Treasure (Dirk Pitt 9)

"Good to excellent. Dr. Gronquist cooks gourmet."

"I had hoped to invite you all to the ship's galley for dinner, but the sudden storm messed up my plans."

"We're always happy to see a new face at the table."

"You've discovered something unusual, haven't you?" Pitt asked abruptly.

Lily's eyes widened suspiciously. "How could you knowt' "Greek or Roman?"

"Roman Empire, Byzantium, actually."

"Byzantium what?" Pitt pushed her, his eyes turned hard.

"How old?"

"A gold coin, late fourth century."

He seemed to relax then. He took a deep breath and slowly let it out while she looked at him in confusion and no small degree of irritation.

"Make your point!" Lily snapped at him.

"What if I was to tell you," Pitt began slowly, "there is a trail of amphoras scattered along the seabed that leads into the fjord?"

"Amphoras?" Lily repeated in astonishment.

"I have them on videotape from our underwater cameras."

"They came." She spoke as in a trance. "They really crossed the Atlantic. The Romans set foot on Greenland before the Vikings."

"The evidence points in that direction." Pitt eased his arm around Lily's waist and aimed her toward the door. "Speaking of direction, are we stuck here for the duration of the storm or does that rope outside the door lead to your hut?"

She nodded. "Yes, the line stretches between the two buildings." She paused and stared into the excavation where she had discovered the coin.

"Pytheas, the Greek navigator, made an epic voyage in 350 B.c. The legends say he sailed north into the Atlantic and eventually reached Iceland. Strange there

are no records or legends telling of a Roman voyage this far north and west, seven hundred and fifty years later."

"Pytheas was lucky: he made it home to tell the tale."

,,You think the Romans who came here were lost on the return voyage?"

"No, I think they're still here." Pi pinned her with a determined grin,

"And you and i, lovely lady, are going to find them."

-PART II

The Serapis

October 14, 1991

Washington, D.C.

A cold, bleak drizzle shrouded the nation's capital as a taxi pulled to a stop at Seventeenth and Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the old Executive Office Building. A man dressed in a deliveryman's uniform stepped from the rear seat and told the driver to wait. He leaned back in the taxi and retrieved a package wrapped in red silk. He hurried across the sidewalk and down several steps, passing through a doorway into the reception area of the mail room.

"for the President," he said with a Spanish accent.

A postal service employee signed in the package and the time. He looked up and said. "Still raining?"