Treasure

-PART II

The Serapis

October 14, 1991

Washington, D.C.

A cold, bleak drizzle shrouded the nation's capital as a taxi pulled to a stop at Seventeenth and Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the old Executive Office Building. A man dressed in a deliveryman's uniform stepped from the rear seat and told the driver to wait. He leaned back in the taxi and retrieved a package wrapped in red silk. He hurried across the sidewalk and down several steps, passing through a doorway into the reception area of the mail room.

"for the President," he said with a Spanish accent.

A postal service employee signed in the package and the time. He looked up and said. "Still raining?"

"More like a fine spray."

"Just enough to make life miserable."

"And slow traffic," the deliveryman said with a sour face.

"Have a good day anyway."

"You too."

The deliveryman left as the postal worker took the package and ran it under the fluoroscope. He stood back and stared at the screen as the X-rays revealed the object under the wrapping.

He easily identified it as a briefcase, but the picture puzzled him.

There was no indication of files or papers inside, no hard object with a distinguishing outline, nothing that looked like explosives. He was an old hand at X-ray identification, but the contents of the case threw him.

He picked up the phone and made a request to the person on the other end. Less than two minutes later a security agent appeared with a dog.

"Got one for Sweet-pea?" asked the agent.

The postal worker nodded as he set the package on the floor. "Can't make an I.D. on the scope."

Sweet-pea hardly resembled her namesake. She was a mutt, the result of a brief affair between a beagle and a dachshund. Huge brown eyes, a fat little body supported by short spindly legs, Sweet-pea was highly trained to sniff out every explosive from the common to the exotic. As the two men watched, she waddled around the package, nose quivering like a plump dowager sniffing at a perfume counter.

Suddenly she stiffened, the hair on her neck and back stood up, and she began backing away. Her face took on an odd, suspicious kind of distasteful expression, and she began to growl.

The agent looked surprised. "That's not her usual reaction."

"There's something weird in there," said the postal worker.

"Who is the package addressed to?"

"The President."

The agent walked over and punched a number on the phone. "We better get Jim Gerhart down here."

Gerhart, Special Agent in Charge of Physical Security for the White House, took the call during a brief lunch at his desk and left immediately for the mail reception room.

He observed the dog's reaction and eyebafled the package under the fluoroscope. "I don't detect any wiring or detonation device," he said in a Georgia drawl.

"Not a bomb," the postal worker agreed.

"Okay, let's open it."

The red silk wrapper was carefully removed, revealing a black leather attache case. There were no markings, not even a manufacturer's name or model number. Instead of a combination lock, both latches had inserts for a key.

Gerhart tried the latches simultaneously. They both unsnapped.

"The moment of truth," he said with a cautious gun.

He placed his hands on each corner of the upper lid and slowly lifted until the case was open and the contents in view.

"Jesus!" Gerhart gasped The security agent's face went white and he turned away.

The postal worker made gagging noises and staggered for the lavatory.

Gerhart slammed the lid shut. "Get this thing over to George Washington University Hospital."

The security agent couldn't reply until he swallowed the acid-tasting bile that had risen in his throat. Finally he coughed, "Is that thing real or is this some kind of Halloween trick or treat?"

"It's genuine," said Gerhart grin-dy- "And believe you me, it ain't no treat."

In his White House office, Dale Nichols settled back in his swivel chair and adjusted his reading glasses. for perhaps the tenth time he began scrutinizing the contents of a folder routed to him by Arrnando L6pez, the President's Senior Director Of Latin American Affairs.

Nichols gave off the image of a university professor, which indeed he had been when the President persuaded him to switch his sedate campus classroom at Stanford for the political cesspool of Washington. His initial reluctance had turned to amazement when he discovered he had a hidden talent for manipulating the White House bureaucracy.

His thicket of coffee-brown hair was parted neatly down the middle. His old-style spectacles, with small round lenses and thin wire frames, reflected a plodding temperament, a neversay-die type who was oblivious to everything but his immediate project. And, finally, the ultimate in academic clichds, the bow tie and the pipe.

He lit the pipe without removing his eyes from the articles clipped from Mexican newspapers and magazines dealing with only one subject.

Topiltzin.

Included were interviews granted by the charismatic messiah to officials who represented Central and South American countries. But he had refused to talk to American journalists or government representatives and none had penetrated his army of bodyguards.

Nichols had learned Spanish during a two-year tour in Peru for the Peace Corps, and easily read the stories. He took a legal pad and began making a list of claims and statements that came to light during the interviews.

1. Topiltzin describes himself as a man who came from the poorest of the poor, born in a cardboard shack on the edge of Mexico City's sprawling garbage dump, with no idea of the day, month or year. Somehow he survived and learned what it was to live amid the stink and flies and manure and muck of the hungry and homeless.

2. Admits to no schooling. History from childhood, until his emergence as a self-styled high priest of archaic TolteclAztec religion, is blank.

3. Claims to be the reincarnation of Topiltzin, tenthcentury ruler of the Toltecs, who was identified with the legendary god Quetzalcoatl.

4. Political philosophy a crazy blend of ancient culture and religion with vague sort of autocratic, one-man, noparty rule. Intends to play benevolent father role to Mexican people. Ignores questions on how he intends to revive shattered economy. Refuses to discuss how he will restructure government if he comes to power.

5. Spellbinding orator. Has uncanny rapport with his audience. Speaks only in old Aztec tongue through interpreters. Language still used by many Indians of Central Mexico.

6. Mainstream supporters are fanatical. His popularity has swept the country like the proverbial tidal wave. Political analysts predict he could will a national election by nearly six percentage points. Yet he refuses to participate in free elections, claiming, and rightly so, that corrupt leaders would never surrender the government after a losing campaign. Topiltzin expects to take over the country by public acclaim.

Nichols set his pipe in an ashtray, stared at the ceiling thoughtfully for a few moments, and began writing again.

SUMMARY: Topiltzin is either incredibly ignorant or incredibly gifted.

Ignorant if he is what he says he is.

Gifted if he has a method to his madness, a goat only he can see.

Trouble, trouble, trouble.

Nichols was going over the articles again, searching for a key to Topiltzin's character, when his phone buzzed. He picked up the receiver.

"the President on one," announced his secretary.

Nichols punched the button. "Yes, Mr. President."

"any news of Guy Rivas?"

"No, nothing."

There was a pause on the President's end. Then, finally, "He was scheduled to meet with me two hours ago. I'm concerned. If he Encountered a problem, his pilot should have sent us word by now."

"He didn't fly to Mexico City in a White House jet," explained Nichols.

"In the interests of secrecy he booked passage on a commercial airliner and flew coach class as a tourist on vacation."

"I understand," the President agreed. "If President De Lorenzo learned I sent a personal representative behind his back to make contact with his opposition, he'd take it as an insult and scratch our Arizona conference next week."

"Our primary concern," Nichols assured him.

"Have you been briefed on the U.N. charter crash?" the President asked, suddenly changing tack.

"No, sir," replied Nichols. "My only information is that Hala Kamil survived."

"She and two crew members. The rest died from poison."

"Poison?" Nichols blurted incredulously.

"That's the word from the investigators. They believe the pilot tried to poison everyone on board before parachuting from the plane over Iceland."

"The pilot must have been an imposter."

"We won't know till a body is found, warm or cold."

"Christ, what terrorist movement would have a motive for murdering over fifty U.N. representatives?"

"So far none have claimed credit for the disaster. According to Martin Brogan at CIA, if it is the work of terrorists, they stepped out of character on this one."

"Hala Karnil might have been the target," suggested Nichols. "Akhmad Yazid has sworn to eliminate her."

"We can't ignore the possibility," the President admitted.

"Have the news media gotten wind of it?"

"The story will be all over the papers and TV in the next hour. I saw no reason to hold it back."

"Is there anything you'd like me to do, Mr. President?"

"I'd appreciate it, Dale, if you'd monitor reaction from President De Lorenzo's people. There were eleven delegates and agency representatives from Mexico on the flight. Offer condolences in my name and any cooperation within limits. Oh, yes, you'd better keep Julius Schiller over at the State Department informed so we don't stumble over each other."

"I'll get my staff right on it."

"And let me know the minute you hear from Rivas."

"Yes, Mr. President."

Nichols hung up and forced his attention back to the file. He began to wonder if Topiltzin was somehow connected with the U.N. murder. If only there was a thread he could grasp.

Nichols was not a detective. He had no talent for coldly dissecting a prime suspect layer by layer until he knew what made the man tick. His academic specialty was in systems projections of international political movements.

Topiltzin was an enigma to him. Hitler had a misguided vision of Aryan supremacy. Driven by religious fervor, Khomeini wanted to return the Middle East to the Muslim fulldamentals of the Dark Ages. Lenin preached a crusade of world Communism.

What was Topiltzin's objective?

A Mexico of the Aztecs? A return to the past? No modern society could function under such archaic rules. Mexico was not a nation to be run on the fantasies of a Don Quixote. There had to be another driving force behind the man. Nichols was conjecturing in a vacuum. He glimpsed Topiltzin only as a caricature, a villain in a cartoon series.

His secretary entered unannounced and laid a file folder on his desk.

"The report you asked for from the CIA-and you have a call on line three."

"Who is it?"

"A James Gerhart," she replied.

"White House security," said Nichols. "Did he say what he wanted?"

"Only that it was urgent."

Nichols became curious. He answered the call. "This is Dale Nichols."

"Jim Gerhart, sir, in charge of-"

"Yes, I know," Nichols interrupted. "Yy'hat's the problem?"

"I think you better come down to the pathology lab at George Washington."

"The University Hospital?"

"Yes, sir."

"What in hell for?"

"I'd rather not say too much over the phone."

"I'm very busy, Mr. Gerhart. You'll have to be more specific."

There was a short silence. "This is a matter concerning you and the President. That's all I can say."

"Can't you at least give me a clue?"

Gerhart ignored the probe. "One of my men is waiting outside your office. He will drive you to the lab. I'll meet you in the waiting room."

"Listen to me, Gerhart-" That was as far as Nichols got when the snarl of the dial tone struck his ear.

The drizzle had turned to rain and Nichols's disposition rrored the dismal weather as he was led through the University Hospital's entrance to the pathology laboratory. He hated the etherlike smells that permeated the halls.

True to his word, Gerhart waited in the anteroom. The two men knew each other by sight and name but had never spoken. Gerhart came forward but made no effort to shake hands.

"Thank you for coming," he said in an official tone.

"Why am I here?" Nichols asked directly.

"for an identification."

Nichols was suddenly flooded with foreboding. "Who?"

"I'd prefer you tell me."

"I don't have the stomach for looking at dead bodies.

"This isn't exactly a body, but you will need a strong stomach."

Nichols shrugged. "All right, let's get it over with."

Gerhart held the door open and guided him down a long corridor and into a room with large white tiles inlaid on the walls and floor. The floor was slightly concave with a drain in its center. A stainless steel table stood in stark solitude in the middle of the room. A white, opaque plastic sheet covered a long object that rose no more than an inch above the surface of the table.

Nichols looked at Gerhart in bewilderment. "What am I supposed to identify?"

Without a word Gerhart lifted the sheet and pulled it away, letting it drop in a crumpled wad on the floor.

Nichols stared at the thing on the table, uncomprehendingAt first he thought it was a paper outline of a man's figure. Then he shuddered as the gory truth struck him. He leaned over the floor drain and threw up.

Gerhart stepped from the room and quickly returned with a folding chair and a towel.

He steered Nichols to the chair and passed him the towel. "Here," he said without sympathy, "use this."

Nichols sat for nearly two minutes, clutching the towel against his face and dry-retching. At last he recovered enough to look up at Gerhart and stammer.

"Good lord . . . that's nothing but .

"Skin," Gerhart finished for him, "flayed human skin."

Nichols forced himself to stare at the grisly thing stretched out on the table.

He was reminded of a deflated balloon. That was the only way he could describe it. An incision had been made from the back of the head down to the ankles, and the skin peeled away from the body like a pelt from an animal. There was a long vertical slit in the chest that had been crudely sewn. The eyes were missing, but the entire denmis was there, including both shriveled hands and feet.

"Can you tell me who you think he might be?" asked Gerhart softly.

Nichols made a conscious effort, but the grotesque, misshapen facial features made it all but impossible. Only the hair seemed vaguely familiar. Yet he knew.

"Guy Rivas," he murmured.

Gerhart said nothing. He took Nichols by the arm and helped him to another room that was comfortably shed with soft chairs and a coffee urn. He poured a cup of coffee and handed it to Nichols.

"I'll be back in a minute."

Nichols sat there as if in a nightmare, shocked by the sick sight in the other room. He could not bring himself to grips with the reality of Rivas's horrible death.

Gerhail came back carrying an attached case. He set it on a low table.

"This was dropped off at the mail reception room. The body skin was tightly folded inside. At first I thought it was the work of some psycho. Then I made a thorough search and found a miniature tape recorder mounted beneath the interior lining."

"You played it?"

"Lot of good it did. Sounds like a conversation between two men in some kind of code."

"How did you trace Rivas to me?"

"Rivas's government ID card had been placed inside his flayed skin.

Whoever murdered him wanted to make sure we'd put a make on the remains.

I went to Rivas's office and interrogated his secretary. I wormed it out of her that he met with you and the President for two hours before leaving for the airport and a flight to an unknown destination. I thought it unusual that his own secretary didn't know his destination, so I reckoned he'd been sent on a classified mission. That's why I contacted you first."

Nichols looked at him narrowly. "You say there's a conversation on the tape?"

Gerhart nodded gravely. "That and Rivas's screams as he was cut apart."

Nichols closed his eyes, trying to force the vision from his mind.

"His next of kin will have to be notified," Gerhart continued. "He have a wife?"

"And four kids."

"You know him well?"

"Guy Rivas was a nice man, One of the few people with integrity I've met since coming to Washington. We worked together on several diplomatic missions."

for the first time Gerhart's stony face went soft. "I'm sorry. "

Nichols didn't hear him. His eyes slowly turned bitter and cold. The nightmarelike expression had gone. He no longer tasted the vomit or felt sickened by the horror. The brutal savagery inflicted on someone close to him had triggered a floodgate of anger, anger such as Nichols had never known before.

The professor whose scope of power was limited to the walls of a classroom no longer existed. In his place was a man close to the President, one of a small elite group of Washington power brokers with the muscle to shape events or create havoc around the globe.

By whatever means and power that were his in the White House, with or without Presidential favor or official sanction, Nichols was set on avenging the murder of Rivas. Topiltzin had to die.

The small Beechcraft executive jet touched down with a faint squeal from the tires and turned off the crushed-rock runway of a privately owned airport twenty kilometers south of Alexandria, Egypt. Less than a minute after it rolled to a halt beside a green Volvo with TAXI lettered on the doors in English, the whine from the engines ceased and the passenger door raised open.

The man that stepped to the ground was wearing a white suit with matching tie over a dark blue shirt. Slightly under six feet, with a slim body, he paused a moment and dabbed a handkerchief around a receding hairline, and then smugly brushed a large black mustache with one forefinger. His eyes were hidden by dark glasses and his hands covered by white leather gloves.

Suleiman Aziz Ammar did not resemble in the slightest the pilot who had boarded Flight 106 in London.

He walked over to the Volvo and greeted the short, muscular dxiver who emerged from behind the wheel. "Good morning, Ibn. Find any problems on your return?"

"Your affairs are in good order," Ibn replied, opening the rear door and making no effort to conceal a pisto shotgun in a shoulder holster.

"Take me to Yazid."

Ibn nodded silently as Ammar settled into the rear seat.

The exterior of the taxi was as deceptive as Ammar's many disguises. The darkly tinted windows and body panels were bulletproof. Inside, Ammar sat in a low, comfortable leather chair in front of a compact desk cabinet containing a compact array of electronics that included two telephones, a computer, radio transmitter and TV monitor. There were also a bar and a rack with two automatic rifles.

As the car skirted the crowded central section of Alexandria and turned onto the a1-Beach road, Annnar busied himself by monitoring his far-flung investment operations. His wealth, known only to him, was enormous. His financial success was accomplished more by ruthlessness than shrewdness. If any corporate executive or government official stood in Ammar's way on a profitable business deal, he was simply eliminated.

At the end of a twenty-kilometer drive, Ibn slowed the Volvo and stopped at a gate leading up to a small villa squatting on a low hill overlooking a wide sandy beach.

Ammar shut down the computer and stepped from the car. Four guards in desert sand-colored fatigues surrounded him and efficiently searched his clothing. As a backup safeguard he was directed to walk through an airport-type X-ray detector.

He was then led up a stone stairway to the villa past crudely built concrete compounds manned by a small army of Yazid's elite bodyguards.

Ammar smiled as they bypassed the ornate front archway, open to honored visitors, and entered through a small side door. He brushed off the insult, knowing it was Yazid's shallow-minded way of humbling those who did his dirty work but were not accepted to his inner circle of fanatic grovelers.

He was ushered into a stark and empty room furnished with only one wooden stool and a large Persian Kashan carpet that hung from one wall.

The interior was hot and stuffy. There were no windows and the only illumination came from an overhead skylight. Without a word the guards retreated and closed the door.

Annnar yawned, casually held up his wristwatch as if checking the time.

Next he removed his dark glasses and rubbed his eyes. The practiced gestures enabled him to locate the tiny lens of a TV camera within the design of the hanging carpet without giving his discovery away.

He stewed for nearly an hour before the carpet was pulled aside and Akhmad Yazid strutted through a small archway into the room.

The spiritual leader of the Egyptian Muslims was young, no more than thirty-five. He was a small man; he had to look up to meet Ammar's eyes. His face did not have the precise features of most Egyptians, the chin and cheekbones were softer, more rounded. His head was covered by a white lace cloth wound in an abbreviated turban, and his broom handle-dun body was draped in a white silk caftan. When moving from shadow to light, his eyes seemingly altered from black to dark brown.

As a sign of respect, Ammar gave a slight nod without looking Yazid in the eye.

"Ah, my friend," Yazid said warmly. "Good to have you back."

Ammar looked up, smiled and began playing the game. "I'm honored to stand in your presence, Akhmad Yazid."

"Please sit," Yazid said. It was an order rather than an invitation.

Ammar complied, sitting on the small wooden stool so Yazid could look down on him. Yazid also added another form of humiliation. He circled the room as he lectured without prologue, forcing Amrnar to twist around the stool to follow him.

"Every week brings a major challenge to President Hasan's fragile authority. All that prevents his fall is the loyalty of the military.

He can still rely on the 350,000-strong army for support. for the moment, Defense Minister Abu Hamid straddles the fence. He has assured me he will throw his support to ouir movement for an Islamic republic, but only if we will a national referendum without bloodshed."

"Is that bad?" asked Ammar with an innocent expression.

Yazid gave him a cold stare. "The man is a pro-Western charlatan, too cowardly to give up American aid. All that matters to him are his precious jets, helicopter gunships and tanks. He fears Egypt will go the way of Iran. The idiot insists on an orderly transition of governments so loans from world banks and financial aid from America will keep pouring in,"

Them He paused, gazing directly into Ammar's eyes, as if daring his prize assassin to contradict him again. Ammar remained silent. The stifling room began to close in on him.

"Abu Hamid also demands my promise that Hala Kamil will remain SecretaryGeneral of the United Nations," Yazid added.

"Yet you ordered me to eliminate her," Ammar said, curious.

Yazid nodded. "Yes, I wanted the bitch dead because she is using her position in the U.N. as a platform to voice her opposition to our movement and turn world opinion against me. Abu Haniid, however, would have slammed the door in my face if she'd been openly assassinated-the reason why I counted on you, Suleiman, to remove her with an unquestionable accident. Regrettably, you failed. You managed to kill everyone on board the aircraft except Kamil."

The last words fell like a hammer. Ammar's outward calm disintegrated.

He looked up at Yazid in blank confusion.

"She lives?"

Yazid's eyes went cold. "The news broke in Washington less than one hour ago. The plane crashed in Greenland. Every U.N. passenger except Kamil and all but two of the crew were found dead from poison."

"Poison?" Ammar murmured skeptically.

"Our paid sources in the American news media have confirmed the report.

What were you thinking of, Suleiman? You assured me the plane was supposed to vanish in the sea."

"Do they say how it reached Greenland?"

"A flight steward discovered the bodies of the flight crew. With help from a Mexican delegate, he took over the controls and managed to crash-land in a fjord on the coast. Kamil might have died from exposure, cutting you off the hook, but an American naval vessel happened to be crusing nearby. They responded almost immediately and saved her life."

Ammar was stunned. He was not used to failure. He could not imagine how his exactingly conceived plan had gone so far off track. He closed his eyes, seeing the plane clear the summit of the glacier. Almost instantly he gleaned the imponderables, focusing on a piece of the puzzle that didn't fit.

Yazid stood qtuetly for a few moments, then broke Ammar's concentration.

"You realize, of course, I will be accused of this mess."

"There is no evidence tying me to the disaster or me to you," Ammar said firmly.

"Perhaps, but call it guilt by motive. Speculation and rumor will convict me in the Western news media. I should have you executed. "

Ammar wiped his mind clear and shrugged indifferently. "That would be a sad waste. I'm still the best eliminator in the Middle East."

"And the highest paid."

"I'm not in the habit of charging for unfinished projects."

"I would hope not," said Yazid acidly. He abruptly spun and walked toward the hanging carpet. He reached out and pulled it back with his left hand, paused and turned back to Ammar. "I must prepare my mind for prayer. You may go, Suleiman Aziz Ammar."

"And Hala Kaniil? The job is unfinished."

"I am turning her removal over to Muhammad Ismail."

"Ismail," Ammar grunted. "The man is a cretin."

"He can be trusted."

"for what, cleaning sewers?"

Yazid's hard, cold eyes stared at Ammar menacingly. "Kamil is no longer your concern. Remain here in Egypt near my side. My faithful advisers and I have another project to advance our cause. You will have an opportunity to redeem yourself in the eyes of Allah."

Before Yazid could enter the archway, Ammar rose to his feet. "The Mexican delegate who helped fly the aircraft. Was he also poisoned?"

Yazid turned and shook his head. "The report states he was killed in the crash."

Then he was gone and the carpet dropped back.

Ammar settled on the stool again. Slowly the revelation broke through the mists of the enigma. He should have been maddened, but there wasn't the slightest feeling of anger. Instead, an amused smile curled under his mustache.

"So there were two of us," he mused aloud to the empty room. "And the other one poisoned the in-flight meal service." Then he shook his head in wonderment. "Poison in the Beef Wellington. My god, how quaint."

At first no one paid any attention to the tiny blur that crept across the outer edge of the sidescan sonar's recording paper.

Six hours into the search they had found several manmade objects. Parts of the downed aircraft that were pinpointed for retrieval, a sunken fishing trawler, bits and pieces of junk thrown over by fishing fleets seeking shelter in the fjord from storms, all were identified by video camera and eliminated.

The last anomaly was not resting on the bottom of the fjord as expected.

It sat inside a small inlet encircled by sheer cliffs. Only one end protruded into clear water; the rest was buried under a wall of ice.

Pitt was the first to realize its significance. He was sitting in front of the recorder, surrounded by Giordino, Commander Knight and the archaeologists. He spoke into a transmitter.

"Swing the fish, bearing one-five-zero degrees."

The Polar Explorer was still stationary in the icebound fjord. Outside on the pack a team led by Cork Simon had augered through the ice and lowered the sensing unit into the water. Very slowly they swung the fish, as they called it, scanning a 360-degree grid. After searching one area, they unreeled more cable and tried again at another site farther away from the ship.

Simon acknowledged Pitts command and twisted the cable until the fish's sonar probes were trained at 150 degrees.

"How's this?" he queried.

"You're right on target," Pitt replied from the ship.

Seen from a better angle the target became more distinct. Pitt circled it with a black felt pen.

"I think we've got something."

Gronquist moved in closer and nodded. "Not much showing to identify.

What do you make of it?"

"Pretty vague," answered Pitt- "You have to use some imagination since most of the object is covered by ice that has fallen from the surrounding cliffs. But the part that shows underwater suggests a wooden ship. There's a definite angular shape coming together at what might be a high, curving sternpost. "

"Yes," said Lily excitedly. "High and graceful. Typical of a fourth-century merchant ship."

"Don't get carried away," cautioned Knight. "She could be an old sail-rigged fisherman."

"Possibly." Giordino looked thoughtful. "But if my memory serves me correctly, the Danes, Icelanders and Norwegians who have fished these waters over the centuries sailed in more narrow beamed double-enders."

"You're right," said Pitt. "The sharp bow and stern were handed down from the Vikings. What we're seeing here might also be a double-ender, but with a broader sweep."

"Can't get a clear picture through the ice-covered section of the hull,"

said Gronquist. "But we could drop a camera back of the stern in clear water for a better identification."

Giordino looked doubtful. "A camera might confirm the stern section of a wrecked ship, but little else."

"We've plenty of strong male backs on the ship," said Lily. "We could tunnel down through the ice and inspect her at first hand."

Gronquist took a pair of binoculars and walked out of the electronics compartment to the bridge. He returned in half a minute. "I make the ice cover over the wreck to be a good four meters thick. Take at least two days to cut through."

"You'll have to dig without us, I'm afraid," said Knight. "My orders are to get under way before 1800 hours. We've no time left for a lengthy excavation."

Gronquist was taken aback. "That's only five hours from now."

Knight made a helpless gesture. "I'm sorry, I have no say in the matter."

Pitt studied the dark spot on the recording paper. Then he turned to Knight. "If I proved positively that's a fourth-century Roman ship out there, could you persuade North Atlantic command to keep us on station for another day or two?"

Knight's eyes took on a foxy look. "What are you cooking up?"

"Will you go along?" Pitt crowded him.

"Yes," Knight stated firmly. "But only if you prove, without a shadow of a doubt, that's a thousand-year-old shipwreck. " ... Then it's a deal."

"How are you going to do it?"

"Simple," said Pitt, reeling Knight in. "I'm going to dive under the ice and come up into the hull."

Cork Simon and his crew worked quickly at cutting an access hole through the one-meter-thick ice sheet with chain saws. They quarried multiple squares until they reached the final layer. They broke through with a sledgehammer mounted on a long pipe and then removed the ice fragments with grappling hooks so Pitt could safely submerge.

When he was satisfied the hole was clear, Simon walked a few steps and entered a small canvas-covered shelter. The interior was heated and warm and crowded with men and diving equipment. An air compressor sat next to the heating unit, chugging away, its exhaust vented to the outside.

Lily and the other archaeologists were sitting at a folding table in one corner of the shelter, making a series of drawings and discussing them with Pitt as he suited up for the dive.

"Ready when you are," Simon announced.

"Another five minutes," Giordino replied while busily checking the valve assemblies and regulator on a Mark I navy diver's mask.

Pitt had slipped a special dry suit over long underwear made of heavy nylon pile for thermal insulation. Next he pulled on a hood and then a quick-release weight belt while trying to absorb a cram course in ancient ship construction.

"In early merchant vessels the shipwrights favored cedar and cypress, and often pine, for the planking," lectured Gronquist. "They mostly used oak for the keel."

"I won't be able to tell one wood from another," Pitt said.

"Then study the hull. The planks were tightly joined by tenons and mortises. Many ships had lead plates laid on their underwater surface.

The hardware may be of iron or copper."

"What about the rudder?" asked Pitt. "Anything I should look for in design and fastenings?"

"You won't find a stern-centered rudder," said Sam Hoskins. "They didn't Turn up for another eight hundred years. All early Mediterranean merchantmen used twill steering oars that extended from the aft quarters."

"Do you want a reserve 'come home' air bottle?" Giordino interrupted.

Pitt shook his head. "Not necessary for a dive this shallow as long as I'm on a lifeline."

Giordino lifted the Mark I mask and helped Pitt pull it down over his head. He checked the face seal, adjusted the position and cinched up the spider straps. The air supply was on, and when Pitt signaled that he had proper air flow, Giordino secured the communications line to the mask.

ANie one of the Navy men unreeled and straightened the air-supply hose and communications line, Giordino tied a manila lifeline around Pitts waist. He performed the predive checkout and then donned a headset with microphone.

"You hear me okay?" he asked.

"Clear but faint," Pitt answered. "Turn up the volume a notch."

"Better?"

"Much."

"How do you feel?"

"Nice and cozy so long as I'm breathing warm air."

"All set?"

Pitt answered by making an okay sign with his thumb and forefinger. He paused to hook an underwater dive light to his belt.

Lily gave him a hug and gazed up through his face mask. "Good hunting, and be careful."

He willked back at her.

He turned and walked through the entryway of the shelter into the cold outside, trailed by two Navy men who tended his lines.

Giordino began to follow when Lily clutched his arm. "Will we be able to hear him?" she asked anxiously.

"Yes, I've connected him into a speaker. You and Dr. Gronquist can stay here where it's warm and listen in. If you have a message for Pitt, simply come and tell me, and I'll pass it on."

Pitt walked stiffly to the edge of the ice hole and sat down. The air temperature had dropped to zero. It was a crystalline November day with a biting edge, courtesy of a ten-mile-an-hour wind.

As he slipped on his fins he looked up at the sheer sides of the mountains that soared above the inlet. The tons of snow and ice clinging to the steep palisades seemed as if they could fall at any moment. He turned to the upper end of the fjord where he could see glacier arms curling and grinding toward the sea. Then he looked down.

The water in the dive hole looked jade, ominous and cold.

Commander Knight approached and put his hand on Pitts shoulder. All he could see was a pair of intense green eyes through the glass of the mask. He spoke loudly so Pitt could hear.

"One hour, twenty-three minutes left. I thought you ought to know."

Pitt gave him a steel-edged stare but did not reply. He made a "thumbs up" sign and slipped through the narrow hole into the forbidding water.

He slowly settled past the encircling white walls. He felt as if he were diving down a well. Once clear, he was dazzled by the glistening kaleidoscope of color from the sun's rays that penetrated the ice. The underside of the sheet was jagged and uneven and specked with small hanging stalactites formed by brine from the rapidly freezing fresh water carried into the fjord by glaciers.

Underwater visibility was almost eighty meters on a horizontal range. He glanced down and saw a small kelp community grasping the rocky mass carpeting the bottom. Thousands of small shrimplike crustaceans suspended in the still water swirled past his sight.

A huge, three-meter bearded seal eyed him curiously at a distance, tufts of coarse bristles sprouting from its muzzle. Pitt waved his arms, and the big seal shot him a wary look and swam away.

Pitt touched the bottom and paused to equalize his ears. There was a danger in diving with a buoyancy-compensatortype life-jacket under ice and he did not wear one. He was slightly heavy, so he adjusted by removing and dropping a lead weight from his belt. The air that flowed from the compressor through a filter and then an accumulator into his mask tasted bland but pure.

He gazed upward and oriented himself from the eerie glow of the ice hole and checked his compass. He hadn't bothered to carry a depth gauge. He wouldn't be working in water over four meters deep.

"Talk to me," the voice of Al Giordino came through the mask's earphones.

"I'm on the bottom," replied Pitt. "All systems up to par."

Pitt spun and stared through the green void. "She lies about ten meters north of me. I'm going to move toward her. Give me some slack in the lines."

He swain slowly, taking care his lines didn't foul on the rock outcroppings. The intense cold of the frigid water began to seep into his body. He was thankful Giordino had had the foresight to see that his air supply was warm and dry The stern of the wreck slowly unveiled before his eyes. The sides were covered with a mat of algae. He brushed away a small area with his gloved hand, stirn'ng up a green cloud. He waited a minute for the cloud to dissipate and then peered at the result.

"Inform Lily and Doc I'm looking at a wooden hull without a stern rudder, but no sign of steering oars."

"Acknowledged," said Giordino.

Pitt pulled a knife from a sheath strapped to one leg and pried at the underside of the hull near the keel. The point revealed soft metal.

"We have a lead-sheathed bottom," he announced.

"Looking good," replied Giordino. "Doc Gronquist wants to know if there is any sign of carving on the sternpost."

"Hold on."

Pitt carefully wiped off the growth over a flat section of the sternpost just before it disappeared upward into the ice, waiting patiently for the resulting algae cloud to drift away.

"There's some kind of a hardwood plaque imbedded into the sternpost. I can make out lettering and a face."

"A face?"

"With a curly head of hair and heavy beard."

"What does it read?"

"Sorry, I can't translate Greek."

"Not Latin?" Giordino asked skeptically.

The raised carving was indistinct in the shimmering light that filtered through the ice. Pitt moved in until his face mask nearly touched the wooden plaque.

"Greek," Pitt stated firmly.

"Certain?"

"I used to go with a girl who was an Alpha Delta Pi."

"Hold on. You've thrown the bone pickers into spasms."

After nearly two minutes, Giordino's voice returned over the earphones.

"Gronquist thinks you're hallucinating, but Mike Graham says he studied classical Greek in college and asks if you can describe the lettering."

"First letter resembles an S shaped like a lightning strike. Then an A with the right leg missing. Next a P followed by another handicapped A and what looks like an inverted L or a gallows. Then an 1. Last letter is another lightning strike S.

That's the best I can do."

Listening over the speaker inside the shelter, Graham copied Pitts meager description on the page of a notebook.

He scrutinized what appeared to be a word for several moments.

Something was out of place. He struggled to jog his memory, and then he had it. The letters were Classical but Eastern Greek.

His thoughtful expression slowly turned incredulous. He furiously wrote a short word, tore out the page and held it up-in modern capitals it read, S A R A PI S

Lily stared at Graham questioningly- "Does it mean anything?"

Gronquist said, "I think it's the name of a Greek-Egyptian god. "

"A popular deity throughout the Mediterranean," agreed Hoskins. "Modern spelling is usually 'Serapis. "'

"So our ship is the Serapes," murmured Lily pensively, Knight grunted.

"So we might have either a Roman, Grecian or Egyptian shipwreck. Which is it?"

"We're over our heads," answered Gronquist. "We'll need the expertise of a marine archaeologist who knows ancient Mediterranean shipping to sort this one out."

Below the ice, Pitt moved across the starboard side of the hull, stopping where the planking vanished into the ice. He swam around the sternpost to the port. The planking looked warped and bowed outward. A few kicks of his fins, and he could see a section that was stove in by the ice.

He eased up to the opening and slipped his head inside. it was like looking in a dark closet. He saw only vague, indiscernible shapes. He reached in and felt something round and hard. He gauged the distance between the broken panels, The gap was too small to squeeze his shoulders through.

He grasped the upper plank, planted a finned foot against the hull and pulled. The well-preserved wood slowly bent but refused to give. Pitt tried both feet and heaved with everything he had. The plank still held firm. When he was just about to call it quits the treenails suddenly tore off the inside ribs and the waterlogged wood peeled away, throwing Pitt backward in awkward slow motion against a large rock.

any respectable card-carrying marine archaeologist would have gone into cardiac arrest at such irreverent brutality toward an ancient artifact, Pitt felt totally unsympathetic toward academic scruples. He was cold and getting colder, his shoulder began to ache from the impact on the rock, and he knew he couldn't stay down much longer.

"I've found a break in the hull," he said, panting like a marathon runner. "Send down a camera."

"Understood," replied the stolid voice of Giordino. "Come back and I'll pass it to you."

Pitt returned to the dive hole and followed his bubbles to the surface.

Giordino lay on his stomach on the ice, reached down and handed Pitt a compact underwater video camera/recorder.

"Take a few meters of tape and get out," said Giordino. "You've accomplished enough."

"What about Commander Knight?"

"Hold tight, I'll put him on."

Knight's voice came over the earphones. "Dirk?"

"Go ahead, Byron."

"Are you one hundred percent certain we've got a thousand-year-old relic in pristine condition?"

"All indications look solid."

"I'll need something tangible if I'm to convince Atlantic Command to keep us on station another forty-eight hours."

"Stand by and I'll seal it with a kiss."

"An identifiable antiquity will suffice," Knight said dourly.

Pitt threw a wave and faded from view.

He did not enter the wreck immediately. How long he floated motionless outside the jagged opening he couldn't be sure. Probably about one minute, certainly no longer then two. Why he hesitated, he didn't know.

Maybe he was waiting for an invitation from a skeletal hand beckoning from within, maybe he was afraid of finding nothing more than debris from an eighty-year-old Icelandic fishing schooner, or maybe he was just leery of entering what might be a tomb.

Finally he lowered his head, tightened his shoulders and cautiously kicked his fins.

The black unknown opened up and he swam in.

Once Pitt squeezed inside, he paused and hung motionless, slowly settling on his knees, listening to his pounding heart and his breath escaping from the exhaust valve, waiting until his eyes eventually became accustomed to the fluid gloom.

He didn't know what he'd expected to find: what he found was an array of terra-cotta jars, pitchers, cups and plates neatly stacked in shelves set in the bulkheads. One was a large copper pot he had touched when groping through the hull; its walls had turned a deep patina green.

At first he thought his knees were resting on the hard surface of the deck. He felt about with his hands and discovered he was kneeling on the tiled surface of a hearth. He glanced up and saw his bubbles rise up and spread in a wavering cover. He stood and surfaced into clear air, his head and shoulders having risen above the water level of the fjord,

"I'm inside the ship's galley," he notified the spellbound party on the ice. "The upper half is dry. Camera is rolling."

"Acknowledged," Giordino said briefly. Pitt used the next few minutes to video-record the galley's interior above and below the water level, while keeping a running dialogue on the inventory. He found an open cupboard stocked with several elegant glass vessels, He lifted one and peered inside. It held coins. He picked one out, rubbed away the algae with his gloved fingers, and shot tape with one hand. The coin's surface revealed a golden color.

A sense of awe and apprehension flooded over Pitt. He looked quickly around as if expecting a ghostly crew, or at least their skeletal apparitions, to come bursting through the hatchway to accuse him of theft. Only there was no crew. He was alone and touching objects that belonged to men who had walked the same deck, prepared food and eaten here-men who had been dead for sixteen centuries.

He began to wonder what had happened to them. How had they come to be in the frozen north when there were no records of such a historic voyage? They must have died of exposure, but where did their bodies lie?

"You'd better come up," said Giordino. "You've been down almost thirty minutes."

"Not yet," replied Pitt. Thirty minutes, he thought. It seemed more like five. Time was slipping away from him. The cold was beginning to affect his brain. He dropped the coin back in the glass vessel and continued his inspection.

The galley's ceiling rose half a meter above the main deck overhead, and small arched windows that normally allowed ventilation were battened down on the upper side of the forward bulkhead. Pitt pried one partially open only to confront a solid wall of ice.

He made a rough measurement and found the water level was deeper toward the aft end of the galley, Pitt took this to indicate that the bow and central section of the hull were aground on the raised slope of the ice-buried shoreline.

"Come up with anything else?" Giordino inquired with burning curiosity.

"Like what?"

"Remains of the crew?"

"Sorry, no bones to be seen." Pitt ducked under the water and scanned the deck to make certain. It was free and clean of litter.

"They probably panicked and abandoned ship at sea," Giord'L-o theorized.

"Nothing points to a panic," said Pitt. "The galley could pass a general inspection."

"Can you penetrate the rest of the ship?"

"There's a hatchway in the forward bulkhead. I'm going to see what's on the other side."

He leaned down and ducked through the low and narrow opening, carefully pulling his lifeline and air hose after him. The darkness was oppressive. He unhooked the dive light from his weight belt and swept its beam around a small compartment.

"I'm now in some kind of storeroom. The water is shallower here, rising just short of my knees. I can see tools, yes, the ship's carpenter's tools, spare anchors, a large steelyard ' "Steelyard?" Giordino broke in.

"A balance scale that hangs from a hook."

"Got you."

"There's also an assortment of axes, lead weights and fish netting. Hold on while I document."

A narrow wooden ladder led upward through an opening in the main deck.

After shooting tape, he cautiously tested it, surprised to find it still stout enough to support his weight.

Pitt slowly climbed the rungs and poked his head into the shattered remains of a deck cabin. Little was visible except a few buried bits of debris. The cabin had been nearly crushed flat by the build up of ice.

He dropped down and waded through another hatch that opened into the cargo hold. He swung the dive light's beam from Starboard to port and instantly went numb from shock.

It was not only a cargo hold.

It was also a crypt.

The extreme cold had transformed the dry hold into a cryogenic chamber.

Eight bodies in a state of nearperfect preservation were grouped around a small iron stove toward the bow. Each was covered by a shroud of ice, making them look as though they had been individually wrapped in a thick, clear plastic.

Their facial expressions appeared peaceful and their eyes were locked open-Like mannikins in a shop window, they were posed in different positions as if placed and adjusted for the correct attitude. Four sat around a table eating, plates in hand, cups raised to mouth. Two reclined side by side against the hull, reading what Pitt guessed were scrolls. One was bent over a wooden chest, while the last was seated in the act of writing.

Pitt felt as if he had entered a time machine. He could not believe he was staring at men who had been citizens of Imperial Rome. Ancient mariners who sailed into ports long buried under the debris of later civilizations, ancestors over sixty generations from the past.

They had not been prepared for the Arctic cold. None wore heavy clothing; all were bundled in coarse blankets. They seemed small in size compared to Pitt; all would have measured a good head shorter. One little man was bald, with gray woolly side hair. Another had shaggy red hair and was heavily bearded. Most were clean-shaven. from what he could read through their icy covering, the youngest was around eighteen and the oldest close to forty years of age.

The mariner who had died while writing had a leather cap pulled tight around his head and long strips of wool wrapped around his legs and feet. He was bent over a small stack of wax tablets resting on the scarred surface of a small folding table. A stylus was still gripped in his right hand.

The crew did not look as if they had starved or died slowly from the cold. Death had come suddenly and unexpectedly.

Pitt guessed the cause. All hatch covers had been tightly sealed to keep out the cold, and the only opening for ventilation had frozen over.

The pots containing the last meal were sitting on the small oil stove.

There was no way for the heat and smoke to escape to the outside. Lethal carbon monoxide had built up within the cargo hold. Unconsciousness had struck without warning, and each man died where he sat.

Almost as if he was afraid to awaken the long-dead seaman, Pitt very carefully chipped the ice away from the wax tablets until they came free. Then he unzipped the front of his dry suit and slipped them inside.

Pitt no longer noticed the agony of the cold, the nervous sweat that was trickling from his pores, or the shivering. His mind was so absorbed in the morbid scene that he failed to hear Giordino's repeated demands for a reply.

"Are you still with us?" asked Giordino. "Answer, dammit!"

Pitt mumbled a few unintelligible words.

"Say again. Are you in trouble?"

Giordino's concerned tone finally shook Pitt out of his trancelike state.

Inform Commander Knight his worst fear is confirmed," Pitt answered.

"The antique status Of the ship is genuine. And by the way," he added in a monotonous, laconic voice, "you might also mention that if he needs witnesses, I can produce the crew."

"You're wanted on the phone," Julius SchiHer's wife called through the kitchen window.

Schiller looked up from the barbecue in the backyard of his tree-shaded home in Chevy Chase. "They give a name?"

"No, but it sounds like Dale Nichols."

He sighed and held up a pair of tongs. "Come mind the steaks so they won't burn."

Mrs. Schiller gave her husband a brief kiss as they passed each other on the porch. He entered his study, closed the door and picked up the receiver.

"Yes?"

"Julius, Dale."

"What's on your mind?"

"Sorry to call on a Sunday," said Nichols. "Did I interrupt anything?"

"Only a family barbecue."

"You must be a diehard. It's only forty-five degrees outside."

"Beats smoking up the garage-"

"Steak and scrambled eggs, that's my favorite."

Schiller caught Nichols's drift on the eggs and switched his phone onto a secure line that entered a computer scramble mode. "Okay, Dale, what have you got?"

"Hala Kamil. The exchange came off smoothly,"

"Her look-alike is at Walter Reed Hospital?" Schiller asked.

"Under tight security to go along with the act:"

"Who doubled for her?"

"Teri Rooney, the actress. She did a superb makeup job. You couldn't tell her apart from the real SecretaryGeneral unless you were nose to nose-As a backup, we arranged a press conference by hospital doctors.

They gave out a story describing her serious condition."

"And Kantil?"

"She remained on the Air Force plane that brought her from Greenland.

After refueling, it flew to Buckley Field near Denver. from there she was flown by helicopter to Breckenridge. "

"The ski resort in Colorado?"

"Yes, she's resting comfortably at Senator Pitts chalet just outside of town. No injuries except a few bruises and a mild case of frostbite."

"How is she taking her forced convalescence?"

"No word yet. Hala was heavily sedated when she was carried from the hospital at Thule. But she'll go along when she learns of our operation to safeguard her arrival at the U.N.

headquarters to address the opening session of the General Assembly. A reliable source close to her says she plans on making a scathing indictment of Yazid, exposing him as a religious charlatan and offering proof of his underground terrorist activities."

"I've read a report from the same source," Schiller admitted.

"Five days until the opening session," said Nichols. "Yazid will pull out all stops to blow her away."

"She's got to be kept on ice until she steps to the podium," Schiller said, deadly serious.

"She's safe," said Nichols. "any word from the Egyptian government on your end?"

"President Hasan is giving us his full cooperation regarding Kantil.

He's scratching every hour he can buy or steal to launch his new economic reforms and replace military leaders with men he can trust.

Hala Kantil is the only thread preventing Yazid from attempting a quick grab for the Egyptian government. If Yazid's assassins stop her before her speech goes out over world news satellite channels, there is a real danger of Egypt becoming another Iran before the monday is out."

"Relax, Yazid won't get wise to the scam until it's too late," said Nichols confidentially.

"I assume she is under heavy guard?"

"By a top team of Secret Service agents. The President is personally keeping a tight grip on the operation."

Schiller's wife knocked on the door and spoke loudly from the other side. "Steaks are ready, Julius."

"In a minute," he answered.

Nichols picked up on the exchange. "That's all I have for now. I'll let you get back to your steaks."

"I'd feel better if the FBI was lending a hand," said Schiller.

"The White House security staff has considered every contingency. The President thought it best to keep all intelligence within a tight circle."

Schiller paused pensively for a moment. Then he said, "Don't screw it up, Dale."

"Not to worry. I promise, Hala Kamil will arrive at the U.N. building in New York in pristine condition and full of fire."

"She'd better."

"Does the sun set in the west?"

Schiller set down the phone. He had an uneasy feeling. He hoped to God the White House knew what it was doing.

Across the street three men sat in the back of a Ford van with "Capitol Plumbing, 24-hour emergency service" painted on the panels. The cramped interior was crowded with electronic eavesdropping equipment.

Tedium had set in five hours ago. Surveillance is perhaps the most boring job since watching rails rust. One man smoked and the other two didn't and couldn't stand the stale air. All were stiff and cold.

Former counterespionage agents, they had resigned to become independent contractors.

Most retired agents occasionally take on an outside job for the government, but these three were among the very few who respected money more than patriotic duty, and they sold what ever classified information they could ferret out to the highest bidder. '

One of them, a blond, scarecrow type, peered through binoculars out a tinted window at Schiller's house. "He's leaving the study."

The fat man hunched over a recording machine with earphones nodded in agreement. "All talk has ceased."

The , man had a great waxed handlebar mustache, operated a laser parabolic, a sensitive microphone that received voice sounds inside a room from the vibrations on a windowPane, and then magnified them through fiber optics onto a sound channel.

"Anything interesting?" asked the skinny blond.

The fat man removed the earphones and wiped his sweating forehead. "My share from this gig will pay off my fishing boat."

"I love a marketable commodity."

"This information is worth big bucks to the right party."

"Who've you got in mind?" asked the one with the mustache.

The fat man grinned like a glutted coyote. "A wealthy, highly placed raghead who wants to make points with Akhmad Yazid."

The President rose from behind his desk and gave a brief nod as CIA Director Martin Brogan was ushered into the Oval Office for the morning intelligence briefing.

The formality of a handshake between the two men had fallen by the wayside soon after their daily meetings began. The slim, urbane Brogan didn't mind in the least. He had narrow, long-fingered violinist's hands, while the tall, two-hundred-pound President had massive paws and a bone-crushing grip.

Brogan waited until the President sat down before settling in a leather chair. Almost as if it were a ritual, the President poured a cup of coffee, ladled in a teaspoon of sugar and graciously handed a large mug to Brogan.

The President brushed a hand over his head of silver hair and fixed Brogan with a limpid pair of gray eyes. "Well, what secrets does the world hold this morning?"

Brogan shrugged and passed a leather-bound file across the desk. "At 0900 Moscow time, Soviet President Georgi Antonov balled his mistress in the backseat of his limousine on the way to the Kremlin."

"I envy his method for starting the day," the President said with a broad smile.

"He also made two calls from his car phone. One to Sergei Komilov, head of the Soviet space program, the other to his son, who works in the commercial section of the embassy in Mexico City. You'll find the transcript of the conversations on pages four and five."

The President opened the file, slipped on a pair of reading glasses and scanned the transcript, amazed, as always, at the penetration of intelligence gathering.

"And how was the rest of Georgi's day?"

"He spent most of his time on domestic affairs. you wouldn't want to be in his shoes. The outlook on the Soviet economy grows worse by the day.

His reforms in the fields and factories have gone down the toilet. The old guard in the Politburo is trying to undermine him. The military isn't happy with his program's Proposals and has gone public with its Opposition. Soviet citizens are getting more vocal as the lines get longer. With a little prodding by our operatives, graffiti knocking the government are appearing throughout the cities. Overall economic growth has flattened out at two percent. There is a strong possibility Antonov may be forced from power before next summer."

"If our deficit doesn't level off I may wind up in the same boat," the President said grimly.

Brogan made no comment. He wasn't expected to.

"What's the latest intelligence from Egypt?" the President asked, moving on.

"President Hasan is also hanging by the skin of his teeth. The air force remains loyal, but the army generals are close to throwing in with Yazid. Defense Minister Abu Hamid held a secret meeting with Yazid in Port Said. Our informants say Haniid won't swing his support without assurances of a solid power position. He does not want to be dictated to by Yazid's circle of fanatical mullahs."

"Think Yazid will give in?"

Brogan shook his head. "No, he has no intention of sharing power.

Han-lid has underestimated Yazid's ruthlessness. We've already uncovered a conspiracy to place a bomb in Haniid's private plane."

"Have you alerted Harried?"

"I'll need your authority."

"You have it," said the President. "Hamid is cagey. He may think we're pulling a ploy to keep him out of Yazid's camp."

"We can supply the names of Yazid's assassin team. Hamid can take it from there if he insists on proof."

The President leaned back and stared at the ceiling for a moment. "Can we tie Yazid to the crash of the U.N. plane carrying Hala Kamfl?"

"Circumstantial evidence at best," Brogan admitted. "We won't have any concrete conclusions until the investigators wrap up and make their report. for now, the disaster is a real puzzle. Only a few facts have been uncovered. We do know the genuine pilot was murdered; his body was found in the trunk of a car parked at Heathrow airport."

"Sounds like a maria hit."

"Almost, except the killer did a masterful job of disguising himself well enough to double as the pilot. After actually taking off the plane, he killed the flight crew by injecting them with a toxic nerve agent known as sarin, turned off course and abandoned the aircraft over Iceland."

"He must have worked with a team of highly trained professionals," the President said admiringly.

"We have reason to think he acted alone," said Brogan.

"Alone?" The President's expression turned incredulous. "This guy has to be one canny son of a bitch."

"The finesse and intricacy are trademarks of an Arab whose name is Suleiman Aziz Ammar."

"A terrorist?"

"Not in the crude sense. Animar is one of the cleverest assassins in the game. I wish he was on our side."

"Never let the liberals in Congress hear you say that," the President said wryly.

"Or the news media," Brogan added.

"Do you have a file on Ammar?"

"About a meter thick. He's what the trade used to call a master of disguise. A good, practicing Muslim who has little interest in politics, a mercenary with no known association with fanatical Islamic diehards. Ammar charges enormous fees, and gets them. A shrewd businessman. His wealth is estimated at over sixty million dollars. He seldom goes by the book. His hits are ingeniously planned and carried out. All are planned to look like accidents. None can be laid on his doorstep with certainty. Innocent victims mean nothing to him so long as his target is taken out. We suspect he is responsible for over a hundred deaths in the past ten years. His attempt, proven, to kill Hala K I would mark his first recorded failure."

The President adjusted his glasses and turned to the report on the air crash. "I must have missed something. If he meant for the plane to vanish in the ocean, why did he bother poisoning the passengers? What possible reason could he have for killing them twice?"

"There's the catch," explained Brogan. "My analysts don't think Ammar was responsible for murdering the passengers."

The President's eyes took on a look of surprise. "You've switched me on a sidetrack, Martin. What in hell are you talking about?"

"Pathologists from the FBI labs flew up to Thule and performed autopsies on the victims. They found fifty times the sarin required to kill inside the flight crew's bodies, but their tests showed the passengers died from ingesting manchineel in the flight meal."

Brogan paused to sip his coffee.

The President waited, impatiently tapping a pen against a desk calendar.

"Manchineel, or poison guava as it's called, is native to the Caribbean and gulf coast of Mexico," Brogan continued. "It comes from a tree that bears a deadly, sweet-tasting, appleshaped fruit. Carib indians used the sap to tip their arrows. any number of early shipwrecked sailors and modern tourists have died after eating the manchineel's poisonous juices."

"And your people believe an assassin of Ammar's caliber wouldn't stoop to using manchineel?"

"Something like that." Brogan nodded. "Ammar's connections would have no trouble buying or stealing sarin from a European chemical-supply company. Manchineel is something else. You can't find it on a shelf.

It also works too slowly for a quick kill. I find it doubtful Ammar would even consider using it."

"If not the Arab, then who?"

"We don't know," answered Brogan. "Certainly none of the three survivors. The only trail, and a faint one, leads to a Mexican delegate by the name of Eduardo Ybarra. He's the only other passenger besides Hala Kaniil who didn't eat the meal. "

"It says here he died in the crash." The President looked up from the briefing file. "How could he insert poison in the flight meals without being seen?"

"That was done in the kitchen of the company that caters for the airline. British investigators are checking out that lead now."

"Maybe Ybarra is innocent. Maybe for some simple reason he didn't eat."

"According to the surviving flight attendant, Hala slept through the meal, but Ybarra feigned an upset stomach."

"It's possible."

"The surviving flight attendant saw him eating a sandwich from his briefcase."

"Then he knew."

"Looks that way."

"Why did he risk coming on board if he knew everyone was going to die except him?"

"As a backup, in case the main target, or targets, probably the entire contingent of Mexicans, didn't take the poison."

The President leaned back in his chair and studied the ceiling. "Okay, Kamil is a Thorn in the side of Yazid. He pays Animar to erase her. The job is botched and the plane doesn't disappear in the middle of the Arctic Ocean as planned but comes down in Greenland. So much for mystery number one. Solid facts for a good case. We'll call it the Egyptian connection. Mystery number two, the Mexican connection, is far more cloudy. There is no obvious motive for a mass murder, and the only suspect is dead. If I were a judge I'd order the case dismissed for lack of evidence."

"I'd have to go along," said Brogan. "There has been no evidence of terrorist movements operating out of Mexico."

"You forget Topiltzin," the President said unexpectedly.

Brogan was surprised at the cold, mysterious look of pure anger that spread across the President's face.

"The agency has not forgotten Topiltzin," Brogan assured him, "or what he did to Guy Rivas. I'll have him taken out whenever you say the word."

The President suddenly sighed and sagged in his chair. "If only it was that simple. Snap my fingers and the CIA obliterates a foreign opposition leader. The risk is too great. Ken nedy found that out when he condoned the mafia's attempt to kill Castro. "

"Reagan made no objections to the attempts to get Muarnmar Qaddafi. "

"Yes," the President said wearily. "If only he had known Qaddafi would fool everyone and die of cancer!"

"No such luck with Topiltzin. Medical reports say he's as strong as a Missouri mule."

"The man is a bloody lunatic. If he takes over Mexico, we'll have a disaster on our hands."

"You played the tape made by Rivas?" Brogan asked, knowing the answer.

"Four times," the President said bitterly. "It's enough to provoke nightmares."

"And if Topiltzin topples the present government and makes good his threat by sending millions of his people flooding across our border in a mad attempt to recover the American Southwest." . . . ?" Brogan let the question hang.

The President replied in a strangely mild tone. "Then I will have no choice but to order our armed forces to treat any horde of illegal aliens as foreign invaders."

Brogan arrived back in his office at the CIA headquarters in Langley and found the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Elmer Shaw, waiting for him.

"Sorry to foul up your busy schedule," said Shaw, "but I have some interesting news that might make your day."

"Must be important to warrant your personal visit."

"It is."

"Come in and sit down. Is the news good or bad?"

"Very good."

"Nothing else is going right lately," said Brogan solemnly. "I'll be glad to hear something decent for a change."

"Our survey ship, the Polar Explorer, has been searching for the Soviet Alfa-class submarine that went missing."

"I'm familiar with the mission," Brogan interrupted. "Well, they've found it."

Brogan's eyes widened slightly, and he rapped his desk in a rare display of pleasure. "Congratulations. The Alfa class is the finest sub in both navies. Your people have pulled off a master stroke."

"We haven't got our hands on it yet," said Shaw.

Brogan's eyes suddenly narrowed. "What about the Russians? Are they aware of the discovery?"

"We don't think so. Shortly after instruments detected the sunken sub, which, by the way, includes videotape of the wreckage, our ship pulled off the search track and assisted in the rescue operations of the downed U.N. aircraft. A heavensent smoke screen. Our best intelligence from inside the Soviet navy confirms business as usual. Nothing from the KGB

either. And our space surveillance of their North Atlantic fleet shows no indication of dramatic course changes toward the search area."

"Odd they didn't have a spy trawler shadow the Polar Explorer."

"They did," explained Shaw. "They also kept a close eye on our operations all right, monitoring our ship's course and communications by satellite. They left it alone, sitting back and hoping our more advanced underwater search technology would get lucky where theirs failed. Then they banked their expectations on the clear possibility our crew would give away the location through the tiniest of errors."

"But they didn't."

"No," answered Shaw firmly. "Ship security was airtight. Except for the captain and two NUMA underwater search experts, the entire crew was briefed to think they were on an iceberg-tracking and sea-bottom geology survey. My report on the success of the discovery was hand-carried from Greenland by the Polar Explorer's executive officer so there was no chance of communications penetration."

"Okay, wherr do we go from here?" inquired Brogan. "Obviously the Soviets would never allow another Glomar Explorer snatch. And they still have a ship patrolling the area where they lost that missile sub off the East Coast in 'eighty-six."

"We have an underwater salvage job in mind," said Shaw.

"When?"

"If we began putting together the operation now, redesigning and modifying existing submersibles and equipment, we should be ready for salvage in ten months."

"So we ignore the sub, or act like it until then?"

"Correct," replied Shaw. "In the meantime, another event has fallen into our laps that will confuse the Soviets. The Navy needs your agency's cooperation to carry it out."

"I'm listening."

"During rescue and subsequent investigation of the air crash, the NUMA people working with us in the search accidentally stumbled on what looks like an ancient Roman shipwreck buried in ice."

Brogan stared at Shaw skeptically. "In Greenland?"

Shaw nodded. "The word from experts is it's genuine."

"What can the CIA do to help the Navy with an old shipwreck?"

"A little disinformation. We'd like the Russians to think the Polar Explorer was looking for the Roman ship all along."

Brogan noted a flashing light on his intercom. "A sound concept. While the Navy prepares to grab their newest sub, we scatter bread crumbs down the wrong path."

"Something like that."

"How will you handle the Roman wreck from your end?"

"We set up an archaeological project as a cover for an onsite base of operations. The Polar Explorer will remain on station so the crew can give a hand in the excavation."

"Is the sub close by?"

"Less than ten miles away."

"any idea of her condition?"

"Some structural damage from a collision with a rise on the seafloor, but otherwise intact."

"And the Roman ship?"

"Our men on the scene claim they've found the frozen bodies of the crew in an excellent state of preservation."

Brogan rose from his desk and walked with Shaw to the door.

"Incredible," he said, fascinated. Then he grinned impishly. "I wonder if any ancient state secrets will be found too?"

Shaw grinned back. "Better a hoard of treasure."

Under the direction of the archaeologists the crew of the Polar Explorer cut their way down to the ice-locked ship, layer by layer, until the top deck was laid bare from bow stern to sternpost.

Everyone in the fjord was drawn to the site, hypnotized by curiosity.

Only Pitt and Lily were missing. They remained on board the icebreaker to study the wax tablets.

A compelling silence gripped the crowd of seamen and archaeologists, joined by the air-crash investigating team, as they stood on the edge of the excavation. They stared down at the partially cleared vessel as though it were a hidden tomb of ancient royalty.

Hoskins and Graham measured the hull, arriving at an overall length of just under twenty meters, with a beam of seven meters. The mast had broken two meters above its step and was missing. The remains of the hemp rigging snaked over the weather deck and sides as if wadded up and dropped by a giant bird. A few shredded pieces of canvas were all that remained of the once broad, square sail.

The deck planking was tested for strength and found to be as solid as the day the ship was launched from some long-forgotten Mediterranean shipyard. The artifacts strewn about the deck were photographed, tagged and carefully lifted to the surface and carried to the Polar Explorer, where they were cleaned and catalogued. Then each object was stored in the ship's ice locker to prevent decay during the voyage to a nation that was not in existence when the old merchant vessel sailed on her final voyage.

Gronquist, Hoskins and Graham did not touch the collapsed deckhouse or enter the galley. Slowly, almort tenderly, the three of them lifted one end of the cargo hatch and propped it half-open.

Gronquist stretched out on his stomach and leaned his head and shoulders into the gap until his vision ranged beneath the deck beams.

"Are they there?" Graham asked excitedly. "Are they as Pitt described them?"

Gronquist stared at the ghastly white faces, the frozen masklike expressions. It seemed to him that if he scraped away the ice and shook them, their eyes would b and they'd come alive.

He hesitated before answering. The bright daylight above gave him a clear view of the entire hold, and he glimpsed two forms huddled together in the extreme angle of the bow that Pitt had missed.

"They're just as Pitt described," he said soberly, "except for the dog and the girl."

Pitt stood in the shelter of a deck crane and watched as Giordino jockeyed the NUMA helicopter over the stern of the Polar Explorer.

Fifteen months later the landing skids touched the painted bull's-eye on the deck, the sound of the turbine's whine fell away and the rotor blades beat to a slow stop.

The right-hand cockpit door opened and a tall man wearing a green turtleneck sweater under a brown corduroy sport jacket jumped to the deck. He looked around for a moment as though getting his bearings and then spied Pitt, who threw a wave of greeting. He walked swiftly, shoulders huddled, hands shoved deeply into pockets to shield them from the cold.

Pitt stepped forward and quickly ushered the visitor through a hatch into the warmth of the ship.

"Dr. Redfem?"

"You Dirk Pitt?"

"Yes, I'm Pitt."

"I've read of your exploits."

"Thank you for taking time from your busy schedule to come."

"Are you kidding?" blurted Redfem, eyes wide with enthusiasm. "I jumped at your invitation. There isn't an archaeologist in the world who wouldn't give an eyetooth to be in on this find. When can I take a look?"

"Be dark in another ten minutes. I think it will be practical if you're briefed by Doctor Gronquist, the archaeologist who supervised the excavation. He'll also show you the artifacts he's recovered off the main deck. Then at first light you set foot on the vessel and take charge of the project."

"Sounds good."

"Have any luggage?" Pitt asked.

"I traveled light. Only a briefcase and a small tote bag."

"Al Giordino will bring them down."

"The helicopter pilot?"

"Yes, Al will see that your gear is taken to your quarters. Now if you'll follow me, I'll see you get something warm in your stomach and pick your brain on an intriguing puzzle."

"After you."

Dr. Mel Redfem towered over Pitt and had to duck halfway to his navel when he passed through a hatch. His blond hair had receded to a widow's peak and he wore designer glasses in front of gray-blue eyes. His long body was still reasonably trim for a man of forty with a slight but noticeable paunch.

A former college basketball star who passed on playing for the pros to earn his doctorate in anthropology, Redfem later turned his considerable talents to underwater exploration and became one of the world's leading experts in classical marine archaeology.

"Did you have a good flight from Athens to Reykjavik?" asked Pitt.

"Slept through most of that one," answered Redfem. "It was the ride in the navy patrol plane from Iceland to the Eskimo settlement a hundred miles to the south of here that damned near turned me into an ice cube.

I hope I can borrow some cold-weather clothing. I packed for the sunny islands of Greece and didn't plan for a rush trip to the Arctic Circle."

"Commander Knight, the ship's skipper, can fix you up.

What were you working on?"

"A second-century B.C. Greek merchant ship that sank with a cargo of marble sculptures." Redfem could not contain his curiosity and began to grill Pitt- "You didn't state in your radio message what the ship was carrying."

"Except for the bodies of the crew, I found the cargo hold empty."

"Can't have it all your way," Redfemn said philosophically. "But you did say the ship was basically intact."

"Yes, that's true. if we repair a hole in the hull, restore the mast and the rigging and hang new steering oars, you could sail her into New York harbor."

"God, that's astounding. Has Dr. Gronquist been able to determine an aPProximate date on her?"

"Yes, by coins minted arOUnd A.D. 390. We even know her name. SeraPisIt was carved in Greek on the sternpost."

"A completely preserved fourth-cen Byzantine merchant ship," Redfem murmured in wonder. "This has to be the archaeological find of the century. I can't wait to lay my hands on her."

Pitt led him into the officers' wardroom, where Lily sat at a dining table copying the wording from the wax tablets onto paper. Pitt made the introductions.

"Dr. Lily Sharp, I)r. Mel Redfem."

Lily rose and extended her hand. "This is an honor, Doctor. Although my field is land science, I've been a fan of your underwater work since grad school."

"The honor is mine," said Redfem politely. "Let's cut the fancy titles and stick with first names."

"What can we get you?" asked Pitt.

"A gallon of hot chocolate and a bowl of soup should thaw me out just fine."

Pitt relayed the order to a steward.

"Well, where's this puzzle you mentioned," asked Redfem with the anxiousness of a kid leaping out of bed on Christmas Day.

Pitt stared at him and smiled. "How's your Latin, Mel?"

"Passable. I thought you said the ship was Greek."

"It is," answered Lily, "but the Captain wrote out his log on wax tablets in Latin. Six were inscribed with wording. The seventh has lines like a map. Dirk recovered them during his initial entry into the ship. I've transposed the writing into more readable form on paper so it can be run off on a copy machinne. I drew an enlarged scale of the tablet depicting a chart of some kind. So far we haven't been able to pin down a geographical location because it lacks labels."

Redfem sat down and held one of the tablets in his hand. He studied it almost reverently for several moments before setting it aside. Then he picked up Lily's pages and began to read.

The steward brought a mug of hot chocolate and a large bowl of Boston clam chowder. Redfem became so engrossed in the translation that he lost his appetite. Like a robot, he raised the cup and sipped the chocolate without taking his eyes from the handwritten pages. After nearly ten minutes, he stood up and paced the deck between the officers'

dining tables, muttering Latin phrases to himself, oblivious to his rapt audience.

Pitt and Lily sat in utter silence, careful not to interrupt his thoughts, curiously watching his reactions. Redfem stopped as if mentally placing a problem into proper perspective. He returned to the table and examined the pages again. The air fairly crackled with expectancy.

Several more minutes dragged by before Redfem finally laid the pages on the table with trembling hands. Then he stared vacantly into the distance, his eyes strangely blurred.

Redfem had been rocked right down to his toenails.

"You look like you just found the Holy Grail," said Pitt.

"What is it?" asked Lily. "What did you find?"

They could barely hear Redfem's answer. His head was down.

He said, "It's possible, just possible, your chance discovery may unlock the door to the collection of art and literary treasures the world has ever known."

"Now that you have our undivided attention," Pitt said dryly, you mind sharing your revelation?"

Redfem shook his head as if to clear it. "The story-saga is a better definition-is overwhelming. I can't quite comprehend it all."

Lily asked, "Do the tablets tell why a Graeco-Roman ship sailed far beyond her home waters?"

"Not Graeco-Roman, but Byzantine," Redfem corrected her. "When the Serapes sailed the ancient world, the seat of the Empire had been moved by Constantine the Great from Rome to the Bosporus, where the Greek city of Byzantium once stood."

"Which became Constantinople," said Pitt.

"And then Istanbul." Redfem turned to Lily. "Sorry for not giving you a direct answer. But, yes, the tablets reveal how and why the ship came here. To fully explain, we have to set the stage, beginning with 323

B.c., the year Alexander the Great died in Babylon-His empire was split up by his generals. One of them, Ptoleiny, carved out Egypt and became king. A canny guy, Ptolemy. He also managed to get his hands on Alexander's corpse, encasing it in a gold-and-crystal coffin. He later enshrined the body in an elegant mausoleum and built a magnificent city around it that surpassed Athens. In honor of his former king, Ptolemy called it Alexandria."

"What does all this have to do with the Serapes?" asked Lily.

"Please bear with me," replied Redfem gently. "Ptolemy founded a massive museum and library from scratch. The inventory became monumental. His descendants, through Cleopatra, and later successors all continued to acquire manuscripts and art objects until the museum, and especially the library, became one of the largest storehouses of art, science and literature that has ever existed. This vast collection of knowledge lasted until A.D. 391. In that year, Emperor Theodosius and the patriarch of Alexandria, Theophilos, who was a religious nut case, decided all reference to anything except newly fanned Christian principles was paganism. They masterminded the destruction of the library's contents. Statues, fabulous works of art in marble, bronze, gold and ivory, incredible paintings and tapestries, countless numbers of books inscribed on lambskin or papyrus scrolls, even Alexander's corpse: all were to be smashed into dust or burned to ashes. "

"What kind of numbers are we talking about?" Pitt asked.

"The books alone numbered in the hundreds of thousands."

Lily shook her head sadly. "What a terrible waste."

"Only Biblical and church writings were left," continued Redfem. "The entire library and museum was finally leveled after Arab and Islamic rebbels swept Egypt sometime around A.D. 646."

"The earlier masterworks that took centuries to collect were lost, gone forever," Pitt summed up.

"Lost," Redfem agreed. "So historians have thought until now. But if what I just read rings true, the cream of the collection is not gone forever. It lies hidden somewhere."

Lily was confused. "It exists to this day? Smuggled out of Alexandria by the Serapis before the burning?"

"According to the inscriptions on the tablets."

Pitt looked doubtful. "No way the Serapes sneaked off with more than a tiny fraction of the collection. It won't wash. The ship is too small.

Less than forty tons burden. The crew might have carried a few thousand scrolls and a couple of statues into the cargo hold, but nothing like the quanity you're talking about."

Redfem gave Pitt a respectful gaze. "You're,very astute. You have a good knowledge of early ships."

"Let's get back to the Serapes washing up in Greenland," Pitt urged, as Redfem picked up the appropriate pages of Lily's text and shuffled them into order.

"I won't give you a literal translation of fourth-century Latin. Too stiff and formal. Instead, I'll try and relate the text in English vernacular. The first entry is under the Julian calendar date of April

, A.D. 391. The report begins:

"I, Cuccius Rufinus, captain of the Serapes, in the em ploy of Nicias, Greek shipping merchant of the port city Of RhOdeS, have agreed to transport a cargo for Junius Venator of Alexandria. The voyage is said to be long and arduous, and Venator will not disclose our destination.

My daughter, Hypatia, sailed with me this trip and her mother will be very concerned at our lengthy separation.

But Venator is paying twenty times the usual rate, a good fortune that will greatly benefit Nicias as well as myself and the crew.

"The cargo was put on board at night under heavy guard, and quite mysteriously, as I was ordered to remain at the docks with my crew during the loading. Four sol diers under the command of the centurion Dominus Se verus have been commanded to stay on the ship and sail with us.

"I do not like the look of it, but Venator has paid me for the voyage in full, and I cannot go back on my con tract.

"An honest man," said Pitt. "Hard to believe he didn't discover the nature of his cargo."

"He comes to that later. The next few lines are a log of the voyage. He also makes mention of his ship's namesake. I'll skip to where they make their first port.

our god Serapes for providing us with a smooth and fast passage of fourteen days to Carthago Nova where we rested for five days and took on four times our normal supply of provisions. Here we joined Junius Venator's other ships. Most are over two hundred tons burden, some close to three hundred. We total sixteen with Vena tor's flagship. Our sturdy Serapes is the smallest vessel in the fleet."

"A fleet!" Lily cried. Her eyes gleamed, her whole body taut. "They did save the collection."

Redfem nodded delightedly. "A damned good chunk of it anyway.

Two-to-three-hundred-ton-ships were representative of large merchantmen of that era. allowing for two ships to carry men and provisions, and taking an average tonnage of two hundred for the other fourteen ships, you have a gross tonnage for the fleet of 2,800 tons. Enough to transport a third of the Library's books and a fair share of the museum's art treasures."

Pitt called for a break. He went to the galley counter and brought back two cups of coffee. He set one in front of Lily and returned for a plate of doughnuts. He remained standing. He thought and concentrated better on his feet.

"So far the great Library snatch is theory," he said. "I've heard nothing that proves the goods were actually spirited away."

"Rufinus nails it down further on," said Redfem. "The description of the Serapis's cargo comes near the end of the log."

Pitt gave the marine archaeologist an impatient look and sat back, waiting.

"On the next tablet Rufinus mentions minor repairs to the ship, dockside gossip, and a tourist's eye of Carthago Nova, now Cartagena, Spain.

Oddly, he doesn't express any further uneasiness about the coming voyage. He even failed to note the date the fleet left port. But the really offbeat part is the censorship. Listen to the next paragraph.

"We sailed today toward great sea. The faster ships towing the slower ones. I can write no more. The soldiers are watching. Under strict orders of Junius Venator there can be no record of the voyage."

"Just when we set the straight pieces of the puzzle together," Pitt muttered, "the center section is missing."

"There must be more," Lily insisted. "I know I copied beyond that part of the report."

"You did," acknowledged Redfem, shuffling the pages. "Rufinus takes up the tale eleven months later.

"I am free now to record our cruel voyage without fear of punishment.

Venator and his small army of slaves, Se verus and his legionaries, all the ship's crews, have all been slain by the barbarians and the fleet burned. The Serapes escaped because my fear of Venator made me cautious.

"I learned the source and contents of the fleet's cargo and know its hiding place in the hills. Secrets such as these must be kept from mortal men. I suspected Venator and Severus meant to murder all but a few of their trusted soldiers and the crew of one ship to insure their return home.

"I feared for the life of my daughter so I armed my crew and ordered them to remain close to the ship so we could cast off at the first sign of treachery. But the barbarians struck first, slaughtering Venator's slaves and Se verus's legion. Our guards died in the battle, and we cut the lines and heaved our ship from the beach. Venator tried to save himself by running into the water. He shouted for rescue. I could not risk the lives of Hypatia and the crew to save him and refused to Turn back. To do so against the current would have been suicidal."

Redfem paused in the translation before continuing. "At this point Rufinus jumps around and flashes back to the fleet's departure from Cartagena.

"The voyage from Hispania to our destination in the strange land took fifty-eight days. The weather was favorable with winds at our backs.

for this good fortune, Serapis demanded a sacrifice. Two of our crew died from a malady unknown to me."

"He must mean scurvy," said Lily.

"Ancient seamen rarely sailed more than a week or two without touching land," Pitt clarified. "Scurvy did not become common until the long voyages of the Spanish. Could be they died from any number of reasons."

Lily nodded at Redfem. "Sorry for interrupting. Please go on.

"We first stepped ashore on a large island inhabited by barbarians who resembled Scythians, but with darker skins. They proved friendly and willingly helped the fleet replenish our food and fresh water supplies.

"We sighted more islands, but the flagship sailed on.

Only Venator knew where the fleet was to land. At last we sighted a barren shore and came to the wide mouth of a river. We stood off for five days and nights until the winds blew to our advantage. Then we set sail up the river, rowing at times, until we reached the hills of Rome."

"The hills of Rome?" Lily repeated absently. "That's a twist."

"He must have meant it as a comparison," said Pitt.

"A tough riddle to crack," Redfem admitted.

"The slaves under the overseer Latiriius Macer dug into the hills above the river. Eight months later the fleet's cargo was carried from the ships to the hiding ground."

"Did he describe the 'hiding ground'?" asked Pitt.

Redfern picked up a tablet and compared it to Lily's copy. "Parts of the wording are indistinct. I'll have to fill in as best I can.

"Thus, the secret of the secrets lies within the hill inside a chamber dug by the slaves. The place cannot be seen because of the palisade.

After all was stored, the barbarian horde swarmed from the hills. I do not know if the chamber was sealed in time as I was busy helping my crew push the boat from the sand."

"Rufinus fails to record distances," said Pitt, disillusioned, and never'gives directions. Now we have an odds-on chance the barbarians, whoever the hell they were, robbed the store."

Redfem's expression turned grim. "We can't ignore the possibility. "

"I don't think the worst happened," said Lily optimistically. "An immense collection can't be erased as though it never existed. A few pieces would have eventually turned up."

"Depends on the area where the action took place," said Pitt"Fifty-eight days at an average speed of-say three and a half knots, a vessel designed along the adcient lines of the Serapis-might have sailed over four thousand nautical miles."

"Providing they sailed in a straight line," said Redfem. "Not a likely prospect. Rufinus merely states they sailed fifty-eight days before stepping ashore. Traveling in unknown waters, they probably hugged the coastlines."

"But traveling to where?" Lily asked.

"The southern coast of Western Africa is the most logical destination,"

answered Redfem. "A crew of Phoenicians sailed around Africa clockwise in the fifth century B.C. Quite a bit of it was charted by Rufinus's time. Stands to reason Venator would have turned his fleet south after passing through the Straits of Gibraltar."

"Never sell a jury," said Pitt. "Rufinus described islands."

"Could be the Madeira, Canary or Cape Verde Islands."

"Still won't sell. You can't explain how the Serapes ended up halfway across the globe from the tip of Africa to Greenland. You're talking a distance of eight thousand miles."

"That's true. I'm confused on that count."

"My vote goes for a northern course," said Lily. "The islands also might be the Shetlands or the Faroes. That would put the excavation site along the Norwegian coast or, better yet, Iceland."

"She makes a good case," Pitt agreed. "Her theory would explain how the Serapes came to be stranded in Greenland."

"What does Rufinus tell us after he escaped the barbarians?"

she asked.

Redfern paused to finish off his hot chocolate. "He goes on to say: "We reached the open sea. Navigating was difficult. The stars are in different positions. The sun is not the same also. Violent storms struck us from the south. One crewman was swept overboard on the tenth day, a gale. We continued to be driven toward the north. On the first day our god led us to a safe bay where we made repairs and took what provisions we could find from the land. We also added extra ballast stone. Some distance beyond the beach there is a great sea of dwarflike pines. Fresh water seeps from sand with the jab of a stick.

"Six days of good sailing and then another tempest, worse than the last.

Our sails are split and useless. The great gale shattered the mast, and the steering oars were swept away. We drifted helplessly under the merciless wind for many days. I lost record of days. Sleep became impossible. The weather turned very cold. Ice formed on the deck. The ship became very unstable. I ordered my frozen and exhausted crew to throw our water and wine jars over the side."

"The amphoras you found on the bottom outside the fjord."

Redfem paused, nodding at Pitt. Then he continued reading.

"Shortly after we were driven into this long bay, we managed to beach the ship and fall into a dead sleep for two days and nights.

"The god Serapis is unkind. winter has set in and ice has bound the ship. We have no choice but to brave out the winter until the days warm. A barbarian village lies across the bay and we have found them open to trade. We barter with them for food. They use our gold coins as trinkets, having no idea of their value. They have showed us how to keep warm by burning oil from a monstrous fish. Our stomachs are full, and I think we shall survive.

"While I am comfortable with much time on my hands I will write a few words each day. This entry I shall recall the amount and type of cargo that Venator's slaves unloaded from the hold of the Serapis as I watched unseen from the galley and made an accounting. At the sight of the great object, everyone sank to their knees in proper reverence."

"What does he mean?" asked Lily.

Patience," said Redfem. "Listen.

"Three hundred twenty copper tubes marked' Geologic Charts. Sixty-three large tapestries. These were packed around the grand gold-and-glass casket of Alexander. My knees trembled. I could see his face through

"Rufinus wrote no more," Redfem said sadly. "He didn't finish the sentence. The last tablet is a drawing showing the general configuration of the shoreline and the course of the river."

"The lost coffin of Alexander the Great," Lily said, slightly above a whisper. "Can he still lie buried in a cavern somewhere?"

"Along with treasures from the Alexandria Library?" Redfem added to Lily's question. "We can do little else but hope."

Pitts reaction was quite different; it was one of profound confidence.

"Hope is for spectators-I figure I can find your antiques in thirty . .

. make that twenty days."

Lily's and Redfem's eyes opened wide. They regarded Pitt with the suspicion usually awarded a politician promising to lower taxes. They flatly didn't believe him.

They should have.

"You sound pretty cocky," said Lily.

Pitts green eyes glowed with a look of utter sincerity. "Let's have a look at the map." Redfem handed him a rendering Lily had made from the tablet and then enlarged. There was little to examine except a series of wavy lines.

"Won't tell us much," he said. "Rufinus didn't label anything."

"It's enough," said Pitt, his tone dry and unperturbed. "Enough to lead us to the front door."

It was four in the morning when Pitt awoke. He automatically rolled over to return to sleep but realized through the cobwebs that someone had turned on the light and was talking to him.

"Sorry, pal, but you've got to rise and shine."

Pitt groggily squinted into the serious face of Commander Knight. "What gives?"

"Orders from the top. You're to shove off for Washington immediately."

"They say why?"

"They is the Pentagon, and, no, they didn't grace me with an explanation."

Pitt sat up and swung his bare feet onto the deck. "I was hoping to hang around a bit longer and watch the excavation."

"No such luck," said Knight. "You, Giordino and Dr. Sharp have to be on your way within the hour."

"Lily?" Pitt stood and made his way to the head. "I can understand the big brass wanting to question Al and me about the Soviet sub, but why are they interested in Lily?"

"The Joint Chiefs don't confide in the serfs." Knight smiled wryly. "I haven't a clue."

"What about transportation?"

"Same way Redfem came in. Helicopter to the Eskimo village and weather station, a Navy plane to Iceland, where you transfer to an Air Force B-52 bomber that's rotating back to the States for overhaul."

"Not the way it's done," mumbled Pitt with a toothbrush in his mouth.

"If they want my wholehearted cooperation, it's private jet or nothing."

"You're pretty heady for this early in the morning."

"When I'm kicked out of bed before dawn I'm not shy about telling the Joint Chiefs to insert it among their hemorrhoids."

"There goes my next promotion," moaned Knight. "Guilt by association."

"Stick with me and you'll wind up Fleet Admiral."

"I bet."

Pitt tapped his head with the toothbrush. "Gemus has struck. Fire off a message. Say we'll meet them halfway. Giordino and I will fly our NUMA 'copter direct to Thule Air Force Base. They can damn well have a government jet waiting to zap us to the Capital."

"You might as well tease a Doberman when he's eating-"

Pitt threw up his hands. "Why is it nobody around here has any faith in my creative smartst'

Washington closed down after a dazzling clear day. The crisp fall weather sharpened the air as the setting sun glazed the white granite of the government buildings into a goldue porcelain. The sky was sprinkled with cotton-ball clouds that looked solid enough for the Gulfstream IV

jetliner to land on.

The plane could carry up to nineteen passengers, but Pitt, Giordino and Lily had the main cabin all to themselves. Giordino had promptly fallen asleep before the plane's wheels lifted from the U.S. Air Force Base at

'nule and hadn't opened an eye since. Lily had dozed on and off or read Marlys Milihiser's The Threshold.

Pitt stayed awake, lost in his thoughts, occasionally making entries in a small notebOOk. He turned and stared out the small window at the homeward-bound traffic slowly beating its way from the core of the Capital.

His thoughts wandered back to the frozen crew of the Serapis, its skipper, Rufinus, and his daughter, Hypatia. Pitt was sorry his eyes had failed to find the girl in the darkness of the cargo hold even though the video camera had recorded her quite clearly, arms circled around a s, all long-haired dog.

Gronquist almost cried when he described her. Pitt wondered if she would end up as a frozen display in a museum, viewed in hushed astonishment by endless lines of the curious.

Gazing down at the Washington mall as the Gulfstream circled for its approach, Pitt put off his thoughts of the Serapis and focused on the search for the Alexandria Library treasures. He knew exactly how he was going about it. The part of his plan that didn't thrill him was putting all his eggs in one basket. He had to bank his entire search on a few crudely scratched in wax by the freezing hand of a dying man. Murphy's Law-Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong was already erecting the barricades against him.

The lines in the map might not fit a known geographical location for any number of reasons: distortion in the wax from rapid temperature changes during the initial freeze on the Serapis and later thaw on board the Polar Explorer; or perhaps Ruflnus erred in the scale and misplaced the curves and angles of the shoreline and river; or the worst and most probable scenario-great changes in the landscape due to soil buildup or erosion, earthquakes or extreme changes in climate during the past 1,600

years. No river in the world had maintained an unvarying course over a thousand years.

Pitt smelled the intoxicating scent of challenge. To restless men it is a real scent that wafts somewhere between a sexually aroused woman and newly cut grass after a rain. It tempts and addicts until the challenger is oblivious to any thought of failure or danger. The excitement of the chase meant as much to Pitt as actual success. And yet, when he did achieve the nearimpossible, there was always the inevitable letdown afterward.

His first obstacle was lack of time to conduct a search. The second was the Soviet sub. He and Giordino were the frontrunning candidates to oversee the underwater salvage operation.

Pitts reverie was interrupted by the pilot's voice over the speakers to fasten seat belts. He watched the plane's tiny shadow enlarge against the leafless trees below. The brown grass flashed past and turned to concrete. The pilot taxied off the main runway at Andrews Air Force Base and braked to a stop beside a Ford Taurus station wagon.

Pitt helped Lily step from the plane. Then he and Giordino unloaded the luggage and stacked it in the rear of the Taurus.

driver, a young athletic prep-school type, stood back as if afraid to interfere with the two hard-core types who handled the heavy suitcases and duffel bags as lightly as pillows. "What's the plan?" Pitt asked the driver.

"Dinner with Admiral Sandecker at his club."

"Admiral who?" asked Lily.

"Sandecker," answered Giordino. "Our boss at NUMA. We must have done something right. It's a rare treat when he pops for a meal."

"Not to mention an invitation to the John Paul Jones Club," added Pitt.

"Exclusive?"

Giordino nodded. "A depository for rusty old naval officers with bilge water in their bladders."

It was dark when the driver finally turned into a quiet residential street in Georgetown. Five blocks later he eased the car onto a gravel drive and stopped beneath the portico of a red-brick Victorian mansion.

In the entrance hall a short gamecock of a man stepped across the carpet dressed in a tailored silk suit with a vest. He moved in rapid, energetic steps like a cat sneaking through a door crack. His features were sharp and always rem-linded. Pitt noticed the deep red hair on his head connected to a meticulously ed Van Dyke beard. His eyes seemed filled with spit and vinegar.

Admiral James Sandecker was not the kind to creep into a room; he took it by storm.

"Good to see you boys back," he snapped in a tone more official than friendly. "I hear your ancient ship discovery may change the history books. The news media is giving it a big play."

"We had a few lucky breaks," said Pitt. "May I present Dr. Lily Sharp.

Lily, Admiral James Sandecker."

Sandecker beamed like a lighthouse when he was in the presence of an attractive woman, and he went luminous for Lily. "Doctor, you have to be the loveliest lady to ever honor these walls."

"I'm happy to see your club shows no discrimination against females."

"Not because the membership is open-said Giordino slyly. "Most women would rather get a tetanus shot than come here and hear old derelicts rehash the wars."

on toward Sandecker shot Giordino a withering stare.

Lily looked at the two men, puzzled. She thought perhaps she was caught in the middle of a long-standing feud.

Pitt forced back a laugh, but couldn't suppress a smile. He'd witnessed the give-and-take for ten years. Everyone close to them knew Giordino and Sandecker were the warmest of friends.

Lily decided to make a tactical retreat. "If one of you gentlemen will point out the ladies room, I'll freshen up."

Sandecker gestured up a hallway. "First door on the right. Please take your time." As soon as she had left, the admiral motioned Pitt and Giordino into a small sitting room and closed the door. "I have to leave for a meeting with the Secretary of the Navy in an hour. This will be our only chance to talk in private so I'll have to make it quick before Dr. Sharp returns. Let me begin by saying you did a damned fine job finding the Soviet sub and then clamping a lid on it. The President was most pleased when he received the news and asked me to thank you."

"When do we start?" asked Giordino.

"Start what?"

"A covert underwater salvage operation on the sub."

"Our intelligence people insist it be put on hold. Their scheme is to feed Soviet agents misleading information. Make it appear any further search is a waste of taxpayers' money, and we've written it off as a lost cause."

"for how long?" Pitt asked.

"Maybe a year. Whatever time it takes for the mission project people to draw up plans and construct the equipment for the project."

Pitt stared at the admiral suspiciously. "I get the feeling we won't be included."

"Dead on," Sandecker said flatly. "As they say at the police precinct, you're off the case."

"I have a more important job for you two characters."

"What could be more important than stealing the secrets of the Soviet Navy's deadliest submarine?" Pitt asked guardedly.

"A skiing holiday," Sandecker replied. "Nothing like the invigorating air and the powder snow of the rockies. You're booked on a commercial flight to Denver tomorrow morning at ten forty-five. Dr. Sharp will accompany you.", Pitt looked at Giordino, who merely shrugged. He turned back to Sandecker. "Is this a reward or exile?"

"Call it a working vacation. Senator Pitt will explain the details."

"My dad?"

"He's expecting you later this evening at his home." Sandecker pulled a large gold pocket watch from his vest pocket and read the ivory face.

"We must not keep a pretty lady waiting."

Sandecker started for the door while Pitt and Giordino stood dumbly rooted to the room's faded carpet.

"Don't hold back, Admiral!" Pitts voice was sharp. "Unless you play it straight, there's no way in hell I'll be on that plane tomorrow."

"Accept my regrets too," Giordino said. "I feel an attack of Borneo jungle fullgus coming on."

Sandecker paused in mid-stride, Mined, lifted an eyebrow and stared directly at Pitt- "You don't fool me for a Minute, mister. You don't give a damn about the Soviet sub. You want to find the relics of the Alexandria Library so bad you'd give up sex."

Pitt said with forbearance, "Your insight is flawless, as usual. So is your underground grapevine. I intended to turn over the transcription of the Serapis's log to you on our return to Washington. Apparently someone beat me to it."

"Commander Knight. He radioed Dr. Redfem's translation in code to the Navy Department, who turned it over to the National Security Council and the President. I read a copy before you left Iceland. You opened Pandora's box and didn't know it. If the cache exists and can be found, it will cause a political upheaval. But I'm not about to go into it.

That job was given to your father for reasons he's better qualified to explain. "

"How does Lily fit in the picture?"

"She's part of your cover. A backup in the event there's a leak or the KGB suspects their sub was actually found. Martin Brogan wants to Make it clear you're working on a legitimate archaeological project. That's why I'm meeting you at the club, and your father will brief you at home.

Your movements must look routine should you be tailed."

"Sounds like an ove I to me."

"The bureaucracy works in mysterious ways," said Giordino resignedly. "I wonder if I can get tickets to a Denver Bronco game."

"I'm glad we see eye to eye," Sandecker said with some satisfaction.

"Now let's find our table. I'm starved."

They dropped Lily off at the Jefferson Hotel. She gave them both a hug and entered the lobby, followed by a porter with her bags. Pitt and Giordino directed the driver to the ten-story solar-glass building that was the headquarters for the National Underwater & Agency.

Giordino went directly to his office on the fourth floor while Pitt remained on the elevator and rode up to the

communication-and-information network on the top level. He left an attached case with the receptionist and removed an envelope, slipping it in his coat pocket.

He wandered around the seemingly endless rows of electronic equipment and computer hardware until he found a man sitting cross-legged on the tiled floor contemplating a miniature tape recorder dissected from a large kangaroo doll.

"Does it sing 'Waltzing Matilda' off-key," Pitt asked.

"How'd you know?"

"A lucky guess."

Hiram Yaeger looked up and grinned. He had a droll face with straight blond hair tied in a ponytail. His beard, curled in long ringlets, looked as if he had borrowed it from a costume rental. He peered through a pair of granny spectacles and was dressed like a down-and-out rodeo performer in old Levi's and boots a bag lady would throw away.

Sandecker had pirated Yaeger away from a computer-design company in California's Silicon Valley and had given him free reign to create NUMA's data complex from scratch. It was a perfect mamage between human gemus and central processing unit. Yaeger supervised a vast library of information containing every known report and book written about the world's oceans.

Yaeger studied the doll's recording and speaker unit with a critical eye. "I could have designed a better system than this with kitchen utensils."

"Can you fix it?"

"Probably not."

Pitt shook his head and gestured around the computer complex. "You set up all this but can't repair a simple cassette player?"

"My heart isn't in it." Yaeger rose, walked into an office and stood the stuffed kangaroo on one corner of his desk.

"Maybe someday when I'm inspired I'll modify it into a talking lamp."

Pitt followed him and closed the door. "Feel in the mood for a more exotic project?"

"Along what lines?"

"Research. "

"Lay it on me."

Pitt removed the envelope from his pocket and gave it to Yaeger-NUMA's computer wizard slouched in a chair, opened the envelope flap and withdrew the contents. He rapidly scanned the typed transcript, then read through it again more slowly. After a long silence, he peered over his spectacles at Pitt.

"This from that old ship you found?"

"You know of it?"

"Have to be blind and deaf not to. The story has been all over the newspapers and TV."

Pitt nodded at the papers in Yaeger's hand. "A translation from Latin of the ship's log."

"What do you want from me?"

"Take a look at the page with the map."

Yaeger held it up and studied the uniabeled lines. "You want me to make a match with a known geographical location?"

"If you can," Pitt acknowledged.

"Not a hell of a lot to go on. What is it?"

"An ocean shoreline and a river."

"When was it drawn?"

"A.D. 391."

Yaeger gave Pitt a bemused look. "You might as well ask me to name the streets of Atlantis."

"Program your electronic playmates for a projection of the ship's course after the fleet left Cartagena. You might also try working backwards from the shipwreck site in Greenland. I've included the position."

"You realize this river may not exist any more."

"The thought entered my mind."

"I'll need authorization from the Admiral."

"You'll get it first thing in the morning."

"All right," Yaeger said glumly- "I'll give it my best shot.

What's my deadline?"

"Just stay with it until you have something," Pitt replied. "I've got to go out of town for a while. I'll check in with you the day after tomorrow to see how you're doing."

"Can I ask a question?"

"Sure."

"Is this really important?"

"Yes," Pitt said slowly, "I think it is. Maybe more important than you and I can ever imagine."

When Pitts father opened the door to his colonial home on Massachusetts Avenue in Bethesda, Maryland, he wore a faded Pair Of khaki Pants and a well-snagged pullover sweater. The Socrates Of the Senate was noted for his expensive and fashionable suits, always embellished with a California golden poppy in the lapel. But out of the public eye he dressed like a rancher camped out on the range.

"Dirk!" he said with pleasure, giving his son a warm bear hug. "I see you too infrequently these days."

Pitt put his arm around the Senator's shoulder, and they walked side by side into a paneled den with rifled bookshelves stretching from floor to ceiling. A fire flickered under an ornate mantel carved from teak.

The Senator motioned his son to a chair and walked behind a wet bar.

"Bombay gin martini with a twist, isn't it?"

"A bit cool for gin. How about a Jack Daniel's straight up."

"Every man to his own poison."

"How's Mom?"

"She's at some highfalutin spa, a fat farm in California on her annual crusade to lose weight. She'll be back day after tomorrow, two pounds heavier."

"She never gives up."

"It keeps her happy."

The Senator passed Pitt a bourbon and then poured himself a port. He raised the glass. "Here's to a fruitful trip to Colorado. "

Pitt didn't drink. "Whose bright idea was it to send me skiing?"

"Mine."

Pitt calmly took a swallow of Jack Daniel's and gave his father a hard stare. "What is your involvement with the Alexandria Library artifacts?"

"Very heavy if they truly exist."

"Are you speaking as a private citizen or a bureaucrat?"

"A patriot."

"All right," Pitt said with a deep sigh. "Fill me in. How are classical art and literary works and the coffin of Alexander so vital to United States interests?"

"None of the above," said the Senator. "The prime meat of the inventory is maps showing geological resources of the ancient world. The lost gold mines of the Pharaohs, the forgotten emerald mines of Cleopatra, the fabled but mystic land of Punt that was famous for its riches of silver, antimony and unusual greenish gold; locations known two and three thousand years ago but buried in the oblivion of time. There was also the fabulous land of Ophir and its recorded wealth of precious minerals. Its location still remains a tantalizing mystery. The mines of King Solomon, Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, and Sheba, the queen of Saba, whose fabled land today is only a biblical memory. The legendary wealth of the ages still lies hidden under the sands of the Middle East."

"So it's found, so what? How can precious-mineral deposits belonging to other countries concern our government?"

"As bargaining chips," answered the Senator. "If we're able to point the way, negotiations can be opened for joint ventures in the exploitation. We can also make points with national leaders and spread a little badly needed goodwill."

Pitt shook his head and considered. "News to me Congress has turned to prospecting for good foreign relations. Must be more to this than meets the eye."

The Senator nodded, marveling at his son's insight. "There is. Are you familiar with the term 'stratigraphic trap'?"

"I should be." Pitt smiled. "I found one in the Labrador Sea off Quebec Province a few years ago."

"Yes, the Doodlebug project. I remember."

"A stratigraphic trap is one of the toughest oi'l deposits to discover.

Normal seismic exploration won't detect it. Yet they often prove out to have incredibly high yields."

"Which leads us to bitumen, a hydrocarbon-like tar or asPhatt that was used in Mesopotamia as long as five thousand years ago for waterproofing buildings, canals, clay drainage pipes and caulking boats. Other uses included roads, treatment Of wounds, and adhesives. Much later the Greeks mention springs along the North African coast that bubble with oil. The Romans recorded a site in the Sinai they called Petrol Mountain. And the Bible tells of God ordering Jacob to suck oil out of flintlike rock, and describes the vale of Siddim being frill of slime pits, which can be interpreted as tar pits."

"None of these areas has been relocated or drilled?" Pitt asked.

"There has been drilling, yes, but no significant strikes to date.

Geologists claim there's a ninety percent probability of finding five hundred million barrels of crude petroleum under Israel alone.

Unfortunately, the ancient sites have been lost and covered over through the centuries due to land upheavals and earthquakes."

"Then the main goal is to find a massive oil bonanza in Israel."

"You have to admit it would solve a multitude of problems. "

"Yes, I guess it would."

The Senator and Pitt sat in silence for the next minute, staring into the fire. If Yaeger and his computer banks didn't pick up a lead, the chances were, at best, hopeless. Pitt was suddenly angered that the power brokers in the te House and Congress were more interested in oil and gold than in the art and literature that could fill in the missing gaps of history.

It was, he thought, a sad commentary on the affairs of state.

The silence was broken by the ring of the telephone. The Senator walked over to a desk and picked up the receiver. He said nothing, merely listened for a moment. Then he hung up.

"I doubt if I'll find the lost Library in Colorado," Pitt said dryly.

"Everyone concerned would be surprised if you did," the Senator came back. "My staff has arranged a briefing for you by the leading authority on the subject. Dr. Bertram Rothberg, a professor of classical history at the University of Colorado, has made the study of the Alexandria Library his life's work. He'll fill you in on background data that could help your search."

"Why do I have to go to him? Seems to me it would be more practical to bring him to Washington."

"You met with Admiral Sandecker?"

"Yes. "

"Then you know it's vital to distance yourself and Al Giordino from the discovery of the Soviet submarine. That phone call a minute ago was from an FBI agent who is talking a KGB agent who is talking you."

"Nice to know I'm popular."

"You're to make no move that would cause suspicion."

Pitt nodded approvingly. "Fine and dandy, but suppose the Russians get wise to the mission? They have as much to gain by laying their hands on the Library data as we do."

"The possibility exists but is extremely remote," the Senator said guardedly. "We've taken every precaution to keep the wax tablets secret."

"Next question."

"Shoot."

"I'm under surveillance," said Pitt. "What's to stop the KGB from following me to Dr. Rothberg's doorstep?"

"Nothing," the Senator answered. "We have every intention of sitting on the sidelines and cheering them on."

"So we put on a show of status quo."

"Exactly."

"Why me?"

"Because of your L-29 Cord."

"My Cord?"

"The classic car you had restored in Denver. The man you hired called here last week and said to tell you the job is finished and she looks beautiful."

"So I travel to Colorado under a spotlight to pick up my collector car, get in a little ski time on the slopes, and party with Dr. Sharp."

"Exactly," the Senator repeated. "You're to check into the Hotel Breckenridge. A message will be waiting explaining where and when you'll make contact with Dr. Rothberg."

"Remind me never to trade horses with you."

The Senator laughed. "You've been involved, with some pretty devious schemes yourself."

Pitt finished the bourbon, stood, and placed his glass on the mantel.

"Mind if I borrow the family lodge?"

"I'd prefer you stay away from it."

"But my boots and skis are stored in the garage."

"You can rent your equipment."

"That's ridiculous."

"Not so ridiculous," the Senator said in an even voice, when you consider that the instant you open the front door, you'll be shot."

"You sure you want to get out here, buddy?" the cabdriver inquired as he stopped beside what looked like an abandoned hangar on one corner of Washington's International Airport.

"This is the place," replied Pitt.

The driver glanced warily around at the deserted unlit area. This had all the earmarks of a mugging, he thought. He reached under the front seat for a length of pipe he hid for such an occasion. He kept an apprehensive eye on the rearview mirror as Pitt pulled a wallet from his inside coat pocket. The driver relaxed slightly. His fare wasn't acting like a mugger.

"What do I owe you?"

"I got eight-sixty on the meter," the driver replied.

Pitt paid the fare plus tip and exited the cab, waiting for the driver to open the trunk and remove the luggage.

"Hell of a place for a drop," the driver muttered.

"Someone is meeting me."

Pitt stood and watched the cab's taillights dim in the distance before he turned off the hangar's alarm system with a pocket transmitter and entered through a side door. He pressed a code on the transmitter and the interior became bathed in bright fluorescent light.

The hangar was Pitts home. The main floor was lined with a glittering collection of classic and restored automobiles. There were also an old Pullman railroad car and a Ford tri motor airplane. The most bizarre oddity was a cast-iron bathtub with an outboard motor attached to it.

He walked toward his living quarters, which stretched across an upper level against the far wall. Reached by an ornate iron spiral staircase, the door at the top opened onto a living room flanked by a large bedroom and a study on one side and a dining area and kitchen on the other.

He unpacked and entered a shower stall, turning up the hot water and aiming the nozzle against a tiled wall. He lay on his back with his feet stretched upward just below the faucets so he could control the spray temperature with his toes. Then he promptly dozed off.

Forty-five minutes later, Pitt slipped on a robe and turned on the TV

set. He was about to reheat a pot of Texas chili when the buzzer on the intercom sounded. He pressed the door speaker button, half-expecting Al Giordino to answer.

"Yes?"

"Greenland catering," a feminine voice answered.

He laughed and pressed a switch that unlocked the side door. He stepped onto the balcony and stared down.

Lily walked in carrying a large picnic basket. She stopped and gazed in astonishment for several moments, her eyes dazzled by the light reflecting off the sea of chrome and highly polished lacquer paint.

"Admiral Sandecker tried to describe your place to me," she said admiringly, "but he didn't do it justice."

Pitt came down the stairs to meet her. He took the picnic basket and nearly dropped it. "This thing weighs a ton. What's in it?"

"Our late dinner. I stopped off at a delicatessen and picked up a few goodies."

"Smells like a tasty menu."

"We begin with smoked salmon followed by wild mushroom soup, spinach salad with pheasant and walnuts, linguine in oyster sauce and white wine, all washed down with a bottle of Principessa Gavi. for dessert we have coffee chocolate trifle. "

Pitt looked down at Lily and smiled in genuine admiration. Her face was alive and her eyes sparkling. There was a vibrancy he had not noticed before. Her hair was brushed long and straight. She wore a tight-fitting tank dress with a revealing back and black sequins that flashed as she walked. Free of the heavy coat she had worn since Greenland, her breasts loomed larger and her hips more slender than he had pictured them in his imagination. Her legs were long and angled provocatively, and she moved with a sensual vivacity.

After they entered his living room, Pitt dropped the food basket in a chair and reached out and took her hand. "We can eat later," he said softly.

In automatic shyness she dropped her gaze downward, then slowly, as if drawn by an irresistible force, her eyes slowly rose to meet his. Pitts green eyes were so piercing that her legs grew weak and her hands trembled. She began to flush.

This was stupid, Lily thought. She had carried the seduction, down to the right wine, the dress and the alluring black lace bra and panties beneath. And now she was swept by confusion and doubt. She didn't dream things would move so quickly.

Without a word Pitt peeled the straps from Lily's shoulders, allowing the sequined dress to fall in a pool of shimmering light around her high heels. He slipped his hands around her bare waist and under her knees, lifting her body in one flowing motion.

As he carried her into the bedroom she buried her face against his chest. "I feel like a brazen harlot," she whispered.

Pitt tenderly laid her on the bed and looked down. The sight of her body made the fire burn within him.

"Better," he said in a husky voice, "that you act like one."

Yazid entered the dining hall of his villa. He paused and gave a brief nod at the long table covered with plates, serving dishes, eating utensils and goblets, all cast in bronze.

"I trust my friends enjoyed their dinner."

Mohammed alHakim, a scholarly mullah who was Yazid's shadow, pushed back his chair and stood. "Excellent as always, Akhmad. But we missed your enlightened presence."

"Allah does not reveal his wishes to me when my stomach is full," Yazid said with a faint smile. He looked around the room at the five men who had risen to their feet and were acknowledging his authority with varied degrees of respect.

No two were dressed alike. Colonel Naguib Bashir, leader of a clandestine organization of pro-Yazid officers, had worn a loose flowing djellaba with long sleeves and hood to conceal his identity since leaving Cairo. A turban sat like a grotesque lump on the head of alHakim, and his frail body was covered from shoulders to feet in a drab robe of black cotton worn smooth. Mussa Moheidin, a journalist who was Yazid's chief propagandist, was dressed casually in slacks and a sports shirt open at the neck, while the young Turk of the group, Khaled Fawzy, the ramrod of the revolutionary council, wore battle fatigues.

Only Suleiman Ammar was impeccably dressed in a Wlored safari suit.

"You must all be wondering why I called this emergency meeting," Yazid announced, so I won't waste time. Allah has provided me with a plan to rid ourselves of President Hasan and his den of corrupt thieves in one master stroke. Now please be seated and finish your coffee."

He walked over to one wall and pushed a switch. A large colored map slowly dropped toward the floor. Amniar recognized it as a standard Egyptian school map of South America, A blowup of the coastal city of Punta del Este, Uruguay, was circled in red. Taped to the lower half of the map was an enlarged photo of a luxury cruise ship.

The men around the table sat down again, their faces expressionless.

Their interest was hooked. They waited patiently to hear the revelation Allah had bestowed on their religious leader.

Only Ammar veiled his skepticism. He was too much the realist to believe in pious concoctions.

"In six days," Yazid began, "the international economic summit meetings, brought on by the world monetary crisis, will be held in the resort city of Punta del Este, former scene of the Inter-American Economic and Social Council conference which proclaimed the Alliance for Progress.

The debtor nations, except Egypt, have banded together to repudiate all loans and erase foreign debt. This act will force hundreds of banks in the United States and Europe to fail. Western bankers and their national financial experts have called for round-the-clock talks in a last-ditch attempt to stall the coming economic catastrophe. Our imperialist bootlicking President is the only holdout. Hasan is scheduled to attend the talks and undermine-tine our Islamic brothers and third World friends by begging the Western money changers for more loans to keep his eroding grip on Egypt. This we will not permit. Bis millah, we will take advantage of this moment to establish a true Islamic government for our people."

"I say we kill the tyrant and be done with it," Khaled Fawzy said harshly. He was young and arrogant and tactless. Already his impatience had resulted in a failed coup by his student revolutionaries that had cost thirty lives. His dark eyes darted back and forth around the table. "One well-placed ground-to air missile as Hasan's plane takes off for Uruguay, and we will be rid of his corrupt regime for good."

"And open the door for Defense Minister Abu Hamid to set himself up as dictator before we are ready," finished Mussa Moheidin. The famous Egyptian writer was in his mid-sixties. He was a witty, urbane and articulate man, with a slow and gracious manner. Moheidin was the only man at the table Ammar truly respected.

Yazid turned to Bashir. "Is that a valid prediction, Colonel?"

Bashir nodded. A vain and shallow man, he was quick to display his narrow vision of military affairs. "Mussa is right. Abu Hamid dangles the prospect of his support for you, using the excuse that he is waiting for you to produce a mandate from the people. This is merely a stalling tactic. Hamid is ambitious. He is banking on an opportunity to use the army to set himself up as President."

"All too true," said Fawzy. "One of his close aides is a member of our movement. He revealed that Haniid plans to install himself as President and consolidate his position by marrying Hala Kamil because of her popularity with the people. "

Yazid smiled. "He has built a castle of sand. Hala Kamil will not be available for the marriage ceremony."

"Is that a certainty?" asked Ammar.

"Yes," Yazid answered smoothly. "Allah has willed that she not live beyond the next sun."

"Please share your revelation, Akhmad," begged alHakim. Unlike the other dark-skinned men around him, alHakim had the face of a man who had spent half his life in a dungeon. His pale skin seemed almost transparent. Yet the eyes, which were magnified by thick-lensed glasses, were set in unshakable determination, Yazid nodded. "I have been informed by my well-placed sources in Mexico that because of an unexpected heavy invasion of tourists there is a shortage of luxury hotel rooms and palatial residences in Punta del Este. To keep their nation from losing the summit talks and the international limelight, Uruguayan officials have arranged for the foreign leaders and their statesmen to be hosted on board chartered luxury cruise ships moored in the port. Hasan and the Egyptian delegation will be staying on a British liner called the Lady Flamborough. President De Lo nzo of Mexico and his staff will also be on board.

Yazid paused and looked from one man to the next. Then he said, "AHah came to me in a vision and commanded me to seize the ship."

"Praise be to Allah!" Fawzy burst out.

The other men glanced at each other, incredulous. Then they turned their attention back to Yazid, expectantly, without voicing a question.

"I see by the look in your eyes, my friends, you doubt my vision."

"Never," said alHakim solemnly. "But perhaps you misinterpreted Allah's command."

"No, it was quite clear. The ship with President Hasan and his ministers must be seized."

"for what purpose?" asked Mussa Moheidin.

"To seal off Hasan and prevent his return to Cairo while our forces sweep into power."

"Abu Hamid wig call out the army to foil any overthrow other than his,"

cautioned Colonel Bashir. "I know this for a fact. "

"Haniid cannot stop a tidal wave of revolutionary fervor," said Yazid.

"Civil unrest is at a peak. The masses are fed up with harsh austerity brought on by payment demands on foreign loans. He and Hasan are cutting their own throats by not denouncing the godless moneylenders.

Egypt can only be saved by embracing the purity of Islamic law."

Khaled Fawzy leaped to his feet and raised a fist. "You have only to give me the order, Akhmad, and I will have people in the streets."

Yazid paused, breathing heavily with religious zeal. Then he said, "The people will lead. I will follow."

The expression on alHakim's face was grave. "I must confessI have dark misgivings."

"You are a coward!" Fawzy snapped in rash defiance.

"Mo ed alHakim is wiser than you," said Moheidin patiently. "I know his mind. He does not wish a repeat of the Achille Lauro fiasco in nineteen eighty-five, when Palestinians commandeered the ltahan crew liner and murdered an old Jew invalid in a wheelchair."

Bashir spoke up. "Terrorist slaughter will not help our cause. "

"You wish to go against the will of Allah?" said Yazid, annoyed.

Everyone began talking at once. The room went sour with vehemence as they argued back and forth.

Only Ammar remained detached. They're idiots, he thought, goddamned idiots. He tuned out of the debate and stared at the photo of the cruise ship. The wheels inside his head began to shift through the gears.

"We are not only Egyptians," argued Bashir, "we are Arabs. The other Arab nations will Turn against us if we murder our officials and any of theirs who get in the way. They won't see it as a gift from Allah, but rather as a political terrorist plot."

Moheidin gestured toward Fawzy. "Khaled made a point. Better to kill Hasan on home territory than launch a bloodbath on board a ship holding the leader of Mexico and his delegation as well."

"We cannot condone an act of mass terrorism," said alHakim. "The negative consequences for our new government would be disastrous."

"You are all worms who belong in Hasan's camp," Fawzy spat. "I say attack the ship and show the world our power."

Nobody paid any attention to the militant fanatic who was viciously anti-Jew and anti-Christian.

"Don't you see, Akhmad," pleaded Bashir, "security in Punta del Este will be impossible to penetrate? Uruguayan patrol boats will be thick as locusts. Every ship housing sumnut leaders will be heavily guarded.

You're talking a suicide assault by an army of commandos. It simply can't be done."

"We will have help from a source that must remain confidential," said Yazid. He turned and studied Ammar. "You, Suleiman-You're our expert on undercover operations. If a team of our best fighters can be smuggled on board the Lady Flamborough without detection, can the ship be taken and held until we can form a republic in the name of Islam?"

"Yes," replied Ammar, without taking his eyes off the cruise ship's photo. The voice was quiet, but it carried total conviction. "Six days is cutting it slim, but the ship can be carried with ten experienced fighting men and five experienced seamen, with no bloodshed providing we have the element of suprise."

Yazid's eyes gleamed. "Ah, I knew I could count on you."