Atlantis Found

Gu

"Two guys with automatic rifles in camouflage gear scared the hell out of me until I proved I was a friend of yours from NUMA."

"Admiral Sandecker's idea."

"I knew he hired a security agency, but I had no idea they had magical powers and could appear out of nowhere. All that was missing was a puff of smoke."

"They're very efficient," said Pitt.

"I was briefed on your situation in Telluride," said Gu

Pitt brought him a glass of iced tea from the kitchen. Gu

"I took the liberty of looking under a few rocks." Gu

"What interest could the CIA possibly have in a domestic crime?"

"They suspect the killers you ran up against in the Pandora Mine might be part of an international crime syndicate."

"Terrorists?" asked Pitt.

Gu

"What crimes are they involved in, besides murder?"

"That seems to be a mystery, too."

Pitt's eyes narrowed. "Who ever heard of a crime syndicate with no motives?"

Gu

"They've got two of the scum in Telluride to interrogate."

Gu

"Heard what?"

"A Sheriff Eagan from Telluride, Colorado, called Admiral Sandecker only an hour ago. The prisoners were found dead."

"Damn!" Pitt snapped irritably. "I expressly told the sheriff to search them for cyanide pills."

"Nothing so mundane as poison. According to Eagan, a bomb was smuggled into their jail cell. They were blown to pieces, along with a deputy who was on guard nearby."

"Life is cheap to these people," Pitt said acidly.

"So I gathered."

"What's the next step?"

"The admiral is sending you on a deep-sea geological project in the middle of the Pacific, where you'll be reasonably safe from any more assassination attempts."

Pitt gri

"He knew you'd say that." Gu

"Are James Bond and Jack Ryan coming, too?"

Gu

"What?"

"You referred to the assassins as being from the Fourth Empire."

"Their words, not mine."

"The Nazis called their hideous dreamworld the Third Reich."

"Most all the old Nazis are dead, thankfully," said Pitt. "The Third Reich died with them."

"Did you ever take a course in German?" inquired Gu

Pitt shook his head. "The only words I know are ja, nein, and auf Wiedersehen."

"Then you don't know that the English for `Third Reich' is `Third Empire.' "

Pitt went taut. "You're not suggesting they're a bunch of neo-Nazis?"

Gu

Then came the rattle of prolonged gunfire, followed quickly by another, more muted explosion. Both men stood frozen, gripping the balcony railing.

Pitt found words first. "The bastards!" he hissed.

"What in God's name was that?" asked Gu

"Damn them. They fired a missile into my hangar. The only thing that saved us from being blasted to shreds was that it didn't explode. The warhead smashed through one thin corrugated wall and out the other without the detonator in its nose striking a heavy structural beam."

The door burst open and the two security guards came ru

"I believe the word is shaken," said Pitt. "Where did it come from?"

"A handheld launcher fired from a helicopter," answered the guard. "Sorry we let it get so close. We were co

"Nice work," said Pitt sincerely.

"Your friends certainly don't spare any expense, do they?"

"They obviously have money to burn."

The guard turned to his partner. "We're going to have to increase our perimeter." Then he looked around the hangar. "Any damage?" he asked Pitt.

"Only a couple of holes in the walls big enough to fly kites through."

"We'll see that they're repaired immediately. Anything else?"

"Yes," Pitt said, becoming even more angered as he stared at the coating of dust on his expensive cars. "Please call in a cleaning crew."

"Maybe you should reconsider that project in the Pacific," said Gu

Pitt seemed not to have heard him. "Fourth Reich, Fourth Empire, whoever they are, they've made a very serious mistake."

"Oh?" said Gu

Pitt was staring up at the gaping, jagged holes in his hangar's walls. There was a cold malignity glaring out of his opaline green eyes, a malignity Gu

"So far, the bad guys have had all the fun," said Pitt, his mouth twisted in a crooked grin. "Now it's my turn."

13

Pitt watched his security-camera tapes before going t0 bed and saw that the guards had done their homework. Using maps of the airport's underground drainage system, they'd found a large concrete pipe eight feet in diameter that carried away the rain and melted snow runoff from the airport's runways, taxiways, and terminal areas. The drainage pipe ran within ninety feet of Pitt's hangar. At a maintenance access, unseen in the high weeds, the guards had set up a well camouflaged observation post.