Clive Cussler - Atlantis Found

"It'd be next to impossible for both of us to rush inside the chamber in unison before they react," said Pitt, eyeing the narrow diameter of the opening.

"We could swim inside and knife them in their respective guts," said Giordino quietly.

"If our positions were reversed," murmured Pitt, so softly that Giordino could barely hear him, "that's what they would do to us. But the practical side of me says take them alive."

"Easier said than done."

Pitt moved as close as he dared to the opening and peered at the two divers, who were absorbed in their work. "I think I see an opportunity."

"Don't leave me in suspense," said Giordino, removing his gloves so his hands had freedom of movement.

"They're wearing their dive knives strapped to their lower legs."

Giordino's eyebrows rose questioningly under the mask. "So are we.

"Yes, but we're not about to be attacked from behind by a pair of genial and dashing rogues."

The divers inside finished photographing the inscriptions and star symbols. While one loaded their camera equipment in a large duffel bag, the other began placing a charge of explosives in one corner of the chamber. The procedure played into Pitt and Giordino's hands. As soon as the diver with the camera gear had worked his way through the hole into the cavity below, Giordino snatched the mouthpiece of the breathing regulator from between the man's lips and cut off his air supply. In the same instant, he circled a massive arm around the man's exposed neck, choking him until he went limp from unconsciousness.

"I've got mine," Giordino muttered heavily.

Pitt didn't bother to reply. With a powerful kick of his fins, he shot into the chamber and toward the unsuspecting diver connecting a timer to the explosives. He came in from the side to avoid the air tanks on the diver's backpack. In a repeat of Giordino's performance, he tore away the mouthpiece and squeezed the diver's throat in a viselike grip. Pitt had not enjoyed the luxury of time, however, to see that he was tackling a man of giant size. It took all of two seconds for Pitt to realize he had bitten off more than he could chew. His opponent was built like a professional wrestler and had the muscles of one. He didn't react with helpless inertia, but thrashed around the narrow confines of the chamber like a crazy man in a violent fit. Pitt felt like a fox who had unwittingly leaped onto the back of a wounded bear and was holding on for dear life.

The sheer animal power as the man tried to reach over his shoulders and grasp Pitt's head was terrifying. Two huge hands managed to clutch Pitt around the head. For a few moments, Pitt thought his skull was beginning to crack in a hundred places. What saved him from having his brains turned into mush was a beefy wrist that moved beside his jaw. He spat out his mouthpiece, somehow managed to twist his head under the crushing grip, and bit the wrist as hard as his jaws could clamp. A cloud of blood billowed in the water. The hands around his head jerked free in chorus with a painful shout that came as a grotesque gurgle. Pitt held on and squeezed the great bull of a neck with every ounce of his fading strength. In desperation, he ripped the monster's face mask off.

The big man threw himself backward toward one wall in a convulsive jerk. Pitt's air tanks clanged against the rock and the breath was crushed out of him, but his choke hold did not loosen, even by a fraction. He gripped the wrist of the arm around the throat with his free hand and increased the pressure.

From behind and to the side, Pitt could not see the other man's face. Whipping his body from side to side like a dog shaking his coat wet with water, the giant tried desperately to find his air regulator and thrust it back in his mouth, but its hose was wrapped around Pitt's arm. Frantically, the man bent forward enough to grab his dive knife from the sheath strapped to his right calf. Pitt had expected the movement and was prepared for it. As the giant reached down, Pitt released the hand holding the arm around his throat, raised it, and jabbed a finger in an open eye.

The effect was what he expected, what he'd hoped. The gorilla of a man went stiff as a tree and clamped a hand to his eye. In the process, he blindly caught hold of Pitt's hand and slowly, relentlessly began to bend the index and middle fingers backward. The pain shot through Pitt like a shaft of lightning. The agony of having the bones of the fingers snapped is unlike any other. Excruciating doesn't do justice as a description. Pitt began to see fireworks behind his eyes. He was within a microsecond of releasing his stranglehold and clutching at the hand that was causing him so much torment, when he sensed an infinitesimal drop in pressure. The pain was still there, but lessening by tiny degrees.

Slowly, almost too slowly, the stabbing pain began to subside as the giant started sucking water in through his open mouth. His movements became uncoordinated and spasmodic. He entered the initial stages of blackout as he began to drown. His face suddenly contorted in fear and panic. Pitt waited several seconds after the big man went limp before he replaced the mouthpiece, forcing air down his victim's throat and lungs.

Giordino came halfway through the hole. "What took you so long?"

"The luck of the draw," Pitt gasped between breaths, his heart pounding like a piston inside a cylinder. "I always choose the wrong lane of traffic, the wrong line to stand in at the bank and the biggest guy in the world to pick a fight with. What about your man?"

"I wrapped him tighter than a silkworm with electrical cord I found on a string of overhead lights." Giordino looked down at the inert form on the floor of the chamber, and the eyes behind the dive mask widened. He stared at Pitt with growing respect. "Do the coaches of the National Football League know about this guy?"

"If they did, he'd be a number-one draft choice," Pitt said, as his heart began to slow and his breath came evenly. "Take their knives and any other weapons you can find. Then find some more electrical cable and let's bind him before he comes around and tears the mountain down. Leave their dive masks off so their vision is blurred."

Giordino hog-tied the giant diver with electrical cord and dropped him none too gently through the opening into the cleft below. He then removed one or two weights from the belts of both men, so their bodies were slightly buoyant, which made their mass easier to tow back through the tunnel. He also removed their dive knives. On the smaller man, he found a little gun that shot a shaft with a barb on one end. The shaft was propelled by compressed air from a tiny cylinder.

While Giordino was concentrating on their prisoners, Pitt removed a large nylon net bag from his weight belt and opened the metal clasp at the top. He stared at the sinister black skull that seemed to stare back through empty eye sockets. He could not help but wonder if a curse came with the skull. What cryptic secrets did it hold?

Pitt's idealistic nature was overpowered by his practical side. Though he was a daydreamer, he did not buy into myths and folktale. If an object or conception could not be seen, felt, or experienced, it did not exist for him. If he wasn't already a hundred and eighty feet under water, he would have spat in the eye of the obsidian skull. But because it was a link in a chain of enigmas, he was determined to place it in the hands of people who could properly study it.

"Sorry, my friend," he murmured so softly that Giordino didn't hear him, "but it's time you revealed yourself." He lifted the skull very carefully from its pedestal and slid it into the carry bag. At this depth he handled it easily, but once it carne out of the water, he guessed it would weigh a solid forty pounds. He took one final look at the chamber, the inscriptions on the walls, the still-burning floodlights lying on the floor where they had been hurled during the struggle. Then he dove headfirst through the hole in the rock, mindful not to knock the skull against the rock and shatter it. Giordino had already pulled the two divers into the tunnel. The giant of a man had regained consciousness and was struggling violently to break free of the electrical cord that bound his ankles and pinned his arms tightly against his immense body.