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."

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."

"Good-bye, 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."