Treasure (Dirk Pitt 9)

"I understand," she replied. "But there is little cause for concern.

Since President Sadat's assassination, Egyptian security people have become quite efficient."

"May I ask where this meeting will be held?" queried Schiller. "Or is it none of my business?"

"No secret; in fact it will be covered by the world news media," Hala answered nonchalantly. "President Hasan and I will confer during the coming economic meetings in Punta del Este, Uruguay."

The mangled and bullet-holed Cord sat forlornly in the middle of the shop floor. benson slowly circled the car and shook his head sadly.

"This is the first time I've ever had to restore a classic car two days after I finished it."

"We had a bad day," Giordino explained. He was wearing a neck brace, one arm was in a sling, and his nicked ear was heavily bandaged.

"It's a wonder any of you are standing here."

Except for six stitches, mostly hidden by his hair, Pitt was unmarked.

He patted the buckled chrome radiator shell as if the car was an injured pet.

"Lucky for us they used to build them to last," he said quietly.

Lily limped painfully from the shop office. Her left cheek was bruised and the opposite eye was blackened.

"I have Hiram Yaeger on the phone," she announced.

Pitt nodded. He put a hand on benson's shoulder. "Make her even better than she was before."

"We're looking at six months and heavy bucks," said benson.

"Time is no problem and neither is money." Pitt paused and broke into a grin. "The government is going to foot the bill this time around." He turned, walked into the office and picked up the phone. "Hiram, you got something for me?"

"Just a status report," Yaeger replied from Washington. "I've eliminated the Baltic Sea and the coastline of Norway."

"And nothing showed."

"Nothing worth celebrating. No matching of geologic contours or geographic descriptions from the Serapis log. The barbarians Rufinus mentioned don't come close to fitting the early Vikings. He wrote of people who resembled Scydiians, but with darker skins."

"That bothered me too," Pitt agreed. "The Scythians came from Central Asia. Not damned likely they'd have been fairskinned and blond."

"I see no sense in continuing the computer search around Norway into the northern waters of Russia."

"I agree. What about Iceland? The Vikings didn't settle there for another five hundred years. Maybe Rufinus meant Eskimos."

"No go," said Yaeger. "I checked. Eskimos never migrated to Iceland.

Rufinus also threw in the mystery of the 'great sea of dwarflike pines.'

He couldn't have found them on Iceland. And don't forget, you're talking about a six-hundred-mile voyage across some of the worst seas in the world. Historical marine records are quite precise: Roman ship captains rarely sailed out of sight of land for more than two days. The voyage from the nearest European land mass would have taken at least four and a half days under ideal conditions. "

"So where do we go from here?"

"I'll run the West African coast by again. We might have missed something. Dark-skinned Africans and a warmer climate seem more logical than the cold northern countries, especially to men from the Mediterranean."

"You still have to explain how the Serapis came to be in Greenland."

"A projection of wind and currents could give us a clue."

"I'm flying back to Washington tonight," said Pitt. "I'll look in on you tomorrow."