Inca Gold (Dirk Pitt 12)

"Right on the money. The tropical rain forest to the east appears to be impenetrable."

"Okay, we have a ballpark. The next question is, what was the wave length?"

"A tidal wave, or tsunami, can have a length of two hundred kilometers or more," said Yaeger.

Sandecker considered this. "How wide is the Bay of Caraquez?"

Yaeger called up a map on his monitor. "The entrance is narrow, no more than four or five kilometers."

"And you say the captain of the supply ship logged a missing village by a river?"

"Yes, sir, that was his description."

"How does the contour of the bay today differ from that period?"

"The outer bay has changed very little," answered Yaeger, after bringing up a program that depicted the old Spanish charts and the satellite map in different colors as he overlaid them on the screen. "The inner bay has moved about a kilometer toward the sea due to silt buildup from the Chone River."

Sandecker stared at the screen for a long moment, then said slowly, "Can your electronic contraption do a simulation of the tidal wave sweeping the galleon onto shore?"

Yaeger nodded. "Yes, but there are a number of factors to consider."

"Such as?"

"What was the height of the wave and how fast was it traveling."

"It would have to be at least thirty meters high and traveling at better than a hundred and fifty kilometers an hour to carry a five-hundred-and-seventy-ton ship so far into the jungle that she has never been found."

"Okay, let's see what I can do with digital imagery."

Yaeger typed a series of commands on his keyboard and sat back, staring at the monitor for several seconds, examining the image he produced on the screen. Then he used a special function control to fine-tune the graphics until he could generate a realistic and dramatic simulation of a tidal wave crossing an imaginary shoreline. "There you have it," he announced. "Virtual reality configuration."

"Now generate a ship," ordered Sandecker.

Yaeger was not an expert on the construction of sixteenth-century galleons, but he produced a respectable image of one rolling slowly on the waves that was equal to a projector displaying moving graphics at sixty frames per second. The galleon appeared so realistic any unsuspecting soul who walked into the room would have thought they were watching a movie.

"How does it look, Admiral?"

"Hard to believe a machine can create something so lifelike," said Sandecker, visibly impressed.

"You should see the latest computer-generated movies featuring the long-gone old stars with the new.

I've watched the video of Arizona Sunset at least a dozen times."

"Who plays the leads?"

"Humphrey Bogart, Lionel Barrymore, Marilyn Monroe, Julia Roberts, and Tom Cruise. It's so real, you'd swear they all acted together on the set."

Sandecker laid his hand on Yaeger's shoulder. "Let's see if you can make a reasonably accurate documentary."

Yaeger did his magic on the computer, and the two men watched, fascinated, as the monitor displayed a sea so blue and distinct it was like looking through a window at the real thing. Then slowly, the water began convulsing into a wave that rolled away from the land, stranding the galleon on the seabed, as dry as if it were a toy boat on the blanket of a boy's bed. Then the computer visualized the wave rushing back toward shore, rising higher and higher, then cresting and engulfing the ship under a rolling mass of froth, sand, and water, hurling it toward land at an incredible speed, until finally the ship stopped and settled as the wave smoothed out and died.

"Five kilometers," murmured Yaeger. "She looks to be approximately five kilometers from the coast."

"No wonder she was lost and forgotten," said Sandecker. "I suggest you contact Pitt and make arrangements to fax your computer's grid coordinates."

Yaeger gave Sandecker a queer look indeed. "Are you authorizing the search, Admiral?"

Sandecker feigned a look of surprise as he rose and walked toward the door. Just before exiting, he turned and grinned impishly. "I can't very well authorize what could turn out to be a wild goose chase, now can I?"