"What do you mean?"

He glanced at her, grinning. "For the first time I can remember, I'm the one who's doing the pursuing."

"This could go on all night," said Loren, clutching the door handle as if ready to eject in case of an accident.

"Or until one of us runs out of gas," Pitt shot back in the middle of a hard turn.

"Haven't we already circled this block once?"

"We have."

Whipping around the next corner, Pitt could see the brake lights of the Chrysler suddenly flash on as it came to an abrupt halt in front of a brick town house, one of several on the tree-lined block. He braked and skidded to a stop in the street alongside the Chrysler, just as the driver vanished through the front door.

"Good thing she gave up the chase when she did," Loren said, pointing to the steam that was rising above the hood around the radiator.

"She wouldn't have quit unless it's a setup," said Pitt, staring at the darkened town house.

"What now, Sheriff? Do we call off the posse?"

Pitt gave Loren a crafty look. "No, you're going up and knock on the door."

She looked back at him, her face aghast under the glow of a nearby streetlight. "Like h.e.l.l I will."

"I thought you'd refuse." He opened the door and stepped from the car. "Here's my Globalstar phone. If I'm not back in ten minutes, call the police and then alert Admiral Sandecker. At the slightest noise or movement in the shadows, get out-and get out quick. Understand?"

"Why don't we call the police now and report a burglary?"

"Because I want to be there first."

"Are you armed?"

His lips broke into a wide grin. "Who ever heard of carrying a weapon in a hot rod?" He opened the glove box and held up a flashlight. "This will have to do." Then he leaned into the car, kissed her, and merged into the darkness surrounding the house.

Pitt didn't use the flashlight. There was enough ambient light from the city and the streetlights for him to see his way along a narrow stone sidewalk to the rear of the house. It seemed hauntingly dark and silent. From what he could see, the yard was well maintained and groomed. High brick walls covered with vines of ivy separated this house from the ones on either side. They also looked dark, their occupants blissfully sleeping in their beds.

Pitt was ninety-nine percent sure the house had a security system, but as long as there were no bloodthirsty dogs, he ignored any attempt at stealth. He was hoping the thief and her pals would show themselves. Only then would he worry about which way to jump. He came to the back door and was surprised to find it wide open. Belatedly, he realized the thief had dashed into the front of the house and out the rear. He took off running for the garage that backed onto an alley.

Abruptly, the night silence was shattered by the loud roar of a motorcycle's exhaust. Pitt tore open the door to the garage and rushed inside. The old-fashioned rear doors had been swung outward on their hinges. A figure in a black fur coat over leather pants and boots had urged the motorcycle engine into life, and was in the act of shifting it into gear and turning the throttle grip when Pitt took a running leap and threw himself on the bike rider's back, circling his arms around the neck and falling off to the side, dragging his opponent with him.

Pitt knew immediately that Loren's observations were confirmed. The body was not heavy enough for a man, nor did it feel hard. They crashed to the concrete floor of the garage, Pitt falling on top. The motorcycle dropped onto its side and raced around in a full circle, rear wheel and tire screaming against the concrete floor before the kill switch cut in and the engine stopped. The momentum carried the motorcycle against the crumpled bodies on the floor, the front tire striking the head of the rider as the handlebars impacted with Pitt's hip, breaking no bones but giving him a huge bruise that would show for weeks.

He rose painfully to his knees and found the flashlight, still beaming in the doorway where he had dropped it. He crawled over, picked it up, and swept the beam over the inert body beside the motorcycle. The rider had not had time to slip on a helmet, and a head with long blond hair was exposed. He rolled her over onto her back and beamed the light onto her face.

A knot was beginning to form above one eyebrow, but there was no mistaking the features. The front tire of the bike had knocked her senseless, but she was alive. Pitt was stunned, so much so that he nearly dropped the flashlight from a hand that had never trembled until now.

It is a proven fact in the medical profession that blood cannot run cold, not unless ice water is injected into the veins. But Pitt's felt as though his heart were working overtime to pump blood that was two degrees below freezing. He swayed on his knees in shock, the atmosphere in the garage suddenly turning heavy with a heavy sense of horror. Pitt was no stranger to the person who lay unconscious beneath him.

Without the slightest question in his mind, he was looking at the same face he had seen on the dead woman who had tapped his shoulder on the sunken hulk of the U-boat.

26

UNLIKE MOST HIGH-LEVEL GOVERNMENT officials or corporate executive officers, Admiral James Sandecker always arrived for a meeting first. He preferred to be settled in with his data files and prepared to direct the conference in an efficient manner. It was a practice he had established when commanding fleet operations in the Navy.

Although he had a large conference room at his disposal for visiting dignitaries, scientists, and government officials, he favored a smaller workroom next to his office for private and close-knit meetings. The room was a shelter within a shelter for him, restful and mentally stimulating. A twelve-foot conference table stretched across a turquoise carpet, surrounded by plush leather chairs. The table had been crafted from a piece of the hull from a nineteenth-century schooner that had lain deep beneath the waters of Lake Erie. The richly paneled mahogany wall displayed a series of paintings depicting historic naval sea battles.

Sandecker ran NUMA like a benevolent dictator, with a firm hand, and loyal to his employees to a fault. Personally picked by a former president to form the National Underwater and Marine Agency from scratch, he had built a far-reaching operation with two thousand employees that scientifically probed into every peak and valley under the seas. NUMA was highly respected around the world for its scientific projects, and its budget requests were rarely denied by Congress.

An exercise fanatic, he maintained a sixty-two-year-old body that knew no fat. He stood a few inches over five feet and stared through hazel eyes surrounded by flaming red hair and a Vand.y.k.e beard. An occasional drinker, mostly at Washington dinner parties, his only major sin was a fondness for elegant cigars, grand and aromatic, that were personally selected and wrapped to his exacting specifications by a small family in the Dominican Republic. He never offered one to visitors, but was irritated and frustrated to extremes because he often caught Giordino smoking the exact same cigars and yet could never find any of his private stock missing.

He was sitting at the end of the table, and stood as Pitt and Pat O'Connell stepped into the room. He stepped forward and greeted Pitt like a son, shaking his hand while gripping a shoulder. "Good to see you."

"Always a pleasure to be back in the fold again," Pitt replied, beaming. The admiral was like a second father to him, and they were very close.

Sandecker turned to Pat. "Please sit down, Doctor. I'm anxious to hear what you and Hiram have for me."

Giordino and Yeager soon joined the others, followed by Dr. John Stevens, a noted historian and author of several books on the study and identification of ancient artifacts. Stevens was an academic and looked the part, complete with a sleeveless sweater under a wool sport coat that had a meerschaum pipe protruding from the breast pocket. He had a way of c.o.c.king his head like a robin listening for a worm under the sod. He carried a large plastic ice chest, which he set beside his chair on the carpet.

Sandecker set the sawed-off base of an eight-inch sh.e.l.l casing from a naval gun in front of him as an ashtray and lit up a cigar. He stared at Giordino, half expecting his projects specialist to light up, too. Giordino decided not to irritate his boss and did his best to look cultured.

Pitt could not help noticing that Yaeger's and Pat's faces seemed unduly strained and tired.

Sandecker opened the discussion by asking if they'd all had a chance to go over the report from Pat and Yaeger. All nodded silently, except Giordino. "I found it interesting reading," he said, "but as science fiction it doesn't measure up to Isaac Asimov or Ray Bradbury."

Yaeger gave Giordino a steady gaze. "I a.s.sure you, this is not science fiction."

"Have you discovered what this race of people called themselves?" asked Pitt. "Did their civilization have a name besides Atlantis?"

Pat opened a file on the desk in front of her and pulled out a sheet of notebook paper and peered at the writing. "As near as I can decipher and translate into English, they referred to their league of seafaring city-states as Amenes, p.r.o.nounced 'Ameenees.' "

"Amenes," Pitt repeated slowly. "It sounds Greek."

"I unraveled a number of words that could well be the origins for later Greek- and Egyptian-language terms."

Sandecker gestured the end of his cigar at the historian. "Dr. Stevens, I a.s.sume you've examined the obsidian skulls?"

"I have." Stevens leaned down, opened the ice chest, lifted out one of the black skulls, and set it upright on a large silk pillow laid on the conference table. The glossy obsidian gleamed under the overhead spotlights. "A truly remarkable piece of work," he said reverently. "Amenes artisans began with a solid block of obsidian-one that was incredibly pure of imperfections-a rarity in itself. Over a period of at least ninety to a hundred years, and perhaps more, the head was shaped by hand, using what I believe was obsidian dust as a smoothing agent."

"Why not some type of hardened metal chisels tapped by a mallet?" asked Giordino.

Stevens shook his head. "No tools were wielded. There are no signs of scratches or nicks. Obsidian, though extremely hard, is very p.r.o.ne to fracture. One slip, one misplaced angle of a chisel, and the whole skull would have shattered. No, the shaping and polishing had to be accomplished as if a marble bust had been delicately smoothed by car polish."

"How long would it take to reproduce with modern tools?"

Stevens gave a faint grin. "Technically, it would be next to impossible to create an exact replica. The more I study it, the more I become convinced it shouldn't exist."