Treasure (Dirk Pitt 9)

"I'll side with Julius," said Sandecker. "Close off the area, but go through with the excavation, hiding nothing and keeping the public informed. Believe me, Mr. President, your administration will be far better off putting the Library artifacts out in the open as they're recovered."

The President turned and looked at Wismer. "Sorry, Harold. Perhaps it's all for the best."

"Let us hope so," said Wismer, solemnly staring at the newspaper story.

"I don't want to think about what might happen if that lunatic Topiltzin decides to make an issue of it."

Sam Trinity stood and watched Pitt connect a pair of electrical leads from two metal boxes that sat on the open tailgate of his Jeep. One had a small viewing monitor and the other a wide slot with paper unreeling from it like a flattened tongue.

"A wild-looking rig," observed Trinity. "What do you call it?"

"The fancy name is electromagnetic reflection profiling system for subsurface exploration," Pitt replied as he jacked in the leads to a strange double-humped contraption with four wheels and a push bar. "In plain speech, it's a ground-probing radar unit, the Georadar One, manufactured by the Oyo Corporation."

"I didn't know radar could go through dirt and rock."

"It can provide a good profile down to ten meters, and deep as twenty under ideal conditions."

"How's it work?"

"As the portable probe moves across the land a transmitter sends an electromagnetic pulse into the ground. The reflecting signals are picked up by a receiver and then relayed to the color processor and graphic recorder here in the Jeep. That's pretty much the gist of it."

"Sure you don't want me to tow the mitter buggy?"

"I have better control if I push it by hand."

"What are we looking for?"

"A cavity."

"You mean cavern."

Pitt grinned and shrugged. "Same thing."

Trinity gazed across the ridge of hills they were standing on toward the summit of Gongora Hill, four hundred meters away. "Why are we looking on the backside of the wrong hill?"

"I want to run some tests on the unit before we tackle the prime site,"

Pitt replied vaguely. "Also, there's the slight possibility Venator buried more artifacts someplace else." He paused and waved to Lily, who was peering through a surveyor's transit a short distance away. "We're ready," he shouted.

She waved back and approached, carrying a board with sheet of graph paper tacked to it. "Here's your search grid,! she said, pointing a pencil at the markings on the paper. "The boundary stakes are set in place. I'll walk behind the Jeep and monitor the transmissions. Every twenty meters or so I'll plant a small flag marker so we can keep our lanes straight."

Pitt nodded at her. "Ready, Sam?"

Sam moved behind the steering wheel and started the Jeep's engine. "Say the word."

Pitt turned on the machine and made a few adjustments. Then he took the handle of the probe wagon in his hands and pointed ahead.

Sam dropped the Jeep into drive and crawled forward while Pitt followed, pushing the transmitter-receiver unit five meters from the rear.

A light cloud overcast dulled the sun to a dim yellow ball. 'Thankfully, the day was mild and comfortable. Back and forth, they traveled, dodging rocks and bushes. The morning wore into afternoon as the monotony associated with search and surveys stretched out of all proportion.

They ignored lunch, stopping only at Lily's command as she studied the recordings and made notations.

"A good reading?" Pitt asked, taking a breather, sitting on the back of the tailgate.

"We're on the edge of something that looks interesting," answered Lily, engrossed in the recordings. "Maybe nothing, though. I'll know better after we cover the next two lanes."

Trinity graciously passed around bottles of Mexican Bohemia beer from an ice chest in the Jeep. It was during these short breaks that Pitt noticed a growing number of cars parked at the bottom of Gongord Hill.