Atlantis Found Part 18

"I'll be eternally grateful."

Pitt pulled on a Mark II full face mask with a built-in underwater communications system. "Do you read me?" he asked Giordino.

"Like you were inside my head."

They had hauled ten air tanks into the mine. For the dive, they each carried twin tanks strapped to their backpacks, with a reserve tank clamped in between for a total of six. The remaining four were to be lowered by Marquez and his friends at predetermined depths as reckoned by Giordino's computer for the decompression stops. They carried no weapons except their dive knives.

"I guess we might as well go," said Pitt.

"After you," Giordino replied.

Pitt switched on his dive light and beamed it onto the smooth surface of the water. He kicked off from the edge and dropped five feet through the air, cras.h.i.+ng through the liquid void in an explosion of bubbles. A second explosion quickly followed, as Giordino emerged out of the gloom beside him. He made a motion with his hand downward, doubled over, and kicked his fins, heading into the depths of the mine.

They swam down, down, their dive lights cutting the black water, revealing nothing but cold, hard rock walls. They went slowly, equalizing the increasing water pressure in their ears the deeper they dove. If they hadn't known they were diving down a vertical shaft, they'd have sworn they were swimming inside a horizontal drainpipe.

At last, the floor of the gallery at the bottom of the shaft appeared, the ore cart track rising to meet them, rails mute and cold under their thick film of rust. The turbidity created by the rus.h.i.+ng surge after the explosion the day before had dissipated and the water was calm and clear, visibility reaching at least fifty feet. Pitt checked his depth gauge-the needle stood at 186 feet-and he waited until Giordino leveled out slightly ahead of him.

"How far from here?" asked Giordino.

"Ninety to a hundred yards," Pitt answered, pointing. "Just around that bend in the tunnel."

He pumped his fins and darted into the tunnel, his light sweeping back and forth through the timbers. They rounded the bend, moving above the curve of the ore cart tracks. Suddenly, Pitt thrust out his arm and abruptly stopped.

"Switch off your light!" he ordered Giordino.

His friend complied, casting the tunnel into smothering blackness, but not totally. A dim glow filtered through the water in front of them. "I think we have poachers," said Giordino.

"Why is it these characters materialize every time I blow my nose?" Pitt groaned.

THERE were two divers inside the chamber, both working with intent and purpose, photographing the inscriptions on the walls. A pair of underwater floodlights stood on stands, illuminating the drowned chamber as dazzlingly as a Hollywood studio stage. Pitt gazed upward through the hole on the floor of the chamber, staying in the shadows so the divers inside wouldn't spot a reflection from the gla.s.s plate in his full face mask.

He marveled at their efficiency. They were using self-contained breathing units that absorbed and eliminated the bubbles exhaled through their air regulators in order to prevent water disturbance in front of their camera lenses. He was especially careful not to allow his own exhaust bubbles to float through the opening in the chamber floor.

"They're tenacious, I'll give them that," Pitt muttered. "Whatever is in the inscriptions, they want it badly enough to kill and die for it."

"Good thing their communications system is on a different frequency, or they'd have eavesdropped on our conversations."

"Could be they've tuned in and plan on suckering us inside."

Giordino's lips curled into a tight grin behind the mask. "So do we disappoint them and cut and run?"

"Since when were we ever smart enough to take the easy way out?"

"Never, that I recall."

Giordino's bond with Pitt had never weakened in all their years of friends.h.i.+p-a friends.h.i.+p that went all the way back to the first grade. Whatever scheme Pitt devised, no matter how insane or ridiculous, Giordino was in for a penny, in for a pound, without the slightest protest. They had saved each other's life on more than one occasion, and when needed could get inside the other's head. That they worked as a close-knit team went without saying. Their adventures were legendary within NUMA.

"It'd be next to impossible for both of us to rush inside the chamber in unison before they react," said Pitt, eyeing the narrow diameter of the opening.

"We could swim inside and knife them in their respective guts," said Giordino quietly.

"If our positions were reversed," murmured Pitt, so softly that Giordino could barely hear him, "that's what they would do to us. But the practical side of me says take them alive."

"Easier said than done."

Pitt moved as close as he dared to the opening and peered at the two divers, who were absorbed in their work. "I think I see an opportunity."

"Don't leave me in suspense," said Giordino, removing his gloves so his hands had freedom of movement.

"They're wearing their dive knives strapped to their lower legs."

Giordino's eyebrows rose questioningly under the mask. "So are we."

"Yes, but we're not about to be attacked from behind by a pair of genial and das.h.i.+ng rogues."

THE divers inside finished photographing the inscriptions and star symbols. While one loaded their camera equipment in a large duffel bag, the other began placing a charge of explosives in one corner of the chamber. The procedure played into Pitt and Giordino's hands. As soon as the diver with the camera gear had worked his way through the hole into the cavity below, Giordino s.n.a.t.c.hed the mouthpiece of the breathing regulator from between the man's lips and cut off his air supply. In the same instant, he circled a ma.s.sive arm around the man's exposed neck, choking him until he went limp from unconsciousness.

"I've got mine," Giordino muttered heavily.

Pitt didn't bother to reply. With a powerful kick of his fins, he shot into the chamber and toward the unsuspecting diver connecting a timer to the explosives. He came in from the side to avoid the air tanks on the diver's backpack. In a repeat of Giordino's performance, he tore away the mouthpiece and squeezed the diver's throat in a viselike grip. Pitt had not enjoyed the luxury of time, however, to see that he was tackling a man of giant size. It took all of two seconds for Pitt to realize he had bitten off more than he could chew. His opponent was built like a professional wrestler and had the muscles of one. He didn't react with helpless inertia, but thrashed around the narrow confines of the chamber like a crazy man in a violent fit. Pitt felt like a fox who had unwittingly leaped onto the back of a wounded bear and was holding on for dear life.

The sheer animal power as the man tried to reach over his shoulders and grasp Pitt's head was terrifying. Two huge hands managed to clutch Pitt around the head. For a few moments, Pitt thought his skull was beginning to crack in a hundred places. What saved him from having his brains turned into mush was a beefy wrist that moved beside his jaw. He spat out his mouthpiece, somehow managed to twist his head under the crus.h.i.+ng grip, and bit the wrist as hard as his jaws could clamp. A cloud of blood billowed in the water. The hands around his head jerked free in chorus with a painful shout that came as a grotesque gurgle. Pitt held on and squeezed the great bull of a neck with every ounce of his fading strength. In desperation, he ripped the monster's face mask off.

The big man threw himself backward toward one wall in a convulsive jerk. Pitt's air tanks clanged against the rock and the breath was crushed out of him, but his choke hold did not loosen, even by a fraction. He gripped the wrist of the arm around the throat with his free hand and increased the pressure.

From behind and to the side, Pitt could not see the other man's face. Whipping his body from side to side like a dog shaking his coat wet with water, the giant tried desperately to find his air regulator and thrust it back in his mouth, but its hose was wrapped around Pitt's arm. Frantically, the man bent forward enough to grab his dive knife from the sheath strapped to his right calf. Pitt had expected the movement and was prepared for it. As the giant reached down, Pitt released the hand holding the arm around his throat, raised it, and jabbed a finger in an open eye.

The effect was what he expected, what he'd hoped. The gorilla of a man went stiff as a tree and clamped a hand to his eye. In the process, he blindly caught hold of Pitt's hand and slowly, relentlessly began to bend the index and middle fingers backward. The pain shot through Pitt like a shaft of lightning. The agony of having the bones of the fingers snapped is unlike any other. Excruciating doesn't do justice as a description. Pitt began to see fireworks behind his eyes. He was within a microsecond of releasing his stranglehold and clutching at the hand that was causing him so much torment, when he sensed an infinitesimal drop in pressure. The pain was still there, but lessening by tiny degrees.

Slowly, almost too slowly, the stabbing pain began to subside as the giant started sucking water in through his open mouth. His movements became uncoordinated and spasmodic. He entered the initial stages of blackout as he began to drown. His face suddenly contorted in fear and panic. Pitt waited several seconds after the big man went limp before he replaced the mouthpiece, forcing air down his victim's throat and lungs.

Giordino came halfway through the hole. "What took you so long?"

"The luck of the draw," Pitt gasped between breaths, his heart pounding like a piston inside a cylinder. "I always choose the wrong lane of traffic, the wrong line to stand in at the bank and the biggest guy in the world to pick a fight with. What about your man?"

"I wrapped him tighter than a silkworm with electrical cord I found on a string of overhead lights." Giordino looked down at the inert form on the floor of the chamber, and the eyes behind the dive mask widened. He stared at Pitt with growing respect. "Do the coaches of the National Football League know about this guy?"

"If they did, he'd be a number-one draft choice," Pitt said, as his heart began to slow and his breath came evenly. "Take their knives and any other weapons you can find. Then find some more electrical cable and let's bind him before he comes around and tears the mountain down. Leave their dive masks off so their vision is blurred."

Giordino hog-tied the giant diver with electrical cord and dropped him none too gently through the opening into the cleft below. He then removed one or two weights from the belts of both men, so their bodies were slightly buoyant, which made their ma.s.s easier to tow back through the tunnel. He also removed their dive knives. On the smaller man, he found a little gun that shot a shaft with a barb on one end. The shaft was propelled by compressed air from a tiny cylinder.

While Giordino was concentrating on their prisoners, Pitt removed a large nylon net bag from his weight belt and opened the metal clasp at the top. He stared at the sinister black skull that seemed to stare back through empty eye sockets. He could not help but wonder if a curse came with the skull. What cryptic secrets did it hold?

Pitt's idealistic nature was overpowered by his practical side. Though he was a daydreamer, he did not buy into myths and folktale. If an object or conception could not be seen, felt, or experienced, it did not exist for him. If he wasn't already a hundred and eighty feet under water, he would have spat in the eye of the obsidian skull. But because it was a link in a chain of enigmas, he was determined to place it in the hands of people who could properly study it.