Sahara (Dirk Pitt 11)

"The one with a rock embedded on top?" asked Perlmutter, his voice rising in excitement.

"You got it."

"Break out the Schonstedt gradiometer Julien brought from Washington," Pitt ordered Giordino. "As soon as you set it up, I'll make a pass over the dune."

Giordino quickly unpacked the iron-detecting instrument, checked the battery connections, and set the sensitivity reading. "Ready to drop the sensor:"'

"Okay, approaching the dune at an airspeed of 10 knots," replied Pitt.

Giordino lowered the sensor on a cable leading back to the gradiometer until it dangled 10 meters beneath the helicopter's belly. Then he and Perlmutter intently studied the needle on the frequency dial. As the helicopter moved slowly over the dune, the needle wavered and the sound amplifier began to buzz. Suddenly the needle pegged and then shot to the other side of the dial as the sensor passed over the magnetic polarity from positive to negative. In unison the buzz rose to a shrill shriek:

"She's off the scale," Giordino shouted jubilantly. "We've got a king-size iron mass down there."

"Your reading could be coming from that circular brown rock on the dune," cautioned Perlmutter. "The desert around here is teeming with iron ore."

"Not a brown rock!" Pitt whooped. "You're looking at the top of a smokestack coated with rust:"

As Pitt hovered over the mound, no one found the right words to say. Until now, deep down, they had wondered if she existed at all. But there was no uncertainty in their minds now.

The Texas had surely been rediscovered.

The first flush of exhilaration and elation soon died when a survey of the mound showed that with the exception of 2 meters of smokestack, the entire ship was covered by sand. It would take days for them to shovel through the avalanching sand to reach inside.

"The dune has marched over the casemate since Kitty was here sixty-five years ago," muttered Perlmutter. "The wreck is buried too deep for us to penetrate. Nothing but heavy excavation equipment can clear an entrance."

"I believe there is a way," said Pitt.

Perlmutter looked at the enormous size of the mound and shook his head. "Looks hopeless to me."

"A dredge," snapped Giordino as if alight clicked on inside his head. "The method salvagers use to remove silt from a wreck."

"You read my mind," Pitt laughed. "Instead of a highpressure hose to excavate, we hang the chopper overhead and let the air surge from the rotors blow away the sand."

"Sounds rather half-assed to me," grumbled Perlmutter thoughtfully. "You won't be able to exert enough downward thrust to move much sand without lifting us into the sky."

"The slopes of the dune rise sharply to a peak," Pitt pointed out. "If we can level the summit by 3 meters, she should see the top of the ironclad's casemate."

Giordino shrugged. "Can't lose by trying."

"My sentiments also."

Pitt hung the helicopter over the mound and applied only enough power to keep the craft in a static hover. The force of the air from the rotor whipped up the sand below in a frenzied swirl. Ten, twenty minutes, he held the chopper stable, fighting the buffeting from the down draft. He could see nothing; the induced sandstorm hid all sight of the dune.

"How much longer?" asked Giordino. "The grit must be playing hell with the turbines."

"I'll blow the engines to scrap if that's what it takes," Pitt answered with bulldog determination.

Perlmutter began to see visions of his ample body becoming a ten-day feast for the local buzzards. He felt nothing but pessimism about Pitt and Giordino's mad brainstorm, but he sat quietly without interfering.

After thirty minutes, Pitt finally hauled the helicopter into the sky and off to one side of the mound until the cloud of sand and dust settled to the ground. Every eye peered downward. The minutes that followed seemed endless.

Then Perlmutter let out a bellow that drowned out the whine of the turbines.

"She's clear!"

Pitt was seated on the side of the cabin opposite the dune. "What do you see?" he yelled back.