Clive Cussler - Treasure

Rojas turned to the Harbor Master. "What ship was involved with the collision?"

"A mystery. No ship has arrived or departed the harbor in the last ten hours."

"Is it possible for a ship to enter port without you knowing?"

"A captain would be stupid to try it without calling for a pilot. "

"Is it possible?" Rojas persisted.

"No," stated the Harbor Master firmly. "No oceangoing ship could dock or moor in the harbor without my being aware of it."

Rojas accepted that. "Suppose one sailed out?"

The Harbor Master considered the question for a few moments. Then he gave a slight nod. "One could not cast off from a dock without my knowledge. But if the vessel was anchored offshore, if her skipper or his officers knew the channel, and if she ran without lights, she might make it out to sea unnoticed. But I must say it would be close to a miracle."

"Can you furnish Captain Flores with a list of moored ships?"

"I'll have a copy in his hands within ten minutes."

"Captain Hores?"

"Colonel?"

"Since a missing ship is a naval operation, I'd like you to take command of the search."

"Gladly, Colonel. I'll begin immediately."

Rojas stared thoughtfully at the wreckage littering the concrete floor.

"There'll be hell to pay before this night is through," he muttered.

Shortly before midnight, after Captain Flores had conducted a thorough search of the harbor and the waters outside the channel, he notified Rojas that the only ship he could not account for was the Lady Flamborough.

Colonel Rojas was stunned when he examined the cruise liner's VIP

passenger list. He demanded a follow-up investigation in the false hope that the Egyptian and Mexican Presidents had disembarked for quarters on shore. Not until it was confirmed that they were missing along with the ship did the horrible specter of a terrorist hijacking become evident.

An extensive air search was launched at dawn. Every aircraft the combined air forces of Uruguay, Argentina and Brazil could put in the air scoured over 400,000 square kilometers of the South Atlantic.

No sign of the Lady Flamborough was found.

It was as though she had been swallowed by the sea.

Two hands were running under his shirt and up his back. He struggled to wake from a sound sleep, dreaming he was deep in the water swimming upward toward the shimmering surface, but never able to reach it. He rubbed his eyes, saw he was still on the couch in his office, and rolled over, his gaze blocked by a pair of shapely legs.

Pitt moved to a sitting position and stared into Lily's beguiling eyes.

He held up his wrist, but he had taken his watch off and placed it on the desk with his keys, change and wallet.

"What time is it?" he asked.

"Five-thirty," she replied sweetly, moving her hands across his shoulders and massaging his neck.

"Night or day?"

"Late afternoon. You only dozed off for three hours."

"Don't you ever drop off.?"

"I can get by with only four hours' sleep out of every twenty-four."

He yawned. "Your next husband has my deepest sympathy."

"Here's some coffee." She set a cup on an end table near his head.

Pitt slipped on his shoes and tucked in his shirttails. Yaeger found anything?"

'Yes .

"The river?"

"No, not yet. Hiram is very mysterious about it, but he claims you were right. Venator sailed across the Atlantic before either the Vikings or Columbus."

He took a sip of the coffee and made a face. "This is almost solid sugar."

Lily looked surprised. "Al said you always take four spoon fuls."

"Al lied. I prefer it pure black with grounds on the bottom of the cup."

"I'm sorry," she said with an unremorseful smile. "I guess I was taken in by a practical joker."

"You're not the first," he said, staring out the door of his office.

Giordino was seated with his feet on Yaeger's desk, devouring the last slice of a pizza while he studied a detailed topographic map of a shoreline.

Yaeger sat with bloodshot eyes aimed at a computer monitor while jotting notes on a pad. He did not have to Turn as Pitt and Lily entered the room. He could see their reflections in the screen.

"We've made a breakthrough," he said with some satisfaction.

Pitt asked, "What have you got?"

"Instead of concentrating on every nook and cranny south from the Serapis's grave in Greenland, I leapfrogged down to Maine and began looking for a match-up of his landing description."

"And it paid off," Pitt said in anticipation.

"Yes. If you'recall, Rufinus wrote that after they deserted Venator, they were battered by storms from the south for thirty-one days before finding a safe bay where they could make repairs to the ship. On the next leg of the voyage more storms blew away the sails and tore off the steering oars. Then the ship drifted for an unspecified number of days before ending up in the Greenland fjord."

Yaeger stopped and called up a chart of the American side of the North Atlantic on the monitor. Next his fingers nimbly punched out a series of codes. A small line formed and began traveling southward from the east coast of Greentand south in a broken, zigzagged path around Newfoundland, past Nova Scotia and New England, ending at a point slightly above Atlantic City.

"New Jersey?" muttered Pitt, puzzled.

"Bamegat Bay, to be exact," said Giordino. He brought over the topographic map and laid it on a table. Then he circled a section of the coast with a red marker.

"Bamegat Bay, New Jersey?" Pitt repeated.

"The shape of the land was quite different back in ninety-one," Yaeger lectured matter-of-factly. "The beach strand was more broken and the bay was deeper and more sheltered. "

"How did you arrive at this exact spot?" asked Pitt.

"In describing the bay, Rufinus mentioned a great sea of dwarflike pines where fresh water seeped from the sand with the jab of a stick. New Jersey has a forest of dwarf pines that fits the description. It's called the Pine Barrens, and it spreads across the southern center of the state bordering on the coast to the east. The water level is just under the surface. During spring runoff or after heavy rains you can literally poke a hole in the sandy soil and strike water."

"Looks promising," said Pitt. "But didn't Rufinus also say they added ballast stone?"

"I admit that had me baffled. So I put in a call to a geologist at the Army Corps of Engineers. He came up with a stone quarry that pinpointed almost the exact site where I believe the Serapis's crew landed."

"Nice job," said Pitt gratefully. "You've put the show on the right track."

"Where do we go from here?" asked Lily.

"I'll continue working south," answered Yaeger. "At the same time I'll have my people compute an approximate trace of Venator's course west from Spain. With hindsight, it seems obvious the islands that made up the fleet's first landfall after leaving the Mediterranean were the West Indies. By continuing the Serapis's path from New Jersey and projecting Venator's track to the Americas, we should arrive at an approximate intersect within five hundred miles of a liver that fits the bill."

Lily looked skeptical. "I fail to see how you expect to trace Venator's track when he censored all accounts of heading, currents, winds and distances."

"No great flash," Yaeger replied dryly. "I'll lift the log data from the voyages of Columbus to the New World,'taking his computed course and adjusting it for differences in hull design and water friction, rigging, and sail area between his ships and the Byzantine fleet a thousand years earlier."

"You make it sound simple."

"Believe me, it's not. We may be homing in on the target, but it's going to take another solid four days of study to get us there."

The weariness and long hours of tedious study seemed forgotten. Yaeger's reddened eyes blazed with determination. Lily appeared to be galvanized with excess energy. They were poised for the starter's gun.