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It was the first display of affection Pitt had offered since they'd met, and Pat felt a pleasurable warmth course through her. "My mind is too busy for me to be tired." She pulled her notebook from her case. "I'll use the flight to begin an initial analysis of the inscriptions."
"The aircraft has a computer facility in the rear cabin, if it would be of any help."
"Does it have a scanner to convert my notes onto a disk?"
"I believe so."
The fatigue seemed to ebb from her face. "That would be a great help. A pity my film was ruined after being immersed in the water."
Pitt reached down into his pants pocket, retrieved a plastic packet, and dropped it into her lap. "A complete photo survey of the chamber."
She was quite surprised as she opened the packet and found six canisters of film. "Where in the world did you get these?"
"Compliments of the Fourth Empire," he answered casually. "Al and I interrupted their photo shoot in the chamber. They were finishing up when we arrived, so I'm assuming they recorded the entire text. I'll have the rolls developed first thing in the NUMA photo lab."
"Oh, thank you," Pat said excitedly, kissing him on a cheek thick with stubble. "My notes only covered a smattering of the inscriptions." As if he were merely a passing stranger on a busy street, she turned away from him and hurried toward the aircraft's computer cabin.
Pitt eased his aching body from his seat and walked forward to the compact little galley, opened a refrigerator, and lifted out a soft drink can. Sadly, to his way of thinking, Admiral Sandecker permitted no alcoholic beverages on board NUMA ships or aircraft.
He stopped and stared down at the wooden crate that was firmly strapped in an empty seat. The black obsidian skull had not been out of his sight from the time he carried it from the chamber. He could only imagine the empty eye sockets staring at him through the wood of the crate. He sat in a seat across the aisle and raised the antenna of a Globalstar satellite telephone and punched a stored number. His call was linked to one of seventy orbiting satellites that relayed it to another satellite that relayed the signal to earth, where it was connected with a public telephone network.
Pitt gazed out the port at the passing clouds, knowing the party on the other end seldom answered before the seventh or eighth ring. Finally, on the tenth, a deep voice came through the receiver. "I'm here."
"St. Julien."
"Dirk!" St. Julien Perlmutter boomed, recognizing the voice. "If I'd known it was you, I'd have answered sooner."
"And step out of character? I don't think so."
Pitt could easily picture Perlmutter, all four hundred pounds of him in his ritual silk paisley pajamas, buried amid a mountain of nautical books in the carriage house he called home. Raconteur, gourmand, connoisseur, and acclaimed marine history authority, with a library collection of the world's rarest nautical books, private letters, papers, and plans on almost every ship ever built, he was a walking encyclopedia of man and the sea.
"Where are you, my boy?"
"Thirty-five thousand feet over the Rocky Mountains."
"You couldn't wait to call me in Washington?"
"I wanted to shift a research project into first gear at the first opportunity."
"How can I help you?"
Pitt briefly explained the mysterious chamber and the inscriptions on the walls. Perlmutter listened thoughtfully, interrupting to ask an occasional question. When Pitt finished, Perlmutter inquired, "What specifically do you have in mind?"
"You have files you've accumulated on pre-Columbian contact in the Americas."
"A whole room full of data. Material and theories on all the seafarers who visited North, Central, and South America long before Columbus."
"Do you recall any tales of ancient seafarers who traveled deep inside other continents and built underground chambers? Built them for the sole purpose of leaving a message for those who came later?
Were such acts ever mentioned in recorded history?"
"I can't recall any off the top of my head. There are any number of accounts of ancient trade between the peoples of the Americas and seafarers from Europe and Africa. It's thought that extensive mining of copper and tin to make bronze took place as far back as five thousand years ago."
"Where?" asked Pitt.
"Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin."
"Is it true?"
