"But of course. I'll personally see to it he receives your gift."
"There is one more favor," said Pitt.
"Don't push your luck," whispered Sandecker.
"What is it?" Castro asked courteously.
"I wonder if I could borrow a boat with a crane?"
<<79>>
The bodies of Manny and three of his crew were identified. Clark was fished out of the channel by a fishing boat. Their remains were flown back to Washington for burial. Nothing of Jack, Moe, and the rest ever turned up.
The fire was finally under control four days after the death ships were blown out of existence. The final, stubborn blaze would not be extinguished until a week later. Another six weeks would pass before the last of the dead were found. Many were never found at all.
The Cubans were meticulous in their accounting. They eventually compiled a complete list of causalities. The known dead came to 732. The injured totaled 3,769. The missing were calculated at 197.
At the President's urging, Congress passed an emergency aid bill of $45 million to help the Cubans rebuild Havana. The President also, as a gesture of goodwill, lifted the thirty-five-year-old trade embargo. At last Americans could legally smoke good Havana cigars again.
After the Russians were expelled, their only representation in Cuba was a Special Interests Section in the Polish Embassy. The Cuban people shed no tears at their departure.
Castro still remained a Marxist revolutionary at heart, but he was mellowing. After agreeing in principle to the U.S.-Cuban friendship pact, he unhesitantly accepted an invitation to visit with the President at the White House and make an address before Congress, although he did grumble when asked to keep his speech to twenty minutes.
At dawn on the third day after the explosions an old peeling, weather-worn vessel dropped anchor almost in the exact center of the harbor. Fireboats and salvage craft swept past her as though she were a disabled car in the center of a highway. She was a squat workboat, broad and beamy, about sixty feet in length with a small derrick on the stern whose boom extended over the water. Her crew seemed oblivious to the frenzy of activity going on around them.
Most of the flames in the dock area had been extinguished, but firemen were still pouring thousands of gallons of water on the smoldering debris inside the heat-twisted framework of the warehouses. Several blackened oil storage tanks across the harbor sputtered with stubborn flame, and the acrid pall of smoke reeked of burned oil and rubber.
Pitt stood on the bleached deck of the workboat and squinted through the smoky yellow haze at the wreck of the oil tanker. All that remained of the Ozero Baykai was the scorched superstructure on the stern that rose grotesque and distorted above the oily water. He turned his attention to a small compass he held in one hand.
"Is this the spot?" asked Admiral. Sandecker.
"Cross bearings on the landmarks check out," Pitt answered.
Giordino stuck his head out the wheelhouse window. "The magnetometer is going crazy. We're right over a heavy mass of iron."
Jessie was sitting on a hatch. She wore gray shorts and a pale blue blouse and looked like her old luscious self.
She flashed a curious look at Pitt. "You still haven't told me why you think Raymond hid the La Dorada on the bottom of the harbor and how you know exactly where to look."
"I was stupid not catch on immediately," explained Pitt. "The words sound the same, and I misinterpreted them. I thought his last words werèLook on the m-a-i-n s-i-g-h-t.' What he was really trying to say was `Look on the M-a-i-n-a s-i-t-e."
Jessie looked confused. "Maine site?"
"Remember Pearl Harbor, the Alamo, and the Maine. On or about this spot in 1898 the battleship Maine blew up and launched the Spanish-American War."
An edge of excitement began to form inside her. "Raymond threw the statue on top of an old shipwreck?"
"Shipwreck site," Pitt corrected her. "The hulk of the Maine was raised and towed out to sea, where she was sunk with flag flying in 1912."
"But why would Raymond deliberately throw the treasure away?"
"It all goes back to when he and his marine salvage partner, Hans Kronberg, discovered the Cyclops and salvaged the La Dorada. It should have been a triumph for two friends who fought the odds together and stole the most sought-after treasure in history from a possessive sea. And it should have had a happy ending. But the tale turned sour. Raymond LeBaron was in love with Kronberg's wife."
Jessie's face tensed in understanding. "Hilda."
"Yes. Hilda. He had two motives for wanting to get rid of Hans. The treasure and a woman. Somehow he must have talked Hans into making another dive after the La Dorada was raised. Then he cut the lifeline, leaving his friend to die a horrible death. Can you imagine what it must have been like, strangling in agony deep inside a steel crypt like the Cyclops?"
Jessie averted her eyes. "I can't bring myself to believe you."
"You saw Kronberg's body with your own eyes. Hilda was the real key. She outlined most of the sordid story. I only had to fill in a few details."
"Raymond could never commit murder."
"He could and he did. With Hans out of the picture he went one step further. He dodged the Internal Revenue Service-- who can blame him when you remember the federal government collected over eighty percent of income above $150,000 in the late fifties and sidestepped a time-consuming lawsuit from Brazil, which would have rightly claimed the statue as a stolen national treasure. He kept quiet and set a course for Cuba. A shifty man, your lover.
"The problem he now faced was how to dispose of it. Who could afford to pay even a fraction of twenty to fifty million dollars for an art object? He was also afraid that once the word was out the current Cuban dictator, Fulgencio Batista, a racketeer of the first magnitude, would have it seized. And if Batista didn't grab it for himself, the army of Mafia hoods he invited into Cuba after the Second World War would. So Raymond decided to carve up the La Dorada and sell it bit by bit.
"Unfortunately for him, his timing was bad. He sailed his salvage boat into Havana on the same day that Castro and his rebels swarmed into town after toppling Batista's corrupt government. The revolutionary forces immediately closed down the harbors and airports to stop Batista's cronies from fleeing the country with uncountable wealth."
"LeBaron got nothing?" asked Sandecker. "He lost it all?"
"Not entirely. He realized he was trapped and it was only a question of time before the revolutionaries searched his salvage boat and found the La Dorada. His only option was to hack out whatever he could carry and catch the next plane back to the States. Under cover of night he must have slipped his salvage boat into the harbor, hoisted the statue overboard, and dumped it on top of the site where the battleship Maine had blown up seventy years before. Naturally he planned to come back and retrieve it after the chaos died down, but Castro didn't play according to LeBaron's rules. Cuba's honeymoon with the United States soon fell apart and he could never return and raise three tons of priceless treasure under the eyes of Castro's security."
"What piece of the statue did he remove?" Jessie asked.
"According to Hilda, he pried out the ruby heart. Then, after he smuggled it home, he discreetly had it cut, faceted, and sold through brokers. Now he had enough leverage to reach the pinnacle of high finance with Hilda at his side. Raymond LeBaron had arrived in fat city."
For a long moment they were quiet, each with his own thoughts, envisioning a desperate LeBaron throwing the golden woman over the side of his boat thirty years ago.
"The La Dorada," said Sandecker, breaking the silence. "Her weight would have pushed her deep beneath the soft silt of the harbor bottom."
"The admiral has a point," said Giordino. "LeBaron failed to consider that finding her again would be a major operation."
"I admit that bothered me too," said Pitt. "He must have known that after the Army Corps of Engineers stripped and removed the main hull section of the Maine hundreds of tons of wreckage were left emb
edded in the mud, making her almost impossible to find. The most sophisticated metal detector that money can buy won't pick out one particular object in a junkyard."
"So the statue will lie down there forever," said Sandecker. "Unless someday, someone comes along and dredges up half the harbor until he strikes it."
"Maybe not," Pitt said thoughtfully, his mind seeing something only he could see. "Raymond LeBaron was a canny character. He was also a professional salvage man. I believe he knew exactly what he was doing."
"What are you aiming at?" asked Sandecker.
"He put the statue over the side, all right. But I'm betting he very slowly lowered her feet first so she came down on the bottom standing up."
Giordino stared down at the deck. "Might be," he said slowly. "Might be. How tall is she?"
"About eight feet, including the base."
"Thirty years for three tons to settle in the mud. . ." mused Sandecker. "It's possible a couple of feet of her may still be protruding from the harbor floor."
Pitt smiled distantly. "We'll know as soon as Al and I dive down and run a search pattern."
As if on cue they all became quiet and gazed over the side into the water, oil-slicked and ash-coated, dark and secretive. Somewhere in the sinister green depths La Dorada beckoned.
<<80>>
Pitt stood in full dive gear and watched the bubbles rising from the deep and bursting on the surface.
He glanced at his watch, marking the time. Giordino had been down nearly fifty minutes at a depth of forty feet. He went on watching the bubbles and saw them gradually travel in a circle. He knew that Giordino had enough air left for one more 360-degree sweep around the descent line tied to a buoy about thirty yards from the boat.
The small crew of Cubans Sandecker had recruited were very quiet. Pitt looked along the deck and saw them lined up at the rail beside the admiral, staring as though hypnotized at the glitter from the bubbles.
Pitt turned to Jessie, who was standing beside him. She hadn't said a word or moved in the last five minutes, her face tense with deep concentration, her eyes shining with excitement. She was swept up in the anticipation of seeing a legend. Then suddenly she called out. "Look!
A dark form rose from the depths amid a cloud of bubbles, and Giordino's head broke the water near the buoy. He rolled over on his back and paddled easily with his fins until he reached the ladder. He handed up his weight belt and twin air cylinder before climbing to the deck. He pulled off his face mask and spit over the side.
"How did it go?" asked Pitt.
"Okay," Giordino answered. "Here's the situation. I made eight sweeps around the base point where the buoy's descent line is anchored. Visibility is less than three feet. We may have a little luck. The bottom is a mixture of sand and mud, so it's not real soft. The statue may not have sunk over her head."
"Current?"
"About a knot. You can live with it."
"Any obstructions?"
"A few bits and pieces of rusted wreckage protrude from the bottom, so be careful not to snag your distance line."
Sandecker came up behind Pitt and made a final check of his gear. Pitt stepped through an opening in the rail and set the air regulator's mouthpiece between his teeth.
Jessie gave his arm a gentle squeeze through the protective dry suit. "Luck," she said.
He winked at her through the face mask and then took a long step forward. The bright sunlight was diffused by a sudden burst of bubbles as he was engulfed by the green void. He swam out to the buoy and started down the descent line. The yellow nylon braid faded and vanished a few feet below in the opaque murk.
Pitt followed the line cautiously, taking his time. He paused once to clear his ears. Less than a minute later the bottom abruptly seemed to lift up toward him and meet his outstretched hand. He again paused to adjust his buoyancy compensator vest and check his watch for the time, compass for direction, and air pressure gauge. Then he took the distance line Giordino had attached to the descent line by a clip and moved out along the radius.
After swimming about twenty-four feet his hand came in contact with a knot in the line Giordino had tied to measure the outer perimeter of his last sweep. After a short distance, Pitt spied an orange stake standing in the muck that marked the starting point for his circular search pattern. Then he moved out another six-foot increment, held the line taut, and began his sweep, his eyes taking in the three-foot visibility on both sides.
The water was desolate and lifeless and smelled of chemicals. He passed over colonies of dead sea life, crushed by the concussion from the bursting oil tanker, their bodies rolling across the bottom with the tide like leaves under a gentle breeze. He had sweated inside his dry suit under the sun on the boat, and he was sweating inside it now forty feet below the surface. He could hear the sounds of the rescue boats racing back and forth across the harbor, the roar of their exhaust and cavitation of their propellers magnified by the density of the water.
Yard by yard he scanned the barren harbor until he completed a full circle. He moved the marker out and started another sweep in the opposite direction.
Divers often experience great loneliness when swimming over an underwater desert with nothing to see beyond a hand's reach. The real world with people, less than fifty feet away on the surface, ceases to exist. They experience a careless abandon and an indifference toward the unknown. Their perception becomes distorted and they began to fantasize.
Pitt felt none of those things, except maybe a touch of a fantasy. He was drunk with the hunt and so absorbed in seeing the treasured statue in his mind, gleaming gold and brilliant green, that he almost missed a vague form looming up through the mist on his right.
Rapidly kicking his fins, he swam toward it. The object was round and indistinct and partly buried. The two feet that protruded from the silt were coated with slime and strands of sea growth that waved with the current.
A hundred times Pitt had wondered how he'd feel, how he would react when he confronted the golden woman. What he really felt was fear, fear that it was only a false alarm and the search might never end.
Slowly, apprehensively, he wiped away the slimy growth with his gloved hands. Tiny particles of vegetation and silt billowed in a brown swirl, obscuring the thing. He waited under an eerie silence until the cloud melted into the watery gloom.
He moved closer, floating just above the bottom, until his face was only a few inches away from the mysterious object. He stared through his face mask, his mouth suddenly going dry, his heart pounding like a calypso drum.
With a look of timeless melancholy, a pair of emerald-green eyes stared back at him.
Pitt had found La Dorada.
January 4, 1990
Washington, D.C.
<<81>>
The President's announcement of the Jersey Colony and the exploits of Eli Steinmetz and his moon team electrified the nation and caused a worldwide sensation.
Every evening for a week television viewers were treated to spectacular scenes of the lunar landscape never viewed during the brief Apollo landings. The struggle of the men to survive while constructing a livable habitat was also shown in dramatic detail.
Steinmetz and the others became the heroes of the hour. They were feted across the country, interviewed on countless television talk shows, and given the traditional ticker tape parade in New York.
The cheers for the moon colonists' triumph had the ring of old-fashioned patriotism, but the impact went deeper, broader. Now there was something tangible beyond the short, showy flights above the earth's atmosphere, a permanence in space, solid proof that man could live a life far from his home planet.
The President looked buoyant at a private dinner party he hosted in honor of the "inner core" and the colonists. His mood was far different from the first time he had confronted the men who conceived and launched the moon base. He held out a glass of champagne to Hudson, who was staring absently through the roomful of people as though it were silent and empty.
Hudson's eyes fixed on the President for a moment, and then he nodded. "My apologies. A nasty habit of mine, tuning out at parties."
"I'll bet you're hatching plans for a new settlement on the moon."
Hudson smiled wryly. "Actually, I was thinking of Mars."
"So the Jersey Colony is not the end."
"There will never be an end, only the beginning of another beginning."
"Congress will ride with the mood of the country and vote funding to expand the colony. But an outpost on Mars-- you're talking heavy money."
"If we don't do it now, the next generation will."
"Got a name for the project?"
Hudson shook his head. "Haven't given it much thought."
"I've often wondered," the President said, "where you came up with `Jersey Colony.' "
"You didn't guess?"
"There's the state of New Jersey, the isle of Jersey off the French coast, Jersey sweaters. . ."
"It's also a breed of cow."
"A what?"
"The nursery rhyme, `Hey diddle diddle,/The cat and the fiddle,/ The cow jumped over the moon.
The President looked blank for a moment, and then he broke out laughing. When he recovered he said, "My God, there's irony for you. Man's greatest achievement was named after a Mother Goose cow."
"She's truly exquisite," said Jessie.
"Yes, gorgeous," agreed Pitt. "You never tire of looking at her."
They gazed in rapt fascination at the La Dorada, which now stood in the East Building central court of Washington's National Gallery. The burnished golden body and the polished emerald head gleamed under the sun's rays that shone through the great skylight. The dramatic effect was awesome. Her unknown Indian sculptor had portrayed her with compelling beauty and grace. She stood in a relaxed posture, one leg in front of the other, arms slightly bent at the elbows with hands extended outward from the sides.
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