"Our father found proof of the Vikings' presence in the United States," argued Summer.
"And he and Al Giordino discovered artifacts from the Alexandria Library in Texas," added Dirk.
Parks shrugged. "The fact still remains that artifacts proven to have come from the Americas have yet to turn up from excavations in Europe or Africa."
"Ah," said Summer, shooting her arrow, "what about the traces of nicotine and cocaine that have been found in Egyptian mummies? Tobacco and cocoa leaves came only from the Americas."
"I thought you'd bring that up," Parks said, with a sigh. "Egyptologists are still fighting over that one."
Summer frowned thoughtfully. "Could the answers still be down in the rooms?"
"Maybe," Parks admitted. "Our marine biologists are running tests on the encrustation found on the walls, while our phytochemist examines studies about the remains of plant life in an effort to determine a time line for how long the building was covered by the sea."
Summer looked lost in thought. "Could there be any inscriptions under the encrustation, something the archaeologists might have missed?"
Parks laughed. "The early Celts left behind no art or written records depicting their culture. Finding carved inscriptions would be implausible, unless, of course, we're wrong in our dating of Navinia."
"Navinia?"
Parks stared at a computer printout of the architecture of the sunken structure as it might have looked when built. "It's as good a name as any, don't you think?"
"As good as any," Dirk echoed. He looked at Summer. "Why don't you and I dive first thing tomorrow morning and search the walls for inscriptions? Besides, I think it only fitting that we pay our respects to our high priestess for the last time."
"Don't linger too long," said Parks. "The captain has given notice that the anchors come up at noon. He wants to transport the artifacts to Fort Lauderdale as soon as possible."
As they exited the laboratory, Summer looked at Dirk with a curious gleam in her eye. "Since when are you overcome with nostalgia?"
"There is a practical method to my madness."
"Oh, and what is that?" she asked dryly.
He stared back at her with a crooked little grin. "I have an idea something important was missed."
Now that they knew where to continue the search, they swam straight to the anteroom. The ancient compartments were empty now. Only yesterday it had looked like an airport waiting room. The ship's scientists were probing every nook and cranny. Now, with all the artifacts removed and under preservation aboard Sea Yesteryear, and their investigation all but finished, they were back on board, compiling and evaluating their findings. Dirk and Summer had the submerged rooms all to themselves. Now that there were no archaeologists looking over their shoulders, they saw little reason to treat the walls with gloves of velvet.
As planned, they began their search in the entry chamber, Summer examining one wall while Dirk took the other, scraping away any sea growth or encrustation with putty knives until they reached bare stone, knowing they were committing sacrilege in the eyes of a conscientious archaeologist. They worked the walls, scraping in long horizontal bands, concentrating from four to five feet from the floor. Because the average height of people three thousand years ago was several inches shorter than in the present, their eye level would have been lower. Using this historical fact, Dirk and Summer decided to compress their search area.
It was slow going. After an hour of fruitless inspection, they returned to Sea Yesteryear to replace their nearly empty air tanks. Although all NUMA dive support vessels carried hyperbaric chambers, Dirk meticulously checked the repetitive dive tables with his computer to avoid decompression sickness.
Twenty minutes into their second dive, after they moved from the antechamber deeper into a long hallway, Summer suddenly tapped the handle of her putty knife on the wall to attract Dirk's attention. He immediately swam to her side and stared at the section on the wall she had scraped and was excitedly pointing at.
She had scraped the letters pictographs in the growth.
Dirk nodded and gave a thumbs-up in elation. Together, they began feverishly cleaning the encrusted stones with their gloved hands and fingers, working cautiously so they did not damage the precious relic that slowly materialized in the gloom. Finally, the carved images in the stone were exposed. Brother and sister felt a sense of triumph in knowing they had outfoxed the professionals and were looking at something no other human had laid eyes on in three thousand years.
The pictographs offered a much-sought-after clue to the mystery of the sunken house. Dirk turned his dive light on the stone depictions to highlight their details. Further investigation revealed that the images traveled down both sides of the hallway in two bands two feet wide and about five feet off the floor. The pattern was similar in design to the Bayeux Tapestry that illustrated the Battle of Hastings in 1066.
Dirk and Summer hung in the water and stared in almost religious awe at the sculpted carvings that depicted men sailing in ships. They were strange-looking men, with large round eyes and thick beards. Their weapons consisted of long daggers, short swords with an angle and battle-axes with curved edges. Several of the soldiers rode in chariots alone, but most fought on foot.
Battle scenes with much carnage were rendered. The scenes seemed to portray several battles in a protracted war. There were also images of women with bared breasts throwing spears into their enemy.
Summer lightly ran one gloved hand over the female figures. She turned to Dirk and smiled a superior feminine smile.
The ornamental scenes began with ships leaving a burning city. Farther along, the ships were tossed about by storms, followed by land battles with odd-looking creatures. Near the bottom, there was only one ship left of the fleet, the rest having been destroyed. Then it too was depicted sinking in a storm. Near the end, an image showed a man and woman embracing before he sailed away on what looked like a raft with a sail.
They had found a classic chronicle carved in stone by an ancient artisan that had stood unseen by human eyes under the sea for thousands of years. Dirk and Summer gazed at each other through their face masks in exhilaration, never imagining that they would find anything so incredible and so extraordinary.
Dirk motioned toward the doorway leading out into the reef. The dive light blinked out, and they turned and swam toward the surface, leaving the precious treasure exposed for those who would soon follow and photograph and reveal the pictographs in their full glory.
25
Poco Bonito passed through the mouth of the Rio Colorado in the early afternoon in water that changed from the traces of the brown crud to the algae green of the river. Burly white clouds splashed the blue sky, some dropping light showers as they blocked out the sun. The NUMA crew stood on the deck and waved to the fleet of small fishing boats that darted past, outboard motors buzzing like a swarm of hornets, fishermen proudly displaying their catch of tarpon, snook and barracuda. One boat celebrated with raised bottles of beer as they passed the crippled research boat. Two of the anglers held up a tarpon that looked as if it weighed more than a hundred pounds.
Gunn ran Bonito in slowly, keeping to one side of the river out of the way of the little fiberglass fishing boats, skirting the buoys and angling around a slight bend. He made a half turn on the wheel, setting the bow on a heading past the Rio Colorado Lodge and beyond, to a dock that led to a covered walkway bordered by flowers that trailed up to a large house set under a grove of palm trees.
"It looks heavenly," said Renee, admiring the lush beauty of the tropical forest surrounding the house that was built from lava rock with a large thatched palm frond roof.
"A fisherman's paradise," Gunn said from the pilothouse. "Built by an old friend from my academy days, Jack McGee. If you enjoy seafood, you'll get your fill of exotically prepared fish here. He's accumulated thousands of recipes from around the world and has written several books on the subject."
Pitt jumped to the dock and took
the lines thrown by Giordino and tied them to the cleats. By law, they stayed close to the boat until their papers were checked by the local border guards, who were surprised at the damage suffered by Poco Bonito. Renee used her Spanish to spin a wild story of how they escaped a fleet of drug-smuggling pirates, as cutthroat as any of their ancestors who pillaged the Spanish Main.
Since the incident happened in Nicaraguan waters, the guards didn't request a report. Rita Anderson, on the other hand, would have created a sticky problem. She had no papers, and since Pitt and Gunn had no wish to explain her presence on board their boat, Renee bound and gagged her before she and Giordino crammed Rita into a storage closet in the engine room. The guards made a cursory inspection of the boat, and had no desire to stain their starched and neatly pressed uniforms in the engine room after seeing Giordino looking like James Dean after the oil well came in in Giant.
After the guards had walked up the dock out of earshot, Dodge turned to Pitt. "Why are we treating Mrs. Anderson like a criminal and keeping her as a prisoner? Her husband was murdered and her yacht seized by pirates."
"She's not what you think," said Renee curdy.
Pitt kept his eyes trained on the guards as they climbed into a Land Rover and drove from the dock over a dirt road muddied from rain. "Renee is right. Mrs. Anderson is no pawn. She's mixed up to her ears in shady business. Admiral Sandecker has contacted Costa Rican law authorities, who agreed to take her into custody and launch an investigation. They should be along any time."
Renee stepped down the ladder to the cabin. "I'd better get our princess ready for her incarceration."
She had no sooner dropped out of sight than a man strode briskly down the walkway and onto the dock. Jack McGee was a ruddy-faced man in his late forties. His hair was blond without a trace of gray, as was his Wyatt Earp mustache. The adobe brown eyes set far apart gave him the look of an animal on constant lookout for a predator. He wore navy blue shorts with a flowered shirt and a tired old Navy officer's cap that looked like it had seen action in World War II.
Gunn stepped forward and they shook hands before embracing. "Jack, you age ten years every time we meet."
"That's because we only meet every ten years." McGee greeted Gunn in a voice that sounded like he sang bass in a choir.
Gunn made the introductions. Giordino merely waved from the engine room hatch. "We have one more of our crew for you to meet, Renee Ford. She's handling a little matter below."
McGee smiled knowingly. "Your unexpected guest?"
Gunn nodded. "Rita Anderson, the lady I mentioned over the satellite phone when I announced our dropping in."
"Police Inspector Gabriel Ortega is an old friend," said McGee. "He'll require you to come down to the station and fill out a report, but I think you'll find him most courteous and considerate."
"Are you plagued by piracy in these waters?" asked Pitt.
McGee laughed and shook his head vigorously. "Not in Costa Rica. But they sprout like weeds to the north in Nicaragua."
"Why there and not here?"
"Costa Rica is the success story of Central America. The standard of living is higher than in most other Latin nations. Although largely agricultural, tourism is booming and, surprisingly, they're a big exporter of electronics and microprocessors. In contrast, Nicaragua has gone through thirty years of revolution that's left the infrastructure in ruins. After the government finally stabilized, most of the rebels, who possessed no job skills other than fighting guerrilla warfare, refused to take up farming or menial labor jobs. They found drug smuggling more profitable. This led to piracy, since they had to build a fleet of cocaine runners."
"Have you heard any rumors about the brown crud?" McGee gave a little shake of his head. "Only that it exists north and east out in the Caribbean. Between the bandits, the missing ships and the contamination, the fishing industry off Nicaragua has died an unnatural death." McGee turned and doffed his hat as a uniformed police official came down from the house and stepped onto the dock. "Ah, Gabriel, there you are."
"Jack, old friend," said Ortega. "What mischief have you gotten yourself into now?"
"Not me," McGee laughed. "My friends from the States here." Though decidedly Latin, Ortega looked like Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot--the same black, slicked-back straight hair and thin, immaculately trimmed black mustache, the soft dark eyes that missed nothing. He spoke in English, with just a bare trace of Spanish. He revealed perfectly capped teeth when he smiled during the introductions.
"Your Admiral Sandecker alerted me of your situation," he said. "I hope you will accommodate me with a detailed report of your adventures with the pirates."
Pitt nodded. "Count on it, Inspector."
"Where is this woman you saved from the pirate ship?"
"Down below." A concerned frown crossed Pitt's forehead. He turned to Giordino. "Al, why don't you drop below and see what's keeping Renee and our guest?"
Giordino wiped his hands on an oily rag without comment and disappeared below. He was back in less than a minute, his face a mask of wrath, his dark eyes bleak. "Rita is gone and Renee is dead," he said, his face a mask of anger. "Murdered."
26
During those initial moments of shock, everyone stood there stunned with disbelief. They stared at Giordino stupidly, not understanding what he'd said. It took another five seconds for the implication to sink in.
Then Dodge blurted, "What are you saying?"
"Renee is dead," Giordino repeated simply. "Rita murdered her."
Pure rage flooded Pitt. "Where is she?" he demanded.
"Rita?" Giordino's face had the look of someone who had woken up from a nightmare. "She's gone."
"Impossible. How could she leave the boat without being seen?"
"She's not to be found," Giordino said.
"May I see the body?" Ortega asked, with official dispassion.
Pitt was already dropping down the ladder, almost falling on Giordino, who leaped off to one side. "This way, Inspector. The women were in my cabin below."
Inwardly, Pitt felt a flood of guilt at not recognizing Rita as a woman who was capable of murder. He cursed himself for not accompanying Renee, for sending her alone to release her killer.
He muttered, "Oh God, no!" under his breath at the sight of Renee, stripped nude, lying on the bed with her legs together, arms outstretched in the position of a cross. The image of the Odyssey logo, the Celtic White Horse of Uffington, had been carved into her stomach.
Rita had acted compliant and docile when Renee removed the duct tape from around her arms. But when Renee, innocently unaware that her life was in jeopardy with five men less than ten feet away, knelt to remove the duct tape from Rita's legs and ankles, the witch clenched her hands and brought them down in a vicious chop to the nape of the neck. Renee dropped without uttering a sound.
Rita quickly removed Renee's clothes, laid her out on the bed and pressed a pillow over her face. There was no struggle. Already unconscious, Renee was never aware of being smothered to death. Then Rita took a pair of hair scissors from Pitt's shaving kit in the bathroom and carved the image of the Celtic horse on Renee's stomach. From start to finish, the hideous act took less than four minutes.
Moving quickly toward the forward section of the boat, Rita came up through the bow hatch, shielded by the pilothouse. Out of sight of the men conversing on the stern deck, she climbed over the side and slipped into the water without making a splash. Then she swam underwater to the opposite side of the dock, reached the shore and crawled through the thick vegetation that covered the bank. In the exact moment Giordino discovered Renee's body, Rita disappeared into the jungle.
"The woman cannot get far," said Ortega. "There are no roads leading in and out of Rio Colorado. She cannot flee into the jungle and live. My men will apprehend her before she can obtain air transportation or a boat."
"All she has is the bikini she's wearing," Pitt informed him.
"She took no clothes?"
"Renee's clos
et is still closed and her clothes are scattered on the deck," said Gunn, pointing to where Rita had thrown them.
"Does she have money?" Ortega asked.
Pitt shook his head. "Not unless Renee had some on her person, which I doubt."
"Without money or a passport, she has no place to run except the jungle."
"Hardly a place a woman could survive in only a bikini," said McGee, who stood in the doorway.
"Please secure the cabin," instructed Ortega. "And do not touch anything."
"Can't we at least dress her?" Pitt requested.
"Not until my forensic staff arrives and conducts a formal examination."