Treasure

"While I am comfortable with much time on my hands I will write a few words each day. This entry I shall recall the amount and type of cargo that Venator's slaves unloaded from the hold of the Serapis as I watched unseen from the galley and made an accounting. At the sight of the great object, everyone sank to their knees in proper reverence."

"What does he mean?" asked Lily.

Patience," said Redfem. "Listen.

"Three hundred twenty copper tubes marked' Geologic Charts. Sixty-three large tapestries. These were packed around the grand gold-and-glass casket of Alexander. My knees trembled. I could see his face through

"Rufinus wrote no more," Redfem said sadly. "He didn't finish the sentence. The last tablet is a drawing showing the general configuration of the shoreline and the course of the river."

"The lost coffin of Alexander the Great," Lily said, slightly above a whisper. "Can he still lie buried in a cavern somewhere?"

"Along with treasures from the Alexandria Library?" Redfem added to Lily's question. "We can do little else but hope."

Pitts reaction was quite different; it was one of profound confidence.

"Hope is for spectators-I figure I can find your antiques in thirty . .

. make that twenty days."

Lily's and Redfem's eyes opened wide. They regarded Pitt with the suspicion usually awarded a politician promising to lower taxes. They flatly didn't believe him.

They should have.

"You sound pretty cocky," said Lily.

Pitts green eyes glowed with a look of utter sincerity. "Let's have a look at the map." Redfem handed him a rendering Lily had made from the tablet and then enlarged. There was little to examine except a series of wavy lines.

"Won't tell us much," he said. "Rufinus didn't label anything."

"It's enough," said Pitt, his tone dry and unperturbed. "Enough to lead us to the front door."

It was four in the morning when Pitt awoke. He automatically rolled over to return to sleep but realized through the cobwebs that someone had turned on the light and was talking to him.

"Sorry, pal, but you've got to rise and shine."

Pitt groggily squinted into the serious face of Commander Knight. "What gives?"

"Orders from the top. You're to shove off for Washington immediately."

"They say why?"

"They is the Pentagon, and, no, they didn't grace me with an explanation."

Pitt sat up and swung his bare feet onto the deck. "I was hoping to hang around a bit longer and watch the excavation."

"No such luck," said Knight. "You, Giordino and Dr. Sharp have to be on your way within the hour."

"Lily?" Pitt stood and made his way to the head. "I can understand the big brass wanting to question Al and me about the Soviet sub, but why are they interested in Lily?"

"The Joint Chiefs don't confide in the serfs." Knight smiled wryly. "I haven't a clue."

"What about transportation?"

"Same way Redfem came in. Helicopter to the Eskimo village and weather station, a Navy plane to Iceland, where you transfer to an Air Force B-52 bomber that's rotating back to the States for overhaul."

"Not the way it's done," mumbled Pitt with a toothbrush in his mouth.

"If they want my wholehearted cooperation, it's private jet or nothing."

"You're pretty heady for this early in the morning."

"When I'm kicked out of bed before dawn I'm not shy about telling the Joint Chiefs to insert it among their hemorrhoids."

"There goes my next promotion," moaned Knight. "Guilt by association."

"Stick with me and you'll wind up Fleet Admiral."

"I bet."

Pitt tapped his head with the toothbrush. "Gemus has struck. Fire off a message. Say we'll meet them halfway. Giordino and I will fly our NUMA 'copter direct to Thule Air Force Base. They can damn well have a government jet waiting to zap us to the Capital."

"You might as well tease a Doberman when he's eating-"

Pitt threw up his hands. "Why is it nobody around here has any faith in my creative smartst'

Washington closed down after a dazzling clear day. The crisp fall weather sharpened the air as the setting sun glazed the white granite of the government buildings into a goldue porcelain. The sky was sprinkled with cotton-ball clouds that looked solid enough for the Gulfstream IV

jetliner to land on.

The plane could carry up to nineteen passengers, but Pitt, Giordino and Lily had the main cabin all to themselves. Giordino had promptly fallen asleep before the plane's wheels lifted from the U.S. Air Force Base at

'nule and hadn't opened an eye since. Lily had dozed on and off or read Marlys Milihiser's The Threshold.

Pitt stayed awake, lost in his thoughts, occasionally making entries in a small notebOOk. He turned and stared out the small window at the homeward-bound traffic slowly beating its way from the core of the Capital.

His thoughts wandered back to the frozen crew of the Serapis, its skipper, Rufinus, and his daughter, Hypatia. Pitt was sorry his eyes had failed to find the girl in the darkness of the cargo hold even though the video camera had recorded her quite clearly, arms circled around a s, all long-haired dog.

Gronquist almost cried when he described her. Pitt wondered if she would end up as a frozen display in a museum, viewed in hushed astonishment by endless lines of the curious.

Gazing down at the Washington mall as the Gulfstream circled for its approach, Pitt put off his thoughts of the Serapis and focused on the search for the Alexandria Library treasures. He knew exactly how he was going about it. The part of his plan that didn't thrill him was putting all his eggs in one basket. He had to bank his entire search on a few crudely scratched in wax by the freezing hand of a dying man. Murphy's Law-Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong was already erecting the barricades against him.

The lines in the map might not fit a known geographical location for any number of reasons: distortion in the wax from rapid temperature changes during the initial freeze on the Serapis and later thaw on board the Polar Explorer; or perhaps Ruflnus erred in the scale and misplaced the curves and angles of the shoreline and river; or the worst and most probable scenario-great changes in the landscape due to soil buildup or erosion, earthquakes or extreme changes in climate during the past 1,600

years. No river in the world had maintained an unvarying course over a thousand years.

Pitt smelled the intoxicating scent of challenge. To restless men it is a real scent that wafts somewhere between a sexually aroused woman and newly cut grass after a rain. It tempts and addicts until the challenger is oblivious to any thought of failure or danger. The excitement of the chase meant as much to Pitt as actual success. And yet, when he did achieve the nearimpossible, there was always the inevitable letdown afterward.

His first obstacle was lack of time to conduct a search. The second was the Soviet sub. He and Giordino were the frontru

Pitts reverie was interrupted by the pilot's voice over the speakers to fasten seat belts. He watched the plane's tiny shadow enlarge against the leafless trees below. The brown grass flashed past and turned to concrete. The pilot taxied off the main runway at Andrews Air Force Base and braked to a stop beside a Ford Taurus station wagon.