Perlmutter shook his head. "I've never read it. Mender-Husted keeps it locked away."
Several seconds passed, Pitt lost in his thoughts. He couldn't help wondering how many other obsidian skulls were hidden around the world.
Moving silently along at the posted speed, the Rolls-Royce made the trip to Fredericksburg in an hour and a half. Mulholland steered the majestic car onto a circular drive that led to a picturesque colonial house on the heights of the town above the Rappahannock River, overlooking the killing field where 12,500 Union soldiers fell during one day in the Civil War. The house, built in 1848, was a gracious reminder of the past.
"Well, here we are," said Perlmutter, as Mulholland opened the door.
Pitt went around to the rear of the car, raised the trunk lid, and lifted out the crate containing the skull.
"This should prove interesting," he said, as they walked up the steps and pulled a cord that rang a bell.
Christine Mender-Husted could have passed for anyone's grandmother. She was as spry as they came, white-haired, with a hospitable smile, angelic facial features, and twenty pounds on the plump side.
Her movements came as quick as her sparkling hazel eyes. She greeted Perlmutter with a firm handshake and nodded when he introduced his friend.
"Please come right in," she said sweetly. "I've been expecting you. May I offer you some tea?"
Both men accepted and were led to a high-ceilinged, paneled library and motioned to sit in comfortable leather chairs. After a young girl, who was introduced as a neighbor's daughter who helped out around the house, served the tea, Christine turned to Perlmutter.
"Well, St. Julien, as I told you over the phone, I'm still not ready to sell my family's treasures."
"I admit the hope has never left my mind," said Perlmutter, "but I've brought Dirk for another reason."
He turned to Pitt. "Would you like to show Mrs. Mender-Husted what you have in the box?"
"Christine," she said. "My maiden and married names together are a mouthful."
"Have you always lived in Virginia?" asked Pitt, making conversation while opening the latches on the wooden box containing the skull from the Pandora Mine.
"I come from six generations of Californians, many of whom still live in and around San Francisco. I happened to have had the good fortune of marrying a man who came from Virginia and who served under three presidents as special adviser."
Pitt went silent, his eyes captivated by a black obsidian skull that was sitting on the mantel above the flickering fire. Then slowly, as if in a trance, he opened the crate. Then he removed his skull, walked over, reached up, and placed it beside its double on the mantel.
"Oh my!" Christine gasped. "I never dreamed there was another one."
"Neither did I," Pitt said, studying the two black skulls. "As far as I can tell by the naked eye, they're perfect duplicates, identical in form and composition. Even the dimensions appear to be the same. It's as if they came out of the same mold."
"Tell me, Christine," said Perlmutter, a cup of tea in one hand, "what ghostly tale did your great-grandfather pass down about the skull?"
She looked at him as if he had asked a dumb question. "You know as well as I do that it was found on a ship frozen in the ice called the Madras She was bound from Bombay to Liverpool with thirty-seven passengers, a crew of forty, and carrying a varied cargo of tea, silk, spices, and porcelain. My great-grandparents found the skull in a storeroom filled with other ancient artifacts."
"What I meant was, did they find any indication of how the artifacts came to be onboard the Madras."
"I know for a fact the skull and other oddities did not come on board the ship in Bombay. They were discovered by the crew and passengers when they stopped for water at a deserted island during the voyage. The details were in the logbook."
Pitt hesitated and, fearing the worst, repeated, "You say were in the log?"
"Captain Mender did not keep it. The dying wish of the Madras's captain was that it be forwarded to the owners of the ship. My great-grandfather dutifully sent it by courier to Liverpool."
Pitt felt as if he had run against a brick wall in a dead-end alley. "Do you know if the Madras's owners sent an expedition to find the derelict and backtrack its course to the artifacts?"
"The original ship's owners, as it turns out, sold the trading company before Captain Mender sent the log," explained Christine. "The new management sent out a two-ship expedition to find the Madras, but they vanished with all hands."
"Then all records are lost," Pitt said, discouraged.
Christine's eyes flashed. "I never said that."
He looked at the elderly lady, trying to read something in her eyes. "But--"
"My great-grandmother was a very sharp lady," she cut him off. "She made a handwritten copy of the Madras's log before her husband sent it off to England."
To Pitt, it was as if the sun had burst through black clouds. "May I please read it?"
Christine did not immediately answer. She walked over to an antique ship captain's desk and gazed up at a painting hanging on the oak-paneled wall. It depicted a man sitting in a chair with his arms and legs crossed. But for a great beard that covered his face, he might have been handsome. He was a big man, his body and shoulders filling the chair. The woman who stood behind him with one hand on his shoulder was small in stature and stared through intense brown eyes. Both were dressed in nineteenth-century clothing.
"Captain Bradford and Roxanna Mender," she said wistfully, seemingly lost in a past she had never lived. Then she turned and looked at Perlmutter. "St. Julien, I think the time has come. I've held on to their papers and letters out of sentiment for far too long. It's better they be remembered by others who can read and benefit from the history they lived. The collection is yours at the price you quoted."
Perlmutter came out of the chair as lightly as if he had the body of an athlete, and hugged Christine.
"Thank you, dear lady. I promise all will be properly preserved and stored in archives for future historians to study."
Christine came over and stood beside Pitt at the mantel. "And to you, Mr. Pitt, a gift. I place my obsidian skull in your trust. Now that you have a matching pair, what do you intend to do with them?"
"Before they go to a museum of ancient history, they'll be studied and analyzed in a laboratory to see if they can be dated and tied to a past civilization."
She looked at her skull for a long time before exhaling a long sigh. "I hate to see it go, but knowing it will be properly cared for makes it much easier. You know, people have always looked at it and thought it was a precursor of bad luck and tragic tunes. But from the minute Roxanna carried it over the melting ice pack to her husband's ship, it has brought nothing but good fortune and blessings to the Mender family."
On the trip back to Washington, Pitt read the entries from the log of the Madras as exactingly copied in a leather-bound notebook in Roxanna Mender's delicate and flowing hand. Despite the smooth ride of the Rolls, he had to look up from time to time and gaze into the distance to keep from getting carsick.
"Find anything interesting?" Perlmutter asked, as Mulholland drove over the George Mason Bridge, which spans the Potomac River.
Pitt lifted his eyes from the notebook. "Indeed I have. Now we know the approximate location where the crew of the Madras discovered their skull, and much, much more."
<<12>>
The Rolls-Royce came to a stop at the old aircraft hangar that Pitt called home on a deserted end of Washington's International Airport. The decrepit-looking hangar, built in 1936, looked as if it had been long abandoned. Weeds surrounded its rusting corrugated walls and the windows were heavily boarded over.
No sooner had Hugo slipped from behind the wheel than two heavily armed men, dressed in camouflage fatigues, seemed to materialize out of nowhere and stand with automatic rifles at the ready.
One leaned in the window, while the other stood face-to-face with Mulholland, as if daring him to make
a menacing move. "One of you better be Dirk Pitt," snapped the man peering into the backseat.
"I'm Pitt."
The guard studied his face for a moment. "ID, sir." It was not a quest but an order.
Pitt flashed his NUMA identification, and the guard raised his weapon and smiled. "Sorry for the inconvenience, but we're under orders to protect you and your property."
Pitt assumed the men were with a little-known federal protective security agency. Their agents were highly trained to protect government employees whose lives were threatened. "I'm grateful for your concern and dedication."
"The other two gentlemen?"
"Good friends."
The security guard handed Pitt a small remote alarm. "Please carry this with you at all times while you are in your residence. At the slightest hint of danger, press the transmit button. We'll respond within twenty seconds."
The security guard didn't offer his name, and Pitt didn't ask.
Mulholland had the trunk open, and Pitt retrieved his duffel bag. At that moment, he noticed the two security guards had vanished. He looked around the hangar grounds and scanned the empty fields off to the side of the main runway. It was as if they had never been. Pitt could only guess that they were concealed under the earth.
"I'll have Hugo drive by NUMA headquarters and drop off your obsidian heads," said Perlmutter.
Pitt placed a hand on Mulholland's shoulder. "Very gently, carry them to the lab on the sixth floor and give them to the scientist in charge. His name is Harry Matthews."
Mulholland cracked a faint grin that was equal to a wide-toothed grin from anyone else. "I'll make every effort not to drop them."
"Goodbye, St. Julien. And thank you."
"Not at all, my boy. Drop over for dinner first chance you get."
Pitt watched as the old Rolls moved over the dirt road leading to an airport security gate, trailing a wisp of dust behind its bumper. He looked up at an old worn light pole and saw a tiny security camera mounted on the top. Perhaps that would satisfy his curiosity as to where the security guards were hiding by having recorded their movements.
With a small remote, he deactivated the hangar's extensive alarm system and opened a door that appeared to have been frozen shut since World War II. He hoisted the duffel bag on his shoulder and walked inside. The interior was dustproof and dark. Not a crack of light showed anywhere. Then he closed the door and pressed a light switch, throwing the hangar into a blaze of light and a prism of color.
The floor of the hangar, painted in a gleaming white epoxy, was covered with an array of fifty antique and classic automobiles painted in a myriad of bright colors. Other displays included a German jet aircraft from World War II and a Ford trimotor aircraft from the early 1930s that was called a Tin Goose. A turn-of-the-century railroad car sat on raised rails against one wall of the hangar. As if added for conversation pieces, there was a cast-iron bathtub with an outboard motor, and a peculiar inflatable raft with a makeshift cabin and mast. The entire collection was guarded by a tall Haida Indian totem pole.
Pitt paused to sweep his eyes over the eclectic collection and scan the wording on many of the vintage signs that hung from the high arched ceiling, including the Burma Shave signs. Satisfied everything was in its place, he climbed a wrought-iron spiral staircase to his apartment above the floor of the warehouse.
The interior looked like a nautical museum. Glass-encased ship models blended with wooden-spoke helms and compass binnacles, ship's bells, and copper and brass diver's helmets. The living room, study, single bedroom with bath, and the kitchen/dining room measured no more than eleven hundred square feet.
Though he was tired beyond feeling, he unpacked the duffel bag and threw his dirty clothes on the floor of the small closet that held his washer and dryer. Then he stepped into the bathroom and took a long shower, turning the hot steaming water against one wall of the stall while he rested against the floor on his back with his legs straight up in one corner. He was relaxing with a Juan Julio silver tequila on the rocks when a ship's bell announced the presence of a visitor at the front door.
Pitt peered into one of the four TV monitors mounted between two bookshelves and recognized NUMAs deputy director, Rudi Gunn, standing on his doorstep. He pressed a switch on a remote and said, "Come on in, Rudi. I'm upstairs."
Gunn climbed the staircase and entered the apartment. A small man with thinning hair and a Roman nose, Gunn gazed through thick hornrimmed glasses. A former commander in the Navy and first in his class at the Naval Academy, Gunn was highly intelligent and well respected among the staff at NUMA.
His blue eyes were wide and magnified behind the lenses of his glasses, and he had a dazed expression on his face.
"Two guys with automatic rifles in camouflage gear scared the hell out of me until I proved I was a friend of yours from NUMA."
"Admiral Sandecker's idea."
"I knew he hired a security agency, but I had no idea they had magical powers and could appear out of nowhere. All that was missing was a puff of smoke."
"They're very efficient," said Pitt.
"I was briefed on your situation in Telluride," said Gunn, sinking into a chair. "The word circulating around town is that your life isn't worth two cents."
Pitt brought him a glass of iced tea from the kitchen. Gunn seldom drank anything with alcohol except an occasional beer. "Not to those jokers from the Fourth Empire. I suspect they'll spare no expense to inter me in a tomb."
"I took the liberty of looking under a few rocks." Gunn paused and downed half the glass of iced tea.
"I met with some friends at the CIA--"
"What interest could the CIA possibly have in a domestic crime?"
"They suspect the killers you ran up against in the Pandora Mine might be part of an international crime syndicate."
"Terrorists?" asked Pitt.
Gunn shook his head. "They're not religious or cult-driven fanatics. But their agenda is still secret. CIA operatives, Interpol agents-- nobody's been able to penetrate the organization yet. All the foreign intelligence agencies know is that it exists. Where it operates from or who controls it, they haven't a clue.
Their killers show up, as they did in Telluride, murder their victims, and vanish."
"What crimes are they involved in, besides murder?"
"That seems to be a mystery, too."
Pitt's eyes narrowed. "Who ever heard of a crime syndicate with no motives?"
Gunn shrugged. "I know it sounds crazy, but they have yet to leave even a tiny thread."
"They've got two of the scum in Telluride to interrogate."
Gunn's eyebrows rose. "You haven't heard?"
"Heard what?"
"A Sheriff Eagan from Telluride, Colorado, called Admiral Sandecker only an hour ago. The prisoners were found dead."
"Damn!" Pitt snapped irritably. "I expressly told the sheriff to search them for cyanide pills."
"Nothing so mundane as poison. According to Eagan, a bomb was smuggled into their jail cell. They were blown to pieces, along with a deputy who was on guard nearby."
"Life is cheap to these people," Pitt said acidly.
"So I gathered."
"What's the next step?"
"The admiral is sending you on a deep-sea geological project in the middle of the Pacific, where you'll be reasonably safe from any more assassination attempts."
Pitt grinned slyly. "I won't go."
"He knew you'd say that." Gunn grinned back. "Besides, you're too important in the investigation to send off to the boondocks. As it stands, you've had more contact with this group than anyone else, and lived to tell about it. High-level investigators want to talk to you. Eight o'clock in the morning. . ." He paused to hand Pitt a slip of paper. "Here's the address. Be there. Drive your car into the open garage and wait for instructions."
"Are James Bond and Jack Ryan coming, too?"
Gunn made a wry face. "Funny" He finished off the iced tea and walked outside onto the balcony overlo
oking the fabulous collection below. "That's interesting."
"What?"
"You referred to the assassins as being from the Fourth Empire."
"Their words, not mine."
"The Nazis called their hideous dreamworld the Third Reich."
"Most all the old Nazis are dead, thankfully," said Pitt. "The Third Reich died with them."
"Did you ever take a course in German?" inquired Gunn.
Pitt shook his head. "The only words I know are ja, nein, and auf Wiedersehen."
"Then you don't know that the English for `Third Reich' is `Third Empire.' "
Pitt went taut. "You're not suggesting they're a bunch of neo-Nazis?"
Gunn was about to reply when a great whoosh sound came, like a jet fighter using its afterburner, and was followed immediately by an earsplitting screech of metal and a streak of orange flame that flashed across the interior of the hangar before disappearing through the far wall. Two seconds later, an explosion rattled the hangar and shook the wrought-iron balcony. Dust fell from the metal roof and settled on the shiny cars, dulling their bright paint. A weird silence trailed the fading rumble from the explosion.
Then came the rattle of prolonged gunfire, followed quickly by another, more muted explosion. Both men stood frozen, gripping the balcony railing.
Pitt found words first. "The bastards!" he hissed.
"What in God's name was that?" asked Gunn in shock.
"Damn them. They fired a missile into my hangar. The only thing that saved us from being blasted to shreds was that it didn't explode. The warhead smashed through one thin corrugated wall and out the other without the detonator in its nose striking a heavy structural beam."
The door burst open and the two security guards came running onto the floor of the hangar, pulling to a halt beneath the spiral staircase. "Are you injured?" asked one.
"I believe the word is shaken," said Pitt. "Where did it come from?"
"A handheld launcher fired from a helicopter," answered the guard. "Sorry we let it get so close. We were conned by the markings-- it was supposed to be from a local television station. We did fire on it, however, and bring it down. It crashed in the river."
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