Over the years, we had moved around our search area and were now concentrating in an area north of the old railroad station and east of the current north-to-south running line. This area is heavily wooded and brushy. Long sleeves and a machete are good things to have. Craig and I marked off a grid and began methodically covering the area. Every chirp from the detector needed to be dug, and we’d brought along a pick and shovel for that purpose.

My first big find was a bum that was living in the woods — I scared him awake by nearly stepping on him as I walked along, head down. He ran off into the woods like a deer frightened by a bear. He even left his cardboard box behind. I moved it to the side I’d already searched and checked under it — nothing.

By now it was getting hot, and Craig and I were sweating. We continued to search. An hour or so later, Craig discovered a fifty-five-gallon drum that had been buried, not too long after I discovered an old engine block that had been buried. So went the next few hours until early afternoon. We had decided to wait and eat lunch until after we picked up Dirk, since we figured they probably wouldn’t have fed him on the plane.

Leaving markers to show the area we’d covered, we grabbed our pick, shovel, and detector and walked back to the rental car. I looked at Craig. His T-shirt was wet enough to wring out, and his face was covered with dirt. He opened up the trunk of the rental car and tossed in the tools while removing two cans of warm soda. “Tom Clancy’s drinking fine champagne right now,” he said, as he handed one over.

“Thanks,” I said, as I popped the top.

Craig walked around and opened the car door — and a wave of heat erupted from inside that dried out my eyeballs. He slid into the driver’s seat and twisted the ignition. A few minutes later, we were cruising toward the airport. I looked at my watch. “We should have just enough time to park and walk inside,” I said.

Craig slid the rental car into a short-term parking spot, and we walked across the asphalt toward the terminal. Oh, was it ever hot! Then the doors to the terminal slid open, and we walked into the baggage claim area. It must have been forty degrees in there; Craig still swears he could see his breath.

And then there were the stares coming from the deplaning passengers. Craig seemed oblivious as he walked along, searching for Dirk, but the sight was comical, to say the least. His boots were coated with dirt and mud, his pants and shirt wet with sweat. That wasn’t the funny thing, however — as soon as he’d walked inside, the cold had instantly chilled him, and he was twitching like a Georgia farmer going ice-fishing for the first time. Both his shoulders were pumping up and down, and he was rubbing his hands together like a maniacal scientist intent on destruction. As he walked along, the crowd parted like a tank going through a crystal shop. Then Dirk approached from the other direction, headed for the baggage carousel.

At first glimpse, he actually stopped and broke out laughing.

“What in the hell,” he said between laughs, “happened to you two?”

“It’s those damn Twin Sisters,” I said. “We’ll tell you about it outside.”

Those damn Twin Sisters. Dirk and Craig did more work in 1997 when NUMA was in Galveston searching for the Invincble. This time, they moved outside the prime search area and scanned around some of the nearby homes. When Dirk and Craig work together, it often resembles a bad Abbott and Costello routine. The two feed off each other, passing the time doing poor comedy skits and worse impersonations. It usually starts with an innocuous comment and goes downhill from there.

And the Twin Sisters send both men into a frenzy.

“Hot enough for you?” Dirk began, as the pair unloaded the equipment from the trunk of the rental car.

“All we need is water and some good people,” said Craig.

“Of course,” replied Dirk, “that’s all that hell needs, as well.”

Craig hefted a pickax. “Volunteers,” he said. “We need volunteers.”

Dirk removed the last of the equipment and shut the trunk. “We could run an ad,” he said, as the pair began walking toward the search area.

“Looking for a few people who enjoy intense boredom interspersed with moments of extreme discomfort. Masochists welcome,” Craig said.

“Are your hobbies magnetometry, sweating, and digging holes? NUMA needs you.”

“Did you ever hide stuff from yourself just for the thrill of finding it later? You may be our type.”

“Will you work for free?” said Dirk.

Craig laughed. “Will you pay us to suffer?”

Dirk pointed to a ditch in front of an old frame house. The men began swiping the gradiometer back and forth. Craig watched the readout.

“Have you ever been so hot that your tongue was sweating?” Dirk said.

“Ever had to wash your clothes in a motel-room sink?”

“Because the Laundromat turned you away?” Dirk said.

“Stop,” said Craig. “Back about a foot.”

Dirk scanned the area.

“It’s small,” said Craig. “Continue.”

“Do you like greasy diner food?” Dirk resumed.

“Can you exist on a diet of taco chips and warm soda?”

Dirk looked over at Craig. “This area is magnetically deserted. Let’s move on.”

“As barren as a whore’s heart.”

“As deserted as a Vanilla Ice concert,” said Dirk.

This gives you a pretty good idea of what the first thirty minutes of the search went like. You can expand it for eight hours or so to understand the verbal barrage I’m faced with. When possible, I send the two off alone. If not, Ralph and I banish them to the rear deck of the search boat.

Later that day, Dirk received a good reading inside a horse corral. Craig, and the gift of a case of cold Miller Lite, convinced the owner to let them dig. After digging through the packed soil for most of one hot afternoon, the pair located an old anvil buried six feet deep. So they moved on to the next target. Such is the nature of what we do.

In early 2001, Craig flew to Phoenix so we could go over progress on this book. We spent a couple hours going over the Twin Sisters file and have come up with yet another hypothesis. Time will tell on this.

Both Dirk and Craig did make one request, however: When NUMA returns, they want to schedule it for some month besides August. Wimps.

When Mary Celeste edged away from pier 50 in the East River, there was no reason to think this voyage would be any different from others she had made. Tuesday, the fifth day of November 1872, was cold and gray, but not insufferably so. Just an early-winter New York day like hundreds before and hundreds since. Coats were worn, to be sure, but it was not so cold that a person would turn away from the wind. It was a normal day, with winter fast approaching.

Captain Benjamin Spooner Briggs tugged at his thick goatee, then adjusted the wheel slightly. The current in the East River was running strong and trying to push him back against the dock. He shouted to Albert Richardson of Stockton Springs, Maine, the first mate.

“Furl the main staysail,” Briggs shouted.

The wind caught in the fabric and pulled the ship farther into the river.

Briggs nodded slightly, as if he approved of Mary Celeste’s motion. Briggs was the son of a sea captain from Wareham, Massachusetts. Benjamin was the second of five sons, and all but one of his brothers would make their careers on the sea. His was a childhood of sea tales and letters from faraway ports. In Sippican Village, where the Briggs clan eventually settled, it is said that if you cut a Briggs boy, salt water would flow from the veins. Captain Briggs was as at home on the sea as he was sitting in front of a fireplace in a fine mansion. As part owner of the Mary Celeste, he was anxious to start the voyage.