Treasure

Pitt tore the bandages from around his head and face and threw them into the jet's exhaust, where they were caught and sent swirling through the air like airborne snakes.

Only when the plane was airborne did he make his reply. "I'm not going to no damned hospital."

"Over doing it a bit, don't you ?" think?" the Senator said with paternal concern, full knowing it was a waste of breath to preach to his independent-minded son.

"How are you getting to the White House?" asked Pitt. The Senator nodded toward a waiting helicopter about a hundred meters away. "the President arranged my transportation."

"Mind dropping me at NUMA?"

His father looked at him slyly. "You're speaking figuratively, of course."

Pitt gri

The Senator slapped his arm around Pitts waist. "Come on, you crazy nut, let me help you over to the helicopter."

The tension built like a twisting knot in his stomach as Pitt stood in the elevator, watching the numbers rise toward NUMAs computer complex.

Lily was standing in the foyer as the doors parted and he stepped out.

She wore a big smile that froze when she saw the , bedraggled look, the long scab on his cheek, the hump of the bandage beneath a knit fisherman's turtleneck sweater borrowed from his father, the dragging leg and cane. Then she bravely broke out the smile again.

"Welcome home, sailor."

She stepped forward and threw her arms around his neck. He winced and groaned under his breath. She jumped back.

"Oh, I'm sorry."

Pin clutched her. "Don't be." Then he mashed his lips against hers. His beard scraped against her skin and he smelled of gin-and delightfully masculine.

"There's something to be said for men who only come home once a week,"

she said finally.

"And for women who wait," he said, stepping back. He glanced around.

"What have you and Hiram found out since I left?"

"I'll let Hiram tell you," she answered airily, taking him by the hand and leading him across the computer installation.

Yaeger charged out of his office. Without a word of greeting or sympathy for Pitts wounds, he came straight to the heart of the breakthrough.

"We've found it!" he a

"The river?" Pitt asked anxiously.

"Not only the river, but I think I can put you within two square miles of the artifacts' cavern."

+"Where?"

"Texas. A little border town called Roma."

Yaeger had the smug, complacent look of a Tyra

"Then the river is?"

"The Rio Bravo, as it's called in Spanish." Yaeger nodded. "Better known on this side as the Rio Grande."

"The Rio Grande." Pitt repeated the words slowly, savoring each syllable to the full, finding it difficult to accept the truth after dozens of missed hunches, wild guesses and dead-end speculations.

"It's really a great shame," Yaeger suddenly said morosely.

Pitt glanced at him in faint surprise. "Why do you say that?"

Yaeger shook his head heavily. "Because there'll be no living with the Texans as soon as they learn what they've been sitting on for the last sixteen centuries."

At noon the next day, after landing at the Corpus Christi Naval Air Station, Pitt and Lily, along with Admiral Sandecker, were driven by a Seaman First Class to NUMA!s ocean research center on the bay. Sandecker directed the driver to stop beside a helicopter squatting on a concrete pad beside a long dock. There were no clouds, the sun was alone in the sky. The temperature was mild but the humidity high, and they quickly began to sweat after exiting the car.

NUMAs chief geologist, Herb Garza, gave a friendly wave and approached.

He was short, plump, brown-ski

"Garza," said Sandecker curtly. "Good to see you again."

"I've looked forward to your arrival," Garza said warmly. "We can take off as soon as you board." He turned and introduced the pilot, Joe Mifflin, who wore "Smiling Jack" sunglasses and struck Pitt as being about as animated as a door knob.

Pitt and Garza had worked together on a project along the western desert stretch of coast in South Africa. "How long has it been, Herb?" said Pitt. "Three, four years?"

"Who counts?" Garza said with a broad smile as they shook hands. "Good to be on the same team with you again."

"May I introduce Dr. Lily Sharp."

Garza graciously bowed. "One of the ocean sciences?" he asked.

Lily shook her head. "Land archaeology."

Garza turned and stared at Sandecker with a curious expression. "This isn't a sea project, Admiral?"

"No, I'm sorry you weren't fully informed, Herb. But I'm afraid we'll have to keep the real purpose of our work a secret for a little longer."

Garza shrugged indifferently. "You're the boss."

"All I need is a direction," said Mifflin.

"South," Pitt told him. "South to the Rio Grande."

They dropped down the coast along the Intercoastal Waterway, passing over the hotels and condominiums of South Padre Island. Then Mifflin ducked the green helicopter with the NUMA letters on the side under a layer of popcorn puffed clouds and swung west below Port Isabel where the waters of the Rio Grande spilled into the Gulf of Mexico.

The land below was a strange blend of marsh and desert, flat as a parking lot, with cactus growing amid tall grass. Soon the city of Brownsville appeared through the windshield. The river narrowed as it flowed under the bridge co

"Can you tell me what we're supposed to survey?" asked Garza.

"You grew up in the Rio Grande Valley, didn't you," Sandecker queried without answering.

"Born and raised up river at Laredo. Took my undergraduate courses at Texas Southernmost College in Brownsville. We just passed over it."

"Then you're familiar with the geology around Roma?"

"I've conducted a number of field trips in the area, yes."

It was Pitts Turn. "Compared to now, how did the river flow a few centuries after Christ?"

"The stream wasn't much different then," answered Garza.

"Oh, sure, the course has shifted during earlier flooding, but seldom more than a couple of miles. Quite often over the centuries it returned to its previous course. The major change is that the Rio Grande would have been considerably higher then. Until the war with Mexico the width ran from two hundred to four hundred meters. The main cha

"When was it first seen by a European?"

"Alonzo de Pineda sailed into the river's mouth in 1519."

"How did it stack up to the Mississippi back then?"