Treasure (Dirk Pitt 9)

"I don't mind admitting," said the President, "you had the hell scared out of us. All we could think of was 'What if you blew the wrong hill."

"I apologize for being vague," answered Pitt. "Unfortunately, there was no time for a lengthy explanation to ease everyone's fears." He paused and gave his father a wide smile. "I'm only glad you all trusted me.

But there was never a real doubt. Junius Venator's description of the location that was inscribed on the stone found by Sam Trinity, said to stand north and look straight south to the river cliff." When I stood north of Gongora Hill and stared on a line due south, I found that the Roma bluff stood almost half a kilometer to the west on my right. So I moved farther west and slightly north to the first hill that fit Venator's directions."

"What's it called?" asked the Senator.

"This hill?" Pitt held up his hands in a blank gesture. "So far as I can tell, it has no name."

"It does now," said the President laughing. "As soon as Dr. Sharp gives me the go-ahead to announce the greatest treasure discovery in the history of man, we'll say it came from No Name Hill."

A dawn mist was lifting from the river and the glow of a new sun rising over the Rio Grande valley when the Presidential party returned to Washington, their minds thoroughly awed by what they had seen.

Pitt and Lily sat on the summit of No Name Hill and smelled the dampness of morning and watched the lights of Roma blink out. it looked like a painting by Grant Wood.

Lily smiled into his eyes. They did not look hard and fierce now, only soft and pensive. The sun shone on his face, but he did not see it, only felt the warmth. She knew his mind was roving in the past.

She had come to learn he was a man no woman could ever completely possess. His love was an unknown challenge somewhere over the horizon, a mystery that beckoned with a siren only-he could hear. He was a man a woman desired for an impassioned affair but never married. She knew their relationship was fleeting; she fully intended to take advantage of every moment that was left to her until she awoke one day and found him gone in search of the enigma waiting beyond the next hill.

Lily sat against him, head on his shoulder. "What did the tag read?"

"Tag?"

"The one on the scroll you and Al seemed so interested in."

"A tantalizing clue to more artifacts," he said quietly, still staring into the distance.

"Where?"

"Under the sea. The scroll was labeled 'Recorded Shipwrecks with Valuable Cargoes." She looked up at him. "A map to underwater treasure."

"There is always treasure somewhere," he said almost distantly "And you're going to find it?"

He turned and smiled. "Never hurts to look. Unfortunately, Uncle Sam rarely gives me the time. I've yet to search the Brazilian jungles for the golden city of El Dorado."

She gave him an intuitive stare and then lay back, gazing at the fading stars. "I wonder where they're buried."

He slowly shook off the vision of sunken treasure and looked down.

"Who?"

"The ancient adventurers who helped Venator save the Lib collection."

He shook his head. "Junius Venator is a hard man to outguess. He could have buried his Byzantine comrades most anywhere between here and the river-"

She placed her hand gently on his head and drew him down to her level.

Their lips met and pressed tightly for several moments. A hawk spiraled above them in the orange sky, but seeing nothing appetizing, it winged south into Mexico. Lily's eyes opened and she pulled back, smiling coyly.

"Do you think they'd mind?"

Pitt looked at her curiously. "Mind what?"

"If we made love over their grave. They might very well be lying beneath us."

He rolled them both over until she was on her back and he was above, looking down into her eyes. Then his lips curled into a sly grin.

"I don't think they'd care. I know I certainly wouldn't."