"You're right. Once Nicaraguan authorities find out we sank a yacht in their backyard, we'd all be arrested." He dabbed a cloth at a trickle of blood that was oozing from a cut on one cheek. "What's the story on the woman you rescued?"
"Soon as she's conscious, I'll find out."
"Do you want to contact the admiral and give him a report, or should I?"
"I'll take care of it." Pitt entered the galley and sat down at a computer used by the crew mostly for entertainment, e-mail home and occasional research on the Internet via satellite. He typed in the name of the yacht, Epona, and waited. Within a minute, an image of a horse and a brief description came on the screen. Pitt absorbed it in his memory, shut down the terminal and left the galley.
He met Renee in the passageway separating the cabins. "How's she doing?"
"If it was up to me, I'd throw her arrogant ass into the sea."
"That bad?"
"Worse. Within seconds of coming awake, she began giving me a hard time. Not only is she demanding, but she only speaks in Spanish." Renee paused to smile smugly. "It's an act."
"How can you tell?"
"My mother was an Ybarra. I speak better Spanish than our guest."
"She won't reply in English?" asked Pitt.
Renee shook her head. "Like I said, it's an act. She wants us to believe she was only a poor Mexican who slaved in the galley. Her makeup and designer bikini are dead giveaways. This broad has class. She's no scullery maid."
Pitt pulled his old .45 Colt from a holster on his belt. "Let me play Let's Make a Deal with her." He stepped into the cabin with the mystery guest, approached her and gently pushed the muzzle against her nose. "I'm sorry to have to kill you, sweet stuff, but we can't leave any witnesses around. You understand."
The amber-brown eyes flew wide and crossed, staring at the gun. Her lips suddenly trembled as she felt the cold, hard barrel and looked into Pitt's inscrutable green eyes. "No, no, please!" she cried out in English. "Don't kill me! I have money. Let me live and I'll make you rich."
Pitt looked up at Renee, who was standing with her mouth open, not completely certain whether Pitt was not actually going to shoot the woman. "Do you want to be rich, Renee?"
Renee caught onto the game and came on stage. "We already have a ton of gold hidden aboard the boat."
"Don't forget the rubies, emeralds and diamonds," chided Pitt.
"We might find it in our hearts not to feed her to the sharks for a couple of days if she tells us about the fake pirate ship, and why the pirates chased us half the night so they could murder all of us and sink our boat."
"Yes. Yes, please!" the woman gasped. "I can only tell you what I know!"
Pitt saw a strange glint in her eyes that did not indicate trust. "We're listening."
"The yacht belonged to my husband and me," she began. "We were on a cruise from Savannah through the Panama Canal and up to San Diego, when we were approached by what we thought was an innocent fishing boat whose captain asked for medical supplies so they could treat an injured crewman. Unfortunately, my husband, David, fell for the ruse and before we could react, the pirates had boarded our boat."
"Before we continue," said Pitt, "my name is Dirk Pitt and this is Renee Ford."
"I'm rude for not thanking you for saving me. I'm Rita Anderson."
"What happened to your husband and crew?"
"They were murdered and their bodies thrown in the sea. I was spared because they thought I would be useful in luring passing boats."
"How was that?" asked Renee.
"They thought that seeing a woman on the deck in a bikini would attract them close enough to be attacked and captured."
"That was their only motive in keeping you alive?" asked Pitt doubtfully.
She nodded silently.
"Do have any idea of who they were or where they came from?"
"They were local Nicaraguan bandits turned pirates. My husband and I had been warned not to sail through this area, but the sea along the coast looked peaceful."
"Odd that local pirates knew how to fly a helicopter," Renee muttered under her breath.
"How many boats did they capture and destroy using your yacht?" Pitt pressed Rita.
"Three that I'm aware of. Once the crew was murdered and the boat ransacked for valuables, it was scuttled."
"Where were you when we collided with your yacht?" inquired Renee.
"So that's what happened?" she answered vaguely. "I was locked in my cabin. I heard sounds of explosions and gunfire. Then came a great shock and the boat shuddered, followed by fire. The last thing I remember before I blacked out was the wall of my cabin crashing in around me. When I woke up, I was here on your boat."
"Do you recall anything else leading up to the collision and fire?"
Rita shook her head slowly back and forth. "Nothing. They held me prisoner in my cabin and only let me out when they were preparing to capture another vessel."
"Why the hologram of the pirate ship?" asked Renee. "That seemed more like a gimmick to keep boats out of the area than an act of piracy."
Rita looked uncomprehending. "Hologram? I'm not even sure what one is."
Pitt smiled inwardly. He saw little cause not to believe that Rita Anderson was fabricating a wild story. Renee was right. Rita's makeup hardly looked like it belonged on a woman who had seen her husband murdered and had been cruelly dealt with by pirates. The beige-rose lipstick with lip gloss was too precisely applied, the eyes defined with a deep chestnut liner and a shimmer highlighter on the brow--all spelled a life of elegance. He decided to go for the jugular, watching closely for a reaction.
"What is your connection with Odyssey?" he said suddenly.
At first, she didn't get it. Then it began to dawn on her that these people were no innocent fishermen. "I don't know what you're talking about," she hedged.
"Wasn't your husband an employee of the Odyssey conglomerate?"
"Why do you ask?" she threw out, stalling while she came back on keel.
"Your boat bore the same image of a horse as the Odyssey logo."
The immaculately plucked and penciled eyebrows pinched fractionally. She was good, Pitt thought, very good. She didn't faze easily.
He began to realize that Rita was no mundane wife of a rich man. She was comfortable being in command, with power to wield. He was amused as she made a flank attack and tried to turn the tables.
"Who are you people?" Rita suddenly demanded. "You're not fishermen."
"No," Pitt said slowly, with effect. "We're with the United States National Underwater and Marine Agency on a scientific expedition to find the source of the brown crud."
He might as well have slapped her in the face. The calm composure abruptly fell away. Before she could stop herself, she blurted, "Not possible. You're--" She caught herself and her voice trailed off.
"Supposed to be dead from the explosion in Bluefields Channel," Pitt finished for her.
"You knew?" Renee gasped, moving toward the bed as if to strangle Rita.
"She knew," Pitt agreed, gently taking Renee by the arm and restraining her.
"But why?" Renee demanded. "What did we do to deserve a horrible death?"
Rita would say no more. The expression on her face altered from surprise to anger mixed with hatred. Renee would have loved to have rammed her fist into Rita's face. "What will we do with her?"
"Nothing," Pitt replied with a slight shrug. He knew he could no longer bluff Rita. She had said all she was going to say. "Keep her locked in the cabin until we reach Costa Rica. I'll have Rudi call ahead and have the local law authorities waiting on the dock to take her into custody."
Exhaustion crept up on Pitt. He was dead tired, but so were the others. He had one more chore to perform before he could catch a short catnap. He looked around for the lounge chair, but remembered Renee had thrown it overboard. He stretched out on the deck that had been cleared of the phony fishing gear, leaned his back against a bulwark and dialed his Globalstar tri-mode s
atellite phone.
Sandecker sounded angered. "Why haven't I heard from you people before now?"
"We've been busy," Pitt muttered. Then he spent the next twenty minutes bringing the admiral up to speed. Sandecker patiently listened without interruption until Pitt ended by relating his conversation with Rita Anderson.
"What could Specter possibly have to do with any of this?" Sandecker's voice sounded confused.
"At the moment, my best guess is that he has a secret he wants to keep and will murder the crew of any boat that stumbles into his realm."
"I've heard they have construction contracts with the Red Chinese throughout Nicaragua and Panama."
"Loren mentioned the same connection over dinner the other night."
"I'll order an investigation into Odyssey's activities," said Sandecker.
"You might also check out Rita and David Anderson and a yacht named Epona."
"I'll put Yaeger on it first thing."
"It will be interesting to see how this woman ties in to this thing."
"Did you discover a source of the brown crud?"
"We homed in on the position where it's rising from the seafloor."
"Then it looks like a natural phenomenon?"
"Patrick Dodge doesn't think so." Pitt stifled a yawn. "He claims there is no way the mineral ingredients that make up the crud can rise up from the bottom like it was shot out of a cannon. He says it has to be an artificial upwelling. There must be something nasty going on here that borders on The Twilight Zone."
"Then we're back to square one," said Sandecker.
"Not quite," Pitt said quietly. "I have a little expedition of my own I'd like to carry out."
"I've sent a NUMA jet transport to the airport near the Rio Colorado Lodge with a crew to patch up Poco Bonito before they sail it north. Gunn, Dodge and Ford will be transported back to Washington. I'd like you and Al to join them."
"The job isn't finished."
Sandecker didn't argue. He'd learned long ago that Pitt's judgment was generally on the money. "What is your plan?"
Pitt stared across the sea toward the green forested coastal mountain ranges rising beyond white sandy beaches. "I think a cruise up the San Juan River to Lake Nicaragua might be in order."
"What do you expect to find so far from the sea and the brown crud?"
"Answers," Pitt answered, his mind already traveling upriver. "Answers to this whole mess."
PART THREE
From Odyssey to Odyssey
24
August 23, 2006 Navidad Bank
If there was one small benefit to Hurricane Lizzie, it was that she had swept the brown crud away from Navidad Bank. The water over the coral was blue-green again, with visibility at neatly two hundred feet. Along with the clean water, the fish had returned to their habitat and took up residence again as if no tempest had cast them out.
Another research vessel replaced Sea Sprite for the investigation of the sunken structure. Built and designed specifically as a dive support vessel for archaeological exploration in shallow water, Sea Yesteryear rarely worked out of sight of the shore. Her projects had included the underwater ruins of the Alexandria Library in Egypt, the. Chinese fleet sunk by kamikaze winds off Japan, early Swedish and Russian trade ships in the Baltic and a host of other historical events her team of scientists had surveyed.
She featured four-point mooring capabilities and both saturation and surface gas/air diving system configurations. A moon pool in the center of her hull was fully equipped for diving operations and robotic vehicle launch and recovery, and included machinery for retrieving artifacts from the seafloor. A spacious laboratory occupied the entire bow section of the boat and incorporated the most up-to-date scientific equipment for the analysis and conservation of recovered ancient artifacts.
Short by most research ship standards at one hundred and fifty-one feet in length, she was broad and roomy with an overall breadth of forty-five feet. Two big diesel engines moved her through the water at twenty knots, and she carried a crew of four and a team of ten scientists. Those who had served aboard Sea Yesteryear were proud of the times they had rewritten maritime history. And, as the Navidad Bank exploration proceeded, they were certain they were on the verge of the greatest discovery yet.
At first, the marine archaeologists who examined the rooms of stone were not even certain the structures were man-made. Nor did the area produce an abundance of artifacts. Except for the contents of the stone bed and the cauldron, the only others found came from the kitchen. But as the investigation continued, more and more incredible archaeological treasures were recorded. One revelation that the geologists on the team discovered was that the structure once sat in the open above a small hill. This came to light when the encrustation on one six-inch-square piece of wall in the bedroom was delicately brushed away and it became obvious the rooms were not carved from the rock but constructed of stone fitted on stone when Navidad Bank was an island rising above the water.
Dirk stood in the laboratory with his sister at his side, examining the artifacts that had been carefully transported to the ship's laboratory and immersed in trays of seawater in preparation for the lengthy conservation process. He very gently held up an exquisite gold torque, the neck chain that had been found on the stone bed.
"Every relic we've removed from the bed and the cauldron has belonged to a woman."
"It's even more intricate than much of the jewelry produced today," said Summer, admiring the chain as the gold reflected the sun coming through the ship's ports.
"Until I can make a comparison with archaeological records in European archives, I'd have to date it as Middle Bronze Age." The voice was soft and punctuated, like a mild summer shower on a metal roof. It belonged to Dr. Jeffrey Parks, who carried himself like a wary wolf, with his face low and thrust out. He was six feet eight inches in height and constantly bent over from the stratosphere. A collegiate all-star basketball player, he was sidelined because of a serious knee injury and never played again. Instead, he studied marine archaeology, eventually gaining a doctorate with his thesis on ancient underwater cities. He had been invited on the expedition by Admiral Sandecker because of his specialized expertise.
Parks walked past the long table fitted with open tanks that held the ancient relics and stopped at a large board mounted on a bulkhead that displayed more than fifty photos taken of the interior of the underwater edifice. He paused and with the eraser end of a pencil tapped a montage of photos showing the floor plan. "What we have is not a city or a fortress. No structures that extend beyond the rooms of your original discovery are apparent. Call it a mansion for its time or a small palace that became the tomb of an elite woman. Perhaps a queen or a high priestess who was rich enough to commission her own jewelry."
"Pity there is nothing left of her," said Summer. "Not even an indication of her skull. Even her teeth are gone."
Parks gave a slight twist of his mouth. "Her bones disappeared centuries ago, along with all her garments, soon after the structure was inundated by the sea." He moved to a large photograph taken before the artifacts were removed from the stone bed and tapped the pencil again on a close-up picture of the bronze body armor. "She must have been a warrior who led men into battle. The cuirass in the photo looks made of one piece and had to be put on over the head like a metal sweater."
Summer tried to imagine how the cuirass would fit on her. She had read that the Celts were large people for their time, but the armor looked far too small for her torso. "How in the world did she come to be here?"
"I haven't a clue," said Parks. "As a traditional archaeologist who isn't supposed to believe in diffusion, the contact between the Americas and other parts of the world before Columbus, I'm required to say that this is an elaborate hoax perpetrated by the Spanish sometime after fifteen hundred."
Summer frowned. "You can't really believe that?"
Parks gave a tiny smile. "Not really. Not after what we've seen here. But until we can prove without d
oubt how these artifacts came to be on Navidad Bank, the controversy will shake the world of ancient history."
Summer made her case. "But it was possible for ancient seafarers to cross the sea."
"No one says it was impossible. People have crossed the Atlantic and Pacific in everything from boats made out of cowhides to six-foot sailboats. It's entirely conceivable that fishermen from Japan or Ireland were blown by storms to the Americas. Archaeologists admit there are many curious bits and pieces of evidence that suggest European and Asian influence throughout Central and South American art and architecture. But no legitimate object from this side of the pond has been found over there."