Serpent

Gonzalez was dumbfounded. Soccer, for Godsakes. They were going to play a game of kickball for their lives! Gonzalez had played as a street youth and later in an organized amateur team, and he had not been bad at it. He was dreadfully out of, shape from the excesses of booze, drugs, and women. His swarthy body was still powerful, but he'd grown flabby around the gut and short of wind.

"You've played before?" he said out of the comer of his mouth.

A little," said the assassin. 'Forward."

"I was a goalie," the hovercraft operator said tentatively.

"We're playing for our lives," Gonzalez warned. "There will be no rules. Anything goes. Do you understand?"

Both men nodded.

The trio at the far end of the court awaited their move.

"I'll kick off," Gonzalez. said. His eyes focused entirely on the ball, he got a running start, brought his foot back, then swung it forward. The ball was heavier than he expected. Probably solid rubber. The kick sent a painful shock up his leg. He got the full power of his body behind the blow, but his aim was off, and the ball skittered along the wall and back into the court in front of their opponents.

The point man was on the ball like lightning, quickly moving it forward to halfcourt with short skillful steps. His teammates, flanked him on either side. The three men could have been triplets, all with the same bronze-hard bodies, the black hair cut in bowl-like bangs just above dark, uncaring eyes.

The ball handler saw Gonzalez loping in his direction and snapped the ball off to the man at his left. Gonzalez was unwavering. He had no interest in the ball; he wanted to maim. He had done the simple arithmetic in his head. Injure only one man, and his opponents would lose thirty percent of their team. He lowered his head and charged the man who had passed off the ball. His target coolly waited until Gonzalez was a hair's breadth away, then deftly sidestepped and stuck his foot out. Gonzalez tried to stop, couldn't, tripped over the extended leg, and slammed against the ground so hard it rattled his teeth.

Ignoring the pain in his cracked ribs, he scrambled to his feet and tried vainly to catch up with the fast-moving play. His teammate, the assassin, lunged in an unsuccessful attempt to steal the ball, but he jabbed his elbow into the ball handler's sternum, eliciting a satisfactory grunt of pain.

Gonzalez followed up, slamming into the man with a body block from behind. The player went forward onto his knees, which is where most men would have stayed, but he was up again in an instant, hurrying to run interference with the teammate, who was moving the ball toward the end zone. Gonzalez looked on in dismay.

So soon.

Three-on-one.

Only the hovercraft man stood in the way of a goal.

The ball handler saw his opponent, underestimated him, and decided to take the ball through instead of passing it off to the side for an easy kick goal. He was moving too fast to take a sharp turn without losing the ball, so he feinted with the eyes to his left but moved to his right.

The hovercraft man saw the ploy and moved forward with his forearm lifted His elbow drove into the man's jaw with the force of their combined speed and lifted him off the ground. There was a resounding crack as the ball handler's jaw broke, and he crumpled to the ground with blood gushing from his mouth. Gonzalez gasped for air with every breath he took, but his teammate's skillful move gave him new strength.

Gonzalez got the ball under his heel and kicked it between the two opponents who were double teaming him without a glance at their fallen comrade. With a hoarse yell of triumph he followed up on his kick and barreled into the pair like a bowling ball; intent on knocking them to either side, One man straight-armed Gonzalez and might have broken his neck if the palm hadn't been absorbed by the fleshy jowls. Gonzalez realized that the rule was no hands for moving the bail, not for defending it..

The assassin had the loose ball, but it was quickly stolen and was being moved in Gonzalez's direction. The player saw the hovercraft operator running in to stop him and chose to get past the slower Gonzalez. Again Gonzalez concentrated not on the ball but on the man, aiming his sharp toe at the man's groin..

The player sideslipped him, turning so the blow glanced off his leather padding, then moved the ball toward the end zone again. The assassin dashed in from the side, reached in with a swipe of his foot, and stole the ball away, then kicked it back to midcourt. Before anyone could stop him he scooped the ball up with his hands and tossed it toward the ring.

The shot might have been true, but just before the ball left his hand he was slammed between the shoulder blades, and his aim went off. The ball struck the top of the ring in a vertical rim shot and thudded back into the court.

Showing its partiality, the crowd roared its approval in the darkness.

It was a new game. Three-on-two. Gonzalez was huffing and puffing but tasting victory.

His opponents stared at them, their wide, high-cheek-boned faces as unemotional as granite sculptures. The sphere designated as fate rested between them. Gonzalez was tiring and knew he wouldn't last more than a few minutes at this pace.

"Get them!" he barked.

Newly honed into a team by desperation, the two men on the outside went directly for their opponents while Gonzalez charged up the middle to take control of the ball. Taking his time, he cocked his foot for a long slam shot that would send the ball high. The feel of his foot making contact with the ball was satisfyingly solid. The sphere lifted off with seemingly nothing to stop it. As the ball left the ground the man being guarded by the assassin side-slipped the attack and did a leaping ballet midair twist, turning so that his hip padding deflected the ball. It bounced off with a loud thud to the man's teammate, who fell to the ground.

Gonzalez thought the man had tripped, but the move was deliberate. The man picked up the ball in his ankles and, using his legs for leverage, looped the ball in the air. His teammate gave it a boost with his head, and the ball flew toward the ring. For an instant it looked as if there wasn't enough force to send the ball through the ring, but the aim was true, and the ball slipped through the opening then bounced onto the court again.

The game was over.

There was a wild burst of screaming from the spectators on top of the walls.

Then silence.

Gonzalez and his teammates stood there panting, sweat-drenched clothes caked with dirt and grass. The ball had been sent through the goal with practiced ease. They'd been toyed with, Gonzalez realized; their opponents had truly played like gods, and there was never a chance of winning.

The interior wall of the courtyard was carved with a series of pictures. Gonzalez had paid little attention to the artwork before, but now he followed the eyes of his opponents. The carvings showed a series of players facing each other over a ball marked with skulls. In one a victor held a knife in one hand arid a head in the other. A decapitated victim knelt before him. Blood flowed from his neck in the form of serpents.

The crowd closed in, forced him and his companions to their knees. His hair was grabbed roughly, exposing his neck, and Gonzalez knew his fate. Three sword-like knives flashed in the air, and three heads thumped to the ground almost simultaneously eyes blinking frenetically, as they rolled to a stop near the ball that had sealed their fate.

High in his treetop observation post Zavala whispered hoarsely, "My God!" He couldn't believe his eyes. Zavala had watched the ball game, more curious than concerned, actually enjoying, the play. Even at his distance he could see it was a rough game indeed. But it was only at the last minute that he saw how lethal it was for the losers: He scrambled down the tree and ran through the chaparral toward his car.

The room within the pyramid was immense, its stone block walls lined with glass display cases holding dozens of priceless jade masks. On one wall was a huge screen. Halcon watched as Gonzalez and his teammates played out the last bloody moments of their life, then turned to the scarfaced man who sat in a leather chair puffing on a cigar.

"Would you like to watch the instant replay, Guzman?"

"I'll catch it later on sports highlights if you don't mind, sir," the scarfaced man replied.

Halcon waved at a hidden sensor, and the screen went blank.

"Don't tell me you're losing your appreciation of the ball game."

"I'm not ready for cricket matches yet, sir," Guzman replied, taking a sip from his brandy glass. "But the games are far too short and lack skill and finesse."

Halcon plucked a cigar from a gold-embossed humidor of fine leather, lit up, and surveyed Guzman contemplatively through a curtain of smoke, unsurprised at the bluntness of the answer. He had known Guzman from the day he was born, when Halcon's s father appointed his trusted henchman as his son's official protector. The man was totally without guile, which is why he was so refreshing to a Machiavellian schemer like Halcon. He glanced at the screen. "You're right," he said with disgust. A brawl like that demeans the goals of the game, to instill fear and obedience in my followers while giving them a pride in their cultural past."

His hand went to his phone console. "Have the winning ball team line up for their awards where I can see them," he ordered with a curt command, then went over to a glass cabinet that held several rifles and handguns. He pulled a rifle with a telescopic scope off its rack and said, "Come, Guzman."

Halcon led the way through a door onto a darkened balcony that overlooked the complex. The winning ball players stood in a line on the bright green of the ball court. Halcon brought the rifle butt to his shoulder and squinted through the telescopic sight. The rifle cracked three times with Halcon smoothly working the bolt. When the echoes of gunfire faded three still figures lay on the grass.

"I know you prefer the Austrian rifle for your assignments," Halcon said, surveying the deadly result of his handiwork with satisfaction, "but I've always had good luck with this English L42A1."

Guzman gazed out at the ball court and curled his lips in a sardonic smile. "I suppose you've just terminated their contracts."

Halcon laughed, and they went back inside. He carefully replaced the rifle in its case and turned to the scarfaced man.

"My apologies, Guzman. I should have known better than to suggest that the man who single-handedly sank the most beautiful ocean liner in the world was losing his taste for blood sport. I must apologize, too, for keeping you in the dark about my plans for so long. I didn't ask you to my sanctum sanctorum tonight simply to watch that pitiful performance on the ball court. You will be the first .to hear the details of my grand vision for the future."

"I am honored, Don Halcon," Guzman said with a slight bow of his head.

Halcon lifted his brandy snifter to a huge gilt-framed portrait over the massive walkin fireplace. "To my distinguished ancestor, the founder of the Brotherhood, I dedicate my fondest dream."

The oil was done in the El Greco style, except in this painting the subject's long face and pointed ears were not exaggerated. The saturnine tonsured man in the simple dark brown monk's cassock had pale, almost translucent skin in stark contrast to the red voluptuary's lips. Diamond-hard pale gray eyes glittered as if reflecting flames. The background was in shadow except for a glow in one corner, where a struggling figure 'was being burned at the stake. Guzman first saw the painting. of Hernando Perez as a young initiate into the Brotherhood. Halcon's father had explained with an ironic grin that Perez had the artist put to death as a heretic because he wanted his portrait to be the man's last.

Guzman was the first and only non-Latin member of the order. He was the illegitimate son of a German Stuka pilot stationed in Spain and a Danish nursemaid in the Halcon household. The pilot died in the war, and the maid committed suicide. The old master raised the boy in his house and provided for his upbringing. His motive was not altruistic. He recognized that one unquestionable loyal follower was more valuable than a platoon bound only by self-interest. He gave him a new name and sent Guzman to the forest schools, where he learned to speak several languages, and to more specialized tutors who versed him in the martial arts and use of weapons. Guzman killed his first man during the saber duel that gave him his hideous scar. The old master's vision was justified. Guzman grew into a devoted aide whose natural skills for murder and mayhem proved to be a bonus.

"I remember your father saying that Perez was basically a simple man," Guzman said.

He was a fanatical nihilist. The good archdeacon formed the Brotherhood of the Sacred Sword of Truth because he felt Torquemada was too soft on heretics. Fortunately," he said with a smile, "his priestly vows didn't prevent him from enjoyments of the flesh with the female novitiates. Otherwise the Halcon family would not be here. Nor did his religious zeal stop him from stealing the property of those he condemned. His beliefs resulted in the Brotherhood's prime directive."

Guzman recited the directive like a recording machine: "The Brotherhood's prime duty is to erase all evidence of prior contact between the Old and the New World before Columbus."

"It is still our duty, but I am about to make some changes."

"Changes, sir?" The directive was holy writ in the Brotherhood.

"Don't be surprised. The Brotherhood has shifted direction before. We evolved from a religious group to a terrorist organization to protect the Spanish crown. We did our work well. The Brotherhood stamped out suggestions of pre-Columbian contact that questioned church dogma and hence the infallibility of royal decisions. By defending the belief that Columbus was the first European to travel to the New World, we kept other countries from claiming our riches. That's why doubting his deeds was a capital crime. As a youth I remember asking my father, `Why does that still matter? King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella are dead. Spain is no longer a great power.' "

"It is not the idea itself," Guzman murmured, "it is the purity of the idea."

"My father taught you well. He drummed the same thing into my head: Only by obeying our sacred vow to carry out our original mandate can we remain an elite priesthood united in a sacred cause. Under the Brotherhood, Columbus has achieved near sainthood. Even today modern scholars who deviate from the premise laid down by our medieval brothers risk their careers. The world wonders how Generalissimo Franco was able to remain in power to his deathbed. It was because of the alliances he had forged with the Brotherhood. The greatest threat to our fraternity was averted, thanks to you."

"Your father told me the object on board the ship could destroy the Brotherhood. But he also wanted to show his followers that he was willing to go to any lengths to preserve the raison d'etre of Los Hermanos. "

"Yes, he compared that event with Cortez burning his ships so his followers had no choice but to stay by his side."

"Your father was a wise man."

"Wise, yes, but his obsession with the past would have led to the demise of the Brotherhood. We were becoming nothing more than a Spanish Mafia when I took control. If the Brotherhood is to go on for another five hundred years, we must do as Cortez, burn our ships. We no longer work to protect a non-existent Spanish sovereignty but to lay the foundations for a new empire. Our inspiration will be Quetzalcoatl, the plumed serpent of the Maya, who will return in different forms to begin a new era. This time Quetzalcoatl will be reborn as a hawk."

"I don't understand."

"The reason we continue to conceal pre-Columbian contact is to give Hispanics greater pride in their own heritage. If claims were blasted in the media that all the great cultures of Meso-america came from Europe and China or Japan, it would greatly dim the accomplishments of our people and send them to the backwaters of history. Thanks to another lusty ancestor; I carry the blood of the Maya in my veins. I am not just a Spaniard but an Indio. I embody the heritage of two great civilizations. To suggest that my people's glorious culture was imported from foreign civilizations across the seas is repugnant. To imply that the Olmecs, the Mayans, and the Incas were little more than savage peoples who created architectural wonders, ingenious astronomical science, and beautiful art only after being influenced and taught by Asians and European intruders cannot be endured. The children of Latin America and their children must believe their ancestors achieved grandeur and greatness entirely from their own inventiveness. This is vital so that we can produce a resurgence of our former glory and take our place as the leading civilization of the twentieth century."

"That's a pretty tall order;"

"Hear me out," said Halcon. "In less time than you can imagine, the southern third of the United States will secede and become a Latin American nation."

"With all due respect, Don Halcon, America fought a civil war the last time someone suggested secession."

"The situation is completely different," Halcon declared flatly. "What I propose would happen if I lived or died. In fifty years non-Latins will be a minority in the U.S. It is already the case in the border states like New Mexico. I simply propose to accelerate the process by leading a mushrooming Hispanic movement for independence, with your help."

"I will do my best as always, Don Halcon."

"It will not be as hard as you might think." Halcon spun an antique globe on its axis. "See how different the world has become. The USSR. East Germany. Vanished." He placed his finger on the globe to stop its spinning. "It is not Halcon but the geographers who say Belgium one day will split into Flanders and Wallonia. Australia will become four separate countries. China will break up into a series of autonomous zones like Hong Kong. Italy will separate into the prosperous north and the poor south. Most important are what scientists are saying about North America."

He guided Guzman to a heavy mahogany table where there was a large map laid out and tapped a word covering the southwestern part of the United States.

"Angelica?" Guzman read.

"The blending of borders is inevitable, even the governments know North America must change. The blueprint is being drawn as we speak. When Canada loses Quebec the landlocked maritimes will join the U.S. Alaska merges with British Columbia and the northwestern states to create Pacifica, an entity whose common interest lies in the Pacific Rim. Mexico's northern state will join with the Southwest U.S. states." He swept his hand over the map. "I will unify those of Indian and Spanish heritage in a new wave that will sweep over territory once owned by Mexico."

"How can you go up against the armed might of a superpower?"

"The same way Cortez and a handful of followers defeated the great empire of the Aztecs with its millions, by creating alliances, pitting one group against another. The lines are already being drawn for a military confrontation. The border towns will be engulfed in blood. None will be spared. The greater the atrocities, the stronger the reaction, the faster it will spread. When the violence starts, the U.S. will beg me to end it. I will take my place as a leader, and we will instill the old values and the old ways." He chuckled. "One day the ball game will be as popular as bullfighting and the NFL. The bloody rebellion we fomented in Chiapas proved it can be done."

Guzman smiled. "That was as easy as tossing a match into a pail of gasoline."

"Exactly. The government reacted by massacring Indians. The Mayan Zapatista rebels showed the same ferocity as their ancestors in forcing concessions from the government In the United States, Californians are arming themselves against illegal crossings by immigrants that we are encouraging." .

"Ranchers want a bigger military role to fight the drug lords whose drug operations we are supervising along the border," Guzman said.

ill according to plan. The U.S. will lose patience. The violence will .unite the millions of Hispanics and Latinos throughout the Southwest. This is why we cannot afford to. have our glorious past rewritten. I have spent a fortune to buy territory, voting, and political influence. Halcon Industries is stretched to the limit. I built this new Chichen Itza to be the capital of the new country. But even the vast resources of our cartel can't equip an army to defend itself against a United States that might not recognize the trend of the future. This is why it is vital that we find. the vast riches that will enable us to carry out our plan. It will not succeed without the treasure."

"We are close to assembling all the pieces of the puzzle. Our agents have acquired documents from a number of sources in Spain and other countries."

"Has there been any outcry?"

"Not yet. The International Herald reported the unexplainable theft of Columbian memorabilia from auction houses and museums, but nobody has put it together yet."

"Not until now," Halcon said with a sly smile.

Guzman raised a frosty eyebrow.

"Our experts have analyzed the old documents," Halcon went on. "They have located the key that will open the secret that has baffled us for so long."

"Congratulations, Don Halcon. I'm most pleased:"

"You won't be when you hear the details. You see, the key we seek lies on the bottom of the ocean in the hold of the Andrea Doria. "

Guzman was stunned. "Not the artifact? How could that be? Your father ordered me to sink the ship."

As I said, my father was not infallible. He thought the artifact could destroy us."

"There's no mistake?"

"I've had the documents checked again and again. I have read them myself. No, my friend, I'm afraid there is no doubt. The artifact that my father once thought would end the Brotherhood will show the way to greater glory. I want you to fit out a salvage project right away. You will have all the resources of Halcon Industries at your command. This should be done as quickly as possible."

"I'll start work as soon as we are through here, sir:"

"Excellent. Are there any more archaeological expeditions that could derail our plans in the meantime?"

"There seems to be a freeze on activities around the world. Except for the shortlived NUMA project in Arizona, of course."

"My compliments for cauterizing that infection so quickly. How much of a threat is NUMA?"

"I wouldn't underestimate them. You saw what happened in Morocco."

"I agree: I think it best that you remain in charge of all operations where NUMA is concerned. Use all force necessary."

Guzman's cell phone rang, and he excused himself to listen.

"Yes. Immediately. Patch it into Don Halcon's closed circuit.

A moment later the television screen blinked into life and showed a wooded scene in black and pale green.

"What is it?" Halcon snapped impatiently.

"This was taken with a surveillance camera in the small rise on the north of the complex."

As they watched the colors were manipulated so that the face of a man running through the woods was enlarged to fill the screen.

Guzman swore under his breath.

"Do you know him?" Halcon asked.

"Yes. His name is Zavala, and he was with the NUMA team on the Arizona project."

"You're correct about NUMA not being a toothless dog." Halcon stared at the screen, thinking. "You said there was another man, the leader of the team.":

"Kurt Austin. He was running the project."

"They'll do for a start. Have him and this man. killed. Put the salvage plans off if you have to."

"As you say Don Halcon."

Halcon dismissed Guzman and went back to his map.

Guzman had no illusions about Halcon. He had known him since he was a boy hovering over him like a guardian angel. He thought Halcon's megalomaniacal scheme had more to do with his selfish pursuit of power and riches than restoring the lost grandeur of those he called his people. He was using those. of Indian blood toward his own ends and would enslave them much as his conquistador ancestors had. What he was proposing would mean civil war, certain bloodshed, possibly the death of thousands.

Guzman knew all this and didn't care. When the old master took the young blond boy under his wing, he created a being of undiminished loyalty. Killing highly placed NUMA operatives could be a big mistake, Guzman thought as he left the room. But he had become bored with his work in recent years, and what had become important was the game. The NUMA men would be worthy opponents. His mind began to work on an assassination plan.

The Yucatan, Mexico

34 THE YUCATAN HAMMOCK WAS NEVER meant for a man as long as Paul Trout. The handwoven fiber sling was designed with the diminutive Mayan stature in mind. When he wasn't swatting mosquitoes Trout was trying to find a place for the arms and legs that dangled to the dirt floor of the Indian hut. Dawn's first gray light was a welcome relief. He extricated himself from the sack, smoothed the wrinkles out of his suit as best he could, decided he could do nothing about his morning beard, and with a bemused glance at Morales, who lay snoring in another hammock, emerged into the morning mists. He trekked across a cornfield to the edge of woods where the helicopter lay on its side resembling a big dead dragonfly.

The pilot had tried to land in the field as the helicopter used up the fuel vapors powering its engine. The aircraft plunged into the canopy of foliage that was so deceivingly softlooking from above. The fuselage crashed through the treetops accompanied by a horrendous racket of snapping branches and the screech of tortured metal.

Trout had the wind knocked out of him. The pilot hit his head and was knocked cold. Morales was dazed. Ruiz, who'd been awakened by the racket, sat there in bewilderment with drool on his whiskered chin. Morales and Trout dragged the pilot out of the chopper, and he came around in the fresh air. Everyone had bruised knees and elbows, but no serious injuries were noted. Trout was glad Ruiz had survived; he might prove a valuable source of information in finding Gamay.

With his hands on his hips Trout surveyed the damage and shook his head in amazement. The trees had cushioned the copter's momentum. The runners had collapsed, and the main and tail rotors were history, but the body remained miraculously intact. Trout rapped on the mangled fuselage. There was a stirring inside. The pilot, who had chosen to spend the night in the helicopter crawled out, stretched his arms, and opened his mouth in a bellowlike yawn. The noise awoke Ruiz, who was on the ground with his hands cuffed to the useless runners. He blinked sleepily when he saw Trout. The mosquitoes didn't seem tohave bothered him. Smelling like a swine pen had its advantages, Trout guessed. He walked around the chopper and thought again that it was a miracle they'd got down in one piece. He had counted seven bullet holes in the helicopter including the lucky fuel tank shot.

Minutes after the JetRanger hit the ground a figure had approached from across the cornfield. An Indian farmer who lived nearby had seen the crash. He greeted them with a friendly grin from under his straw hat. He was unperturbed, as if strange men dropped out of the sky every day. The pilot did a quick damage assessment and found that the radio was useless. They followed the farmer to his hut, where his wife offered food and water and four young children eyed them warily from a distance.

Morales questioned the farmer at length, then turned to Trout.

."I asked him if there is a village or town near here with a telephone. He says a priest in a nearby village has a radio. He will go there to tell him about us and ask to send help."

"How far is the village?"

Morales shook his head. "It's a ways. He will spend the night and come back tomorrow."

Thinking of Gamay Trout chafed at the delay, but there was nothing he could do. The farmer's wife packed food in a cotton, sack, and her husband climbed onto a grizzled burro, waved goodbye to his family, and set off on his grand adventure. Trout watched the burro plod down a trail and prayed the unsteady animal would last the trip. The farmer's wife offered the use of her home and said she would stay the night with relatives. She was back by the time Trout and the pilot returned to the but to see if Morales was awake. Then she prepared tortillas and beans for everyone.

After breakfast Trout took some tortillas out to Ruiz. Morales unlocked the chiclero's cuffs but kept his legs bound. Ruiz noisily devoured the tortillas, and Morales gave him a cigarette. He puffed on it gratefully. The crash had wiped the cocky sneer off his face, and he was more. than cooperative when Morales asked a series of questions.

"He started working with this gang of looters about six months ago," Morales translated. "He says he used to gather chime sap before that, but I don't believe him." He quizzed the man again, more forcefully this time. "Si,' he said, laughing. "It is as I thought. He is a thief. He used to steal from the tourists coming to Merida. A friend told him he could make more money smuggling artifacts. The work is harder, but the pay is better and there is less risk.".

:Ask him who he works for," Trout suggested.

Ruiz shrugged when .the question was presented to him. Morales said, "He worked for a man who used to be a policeman guarding the ruins. There is a small gang, maybe a dozen. They find a place and dig trenches. The jades and the pots with the black lines are the best, he says. Maybe two hundred to five hundred dollars for one pot. His boss takes his cut and arranges transport."

"Transport to where?" Trout said.

"He's not sure," Morales translated. "He thinks his boss was connected with people operating out of the Petan, just over the border in Guatemala."

"How does he get the artifacts there?"

"He says they would move the goods down the river in the small boats to a place where trucks come in. Then maybe they go to Carmelita or probably across the border to Belize. I have heard what happens then. The artifacts go on planes or ships to Belgium or to the States when: people pay big money for them." He glanced, almost with pity, at Ruiz. "If this toothless idiot only knew these people make hundreds of thousands of dollars and he takes all the risks." He chuckled. Ruiz, sensing a joke but not understanding with his limited English that he was the butt of it, grinned his toothless grin.

Trout turned the information over in his mind. Gamay and Chi must have stumbled onto a smuggling operation. They escaped on the river, using the same route as the smugglers, and were trying to get away when the helicopter found them. He asked Morales to find out how far the truckloading spot was from the rapids.

"Couple of nights on the river, he says. He doesn't know the distance in miles. He says the river goes dry, in places sometimes, and they work it after the rainy season."

At Trout's request, the pilot dug a map out of the helicopter. No river was depicted, confirming the information from Ruiz. There was no way to trace the course Gamay would take.

The interrogation was interrupted by a commotion. A boy of about ten was running across the cornfield, shouting in his highpitched voice. He rushed up to the helicopter and announced breathlessly that his father was home. They retied Ruiz and went back to the hut.

The farmer said he would have been home sooner, but he took the opportunity to visit his brother who lived near the village. Oh, yes, he said after a long description of his family reunion, he had talked to the priest, who no longer had the radio. Trout's heart fell. Then rose again a minute later when the farmer said the priest used a cell phone that he kept for emergencies, mostly medical. The priest had called for help and asked the farmer to relay the following message, which he wrote on sheet of paper: "Tell the men in the helicopter that someone will be sent to find them."

With rescue imminent Trout was even more impatient. He paced the edge of the cornfield, frequently glancing at the cloudless blue sky. Before long he heard a faint roughrough sound. He cocked his ear. The noise became louder until he could actually feel the vibration of whiplashed air.

A Huey painted in greenish brown flashed into view above the trees with another right behind it. Trout waved his arms. The helicopters made a tight circle around the field, then touched down at the perimeter of the corn rows. The doors opened even before the rotors stopped, and men dressed in camouflage Uniforms spilled from the choppers. Morales, the pilot, and the farmer and his family went to greet the new arrivals. There were six of them, including a captain in the lead helicopter and a medical technician in the second. The med tech examined everyone and gave them clean bills of health except for superficial injuries.

Trout and Morales went to the downed helicopter, but Ruiz was gone. The chiclero had squirmed out of his hastily tied bonds. After a quick parley they decided against a time-consuming search. Trout would have liked to see if Ruiz had more information to offer, although from what the chiclero recounted he was at the bottom of the smuggling totem pole. Looking at the escape optimistically, maybe Ruiz would be eaten by a jaguar. He would pity the jaguar. They thanked the farmer and his family for their hospitality and got into the Hueys. Within minutes they were skimming a few hundred yards over the treetops.

Less than an hour later they set down at an army base. The captain said the base had been established near Chiapas at the time of the Indian uprising a year earlier. The captain asked if they would like food and a bath and a change of clothes. A shower could wait. Trout had other priorities. He asked to use a phone.

Austin was in his office at NUMA headquarters examining the photos Zavala had taken in Halcon s underground garage when the phone rang. Zavala had just described the trip to Halcon's complex and the bloody ball game, and Austin was bringing him up to speed on his Nantucket encounter with Angelo Donatelli. A broad smile crossed his face when he heard Trout's voice. "Paul, good to hear from you. Joe and I were talking about you a few minutes ago. Did you find Gamay?"

"Yes and no." Trout told Austin about the near miss on the river, the helicopter crash and rescue.

"What do you want to do, Paul?" Austin said quietly.

A heavy sigh came from Trout's end of the line. "I hate to let you down, Kurt, but I can't come back. Not until I find Gamay"

Austin had already made his decision. "You don't have to come back. We'll come down to you."

"What about the job we've been working on? The archaeology thing?"

"Gunn and Yaeger can work up an operational plan while we're gone. You stay put until we get there."

"What about the admiral?"

"Don't worry. I'll handle things with Sandecker."

"I really appreciate this, Kurt. More than you know" The statement was as far as Trout's Yankee reserve would let him go.

Austin dialed Sandecker and told him the story. .

Sandecker had a reputation' for carrying out a project once started, but his loyalty to his staff was equally legendary. "It took me years to put this Special Assignments Team. together. I'm not going to have one of its key members kidnapped by a bunch of damned Mexican bandits. Go get her. You'll have every resource NUMA can offer."

It was the reaction Austin expected, but one never knew with the unpredictable admiral. "Thank you, sir. I'll start right off with a request for quick transportation to Mexico."

"When do you want to leave?"

"I want to put together a specialized gear package. Say two hours?"

"You and Zavala be at Andrews Air Force Base with your toothbrushes. A jet will be waiting for you."

Austin hung up. "Gamay's in trouble, and Paul needs our help." He sketched out the details. "Sandecker's given the okay.

We'll be leaving from Andrews in about two hours. Can you handle that?"

Zavala was up and heading for the door. "On my way"

A minute later Austin was on the phone again. After a quick conversation he was out of the office as well and on his way to the boathouse, where he threw some gear and clothes into a duffel bag and headed to the airport. Sandecker was true to his word. A sweptwing Cessna Citation X executive jet painted in NUMA turquoise blue was warming up its engines on the tarmac. He and Zavala were tossing their bags to the copilot when an army pickup truck rolled up. Two husky Special Forces men got out and supervised while a forklift hoisted a large wooden box from the truck and into the cargo section of the plane.

Zavala raised an eyebrow. "Glad to see you brought beer for the trip."

"I thought the basic Austin Rescue Kit might come in handy." Austin signed a receipt for one of the Special Forces men. Minutes later he and Zavala were buckling into their seats in the plush twelve-passenger cabin, and the plane was in line for takeoff.

The pilot's voice came over the speaker.

"We're cleared for takeoff. We'll be. flying at a cruising speed of Mach .88, which should put us in the Yucatan in less than two hours easy. Just sit back and enjoy the ride. You'll find the scotch in the liquor cabinet and soda and ice cubes in the refrigerator."

Minutes later the plane was in the air, climbing to its cruising altitude at four thousand feet per minute. As soon as they leveled off Zavala was out of his seat. "This is the fastest commercial jet except for the Concorde," said a mistyeyed Zavala, who had flown everything under the sun. "I'm going to chat with the guys in the cockpit."

Austin told him to go ahead. It would give him the chance to think. He put his seat back, closed his eyes, and tried to imagine the events Trout had described in their phone conversation. By the time Zavala came back and relayed the pilot's message that they were about to land, Austin was erecting a mental framework the way a bridge builder extends steel girders into thin air.

Trout was waiting for them as the Citation taxied to a stop. He'd bathed and shaved and had borrowed a camouflage uniform to wear while his suit was being cleaned. The uniform was made for the smaller framed Mexican GI and emphasized Trout's long arms and legs, giving him a spidery aspect.

"Thanks for coming so quickly, guys," he said, taking their hands.

"We wouldn't have missed seeing you in that uniform for the world," Austin said with a grin.

"Suit's being laundered," Trout replied with some discomfort.

"You look quite fetching in cami," Austin said. "Sort of a distinguished Rambo, wouldn't you say, Joe?"

Zavala shook his head slowly. "Dunno. I think maybe Paul is more the Steven Seagal type. Jean Claude Van Damme, maybe."

"I'm so glad you rushed down here at NUMA expense to evaluate my sartorial splendor."

"No problem at all. It's the least we could do for a pal."

Trout's face grew somber. "Kidding aside, it's great to see your ugly faces. Thanks for coming so quickly. Gamay needs backup in the worst way"

"She'll get more than backup," Austin replied. "I've got a plan."

Zavala glanced over at the Special Forces boxes being unloaded from the plane. "Uhoh," he said.

The greatest asset for a sniper is not aim, Guzman mused, but patience. He sat on a blanket in the bushes on the . shore of the Potomac River; his cold eyes fixed on the Victorian boathouse exactly opposite. He had been there for hours, lapsing into a detached yet alert zombielike state that allowed him to ignore the numbness in his buttocks and the biting insects. He had watched the sun go down, aware of the beauty of the river but not connecting with the changing reflections and shadows in any emotional way.

He knew Austin was not coming even before the automatic nightlight flicked on in the living room of the darkened house. He lifted the Austrian Steyr SSG 69 sniper's rifle from his lap and sighted through the Kahles ZF69 telescopic sight on the picture of a boat hanging on the wall. A squeeze of the trigger would send a bullet winging across the river at 2,821 feet per second. He made a click sound with his tongue, then lowered the rifle, picked up a cell phone, and dialed a number at NUMA headquarters.

The answering machine's recorded message said Mr. Austin would be away from his office for a few days, gave NUMAs office hours and asked Guzman to leave a message. He smiled.. There was only one message he wanted to give Mr. Austin. He punched another number. The phone rang in a car parked outside Zavala's house in Arlington.

"It's off," Guzman said, and hung up. The two men in the car looked at each other and shrugged, then started the engine and drove off.

Back along the Potomac, Guzman carefully wrapped the rifle in the blanket and set off through the woods as silently as a ghost.

35 THE PRAM GLIDED THROUGH THE eerie mists as if in a dream. Moist exhalations rising off the river materialized into ectoplasmic wraiths that waved their spectral arms as if in warning. Go back.

Gamy steered while Chi sat in the bow like a carved mahogany figurehead, his sharp eyes probing the gauzy haze for obstacles human and otherwise. They had been on the move since dawn after overnighting on a small midstream islet. Chi slept ashore on the oversized hummock. The encounter with Old Yellow Beard still gave Gamay the shivers. Chi assured her there was no danger from snakes. Even a worm would have been unwelcome company, she said. She preferred the discomfort but relative security, of the pram. A loud hiss startled her awake, and she was relieved to see it was only the camp stove. Chi was preparing coffee. They had a quick breakfast of trail mix and got an early start on the river.

The chicleros' larder would keep them well supplied for days. With little room in their pram, they had filled another boat with food, bottled water, and fuel and` towed it behind them. The added burden slowed their progress, but the supplies were vital if they expected to survive.

The midmorning sun burned the fog phantoms away, and visibility was dear once more even though the tradeoff was a suffocating humidity. Gamay had found a battered straw hat that helped prevent sunstroke and shaded her eyes from the blinding tropical light.

The river twisted and turned. As they approached each bend, Chi raised his hand and Gamay reduced the throttle to an idle. For a few minutes they would float with the current and cock their ears, listening for voices or the buzz of motors. No longer fearful of attack from behind, they were wary of surprises from ahead. They didn't want to round a bend and bump into a boatload of brigands. The jury was still out on the helicopter. They still weren't sure whether it was friend or foe. The chopper had saved them from the rapids. Yet they hadn't forgotten that it also dumped them into the river.

Sometimes a fish jumped out of the water, and the splash was like a gunshot in. a barrel. Otherwise, aside from the metallic gurgle past the aluminum hull, they heard only the chatter and squawk of birds gossiping in the trees and the drone and whine of insects. Gamay was grateful for the generous supply of Cutter's. The bug repellent had to be reapplied frequently to replace the goop washed away by sweat or the occasional rain shower Chi didn't seem to be bothered by bugs. Natural selection, Gamay surmised. Any Mayan susceptible to malaria or other insect borne ailments would have been weeded out of the pack long ago.

The river's character changed as the hours passed. The waterway was reduced to half its original size. Squeezing the same amount of river into fifty percent less space made , for a strong, smooth current. The flat countryside had become more rolling, the banks steeper and higher, covered with impenetrable growth.

Gamay had chafed at their steady but slow African Queen pace. She wasn't sure she liked the toboggan run aspect any better. As their speed picked up there was less margin for error. "I wonder where we are," she murmured, eyeing the vinecovered limestone walls that closed in from each side.

"I've been thinking the .same thing." Chi scanned the sky. "We know that must be east because it's where the sun rose. We have need of your Girl Scout training."

She laughed. "What we really need is a handheld GPS receiver."

Chi reached into his pack and extracted the ancient instrument they'd found in the cave temple. The sun glinted off the burnished metal. He handed the instrument to Gamay. 'Know how to work one of these gadgets?"

As a marine biologist I spend most of my time under the water and leave it to others to get me there. I've taken a couple of navigational courses, though."

Chi took the tiller while Gamay examined the instrument. It was the first chance for a close look at the device since they discovered it. Again she marveled at the workmanship of the boxlike wooden case and the circular interlocking gears. The lettering was definitely ancient Greek, spelling out the names of various gods.

She applied pressure with her forefinger to the largest wheel, but like the other moving parts it was stuck fast by corrosion. Engraved in the largest wheel were depictions of animals. Sheep. Goats. Bear. Even a lion. From their positioning Gamay concluded that they. represented star constellations. It reminded her of the cardboard star charts with the rotating dials that show the night sky at a given time of the year. Clever.

"Whoever put this device together was a genius," she said.

"I've only figured out part of its function. It tells you what the, night sky looks like at a given time of year. More important, it could tell you from the sky what time of year it was."

"In other words, a celestial calendar that would be invaluable in knowing when to expect the rainy season, when to plant and harvest."

And when to sail, too. Also where you are. You can use the backside as a sextant that gives you an approximate but fairly accurate sun's azimuth."

"What are the other wheels used for?"

"They could be a can opener for all I know You'll have to ask someone with technical expertise;" Gamay said with a shake of her head. "Too bad the mechanism is corroded. I wouldn't mind knowing where we are.."

Chi rummaged in his rucksack and pulled out a map which he spread on his knees. "This river isn't shown," he said, tracing their approximate route with his finger. "My guess is it's only this big after rainy season. When we factor in our direction and speed, I'd venture that if we haven't gone over the border to Guatemala, we're very close to it. Which would make sense. The looted artifacts are smuggled through Guatemala. to Belize and points beyond."

"I wasn't planning on a trip to Guatemala when I came down here for NUMA, but I guess I don't have much choice."

"Look on the bright side," Chi said. "We have the chance to put a stop to this terrible business of smuggling antiquities."

Gamay cocked an eyebrow. She hoped some of Chi's optimism would rub off. Given the precarious state of their minute-to-minute existence, she hadn't thought of them as a smugglerbusting duo. Her main goal was survival. She was getting tired of playing the Perils of Pauline. The fact that they weren't dead was probably mostly a result of dumb luck.

She indicated several penciled X's on the map. Any idea what these are?'

After a moment's study Chi said, "They could be anything. Dig sites, places they stockpiled artifacts or supplies, distribution."

And we're heading right into the middle of things from what this handydandy device tells us." She hefted the instrument and gave it back to Chi.

"Interesting," Chi said thoughtfully as he carefully stuffed the ancient instrument into his pack. "In our zeal to put this to practical use we have forgotten its archaeological significance."

"I'll leave it to others to hash that out. I'm a marine biologist now."

"Yet you can't deny that finding an ancient Greek artifact in a pre-Columbian setting raises questions."

"Questions I'm not prepared to answer."

"Nor am 1. Not yet. But I know that I will bring the wrath of the archaeological establishment down on my head at the slightest hint of pre-Columbian contact with Europe. This instrument did not get here by itself. It was either delivered by Europeans to America or transported by Americans who went to Europe."

"Maybe it's a good thing we don't have anybody to tell," Gamay said.

The strengthening current ended their discussion. The river had become even narrower and gorgelike, the walls steeper and higher. Chi was having trouble controlling the boat, and Gamay took over. There was no noisy ,rushing of water that would indicate they were near rapids, not yet, but Gamay stayed alert.

"Our speed is picking up," she told Chi.

"Can you slow us down?" .

"I've got the motor practically on idle to maintain steering control. Keep a sharp eye and ear out. If it looks like rough water ahead I'll steer for shore, and we'll figure out what to do."

At the foot of the walllike bankings was a muddy beach a couple of yards wide. Enough space to pull off the river for a breather. She was buoyed by another consideration. This was fine only way the chicleros could have come. Which meant the river was navigable for a small boat. Controlling the towed boat was a problem. Time to pull up on shore, transfer supplies, and cut loose.

The river suddenly narrowed considerably, and the water speed doubled.

She and Chi exchanged puzzled glances. Still no sound of rapids. They were rounding a long curve, the bankings closing in so that it seemed that they could almost touch them. Gamay planned to go wide on the turn and simply rum the boat onto the narrow beach. The supply boat whipsawed, then jerked in the other direction to throw her steering off. She knew from . experience that when things go wrong on a boat they realty go wrong. Drastic action is the only way to avoid disaster.

"Cut her loose!" she shouted.

Chi stared at her, uncomprehending.

She made a knifing motion with the edge of her hand. "Cut the supply boat line, or it will tangle in our propeller."

Once Chi understood he acted quickly. He severed the towline with a quick swipe of his machete. The loaded pram went into a slow spin and headed right at them. Gamay and Chi were both watching the boat, hoping it would pass them. A collision in the narrow canyon would be a disaster. She was glancing over her shoulder, trying to steer so as to avoid a crash, and didn't see the wall of limestone that loomed directly in their path until the last second.

Gamay ducked so she wouldn't hit her head as the pram shot through an opening in the wall. Within seconds the swiftmoving river had sucked them deep into the maw, and the vestiges of daylight disappeared.

"We need a flashlight, Professor," she said, her voice echoing in the inky darkness.

The flashlight flicked on, and the shaft of light fell on wet rocks that glistened only yards away She swung the tiller to avoid a crash, oversteering in her haste, and was turned sideways by the current. After a few dicey moments she had the boat under control again and was moving with the river flow.

Chi played the flashlight beam ahead and above on rough wet walls and ceilings. The underground river reminded Gamay of a fun house, only she wasn't having any fun. Especially after the beam picked up what looked like clusters of black leaves covering the ceiling. The light reflected on thousands of burning-red pinpoints of light. She held her breath not so much out of fear but to block out the overpowering ammonia stench.

"I hate bats," she muttered, gritting her teeth.

"Keep still, and you'll be all right," Chi cautioned.

No need for that warning. Gamay was frozen in place by the thought of leathery wings and sharp pointed teeth.

The creatures stayed where they were, however, and in time the bat population thinned out to nothing.

"Fascinating," Chi said. "I've never seen a river go underground so abruptly."

"Excuse me for saying so, Professor Chi, but your country has too many caves and holes in the ground for my taste."

"Si, Dr. Gamay It's like Swiss cheese, I'm afraid."

Gamay tried to look on the bright side, then realized there wasn't one. They had been sucked into the bowels of the earth, and there was no assurance they would ever come out. At best, this was the route the chicleros used, which meant they might bump into more of the smugglers. Gamay lifted the propeller out of the water, and they used a paddle to steer, fending off with their hands and feet when the pram bumped noisily into the sides of the cave.

Gamay grabbed on to a small stalagmite and wrapped a few turns of their severed tow line around it. The makeshift cleat held. They crawled up onto a rock shelf and lit a camp light. Gamay expected their errant supply boat to come barreling by but it must have been caught up. Chi mourned the loss of his Spam. Gamay said maybe they would catch up with it later. She wouldn't miss the canned meat, but the fuel and water would come in handy.

Over lunch of jerky and cold tortillas they discussed their options and agreed that there was only one: they had to go on. Neither expressed the unspoken fear that the river would come to a dead end. Or no end at all. But the possibility hung over their heads like a black cloud.

They got back in the boat, restarted the motor so they'd have control and traveled another half hour, often bending over with fits of coughing from the damp musty air. Gamay felt as if her lung linings were becoming as mildewed as the rest of her. The current seemed to diminish. Chi, who'd been lighting the way ahead, announced that the river was almost back to its original width above the rapids. Chi had placed the camp light in the prow of the boat, and its yellow glow illuminated what looked like a large cave.

"Stop!" Chi shouted over the suddenly echoing sound of the motor.

Gamay cut power and jerked the tiller around, narrowly avoiding. a collision with the black wall in their way. The river had disappeared again. It must have gone even deeper, she surmised.

They were in a large pool. A narrow tributary extended off the main waterway. For want of a better course, Gamay pointed the pram into what looked like a manmade canal.

Chi shut off the lantern and leaned forward, staring into the darkness at a faint orange glow which grew larger and brighter as they neared, finally materializing into a flickering kerosene lantern on the piling of a small pier. Gamay slid the boat in next to two identical prams tied up at the dock and cut the motor. They listened intently but heard no sound louder than their own nervous breathing.

"Guess this is the end of the ride," Gamay said.

They packed Chi's rucksack with their remaining supplies and made their way cautiously along the pier which was built against a level limestone shelf about as wide as a sidewalk The walkway widened, and the rough walls gave way to smooth ones. They followed a trail of lights, moving from one lantern to another, until they were in a large chamber: The walls and ceiling were smooth and squarecut.

Chi took in his surroundings. "This was a quarry. Probably used by the ancients to cut limestone for their temples and houses. We're in the middle of Mayan activity."

"I don't think the ancients used kerosene lanterns."

"Nor do I. The good news for us is that there must be an entrance somewhere."

They explored further and came upon dozens of wooden boxes stacked on pallets. Chi walked down the row and peered into the boxes. "Incredible," he whispered. "There must be hundreds of Mayan artifacts here. They're using thus quarry to store stolen antiquities."

"Makes sense," Gamay agreed. "The loot is brought in via the river and shipped out from here." A light bulb went off in her head.

"They'd need land transportation to move the artifacts out of here."

Chi wasn't listening. He was standing in front of a set of wide shelving built against the chamber wall. The beam of his flashlight went back and forth over a number of large stone blocks lined up on the shelves like a display at a tombstone store. "The boats again," he whispered.

Gamay stepped closer and saw carvings in the stone. "These are similar to the carvings we saw back at the ruins."

"Yes, it seems the looting is far more extensive than I imagined. They must have hit other archaeological sites similar to the one we visited. They used a diamond edged power saw, to cut these sections from the wall." He sighed heavily. "This is a tragedy."

Intellectual curiosity momentarily overwhelmed their survival instinct. They might have stayed there all day comparing notes if Gamay hadn't noticed a whitish glow at the far end of the quarry. Daylight. At last, a way out of this creepy place. Since they'd climbed out of the boat she'd been dogged by the feeling that they were not alone. With a quick glance over her shoulder she grabbed Chi by the arm and practically dragged him away from the stone artifacts.

The light was coming through an opening about as wide as a garage door topped with the typical Mayan corbeled arch: They stepped outside. The sudden change from dark coolness to dazzling heat was a shock, and they blinked their eyes against the bright sunlight. In front of the opening was a crude loading platform and a winch hanging from a crane. The earth around the platform was soaked with motor oil and churned up by tire treads.

Gamay stepped forward for a closer look only to stop as she saw something in her peripheral vision. She turned to the right, then to the left, and didn't like what she saw. On either side of the quarry entrance, which was cut into a hill, was a man. One had a rifle trained on her, the other a shotgun leveled at Chi. They had pistols tucked in their belts as well. Gamay and Chi agreed with their eyes not to make a precipitous move. Their only escape route was back the way they'd come, and that was blocked a second later when a third armed man stepped from the quarry. Her instincts about being followed were right on the mark, Gamay thought ruefully.

All three men had the dirty, unshaven look that she had come to expect from the locals, but these chicleros had a harder, more disciplined aspect about them than the men who had chased them downriver. That would make sense. The men back at the excavation site would have been at the bottom of the pecking order, the laborers who dug up the antiquities and the mules who transported them. These must be the guards. The third man issued a curt order to the others. They gestured with their weapons for Gamay and Chi to move along a dirt road that led away from the quarry.

They followed it for several minutes through the forest until they came to where the trees and brush had been cut away to make a parking space for a dented and mud-spattered four-wheel-drive GMC pickup truck. The door of a small shed was open, revealing the greasy tools hanging inside. A man was working on the engine. He backed out from under the upraised hood when he heard the others approaching. He was a skinny, waxen-skinned man whose scraggly narrow beard made him look like a poor man's Satan. He and the head guard talked. Even without knowing Spanish, Gamay could tell that the mechanic was the one in authority.

He directed a question at Chi, who had slipped back into his humble peon mode. They talked a minute, then the man frowned and shook his head in a this-is-all-l-need expression. Gamay noted with relief that there was none of the leering rape threat of her earlier encounters, but she wasn't reassured by seeing that the man kept his hand on his pistol grip the whole time he talked with Chi. After a moment's thought he got in the truck's cab and talked in low tones to a squawking radio voice. The conversation was heated at times, but the mechanic was smirking when he came back and issued an order to the guards. They grabbed Gamay and Chi and roughly plunked them on the ground behind the truck, then bound their feet and tied their arms to the bumper.

"What did he say?" Gamay whispered when they were left alone.

"I told him we were lost, that you are a scientist and I am your guide, that we were drawn into the cave by accident."

"Did he buy the story?"

"It didn't matter. He said he has orders to shoot anyone he finds here. But he checked with his bosses on the radio and they told him to bring us in."

"He looked pretty pleased with himself for passing the buck. How long do we have?"

"The truck has an engine problem. When he gets it fixed, we vamanos.

Gamay took a deep breath and let it out. She wasn't afraid. Just weary and somewhat discouraged that they had been captured so close to freedom after the last few days struggling down the river. For all their efforts they were no better off now than when they'd been stuffed underground. Looking on the bright side, these chicleros didn't leer at her body and make unveiled threats of rape. And they wouldn't have to walk out of the forest. She focused her thoughts on the truck. It could be their ticket out of here if they could figure out how to wrest the ignition keys from four armed men. She leaned her head back against the bumper and sorted through their options. She realized quickly that as things now stood only one thing could get them out of this bind. A miracle. She closed her eyes. It was going to be a long night.

36 ZAVALA SAW THE BODIES IN THE dawn light from the lead helicopter. The Huey was flying above treetop level following the serpentine twists and turns of the river when Zavala noticed the human flotsam caught in a sharp bend. He asked the pilot to go in for a closer look. The Huey banked over the water and hovered. Zavala leaned out its big door and inspected the bloated corpses. Then he radioed the second helicopter, which was making a wide lazy circle above. .

"Paul and Kurt, from what I can see there's nothing to worry about. All the bodies appear to be male." In other words, Gamay wasn't among the dead..

Are you certain?° Trout replied.

As sure as I can be from up here."

Austin's voice cut in. "Thanks. This is a good place to make our insertion. Is our limo ready?"

All gassed up and set to go."

"Good. Let's do it."

The two helicopters on loan from the Mexican army had overflown the old ruins where Gamay had first been captured. Trout wanted his NUMA teammates to have a total picture of Gamay and Chi's flight from start to finish. Trout flew over the rapids and continued downriver until the bodies were sighted.

Zavala relayed Austin's command to the pilot. The Huey drifted out over the widest part of the river, then slowly descended until the large object slung under its belly touched the water. Zavala hit a release switch, and the helicopter lurched upward, relieved of the weight it had been carrying. The Huey moved out of the way, and the aircraft carrying Austin and Trout darted in to take its place.

Austin was out the door first, quickly rappelling down a line into what looked like an oversized, vaguely banana-shaped bathtub. He released the rappel line and punched a starter button, then maneuvered the strange craft to keep it under Trout, who was descending the rope.

A waterproof bag was lowered next. Trout guided it down. It was tricky going directly under the wash of air from the rotor. Trout's height gave him a first-base-man's edge as he reached for the package holding their vital supplies. Although his dignified manner reflected his academic background and his lean frame suggested a frail physique, Trout had built up muscular shoulders and arms from his days as a commercial fisherman. He easily hoisted the swinging package off its hook, and the Huey moved away.

"I don't usually pick up hitchhikers, but you have an honest face," Austin yelled over the engine racket.

Trout smiled.. Despite his worry about Gamay, he was happy to be doing something at last. He unclipped the handheld radio from his belt and talked into it.

"Thanks for bringing the limo around, Joe."

"No problem. Better give it a test run before you take it for a spin,"

The "limo" was a two-person Seal, one of the smallest hovercraft made. The foam and fiberglass grass-green hull, with its rounded stern and sharp pointed nose, was only fifteen feet long. With the combined kick from its thrust propeller and lift fan, the Seal could plane along on an air cushion, on water or land, with its payload, at a speed of up to twentyfive miles per hour. Recalling Nina Kirov's experience with the giant hovercraft, Austin had reasoned that the bad guys weren't the only ones who should be driving fun boats. The Seal was designed for hunters and wildlife people who wanted to get into otherwise inaccessible locations. The Special Forces had modified the civilian model, adding brackets for a light machine gun, spotlight, and infrared night sensors.

Austin goosed the twenty-horsepower Briggs and Stratton engine and felt the craft rise out of the water on its air cushion. He tried some circles and loops, planing at high speeds. and low. Satisfied that he had the hang of it, he turned the controls over to Trout. While Trout got accustomed to the feel of the little craft, Austin dug through their supply bag and pulled out his pistol and two CAR 15s, the shortened carbine version of the M16. In addition to a rate of up to 950 rounds per minute on automatic, the weapon could be used as a grenade launcher.

Austin would have been satisfied if no shot had to be fired, but he wasn't optimistic. He was no longer laughing at Trout's cami uniform and had borrowed one of his own and covered his stark white hair with a matching fatigue cap.

Nothing could have prepared them for the powerful stench as they approached the floating bodies. The NUMA men clipped their neckerchiefs in the river and tied them over their noses before moving in closer. The bodies looked as if somebody had pumped air into them. Trout's mouth was clamped in a tight line as he made himself inspect each corpse one by one.

When he was sure of what he had seen he clicked the radio. "We're okay Joe. Gamay isn't here."

"Glad to hear it, pal."

"My guess is these are the guys who tried to shoot us out of the sky" He shivered, remembering Gamay's close call with the rapids.

"We'll make a quick sweep down the river. She could be waiting just ahead for you and Kurt to rescue her."

"Thanks again for giving up your seat."

"No problemo, amigo."

There had been a brief discussion the night before 'over who would accompany Austin. Zavala was eager to go in, but he knew Trout should be there when they found Gamay, dead or alive. For a more practical reason, they needed someone in the command post who could speak Spanish and act as liaison with the Mexicans.

An instant later both Hueys disappeared over the treetops. Austin pointed the Seal downriver and cranked her up. The hovercraft lifted above the water and leaped forward as if out of a slingshot. When he asked his Special Forces pals if they had anything that would get them in and out of tight places, Austin knew air reconnaissance could cover a lot of ground in a short time, but the lowland rain forest would hide anything as small as a human being.

They took turns at the controls, keeping the Seal at twenty miles per hour. For all their time on the river, Gamay and Chi had barely covered fifty miles since leaving the rapids. With the hovercraft's superior speed and no overnight stops, they would cover the same distance in a fraction of that time. Trout's sharp eye caught the glint of sunlight ahead in midstream. They pulled up to the tiny islet, and Trout stepped out. Chi had been scrupulous about not littering the island, but he had dropped a trail mix wrapper. Without a word Trout stepped back into the boat and showed his find to Austin, who nodded, gunned the throttle, and notched their speed up to the limit. The game was afoot!

The radio crackled, and Zavala's voice came on. "Kurt, this is crazy!"

"We hear you, Joe. What's going on?"

"I'm not sure. We were following the river ahead of you. It twists back and forth, then narrows after a while into sort of a canyon. No sign of Gamay or Chi, but we're tooling along, and all at once the river disappears."

"Say again?"

"The river just stopped. One second it was flowing along. The next it was gone."

"Where are you now?"

"We're conducting a search pattern to see if we can pick it up again. If not, we'll come upriver and meet you."

The mini-hovercraft continued to skim along. They, too, noticed the narrowing of the river and the increasing steepness of the walls.

Zavala came on the radio again. "Nothing, Kurt. We're going to have to head back. The choppers are running low on gas."

They had brought extra fuel and left it back at the ruins. It wouldn't take them long at their speed to get back, fuel up, and return to the river search. Austin said he and Trout would go as far downriver as they could and rendezvous with the Hueys. They waved as helicopters flashed overhead on their way back to refuel, and the hovercraft continued on its way.

They were in the gorge, moving even faster with a kick from the current, when they saw the pram. It was jammed into the mud along the shore. Austin pulled the hovercraft onto the beach, and he and Paul jumped out. The pram was loaded with cartons, and it was probably their weight that kept the current from dislodging the boat and pulling it back into the river.

"What do you think, Paul?"

"I'd say they were never in this pram. My guess is that they were towing it. Look, it's so full there isn't room for anyone to sit. The outboard's in its up position. This bow line has been cut."

Austin pulled at a thin rubber hose. "You're right. Look, the motor's fuel hose isn't even connected to the gas tank"

They shoved the pram farther onto the shore and moments later were back in the hovercraft. They were only moving for a few minutes when the river ended. Austin gave the hovercraft more power to hold it in one place.

"That's the answer to Joe's disappearing river," Trout said "No mystery. It just runs underground." He tried to reach Zavala on the radio but got no answer and assumed they were out of range or the transmission was blocked by the high rocky walls. They decided without hesitation to push ahead. They went in slowly, coming down from their air cushion, Trout illuminating the way with his handheld spotlight.

The vibration and noise created by the thrust propeller unnerved the bats. They came off the roof as if blown by a gust of wind, a squeaking mass of flapping membranous wings and sharp claws. Austin doubled their speed. The hovercraft was on its air cushion again. Both men crouched low in the open cockpit, hardly able to see through the flying swarm of black furry bodies. The craft bounced off the rocky shores several times, but as long as he was able to go forward, Austin kept the pedal to the metal.

Then they were through it and into the clear.

Austin brought the engine down to an idle, and the current moved them ahead.

Are you okay?" he asked.

"My hair will probably go as white as yours, but other than that I'm fine. Let's keep moving."

The sound of the motor was horrendous in the close confines, echoing and reechoing off the rough walls. Austin could only hope that any adversaries they met were stone deaf, because their arrival would have been announced for miles. They moved at a steady dip, throwing up waves on either side, and before long they emerged into. the larger cavern. They made a quick circle of the pool to get their bearings and saw that the river ended again but that there was a canal leading off from it.

The canal ended at a small pier illuminated by a lantern. They tied up next to three prams and left the hovercraft. With their weapons at ready they proceeded along the walkway into the quarry. They stopped to inspect the contents of the boxes, then pressed on. Sunlight was shining faintly in the distance.

37 AUSTIN STOPPED UNDER THE CORBELED archway and listened to the music playing faintly in the distance. A Latin beat. With his back to the wall he edged his way around the corner, CAR-15 held at ready, finger on the trigger. He stuck his head out, scanned the area around the loading platform, and, seeing no one, stepped cautiously into the glare of daylight. He signaled Trout to follow With Austin still at point they moved silently along the narrow dirt road, staying close to the foliage on the side.

Near where a rutted track into the woods left the main road they melted into the bushes and got down on their hands and knees. They crawled parallel to the track, then dropped to their bellies and slithered to the edge of a cleared area. Austin inched forward and peered through the tall grass. Trout's hand gripped his shoulder, but Austin had already seen the mop of hair that was the hue of fine red wine: Gamay. She was tied to the rear bumper of a battered GMC truck Her face was the color of boiled lobster, skin peeled off her sunburned nose, and her crowning glory was a tangle of greasy curls, but otherwise she seemed ail right. Next to her was an Indian man who must be Dr. Chi. Gamay had her eyes closed, but she opened them and looked cautiously around as if she sensed their presence.

Austin quickly took in the rest of the scene. The source of the music was a portable boom box perched on the bed of the truck. Sitting on the ground behind the truck were three men engrossed in a game of cards. Their weapons lay within arm's reach, and all three men wore pistols. Austin's eye traveled to the front of the truck to where a fourth man was working on the engine. He, too, wore a pistol, but more worrisome was the AK 47 leaning up against a tire. Austin signaled Trout to back up Paul nodded, understanding the need to reconnoiter, but the disappointment in his face was obvious.

Minutes later they leaned up against a tree and assessed the situation.

"We've got four armed men who would ordinarily be no problem up against the weapons we're carrying," Austin said. "But Gamay and Dr. Chi are directly in the line of fire. I don't like the idea of the fourth man separated from the others. He's got an AK right at hand. He could still cause damage. Any suggestions?"

"We could call in reinforcements," Trout said, patting the walkietalkie at his belt. "But even if they got here soon, that would mean more shooting, more chance of someone getting hurt"

"My sentiments exactly." Austin scratched the stubble on his chin. "Gamay and Chi seem to be okay, which means someone wants them kept alive, for now at least."

"My guess is that they'll move out. as soon as they fix their mechanical problem."

"That's when the situation will get fluid. The card game will break up, and the guards may move out of the line of fire. Or maybe we will get our chance when they put Gamay and Chi in the truck. Once they're out of the way we can make our move."

There's another possibility," Trout said. "More of these guys could show up."

"I know that we'd be trading a known situation for an unknown, and I don't like it any more than you do, but I don't think there's anything else we can do except wait."

Trout nodded inreluctant agreement. They crawled back to the edge of the clearing. The card game was still in progress, and the mechanic continued to fiddle around with the engine. Austin was glad to see that Gamay and Chi. both had their eyes open. He suppressed the surge of anger he felt at their plight.

Long after Austin had decided he never wanted to hear Latin music again, the mechanic backed out from under the hood, wiped his hand on a greasy rag, and got into the cab. The engine started on the first try, filling the air with an unmuffled rumbling. A cloud of purple smoke poured out of the exhaust pipe and enveloped Gamay and Chi, who turned their heads from side to side in a vain attempt to escape the fumes.

The card game was cut short. The players grabbed their money, scrambled to their feet, and with hands over their mouths and noses moved away from the rear of the truck. And their weapons, Austin noted with pleasure. They started yelling at the mechanic, who had just hopped out of the cab. When he saw that the guards were not showing the proper enthusiasm for his accomplishment, he went over and grabbed the nearest one by his collar, angrily dragged him to the front of the truck, and exhorted him to listen to the motor. The remaining guards broke out in laughter and joined the others.

"Show time," Austin said.

The essentials for a successful ambush are surprise and concealment. They could have mowed the chicleros down with a single sweep of their carbines, but Austin was into rescue, not murder. He and Trout stood up and strode casually into the clearing. Trout let off short bursts of fire in the air, while Austin kept the chicleros covered. The object was intimidation. The gunfire had the desired effect. At least partly. The three guards saw the two terminators walking toward them; glanced at their useless weapons, then back at the hard-eyed white-haired man and his towering companion, and scattered into the forest like leaves before a wind.

The mechanic dove into the cab, threw the truck into gear, and mashed the accelerator. The spinning tires gouged trenches in the ground and threw out twin showers of dirt. With a roar of the engine the truck started out of the clearing, dragging Gamay and Chi behind like tin cans on a honey-moon-bound car. Music still blasted from the boom box on the truck's bed.

Austin shouted for Trout to cover the departing chicleros and drew the Bower from his hip with the speed of a Dodge City gunfighter. Holding it in both hands, he coolly sighted on the rear of the cab. The barrel belched fire five times, and the cab window disintegrated in an explosion of glass. The last shots were unnecessary because the first bullet had taken off the back of the driver's head.

The trick went on for another few yards as if it were on auto pilot, but it finally lurched to a stop as the engine staled. Austin ran for the truck. But Trout got there ahead of him, quickly sliced through Gamay's bonds with a hunting knife, and took his wife in his arms.

Cambridge, Massachusetts

38 A WEEK LATER A TAXI DROVE PAST the black cast-iron fence that surrounded the shaded lawns of Harvard Yard, turned onto a quiet grass-lined street, and pulled up to a five-story Georgian-style brick edifice that seemed out of place next to the more modern science buildings keeping it company. Zavala emerged from the cab and surveyed the sign for the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. Turning to Austin and Gamay, he said reverentially, "This is a great day for the Zavala family. My mother always hoped I'd go to Harvard."

"Your mother has my husband, Paul, to thank for her little boy's success," Gamay said, "but congratulations anyhow"

"Thank you. My mother thanks you, too. Shall we enter the hallowed precincts?" he said with a gallant sweep of the hand that was entirely in keeping with his character.

For indeed it was Trout's summons to his NUMA colleagues that brought them to Cambridge that morning. Trout had arrived at the museum by a round-about route that started in the Yucatan jungle. After the reunion with his wife Trout and the others hitched a ride back to the Nereus aboard a Mexican helicopter. While they waited for the choppers to arrive they took a closer look at the looted antiquities stored in the cave.

Chi had led the way, moving down the line of crates and shelves, sadly shaking his head as he explained the significance of the artifacts and the damage that had been done by their random exhumation. Pausing in front of the inscribed stone panels, Chi lamented, "I know these stones tell a story, an important one. But because of the way they were carelessly dug up and thrown into this place, it could be months, maybe years, before we will know what it is."

Chi's words echoed in Trout's ears as the helicopter flew him and the others to the Nereus. Gamay was checked out and found to be rundown but otherwise in good health. With his wife in a real bunk and enjoying the gourmet treats of the vessel's galley, Paul hitched a ride back to the chicleros' camp, bringing with him a case of photographic equipment.

The army had established a camp to guard the artifacts and mop up stray looters. Chi had stayed on to inventory the stolen goods. When. Trout outlined what he had in mind the professor gave him an enthusiastic go-ahead. Trout made hundreds of digital photographs of the stones and their inscriptions. Then he packed up and returned to the research vessel to rendezvous with Gamay and fly home. Back in Washington, Paul worked the data into his computers.

As a deep ocean geologist Trout had developed a high degree of skill using computer graphics for his undersea projects. His work went beyond simply probing the ocean bottom with electronic eyes and ears. His arcane findings on strata or thermal vents had to be presented so that a PhD wasn't needed to understand them. Archaeology was already using computer imaging to reconstruct everything from ancient cities to skeletal remains. He conferred frequently by phone with Dr. Chi, who had returned to Mexico City. After his analysis he called Austin and said, "I know this sounds crazy, but this stuff I've been doing for Dr. Chi may tie in with the assignment we've been working on."

Austin didn't need any coaxing. He gave Nina Kirov a brief telephone rundown on Trout's findings and asked if she could match Paul with a Mayanist. Nina immediately recommended Dr. Orville. Trout took his computer disks to Cambridge and set up shop at the Peabody.

The museum's small reception area was dominated by an Eskimo totem pole whose grotesque faces looked down at the young college woman at the front desk. Austin gave their names to the receptionist, who punched the intercom button on her telephone. An equally attractive guide appeared and led them up the metal staircase, past the scowling sculpture of a seated Mayan warrior, to the fifth level.

Their guide kept up a running commentary. "The Peabody is one of the oldest museums in the world devoted to anthropology," she said. "It was established in 1866 with a $150,000 gift from George Peabody. Construction on the five-story main building began tit 1877. The museum has fifteen million items within its walls, but we're giving much of the material back, particularly artifacts from E. H. Thompson's work at the sacred cenote of Chichen Itza where they used to sacrifice virgins."

"I can think of better things to do with a virgin," Zavala murmured.

Fortunately the guide didn't hear his comment. She ushered them through a door into a lecture hall. Nina stood next to the lectern talking to a thin man with wild red hair. She smiled brightly when she saw the others, especially Austin, he was pleased to note, and quickly came over to take his hand. Austin felt his blood quicken whenever he set eyes on Nina's lush mouth and the bold curves of her supermodel's body. He vowed to himself that he would take her where they weren't surrounded by their friends and colleagues.

Nina introduced the new arrivals to Dr. Orville. Austin had learned long ago that looks didn't count, but he wasn't sure in this case. The Mayanist wore a rumpled high-button tweed suit even though the day was warm. His widely unfashionable thriftshop tie was decorated with old food stains. The manic gleam in the hazel eyes was magnified to incredible proportions by the thick glasses, but a burning intelligence kept the creeping shadow of madness at bay Just barely. Austin expected the orbs to spin around at any moment like those of a crazed cartoon character. He decided to contemplate the thin line between genius and derangement another time.

"Paul is putting the final touches on the presentation and should be with us in a few minutes," Nina announced.

The door opened. Gamay had expected her husband's usual head-ducking entry. Her mouth gaped in surprise, then widened in a smile. Extending her hand to the short, slight figure, she said, "I hardly recognized you without your machete, Professor."

The professor's change in appearance went beyond a simple sugar cane knife. He had on a custom-tailored Armani suit of bullet gray and a yellow power tie which he wore as naturally as he had his peasant's clothes.

Chi's classic Indian face was as stony as a gargoyle, but his dark eyes danced with amusement.

"When in Rome . . ." he said with a shrug.

"This is a wonderful surprise, Professor. You look well," she said.

And you, too, Dr. Gamay"

The last time she saw the professor he was waving from the ground as she ascended into the skies in a helicopter. Chi appeared none the worse for their river adventure. Gamay by contrast didn't feel her normal self until she got back to Washington. The assault by the blistering Yucatan sun had taken its toll on her fair skin. The trail mix diet and sleepless nights haunted by snake dreams hadn't helped.

The lecture hall began to resemble a fashion spread from GQ when Trout stepped through the door. Befitting his Ivy League surroundings, Trout was in a pseudo-English mode,. wearing a hound's tooth custom sports jacket tailored in London to fit his tall frame, razor-creased olive slacks, and the inevitable bow tie. He apologized for the delay, and while the professor took over the lectern Trout went to the table and slipped a floppy disk into a laptop computer connected to the projection screen. The setup was similar to that used at NUMA headquarters by Hiram Yaeger. Nina sat at the table, and the rest of the NUMA team settled into the front row of seats like eager freshmen on the first day of class.

Orville opened the meeting. "Thank you all for coming. Nina will tell you that I have a reputation for making wild assertions in the local press." His mouth stretched into a strange lop-sided grin. "But I'll have to admit even my fertile imagination would be hard put to come up with a story more fantastic than the one you are about to hear. So without further ado I will turn the meeting over to my esteemed colleague and dear friend, DL Josh Chi."

The lectern dwarfed Chi as he stood beside it with his hands behind his back.

"I would like to thank Dr. Orville for arranging this meeting and allowing us to use space at this institution where I spent many happy hours as a graduate student," Dr. Chi said in a voice as crisp as dry leaves. As you know, Dr. Gamay and I discovered a horde of hundreds of stolen antiquities. The artifacts included some intriguing carved stone blocks and stelae cut from temples and buildings with no regard to origin, and many were damaged. While I would have preferred for the antiquities to have lain undisturbed in the ground and cataloged in situ, the people who removed them may have inadvertently been helpful in resolving what I understand from my friends at NUMA to be a situation of some urgency."

Chi raised his finger, and 'Rout punched a computer key. An aerial photograph filled the screen.

"This is the looted site," Chi said. "The mounds you see are the remnants of buildings clustered around what was once the central square of a Mayan city. Next, please."

Another picture came on the screen.

"This is an observatory. Please note the details on the frieze. Next. Construction wasn't confined to the ground level. This is a subterranean temple. It is only one of the features that make this a highly unusual site."

Austin leaned forward in his chair as if he were trying to put himself into the scene. "Unusual in what other ways, Dr. Chi?"

Gesturing toward the image behind him, the professor said, "Most Mayan cities are combinations of administrative, religious, and residential uses. This center was devoted entirely to science. Primarily the study of time and astronomy. Ultimately Mayan science tied in with religion in much the same way as religion was tied to political power. But I have the feeling that more pure science was practiced here than usual. It's Mayan name is Sky Place. For our purposes I am calling it MIT"

"Like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology?" Zavala said. The world-renowned research and teaching institution was only a few miles from where they sat.

"Yes," Chi replied, "but in this case MIT stands for the Mayan Institute of Technology."

Like a standup comedian in a Borscht Belt hotel, Chi waited for the laughter to die down, then turned the meeting over to Trout and took his place at the table.

In contrast to the professor, Trout had to lean onto the lectern to use it.

"From the start Dr. Chi was convinced that the pictures and glyphs inscribed on the stones described a narrative," Trout said. "Our problem was that everything was jumbled up. It's as if you tore the pages out of a novel and shuffled them. Actually several novels, because the stones came from different sources. This was even tougher because the `pages' were heavy stones. So we made dozens of photographic images and fed the data into a computer where we could rearrange the pictures on a' monitor. We used common sense and information provided by the Mayan writings, which Dr. Chi and Dr. Orville translated. Then we organized the stones into a sequence, similar to the story board used for a television commercial. The tale they tell, as Dr. Orville implied, is indeed a strange and unbelievable one."

Trout went back to the projection controls, and Orville took his place. "It was fairly easy to categorize the images. We simply concentrated on pictures of boats like those on the MIT observatory you saw earlier and went from there. This is the first one in the chronology."

Austin, studied the busy scene for a moment. "It looks like the Spanish armada .setting off to sea."

"Yes, from the number of boats it is definitely a fleet rather than random shipping activity at a port. The activity is frenetic but organized. Here you see boats lining up, being loaded, then standing by with cargo aboard."

The photo was replaced by a series of scenes showing the fleet at sea.

"Here we have a rather fanciful voyage with all sorts of strange sea creatures," Orville continued. "Many of these scenes differ only slightly in detail. Probably an artistic device to give a feeling of time passing."

Any idea how much time?" Gamay said.

"The Mayan writings say the voyage lasted one moon cycle. About thirty days. The Maya were precise timekeepers. Here is the last in the series. The boats have arrived at their destination. They are being greeted as they unload. There is an easy familiarity to the operation which suggests they were known to the inhabitants of this land." He turned to Trout and said, "It is time, my friend, to perform your computer magic."

Trout nodded. The blinking computer cursor selected three figures from the scene, framed their faces in a heavy white outline, then enlarged them. One face was that of a bearded man with an aquiline profile and a conical hat. The next was wide with full lips and a close-fitting skullcap or helmet. The third was a man with high cheekbones and elaborate feathered headdress.

Trout moved the images to the left of the screen, arranging them top to bottom. Three new faces appeared to the right.

"Looks like they were separated at birth," Zavala observed of the pairings.

"The similarity is pretty obvious, isn't it?" Orville noted. "Let's go back to the full scene again. Dr. Kirov, as our marine archaeologist, we would be pleased to have your opinion."

Using a laser pointer Nina highlighted first one ship then another. "What we have here is basically the same vessel used for dual purposes. The features are identical. The long and

straight flat-bottomed hull. The absence of a boom; the brails or napes used to lower and raise sail hang from a fixed yard. The lines sweep back to an overhanging stern. Three decks.. Fore and aft stays. The carved bow." The red dot lingered for a second. "Here is the double steering oar. The protrusion at this other end is a ram. This is a row of shields along the deck."

"So it's a warship?" Zavala said.

"Yes and no," Nina said. "On the top deck of one of these ships are men with spears. Obviously soldiers or marines. There are lookouts in the bows and space for lots of rowers." The laser flicked to another ship. "But here the deck is reserved for a person of quality. See this figure of a man reclining in the sunshine. The staff has a crescent on top, indicating the admiral's flagship. This thing hanging off the stern could be a decoration, a rich carpet maybe, that indicates the admiral is in authority."

"How long would this ship be?" Austin asked.

"My guess is that they're somewhere in the range of one to two hundred feet. Maybe longer. That would put them at around. a thousand tons."

Orville interjected. "Nina, could you mention that comparison you used with us landlubbers?"

"I'd be glad to. This ship is much longer than an English ship of the seventeenth century. The Mayflower, for example, was only one hundred eighty tons."

Orville asked, "So in your opinion, Nina, what are we looking at?"

Nina stared at the images, as if she were reluctant to vocalize what was in her brain. The scientist won out, however, and she said, "In my opinion as a nautical archaeologist, the ships shown in this rendering reflect the characteristics of Phoenician ocean-going vessels. If that sounds a little vague, yes, I am hedging my bets until I have more evidence."

"What sort of evidence would you need, Nina?" Austin said.

An actual ship, for one thing. What we know about Phoenician ships we learned mainly from their pictures on coins. There have been some reports that they were as long as three hundred feet. I'd take that with a grain of salt, but even if you cut that length down by half you still have a substantial vessel for its day."

"Substantial enough to cross the Atlantic?"

"Without a doubt," she replied. "These vessels were a lot bigger and more seaworthy than some of the minuscule sailboats that have made the crossing. People have rowed across the ocean in a dory, for heaven sakes. This vessel would have been ideal. You can't beat the square sail for an ocean passage. With a fore-and-aft rig you've always got the possibility of a dangerous jibe, the boom swinging violently over with a shift of the wind. With the brails they could shorten sail in a brisk wind. They'd get a roll with that shallow keel, but the rowers could help keep her steady, and the length of the ship would help. A trireme like this could sail more than a hundred miles a day under ideal circumstances.

"Short of an actual ship, what would you need to convince you this is Phoenician?°

"I'm not talking about convincing me," Gamay said. "I'm already convinced. Could we go back to those fares again, Paul?" The six carved heads came up on the screen again. The laser dot touched on one depiction of the bearded man, then flicked to his twin. "The pointed hat on these gentlemen is consistent with those worn by Phoenician mariners."

"Which should come as no surprise," Orville interjected, "because the picture on the right came from a Phoenician stela discovered near Tunisia. The gentleman below him is identical to African-type faces found at La Venta, Mexico. The third physical type is from the Mayan ruins at Uxmal."

"I hear a conclusion lurking in there," Austin said.

Orville sat back in his chair and made a tent with his fingertips. "Basing conclusions on pictorial matching is fine if you're a pseudoscientist trying to sell a paperback book, but it's not good archaeology," Orville said. He took a deep breath. "My colleagues would drag what's left of my tattered reputation from one end of Harvard Yard to the other if they heard me say this. Marine

archaeology is not my forte, so I can't assess Nina's statements. What I do know is that the inscriptions on these rocks show Phoenicians, Africans, and Mayans together in one place. Furthermore, Dr. Chi and I have translated the glyphs together and independently, and we've come, up with the same results each time. The stones say that those ships arrived in Maya country after fleeing a disaster in their homeland. What's more, they were greeted not as strangers but as old acquaintances."

"Did the glyphs indicate a date?"

"Knowing the Maya's obsession with timekeeping, I'd be surprised if there weren't one. The ships arrived in what would be 146 B.C. in our calendar."

Nina stared at the projection and whispered in Latin.

Seeing all eyes turned in her direction she explained, "It's something you learn in first-year Latin. 'Delenda est Carthago.' Carthage must be destroyed! Cato the Elder ended every speech he made in the Roman senate with the phrase. He was trying to whip up public sentiment in favor of a war against the Phoenician city of Carthage."

"It worked, as I recall. Carthage was destroyed," Austin said.

"Yes. In 146 B.C."

"Which means these ships could have been escaping the Romans.

A date is a date," Nina said, digging in her heels before she got dragged too far into Austin's theory. "I simply pointed out the coincidence. I made no conclusion. As a scientist I'd be irresponsible to make a statement like that," she added, but she couldn't hide the excitement building in her gray eyes.

Austin said, "I understand why as scientists you can't come out and say what you're thinking without more solid evidence. But from what I've seen here today I'm convinced the inscriptions on these stones suggest that ancient voyagers arrived in America long before Columbus. You know the Phoenicians were capable of making the crossing.

"I know they were the world's greatest explorers up until the fifteenth or sixteenth century. They circumnavigated Africa and went as far as Cornwall on the English coast and Cape Verde. On one voyage they supposedly took thousands of people on sixty ships."

"I rest my case," Austin said with exaggerated smugness.

"Not so fast, Perry Mason. The doubters will say these inscriptions are interesting, but who's to say they are authentic? Years ago inscriptions in Brazil supposedly described a Phoenician expedition in 531 B.C. The consensus was that they were forged. It sounds crazy, but you'll get people saying the antiquities looters could have been carving this stuff to sell to gullible collectors. Sure, you could make a case that the 'ships of Tarshish' undertook transatlantic voyages, but you need more substantial and substantiated proof to get anyone in the scientific community to accept it."

"What about the astrolabe you and the professor found?"

"Even that wouldn't do it, Kurt. They would say someone with Cortez or a Spanish hidalgo brought this thing in, an Indian stole it and stuck it in an old temple. Close but no cigar until you know for sure how it got there."

"Did the writing indicate what the ships were carrying?"

"We've been saving that for last," Orville said, giggling like a schoolboy.

"Oh, yes. We brow what their cargo was," Chi said. "The Mayan writing says it was mainly copper, jewels, gold, and silver."

Austin looked like someone shaking off a head punch. "You're saying the ships were loaded with treasure?"

Chi nodded.

"This wasn't a routine trading expedition," Austin said, his green eyes flashing. "Carthage was under siege by the Romans. The Carthaginians would have done everything they could to make sure the Romans didn't get their hands on the royal treasury."

Any idea what happened to the treasure?" Zavala asked.

"Unfortunately none of the carvings goes beyond the one you saw of the safe arrival of the ships," Chi said.

Nina frowned. All this talk of treasure is exciting," she said with impatience, "but the dazzle of gold and jewels should not keep us from trying to find the answer to the question of why my expedition was massacred in Morocco."

"Nina's right," Austin said. "Let's concentrate on the thread that connects these inscriptions to the other discoveries overseas. Christopher Columbus. We know that hundreds of years after these stones were carved Columbus heard tales of a great treasure." He pointed at the screen. "Could this be what he was looking for?"

"I hate to throw cold water on your theory," Orville countered. "The rumors Columbus was following could have had their basis in the real riches held by the Aztecs. As we know the Spaniards hit the jackpot later:" He paused. "You say Columbus was sailing a definite course. Do I understand he was following a map?"

"Not exactly" Austin said. "You remember that news clip Nina asked you to dig out of your files?"

"Oh, yes, the article from my Fortean file about the stone artifact."

"Columbus mentioned that he was being guided by a 'talking stone.' "

"Now I remember. The carved monolith they found in Italy It was being shipped in an armored truck Headed right here to the Peabody, in fact."

Austin said, "That stone could be the key to this whole mess. Treasure and assassinations."

"What a shame we can't take a look at it."

"Who says we can't? NUMA has tackled deeper and more difficult projects."

"Let. me see if I follow your line of thinking," Orville said with disbelief. "You're planning on diving more than two hundred feet into a wrecked ocean liner in God knows what condition to retrieve a massive stone artifact from a locked armored car?"

Zavala winked at Austin. "With any luck we can do it between breakfast and lunch and celebrate at dinner"

"Hmm," Orville said with a smirk. He leaned forward and pointed his finger at the two NUMA men "And they say I'm a nutcake."

Nantucket Shoals

39 THE MINI-SUBMERSIBLE WAS BARELY a few fathoms below Nantucket Sound's blue-green waters, and Austin was already having second thoughts about diving with Zavala. His misgivings had nothing to do with Zavala's skill as a pilot. There was hardly a craft in, on, or above the water Joe couldn't operate. It was his offkey singing. As the crane lifted the two-passenger craft off the deck and into the water Zavala had broken into a Spanish rendition of "Yellow Submarine."

Austin barked into his microphone, "Do you know any other songs?"

I'm taking audience requests."

"How about singing `Far Far Away'?"

Zavala's quiet laughter came over the earphones. "Gee, I haven't heard that one since I was a muchacho. "

"Desperate times call for desperate measures."

"No problema. It sounds better with a guitar anyway. Where do you want to go, amigo?"

"How about down for starters?"

Zavala's wave of acknowledgment was visible through the observation bubble that was so close Austin could have reached out and touched his colleague on the shoulder if not for the plexiglass that enclosed their heads. The twin domes were mounted at the front of the minisub, jutting at an angle from its flat green ceramic surface like the bulbous eyes of a frog.

The Deep Flight 11 was unlike most deep ocean submersibles and bathyscaphes which tended to be shaped like a fat man, rotund and thick around the waist. It looked more like a futuristic fighter plane than an undersea vehicle. The fuselage was rectangular and flat, with the leading and trailing edges tapering like the business end of a chisel. The sides were perpendicular to the flat top and bottom with sharp edges as if canvas had been stretched over a frame.. The wings were stubby and squared off and equipped with fixed running lights. Thruster fans were mounted behind the wings and observation domes. At the front were a pair of manipulator arms and a movable spotlight.

Unlike the crew of a traditional submersible, who sat upright as if at a desk, Austin and Zavala lay prone, Sphinx-like, face forward, strapped into form-fitting pans, elbows set into padded receptacles. They had dual controls, including a joystick for elevation and another for speed. Zavala handled the sub while Austin took care of the other systems such as lights, video, and the manipulator arms. He kept an eye on the heads-up digital display that contained compass, speedometer, and odometer and controls for depth gauge, air-conditioning, strobe unit, and sonar. The craft was slightly buoyant and, dove by moving through the water and adjusting the elevators in its tail section like an airplane.

Their bodies were elevated at a thirty-degree angle to simulate the natural position of a person swimming. This attitude also made rapid descents and ascents less frightening. The space was adequate for Austin's six-foot-one height but snug around his broad shoulders. Still, he had to admit, even with Zavala's serenade it was a pleasant way to scout out a wrecked ocean liner.

The wreck was marked by a red spherical buoy. Zavala put the sub into a slow series of descending circles around the buoy line which ran down one hundred eighty feet from the surface to a length of chain attached to the third port-side lifeboat davit. Normal descent to the highest part of the wreck took three to four minutes. With its five-knot speed the minisub could make the trip in a fraction of that time, but Austin wanted to get a feel for the environment they would be working in. He asked Zavala to ease them to the bottom.

The deepening water filtered the colors out of the sunlight streaming down from the surface. The red tints disappeared first, then on through the spectrum. At five fathoms all hues had been lost except for a cold bluish green. In compensation for the artificial dusk, the water became as dear as fine crystal as the sub broke through the warmer layers of thermocline where particles of vegetation were held in suspension. The sub corkscrewed lazily into the sea around the anchor line. A huge dark mass loomed from the pale bottom sand and filled their vision.

With the excellent visibility the sub had been running without lights. At a depth of one hundred twenty feel. Zavala flattened their trajectory, slowed the minisub's speed to a crawl, and switched on the craft's belly light. The ship lay on its side. The large circle of illumination transformed a section of the hull below them from black to a cadaverish grayish green broken here and there with leprous splotches of yellow and rust stains like dried blood. The patina of marine growth, made up of millions of sea anemones, stretched off into the dimness beyond the reach of the light.

Austin found it difficult to imagine that this huge dead leviathan was once one of the fastest and most beautiful ships afloat. It is possible to stand before a building as tall as the Doria was long and not be awed by its size. But if that same seven-hundred-foot tower is tuned horizontally and placed by itself on a flat empty plain, its immensity becomes breathtaking.

Lying on its starboard or right side, hiding the fatal gash from the Stockholm's sharp beak, the Doria looked like a monstrous sea creature that had simply lain down to rest, had fallen asleep, and was now being reclaimed by the sea. The mini. sub switched on its video camera and glided toward the stern, staying a short distance above the rows of portholes. Dwarfed by the massive hull, the craft resembled a little bug-eyed crustacean checking out a whale. Near the sixteen-ton portside propeller

Zavala made a sharp turn and passed over the sharply etched black rectangles that once served as windows to the promenade deck. When open water appeared he dropped the sub down to a depth of two hundred feet and pointed the craft back toward the bow on a path parallel to their earlier course: The multi-tiered decks were a ninety-foot-high vertical wall off to their left. They moved past the three swimming pools that had once cooled passengers according to class on their transatlantic passage, scudding along the lifeboat deck whose davits didn't work any better now than they did in 1956.

Dozens of fishing nets had become snagged on the hook-like davits. The nets veiled the decks like great shrouds draped over an immense bier. The mesh was coated with a hoary cloak of marine growth. Some nets, held aloft from the wreck by their buoys, were still snaring fish from the schools of large pollock and cod that darted dangerously close. Noting the rotting bones caught in the mesh, Zavala wisely kept the mini-sub at a respectful distance from the still dangerous nets.

The ship's great red-and-white smokestack had fallen off, leaving an immense square shaft down to the engine room. Other openings marked uncovered staircase wells. The superstructure had slipped off and lay in a jumble of disintegrating debris on the sea bottom. With its distinctive stack and superstructure gone the Andrea Doria looked more like a barge than a ship. Only when they glided by the remnants of the wheelhouse and saw the massive booms, winch heads, and bollards intact on the foredeck did they began to get the sense that this was a huge passenger liner. It was hard to believe a vessel this big could ever sink, but that's what they said about the Titanic, Austin reminded himself.

They had been as reverent as mourners at a funeral, but now Austin broke the silence. "That's what thirty million dollars looks like after a few decades at the bottom of the sea."

"Hell of a lot of money to pay for an oversized fish, catcher," Zavala said.

"That's just for the hull. I didn't count the millions in furnishings and artwork and four hundred tons of freight. The pride of the Italian navy."

"I can't figure it," Zavala said. "I know all about the thick fog, but both these ships had radar and lookouts. How in all of those millions of square miles of ocean did they happen to occupy the same space at the same time?"

"Plain lucky. I guess."

"They couldn't have done better if they planned out a collision course in advance."

"Fifty two people dead. A twenty-nine-thousand-ton ocean liner on the bottom. The Stockholm heavily damaged. Millions in cargo lost That's some planning."

"I think you're telling me it's one of those unsolved mysteries of the sea.'

"Do you have a better answer?"

"Not one that makes any sense," he replied with a sigh that was audible over the mike. "Where to now?"

"Let's go up to Gimbel's Hole for a looksee," Austin said.

The minisub banked around as gracefully as a manta ray and headed back toward the bow, then cruised evenly about halfway down the length of the port side until it came to a jagged four-sided opening.

Gimbel's Hole.

The eight-by-twenty-foot hole was the legacy of Peter Gimbel. Less than twentyeight hours after the Doria went under, Gunbel and another photographer named Joseph Fox dove on the liner and spent thirteen minutes exploring the wreck. It was the start of Gimbel's fascination with the ship. In 1981 he led an expedition that used a diving bell and saturation diving techniques. The divers cut away the entrance doors into the First Class Foyer Lounge to get at a safe reported to hold a million dollars in valuables. Amid great hoopla the safe was opened on TV, but it yielded only a few hundred dollars.

"Looks like a barn door," Zavala quipped.

"This barn door took two weeks to open with magnesium rods," Austin said. "We don't have that long."

"Might be easier to raise the whole thing. If NUMA could raise the Titanic, the Doria should be a cinch."

"You're not the first one to suggest that. There have been a pile of schemes to bring her up. Compressed air. Helium-filled balloons. A coffer dam. Plastic bubbles. Even Ping-Pong balls."

"The Ping-Pong guy must have had some cojones." Zavala whistled.

Austin groaned at the Spanish double entendre. Aside from that astute observation, from what you've seen, what do you think?"

"I think we've got our work cut out for us:"

"I agree. Let's go topside and see what the others say"

Zavala gave him a thumbs up, tweaked the motor, and lifted the nose of the sub. As they quickly ascended with the power from four thrusters, Austin glanced at the gray ghost receding in the gloom. Somewhere in that huge hull was the key to the bizarre series of murders. He put his grim thoughts aside as Zavala broke into a Spanish chorus of "Octopus's Garden." Austin thanked his lucky stars that the trip was short.

The Deep Flight broke the surface in an explosion of froth and foam. Through the water-streaked observation bubbles a gray-hulled boat with a white superstructure was visible about a hundred fifty feet away. The minisub was as agile as a minnow underwater. On the surface its flat planes were susceptible to the wave motion, and it rocked in the slight chop being kicked up by a freshening breeze. Austin didn't normally get seasick, but he was starting to feel green around the gills and was happy when the boat got under way and rapidly covered the distance between them.

The boat's design was typical of many salvage and survey ships whose main function is to serve as a platform for lowering, towing, and hauling various instruments and vehicles. It had a snub tugboat's bow and a high forecastle, but most of the sixty five-foot length was open deck. At either side of the deck was an elbow crane. An A-frame spanned most of the twenty-two-foot beam at the stern where a ramp slanted down to the sea. Two men in wetsuits pushed an inflatable down the ramp into the water, jumped into it, and skimmed over the wave tops to the minisub. While one man manned the tiller the other secured the sturdy hook to a grommet at the front of the submersible.

The line led to a deck winch that pulled the minisub closer, the boat maneuvering until the Deep Flight was on its starboard. A crane swung over and lowered tackle that was attached by the men in the inflatable to cleats on the sub. The cable went taut. The sub and its passengers were lifted dripping from the sea, swung over the deck, and lowered onto a steel cradle. The operation was handled with Swisswatch precision and dispatch. Austin would have expected nothing less than perfection from one of his father's boats.

After the revealing session at the Peabody, Austin had called Rudi Gunn to fill him in and request a salvage vessel. NUMA had dozens of ships involved in its farflung operations. That was the problem, Gunn explained. The agency's boats were flung all around the globe. Most carried scientists who had stood in line for a spot on board. The nearest ship was the Nereus, still in Mexico. Austin said he didn't need a fullblown salvage ship, but Gunn said the quickest he could get something to Austin was a week. Austin told him to make a reservation and hung up. After a moment's thought he dialed again.

The voice like a bear coughing in the woods came on the line. Austin told his father what he needed.

"Hah!" the older man guffawed. "Chrissakes, I thought NUMA had more ships than the U.S. Navy. Can't the admiral spare you one dinky boat from his fleet?"

Austin let his father enjoy his gloat "Not in the time I need it. I could really use your help, Pop."

"Hmm. Help comes with a price tag, lad," the old man said slyly.

"NUMA will reimburse you for any expenses, Pop."

"I could give a rat's ass about money," he growled. My accountant will find a way to put it down as a charitable donation if he doesn't get sent to Alcatraz before then. If I get you something that floats, does that mean you'll wrap up whatever nonsense Sandecker's got you involved in and get out here to see me before I'm so damned senile I don't recognize you?"

"Can't promise anything. There's a good chance of it."

"Humph. Finding a boat for you isn't like hailing a cab, you know. I'll see what I can do." He hung up.

Austin laughed softly. His father knew exactly where every vessel he owned was and what it was doing, down to the smallest rowboat. Dad wanted to let him wriggle on the hook. Austin wasn't surprised when the phone rang a few minutes later.

The gruff voice said, "You're in luck. Got you an old scow. We've got a salvage vessel doing some work for the navy off Sandy Hook, New Jersey. Not one of your big research vessels, but she'll do fine. She'll put into Nantucket Harbor tomorrow and wait for you."

"Thanks, Pop, I really appreciate it."

"I had to twist the captain's arm, and I'll lose money on this job," he said, his tone softening, "but I guess it's worth it to get my son out here in my declining years."

What an actor! Austin thought. His father could whup his weight in wildcats. True to his word the senior Austin had the boat in Nantucket the next day. The Monkfish was hardly a scow. It was, in fact, a medium-sized, state-of-theart salvage vessel less than two years old. An added bonus was Captain John McGinty, a hard-boned, ruddy-faced Irishman from South Boston. The captain had dived on the Andrea Doria years before and was delighted to work on her again.

Austin was removing the cassette from the mini-sub's video camera when McGinty strode over. "Well, don't keep me in suspense," he said with excitement in his voice. "How's the old gal look?"

"She's showing her age, but you can see for yourself." Austin handed over the cassette. The captain glanced at the mini-sub and chuckled. "That's some hot rod," he said, and led the way to his quarters. He set Austin and Zavala up with soft chairs and hard drinks, then popped the video into his VCR. McGinty sat in uncharacteristic silence, taking in every detail as the sweptback hull and its patina of anemones rolled across the TV screen. When the video ended he punched the rewind button.

"You boys did good work. She looks pretty much the way she did when I last dove on her in 'eightyseven. Except there are more trawler nets. And like you said," he sighed, "she's getting a, little worn around the edges. It's what you can't see that's the problem. I've heard the ship's interior bulkheads are rotting away. Won't be long before the whole thing collapses in on itself."

"Could you give us an idea what we'll be dealing with down there?"

"I'll do my best. Want a refill?" Not waiting for an answer he poured the equivalent of a double shot of Jack Daniel's into each glass and dropped in a couple of token ice cubes. He took a sip, staring at the blank TV screen. "One thing you can't forget. The Doria may look pretty, even with all that scum mucking up her hull, but she's a man-killer. They don't call her the Mount Everest of divers for nothing. She hasn't killed as many as Everest, around ten last time I got counting, but the guys who dive on the Doria are looking for that same adrenaline rush from the danger that mountain climbers get."

"Every wreck has its own character," Austin said. "What are the major hazards on this ship?"

"Well, she's got all sorts of tricks up her sleeve. First of all there's the depth. With a two-hour decompression. You need a drysuit because of the cold. Sharks come to feed on the fish. Mostly blues. Not supposed to be dangerous, but when you're hanging on the anchor line decompressing you just hope some near-sighted shark doesn't mistake you for a fat pollock."

"When I first started diving my father told me to remember that in the water you are no longer the top of the food chain," Austin said.

McGinty grunted in agreement. "None of that stuff would be major except for the other problems. There's always a wicked current. It can be bad all the way down and even runs through the boat. Sometimes it seems like it will pull you right off the anchor line."

"I felt it pushing against the mini-sub," Zavala said.

McGinty nodded. "You saw what the visibility was like."

"We could see pretty well today. We found the wreck without our lights," Austin said.

"You were lucky. Sun was shining, sea wasn't stirred up much. On a cloudy or foggy day you can be practically on the wreck without seeing it. That's nothing compared to inside. Black as Hades, silt all over the place. Just touch it and you're surrounded by a cloud so thick your light won't penetrate it. Real easy to get confused and lost. But the biggest problem is entanglement. You can get into real trouble with all the wires and cables hanging down from the ceilings. That's if you get past those nets and ropes all over the hull and the monofilament from the party boats that fish the wreck. It's invisible. You don't know it's there until it's grabbed on to your tank. With scuba you've got twenty minutes max to get yourself out of trouble."

"That's not much time to explore a huge ship."

"That's one of the reasons it's so damned dangerous. Fellows want that piece of pottery or dish with the Italia crest on it. Figure they've spent all that time training and money to get out there. They forget. They get tired real fast, especially if they're fighting the current and breathing trimix. Make mistakes. Get lost. Forget the plans they memorized. Equipment's got to be working perfectly. One guy died because he had the wrong mix in his tanks. On my last dive I had five tanks, weight belt, lights, knives. I was carrying two hundred twenty-eight pounds. It takes a lifetime of experience to dive the ship. Even so, it's easy to become disoriented. You've got the ship lying on its side, so the deck and floors are overhead, the bulkheads between the decks are vertical."

"The Andrea Doria sounds like just our kind of place, doesn't it, Joe?"

"Only if the bar still serves tequila."

McGinty furrowed his brow. Ordinarily this kind of cockiness before a Doria dive was a one-way ticket to a body bag. He wasn't sure about these two. The big man with the hair that didn't match the unlined face and the soft-spoken dark man with the bedroom eyes exuded an unusual confidence. The captain's worried expression disappeared, and he grinned like an old hound dog. No, it wouldn't surprise him to see them belly up to the Doria's firstclass bar and order a drink from a ghostly bartender.

Austin said, "What's the weather going to be like, Captain?"

"Weather tends to be cantankerous as hell out here on the shoals. Calm one day, howling gale the next. Fog is notorious. The guys who were aboard the Doria and the Stockholm could tell you how thick it gets. Wind's blowing southeast now, but it will come around more westerly, and my guess is you'll have flat seas. Don't know how many days that will last out here."

"That's okay, we're in something of a hurry to get the job done," Austin said. "We don't have days."

McGinty grinned. Yup, damned cocky. "We'll see. Still, I've got to admit you boys have got brass. What's this you're looking for, an armored. truck in the hold? That's going to require some doing. Especially where you don't know the wreck." He shook his head. "Wish I could help you, but my diving days are over. You could use a guide."

Austin saw a blue hull come into view through a porthole. The name Myra was painted on the bow

"Excuse me, Captain," he said. "I think our guide has just arrived."

Georgetown,Washington, DC

40 "GAMAY, DO YOU HAVE A MINUTE?" Trout called out from his study. He was bent over the monitor of his computer, staring intently at the oversized screen he used for developing graphics for his various undersea projects.

"Yrrph," Gamay answered with a muffled grunt from the next room. She lay on her back, suspended horizontally above the floor like a yogi in a trance, balanced on a narrow plank scaffolding supported by two ladders. She and Paul were constantly remodeling the interior of their Georgetown brick townhouse. Ruch Gunn ordered her to take a few days off to rest before reporting to NUMA headquarters. But the second she got back home she picked up on a project she had left undone, painting life-like flower garlands on the ceiling of their sunroom.

She walked into the study wiping her hands on a rag. She was wearing old jeans and a chambray work shirt. Her dark red hair was stuffed under a white cap with the words TruTest Paint on it. Her face was smudged with green and red splatters except for a racoonish area around her eyes where she'd worn protective goggles.

"You look like a Jackson Pollock painting," Trout said.

She wiped a gob of crimson from her mouth. "How Michelangelo painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel is beyond me. I've only been at it an hour, and I've got a badcase of painter's elbow"

Trout peered upward over non-existent glasses and broke into an easy grin.

"What's with the wolfish smile?" Gamay said warily.

He put his hand around her slim waist and pulled her closer. He'd touched her at every opportunity since they had returned home, as if he feared she would disappear into the jungle again. The days she was missing were a nightmare for him, but his Yankee upbringing would never allow him to come out and say so.

"Just thinking about how sexy you look with paint splattered on your face."

Gamay gently tousled his fine hair and brushed it down over his forehead. "You perverts really know how to sweettalk a gal." Her eye caught the images on the screen. "Is that why you called me?"

"So much for sudden impetuous romantic gestures." He indicated the screen. "Yes. Tell me what you see."

She leaned on Paul's shoulder and squinted at the monitor. "No brainer. I see beautifully detailed sketches of eight fantastic-looking heads." Her voice lapsed into the scientific mode, like the monotone of a pathologist conducting an autopsy. At .first glance the profiles appear identical, but upon further examination I detect subtle differences, mostly around the jaw and mouth but on the cranium as well. How am I doing, Sherlock?"

"You not only see but you also observe, my dear Watson."

"Elementary, my dear fellow. Who drew these sketches? They are works of art in themselves."

"The esteemed Dr. Chi. A man of varied talents."

"I saw enough of the good professor not to be surprised at anything he does. How do you happen to have them?"

"Chi showed them to me when I was at Harvard. He asked me to run them by you. He remembered your background in archaeology before you switched to biology. But mostly he wanted a fresh eye." Trout leaned his long body back and laced his fingers behind his head. "I'm an ocean geologist. I can take this stuff and make all the pretty pictures I want to, but it doesn't make any sense to me."

Gamay pulled a chair up beside her husband.

"Look at it this way, Paul. It's no different from somebody handing you a rock from the bottom of the ocean. What's the first thing you'd ask?"

"Easy. Where they got it."

"Bravo." She pecked him on the cheek. "The same thing applies in archaeology. Mayan studies wasn't my area of expertise before I switched to marine biology, but here's my first question to you. Where did these glyphs come from?"

Trout tapped the screen. "This one here is from the site Chi calls MIT Where you first ran into the chicleros."

Gamay felt a frisson along her spine at the reminder of beating sun, jungle rot, and unshaven, unfriendly men. "What about the others?"

"All from different locations Chi has visited."

"What made him pick these, aside from the fact that they are almost identical?"

"Location. Each face was from an observatory carved with the frieze showing the boats that may or may not be Phoenician."

"Intriguing."

"Uhhuh. The professor thought so. The boat theme tied them together."

"What's it all mean?"

"I don't know," he said with a shrug. "I'm afraid that's the extent of my Meso-american expertise."

"Why don't we call Professor Chi?"

"Just tried. He wasn't in his Mexico City office. They said he was there earlier but would be unavailable."

"Don't t tell me. They said he was in the field."

Trout nodded. ."I left a message."

"Don't hold your breath now that he's got his HumVee back. What about Orville?"

"The nutty professor? Exactly what I had in mind. First I wanted to run this stuff by you in case you had any inspiration."

"Call Linus Orville. That's my inspiration."

Trout flipped through his card file and punched out a number. When Orville answered Trout put him on the speaker phone.

"Ah, Mulder and Scully" Orville said, referring to the FBI characters in the popular TV program. "How are things with the X-Files?"

In the most serious tone he could muster, Trout said, "We've uncovered solid proof that those mysterious carved boats are from the lost continent of Mu."

"You're kidding!" Orville replied breathlessly.

"Yeah, I'm kidding. I just like to say the word Mu."

"Well, moo to you, too, Mulder. Now please tell me the real reason you called."

"We need your opinion on those sketches Professor Chi left with Paul," Gamay said.

"Oh, the Venus glyphs."

"Venus?"

"Yes, the series of eight. Each figure represents an incarnation of the god Venus."

Gamay looked at the grotesque profiles with their protruding jaws and foreheads. "Ugh. I've always thought of the goddess of love as a delicate maiden drifting out of the sea foam on a scallop shell."

"That's because you've been brainwashed. by Botticelli's vision and wasted your time on classical studies before you got out of the Temple of Doom game. The Mayan Venus was a male. "

"How chauvinistic."

"Only to a point. The Maya were firm believers in equal opportunity when it came to human sacrifice. Venus symbolized Quetzalcoatl or Kukulcan. The feathered serpent. It's all tied in. The analogy of birth and rebirth. Like Quetzalcoatl, Venus disappears for part of its cycle only to reappear."

"I get it," Trout said. "The Maya decorated their temples with representations of the god to make him happy so he'd come back."

"There was some of that, yeah, toadying up to the big guy. You have to understand how architecture was worked into theft religion. Mayan buildings were often fixed on key points like the solstice and equinox or where Venus appears and disappears. A celestial calculator. in other words."

Gamay said, "Professor Chi compared the observatory tower at the MIT site to a computer's hardware, the inscriptions on its side to software. He felt that it was only part of the whole picture, the way one circuit is part of a computer."

"Yes, he ran that theory by me, but your carved tower has a long way to go before it becomes an IBM clone."

"Still, it's possible that the tower and the others were part of a unified plan?" Gamay persisted.

"Don't get me wrong. The Maya were incredibly sophisticated and always manage to surprise. They often lined up palace doorways and streets to point to the sun and stars at various times of the year. You see, predicting the movements of Venus would give the priests tremendous power. The Venus god told the farmers about important dates like planting, harvest, and rainy season. The Caracol at Chichen Itza has windows that line up with Venus at various points on the horizon."

"There are no boat inscriptions on the Caracol, as far as I know," Gamay said.

"Only on those eight temples the glyphs came from. Venus disappears for eight days during its cycle. A scary thing if you were depending on the planet for important decisions. So the priests tossed a few maidens into a well, did some creative bloodletting, and everything was peachy again. Speaking of bloodletting, I've got a class in five minutes. Can we resume this fascinating discussion later?"

Gamay wasn't through. "You say Venus disappears for eight days and that there are eight temples we know of with the boat carvings. Coincidence?"

"Chi didn't think so. Got to go. Can't wait to tell the class about the Musters."

The phone clicked off. Paul picked up a yellow legal pad.

"That was edifying. Let's go over what we have. We've got eight temple observatories. Each one was built to chart the movements of Venus." Trout made a note. "These structures were also dedicated toward a single theme, the arrival of boats that could have been Phoenician, bearing great treasure. A wild guess. The observatories and Venus have something to do with the treasure."

Gamay agreed. She took the notebook and drew eight circles at random. "Say these are the temples." She drew lines connecting the circles and stared at her doodles for a moment. "There's something here," she said.

Paul looked at the scribbles and shook his head. "Looks like a flat-footed spider."

"That's because we're thinking in earthbound terms. Look." She drew two stars near the edge of the page. "Rise above the earth. Let's say this is Venus at its extreme points on the horizon. That temple I saw at MIT had two slot-like openings like an archer's port in a castle. Here's what you would see if you drew a line from the window to one extreme of Venus. Now I'll do it out the other window." Satisfied with her artwork, she drew lines from each observatory to the Venus points.

She stuck the rough grid she'd produced under Paul's nose.

"Now it looks like the mouth of an alligator about ready to have dinner," he said.

"Maybe. Or a hungry serpent."

"Still thinking about that snake?"

"Yes and no. Dr. Chi wore an amulet around his neck. He called it the feathered serpent. That's what this reminds me of, the jaws of Kukulcan."

"You need the exact locations of the observatories, even admitting it's possible to make sense from this. Too bad Chi is in the field."

Gamay was half listening. "I just thought of something. That talking stone Kurt and Joe are out looking for. Wasn't it supposed to show some kind of grid?"

"That's right. I wonder if there's a connection."

Trout picked up the phone. "I'll call and leave a message for Chi to get in touch with us as soon as possible. Then we'll give Kurt a ring to tell him you may have something."

She examined her doodlebug sketches again. "Yes, but what?"

Nantucket Shoals

41 THE CABIN CRUISER THAT HAD BEEN circling the salvage boat pulled alongside within hailing distance and cut its engine to an idle. The white, red, and green tricolor of Italy fluttered on the signal mast under the American flag. The slim, silver-haired figure of Angelo Donatelli stepped out of the pilothouse and waved.

"Hallo, Mr. Austin, I've come on a rescue mission. I understand you are running out of grappa. May we make a delivery?"

"Hallo, Mr. Donatelli," Austin yelled back. "Thank you for the resupply. Until now we've had to drink battery acid."

Captain McGinty cupped his hands around his mouth, an entirely unnecessary gesture because his normal voice was a bellow. "Skipper thanks you, too, and invites you to come aboard on your mission of merry."

Donatelli saluted in acknowledgment and went back into the pilothouse. The anchor dropped into the water with a rattle and a splash, and the engine died. Donatelli and his cousin Antonio stepped into an outboard launch the yacht had been towing, buzzed the short distance to the salvage ship, and climbed aboard.

Donatelli handed the captain a bottle of the fiery Italian liquor. "With my compliments," he said, then turned to Austin and swept his hand toward the cabin cruiser.

"How do you like my blue beauty, Mr. Austin?"

Donatelli's continued use of the honorific was Old World habit or simply the practiced good manners of a restaurateur used to dealing with a high-class clientele, Austin figured. It was a refreshing change from the phony first name, "Hi, my name is Bud" informality that was one of Austin's favorite gripes.

Austin's eyes swept the cruiser stern to stern and took in its navy hull and creamy superstructure as if he were studying the curves of a lovely woman. "She's got classically beautiful lines," he said. "How does she handle?"

"Like a dream. I fell in love the first time I saw her abandoned in a boatyard in Bristol, Rhode Island. I've spent thousands restoring her. She's forty-five feet, but the sweep of her bow makes her look even longer. A very stable boat, perfect for taking the grandchildren out." He laughed. And a way to escape the family when I need peace and quiet. My clever accountant has made the boat part of the business, so I have to catch a fish now and again for the restaurants." He paused and looked mistyeyed at the sea where a flock of gulls speckled the dark water like snowflakes. "So this is where it happened."

Austin pointed to the red plastic bubble bobbing in the slight chop. "The top of the ship lies thirty fathoms under that marker. We're directly over her." There was no need to use the Doria's name; they both knew what vessel he was talking about.

"I have cruised the waters all around the island," Donatelli said, "but I have never, never been to this spot." He chuckled softly. "We Sicilians are superstitious people who believe in ghosts."

All the more reason to thank you for helping with this project."

Donatelli affixed Austin with piercing deep-set eyes. "I wouldn't have missed this for the world. Where do we start?"

"We've got a set of plans in the captain's cabin."

"Bene. Come, Antonio," he said to his cousin, who'd been imitating a fire plug. "Let us see what we can do for these gentlemen."

Captain McGinty unrolled a sheet of heavy white paper onto a table in his cabin. The paper was labeled Italian Line plano delle sistemazioni passeggeri," or plan of passenger accommodation. At the top was a photo of the liner cutting its way through the waves in better days. Below the photo were diagrams of nine decks.

Donatelli tapped the area that showed the Belvedere Lounge at the front of the boat deck. "I was working here when the Stockholm hit us. Boom! I landed on the floor:" His finger moved to the promenade deck. All the passengers are here waiting for rescue. A big mess," he said, shaking his head in disgust. "Mr. Corey finds me, and we go down to their cabin. Here. On the starboard side of the upper deck. Poor Mrs. Carey is trapped. Off I go like a scared rabbit to find a car jack Down here." His finger retraced his route of that night. "Past the shops on the foyer deck, but the way is blocked, so I go way back here to the stern, then down to A Deck."

Donatelli halted his straight-forward account, remembering the terror that gripped him as he descended into the dark bowels of the sinking ship. "Excuse me," he apologized, a catch in his voice. "Even now, after all these years . . ." He took a deep breath and let it out. "That night I found out what Dante went through in his descent to Hades." He puffed his cheeks and continued. "So finally I make it to B Deck, where the garage is. Everyone knows the rest of the story?'

The others gathered around the table nodded.

"Good," Donatelli said with obvious relief. Although the cabin was cool his brow glistened with perspiration, and a vein throbbed on the side of his head.

"Could you tell us exactly where in the garage you saw the armored truck?" Austin said.

"Sure, it was up here in this corner." He borrowed a pencil and made an X. "I heard there were nine cars in the garage, including the fancy one the Italians built for Chrysler." He compressed his lips in a tight smile. "I never found the jack I was looking for."

"Our plan is to go in through the garage doors," Austin explained.

Donatelli nodded. "The cars could drive right into the garage from the pier. I think it's a good plan, but I know little of these things," he said with a shrug.

Captain McGinty was less equivocal. A few minutes earlier he'd been diverted by a call on the ship's phone. Now he was back at the table shaking his head: "Hope you boys aren't going on a fool's errand. I see a big problem staring me in the face."

"That may be an understatement. I'd be surprised if the problems weren't jumping up and down on our backs like an eight-hundred-pound gorilla," Austin said.

"This one is a pisser. I know guys who've gotten into that hold, coming down through the decks." He indicated the starboard wall of the garage. "Everything in that spacecars, trucks, cargo would have fallen onto this side that's lying in the bottom sand. Your armored truck could be buried under tons of junk. Guys who've been in that hold saw that future car Chrysler was shipping over, but they couldn't get at it because the space is full of twisted beams and busted bulkheads. You go in with gym suits like you're planning, there's the danger you could get caught up."

Austin was well aware this could be one of the toughest assignments in his varied career. More difficult in its own way than raising that Iranian container ship or the Russian sub.

"Thanks for the warning, Captain. My idea is to approach this as if we were looking for a target where the bottom's been littered with wrecks. Like the East River, for example. You may be right, that the job is impossible. But I think it's worth taking a look" He grinned. "Maybe we'll even find Mr. Donatelli's car jack."

McGinty let out a whooping laugh. "Well, if it's a fool's errand, you're my kind of fool. What say we offer a toast to our success?"

Donatelli opened the grappa and poured drinks all around using a waiter's flourish that hadn't deserted him.

"By the way, that was the boys down below calling from the bell," McGinty said. "They've just about cut through the hull. I told them to get things ready for tomorrow, then take a rest. You'd be down first thing in the morning to do the job."

Austin raised his glass. "Here's to lost causes and impossible missions."

The quiet laughter was cut short as Donatelli solemnly raised his glass high. "And here's to the Andrea Doria and the souls of all those who have died on her."

When they tossed their drinks down, it was done in silence.

42 LIFE IS NEVER DULL AROUND THE Andrea Doria for the schools of silver-scaled fish that claim squatter's rights in luxurious cabins that cost their previous occupants thousands of lira. But nothing could have prepared the denizens of the blue twilight world for the arrival of two creatures more bizarre than any inhabitant of the depths. Their plump bodies were covered with shiny yellow skin, their backsides protected by a black carapace. In the center of their bulbous heads was a single eye. Twin stumps protruded from the bottoms of their rotund bodies. Near the top were similar, shorter appendages, each ending in a claw. Most curious were the softly whirring fins on each side.

The creatures hung in the water like balloons in the Macy's Thanksgiving parade. The soft laughter of Zavala's voice cackled in Austin's headset.

"Have I ever told you how much you resemble 'the Michelin man?"

After the meal with McGinty last night I wouldn't be surprised at anything. My gym suit is a little tight around the gut."

.

The Ceanic Hard Suit must have been nicknamed by someone with a vision problem. The so-called gym suit was actually a bodyfitting submarine. The forged aluminum skin was technically a hull. Vertical and lateral propulsion thrusters on each side were activated by foot controls. With its oxygen recirculation and carbon dioxide scrubbing capability, the suit was good for six to eight hours of dive time with forty-eight hours of emergency life support. It topped the scales at nearly half a ton, yet in water the suit weighed less than eight pounds. The Hard Suit provided mobility, long dive time, and no decompression. The suit's major disadvantage was its bulkiness. Penetrating the interior following Donatelli's route would be suicide. They would become ensnared on wires or lines within minutes.

In formulating a dive plan, Austin reviewed all past dives on the Doria, successful or not. Austin thought the Gimbel expeditions had the right idea. The 1975 attempt tried to use a submersible for reconnaissance, but the craft lacked the power to fight the current. The diving bell intended for use as an elevator and work station was improperly ballasted and went dangerously out of control. What impressed Austin was the fact that saturation divers working from the surface with umbilical hoses managed to accomplish a great deal against formidable odds. They actually got into the garage. The 1981 Gimbel expedition was better prepared. The bell system worked well. Although it ran into all sorts of problems, including nasty weather and a current that tangled the umbilicals, divers managed to find the safe and hook it up to a crane.

In the end, Austin chose a combination of Hand Suits and saturation divers. He patched together an expedition relatively well equipped for the task. His father provided the Monkfish and crew. Gunn combed through the NUMA expedition and ship schedule and pulled together the diving bell and a decompression chamber on the deck that was equipped with showers and bunks. The borrowed mini-sub, with its recon capabilities, was an unexpected bonus. Most important were NUMAs six experienced saturation divers who were flown in from Virginia. Since their arrival on the Monkfish they had been worked in round-the-clock shifts to cut a hole in the liner's hull.

The weather on Nantucket Shoals lived up to its reputation for changeability. When Austin and Zavala crawled out of their bunks that morning the air was transparent. The lumpy sea of the previous day had vanished, and the ocean was mirror calm, reflecting like polished glass the images of the seabirds dotting the surface. A pair of black fins cut the water. Dolphins. McGinty said they were a sign of good luck and would keep the sharks away. The surface current was about one knot. He predicted that a thick fog would later work its way onto the shoals, and the current might come up, but they could deal with that.

Encased in their heavy suits, the NUMA men were lowered by crane into the water. They spent several minutes just under the surface checking out their gear while the crane again swung out over the water and dropped a Kevlar cable that was ganged into four short lines ending in sturdy metal dips. They gripped the line firmly in their mechanical claws. With a hum of vertical thrusters they descended into the indigo sea. The Monkfish was locked in place exactly over the wreck by four anchor lines, two at the bow, two at the stern, one hundred meters in each direction. Stability was crucial. Otherwise the diving bell would swing at the end of its tether like a pendulum.

Although the Hard Suits were equipped with lights and they brought portable lamps with them, no illumination was needed. The visibility was at least thirty feet, and the shadowy outline of the ship stood out in relief against the paler bottom. They headed toward where a section of the hull was illuminated by a cold pulsating glow.

At the center of the eddying bluish corona two saturation divers clung to the up-ended port side of the ship like insects on a log. One diver knelt on the hull with a cutting torch in his gloved hand while the other tended the Kerry cable that conveyed the fuel and kept an eye on things in general. They had been transported down earlier by the diving bell, which served as an elevator and underwater habitat for the dive team.

Suspended by a thick cable that ran to a winch on the deck of the Monkfish, the bell hung a few meters above the hull. It was shaped like a gaspowered camp lantern. The four sides were rounded slightly at the corners, the roof sloped down from the hole for the hoisting cable. Another cable containing communications and power entered the bell from a lower point on the roof. Fastened to the outside were tanks holding breathing gases and torch fuel. The bottom of the bell was open to the sea, which was held in abeyance by air pressure. From the opening umbilicals snaked to the divers, carrying the breathing mixture and hot water to bodywarming tubing in their Divex Armadillo suits. In addition each diver carried an emergency breathing tank on his back.

The divers were working on a section of steel plating that had been scraped clear of anemones to expose the black hull paint. The heat discoloration from the magnesium rods in the high-pressure feed oxyarc cutting torch outlined a large rectangle around the garage doors. The saturation diver who'd been tending the torchman became aware of the twin yellow blimps approaching. Using the slow-motion movement that comes with working in deep water, the diver reached up to take the cable from Austin and Zavala. The NUMA men could communicate directly with themselves and with the salvage boat, but there was no direct link to the saturation divers except through the bell. Austin was unconcerned because everyone had gone over the plan many times, and hand signals were adequate for all but the most complicated message.

The kneeling diver snapped off his torch when he saw the new arrivals. He pointed to each comer of the rectangle where he had cut double holes and gave the thumbs-up signal. Then he and his companion attached the clips from the surface line to the holes. The divers moved several meters away, and one made a jerking motion with his hand like a locomotive engineer pulling the whistle cord.

Austin radioed the deck crew. All clear. Start hauling."

The deck crew relayed the message to the crane operator, and the Kevlar line went as taut as a bow string. Seconds passed. Nothing happened. The framework around the door had been cut like a dotted line on cardboard. Austin was wondering if more cutting was needed when there was an explosion of bubbles from the deck. The section pulled free with a muffled boom.

Austin directed the surface crew to move the crane over and let the doors drop onto the hull.

A huge gaping rectangular hole had been opened in the side of the ship at the B Deck level. The tourist class cabins had been stuffed into fore and aft sections of this deck and C Deck, the level below it. The forward section of deck was where the cabins were split by the autorimessa, the deck that housed nine cars and an armored truck.

Zavala powered his suit so he was directly above the newly created opening

"You "You could drive a HumVee through this thing."

"Why do things halfway? Think of it. Everyone who dives on the wreck from now on will think of this as Zavala's Hole."

"I'll pass that honor on to you. How about naming it Austin's Aperture?" .

"How about scouting things out?"

"No time like the present."

"I'll take the point. We'll go nice and slow. Watch out for ceiling cables and collapsed bulkheads. Remember to keep a safe distance apart."

Zavala didn't need to be warned. The Hard Suits resembled space suits worn by the astronauts. As with astronauts floating in free fall, motions had to be deliberate and unexaggerated. Even at slow speed a collision between the thousand pound suits would rattle their teeth.

Austin moved in under Zavala so that the light from his suit pointed straight into the ship. The powerful beam was swallowed by the darkness. He gave his vertical thrusters a short blast, descended feet-first into the garage, then stopped and rotated the suit three hundred sixty degrees. The water was free of loose ends and projections. He gave Zavala the all-clear and watched the bloated yellow figure sink through the blue-green hole and come to a hovering stop.

"This reminds me of the Baja Cantina in Tijuana," Zavala said. Actually it's not as dark."

"We'll stop for shots of Cuervo on the way back," Austin replied. "The ship is ninety feet wide. The cargo would have slid. down to the bottom like Captain McGinty said. Everything is at a ninety-degree angle, so the floor of the garage is actually that vertical wall right behind you. We'll stick close to the wall so as not to become disoriented."

As they descended Austin went down a mental checklist, anticipating obstacles and reactions. While he worked on practical problems and solutions his brain was busy on another, irrational level, probably the survival mechanism that raised the hackles on the unshaven necks of his ancestors. He was hearing Donatelli's voice describing his terrifying descent into the innards of the ship. The old man was wrong, Austin concluded. This was worse than anything Dante could have imagined. Austin would take the fire and brimstone of the Inferno any day. At least Dante could see something. Even if it was only demons and the damned.

It was hard to believe now that the decks of this vast empty hulk once throbbed with the diesel power of fifty thousand horses, and more than twelve hundred passengers basked in the ship's sensuous beauty, their needs served by a crew of nearly six hundred. The first person to dive on the Andrea Doria after she slid beneath the Atlantic said the ship seemed still alive, producing an eerie cacophony of groans and creaks, the banging of loose debris, water rushing in and out of doorways. Austin saw only decay, emptiness, and silence, except for the sound of their rebreathers. This huge metal cairn was a haunted place where a man who lingered too long could go mad.

The ship seemed to close in on them, and Austin kept checking his depth gauge. Although they were only about two hundred feet from the surface, it seemed deeper because of the darkness. He looked upward. The bluegreen rectangle that marked the opening was diffused in the murk and eventually might have become invisible if the saturation divers hadn't placed a strobe light on the edge as a beacon. Austin glanced at the blinking pinpoint and felt reassured, then turned his focus to what lay below.

Under their feet solid objects were looming out of the darkness into the circle of illumination cast by their lights. Straight lines and

edges. Mysterious rounded shapes. Tons of debris were jammed into the horizontal space that had once been the starboard bulkhead of the Dona. When the ship was level the garage was covered with heavy metal mesh and catwalks. Now these were vertical as well. Austin and Zavala started a search pattern, moving in parallel lines, back and forth, between the vertical partitions formed by the old floor and ceiling of the garage, the type of search they would execute if they were on the surface looking for a shipwreck. They encountered dangling wires from the old light fixtures but not enough to be dangerous and they were easily avoided.

Their lights caught the glint of metal and glass and vague forms that occasionally resolved into familiar shapes.

"Hey, Kurt, is that a Rolls-Royce I see down there?"

Austin directed his light at the distinctive heavy grille sticking out of the debris.

"Probably. According to the liner's manifest a guy from Miami was shipping his Rolls back from Europe."

"Goes to show it pays to have a Rolls on every continent."

Austin glided over the Rolls and saw part of another car with unconventional sweeping lines.

"That looks like the Chrysler experimental car built by Ghia. Too bad Pitt isn't here. He'd go through hell and high water to add a oneof-a-kind to his collection."

"He'd have to go through a lot of mud, too."

The cars had tumbled on top of one another and now were largely covered by debris and silt. Austin had briefly entertained thoughts of a plan to excavate the debris, but it was an intellectual exercise only. Too dangerous, costly, and time-consuming. Any effort to dig through the cover would stir up a cloud so thick it would take days to settle.

From what Donatelli said of the truck's position, the vehicle should have fallen onto the top of the heap. It should have been visible. Could the old man have been wrong? He was under tremendous stress that night. Maybe the car was in another cargo hold. Austin groaned. It had taken a tremendous effort to cut into the garage. They had neither the time nor resources to try again. His expeditionary force was made up of assets borrowed for only a few days.

Doubts grew the longer they searched. They went over every square yard of visible debris.

"Whatever happened to the plan to refloat this thing with Ping-Pong balls?" Zavala said.

"I don't think there are enough PingPong balls in China for the job. What's your take?"

"I think Angelo Donatelli was one gutsy guy. This must be the biggest sensory deprivation tank in the world. Hard to believe we're still on planet Earth. I feel like a fly in a molasses jar."

"I'm beginning to wonder if the truck is in here at all."

"Where would it be?"

"I wish I knew," Austin replied.

"Nina is going to be disappointed."

"I know. What say we go topside and deliver the bad news?"

"Fine with me. My bladder is telling me I drank too much coffee this morning."

They powered the vertical thrusters, keeping a slow but steady pace, homing in on the flashing beacon above. As they ascended they flashed their lights ahead and above to make sure they weren't coming up on unseen obstructions. The beam from Zavala's light stabbed the blackness in a corner of the garage, moved away for a second, then came back.

"Kurt," he called out excitedly. "There's something in the corner."

They stopped their ascent. Austin saw two red eyes glowing in the inky darkness.

Having spent more than an hour in this otherworldly environment his first reaction was that they were looking at a huge sea creature who'd made the ship its lair. He pointed his light at the twin orbs, and his pulse rate ratcheted up a few beats. It couldn't be. Both men moved in for a closer look and put the full force of their lights on the corner.

"Well, I'll be damned," they said in unison.

43 DECADES BEFORE AUSTIN AND ZAVALA cut their way into the Andrea Doria's garage a ship's officer presciently pictured the dire consequences of an armored truck weighing several tons crashing around in the hold during a storm at sea. To head off that possibility the vehicle was lashed by .strong cables passed over the truck's body and bolted to the floor. More than fifty years later the cables still held the truck in place at a right angle to the vertical wall that had once been the garage floor.

The black body was mottled with .rust, and the tire rubber had softened into an evi-llooking mush. The chrome still held a dull shine, though, and the truck itself was in one piece. After as thorough an inspection as they could make, Austin and Zavala left the hull and went back into the open sea. The saturation divers had retreated to the dry comfort of the pressurized bell. Austin didn't blame them. Saturated trimix is eight times as difficult to breathe as air from a scuba tank.

Austin called McGinty. "Tell Mr. Donatelli we've located the truck."

"Goddamn! Knew you could do it. Is it accessible for salvage?"

"With a little luck and the right equipment. I've got a shopping list."

Austin quickly laid out the gear he wanted.

"No problem. There's a fresh crew coming down. They'll bring the stuff with them."

The bell rose to the surface, and the divers inside exchanged places with a team living in the decompression chamber. When the bell returned, the equipment Austin ordered was secured to its exterior. Austin had talked by radio to the replacement divers before they left the ship and outlined the plan. The divers popped from the bottom of the bell and swam over to the hole in the hull. Austin and Zavala re-entered the ship first. The saturation divers followed with their umbilical lifesupport hoses trailing behind. One of them carried an oxygen cutting torch.

Austin regretted not having direct contact with the divers. He would have liked to hear their comments when they saw the truck hanging from the wall at a right angle. Their animated arm waving was almost as enjoyable. After their initial reaction they got right to work on the truck's rear doors. They wouldn't yield to a crowbar or the mechanical claws of the Hard Suits.

Donatelli had said the assassins who killed the armored truck guards simply slammed the doors. They were probably rusted shut rather than locked, Austin guessed. The torch blazed to life, and the diver drew its scalpellike flame along the lock and hinges, the rust exploding in a shower of sparks. They tried the crowbar again, both saturation divers putting their backs .to it. The doors fell off, and a brownish cloud of rotting debris, flushed out by the intruding seawater, enveloped the four men. When it settled and the water was somewhat clear again, Austin edged forward and probed the truck's interior with his light.

The space was piled with metal strongboxes that had fallen off shelves. The swirling water had cleaned away the clothing, hair and remnants of tissue so that the grinning skulls caught in the beam of the light looked freshly scrubbed, not green with algae as they might otherwise have been. The bones had all tumbled in a heap onto one side of the truck with the other debris. Austin moved aside to make room for his partner.

Zavala was silent for a moment. "Looks like the charnel house you see under the old churches in Mexico and Spain."

"It's more of a slaughterhouse," Austin said grimly. "Angelo Donatelli's memory is pretty good. Those strongboxes are probably for the jewels that were being shipped." He willed himself to avoid the sightless eyes. "We'll deal with that stuff later."

He gestured to the saturation divers, and they swam closer to inspect the inside of the truck. In telling the divers about the stone slab earlier, Austin had warned, "You'll also come across some human bones. I can tell you later how they got there. Hope you're not superstitious."

The divers stared into the truck and shook their heads, but their stunned reaction was temporary. The NUMA divers were pros. They swam into the truck without further hesitation and started moving the boxes and bones aside. Within minutes they had exposed a solidlooking corner of a blackishgray object.

The long lost talking stone.

While the divers tidied up the interior, Austin and Zavala scudded back to the diving bell and returned with a block and tackle attached to the Kevlar tow line that went up to the ship. The bones had been respectfully placed in a neat pile. The strongboxes were stacked out of the way except for one the divers had set aside. With great ceremony a diver opened the box to display its contents. Light glittered off a breathtakingfortune in diamonds, sapphires, and other precious stones.

Austin heard Zavala's sharp intake of breath. "That stuff must be worth millions."

"Maybe billions if the other boxes are as full. This confirms that the motive was murder, not robbery." He signaled the saturation divers to move the box, and he set the double block and tackle he was carrying just inside the door. Zavala had been carrying a metal loop. The saturation divers attached this wire collar around a protruding end of the slab, then affixed the line to the pulley.

Austin knew that the center of lift should be maintained directly above the center of gravity. He also knew this ideal seldom occurred. It was like telling someone to lift with his legs, not his back. Good advice, but of little use when the load is in the back of a closet or under the cellar stairs. The Kevlar cable went through the hull, then angled to the truck. The block and tackle would translate its force into a more lateral pull while doubling the pulling capacity.

Austin was dealing with a number of unknowns. One was the weight of the slab. An object is buoyed up by the water it displaces. Austin knew the slab would be lighter in water, but since he could only guess at its original weight, this didn't do much good. He'd asked McGinty for two tackles rigged with a continuous fall, which can lift twice as much as a single tackle. It was revved for a right-angle luff. Technical jargon meaning that they'd done everything they could to compensate for the awkward pulling system.

The next problem, after they'd yanked the slab out like a dentist extracting a tooth, was preventing it from plummeting to the bottom. The solution was ocean salvage tubes, a fairly new concept. The elongated bags of nylon fabric were designed for salvaging boats. With a lifting capacity up to one and a half tons each they might be able to hoist the entire armored truck to the surface.

The saturation divers used the block and tackle to movethe slab to where they could lash an uninflated bag to each side of the stone. Austin went through and inspected the whole crazy setup, especially the fragile cables holding the truck to the wall, then gave the signal. Using a hose coming from the bell, the saturation divers pumped air into the tubes, which plumped out as quickly as sausages on a skillet. They fed the air in gradually to build up positive buoyancy. The slab lifted like a magician's assistant floating in midair. Keeping the lift line attached in case of an emergency, the divers nudged the slab out of the trick until it floated through the door.

Austin thought this was one of the strangest sights he had ever seen. It was like a painting by Dali, where everything is askew. The black slab floating in space over the abyss like a magic carpet in the immense inkdark chamber. The divers dangling like newborn salamanders from their umbilicals. The seaworn armored truck hanging off the wall at a right angle.

Flanked by Austin and Zavala, who illuminated the way with their lights, the divers swam the slab toward the opening. It was delicate work, especially with the current running through the wreck, but at last the slab was directly under the hole they'd cut in the hull.

"Wish I could talk to these guys and tell them what a great job they're doing," Zavala said. He tried to signal a "well done" with his mechanical claw, but it didn't quite make it. "Guess we'd better not high-five until we get out of these suits. Which I hope will be damned soon."

"Shouldn't be more than a few minutes before we can turn the rest of the job over to McGinty. Hear that, Cap?"

The conversations between the Hand Suits were communicated to the deck so the men on the topside could keep tabs on what was going on below.

"Bet your ass," McGinty harked. "I heard the whole skinny. Got a case of Bud on ice. Get that thing out of the wreck, and we'll do the rest."

The saturation divers had to stay at depth or they'd come down with the bends. Once the load was out of the wreck, Austin and Zavala would take over and guide it to the surface. When the slab was near the surface they'd tend it until the crane could finish the job.

"What's the weather like up there?" Austin asked.

"Sea's still flat calm; but the Nantucket fog factory has been going full tilt. Fog bank is rolling in with stuff so thick you could fry it up like dough."

Both Austin and the captain would have been even more concerned if they knew what the fog hid. While Austin and the others had struggled to pull the stone slab from the armored truck and haul it to the surface, a large ship whose gray hull made it practically invisible was approaching the Monkfish, traveling just fast enough to keep pace with the moving wall of fog. The oddly shaped vessel was six hundred feet long, with a deep V shaped bow and wide back, and it was powered by six water jets that could send it skimming over the sea at forty-five knots, an amazing speed for a ship that size.

Austin responded to McGinty's weather report with a "Finest kind, Cap," borrowing one of Trout's expressions from his fishing days. He signaled the saturation divers to put more air into the lift tubes. Slowly the load began to rise through the hole. The saturation divers stayed with the stone, making sure it didn't oscillate when it hit the stronger current flowing over the wreck Austin and Zavala remained just inside the wreck, off to one side so they wouldn't be under the slab if it came down in a hurry. They had a clear view of both divers, one on either side of the slab, keeping pace with its ascent with slight flutters of their fins. A picture-perfect operation. One for the books.

Until all hell broke loose.

One of the divers jerked in a wild ungraceful dance, his arms and legs flailing like an epileptic in a grand mal. Then he doubled over, clawing at his umbilical. Just as suddenly he regained control of his body, floated in place for a moment, then jackknifed in a dive that took him back through the hole into the innards of the Andrea Doria.

The whole mad sequence took only a few seconds. Austin had no time to react. But as the diver swam closer, Austin saw what had happened. The man's umbilical trailed uselessly behind his suit. The diver had switched to his emergency tank What the hell happened? The hose couldn't have been cut on the ragged edge of the hole. Austin had been watching the whole time. The diver swam toward him, the exposed part of his face white as marble. Austin cursed himself for not insisting on total underwater communication. The man jabbed the water above his head.

Zavala, who had been moving in a slow circle, yelled over the intercom, "Kurt; what's going on?°

"Damned if I know," Austin said. He squinted up at where the slab was suspended over the opening. "We've got to get this guy into the bell. He's okay on his spare tank, but he'll freeze to death without the hot water feed. I'll give him a ride up and take a look at the same time."

Austin held out his thick metal arm as if he were escorting a prom date. The diver got the hint and grabbed on to his elbow. Austin activated the vertical thrusters, and they levitated from the wreck. The second diver was nowhere to be seen.

While Austin scoured the sea for him, something stirred in the murky gloom. A fantastic figure moved into the range of the light cast by the diving bell. It was a diver wearing a Hard Suit of burnished metal that reminded Austin of the armor made to accommodate Henry VIII's porcine bulk.

Austin suspected that the stranger had something to do with the saturation diver's problems. That suspicion was reinforced a second later when the newcomer raised an object in his hand. Then: was an explosion of bubbles and the blurred glint of metal. A projectile rocketed past Austin's right shoulder, barely missing him.

The saturation diver took off and swam toward the bell with wild kicks of his flippers. Austin watched him disappear through the bottom hatch, then turned his attention to more pressing matters.

Other silvery figures had materialized and were heading in his direction. Austin counted five of them before he nailed the down control on his vertical thruster and plunged back into the Doria.

44 MCGINTY WAS ANXIOUSLY SHOUTING over the radio.

"What the hell's going on? Someone get back to me, or I'll come down there and see for myself"

"Wouldn't advise it," Austin shot back "Six guys in Hard Suits just showed up for tea, and they're not very friendly. One just took a shot at me."

McGinty erupted like a volcano. "Jesus Mary Joseph and all the saints at sea!"

Another voice cut in. Near hysteria. "Those sons-of-bitches cut Jack's line!" The missing diver was talking from inside the bell. Austin recognized his Texas drawl.

"Is he okay?"

"Yeah, he's in here with me. Scared brainless, but he's fine."

"You and Jack sit tight," Austin advised. "McGinty, how soon can you yank the bell to the surface?"

"I've got my hand on the switch."

"Then start hauling."

"It's on its way. D'you want me to call the Coast Guard?"

"A squad of navy SEALS would come in handy, but you can call in the Bengal Lancers for all the good it will do. This thing will be over before help gets here. We'll have to deal with it ourselves."

"Austin, you watch your ass! Haven't been in a donnybrook in ages. Wish I could get down there and break a few heads."

"So do I. Don't mean to be rude, Cap, but I gotta go. Ciao."

Behind the dark plexiglass shielding Austin's face the pale blue-green eyes were as hard as turquoise stones. Most mortals placed in'Austin's situation would have reacted with alarm. Austin wasn't fearless. He could make a good case that his hair had turned platinum white from the healthy scares he'd received in his career. Had he seen six white sharks bearing down he would have been wishing he'd renewed his life insurance. The forces of nature were unthinking and relentless. Despite the fearsome picture the intruders presented, Austin knew that under their aluminum skins were men, with all their frailties.

A replay flashed through his eyes of the attacks in Morocco. The only difference was the underwater setting. They wanted the talking stone, and the NUMA divers were in the way. Further intellectualizing was dangerous. Thoughts could be like slippery banana peels. What was needed was cunning rather than intelligence. A wolf doesn't think about its prey before it pounces. Austin let his mind slip into its survival mode, letting instincts dictate his moves. A spreading warmth chased away the cold chill that had gripped his body when he'd first seen the attackers. His breathing became regular, almost slow, his heart beat at an even pace. At the same time he wasn't kidding himself. A wolf had claws and teeth.

Zavala had heard the radio exchange with McGinty. "What's the game plan, Kurt?" The words were measured but edged with anxiety.

"We'll let them come to us. We know the territory. They don't. We'll need weapons."

"My specialty. I'll see what I can dig up."

Zavala glided toward the back of the armored trick "Cable cutters. What do those guys have?"

"I don't know. I thought it was a spear gun. Now I'm not so sure."

Zavala brandished the loppers. "If we can get close enough I can cut a few zippers."

Austin's mind, which had been working at Mach speed, came to a screeching halt. He'd been staring past Zavala at the open door of the armored truck, mesmerized by the bright rectangle of light standing out against the inky blackness. He moved closer. The portable halogen lamps they had used during the slab removal brightly lit up the interior.

"I may have a better idea," Austin said. "The Venus flytrap."

Keeping an eye on the hull opening, Austin outlined his plan for Zavala.

"Simple yet audacious," Zavala replied. "That takes care of one. What about the others?"

"Improvise."

Zavala raised the loppers like an Indian brave armed with a tomahawk about to do battle with the rifles of the cavalry and melted into the darkness on the far side of the truck, just beyond the engine compartment. Austin pried the lid open on two more jewelry chests.

It was like opening boxes full of stars. Even underwater the glitter of diamonds, sapphires, and rubies was blinding. He arranged the strongboxes neatly in a row just inside the trick where they would be in plain view, propping up their backs. He added a few shills for dramatic effect, then moved away from the truck until he, too, was cloaked by the artificial night within the great ship. He hovered in the vast empty space, glancing back and forth between the truck and the hull opening above. Although the interior of the Hard Suit was dry and cool, he was sweating.

There was a glow near the hull opening, then a pair of divers came into the ship like ferrets entering a rabbit burrow, their twin flashlight beams stabbing the murkiness, probing this way and that. Watching their cautious entry Austin recalled the tentativeness with which he and Zavala had first entered the wreck, their nervousness at the unknown, and the adjustment to a disorienting topsy-turvy world where up and down were no longer useful referents. He was counting on that initial confusion. And on the natural tendency of the eye to focus on the only visible object in the empty void. The armored truck, looking out of place and time.

The divers moved back and forth, probably debating a course of action, whether they were walking into a trap. They approached the truck, staying dose to each other, adjusting to the current, drawing nearer until their burnished suits were semi-silhouetted in the doorway.

Austin cursed. They were shoulder-to-shoulder. As long as they stayed that way his plan was dead, and maybe so were he and Zavala. Then human nature intervened. One diver muscled the other aside. He was framed directly in the truck's doorway, body at a forward slight angle, head bent into the truck. Austin's lips curled in a fierce grin. Pushiness doesn't pay, pal.

He alerted Zavala. Assuming ram speed."

"Cutting started," Zavala shot back.

Austin kicked both thrusters into lateral full speed and aimed for the back of the truck. The suit accelerated slowly, then gathered momentum as its half-ton weight overcame the forces of inertia and water resistance.

He flew directly toward the truck like a bowling ball trying to pick off the last pin, praying that the diver would stay put. He didn't want an eternity with Zavala reminding him how he spent his last earthly moments imitating an accordion.

His luck held. The diver remained transfixed by the jewels, probably trying to figure out how he could carry them off.

Austin focused on the suit's wide metal butt, just below the hard plastic shell covering the air tanks like a tortoise shell. Damn. He was coming in too low. He gave himself a slight vertical lift

Back on target.

"Now!" Austin yelled, knowing there was no need to raise his voice.

As he hurtled forward he brought his feet up like a boy making a cannonball dive, trying to imagine himself on an invisible bobsled, but the best he could do with the metal joints that restricted his movement was to elevate his knees.

Zavala was working feverishly. The pincher jaws had nibbled away at some of the strands .of the front cable holding the truck.

He was afraid of cutting through too soon. At Austin's shouted command he put all the power of his shoulders, built up over many hours punching a body bag in his boxing days, into the lopper's s long handles. The center of the cable had some life in it, and there was slight resistance at first. Then the beak-like blades cut through the remaining strands as easily as a raptor ripping apart its prey.

Austin fought to extend his feet straight out, but his metal knees slammed into the metal posterior of the diver ogling the jewels. Without the suit Austin would have popped his knee joints like a skier taking a backward spill, but the stiffness of the suit saved him. The diver was launched forward as if he had been tossed by a Brahma bull and flew headfirst into the truck. Austin bounced back and spun out of control.

The other frantically tried. to back out of the truck, but his thrusters were caught on a shelf frame. Austin had his own problems. He tumbled through space trying to figure out the thruster combination that would stabilize him.

He heard Zavala call out: "Bombs away!"

With one cable cut the armored truck had dropped down at its front end and hung precariously off the wall at an angle, its headlights pointing almost straight down. For an instant it seemed to Zavala, who had moved a safe distance away, as if the vehicle would stay that way. Then the full weight of the truck proved too much for the remaining cable. The restraint snapped, and the truck dropped away from the wall. It plunged into the darkness, joining the automotive graveyard in a big explosion of silt, taking with it the bones of its defenders, the jewels, and the struggling diver.

The whole sequence involved only a few seconds. The surviving diver had glimpsed Austin's attack and watched with astonishment as the truck disappeared, but he recovered quickly from his shock. Austin had finally regained stability and was fighting off the dizziness when the bright light from the diver's flash exploded in his fare. He nailed his down thruster, knowing that in the time it took to drop a few yards he'd be an easy target. He gritted his teeth and braced himself against the searing pain he knew would come. The blinding light stayed on him, then shot off at an angle, and he saw the other diver struggling wildly.

Zavala!

Seeing Austin's predicament Joe had come from behind and hooked his arm behind the diver's weapon arm, throwing him off balance. They wrestled in slow motion like two monstrous robots. In his left claw Zavala clutched the lopper, but it soon became clear to him that his opponent was not going to stay still long enough for Zavala to cut a zipper as intended. The half-baked arm lock was slipping, and Zavala was just plain weary from his morning's exertions.

Improvise, Zavala remembered.

He jammed the loppers into the gym suit's lateral thruster. The wire cutters were wrenched from his grip. The spinning propeller disintegrated in its housing. Zavala backed off. The diver hit both thrusters to get away, but the unequal thrust of one propeller sent him into an undesired spin. He whirled off into the darkness on a wobbling crash course.

Weighted for neutral buoyancy, the diver's weapon floated until Austin grabbed it in his claw. The device was primitive in design but made of contemporary metals, a deadly instrument of death underwater where firearms were useless. Attached was a cradlelike magazine with room for six bolts. The short bolts had fins at one end and, at the other, four razorsharp blades that could have sliced through his aluminum suit like a can opener. The oversized controls were simplified so that even a mechanical claw could string a bolt in place for firing.

Zavala glided closer. "What is that thing?" he said, panting from his wrestling match.

"Looks like a modern version of an old crossbow."

A crossbow! Last time it was dueling pistols," Zavala said with a combination of wonder and disgust. "Next we'll be throwing stones at the bad guys."

"Beggars can't be choosers, Joe. Wonder if this thing really works." Austin held the weapon's butt against his chest and aimed. "Lethal, but my guess is it's not terribly accurate except at close range."

"You're about to get your chance to find out: We've got bogies at one o'clock."

Twin gossamer lights floated through the open hull and into the ship. Two more divers, both armed and less prone to ambush than their predecessors.

"I don't think we can sneak up on these guys as easily," Austin said. "They would have been talking to the others on their radios so they'll have an idea what to expect."

"We've got a couple of points in our favor. They don't know we're armed. And for now they don't know where we are."

Austin sorted through the options. They could run and hide, but eventually as they became more exhausted they'd screw up. The Hard Suits weren't made for the kind of demands being placed on them, and eventually they would run out of power or air.

"Okay let's show them where we are. I'd flip to see who gets to be bait, but I don't have a coin. How are you at imitating a firefly?"

"You just get your little crossbow ready Robin Hood."

The intruders had paused, distracted by their spinning comrade who was bouncing erratically around the cargo space. Zavala turned on every light on his suit and flashed them on and off for effect. For a moment he hung suspended in the darkness like a bizarre road sign. Then he disappeared. That caught their attention. The attackers moved toward his last sighting. Only he wasn't there. He moved several meters off to the right. Flash. Clickclick. The chest and head lamps came on and off. He shifted again. Lights on. Lights off.

The effect was startling even to Austin, who knew what was going on. Zavala clones seemed to be popping up all over the place.

"Never thought I'd end up as a flasher," Zavala said.

"Your mother would be proud of you; Joe. It's working. They're coming closer."

It would be only a matter of time before they were on top of Zavala.

"One more time, Joe," said Austin. "I'm right behind you."

Zavala again blinked on and off like a Christmas tree. The attackers picked up speed and headed for the last place they had seen him. Directly toward Austin.

He brought the weapon up to his shoulder. "Five seconds to get out of the line of fire, Joe," he said evenly. "Beat feet."

"Going down," Zavala said in a parody of an elevator operator. He dropped several yards. Austin counted slowly, his sights transfixing the darkness behind the nearest approaching light. When he was sure Zavala was in the clear he squeezed the trigger mechanism and felt the crossbow kick slightly as it loosed the bolt. It was impossible to see the missile, but the shot must have been true because the light beam on the right jerked crazily.

Austin levered the bowstring back for another shot, reloading a new bolt in its cradle, swearing at the clumsiness of the mechanism especially in the dark. By the time he brought the crossbow to his shoulder for another shot, the second attacker had figured out what was going on and snapped off his light. Austin let off a bolt anyhow but knew just from the feel of things that it had missed.

"I nailed one of them, Joe. Missed the other guy. Let's see if we can find him. I've got the weapon, so I'll take the lead."

He stared into the darkness. Useless! He'd have to take a chance. He flicked the lights on the front of his suit and his head lamp and saw a reflection. He headed for it.

"He's making a break for the hole."

"I see him," Zavala said. "I'm right behind you."

They started after their quarry like two blimps on an attack run. Austin was pumped up with excitement, but even as he flew through the water with Zavala keeping pace, he couldn't help think that this must be one of the strangest battles of all time. Men encased in metal skins fighting to the death with ancient weapons in the massive cargo space of a mortally wounded ship.

A shadow flitted through the opening and was gone.

Damn. "Too late, Joe." Austin powered down. "He's in the open."

"You said there were six. One went down with the truck. You nailed another, and the third is imitating a whirlagig. That leaves three."

"That's my guess, but I wouldn't swear to it. You'll recall my miscount on the Nereus.

"How could I forget it? Close enough for government work, as they say. Let's wrap this thing up," he said wearily. "I'm tired as hell, I have to take a leak, and I've got a date this Saturday with a beautiful agricultural lobbyist. She's got cactus flower eyes that are blue like you've never seen, Kurt."

One day scientists would tap into Zavala's libido and unleash one of the strongest forces in the universe, Austin reflected.

"I wouldn't want to stand between you and your sex drive, Joe. It might be dangerous. You're the weapons officer. Got anything up your sleeve?"

"I think I see the torch hose." Zavala rose several yards and grabbed the dangling torch. "Got it. Don't know what use it is. Hey, the slab is gone."

Austin rose until they were both almost directly under the huge hole in the ship's side. Where the stone slab had floated earlier on its airfilled pontoons, the bluegreen of water was impeded only by nosy fish.

"They hijacked it while we were busy" Austin pictured the theft in his mind. "They'd need at least two guys to swim that load through the water. They'll have their hands full. They'll never expect us to go for them."

"What are we waiting for?" Zavala shot back He threw the useless torch aside, and they both hit their vertical thrusters. They popped out of the ship into the open ocean. They were still deep beneath the cold dark Atlantic, but Austin was happy to escape the claustrophobic darkness inside the Doria's corpse.

The diving bell was gone, and the only illumination was the filtered shimmer from the surface. The giant hull of the Andrea Doria stretched out in both directions, grayish near them and black beyond their immediate proximity. Austin saw a metallic glint in the distance, but it could have been a fish. He wished he could reach up and rub his eyes. The best he could do was squeeze them shut, then open them. No good. Only the unbroken bluish monotone.

Wait.

There it was again. He was sure of it.

"I think I see them near the bow."

They moved higher, then leveled out and glided toward the bow in fighter plane formation. Zavala saw a movement and called Austin's attention to it. The slab was being pushed along, floating on the pontoons. Two divers, one on either side. A tow line stretched off into the gloom ahead, probably being pulled by an unseen diver.

"We'll try to bluff them. Give them a light show. I'll take a shot."

The beams washed the slab and the divers on either side.

The divers accelerated, as if they thought they could outrun their pursuers. Austin loosed a bolt, trying not to puncture a pontoon. He thought he saw the projectile bounce off the slab. The attackers shot off into the murk. The tow line went loose. The slab came to a slow stop above the old bridge wing of the Doria.

"Let them go, Joe. We've got to tend to this thing."

They swooped down and started to swim the stone back toward the hull opening where McGinty could find them with the bell. It was slow going because they were pushing against the current flowing over the ship.

A voice crackled in Austin's earphones. "It's McGinty. Are you okay?"

"We're both fine. Got the stone. We're moving it back to the work area. You can drop the bell anytime."

There was a pause followed by a faint snort. "That might be a problem," the captain said, his voice burred with irritation. "We've lost the bow anchors. From the looks of the lines, they've been cut. Surface current's pushing us around. If we drop the bell, it'll swing like a big pendulum. Could knock us over."

"Looks like our pals covered their escape, Joe."

"I heard. Any chance of reattaching the anchor lines?"

Austin and Zavala were dangerously tired. The Hard Suits were not designed for hand-to-hand combat, and the metal skins with all their paraphernalia had become personal prisons.

"It's doable, but not by us. It'll be easier just to wrassle this thing up on our own. And that's not going to be easy." He asked the captain if he could get the boat roughly into the same position and hold it there.

"Not exactly, but close enough," McGinty said.

They were approaching the hull opening. The Monkfish should be right above them.

McGinty did a skillful job. The line they had used to lift the hull section dangled a short distance above the wreck. They attached the line to the slab, not easy without the fingers of the saturation divers to do the detailed work, then gave the captain the go-a-head.

"Okay, Cap," Austin said. "We're coming up."

45 AUSTIN HAD A GOOD VIEW OF THE impenetrable wall of fog bearing down on the Monkfish as he dangled like a hooked flounder over the ocean. The crane pivoted and lowered him onto the deck, where crewmen helped him out of the dripping gym suit like pages attending to an armored knight.

Hauled aboard a few minutes earlier, Zavala looked strangely shrunken without the benefit of his form-fitting hull. Like those of an astronaut coming out of free fall, Austin's first steps were wobbly. Zavala handed him a mug of hot coffee. A few sips of the strong brew got his blood circulating. Then they dealt with their top priority, a stiff-legged race for the nearest head. They came out smiling, After changing into warm dry clothes they went back on deck.

The trip up from the Andrea Doria wreck had been uneventful but tense, especially during the first few moments as the winch eased the strain with slow stop-and-go pulls and at the surface where the load lost its buoyancy. The skilled Monkfish crew attached more floats to make sure they didn't lose the stone, got it into a sling, then winched it aboard using the stern A-frame.

Austin gazed at the innocuous-looking block, now lying on a wooden pallet, and found it hard to believe it had caused so much trouble and cost so many lives. The slab was shaped vaguely like an oversized headstone, which was appropriate given all the people who'd been killed for its sake. The object was a little longer than a tall man, almost as wide and as thick. Austin knelt on the deck and ran his hand over the surface, which was going from black to dark gray as it dried. He traced the hieroglyphics, but they made no sense to him. Nothing about this case made sense.

Crew members covered the slab with a quilted protective material, then wrapped it in a plastic tarp. A small forklift transported the slab to a storage space at deck level. It didn't seem fragile, having weathered nearly half a century in a submerged armored truck and a ride to the surface, but he didn't want to take the chance that it would break into a thousand brittle pieces.