The other three gigantic ships were purchased by cargo transport lines and oil companies and soon became familiar sights in the few major port facilities that could receive them. Because they showed that leviathan superships could be profitable, it was not long before six other ships of comparable size were under construction.
Admiral Sandecker, along with Pitt, Loren Smith, Giordino, and Pat, who had flown in to help set up the display of Amenes descriptions, were members of a party of VIPs who were invited to preview the exhibits before they were open to the general public. No matter how many times they had seen them, Pitt and Giordino were still amazed at the magnitude of the treasures on display. No one who beheld them could believe they came from a race of people who vanished nine thousand years ago, long before most prehistoric civilizations had emerged from the stone age.
The centerpiece under a spacious stained-glass rotunda was a grouping of the beautifully preserved mummies of the Amenes rulers found on St. Paul Island by Giordino and Rudi Gunn. Everyone stood in awe in the presence of those who had lived and died so far in the past. Pitt found himself wondering if one of these ancient people might have been his direct ancestor.
Nearly five hours later, they exited the exhibit through a side door held open by a guard and began walking across the mall toward the newly built Smithsonian Transportation Museum. Loren looked dazzling, her cinnamon hair falling to her shoulders and accented by the sun. She was dressed comfortably in a light blue sleeveless silk dress that was cut short, revealing a shapely pair of tanned legs. Pitt wore a green golf shirt and light-tan slacks. Al and Pat, shunning any formal look in the heat, both wore light T-shirts and shorts. Like a pair of young lovers, they held hands as they walked across Madison Drive and took the pathway across the Mall, with Sandecker in the lead, puffing on one of his elephantine cigars.
“When are you returning to Okuma Bay?” Loren asked Pat.
“Next week.”
Loren smiled at Giordino. “There goes your love life.”
“Haven’t you heard? The admiral is sending me back to the ancient city on a sabbatical. He’s directed me to study and record the seafaring activities of the Amenes for Hiram Yaeger’s computer archives. Pat and I will be working together for the next six months.”
“That leaves just you and me,” said Loren, squeezing Pitt’s hand.
“Not for long.” Pitt brushed his lips against her hair. “I’m leaving in two weeks to head up a research project on an underwater volcano that’s rising toward the water surface southeast of Hawaii.”
“How long will you be?”
“No more than three weeks.”
“I guess I can endure three weeks without you,” Loren said, with a faint little grin.
They crossed Jefferson Drive between the traffic and walked through the entrance of the Transportation Museum. Inside, on four acres of open space, were displayed hundreds of vehicles dating back to the late 1890s. They were laid out in chronological order from the early brass cars to the latest-concept cars from the auto manufacturers. Besides automobiles, every kind of conceivable vehicle was represented from manufacturers of trucks, farm tractors, motorcycles, and bicycles.
The gem of the collection was Admiral Byrd’s Snow Cruiser. She sat in a gallery five feet below the main floor so the public could peer through the windows and open doors at eye level. Her new red paint and orange stripe gleamed under overhead lights, revealing the great machine in all her glory.
“They certainly did a masterful job restoring her,” said Pitt quietly.
“Hard to believe,” murmured Giordino, “considering how we left her.”
Sandecker’s gaze traveled from one end of the Snow Cruiser to the other. “A majestic piece of machinery. Remarkably modern lines for a vehicle designed nearly sixty-four years ago.”
“I can’t help wondering what she could do with a pair of new six-hundred-horsepower turbodiesels in her gut,” Giordino speculated.
“I’d have given my right arm to put her in my collection,” said Pitt wistfully.
Loren looked at him. “This has to be the only time I can remember when you couldn’t take home a souvenir with wheels on it from your adventures.”
He gave a helpless shrug. “It belongs to the people.”
They stood around for several minutes gazing at the Snow Cruiser, while Pitt and Giordino reminisced about their wild ride over the Antarctic wasteland. Then, reluctantly, they left the great vehicle and walked through the aisles, viewing the other exhibits until they reached the main entrance again.
Sandecker bent his wrist and glanced at his watch. “Well, I have to be running along.”
“A hot date?” asked Giordino. It was well known that since his divorce many years before, the admiral was one of the most sought-after bachelors in town by the city’s eligible ladies. Never making a commitment, he managed to adroitly keep his feminine friends happy without angering or disillusioning them.
“I’m dining with Senator Mary Conrow, and I’d hardly consider her a hot date.”
“You old dog,” said Loren. “Mary is a ranking member of the budget committee. You’re getting cozy so you can sweet-talk her into voting an increase in NUMA’s budget.”
“It’s called mixing business with pleasure.” He gave the women a kiss on their cheeks, but didn’t shake the hands of the men. He saw them on a daily basis and felt there was no call to act chummy, despite the fact that Pitt and Giordino were like sons to him.
“We’re off, too,” said Pat. “We promised Megan to take her out for a hamburger and a movie.”
“How about dinner at my place on Friday?” Loren said, with her arm around Pat’s waist.
“You’re on.” She turned to Giordino. “All right with you, lover?”
Giordino nodded. “Loren makes a to-die-for meat loaf.”
“Meat loaf it shall be.” Loren laughed.
THE sun was setting toward the horizon, growing from a small golden ball into a vast orange sphere as Pitt and Loren sat in the apartment of his hangar and enjoyed a glass of Don Julio silver tequila on the rocks while listening to music. She was nestled on the couch, leaning against him, legs curled under her.
“I never understood how women can do that,” he said, between sips of his tequila.
“Do what?”
“Sit on their legs. I can’t bend mine that far, and if I could, they’d lose circulation and go numb.”
“Men are like dogs, women like cats. Our joints are more limber than yours.”
Pitt raised his hands languidly in the air and stretched. “So much for Sunday. Tomorrow it’s back to studying oceanographic project reports for me and making trivial speeches in Congress for you.”
“My term is up next year,” she said slowly. “I’m thinking of not running for reelection.”
He looked at her curiously. “I thought you said you were going to grow old in Congress?”
“I changed my mind. After seeing how happy Pat and Al are, I realized that if I ever want to have babies while I’m still able, I’d better find a good man and settle down.”
“I can’t believe I’m hearing this.”
She threw him a mock, inquiring look. “Don’t you want to marry me?”
It took a few moments for Pitt to absorb her words. “As I recall, I proposed marriage in the Sonoran Desert after the Inca Gold affair and you turned me down.”
“That was then,” she said airily.
“I never asked you again. How do you know I haven’t had second thoughts?”
She stared into his eyes, not certain whether he was serious or simply being funny. “You’ve gotten cold feet?”
“Can we both really change our lifestyles?” he asked with a straight face. “You still have your seat in the House of Representatives and a luxurious town house in Alexandria. I have my apartment and car collection in an old rusty hangar with noisy aircraft taking off and landing overhead. How can we possibly work it out?”
She put her arms aroun
d him and stared at him through eyes misty with love. “I’ve had my day playing the independent, individualist woman. I enjoyed it. But now it’s time to get practical. There are other projects I’d like to take on.”
“Such as?”
“I’ve been asked to take over the directorship of the National Child Abuse Foundation.”
“That takes care of the career. What about the lifestyle?”
“We can alternate—one week here, one week in my town house.”
“You call that practical?”
She suddenly became flippant. “I don’t know what your problem is. We spend most of our free time together anyway.”
He pulled her close and kissed her. “Okay, since you begged me nicely, I’ll give some thought to marrying you.”
She pushed him away and acted as if she were pouting, knowing full well he was teasing her. “On the other hand, I just may look around. There must be hundreds of men out there who would appreciate me. I’m sure I can do better than Mister High-and-Mighty Dirk Pitt.”
Pitt pressed her body against his tightly, stared into her violet eyes, and said softly, “Why waste your time? You know that’s impossible.”
“You’re incorrigible.”
“A lot can happen in the next year.”
Loren curled her arms around his neck. “That’s true, but the fun is in making it happen.”
POSTSCRIPT
IN 1960, ARCHAEOLOGISTS DISCOVERED the ancient bones of a woman on Santa Rosa, one of the channel islands off California. After she lay in the basement of the Santa Barbara museum for forty years, a team of scientists conducted sophisticated DNA and radiocarbon tests on the skeletal remains. Results revealed the bones to be as old as thirteen thousand years, making the lady the oldest known human skeleton found in North America.
During the era in which she lived, the lady would have seen glaciers the size of Australia, woolly mammoths, and saber-toothed tigers, and she could have walked from island to island, since the sea level was 360 feet lower than it is today. Her discovery challenged traditional theories that the first people to live in the Americas came across the land bridge over what is now the Bering Sea between Siberia and Alaska.
The Spirit Caveman, as another human relic is called, lived more than 9,400 years ago in Western Nevada and has a cranial profile that suggests his origins are Japanese or East Asian. The Wizard’s Beach Man, whose skull was also found in Nevada, closely resembles both the Norse and the Polynesians. Other skulls found in Nebraska and Minnesota, all at least eight thousand years old, resemble both Europeans and South Asians.
New evidence suggests that the first settlers might have been Polynesians and Asians who inhabited the western end of North and South America while the eastern seaboard was settled by Europeans who arrived by boat, navigating along the ice pack that spanned the North Atlantic during the ice age and following the migratory birds that flew west.
It is known that people traveled by boats from southern Asia to Australia more than forty thousand years ago, so sea travel is hardly an invention of civilizations around the Mediterranean. The seas beckoned ancient mariners, who explored and discovered far more of the world than they were given credit for, and whose history is only now being written.
Atlantis Found (A Dirk Pitt Novel) Page 55
