Lost City - Cussler Clive - Страница 24

"Paul has talked to both of them. NUMA already had some biologists working on the Caulerpa problem."

Austin smiled. "Why am I not surprised that Dirk is one step ahead of us?"

"Only half a step. He was unaware of the Lost City connection. He'll be waiting for a report on our dive."

"Me, too. Good luck. Keep in touch."

As Austin hung up, the words of T. S. Eliot came to mind. "This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but a whimper."

A soggy whimper at that.

Paul and Gamay could handle the situation and there was nothing he could do in the meantime, so he busied himself with a stem-to-stern inspection of the SEA mobile Aside from a few dents and scrapes, the vehicle was in better shape than he was, Austin concluded. He sat in the bubble cabin and went through a checklist. Satisfied all systems were working, he picked up two mugs of coffee from the galley, went below and knocked softly on the door to Skye's stateroom.

Recognizing that the Mummichug was a relatively small vessel, the boat's designers had factored in small individual cabins where crew members could enjoy their privacy. Skye was up and dressed. She opened the door immediately and smiled when she saw Austin.

"Good morning," he said. As he handed Skye a steaming mug, he noticed the dark circles under her eyes. "Did you sleep well?"

"Not very. I kept dreaming I was being smothered under tons of ice."

"I have a proven cure for nightmares. How would you like to explore an underwater tomb?"

Her face lit up. "How could any woman in her right mind refuse such an enticing offer?"

"Follow me then. Our chariot waits without."

With Austin and Skye on board, the submersible was lowered into the water between the catamaran's twin hulls. Once free of the

support vessel, the sub cruised along the surface to a position whose coordinates had been recorded into the navigation system, and Austin put the SEA mobile into a dive.

The clear lake waters enveloped the cockpit bubble as the submersible sank into the lake, and within minutes they were following the line of megaliths to the tomb. Austin stopped the submersible at the entrance, made sure the vehicle's cameras were operating, and then goosed the horizontal thrusters. A second later, the vehicle slipped through the opening into the ancient sepulchre.

The powerful lights failed to reach the far wall of the chamber, indicating that it was huge, with ceilings so high they couldn't be seen. As the SEA mobile slowly made its way into the chamber, Austin panned the sub's movable light along the right wall, and saw that it was decorated with a carved has-relief.

The skillfully executed and detailed renderings showed sailboats, houses, pastoral scenes with palm trees and flowers, dancers and musicians. There were flying fish and frolicking dolphins. The boats looked quite ancient. The people depicted were well dressed and seemed to be enjoying a prosperous life.

Skye leaned forward in her seat, her face pressed against the plastic bubble like a child at Christmas.

"I see wonderful things," she said, quoting Howard Carter's first words at the discovery of King Tut's tomb.

Austin had been thinking that there was something hauntingly familiar about the scenes. "I've been here before," he said. "Here, in this tomb?"

"No. But I've seen drawings similar to these carvings in a cave in the Faroe Islands, in the North Atlantic. The style and subject was very much the same. What do you make of them?"

"I'm probably foolish for guessing, but they look Minoan, similar to the drawings excavated at Akrotiri, on the island of Santorini, or in Crete. The Minoan civilization flourished around 1500 B.C." The significance of what she was saying dawned on her. "Do you know what this means?" she said with excitement. "These drawings and the ones you saw would indicate that the Minoans went much farther afield than most people suspect."

"Which makes them the missing link in your international trade theory?"

"That's right," she said. "This confirms that east-west trade is far older and more extensive than anyone thought it was." She clapped her hands. "I can't wait to show this video to my smug-faced colleagues back in Paris."

The submersible came to the end of the wall, turned a corner and started down another side of the rectangular chamber. The scenes were of Lac du Dormeur and the glacier. But instead of barren shore, there were buildings, even what appeared to be a rendering of the tomb, complete with arches, and the glacier, as silent and implacable as ever.

"It appears you were right about settlements around the lakeshore and the mouth of the river."

"This is marvelous! We can use these carvings to make site maps of ruin locations."

In the sculpted scene, the ice field had covered even more of the valley centuries before when it was carved by some unknown artist. The sculptor had managed to imbue his work with a majesty and power that went beyond a mere objective rendering of what he saw. They made several sweeps of the chamber and found no markers or a sarcophagus.

"I was all wrong about this place," she said. "It's not a tomb. It's a temple."

"A reasonable assumption given the lack of bodies. If we're done here, I'd like to unravel another lake mystery." He unfolded the side-scan sonar printout he'd brought with him and pointed at the anomaly on the lake's bottom.

"It looks like a plane," Skye said. "What's a plane doing down here? Wait. The man in the ice?"

Austin answered with an enigmatic smile, the sub's horizontal thrusters whirred, and they whisked through the temple door back out into the lake. He slowed the sub when they neared the position designated on the printout and kept his eyes peeled. Before long, a cigar-shaped object came into view.

As they drew closer, Austin saw that the cylindrical wood framework was partially covered with tattered and faded red fabric. The conical engine housing had been torn off and lay on the bottom and the engine gleamed in the sub's lights. The cold lake temperatures had kept the fuselage clear of marine vegetation that would have covered it in warmer climes. The propeller was gone, probably snapped off in the crash. He circled around the fuselage and found what was left of the missing wing several yards away. Then he brought the sub back to the plane.

Skye pointed to the emblem painted on the tail. "I saw that same design the triple-headed eagle on the helmet that was found under the glacier."

"Too bad we don't have the helmet now." "But we do. I brought it out with me. It's on the ship." Austin remembered Skye clutching a bag as she climbed aboard the SEA mobile He was learning quickly that this attractive woman with the smile like a sunny day was not someone to be underestimated. Austin stared at the eagle, and then let his gaze shift to the empty cockpit.

"Now we know where the Ice Man came from. He must have bailed out and his plane crashed in the lake."

Skye responded with an evil laugh. "I was thinking of Renaud. He said that the Ice Man didn't just drop out of the sky. He was wrong. From what you've found, that's exactly what happened."

The submersible circled the wreck, with Austin shooting video and digital photos of the wings and surrounding bottom, and then headed for the surface. Before long, they were stepping out of the cockpit onto the deck. Skye had been babbling with excitement about their find, but she went silent when she caught a glimpse of the glacier. She walked over to the rail and stared off at the ice field.