Текст книги "Treasure"

Автор книги: Clive Cussler

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"So we put ourselves in Yaeger looked quizzically at Pitt.

Venator's shoes or sandals or whatever they wore then. What's our plan?"

"Dr. Rothberg unknowingly came up with the key to the mystery," Pitt explained. "He thought Venator buried the artifacts where no one of his day would think to look."

Yaeger looked at him blankly. "That could be anywhere in the ancient world."

"Or outside of the world as the Romans knew it."

"Charted geography didn't extend very far below North Africa or east of the Black Sea and Persian Gulf," said Lily. "Nothing was explored beyond."

"We don't know that," Pitt disagreed. "Junius Venator had access to four thousand years of man's knowledge. He knew of the existence of the African continent and the great steppes of Russia. He must have known of trade with India, which in Turn imported and exported goods from China. And he'd have studied the records of voyages that sailed far beyond the usual Roman/Byzantine trade routes."

"We're certain the Alexandria Library had an entire section devoted to geographical records," said Lily. "Venator could have worked from source maps compiled from much earlier times."

"What do you think he discovered that influenced him?" asked Sandecker.

"A direction," Pitt answered.

All had focused their curiosity on Pitt, and he did not disappoint them.

He walked down to the stage and picked up a flashlight that shone a small arrow on the three-dimensional projection.

"The only question in my mind," said Giordino, "is whether the fleet turned north or south."

"Neither." Pitt moved the lighted arrow through the Gibraltar Straits and across the Atlantic. "Venator led his fleet west to the Americas."

His statement was greeted with stunned disbelief.

"There is no archaeological evidence supporting pre-Columbian contact in the Americas," Lily stated firmly.

"The Serapes is a pretty good indicator they could have made such a voyage," said Sandecker.

"It's a heated controversy," admitted Pitt. "But there are too many similarities in Mayan art and culture that cannot be ignored. Ancient America may not have been as isolated from European and Asian influence as we once thought."

"Frankly, I buy it," said Yaeger, his enthusiasm restored. "I'd bet my Willie Nelson record collection the Phoenicians, the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans and Vikings all landed on North and South American soil before Columbus."

"No self-respecting archaeologist would take you up on it," said Lily.

Giordino grinned at her. "That's because they won't stake their precious reputations on it."

Sandecker looked at Yaeger. "Let's give the project another try Yaeger looked at Pitt. "What shorelines do you want me to cover?"

Pitt scratched his chin. He realized he badly needed a shave. "Begin at the fjord in Greenland and work south down to Panama." He paused to stare at the chart projection with thoughtful curiosity. "It has to be along there somewhere."

Captain Oliver Collins rapped a knuckle against the bridge barometer. He squinted at the needle barely visible from the lights on shore and cursed under his breath at the fair-weather reading. If only there was a storm, he thought, the ship could not have left the harbor. Captain Collins was a firstrate seaman, but a poor judge of human nature.

Suleiman Aziz Ammar would have ordered the Lady Flamborough to sea in the middle of a hurricane with ninety-knot winds. He sat tensely in the captain's seat behind the bridge windows and wiped away the sweat from around his neck that had trickled from his chin.

The mask was a torture in the humid climate, and so were the gloves he wore constantly. He suffered the discomfort stoically. If the hijacking failed and he escaped, international intelligence services could never identify him with witnesses or fingerprints.

One of his men had taken the hetm and was looking at him expectantly across the darkened bridge. Two more were guarding the bridge doorways, their guns aimed at Collins and First Officer Finney, who was standing next to Ammar's helmsman.

The tide had come in and swung the ship on her anchor until her bow was pointing toward the harbor entrance. Ammar made one final sweep of the harbor and dock area with a pair of binoculars and then motioned at Finney with his hand while speaking into a small radio.

"Now," he ordered, "get her underway and launch the labor crews."

Finney, his face twisted in anger, looked at Collins imploringly for a sign of defiance. But the Captain gave a subdued shrug and the first officer reluctantly gave the command to raise the anchor.

Two minutes later, dripping silt from the harbor bottom, the anchor rose out of the black water and was pulled tight against the hawsehole. The helmsman stood by the wheel but made no move to grasp the spokes. On modern ships manual steering is used mostly during heavy weather and while under the command of pilots upon entering and departing port. It was Finney who steered the ship and regulated the speed from a panel tied through fiber optics to the ship's automated control system. He also kept a sharp eye on the radar screen.

Once the ship was free of port the helm was placed on automatic pilot, and ringing the chief engineer down below for "Slow Ahead" on the bridge telegraph was quickly becoming more of a tradition than a necessity.

Moving wraithlike in the evening darkness, her outline visible only when she blocked off lights from the opposite shore, the Lady Flamborough slipped through the crowded harbor indistinct and unnoticed. Her diesels murmured faintly as the big bronze screws bit through the water.

Like a ghost feeling its way through the tombstones of a cemetery, the ship wove its way around the other moored ships and turned into the narrow channel for the open sea.

Ammar picked up the bridge phone and called the communications room.

"Anything?" he asked tersely.

"Nothing yet," answered his man who monitored the radio frequencies of the Uruguayan navy patrol boats.

"Patch any signal through to the bridge speakers."

"Affirmative."

"A small boat crossing our bow dead ahead," announced Finney. "We have to give way."

Ammar placed the muzzle of an automatic pistol against the base of Finney's skull. "Maintain course and speed."

"We're on a collision course," Finney protested. "The Flamborough has no lights. They can't see us."

Ammar's only reply was to increase the pressure of the gun muzzle.

They could clearly see the approaching boat now. She was a large custom-designed motor yacht. Collins guessed her dimensions at forty meters in length with a beam of eight meters. She was beautiful and elegant, and she blazed with lights. There was a party on board and people were grouped in conversation or dancing on her spacious sun decks. Collins was stricken to see the radar antenna wasn't turning.

"Give them a blast of the horn," he implored. "Warn them while they still have a chance to give way."

Anunar ignored him.

The seconds ticked away under a cloud of dread until the collision was inevitable. The people partying on the yacht and the man at its helm were completely oblivious to the steel monster bearing down on them out of the dark.

"Inhuman!" Collins gasped. "This is inhuman."

The Lady Flamborough bow-on into the starboard side of the big yacht.

There was no heavy jar or shriek of metal against metal. The men on the bridge of the cruise liner felt only a very slight tremor as the four-story bow crushed the smaller boat nearly under the water before slicing its hull in two.

The destruction was as devastating as a sledgehammer smashing a child's toy.

Collins' fists were clenched on the forward bridge panel as he gazed m horror at the disaster. He clearly heard the panicked screams of women as the yacht's shattered bow and stern sections scraped along the sides of the Lady Flamborough before they sank less than fifty meters astern.

The dark surface of the Flamborough's wake was littered with wreckage and bodies.

A few of the unfortunate passengers were thrown clear and were trying to swim clear while the injured grasped anything that would keep them afloat. Then they were lost in the night.

The bitterness and rage welled up in Finney's throat. "You murdering bastard!" He spat at Ammar "Only Ali knows the unforeseen," said Ammar, his voice remote and indifferent. He slowly pulled the automatic away from Finney's skull. "As soon as we clear the channel, bear on a heading of one-five-five degrees magnetic and engage the automatic pilot."

Gray-faced beneath his tropic tan, Couins turned and faced Ammar. "for God's sake, radio the Uruguayan sea-rescue service and give them a chance to save those poor people."

"No communications."

"They don't have to know who sent the transmission."

Ammar shook his head. "Less than an hour after the local authorities are alerted to the accident, an investigation will be underway by security forces. Our absence will quickly be discovered and a pursuit launched. I'm sorry, Captain, every nautical mile we put between our stern and Punta del Este is critical. The answer is no."

Collins stared into Ammar's eyes, stared without speaking while his stunned mind fought to orient itself. Then he said, "What price must be paid before you'release my ship?"

"If you and your crew do what I command, no harm will come to any of you."

"And the passengers, Presidents De Lorenzo and Hasan and their staffs?

What are your plans for them?"

"Eventually they will be ransomed. But for the next ten hours they're all going to get their hands dirty."

Bitter helplessness was sharp in Collins's mouth, but his voice was impassive. "You have no intention of holding them as hostages for money."

"Are you a mind reader as well as a sea captain?" asked Ammar with detached interest.

"It doesn't take an anthropologist to see your men were born in the Middle East. My guess is you intend to assassinate the Egyptians."

Ammar smiled emptily. "Allah decides man's fate. I only carry out my instructions."

"Instructions from what source?"

Before Ammar could reply, a voice broke over the bridge speakers.

"Rendezvous at approximately zero two-thirty, Commander."

Animar acknowledged on his portable transmitter. Then he looked at Collins. "There's no more reason for conversation, Captain. We have a great deal to accomplish before daylight."

"What are your plans for my ship?" demanded Collins, "You owe me the.

answer to that question."

"Yes, of course, I owe you that," Ammar muttered automatically, his mind already training on another subject. "By this time tomorrow evening, international news services will report that the Lady Flamborough has been posted missing and presumed lost with all passengers and crew in two hundred fathoms of water."

"Did you hear something, Carlos?" the old fisherman asked as he gripped the worn spokes on the wheel of an ancient fishing boat.

The younger man, who was his son, cupped his ears and peered into the darkness beyond the bow. "You have better ears than mine, Papa. All I hear is our engine."

"I thought I heard someone, like a woman screaming for help.

The son paused, listened again and then shrugged. "Sorry, I still hear nothing."

"It was there." Luiz Chavez rubbed his grizzled beard on a sleeve and then pulled the throttle on idle. "I wasn't dreaming."

Chavez was in a hearty mood. The fish catch had been good. The holds were only half-full, but the nets had pwiea in a quality and variety that would bring top prices from the chefs of the hotel and resort restaurants. The six bottles of beer that were sloshing in his stomach didn't hurt his jolly disposition either.

"Papa, I see something in the water."

"Where?"

Carlos pointed. "Off the port bow. Looks like pieces of a boat.

The old fisherman's eyes were not so sharp at night any more. He squinted and gazed in the direction his son was pointing. Then the running lights began to pick out scattered bits of wreckage. He recognized the bright white paint and varnished debris as coming from a yacht. An explosion, or perhaps a collision, he thought. He settled on a collision. The nearest lights of the port were only two kilometers away. An explosion would have been seen and heard. He saw no sign of navigation lights from rescue boats converging in the channel.

The boat was entering the debris field when his ears caught it again.

What he had thought was a scream now sounded like sobbing. And it came from close by.

"Get Raul, Justino and Manuel from the galley. Quickly. Tell them to make ready to go in the water after survivors."

The boy rushed off as Chavez set the gear lever to "Stop."

He stepped out of the wheelhouse and snapped on a spotlight and slowly swept its beam across the water.

He spotted two huddled shapes lying half across a small splintered section of teak decking and half in the water less than twenty meters away. One, a man, appeared inert. The other, a woman, her face like chalk, stared into the light and frantically waved. Then suddenly, she began yelling hysterically and thrashing at the water.

"Hold on!" Chavez shouted. "Don't panic. We're coming for you."

Chavez turned at the sound of running feet behind him. His crew had rushed out of the deckhouse and quickly crowded around him.

"Can you make anything out?" asked Luis.

"Two survivors floating on some wreckage. Get ready to pull them on board. One of you might have to go in the water and give them a hand."

"No one is going in the water tonight," said one of the crew, his face turning pale.

Chavez turned back to the survivors just as the woman let out a terrified shriek. His heart turned to ice as he saw the tall fin, the ugly head with the ink-spot eye, whipping back and forth with its jaws locked around the woman's lower legs.

"Adored Mary, Mother of Jesus!" muttered Luis, crossing himself as fast as his hand could move.

Chavez shuddered but could not pull his eyes away as the shark draggtd the woman off farther into the water. Other sharks circled, drawn by the blood, bumping against the shattered deck until the body of the man rolled off. One of the fishermen turned and vomited over the side as the scream turned to an ungodly gurgling noise.

Then the night fell silent.

Less than an hour later, Colonel Jos6 Rojas, Uruguayan Chief Coordinator for Special Security, stood ramrod straight in front of a group of officers in battle dress. He had trained with the British Grenadier Guards after graduating from his country's military school, and he had taken up their antiquated habit of carrying a swagger stick.

He stood over a table containing a model diorama of the Punta del Este waterfront and addressed the assembled men. "We will organize into three roving teams to patrol the docks on rotating eight-hour shifts," he began while dramatically slapping the stick in the palm of one hand.

"Our mission is to stand on constant alert as a backup force in the event of a terrorist attack. I realize it's difficult for you to look inconspicuous, but try anyway. Stay in the shadows at night and off the main thoroughfares by day. We don't want to frighten the tourists into thinking Uruguay is an armed state. any questions?"

Lieutenant Eduardo Vazquez raised a hand. "Colonel?"

"Vazquez?"

"If we see someone who looks suspicious, what should we do?"

"You do nothing except report him. He'll probably Turn out to be one of the international security agents."

"What if he appears to be armed?"

Rojas sighed. "Then you'll know he's a security agent. Leave international incidents to the diplomats. Is everyone clear?"

No hands went up.

Rojas dismissed the men and walked to his temporary office in the Harbor Master's building. He stopped at a coffee machine to pour a cup when his aide approached.

"Captain Flores in Naval Affairs asked if you could meet him downstairs."

"Did he say why?"

"Only that it was urgent."

Rojas didn't want to spill his coffee, so he took the elevator instead of the stairs. Flores, impeccable in a white navy dress uniform, greeted him on the first floor but offered no explanations as he escorted Rojas across the street to a large shed that housed the coastal rescue boats. Inside, a group of men were examining several mangled fragments that looked to the Colonel as if they came from a boat.

Captain Flores introduced him to Chavez and his son. "These fishermen have just brought in this wreckage, which they discovered in the channel," he explained. "They say it looked to them like a yacht had been crushed in a collision with a large ship."

"Why should a yachting accident concern special security?"

asked Rojas.

The Harbor Master, a man with cropped hair and a bristling mustache, spoke up. "It may well be a disaster that could cast a cloud on the economic summit." He paused and added, Rescue craft are on the scene now. So far no survivors have been found."

"Have you identified the yacht?"

"One of the scraps Mr. Chavez and his crew fished out of the water bears a nameplate. The craft was called the Lola."

Rojas shook his head. "I'm a soldier. Pleasure boats are not familiar.

Is the name supposed to mean something to me?"

"The yacht was named for the wife of Victor Rivera," answered Flores.

"You know him?"

Rojas stiffened. "I am acquainted with the Speaker of our Chamber of Deputies. The yacht was his?"

Registered in his name," Flores nodded. 'We've already contacted his secretary at her home. Gave her no information of course. Merely inquired as to Mr. Rivera's whereabouts' She said he was on board his yacht hosting a party for Argentinean and Brazilian diplomats."

"How many?" Rojas inquired, a fear growing within him.

"Rivera and his wife, twenty-three guests and five crew members. Thirty in all."

"Names?"

"The secretary did not have the guest list in front of her. I've taken the liberty of sending my aide to Rivera's headquarters for a copy."

"I think it best if I take command of the investigation from this point," stated Rojas officially.

"The Navy stands ready to offer every assistance," said Flores, happy to wash his hands of any authority.

Rojas turned to the Harbor Master. "What ship was involved with the collision?"

"A mystery. No ship has arrived or departed the harbor in the last ten hours."

"Is it possible for a ship to enter port without you knowing?"

"A captain would be stupid to try it without calling for a pilot. "

"Is it possible?" Rojas persisted.

"No," stated the Harbor Master firmly. "No oceangoing ship could dock or moor in the harbor without my being aware of it."

Rojas accepted that. "Suppose one sailed out?"

The Harbor Master considered the question for a few moments. Then he gave a slight nod. "One could not cast off from a dock without my knowledge. But if the vessel was anchored offshore, if her skipper or his officers knew the channel, and if she ran without lights, she might make it out to sea unnoticed. But I must say it would be close to a miracle."

"Can you furnish Captain Flores with a list of moored ships?"

"I'll have a copy in his hands within ten minutes."

"Captain Hores?"

"Colonel?"

"Since a missing ship is a naval operation, I'd like you to take command of the search."

"Gladly, Colonel. I'll begin immediately."

Rojas stared thoughtfully at the wreckage littering the concrete floor.

"There'll be hell to pay before this night is through," he muttered.

Shortly before midnight, after Captain Flores had conducted a thorough search of the harbor and the waters outside the channel, he notified Rojas that the only ship he could not account for was the Lady Flamborough.

Colonel Rojas was stunned when he examined the cruise liner's VIP

passenger list. He demanded a follow-up investigation in the false hope that the Egyptian and Mexican Presidents had disembarked for quarters on shore. Not until it was confirmed that they were missing along with the ship did the horrible specter of a terrorist hijacking become evident.

An extensive air search was launched at dawn. Every aircraft the combined air forces of Uruguay, Argentina and Brazil could put in the air scoured over 400,000 square kilometers of the South Atlantic.

No sign of the Lady Flamborough was found.

It was as though she had been swallowed by the sea.

Two hands were running under his shirt and up his back. He struggled to wake from a sound sleep, dreaming he was deep in the water swimming upward toward the shimmering surface, but never able to reach it. He rubbed his eyes, saw he was still on the couch in his office, and rolled over, his gaze blocked by a pair of shapely legs.

Pitt moved to a sitting position and stared into Lily's beguiling eyes.

He held up his wrist, but he had taken his watch off and placed it on the desk with his keys, change and wallet.

"What time is it?" he asked.

"Five-thirty," she replied sweetly, moving her hands across his shoulders and massaging his neck.

"Night or day?"

"Late afternoon. You only dozed off for three hours."

"Don't you ever drop off.?"

"I can get by with only four hours' sleep out of every twenty-four."

He yawned. "Your next husband has my deepest sympathy."

"Here's some coffee." She set a cup on an end table near his head.

Pitt slipped on his shoes and tucked in his shirttails. Yaeger found anything?"

'Yes .

"The river?"

"No, not yet. Hiram is very mysterious about it, but he claims you were right. Venator sailed across the Atlantic before either the Vikings or Columbus."

He took a sip of the coffee and made a face. "This is almost solid sugar."

Lily looked surprised. "Al said you always take four spoon fuls."

"Al lied. I prefer it pure black with grounds on the bottom of the cup."

"I'm sorry," she said with an unremorseful smile. "I guess I was taken in by a practical joker."

"You're not the first," he said, staring out the door of his office.

Giordino was seated with his feet on Yaeger's desk, devouring the last slice of a pizza while he studied a detailed topographic map of a shoreline.

Yaeger sat with bloodshot eyes aimed at a computer monitor while jotting notes on a pad. He did not have to Turn as Pitt and Lily entered the room. He could see their reflections in the screen.

"We've made a breakthrough," he said with some satisfaction.

Pitt asked, "What have you got?"

"Instead of concentrating on every nook and cranny south from the Serapis's grave in Greenland, I leapfrogged down to Maine and began looking for a match-up of his landing description."

"And it paid off," Pitt said in anticipation.

"Yes. If you'recall, Rufinus wrote that after they deserted Venator, they were battered by storms from the south for thirty-one days before finding a safe bay where they could make repairs to the ship. On the next leg of the voyage more storms blew away the sails and tore off the steering oars. Then the ship drifted for an unspecified number of days before ending up in the Greenland fjord."

Yaeger stopped and called up a chart of the American side of the North Atlantic on the monitor. Next his fingers nimbly punched out a series of codes. A small line formed and began traveling southward from the east coast of Greentand south in a broken, zigzagged path around Newfoundland, past Nova Scotia and New England, ending at a point slightly above Atlantic City.

"New Jersey?" muttered Pitt, puzzled.

"Bamegat Bay, to be exact," said Giordino. He brought over the topographic map and laid it on a table. Then he circled a section of the coast with a red marker.

"Bamegat Bay, New Jersey?" Pitt repeated.

"The shape of the land was quite different back in ninety-one," Yaeger lectured matter-of-factly. "The beach strand was more broken and the bay was deeper and more sheltered. "

"How did you arrive at this exact spot?" asked Pitt.

"In describing the bay, Rufinus mentioned a great sea of dwarflike pines where fresh water seeped from the sand with the jab of a stick. New Jersey has a forest of dwarf pines that fits the description. It's called the Pine Barrens, and it spreads across the southern center of the state bordering on the coast to the east. The water level is just under the surface. During spring runoff or after heavy rains you can literally poke a hole in the sandy soil and strike water."

"Looks promising," said Pitt. "But didn't Rufinus also say they added ballast stone?"

"I admit that had me baffled. So I put in a call to a geologist at the Army Corps of Engineers. He came up with a stone quarry that pinpointed almost the exact site where I believe the Serapis's crew landed."

"Nice job," said Pitt gratefully. "You've put the show on the right track."

"Where do we go from here?" asked Lily.

"I'll continue working south," answered Yaeger. "At the same time I'll have my people compute an approximate trace of Venator's course west from Spain. With hindsight, it seems obvious the islands that made up the fleet's first landfall after leaving the Mediterranean were the West Indies. By continuing the Serapis's path from New Jersey and projecting Venator's track to the Americas, we should arrive at an approximate intersect within five hundred miles of a liver that fits the bill."

Lily looked skeptical. "I fail to see how you expect to trace Venator's track when he censored all accounts of heading, currents, winds and distances."

"No great flash," Yaeger replied dryly. "I'll lift the log data from the voyages of Columbus to the New World,'taking his computed course and adjusting it for differences in hull design and water friction, rigging, and sail area between his ships and the Byzantine fleet a thousand years earlier."

"You make it sound simple."

"Believe me, it's not. We may be homing in on the target, but it's going to take another solid four days of study to get us there."

The weariness and long hours of tedious study seemed forgotten. Yaeger's reddened eyes blazed with determination. Lily appeared to be galvanized with excess energy. They were poised for the starter's gun.

"Do it," said Pitt. "Find the Library."

Pitt thought Sandecker sent for him for a status report on the search, but the instant he saw the somber expression on the Admiral's face, he knew there was a problem. What really bothered Pitt was the soft look in the Admiral's eyes; they were usually as hard as flint.

Then when Sandecker came over and took him by the arm and led him to a couch and sat down alongside, Pitt knew there was a problem.

"I've just received some disturbing news from the White House,"

Sandecker began. "The cruise ship that was hosting Presidents De L4orenzo and Hasan at the economic summit in Uruguay is suspected of being hijacked."

"I'm sorry to hear it," said Pitt, "but how does that affect NUMA?"

"Hala Kamil was on board."

"Damn!"

"And so was the Senator."

"My father?" Pitt muttered in surprise. "I talked to him by phone the night before last. How did he come to be in Uruguay?"

"He was on a mission for the President."

Pitt stood up, paced back and forth and then sat down again. "What's the situation?"

Chve Cuss 'er

"The Lady Flamborough-the name of the British cruise liner-disappeared from the port of Punta del Este last night."

"Where is the ship now?"

"An extensive air search has yet to Turn up a trace of her. The general consensus of the officials on the scene is that the Lady Flamborough lies at the bottom of the sea."

"Without absolute proof, I can't accept that."

"I'm with you."

"Weather conditions?"

"I gather from the report the area was fair with calm seas."

"Ships vanish in storms," said Pitt. "Seldom in calm seas."

Sandecker made an empty gesture with his hands. "Until more details come in we can only speculate."

Pitt could not believe his father was dead. What he heard was too inconclusive. "What is the White House doing about it?"

"The President's hands are tied."

"That's ridiculous," Pitt said sharply. "He could order all naval units in the area to assist in the search."

"That's the catch," said Sandecker. "Except for an occasional training exercise, none of which is occurring now, there are no United States naval units on station in the South Atlantic. "

Pitt stood again and stared out the window at the lights of Washington.

Then he fixed Sandecker with a penetrating stare. "You're telling me the United States government is in no way involved with the search?"

"It looks that way."

"What's to stop NUMA from searching?"

"Nothing except we lack a fleet of Coast Guard vessels and an aircraft carrier."

"We have the Sounder."

Sandecker stared back thoughtfully for a moment. Then his face took on a questioning expression. "One of our research vessels?"

"She's on a sonar mapping project of the continental slope off southern Brazil."

Sandecker nodded. "All right, I get your drift, but the Sounder is too slow to be of any help on an extensive sea search. What do you expect to accomplish with her?"

"If my father's ship can't be found on the surface, I'll hunt for her below.",

"You could be looking at a thousand square miles, maybe more."

"The Sounder's sonar gear can cut a swath two miles wide, and she carries a submersible. All I need is your permission to take command of her."

"You'll need someone to back you up."

"Giordino and Rudi Gunn. We make a good team."

"Rudi is on a deep-sea mining operation off the Canary Islands."

"He could be in Uruguay in eighteen hours."

Sandecker clasped his hands behind his head and stared at the ceiling.

Deep down he felt Pitt was chasing shadows, but he never doubted for an instant what his answer would be.

"Write your own ticket," he said in a level tone. "I'll back YOU."

"Thank you, Admiral," Pitt said. "I'm grateful."

"How does the Alexandria Library project stand?"

"Yaeger and Dr. Sharp are close to a solution. They don't need Al and me getting in the way."

Sandecker rose and placed both his hands on Pitts shoulders. "He may not be dead, you know."

"Dad better not be dead," Pitt said with a grim smile, "I'd never forgive him."

"Dammit, Martin!" the President said abniptly. "Didn't your Middle East people smell a plot to hijack the Lady Flamborough?"

Martin Brogan, the CIA director, shrugged wearily. He was well insulated for taking the blame for every terrorist act that killed Americans or took them hostage. The CIAs successes were rarely heralded, but their mistakes were the stuff of Congressional investigations and hype from the news mecha "The ship, along with its entire passenger list and crew, was snatched from under the noses of the finest security agents in the world," he replied. "Whoever dreamed up the venture and executed it is one shrewd operator. The mere scope is far beyond any terrorist activity we've seen in the past.