Treasure (Dirk Pitt 9)

Pitt and Giordino could sit back and take it easy for the rest of the voyage. Their part in the search project was over. They had found a needle in a haystack. Then slowly Pitts expression turned serious and he stared off into space.

Giordino knew the symptoms from long experience. Once a project was successfully completed, Pitt suffered a letdown. The challenge was gone, and his restless mind quickly turned to the next one.

"Damn fine job, Dirk, and you too, Al," Knight said warmly. "You NUMA people know your search techniques. This has to be the most remarkable intelligence coup in twenty years. "

"Don't get carried away," said Pitt. "The tough part is yet to come.

Recovering the sub under Russian noses will be a delicate operation. No Glomar Explorer this time. No salvage from highly visible surface ships. The entire operation will have to be carried out underwater-"

"What the hell is that?" Giordino's eyes had returned to the monitor.

"Looks like a fat jug."

"More like an urn," Knight confirmed.

Pitt stared into the monitor for a long moment, his face thoughtful, his eyes tired, red and suddenly intense. The object was standing straight up. Two handles protruded from opposite sides of a narrow neck, flaring sharply into a broad, oval body that in Turn tapered toward the base buried in the silt.

"A terra-cotta amphora," Pitt announced finally.

"I believe you're right," said Knight. "The Greeks and Romans used them to transport wine and olive oil. They've been recovered all over the bottom of the Mediterranean."

"What's one doing in the Greenland Sea?" Giordino asked no one in particular. "There, to the left of the picture, we've picked up a second."

Then a cluster of three drifted under the cameras, followed by five more running in a ragged line from southeast to northwest.

Knight turned to Pitt, "You're the shipwreck expert. How do you'read it?"

A good ten seconds passed before Pitt replied. Then at last he did, his voice was distant, as though it came from someone in the next compartment.

"My guess is they lead toward an ancient shipwreck the history books say isn't supposed to be here."

Rubin would have traded his soul to abandon the impossible task, remove hands slick with sweat from the control rolumn, close tired eyes and accept death, but his sense of responsibility to the flight crew and passengers drove him on.

Never in his wildest nightmares did he see himself in such a crazy predicament. One wrong physical movement, a slight error in judgment and fifty people would find a deep, unknown grave in the sea. Not fair, he cried in his mind over and over. Not fair.

None of the navigation instruments was fullctioning. All communications equipment was dead. Not one of the passengers had ever flown an aircraft, even a light plane. He was totally disoriented and hopelessly lost. Inexplicably the needles on the fuel gauges wavered on "Empty."

His mind strained at the confusion of it al

l.

Where was the pilot? What caused the flight officers' deaths? Who was behind this insane madness?

The questions swarmed in his mind, but the answers remained wrapped in frustration.

Rubin's only consolation was that he was not alone. Another man shared the cockpit.

Eduardo Ybarra, a member of the Mexican delegation, had once served as a mechanic in his country's air force. Thirty years had passed since he wielded a wrench on propellerdriven aircraft, but bits and pieces of the old knowledge had returned to him as he sat in the copilot's seat-reading the instruments for Rubin and taking command of the throttles.

Ybarra's face was round and brown, the hair thick and black with traces of gray, the brown eyes widely spaced and expressionless. In his three-piece suit, he seemed out of place in the cockpit. Oddly there was no beaded perspiration on his forehead, and he had not loosened his tie or removed his coat.

He motioned upward at the sky through the windshield. "Judging from the stars, I'd say we're on a heading toward the North Pole."

"Probably flying east over Russia for all I know," Rubin said grimly. "I haven't a vague idea of our direction."

"That was an island we left behind us."

"Think it was Greenland?"