MICHAEL JOSEPH
an imprint of
PENGUIN BOOKS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Clive Cussler is the author or co-author of a great number of international bestsellers, including the famous Dirk Pitt adventures, such as Crescent Dawn; the NUMA Files adventures, most recently Medusa; the Oregon Files, such as The Silent Sea; the Isaac Bell Adventures, which began with The Chase, and the recent Fargo adventures. His non-fiction works include The Sea Hunters and The Sea Hunters II; these describe the true adventures of the real NUMA, which, led by Cussler, searches for lost ships of historic significance. With his crew of volunteers, Cussler has discovered more than sixty ships, including the long-lost Confederate submarine Hunley. He lives in Arizona.
Thomas Perry is the author of twenty novels, including the Edgar Award-winning The Butcher’s Boy and the acclaimed Jane Whitfield series, most recently Poison Flower. He lives in Southern California.
DIRK PITT® ADVENTURES BY CLIVE CUSSLER
Crescent Dawn (with Dirk Cussler)
Arctic Drift (with Dirk Cussler)
Treasure of Khan (with Dirk Cussler)
Black Wind (with Dirk Cussler)
Trojan Odyssey
Valhalla Rising
Atlantis Found
Flood Tide
Shock Wave
Inca Gold
Sahara
Dragon
Treasure
Cyclops
Deep Six
Pacific Vortex!
Night Probe!
Vixen 03
Shock Wave
Raise the Titanic!
Iceberg
The Mediterranean Caper
FARGO ADVENTURES BY CLIVE CUSSLER
With Grant Blackwood
The Kingdom
Lost Empire
Spartan Gold
ISAAC BELL NOVELS BY CLIVE CUSSLER
The Thief (with Justin Scott)
The Race (with Justin Scott)
The Spy (with Justin Scott)
The Wrecker (with Justin Scott)
The Chase
KURT AUSTIN ADVENTURES BY CLIVE CUSSLER
With Graham Brown
Devil’s Gate
With Paul Kemprecos
Medusa
White Death
The Navigator
Fire Ice
Polar Shift
Blue Gold
Lost City
Serpent
OREGON FILES ADVENTURES BY CLIVE CUSSLER
With Jack Du Brul
The Jungle
The Silent Sea
Corsair
Plague Ship
Skeleton Coast
Dark Watch
With Craig Dirgo
Golden Buddha
Sacred Stone
NONFICTION BY CLIVE CUSSLER AND CRAIG DIRGO
The Sea Hunters
The Sea Hunters II
Clive Cussler and Dirk Pitt Revealed
Built for Adventure: The Classic Automobiles of Clive Cussler and Dirk Pitt®
PANNONIA, 453 C. E.
THE BARBARIAN ENCAMPMENT WAS ENORMOUS, A GREAT city that moved from place to place at the whim of its unquestioned ruler, the High King. But in the dim light of this predawn morning it was in chaos. Hundreds of thousands of warriors and their shrieking women and ungovernable offspring milled about. Hundreds of thousands of horses, cattle, sheep, and goats all bleated and neighed in the general alarm and made the dawn a cacophony of sounds. The stink of the livestock competed with the smoke of ten thousand fires being fanned to life at once.
Priscus’s manservant had pulled him from his bed, certain that they were about to lose their lives in the sudden commotion in the barbarian horde. Priscus hurried along over the uneven soil, trying not to turn an ankle in a wagon rut or step in a hole. He followed Ellak, trying in vain to keep up with him in a pair of light sandals made for walking on the smooth pavements of Constantinople. Ellak was a fighter, a man descended from famous warriors, who had lived to adulthood by the strength and speed of his limbs.
As Priscus caught sight of the huge animal-skin tent of the High King, its center pole as tall as a villa and its floor wide enough to hold hundreds, he could hear wailing and shouting and knew what must have happened in the night. He slowed enough to remain upright and maintain his Roman dignity. He was a diplomat, and, by default, the man who must write the history of this momentous day. Ellak, the High King’s son, had come for him because Priscus was the most learned man for many leagues and might know of a way to save the High King’s life. But the wailing might mean they were arriving too late.
Priscus hid his feeling of fear. The barbarians were in his way, running about, whipping one another into a fury. They could smell fear like dogs. They were trained and experienced killers from birth who had conquered their way from remotest Asia to Europe by sheer ferocity. When they’d heard shouting, they’d rushed outside, and would no more have come without their swords and daggers than without their hands and feet. Today, if any of them sensed fear in him—a foreigner—they would tear him apart without warning.
Ellak led him into the High King’s vast tent. Priscus was nearly a head taller than most of the barbarians, who were from the distant east, short and broad, with wide shoulders and thick arms and legs, their faces like tanned leather. Priscus could see over the heads of some of the men who were blocking the inner chamber. That was where the King must be. The warriors standing nearest to the chamber were already pulling out their short daggers and cutting their cheekbones with deep slashes so the blood would run down in streaks like tears.
Priscus made his way by stepping sideways and slipping between the half-mad guards. Now he could see the High King’s young bride, Ildico, crouching on the pile of rich carpets in the corner as far away from her husband as she could get. She was weeping, but nobody was comforting her. Priscus couldn’t see anyone who even seemed to notice her.
As one of the guards turned to face his friends to let them watch as he mutilated his face with a short sword, Priscus slipped behind him into the chamber. He looked down at the body of the High King and could see why the young bride looked so shocked. The great barbarian, the Flagellum Dei, was sprawled on his back on the soft silk bed, his mouth open like a snoring drunk. Blood ran down from his nose and mouth into a wet pool at his head.
Priscus stepped to the corner and lifted the girl Ildico from where she cowered. He pushed aside the long blond hair from her ear and whispered, “It’s all right. He’s gone now, and there’s nothing more you can do here. Come.” It was all just soothing talk, just a human voice to comfort her without saying anything. Ildico was the High King’s seventh wife, and in spite of her beauty she was barely more than a child, brought from her Germanic tribe to marry the conqueror. She understood Priscus’s Latin as well as her own Gothic, but he wasn’t sure which languages the guards spoke so said little. He helped her out into the light of the rising sun and the fresh air. She looked pale and weak like a ghost. He was hoping to get her away from the crowd before some warrior suspected the King’s death was her fault. The ignorant were often suspicious, and even if a person died of a lightning strike, someone might have conjured it.
He spotted a few of her female retainers, the group of servants and kinswomen who had come with her for her wedding. They were standing a distance off, watching the proceedings anxiously. He turned her over to them and they hurried her away from the growing crowd.
Priscus was still looking in that direction to be sure she wasn’t stopped when strong hands roughly gripped both his arms. He craned his neck to see his captors. He barely recognized either of them, although he’d seen them every time he’d come to meet with the High King. They both had fresh mourning cuts on their cheekbones, so blood covered the lower half of their faces. They had changed in demeanor since Priscus had sat with them last night, laughing and drinking to celebrate their lord’s wedding. The two men dragged him into the King’s tent, and the crowd of warriors parted to let them pass into the inner chamber.
Inside the chamber, the body had not been moved. Standing over it were Ardaric, King of the Gepids, and Onegesius, Attila’s most trusted friend. Ardaric knelt and picked up the jug of wine that the High King had drunk before he’d died. He said, “This is the wine that Ildico poured him last night.” Onegesius picked up the goblet lying beside the King.
Priscus said, “For weeks, he had a sickness that gave him nosebleeds. Maybe it got worse while he slept and he drowned in his own blood. That’s what it looks like, doesn’t it?”
Ardaric snorted in contempt. “Nobody dies of a nosebleed. He’s been in battle all his life. He was wounded many times and never bled to death. It was poison.”
“Do you think so?” asked Priscus, his eyes wide in shock.
“I do,” said Ardaric. “And I’ve been thinking about you. Emperor Theodosius sent you to us four years ago with the ambassador Maximinus. Your interpreter, Vigilas, was caught in a plot to assassinate Attila. Instead of having all of you killed, Attila sent you back to your emperor in Constantinople. Maybe that was a mistake. And maybe Vigilas was not the only one who came to kill the King.”
Onegesius poured wine into Attila’s goblet, then held it out. “Prove you didn’t poison him. Drink it.”
Priscus said, “I don’t know if it’s poisoned or not. If the wine is poisoned, that won’t prove I was the poisoner. I certainly wasn’t in here with the High King and his bride on their wedding night. All my drinking it might do is kill me too.”
“Your fear convicts you.” Onegesius’s free hand moved toward the hilt of his sword.
Priscus took the goblet. “If I die, remember I’m an innocent man.” He lifted it to his lips and drained it.
The others waited and watched Priscus closely. Ellak stepped closer. “Well, Priscus?”
“I don’t feel anything. It tastes like wine.”
“Bitter? Sour?”
“Like all other wine—sweet like fruit, but with a few drops of vinegar.”
Ardaric sniffed the goblet, took some of the wine on his finger, and put a drop on his tongue. He nodded to Onegesius, dropped the goblet on the carpet by the body of the High King, and walked out. He called out to the warriors, “There was no poison. He died of a sickness.”
Priscus followed Ardaric out of the chamber and made his way through the milling crowd of warriors. With their anguished, blood-streaked faces, they made a frightening sight. These were men who had never done anything in their lives but kill. They fought, ate, sometimes even slept, on horseback. They had, in about three generations, conquered tribes from the grasslands beyond the Volga to Gaul. This morning their greatest leader had been taken from them. Who could say what their grief and anger might make them do to a stranger from a foreign country?
Priscus walked briskly with his head down, not letting his eyes rest on any of the warriors streaming toward the High King’s tent. He went to his own quarters and prepared an altar with a row of lighted candles for the purpose of praying for Attila’s soul. After all, Attila had listened to Priscus and the other Romans when they talked of Christianity. And once he had met with Pope Leo at Mantua and made an agreement. Something might have planted a seed of faith in his mind. In any case, it was best to mourn him as visibly as possible. Priscus also vomited, and drank a great deal of water, and then vomited again, and found it settled his nerves.
Late in the day he left his own small tent and walked toward the center of the encampment. He saw that the High King’s tent had been struck. Not far off, a large open space had been cleared. What had arisen on that spot was an immense white vision. He walked to it and touched it in wonder.
A vast tent made entirely of white silk had been erected. It moved and billowed in the breeze as he walked to the opening and looked inside. In the center was a bier that displayed the body of the High King, lying in state, in bright and costly clothes of purple and red befitting a warrior king, and with arms of the finest quality inlaid with gold and gems.
Around the bier rode the savage horsemen, the High King’s best warriors, many of them kings of their own tribes and nations. They were riding around and around in a circle singing of his exploits and victories, their faces cut so the blood ran down their cheeks like tears. They sang that he was the greatest chieftain, a man who deserved not just the pale tears of women but the red tears of warriors. As they rode in their circle, Priscus could see that the blood soaked their beards and dripped from their chins onto their clothes and horses’ manes.
Priscus knelt in the direction of the King and touched his forehead to the dirt so the warriors would see he was showing respect in his own way, then returned to his own shelter. He remained there for the next three days, writing about the life of Attila as High King and his death on his wedding night. Visitors came to Priscus and related the prodigious feats of mourning they had seen, and a few talked about the rivalry between Ellak, the oldest son, and Dengizich, the second oldest, and the resentment of Emakh, the third son, whom the two seemed not to take into account. Still others told him of Ardaric’s disgust that the three sons couldn’t remain united even until their father was buried.
Priscus went to the white tent the next day and found the High King being prepared for burial in the fiery light of a hundred flaming lamps. Attila’s retainers placed him in a series of three coffins. The outer and largest one was made of iron. The coffin placed inside it was made of solid silver. The third was pure gold. The coffins were packed with the jeweled weapons of the many kings Attila had defeated. He had absorbed a hundred Asian tribes, beaten the Alans, Ostrogoths, Armenians, Burgundians, had savaged the Balkans, Thrace, Scythia, and Gaul. He had sacked Mantua, Milan, Verona, and taken most of northern Italy. He had defeated the legions of both the western and eastern capitals of Rome and Constantinople.
Also in the three coffins were breathtaking heaps of glittering gems and glowing gold, reflecting the flames of the lamps, and the coffins themselves were a great fortune. Priscus couldn’t help thinking the inner one had probably been composed of the Eastern Roman Empire’s annual tribute to Attila of two thousand one hundred pounds of gold. But he couldn’t ignore the flashes of color inside—the cool green of emeralds, the blood-drop rubies, the deep blue sapphires. There were fiery garnets, indigo lapis, yellow amber, pea green jade, all competing for the eye’s attention.
At nightfall a group of a thousand horsemen drawn from Attila’s personal troop of bodyguards assembled. They placed the lids on the coffins, lifted them onto a huge eight-wheeled wagon that could carry the immense weight, and rode off, carrying no torches to light the way through the darkness.
Weeks later, Priscus was preparing a donkey train for the long trek back to report to the Emperor Marcian. It would take him a month to get from this savage country to the palaces of Constantinople, and by now he would have gladly crawled back on his hands and knees. Then in the afternoon another commotion swept through the camp, with people pointing fingers into the distance and yelling in their many tongues, so he went to investigate.
The elite horsemen of the burial detail were returning to the great encampment of the Huns. They came galloping, and the dust was visible across the plain for a long time before they appeared.
Ardaric, Onegesius, and the three sons of Attila—Ellak, Dengizich, and Emakh—and a great host of warriors, gathered at the edge of the encampment to greet them. When the thousand riders drew up, they dismounted and bowed to the assembled chiefs. In a singular honor, the chiefs bowed back. Ellak, the eldest heir of Attila, stepped up to the leader of the burial party, a man named Mozhu. He put his hand on Mozhu’s shoulder and said, “Tell us.”
Mozhu said, “We took the High King to a place in the bend of a river far away where travelers seldom pass. We built a crypt as deep as two men are tall, with a sloping entrance, and carried the coffins to the bottom. Then we covered the crypt and the sloping passage. We herded our thousand horses across the area many times until it was impossible to pick out the precise spot where the crypt was buried. Then we diverted the river so it will flow deep over the High King’s tomb forever.”
Ellak embraced Mozhu. Then he stood on an oxcart and made a speech to thank the thousand men who had stood with his father in battle and protected his body in death. Before he jumped down, he called out, “Kill them now.”
The thousand men were engulfed by the great host of warriors around them. To Priscus, the thousand seemed to disappear like swimmers pulled under the water in a flood—a head here going down, a few heads there. They sank beneath the weight of the entire army. He saw none of the burial party resist or try to remount their horses to escape. He could not tell whether it was because their execution was a surprise or because they had certain foreknowledge that anyone who knew where Attila was buried must die.
Afterward, the burial party’s bodies were covered with earth where they had fallen. Their leaders spoke of their loyalty, honor, and bravery. To Priscus it seemed the Huns considered the massacre simply a natural and inevitable part of the death of a great leader. It was all a single misfortune.
Priscus left the vast encampment at dawn the next morning with his train of a hundred fifty donkeys loaded with supplies and a few precious articles hidden among them—his written account of his mission to the barbarians, his personal books, a few souvenirs from barbarian friends. He also took with him the teenage bride-widow Ildico, whom he had promised to return to her parents in the Germanic territories when passage could be arranged.
When they were a day’s journey from the barbarian encampment, he walked beside Ildico’s donkey and talked with her. “See, child? I told you it was all perfectly safe. Once the barbarians were persuaded there was no poison, you and I could hardly be poisoners.”
“I heard they made you drink the wine. Why are you alive?”
“The poison has to be given over time before it will cause bleeding and keep the blood from clotting. I’ve been giving it to Attila for weeks. Enough had to build up in his body so your final dose would make him bleed to death. But think more pleasant thoughts. You’ll be very rich soon.”
“Keep any gold that’s coming to me,” she said. “I did it for my people that he killed. Just get me home.”
“The Emperor will want to send you home with a reward. What you and I did has probably saved the Empire from destruction.”
“I don’t care about the Empire.”
He walked on ahead, thinking. He had done everything perfectly—gathered the sweet clover himself, patiently aged it to let it turn moldy, and then used it to make a poison that couldn’t be detected and caused a death which looked like a disease. As he walked he composed parts of his account of his time with the Huns. He would describe it all—his mission four years ago with Maximinus, when the assassination plan was blamed on the interpreter Vigilas, the actions of the barbarians, the personality of their supreme leader.
He would, of course, leave out the particulars of the High King’s death. Every trick not explained remains fresh for reuse. The Western Empire in Rome would be overwhelmed by its enemies before much longer. Its legions couldn’t keep fighting off wave after wave of barbarians, each group more numerous and savage than the last. It was a simple game of numbers. The subtler methods of the Eastern Empire obliterated numbers—the Emperor had sent just one man to end the threat from the Huns, hadn’t he? The Eastern Empire would live for another thousand years.
Ildico certainly was a beautiful young woman, he thought. The slim, graceful figure, the milky skin, and the golden hair were very appealing. In a way, having her for himself would make his quiet triumph over the great Attila complete. But no, he thought. That was exactly the sort of thing an emissary from Rome would do.
OFF GRAND ISLE, LOUISIANA
2012 C. E.
REMI FARGO HOVERED IN THE WARM WATER OF THE Gulf of Mexico, barely moving her fins as she worked. She finished filling her net bag with jagged pieces of a clay pot that had been nearly buried in the sand. She estimated that the original pot, as it had been over a thousand years ago, was about ten inches wide and four inches deep, and she thought she probably had gathered all of its fragments. She didn’t want to risk scratching the smooth finish of the pot by putting anything else in the net bag. She looked up at the shape of the boat’s hull, a dark phantom sitting sixty feet above her on the silvery underside of the water’s surface. She exhaled, and the bubbles issued from her mouthpiece, then ascended, shiny globules shimmering up toward the light.
Remi caught her husband Sam’s eye and pointed to the net bag, then gave him a thumbs-up. He held up what looked to her like a deer antler as though he were saluting her and nodded. Remi gave a couple of lazy kicks, and her slim, shapely body moved upward into a school of shiny bay anchovies that swirled around her like an ice storm. They left her, and she rose to the boat.
She broke the surface and instantly saw the other boat in the distance. She ducked under again, swam to the other side of the dive boat, and waited for Sam. She saw his bubbles coming up from beneath her, then his head and mask.
She took out her mouthpiece and breathed the air for a second. “They’re here again.”
Sam ducked under the surface and came up at the stern, keeping himself close to the outdrive so he remained part of the boat’s silhouette. “It’s them, all right—the same dive boat, a black hull and gray above.” He looked again. “The same five—no, six people.”
“It’s the third day in a row,” she said.
“They probably think we’ve found the city of Atlantis.”
“You make a joke out of it, but it could be true. Not about Atlantis, but they don’t know what we’re doing here. It’s the Louisiana coast. We could be diving on an old Spanish treasure ship that got blown here in a hurricane. Or a Civil War ship sunk in the blockade.”
“Or a 2003 Chevrolet that somebody drove off a bridge upriver. We’re in sixty feet of water. They were probably just out here drinking beer and rubbing suntan lotion on each other.”
Remi drifted against Sam and held on to his shoulder so she could see the other boat. “Thank you for your lack of curiosity, Mr. Jokester. They’re following us and watching what we do. Did you see that? A sun flash from a lens.”
“Must be paparazzi taking my picture.”
“Keep it up. But just remember, having strangers think we found something valuable could be just as dangerous as actually finding something valuable. Thieves attack you before they count your money.”
“Okay,” he said. “They’ve kept their distance for three days. If they come any closer, we’ll have a talk with them. Meanwhile, we’ve got to get that sunken village mapped. The past few weeks have been interesting, but I don’t feel like devoting the rest of my life to salvage archaeology.”
Sam and Remi Fargo always claimed their reputation as treasure hunters had come from catching the attention of a few imaginative reporters on a slow news day. They shared a strong interest in history and the urge to go out and see it for themselves. This spring they had volunteered to do some diving for the state of Louisiana. An archaeologist named Ray Holbert had been on the shore, looking at the coast for damage from the oil leaks after an oil-drilling platform had burned, when he had found some potsherds washed up from the Gulf onto the beach. They were clearly of native origin and quite old. He had asked for a grant from the oil company to salvage what had seemed to be a sunken village. When Sam and Remi had heard about the project, they had offered to pay their own expenses and help.
Remi said, “Come down with me. I think I’ve found another hearth. Bring the camera.”
Sam pulled himself up over the gunwale to reach the underwater camera, and they submerged again. Remi seemed to lose herself in the work. She led him to the stone hearth and let him examine it while she took the camera and photographed the site from every angle to record the positions of the potsherds around it. He watched the graceful movements of her body—in her wet suit looking a bit like her own shadow—and noticed a thin wisp of auburn hair had escaped from the hood of her suit at her forehead. He caught her bright green eyes looking at him through the glass of her mask, so he forced himself to relinquish the sight of her and look at the ring of charred stones she had uncovered beneath the sand. Then they filled their net bags carefully to bring more pottery up to be catalogued and mapped the site where they found them.
Suddenly Sam and Remi both heard the buzzing sound of a propeller. It grew louder, and as they looked up they saw the underside of a black hull speeding toward the anchored dive boat, throwing waves to each side. They could see the outdrive and propeller and the long spiral trail of churned bubbles behind it.
They watched the dive boat’s hull rock and saw the anchor chain tighten to hold it, tugging against the anchor they’d sunk into the sand and then going slack when the other boat slowed down and idled within a yard of theirs. In a minute or two, the black hull sped up again and moved away at high speed, bouncing as it crested each wave.
Sam pointed upward, and the two floated to the surface. Remi climbed the ladder, and Sam followed. As they took off their gear, Remi said, “Well? That was a little closer, wasn’t it? I’m glad we didn’t surface just as they came roaring in.”
She could see Sam’s jaw was working. “I think they zoomed in to look at what we’ve been bringing up from the bottom.”
“I hope they got a good look,” she said. “I don’t want to get chewed up by a propeller over a few potsherds and a middenful of thousand-year-old clamshells.”
“Let’s see who they are,” he said. He started the engine and stepped to the bow. Remi took the wheel and inched them forward in the direction of the anchor so its two flukes would be pulled forward and freed from the sand. Sam pulled the anchor up and stowed it under the foredeck. Remi brought the boat around so Sam could scoop up the small ring buoy that held the diver-alert flag, red with a white diagonal stripe, and pull in its light anchor, then stow both in the stern.
She pushed the throttle forward and accelerated in the direction of the Grand Isle Harbor.
Sam moved forward to stand beside Remi and rest his elbows on the roof of the cabin while he held the binoculars and scanned the horizon. As they sped along the coast, Remi’s long auburn hair whipped behind her in the wind. Sam said, “I don’t see their boat. They must have put into the harbor. We may as well head in too.”
Remi steered toward the harbor at top speed, but then, as they reached the harbor entrance, she slowed down rapidly. As they came around the breakwater, a Coast Guard boat moved across their bow at a distance.
“Good timing,” Sam said. “You might have had to bat your eyelashes at him to get out of a speeding ticket.”
“I don’t get speeding tickets because I don’t break the law,” she said, and batted her eyelashes at him. “You can take the wheel.”
She stepped aside and he took it, slowing down even more, to the speed of a walk. Remi bent over and ran her fingers through her long hair to straighten it, stood up and glanced at Sam. “You’re still looking for them, aren’t you?”
“I’m mostly just curious. I’m wondering how long we’re going to have amateur treasure hounds, looters, and grave robbers following us everywhere.”
“I guess you gave one too many interviews. It was probably the one with that TV girl from Boston with the long black hair.” She smiled at him. “I could understand why you hung on her every word. She had such a cultured accent that the questions really sounded smart.”
Sam returned Remi’s smile but did not rise to the bait.
They both kept watching the slips they passed for the black-and-gray boat, but didn’t spot it. When they reached the slip for the rented dive boat, they pulled in, tied up to the big cleats, and hung the bumpers over the side. While they were hosing off their wet suits and putting the tanks on the dock to be taken to Dave Carmody’s dive shop to be refilled, they were still watching for the black-and-gray boat.
“Hey, Fargos!” Ray Holbert was waving as he walked out onto the dock, making it roll a little on its pontoons. He was tall and red-faced, and all his movements had a special vigor. His steps were long and his gestures were big.
“Hi, Ray,” said Remi.
“Find anything?”
Sam lifted the cover on a cabinet near the stern to reveal several full net bags. “A few more potsherds we found near a stone hearth, some napped flint tools, a deer antler with some pieces chipped off, probably for projectile points. We’ve got the place nearly all mapped.”
Remi handed up the camera. “It’s all in here. You can download it to your computer and line it up on the chart from where the midden is.”
“Great,” said Ray. “We’re catching up a little. I think we’re going to get the three sunken villages along this part of the coast all identified, mapped, and given a once-over before the grant money runs out.”
“We’ll help out a bit when that happens,” said Sam. “We can extend the work a bit.”
“Let’s wait and see,” Ray said.
“Follow us to our cottage in your truck,” said Remi. “We can hand over the latest finds. The charts and photographs are ready, the artifacts and bones are labeled and shown on the grid. I’d feel better if you have everything.”
“Okay,” said Holbert. “We’re really learning a lot about these people. We knew just about nothing before. These villages were right above the beach. The carbon dates show that they must have been submerged by the rising sea level around the year 700. They all seem to be about the same size as yours—about five or six families in small dwellings with stone hearths. They used catches from the sea for food but also hunted deer inland. This first set of sites has been great.”
“You’re telling us it’s time for the next set, aren’t you?” said Remi.
“After tomorrow, I want to move everybody a few miles west. There’s a couple dozen potential sites, and each dive team has just done one site. The day after tomorrow, I want every team to take an initial survey of a new spot along the coast off the Caminada Headland. That way, we’ll get a better idea of what we’ve got to get done before we start to lose our summer volunteers. We’ll probably eliminate most of the sites when we get a look underwater.”
In ten minutes they were at the small cottage Sam and Remi had rented a block from the beach on the south side of Grand Isle. It was a one-story on stilts, with white-painted clapboard siding and a big front porch where they could sit at the end of the day and feel the breeze off the Gulf of Mexico. Sam and Remi liked to be anonymous when they traveled, and there was nothing about the cottage that would prompt anyone to think the couple renting it was a pair of multimillionaires. There was a low roof over the porch, a pair of big windows with an almost unobstructed view of the water, two bedrooms, and a small bathroom. They had converted one bedroom into a storage-and-work area for the objects they had brought up from the sunken Paleo-Indian village.
Ray Holbert entered with them, and Sam took him on a tour of the artifacts while Remi took the first shower. Sam handed him the grid with the meticulously drawn objects found in various spots. There were also memory cards full of photographs that Remi had taken to ensure that there was a record of each object in relation to the others. The artifacts were stored in plastic boxes.
Holbert looked at the grid of the village and the artifacts. “With this number of deer antlers and bones, it looks as if the rising water changed the landscape a lot. There were probably forested ridges then. Now it’s mostly bayous and sea-level flats.”
“It’s sort of a shame to move on,” Remi said. She had showered and changed into Grand Isle evening attire—a pair of shorts and a loose short-sleeved polo shirt with a pair of flip-flops. “Although I won’t miss our shadows.”
“What do you mean?” asked Holbert.
“It’s probably our own fault,” said Sam. “There’s another dive boat that’s been following us. They watch where we go, then stare at us with binoculars. Today they came within a yard of our boat, as though they wanted to see what we had brought up.”
“That’s odd,” said Holbert. “This is the first I’ve heard of them.”
“Well, as I said, maybe it’s just us. It’s the price of having our names in the papers,” Sam said. He looked at Remi. “Or maybe Remi’s picture. Well, I’ll help you load this stuff into your truck before I take my shower.”
In twenty minutes Holbert’s white pickup truck was loaded, and soon they were in the restaurant for a meal of shucked oysters, grilled shrimp with remoulade sauce, freshly caught red snapper, and a bottle of chilled Chardonnay from Kistler Vinyards in California. After they’d eaten, Sam said, “What do you think? Would you like to share another bottle of wine?”
“No, thanks,” said Ray.
“None for me either,” said Remi. “If we’ve just got one more day at this village, I’d like to get an early start. After tomorrow, we could spend the next few days swimming around, finding nothing.”
“That’s right, we could,” said Sam. They said good night to Ray, walked home to their cottage, locked the door, and turned off the lights. They let the overhead fan turn lazily above their bed and went to sleep listening to the waves washing in along the beach.
Sam woke as the first ray of sun shone through the opening in the curtain, thinking he would tiptoe out of the bedroom to keep from waking Remi only to find her sitting on the front porch with a cup of coffee, dressed and waiting for him, looking out over the Gulf of Mexico.
Sam and Remi stopped at a coffee shop to buy croissants and coffee, then arrived at the marina, walked along the dock to the berth where they had tied their rented dive boat, and then stopped. “See that?” she whispered.
Sam nodded. He was already squinting, stepping silently out of his shoes and onto the foredeck of the boat. The cabin was closed, but the padlock’s hasp had been knocked off with a heavy blow. He opened the sliding door and looked down into the cabin. “Our gear is all screwed up.”
“Tampered with?”
“That doesn’t quite cover it. All screwed up is the technical term.” Sam took out his cell phone and punched in a number. “Hello, Dave? This is Sam Fargo. We seem to have a problem this morning. We’re at the marina, and the dive boat we rented from you has been broken into. It looks like they broke our regulators, cut the rubber on the masks and fins. Can’t tell what they did to the tanks, but I’d be really careful putting them under pressure. I haven’t checked the engine yet or the gas tank. If you could get us resupplied right away, we could still go out. Meanwhile, I’ll call the police.”
Dave Carmody said, “Hold on, Sam. I’ll be there in half an hour or so with everything you need. And better let me call the cops for you. Grand Isle is a small place, and they know me. They know they have to live with me another twenty years.”
“Thanks, Dave. We’ll be here.” Sam put away his phone and went to sit on the foredeck. For some time he didn’t move, just stared out at the open water.
Remi watched him closely. “Sam?”
“What?”
“Promise me you’re not planning something out of proportion.”
“Not out of proportion.”
“Am I going to want to be carrying bail money?”
“Not necessarily,” he said.
“Hmmm,” she said as she studied him. She took out her phone and punched in another number. “Delia?” she said. “This is Remi Fargo. How are you? Well, that’s just great. Is Henry in court or anything? Think I could talk to him? Wonderful. Thank you.”
As she waited, Remi walked toward the stern of the boat. “Henry?” she said. “I just wanted to ask you a little favor.” She turned her face away from Sam and lowered her voice while she said something Sam couldn’t hear. She turned again and walked toward Sam. “Thanks, Henry. If you give him a little heads-up, I’d appreciate it. Bye.”
“What Henry was that?” Sam asked.
“Henry Clay Barlow, our attorney.”
“That Henry.”
“He advised me we didn’t need bail. Instead he’s calling a friend of his in New Orleans, who will be prepared to come roaring down here in a helicopter with a suitcaseful of money and a writ of habeas corpus if we need him. Henry says he’s slick as an eel.”
“Henry would consider that high praise. What will that cost us?”
“Depends on what we do.”
“Good point.” Sam heard a sound and looked up the dock. “There’s Dave from the dive shop.”
Dave’s truck stopped at the end of the dock. He came along the floating dock with a uniformed policeman beside him carrying a toolbox. The cop was big and blond, with broad shoulders and a potbelly, so the shirt of his uniform looked as though it might pop a button. “Hi, Sam,” Dave said, then gave a slight bow: “Remi.”
Sam got up. “That was quick, Dave.”
“This is Sergeant Ron Le Favre. He figured he should look this over before we replace your gear.” As soon as Dave’s eyes passed across his boat he got distracted and pointed. “Look at that cabin door. That’s imported hardwood, varnished so you could have shaved in it.”
Sergeant Le Favre stepped onto the boat. “Pleased to meet you both.” He took a camera out of his kit and began snapping photographs of the damage. As he did, he asked, “Mr. Fargo, what do you suppose is going on? Anything stolen?”
“Not that I can see. Just wrecked.”
“Anybody around here mad at you?”
“Not that I know of. Everybody’s been friendly until now.”
“You have a theory?”
Sam shrugged. Remi glared at him, puzzled and frustrated.
“Okay. I’ll write this up,” said Sergeant Le Favre. “That way, Dave can submit it to his insurance company. First, I’ll check around to see if anybody was sleeping on his boat last night. Maybe somebody saw something.”
“Thanks very much, Sergeant,” said Sam. He went to work helping Dave Carmody carry the damaged equipment to his truck and the new equipment to the boat. Next he started the engine, and he and Dave listened to it, opened the hatch, and looked at the belts and hoses. Before Dave left Sam said, “Dave, this is probably because somebody got interested in what we were diving for. We’ve had some publicity lately, so this is probably the price. Just tote up the cost and put it on our bill. I don’t want you putting this on your insurance and then having them jack up your rates.”
Dave shook his hand. “Thanks, Sam. That’s really thoughtful.”
As soon as Sam and Remi were alone she said, “No theories, Sam? Really? How about the people in the black-and-gray boat who have been stalking us for days?”
“I didn’t say no, I just shrugged.”
“If something else happens, don’t you want them on the sergeant’s record?”
“Well, if something happened to make those people upset, I’d find it inconvenient to have it in the police record that I suspected them of doing us harm.”
“I see,” she said. “This should be an interesting day.”
Sam moved around the boat, taking an inventory of equipment, before casting off the lines. Remi started the engine and drove slowly out of the marina toward the Gulf. The world ahead was all deep blue sky and sea that met at the horizon and seemed to go on forever.
Sam stood beside her as she came around the breakwater and added speed. “I’m hoping to get this site finished today so that before we move on to the next site we can feel we’ve got everything there is to find.”
“Fine,” she said. “That sounds like a peaceful ambition.”
They moved westward along the flat green Louisiana coast toward the spot where they’d been diving. But as they came closer Remi said, “You might want to look ahead.”
Sam looked over the cabin roof into the distance. He could see the black-and-gray boat anchored ahead. The red-and-white flag was up, and there were people in the water. “Interesting coincidence,” he said. “Our diving gear gets sabotaged and now we find these people diving in our exact location.” Sam took out the binoculars and stared in the direction of the black-and-gray boat for a few seconds. “They seem to be getting out of the water. Now they’re pulling in their dive buoys and striking the flag.”
“Well, of course,” said Remi. “The famous treasure-hunting Fargos, it turns out, have been diving for broken pottery and deer antlers. Now these people have figured that out.” She slowed the engine. “Let’s let them get out of here. I’m not going down sixty feet and leaving them up here with our boat.”
“Maybe that’s not why they’re leaving. If we can see them, they can see us. Let’s try another approach. Keep an eye on them for a minute.” He went into the cabin and returned with a chart. He held it up where Remi could see it. “Head along here toward Vermilion Lake. When we get there, I’d like you to take a winding course up into the bayou.”
“That’s a little vague.”
“I don’t want to stifle your creativity. Let’s see if you can lose them.”
Remi started to move forward, set herself on the proper compass course, and gradually pushed the throttle up, making the 427 Chevrolet engine roar. She shot past the black-and-gray boat at a distance, and kept going at the same speed. After a few minutes, Sam tapped her on the shoulder and she looked back. When she saw the black-and-gray boat coming after them at high speed, she threw her head back and laughed. “Not very subtle, are they? I guess it’s a race.” She pushed the throttle forward all the way, then tapped it with the heel of her hand to get the last bit of speed out of it. As she sped west along the Caminada Headland, she looked delighted.
Now and then the boat would reach a freak wave and leap over it. Remi would flex her knees to take the jump like a skier, cling to the steering wheel, and then duck to avoid the splash that the wind sent back at them. Sam stood close to her and said, “You can slow down a little bit now. If they lose sight of us this early, they might give up. We want them fully committed.”
“Aye, aye,” she said.
She drove on, keeping their pursuers barely in sight, until Sam said, “All right. Now go into Vermilion Lake.”
She turned right, sped across the open water, and then headed for the bayous. As she shot into the first narrow, winding channel, she gradually pulled back the throttle. “Hey, make yourself useful,” she said. “Get up to the bow and make sure I don’t hit anything that’s alive or puts holes in boats.”
“Happy to,” Sam said. He got up on the foredeck and pointed in the direction that was clearest. He studied the water for snags and shallow spots and kept her out of them. The water was dark and nearly opaque, the channel lined with reeds and trees hung with Spanish moss and vines. As they moved farther inland, the vegetation grew thicker, and the trees came together to form arches over the water. After a time, Sam called, “Idle the engine.”
The engine went to neutral, and the boat coasted a few yards with a minimum of sound, then stopped and drifted into a shaded copse. Somewhere in the distance behind them they could hear the growl of the black-and-gray boat’s engine. Sam and Remi exchanged a nod, and then Remi sped up again. They went on for another twenty minutes, and Sam waved at her again. She slowed down to a crawl while Sam came aft and looked at the chart.
“Get ready to anchor.”
“Are you sure?”
“Something wrong with this spot?”
“It’s a sweltering, mosquito-infested swamp where the alligators and the rare and celebrated American crocodiles can barely fight off the water moccasins. And I just saw an egret fall out of his tree from heat exhaustion.”
“Perfect,” Sam said. “Let’s get our wet suits on. They’ll protect us from the mosquitoes. Wear your booties, because we’ll be walking. And we might as well bring flippers too, in case we need speed.” Sam studied the chart, then put a big red X in a location about a half mile from their position.
“Isn’t that a little heavy-handed?”
“They will have worked so hard to see it that they’ll need to believe it.”
When they were ready, Sam used the blunt end of the gaff to pole them to shore and used the hook end to hold the boat while they got out and took a few steps into the mud. Sam pushed the boat so it could drift out into the middle of the channel.
“Now what?” she asked.
“Now we go on a great big hike.”
“Charming. Lead on.” She walked along behind him through the reeds and muck.
Every so often Sam would turn back to check on her. She was stepping along at a steady pace, and her face was set in a quiet smile. After about twenty minutes of walking, Sam stopped. “You figured it out, didn’t you?”
“Maybe.”
“Why only ‘maybe’?”
“Are you assuming they put a GPS tracker on our boat?”
He grinned. “I found it. I wondered why they didn’t sabotage the engine, then realized it was so we wouldn’t spend a lot of time looking around in the engine compartment.”
“Then yes. I have figured it out. Let’s finish the trek and see if they’re out following our trail to the treasure.”
He said, “Sometimes you amaze me.”
“Really?” she asked. “Still?”
He led Remi deeper into the swamp and then along a wide right turn so they completed a vast circle. When they came back to their boat, she went a hundred yards up to the next bend and pointed. The black-and-gray boat was anchored up there to hide it from them.
Sam sat down on an old fallen tree trunk, put on his flippers, and pulled his mask down over his face.
Remi put her hand on his arm. “The alligators weren’t just a figure of speech, you know.”
“Don’t tell them I’m here.” He moved into the murky water and disappeared. He reappeared at the stern of the black-and-gray boat. He went to the bow, pulled up the anchor, and let the boat begin to drift downstream.
Remi moved quickly along the shallows to where they had left the dive boat, close to the shore among the dead trees. She used the gaff to push off, lifted the anchor, and looked up the watery channel at Sam, drifting slowly toward her in the black-and-gray boat. She could see he was working with a set of wires he had cut and stripped with his dive knife.
As Remi watched, Sam touched the two wires together, the engine started, and he began to steer the boat down the bayou toward her. She started the engine of their boat and moved along the bayou ahead of him at quarter speed, relying on her memory of where sunken logs and muddy bars had been. In a few minutes she was out into Mud Lake, then into Vermilion Lake, and then out into the Gulf. In a moment, Sam was coming up behind in the black-and-gray boat.
When they reached the open water far out from the Caminada Headland, they brought the two boats together and tied them. Remi climbed aboard the black-and-gray boat. “Sneakily done.”
“Thank you,” he said. They began to search the black-and-gray boat, concentrating on the cabin. In a few minutes, Remi held up a blue binder with a hundred pages in it. “They’re a company. Have you ever heard of Consolidated Enterprises?”
“No,” Sam said. “Pretty vague. It doesn’t sound like anything specific.”
“I guess they don’t want to rule anything out,” she said.
“At the moment, they’re treasure hunters.” He pointed to a marine metal detector on the deck, ready to be deployed.
“Why use that thing when you can just follow people who find treasures, wreck their equipment, and take over their spot?”
Sam looked around the cabin again. “There’re six of them.”
“Two women.” She nodded and opened the binder again. “Here we go. They’re a ‘field team,’ complete with pictures and names.”
“Take it with you,” said Sam.
“Isn’t taking things crossing the line?”
“Isn’t stranding six people in a swamp forty miles from home crossing the line?”
“I guess you’re right.” She closed the binder and went on deck. “What should we do with their boat?”
“Where’s their home office?”
“New York.”
“Then we’d better drive it back and dock it in the marina,” Sam said. “It’s probably rented from somebody who can’t afford to lose it.”
Remi swung her legs over the gunwale into their rented boat. Sam handed her his mask and flippers, then took off his wet suit and tossed it into the boat too. Remi cast off the line that connected the two boats. “I’ll race you back to Grand Isle.” She started the engine. “Winner gets the first shower.”