Serpent (NUMA Files 1)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nantucket Shoals

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

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

I'm taking audience requests."

"How about singing `Far Far Away'?"

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

"Desperate times call for desperate measures."

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

"How about down for starters?"

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

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

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

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

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

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