," Perlmutter said firmly.

Pitt dropped the helicopter's speed as he stared down at the dry wash. "The prospector also said the Texas was carrying gold from the dying Confederacy's treasury."

Perlmutter nodded. "Beecher mentioned gold. He also gave me a tantalizing clue that led to Secretary of War Edwin Stanton's secret and still unopened papers—"

"I think we have something," interrupted Giordino, pointing down through the windshield. "Off to the right. A large dune that spills out from the west bank."

"The one with a rock embedded on top?" asked Perlmutter, his voice rising in excitement.

"You got it."

"Break out the Schonstedt gradiometer Julien brought from Washington," Pitt ordered Giordino. "As soon as you set it up, I'll make a pass over the dune."

Giordino quickly unpacked the iron-detecting instrument, checked the battery connections, and set the sensitivity reading. "Ready to drop the sensor: "'

"Okay, approaching the dune at an airspeed of 10 knots," replied Pitt.

Giordino lowered the sensor on a cable leading back to the gradiometer until it dangled 10 meters beneath the helicopter's belly. Then he and Perlmutter intently studied the needle on the frequency dial. As the helicopter moved slowly over the dune, the needle wavered and the sound amplifier began to buzz. Suddenly the needle pegged and then shot to the other side of the dial as the sensor passed over the magnetic polarity from positive to negative. In unison the buzz rose to a shrill shriek:

"She's off the scale," Giordino shouted jubilantly. "We've got a king-size iron mass down there."

"Your reading could be coming from that circular brown rock on the dune," cautioned Perlmutter. "The desert around here is teeming with iron ore."

"Not a brown rock!" Pitt whooped. "You're looking at the top of a smokestack coated with rust:"

As Pitt hovered over the mound, no one found the right words to say. Until now, deep down, they had wondered if she existed at all. But there was no uncertainty in their minds now.

The Texas had surely been rediscovered.

The first flush of exhilaration and elation soon died when a survey of the mound showed that with the exception of 2 meters of smokestack, the entire ship was covered by sand. It would take days for them to shovel through the avalanching sand to reach inside.

"The dune has marched over the casemate since Kitty was here sixty-five years ago," muttered Perlmutter. "The wreck is buried too deep for us to penetrate. Nothing but heavy excavation equipment can clear an entrance."

"I believe there is a way," said Pitt.

Perlmutter looked at the enormous size of the mound and shook his head. "Looks hopeless to me."

"A dredge," snapped Giordino as if alight clicked on inside his head. "The method salvagers use to remove silt from a wreck."

"You read my mind," Pitt laughed. "Instead of a highpressure hose to excavate, we hang the chopper overhead and let the air surge from the rotors blow away the sand."

"Sounds rather half-assed to me," grumbled Perlmutter thoughtfully. "You won't be able to exert enough downward thrust to move much sand without lifting us into the sky."

"The slopes of the dune rise sharply to a peak," Pitt pointed out. "If we can level the summit by 3 meters, she should see the top of the ironclad's casemate."

Giordino shrugged. "Can't lose by trying."

"My sentiments also."

Pitt hung the helicopter over the mound and applied only enough power to keep the craft in a static hover. The force of the air from the rotor whipped up the sand below in a frenzied swirl. Ten, twenty minutes, he held the chopper stable, fighting the buffeting from the down draft. He could see nothing; the induced sandstorm hid all sight of the dune.

"How much longer?" asked Giordino. "The grit must be playing hell with the turbines."

"I'll blow the engines to scrap if that's what it takes," Pitt answered with bulldog determination.

Perlmutter began to see visions of his ample body becoming a ten-day feast for the local buzzards. He felt nothing but pessimism about Pitt and Giordino's mad brainstorm, but he sat quietly without interfering.

After thirty minutes, Pitt finally hauled the helicopter into the sky and off to one side of the mound until the cloud of sand and dust settled to the ground. Every eye peered downward. The minutes that followed seemed endless.

Then Perlmutter let out a bellow that drowned out the whine of the turbines.

"She's clear!"

Pitt was seated on the side of the cabin opposite the dune. "What do you see?" he yelled back.

"Iron plates and rivets of what looks like the pilothouse."

Pitt shoved the chopper to a higher altitude so he wouldn't disturb more sand. The cloud had finally drifted away and settled, exposing the ironclad's pilothouse and about 2 square meters of deck over the casemate. It seemed, so unnatural for a ship to be lying under a desert, it materialized like a giant sand monster out of a science fiction movie.

Less than ten minutes later, after Pitt landed the helicopter, and he and Giordino heaved a laboring Perlmutter up the sides of the dune, they found themselves standing on the Texas. The pilothouse rose clear, and they half expected to find eyes peering back at them through the observation slits.

There was only a light coating of rust on the thick iron that shielded the wood of the casemate. Gouges and dents from the Union navy's guns were still evident on the armor.

The entry hatch on the rear of the small structure was frozen shut, but it was no match for Pitt's wiry strength, Giordino's thick muscles, and Perlmutter's weight as it squeaked in protest at being forced open. They stared at the ladder that dropped into the darkness, then stared at each other.

"I think the honor should go to you, Dirk. You put us here."

Giordino removed a backpack slung over his shoulders and passed out maximum optic flashlights that could illuminate a basketball court. The interior beckoned, and Pitt licked on his light and stepped down the ladder.

The sand that had sifted through the eye slits covered the deck almost to the tops of Pitt's hiking boots. The wheel stood frozen in time as if patiently waiting for a ghostly helmsman. The only other objects he could see were a set of speaking tubes and a high stool lying on its side in a sand-filled corner. Pitt hesitated at the open hatch leading down to the gun deck for a moment, inhaled deeply, and dropped into the darkness below.

The instant his feet touched the wooden deck he crouched and turned completely in a circle, beaming his light into every corner of the immense enclosure. The great 100-pound Blakely guns and the two 9-inch, 64-pounders sat half immersed in sand that had flowed past the shutters of their open gun-ports. He walked over and stood beside one of the Blakelys, still solidly mounted on its huge wooden carriage. He had seen old Mathew Brady photographs of Civil War naval cannon, but had never conceived their monumental size. He could only marvel at the strength of the men who once manned them.

The atmosphere of the gun deck was oppressive but surprisingly cool. It was also eerily empty but for the guns. No fire buckets, no ramrods or shot and shell. Nothing littered the floor. It was as though it had been stripped clean for a dockyard refit. Pitt turned as Perlmutter awkwardly climbed down the ladder followed by Giordino.

"How odd," said Perlmutter, gazing around. "Are my eyes failing or is this deck as bare as a mausoleum?"

Pitt smiled. "Your eyes are fine."

"You'd think the crew might have given it a lived-in look," Giordino mused.

"The men on this deck and these guns battered half the Union fleet," exclaimed Perlmutter. "Many of them died in here. It doesn't figure there isn't a scrap of their existence."

"Kitty Mannock mentioned seeing bodies," Giordino reminded him.

"They must be below," said Pitt. He aimed his light beam at a stairwell leading down into the ship's hull. "I suggest we begin with the crew's quarters forward and then work back through the engine room toward the stem and the officers' quarters."

Giordino nodded. "Sounds good."

So they moved on, numbed by an awe of the unknown. The knowledge that she was the only completely intact ironclad from the Civil War with remains of her crew still on board only deepened an almost superstitious reverence. Pitt felt as if he was walking through a haunted house.

They slowly moved into the crew's quarters and came to an abrupt halt. The compartment was a tomb of the dead. There were over fifty of them frozen in their final posture when overtaken by death. Most had died while lying in their bunks. Although there was water to drink from the dwindling flow of the river, the shrunken stomachs of their mummified corpses told of the disease and starvation after their food ran out. A few were sitting slumped around a mess table, some crumpled on the deck. Much of their clothing was stripped off their bodies. No sign of their shoes or a trace of their sea chests or personal belongings could be seen.

"They've been picked clean," murmured Giordino.

"The Tuaregs," Perlmutter concluded wearily. "Beecher said that desert bandits, as he called them, had attacked the ship."

"They must have had a death wish to attack an armored ship with old muskets and spears," said Giordino.

"They were after the gold. Beecher said the Captain used the Confederate treasury gold to buy food from the desert tribes. Once the word spread, the Tuaregs probably made a couple of futile assaults against the ship before getting smart and laying siege by cutting off all food and supplies. Then they waited until the crew starved or died off from typhoid and malaria. When all signs of resistance disappeared, the Tuaregs simply walked on board and pillaged the ship of the gold and everything else they could carry. After years of scrounging by every nomad tribe that wandered by, nothing is left but the crew's bodies and the cannon that were too huge to haul away:"

"So we can forget about the gold," said Pitt thoughtfully. "It's long gone."

Perlmutter nodded. "We won't get rich this day."

There was no temptation to linger in the compartment of the dead. They moved aft and into the engine room. Coal was still heaped in the bins and shovels hung beside the scuttles. Without moisture to cause corrosion, the brass on gauges and fittings still had a faint gleam under the bright glare of the max optic flashlights. But for the dust, the engines and boilers looked to be in first-class operating condition.

One of their light beams caught the figure of a man sitting hunched over a small desk. A yellowed paper lay under one hand next to an inkwell that had spilled when he had slumped into death.

Pitt gently removed the paper and read it under his flashlight.

I have done my duty to the last of my strength. I leave my sweet, faithful engines in prime condition. They beautifully carried us across the ocean without missing a stroke and are as strong as the day they were installed in Richmond. I bequeath them to the next engineer to move this good ship against the hated Yankees. God, save the Confederacy.

"There sits a dedicated man," said Pitt approvingly.

"They don't make them like him today," Perlmutter agreed.

Leaving Chief Engineer O'Hare, Pitt led the way past the big twin engines and boilers. A passageway led into the officers' quarters and mess, where they found four more undressed bodies, all reposed on bunks in their individual cabins. Pitt gave them little more than a passing glance before stopping at a mahogany door mounted in the aft bulkhead.

"The Captain's cabin," he said definitely.

Perlmutter nodded. "Commander Mason Tombs. From what I read of the Texas' audacious fight from Richmond to the Atlantic, Tombs was one tough customer."

Pitt brushed off a tinge of fear, turned the knob, and pushed open the door. Suddenly, Perlmutter reached out and clutched Pitt's arm.

"Wait!"

Pitt looked at Perlmutter, puzzled. "Why? What are you afraid of?"

"I suspect we may find something that should remain unseen."

"Can't be worse than what we've already laid eyes on," Giordino argued.

"What are you holding back, Julien?" Pitt demanded.

"I–I didn't tell you what I found in Edwin Stanton's secret papers."

"Tell me later," Pitt muttered impatiently. He turned from Perlmutter, shined his light through the doorway, and stepped inside.

The cabin would have seemed small and cramped by most contemporary warship standards, but ironclads were not built for long weeks at sea. During the fighting along the rivers and inlets of the Confederacy, they were seldom away from dock for more than two days at a time.

As with the other quarters, all objects and furniture that were not attached to the ship were gone. The Tuaregs, having no skills for handling tools and wrenches, had ignored any fixtures that were built in. The Captain's cabin still retained bookshelves and a mounted but broken barometer. But for some inexplicable reason, as with the stool in the pilothouse, the Tuaregs had left behind a rocking chair.

Pitt's light revealed two bodies, one reposed in a bunk, the other sitting as though slumbering in the rocking chair. The corpse in the bunk was lying on its side against the bulkhead naked, the position the Tuaregs had crudely shoved it in when stripping away the clothes and bed covers and mattress. A thicket of red hair still covered the head and face.

Giordino joined Pitt and closely studied the figure in the chair. Under the bright glare of the max optic light, the skin reflected a dark brown shade with the same textured leather look of Kitty Mannock's body. It had also mummified from the dry heat of the outside desert. The body was still clothed in old-fashioned one-piece underwear.

Even in the sitting position it was evident the man had been quite tall. His face was bearded and exceedingly gaunt with very prominent ears. The eyes were closed as if he had simply drifted off to sleep, the brows thick and strangely short, stopped abruptly as if clipped at the outer edge of the eye. The hair and beard were jet black with only a sprinkling of gray.

"This guy is the spitting image of Lincoln," Giordino remarked conversationally.

"That is Abraham Lincoln," came Perlmutter's subdued voice from the doorway. He slowly sank to the deck, his back against the bulkhead, like a whale settling to the seabed. His eyes were locked on the corpse in the rocking chair as if hypnotically fixed.

Pitt stared at Perlmutter with concern and obvious skepticism. "For a renowned historian, you've taken a wrong turn, haven't you?"

Giordino knelt beside Perlmutter and offered him a drink from a water bottle. "The heat must be getting to you, big buddy."

Perlmutter waved away the water. "God oh God, I couldn't bring myself to believe it. But Lincoln's Secretary of War, Edwin McMasters Stanton, did reveal the truth in his secret papers."

"What truth?" asked Pitt, curious.

He hesitated, and then his voice came almost in a whisper. "Lincoln was not shot by John Wilkes Booth at Ford's Theater. That is him sitting in that rocking chair."

Pitt stared at Perlmutter, incapable of absorbing the words. "Lincoln's assassination was one of the most widely recorded events in American history. There were over a hundred witnesses in the theater. How can you say it didn't happen?"

Perlmutter gave a slight shrug of his shoulders. "The event occurred as reported, only it was a staged deception planned and carried out by Stanton using a near look-alike actor made up to appear as Lincoln. Two days before the fake assassination, the real Lincoln was captured by the Confederates and sneaked through Union lines to Richmond where he was held hostage. This part of the story is backed up by another deathbed statement by a captain in the Confederate cavalry who led the capture."

Pitt looked thoughtfully at Giordino, then back at Perlmutter. "This southern cavalry captain, his name by chance was Neville Brown."

Perlmutter's jaw dropped. "How did you know?"

"We ran into an old American prospector who was looking for the Texas and her gold. He told us about Brown's story."

Giordino looked as if he was waking from a bad dream. "We thought it was a fairy tale."

"Believe you me," said Perlmutter, unable to keep his eyes from the corpse, "it's no fairy tale. The abduction plot was hatched by an aide of Confederate President Jefferson Davis in an effort to save what was left of the South. With Grant tightening the noose around Richmond and Sherman marching north to strike General Lee's army of Virginia from the rear, the war was lost and everyone knew it. The hatred for the secessionist states in Congress was no secret. Davis and his government were certain the North would exact a terrible tribute when the Confederacy was totally defeated. The aide, whose name has been forgotten, came up with the wild proposal that by capturing Lincoln and holding him as a hostage, the South could use him as leverage to strike an advantageous deal for surrender terms."

"Actually not a bad idea," said Giordino, settling on the deck to take a load off his feet.

"Except for old nasty Edwin Stanton. He queered the deal."

"He refused to be blackmailed," said Pitt.

"That and other reasons," Perlmutter nodded. "To Lincoln's credit, he insisted Stanton join his cabinet as Secretary of War. He believed Stanton was the best man for the job despite the fact the man disliked Lincoln intensely, even sneering at him as the `original gorilla.' Stanton saw the President's capture as an opportunity rather than a disaster."

"How was Lincoln abducted?" asked Pitt.

"The President was known to take a daily carriage ride through the countryside surrounding Washington most every day. A Confederate cavalry troop, dressed in Union cavalry uniforms, and led by Captain Brown, overwhelmed Lincoln's escort during one of the outings and smuggled him across the Potomac River and into Confederate-held territory."

Pitt was having trouble putting the pieces together. An historical event he had fervently believed as gospel was now being revealed as a fraud, and it took all his willpower to keep an open mind. "What was Stanton's immediate reaction to Lincoln's abduction?" he asked.

"Unfortunately for Lincoln, Stanton was the first to be notified by survivors of Lincoln's bodyguards. He foresaw the panic and outrage if the country learned their President had been captured by the enemy. He quickly covered the disaster with a cloak of secrecy and created a cover story. Going so far as to tell Mary Todd Lincoln that her husband, was on a secret mission to General Grant's headquarters and wouldn't return for several days."

"Hard to believe there wasn't a leak," said Giordino skeptically.

"Stanton was the most feared man in Washington. If he swore you to secrecy, you'd die silent or he'd make sure you did."

"Didn't the situation become exposed when Davis sent word of Lincoln's imprisonment and his demands for favorable surrender terms?"

"Stanton was shrewd. He guessed the Confederate plot a few hours after Lincoln was captured. He alerted the Union general in command of Washington's defenses, and when Davis' courier crossed the battle lines under a flag of truce, he was taken immediately to Stanton. Neither Vice-President Johnson, Secretary of State William Henry Seward, nor any other members of Lincoln's cabinet were aware of what was happening. Stanton secretly replied to President Davis' terms and soundly rejected any negotiation, suggesting that the Confederacy could do everyone a favor by drowning Lincoln in the James River.

"Davis was stunned when he received Stanton's reply. You can imagine his dilemma. Here he sits with the Confederacy going up in flames around him. He has the leader of the entire Union in captivity. A high-ranking member of the United States government tells him they don't care a damn, and as far as they're concerned they can keep Lincoln. Davis suddenly began to see the very real possibility he might be hanged by the victorious Yankees. With his great plan to save the South from going down the sewer, and not about to have Lincoln's death on his hands, he temporarily got rid of his nemesis by ordering him put on board the Texas as a prisoner. Davis hoped the ship would successfully run the Union navy blockade, save the treasury gold, and keep Lincoln out of Union hands as a pawn for future negotiations when calmer heads than Stanton prevailed. Unfortunately, nothing went right."

"Stanton stages the assassination and the Texas vanishes with all hands and is presumed lost," Pitt concluded.

"Yes," Perlmutter acknowledged. "Imprisoned after the war for two years, Jefferson Davis never spoke of Lincoln's capture for fear of Union anger and retaliation against a South struggling to rise to its feet again."

"How did Stanton pull off the assassination?" asked Giordino.

"There is no stranger story in American history," Perlmutter answered, "than the plot that supposedly took Lincoln's life. The astounding reality is that Stanton hired John Wilkes Booth to direct and act in the hoax. Booth knew an actor who was close to Lincoln's height and thin body. Stanton took General Grant into his confidence and together they gave out the story of their meeting with Lincoln that afternoon, and Grant's turning down the invitation to go to Ford's Theater. Stanton's agents also drugged Mary Todd Lincoln so that by the time the fake Lincoln appeared to take her to Ford's Theater she was too muddled to see through the substitute who was made up to look like her real husband.

"At the theater the actor acknowledged the standing applause from the audience who were just far enough away from the presidential box to not detect the bogus President. Booth did his act, actually shooting the unsuspecting actor in the back of the head before leaping to the stage. Then the poor dupe was carried across the street with a handkerchief over his face to deceive onlookers and then died in a scene directed by Stanton himself."

"But there were witnesses at the deathbed," protested Pitt. "Army doctors, members of his cabinet, and Lincoln's aides."

"The doctors were friends and agents of Stanton," Perlmutter said wearily. "We'll never be sure how the others were deceived. Stanton does not say."

"And the conspiracy to kill Vice-President Johnson and Secretary of State Seward? Was that part of Stanton's plan?"

"With them out of the way, he would have been next in line as President. But the men Booth hired bungled the job. Even so, Stanton acted somewhat like a dictator the first few weeks after Johnson took over as President. He conducted the investigation, the arrest of the conspirators, and directed a lightning-fast trial and hanging. He also spread the word across the nation that Lincoln had been murdered by agents of Jefferson. Davis as a last desperate gamble of the Confederate war effort."

"Then Stanton had Booth killed to keep him from talking as well," Pitt surmised.

Perlmutter shook his head. "Another man was shot in the barn that burned. The autopsy and identification were cover-ups. Booth got away and lived for a number of years, eventually committing suicide in Enid, Oklahoma in 1903."

"I read somewhere that Stanton burned Booth's diary," said Pitt.

"That's true," replied Perlmutter. "The damage was done. Stanton had inflamed public opinion against the beaten Confederacy. Lincoln's plans to help the South back on its feet were buried with his double in a grave in Springfield, Illinois."

"This mummy in the rocking chair," whispered Giordino, staring in rigid awe, "sitting here in the remains of a Confederate warship covered by a sand dune in the middle of the Sahara Desert is truly Abraham Lincoln?"

"I'm positive of it," answered Perlmutter. "An anatomic examination will prove his identity without doubt. In fact, if you'll recall, grave robbers broke into his tomb but were caught before they could steal the body. What was not revealed but quickly concealed was that the officials who prepared the body for reinterment discovered they had a substitute on their hands. Word came down from Washington ordering them to keep quiet and to fix it so the grave could never be opened again. A hundred tons of concrete were poured over the coffins of Lincoln and his son Tad to prevent future ghouls from desecrating the grave, so they said. But the real truth was to bury all evidence of the crime."

"You realize what this means," Pitt asked Perlmutter, "don't you?"

"Do I realize what what means?" he muttered dumbly.

"We are about to alter the past," Pitt explained. "Once we announce what we've found here, the most tragic event in United States history will be irrevocably rewritten."

Perlmutter stared at Pitt in near horror. "You don't know what you're saying. Abraham Lincoln is revered as a saint as well as a humble man in American folklore, history books, poems, and novels. The assassination made him a martyr to be revered through the centuries. If we expose Stanton's fake assassination of him, his image will be shattered, and Americans will be the poorer for it."

Pitt looked very, very tired, but his face was set and his eyes bright and alive. "No man was admired more for his honesty than Abraham Lincoln. His moral principles and compassion were second to no man. To have died under such deceitful and unconscionable circumstances was against everything he stood for. His remains deserve an honest burial. I have to believe he would have wanted the future generations of the people he served so faithfully to know the truth."

"I'm with you," Giordino affirmed steadily. "I'll be honored to stand next to you when the curtain goes up."

"There will be a negative uproar," Perlmutter gasped as if a pair of hands were around his windpipe. "Good God, Dirk, can't you see? This is a subject best left unknown. The nation must never know."

"Spoken like an arrogant politician or bureaucrat who plays God by denying the public the truth under the misguided ploy of national security, not to mention the crap about it not being in the national interest."

"So you're going to do it," Perlmutter said in a stricken voice. "You're really going to cause a national upheaval in the name of truth."

"Like the men and women in Congress and the White House, Julien, you underestimate the American public. They will take the disclosure in stride, and Lincoln's image will shine brighter than ever. Sorry, my friend, I won't be talked out of going through with it."

Perlmutter saw it was no use. He clasped his hands on his global stomach and sighed. "All right, we'll rewrite the last chapter of the Civil War and stand in front of a firing squad together."

Pitt stood over the grotesque figure, studied the ungainly long arms and legs, the serene, weary face. When he spoke, it was in a soft, barely audible voice.

"After sitting cooped up in here for a hundred and thirty years, I think it's time old Honest Abe came home."

The news of Lincoln's discovery and the Stanton hoax electrified the world as the body was reverently removed from the ironclad and flown back to Washington. In every school of the country, children memorized and recited the Gettysburg Address as their grandparents had.

The nation's capital pulled out all stops on celebrations and ceremonies. Five living Presidents stood in the Capitol rotunda and paid homage at the open casket of their long-dead predecessor. The speeches seemingly went on forever, the politicians climbing over each other to quote Lincoln if not Carl Sandburg.

The sixteenth President's mortal remains would not go to the cemetery in Springfield. By presidential order a tomb was cut into the floor of his memorial immediately below his famous white marble statue. No one, not even the congressional representatives from Illinois, considered protesting the interment.

A holiday was declared and millions of people across the country watched the festivities in Washington on television. They sat transfixed in awe at actually seeing the face of the man who had led the country through its most difficult times.

Little else was shown from morning until night as regular network programming was temporarily rescheduled. News program anchor persons had a field day describing the event, while other newsworthy stories fell by the wayside.

Congressional leaders, in a rare display of cooperation, voted funds to salvage the Texas and transport her from Mali to the Washington Mall, where she would be preserved clay. Her crew was buried in the Confederate Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia, with great pomp and a band playing Dixie.

Kitty Mannock and her plane returned to Australia where she was glorified and given a riotous down-under welcome. She was entombed in the Military Museum in Canberra. Her faithful Fairchild aircraft, after restoration, was to sit beside Sir Charles Kingsford-Smith's famous long-distance aircraft, the Southern Cross.

Except for a few photographers and two reporters, the ceremony honoring the contributions of Hala Kamil and Admiral Sandecker for their efforts in helping halt the spread of the red tides and preventing the projected extinction of life almost went unnoticed. The President, between speeches, presented them with medals of honor awarded by a special act of Congress. Afterward, Hala returned to New York and the United Nations, where a special session was called to pay her homage. She finally succumbed to emotion during the longest-standing ovation ever given by the General Assembly.

Sandecker quietly went back to his NUMA office, worked out in his private gym, and began planning a new undersea project as if every day was the same.

Though they would not win, Dr. Darcy Chapman and Rudi Gunn were named as candidates for a joint Nobel Prize. They ignored the hoopla and returned together to the South Atlantic to analyze the effects of the mammoth red tide on the sea life. Dr. Frank Hopper joined them after being smuggled from the hospital and carried on board the research ship. He swore he'd recover faster back in the saddle, studying the toxicity of the red tides.

Hiram Yaeger received a fat bonus from NUMA and an extra ten-day paid vacation. He took his family to Disney World. While they enjoyed the attractions, he attended a seminar on archival computer systems.

General Hugo Bock, after seeing that the survivors and relatives of the dead from the now legendary battle of Fort Foureau received commendation medals and generous financial benefits, decided to resign from the UN Tactical Team at the height of his reputation. He retired to a small village in the Bavarian Alps.

As Pitt predicted, Colonel Levant was promoted to General, presented with a United Nations peace-keeping medal, and was named to succeed General Bock,

After recovering from his wounds at his family manor in Cornwall, Captain Pembroke-Smythe was promoted to Major and returned to his former regiment. He was received by the Queen, who presented him with the Distinguished Service Order (DSO). He is currently posted with a special commando unit.

St. Julien Perlmutter, happy that he was wrong at seeing the American public take the reappearance of their most esteemed President and the belated expose of Edwin Stanton's treason in stride, was feted by numerous historic organizations and honored with enough awards to fill one wall of his house.

Al Giordino tracked down the cute piano player he met on Yves Massarde's houseboat in the Niger. Fortunately, she was unmarried and for some inexplicable reason, at least to Pitt, she took a liking to Giordino and accepted his invitation to go on a diving trip to the Red Sea.

As for Dirk Pitt and Eva Rojas…

June marked the height of the tourist season on the Monterey Peninsula. They drove their cars and recreational vehicles bumper-to-bumper over the scenic Seventeen-Mite Drive between Monterey and Carmel. Along Cannery Row, the shoppers were shoulder-to-shoulder as they alternated between buying sprees and dining in the picturesque seafood restaurants overlooking the water.

They came to play golf at Pebble Beach, see Big Sur, and take pictures of sunsets off Point Lobos. They wandered through the wineries, stared at the ancient cypress trees, and strolled along the beaches, thrilling to the sights of gliding pelicans, the barking of the seals, and the crashing waves.

Eva's mother and father were becoming immune to their spectacular surroundings after having lived in the same cottage-style house in Pacific Grove for over thirty-two years. They often took for granted their good fortune at living in such a beautiful part of the California coast. But the blinders always came off when Eva came home. She never failed to see the peninsula through the eyes of a teenager, as if viewing her very own car for the first time.

Whenever she came home she dragged her parents out of their comfortable routine to enjoy the simple beauties of their community. But this trip was a different story. She was in no condition to push them into a bike ride or a swim in the brisk waters rolling in from the Pacific. Nor did she feel in the mood to do anything but mope around the house.

Two days out of the hospital, Eva was confined to a wheelchair, recovering from her injuries suffered at Fort Foureau. The wasted body, drained by her ordeal in the mines at Tebezza, had been rejuvenated by hefty helpings of healthy food that had added an inch on her slim waistline with the addition of too many calories, a condition exercise could not cure until her fractures knitted and the casts came off.

Her body was slowly mending, but her mind was sick from not hearing a word from Pitt. Since she had been airlifted from the ruins of the old Foreign Legion fort to Mauritania, and from there to a hospital in San Francisco, it was as though he had fallen into deep space. A phone call to Admiral Sandecker had only assured her that Pitt was still in the Sahara and had not returned to Washington with Giordino.

"Why don't you come golfing with me this morning?" her father asked her. "Do you good to get out of the house."

She looked up into his twinkling gray eyes and smiled at the way his gray hair never stayed combed. "I don't think I'm in shape to hit the ball," she grinned.

"I thought you might like to ride in the cart with me."

She thought it over for a while, and then nodded. "Why not?" She held up her good arm and wiggled the toes on her right foot. "But only if I get to drive."

Her mother fussed over her as she helped load Eva into the family Chrysler. "Now you see she doesn't hurt herself," she admonished Eva's father.

"I promise to bring her back in the same condition I found her," he joked.

Mr. Rojas teed off on the fourth hole of the Pacific Grove Municipal Golf Course along fairways that stretched around the Point Pinos Lighthouse. He watched his ball drop into a sandtrap, shook his head, and dropped the club in its bag.

"Not enough muscle," he muttered in frustration.

Eva sat behind the wheel of the cart and gestured to a bench perched on a lookout over the sea. "Would you mind, Dad, if I sat out the next five holes. It's such a beautiful day, 'd just like to sit and look at the ocean."

"Why sure, honey. I'll pick you up on my way back to the clubhouse."

After he helped her settle as comfortably as possible on the bench, he waved and drove the cart on down the fairway toward the green with three of his golfing buddies following in another cart.

There was a light mist hanging just over the water, but she could see the sweeping shore of the bay as it curved into the town of Monterey and then swept in a near straight line northward. The sea was calm and the waves moved like burrowing animals under the great fields of kelp. She inhaled the air, pungent with drying seaweed draped on the rocky shore, and watched a sea otter's antics as it cavorted around the kelp.

Eva looked up suddenly as a squawking sea gull glided overhead. She slowly turned her head to follow its flight and suddenly found her eyes locked on a man standing slightly to the side and behind the bench.

"You and I and the Bay of Monterey," he said softly.

Pitt stood smiling in delight and immense affection as Eva stared at him for a long moment in uncomprehending joy and disbelief. Then he was beside her and she was in his arms.

"Oh Dirk, Dirk! I wasn't sure you'd come. I thought we might be finished—"

She broke off as he kissed her and looked down at the gleaming Dresden blue eyes now misting with tears that crept down her reddened cheeks.

"I should have contacted you," he said. "My life has been chaos until two days ago."

"You're forgiven," she said joyously. "But how in the world did you know I was here?"

"Your mother. Nice lady. She sent me here. I rented a golf cart and drove around the course until I saw this poor little lonely waif with a parcel of broken bones staring sadly at the sea."

"You're a nut," she said happily, kissing him again.

He slid his arms under Eva and carefully picked her up. "I wish we had time to watch the waves roll in, but we have to be on our way. My God, but all this plaster makes you heavy."

"Why are we rushing off?"

"We have to pack your things and catch a plane," he answered as he lowered her into the golf cart.

"Plane, a plane to where?"

"A little fishing village on the west coast of Mexico."

"You're taking me to Mexico?" she smiled through the tears.

"To board a boat I've chartered."

"For a cruise?"

"Sort of," he explained with a grin. "We're going to sail to a place called Clipperton Island and look for treasure."

She said to Pitt as he drove the cart into the parking lot by the clubhouse, "I think you are the most sneaky, beguiling, and crafty man I've ever known—" She broke off as he stopped beside a strange-looking car with a bright fuchsia paint job. "What is this?" she asked in amazement.

"An automobile."

"I can see that, but what kind?"

"An Avions Voisin, a gift from my old pal, Zateb Kazim." She stared at him blankly. "You had this shipped over from Mali?"

"On an Air Force transport," he answered casually. "The President owed me big. So I made a simple request."

Where are you going to park it if we're catching a flight?" talked your mother into storing it in her garage until Pebble Beach Concours in August."

She shook her head in disbelief. "You're incorrigible."

Pitt held her face gently between his hands, smiled down her, her, and said, "That's why I'm so much fun."