Treasure dp-9

by Clive Cussler

  "Where did you get it?"

  "A little shop in Baltimore. I forget the name."

  Sandecker wasn't fooled for an instant. Giordino had been stealing his expensive cigars for years. What drove the Admiral up the wall was that he never discovered how. No matter how well he hid or locked them away, his inventory count always showed two missing every week.

  Giordino kept the secret from Pitt so his best friend would never have to lie if asked how it was done. Only Giordino and an old buddy from the Air Force who was a professional burglar for an intelligence agency knew the technicalities of Operation Stogie.

  "I've a good notion to ask to see a receipt," growled Sandecker.

  "We, ve been attacking this thing from the wrong angle," Pitt said, steering the meeting back on course.

  "There's another angle?" asked Yaeger. "We took the only logical approach open to us."

  "Without any reference to direction, it was an impossible job," Lily backed him.

  "A pity Rufinus didn't log his daily positions and distance traveled,"

  mused Sandecker.

  "He was under strict orders not to record anything."

  "Could they determine a position back then?" asked Giordino.

  Lily nodded. "By positions of earth landmarks by figuring their latitude and longitude a hundred and thirty years before Christ."

  Sandecker laced his hands across his trim stomach and gazed at Pitt over his reading glasses. "I know that lost look in your eyes.

  Something's nagging at you."

  Pitt slouched in his seat. "We've been judging facts and using guesswork without considering the man who conceived the smuggling plan."

  "Junius Venator?"

  "A brilliant guy," Pitt continued, "who was described by a contemporary as 'a daring innovator who struck out into areas other scholars feared to tread." The question we've overlooked is, if we were in Venator's shoes, where would we have taken and hidden the great art and litemq treasures of our time?"

  "I still say Africa," volunteered Yaeger. "Preferably around the Cape somewhere up a river along the eastern coastline."

  "Yet your computers couldn't make a marriage."

  "They never came close," Yaeger admitted. "But God only knows how land formations have changed since Venator's day."

  "Could Venator have taken the fleet northeast into the Black Sea?" Lily queried.

  "Rufinus was specific about a voyage of fifty-eight days," said Giordino.

  Sandecker, puffing his cigar, nodded. "Yes, but if the fleet was hit by foul weather or adverse winds, they could have traveled less than a thousand miles in that time."

  "The Admiral has a point," Yaeger conceded. "Ancient ships of the period were constructed to run with the sea and before the wind. Their rigging was not efficient for willdward sailing. Heavy-weather conditions could have cut their progress by eighty percent."

  "Except," Pitt said, hanging on the word, "Venator loaded his ships

  'with four times their normal supply of provisions."

  "

  "He planned for an extended voyage," said Lily, suddenly intrigued.

  "Venator never intended to land every few days and resupply his fleet."

  "All that that proves to me," said Sandecker, "is that Venator wanted to keep the entire voyage as secret as possible by never coming ashore and leaving a trail."

  Pitt shook his head. "As soon as the ships cleared the Straits of Gibraltar, any need for secrecy evaporated. Venator was free and in the clear. Byzantine warships sent to stop him would be as much in the dark as we are of his next course heading."

  "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 tho
ught 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.