Atlantis Found (34 page)

“Max, you’re a virtuoso.”

“It’s nothing really. After all, it was you who built me.”

“You’ve given me so much to contemplate, I can’t digest it all.”

“Go home, Hiram. Take your wife and daughters to a movie. Get a good night’s sleep while I sizzle my chips. Then, when you sit down in the morning, I’ll really have information that will curl your ponytail.”

25

AFTER PAT HAD PHOTO-RECORDED the inscriptions and the strange global maps inside the burial chamber, she and Giordino were airlifted to Cape Town, where they met with Rudi Gunn in the hospital soon after his operation. Causing a scene bordering on an uproar, Gunn ignored the orders of the hospital staff and enlisted Giordino to smuggle him on an airplane out of South Africa. Giordino gladly complied, and with Pat’s able assistance sneaked the tough little NUMA director past the doctors and nurses through the utility basement of the hospital and into a limousine, before speeding to the city airport, where a NUMA executive jet was waiting to fly them all back to Washington.

Pitt remained behind with Dr. Hatfield and the Navy SEAL team. Together, they carefully packed the artifacts and directed their airlift by helicopter to a NUMA deep-ocean research ship that had been detoured to St. Paul Island. Hatfield hovered over the mummies, delicately wrapping them in blankets from the ship and carefully arranging them in wooden crates for the journey to his lab at Stanford University for in-depth study.

After the last mummy had been loaded onto the NUMA helicopter, Hatfield accompanied them and the artifacts on the short flight to the ship. Pitt turned and shook hands with Lieutenant Jacobs. “Thank you for your help, Lieutenant, and please thank your men for me. We’d have never done it without you.”

“We don’t often get an assignment chaperoning old mummies,” Jacobs said, smiling. “I’m almost sorry the terrorists didn’t try and snatch them from us.”

“I don’t think they were terrorists, in the strict sense of the word.”

“A murderer is a murderer by any other name.”

“Are you headed back to the States?”

Jacobs nodded. “We’ve been ordered to escort the bodies of the attackers, so ably dispatched by your friends, to Walter Reed Hospital in D.C. for examination and possible identification.”

“Good luck to you,” said Pitt.

Jacobs threw a brief salute. “Maybe we’ll meet again somewhere.”

“If there is a next time, I hope it’s on a beach in Tahiti.”

Pitt stood in the never-ending drizzle and watched as a Marine Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft hung in the air above the ground, and the Marines climbed on board. He was still standing there when the plane disappeared into a low cloud. He was now the only man on the island.

He walked back into the now-empty burial chamber and took one final look at the global charts etched into the far wall. The floods had been removed, and he beamed a flashlight on the ancient nautical charts.

Who were the ancient cartographers who’d drawn such incredibly accurate maps of the earth so many millennia ago? How could they have charted Antarctica when it was not buried under a massive blanket of ice? Could the southern polar continent have possessed a warmer climate several thousand years ago? Could it have been habitable for humans?

The picture of an ice-free Antarctica wasn’t the only incongruity. Pitt had not mentioned it to the others, but he was disturbed by the position of the other continents and Australia. They were not where they were supposed to be. It appeared to him that the Americas, Europe, and Asia were shown almost two thousand miles farther north than they should be. Why had the ancients, who otherwise calculated the shorelines with such exactness, have placed the continents so far off their established locations in relation to the circumference of the earth? The observation puzzled him.

The seafarers clearly had a scientific ability that went far beyond the cultural races and civilizations that followed them. Their era also appeared more advanced in the art of writing and communication than others that came thousands of years later. What message were they trying to pass on across the constantly moving sea of time that was imperishably engraved in stone? A message of hope, or a warning of natural disasters to come?

The thoughts running through Pitt’s mind were interrupted as the sounds of rotor blades and engine exhaust echoed through the tunnel, announcing the return of the helicopter that was to carry him to the research ship. With a sense of reluctance, he turned off his mind at the same instant he switched off the flashlight and walked from the dark chamber.

 
WITHOUT wasting time waiting for government transportation, Pitt flew from Cape Town to Johannesburg, where he caught a South African Airlines flight to Washington. He slept most of the way, taking a short walk to stretch his legs when the plane landed in the Canary Islands to refuel. When he stepped out of the Dulles Airport terminal, it was nearly midnight. He was pleasantly surprised to find a dazzling 1936 Ford cabriolet hot rod with the top down, waiting at the curb. The car looked like something out of California in the 1950s. The body and fenders were painted in metallic plum maroon that sparkled under the lights of the terminal. The bumpers were the ribbed type from a 1936 De Soto. Ripple moon disks covered the wheel in front, while those in the rear were hidden by teardrop skirts. The seats in front and in the rumble seat were a biscuit-tan leather. The elegant little car was powered by a V-8 flathead engine that had been rebuilt from top to bottom to produce 225 horsepower. The rear end was fitted with a fifty-year-old Columbia overdrive gear system.

If the car wasn’t enough to turn heads, the woman sitting behind the wheel was equally beautiful. The long cinnamon hair was protected from the light breeze outside the airport by a colorful scarf. She had the prominent cheekbones of a fashion model, enhanced by full lips and a short, straight nose and charismatic violet eyes. She was wearing an alpaca chunky autumn leaf brown turtleneck with taupe wool tweed pants under a taupe shearling coat that came down to her knees.

Congresswoman Loren Smith of Colorado flashed an engaging smile. “How many times have I met you like this and said, ‘Welcome home, sailor’?”

“At least eight that I can think of,” said Pitt, happy that his romantic love of many years had taken the time out of her busy schedule to pick him up at the airport in one of the cars from his collection.

He threw his duffel bag into the rumble seat, then slid into the passenger’s seat and leaned over and kissed her, holding her in his arms for a long while. When he finally pulled back and released her, she gasped, catching her breath, “Careful, I don’t want to end up like Clinton.”

“The public applauds affairs by female politicians.”

“That’s what you think,” Loren said, pressing the ignition lever on the steering column and pushing the starter button. It fired on the first rotation and emitted a mellow, throaty roar through the Smitty mufflers and dual exhaust pipes. “Where to, your hangar?”

“No, I’d like to drop by NUMA headquarters for a moment and check my computer for the latest word from Hiram Yaeger on a program we’re working on.”

“You must be the only single man in the country who doesn’t have a computer in his apartment.”

“I don’t want one around the house,” he said seriously. “I have too many other projects going without wasting time surfing the Internet and answering E-mail.”

Loren pulled away from the curb and steered the Ford onto the broad highway leading into the city. Pitt sat silent and was still lost in thought when the Washington monument came into view, illuminated by the lights at its base. Loren knew him well enough to flow with the current. It was only a question of a few minutes before he came back down to earth.

“What’s new in Congress?” he asked finally.

“As if you cared,” she replied indifferently.

“Boring as that?”

“Budget debates don’t exactly make a girl horny.” Then her voice took on a softer tone. “I heard that Rudi Gunn was shot up pretty badly.”

“The surgeon in South Africa, who specializes in bone reconstruction, did an excellent job. Rudi will be limping for a few months, but that won’t stop him from directing NUMA operations from behind his desk.”

“Al said you had a rough time in the Antarctic.”

“Not as rough as they had it on a rock that makes Alcatraz Island look like a botanical garden.”

He turned to her with a reflective look in his eyes and said, “You’re on the International Trade Relations Committee?”

“I am.”

“Are you familiar with any large corporations in Argentina?”

“I’ve traveled there on a few occasions and met with their finance and trade ministers,” she answered. “Why do you ask?”

“Ever hear of an outfit calling itself the New Destiny Company or Fourth Empire Corporation?”

Loren thought a moment. “I once met the CEO of Destiny Enterprises during a trade mission in Buenos Aires. If I remember correctly, his name was Karl Wolf.”

“How long ago was that?” Pitt asked.

“About four years.”

“You’ve got a good memory for names.”

“Karl Wolf was a handsome and stylish man, a real charmer. Women don’t forget men like that.”

“If that’s the case, why do you still hang around me?”

She glanced over and gave him a provocative smile. “Women are also drawn to earthy, coarse, and carnal men.”

“Coarse and carnal, that’s me.” Pitt put his arm around her and bit her earlobe.

She tilted her head away. “Not when I’m driving.”

He gave her right knee an affectionate squeeze and relaxed in the seat, looking up at the stars that twinkled in the brisk spring night through the branches of the trees that flashed overhead, their new leaves just beginning to spread. Karl Wolf. He turned the name over in his head. A good German name, he decided. Destiny Enterprises was worth looking into, even if it might prove to be a dead end.

Loren drove smoothly, deftly passing the few cars that were still on the road that time of morning, and turned into the driveway leading to the NUMA headquarters building’s underground parking. A security guard stepped out of the guardhouse, recognized Pitt, and waved him through, lingering to admire the gleaming old Ford. There were only three other cars on the main parking level. She stopped the Ford next to the elevators and turned off the lights and engine.

“Want me to come up with you?” Loren asked.

“I’ll only be a few minutes,” Pitt said, stepping from the car.

He took the elevator to the main lobby, where it automatically stopped and he had to sign in with the guard at the security desk, surrounded by an array of TV monitors viewing different areas of the building.

“Working late?” the guard asked pleasantly.

“Just a quick stop,” Pitt remarked, fighting off a yawn.

Before taking the elevator up to his office, Pitt stepped off on the tenth floor on a hunch. True to his intuition, Hiram Yaeger was still burning the midnight oil. He looked up as Pitt entered his private domain, eyes red from lack of sleep. Max was staring out of her cyberland.

“Dirk,” he muttered, rising from his chair and shaking hands. “I didn’t expect you to come wandering in this time of night.”

“Thought I’d see what you and Dr. O’Connell had raked from the dirt of antiquity,” he said genially.

“I hate banal metaphors,” said Max.

“That’s enough from you,” Yaeger said in mock irritation. Then he said to Pitt, “I left a printed report of our latest findings on Admiral Sandecker’s desk as of ten o’clock this evening.”

“I’ll borrow it and return it first thing in the morning.”

“Don’t rush. He’s meeting with the director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency until noon.”

“You should be home with your wife and daughters,” said Pitt.

“I was working late with Dr. O’Connell,” said Yaeger, rubbing his tired eyes. “You just missed her.”

“She came in and went to work without resting up after her trip?” Pitt asked in surprise.

“A truly remarkable woman. If I weren’t married, I’d throw my hat in her ring.”

“You always had a thing for academic women.”

“Brains over beauty, I always say.”

“Anything you can tell me before I wade through your report?” Pitt queried.

“An amazing story,” said Yaeger, almost wistfully.

“I’ll second that,” Max added.

“This is a private conversation,” Yaeger said testily to Max’s image before he closed her down. He stood up and stretched. “What we have is an incredible story of a seafaring race of people who lived before the dawn of recorded history, and who were decimated after a comet struck the earth, causing great waves that engulfed the city ports that they had built in almost every corner of the globe. They lived and died in a forgotten age and a far different world than we know today.”

“When I last talked to the admiral, he didn’t rule out the legend of Atlantis.”

“The lost continent in the middle of the Atlantic doesn’t fit into the picture,” Yaeger said seriously. “But there is no doubt that a league of maritime nations existed whose people had extensively sailed every sea and charted every continent.” He paused and looked at Pitt. “The photos Pat took of the inscriptions inside the burial chamber and the map of the world are in the lab. They should be ready for me to scan into the computer first thing in the morning.”

“They show placements of the continents far different than an Earth of the present,” Pitt said contemplatively.

Yaeger’s bloodshot eyes stared thoughtfully. “I’m beginning to sense that something more catastrophic than a comet strike took place. I’ve scanned the geological data my people have accumulated over the past ten years. The Ice Age ended quite abruptly in conjunction with a wild fluctuation of the sea. The sea level is over three hundred feet higher than it was nine thousand years ago.”