Serpent

a semiplaning monohull with water jets that eliminate propeller cavitation. Even a Fast Ship container vessel can cruise at fortyfive knots. The newer versions might even be faster. Cap, did you see any big boats around the wreck just before the attack?'

'This is a busy place.' McGinty pushed his cap, back on his forehead as if it would help his memory 'Lots of boats, fishermen mostly, coming or going. Did we actually see this ship? Maybe. There was a good-sized craft hunkering a mile or so away, but we lost it in the fog bank. I was busy with dive operations.'

'My guess is that if we could cut through the corporate red tape, we'd find it was owned by Halcon Industries.'

'Can we get air surveillance?' McGinty asked.

'Impossible in this fog. But what if we do find it? We'd need a warrant to go aboard.'

Zavala had been listening silently, his mouth in an uncharacteristic frown. 'Something's been bothering me,' he said. 'Those guys knew where we were and what we were doing. How did they know? We just decided to go after this thing a few days ago. We didn't exactly advertise our plans.'

Austin and McGinty exchanged glances. 'This operation involved a lot of people. Any one of them could have dropped enough of a hint to let the cat out of the bag.' It was an explanation Austin didn't believe himself. His attackers were too well prepared.

Before long the wind shifted, blowing away the fog, Donatelli bid goodbye to the NUMA men and the Monkfish captain, and he and Antonio set off in the yacht. Austin promised to update the Doria survivor on NUMA's every move.

The Monkfish plowed through the fog and rounded Cape Cod, and before long they could see the lights of planes taking off and landing at Logan Airport. They steamed past the Boston Harbor Islands and tied up at a dock near the aquarium. Austin called an excited Dr. Orville and asked him to arrange for a truck to pick up the stone. Austin and Zavala followed the truck to Harvard and saw it safely under lock and key. Orville said he would work through the night to decipher the inscriptions if he had to and invited them to stay. Austin declined the invitation. He and Zavala were exhausted from the day's events and wanted to catch an early flight to Washington. After a light dinner they had a nightcap of Irish whiskey with McGinty, then crawled into their bunks and fell asleep almost immediately.

The tubular green-glassed tower of NUMA headquarters was like the welcome beacon of a lighthouse as the taxi navigated the unpredictable seas of Washington traffic. Austin and Zavala had caught the water shuttle to Logan Airport and were back in Washington by late morning. McGinty bid him adieu with a lung-shaking slap on the back and the highest of praise. Austin, he proclaimed, was a chip off his old man's block.

'Wonder what the Trouts are up to.' Zavala's musings cut into his thoughts.

Austin had called their team colleagues from the salvage ship the night before to tell them about the fight in the Doria and the retrieval of the stone. Gamay said she and Paul had new information they'd share with them the next day. Austin was too tired to ask what it was. The Trouts were waiting with Hiram Yaeger in the private conference room where they held their first meeting. Rudi Gunn showed up a minute later and said Sandecker was having brunch at the White House. The vice president the admiral would have blown off, but not the president.

Gamay opened the meeting. 'You've all been briefed so I won't go into the details of my Yucatan jungle adventure with Dr. Chi. As you know we discovered a stash of stolen Mayan artifacts awaiting shipment out of the country. The storage was centrally located with respect to roads and water routes. We found hundreds of objects taken from a number of important sites, known and unknown to legitimate excavators. When Dr. Chi inventoried the goods, in addition to ceramics he found a number of stone carvings, apparently removed from Mayan buildings with a diamond-edged saw. The unusual boat motif on them must have caught the eye of the chicleros. His guess was that the carvings were taken from temple observatories similar to a structure he showed me at the Mayan site called MIT There was only one problem: the carvings were not identified as to location.'

She paused as Trout passed the pile of folders he'd been guarding to the others at the table. Gamay waited until the rustling of papers died down, then continued.

'The paper you see on top has eight sketches drawn by Dr. Chi. These profiles are glyphs that represent the Mayan god Quetzalcoatl, who also went by the name Kukulcan. At first glance the drawings appear identical, but if you look closer you'll see subtle differences.'

Yaeger brought his quick eye for detail to the task. 'Jaw's a little more prominent on this one,' he said. 'This one's got a thicker eyebrow'

Gunn squinted at the sketches. 'This guy's nose looks as if it ran into a right cross.'

Gamay smiled like a proud schoolmarm. 'You catch on fast, gentlemen. These facial differences indicate a particular place. Each city or urban center interpreted the god in a way that was peculiar to it.' '

'Like the owl was the symbol of ancient Athens?' Austin ventured.

'Correct. In this case the god also represents the planet Venus.'

Austin stirred impatiently in his seat, his eyes glazing over.

He was expecting to hear information with a direct bearing on the case, not a lecture on Mayan theology.

'Gamay, this is all very interesting,' he said, making no effort to hide his impatience, 'but I'm not sure where you're going with it.'

She flashed her disarming tomboy grin. 'These glyphs were all incorporated into carvings of the boat motif.'

Austin's interest was piqued. He leaned forward. 'The Phoenician boat?'

'We don't know yet for sure whether it was Phoenician or not. But, yes, the inscriptions apparently marked the event we saw, strange boats and strange people being received by Mayans.'

Paul Trout chipped in. 'Dr. Chi had already guessed that the carvings came from temple observatories. Dr. Chi used the city glyphs to pinpoint the location of the observatories. Mayan observatories are scattered all over Central America. But only eight, as far as he knew, have that particular boat theme.'

Austin said, 'You've got eight identical observatories at separate locations, dedicated to Venus, keyed into its cycles, and all having something to do with a mysterious fleet of boats.'

'That's right,' Gamay said, resuming her explanation. And the number eight goes to the heart of the matter.' Noting .the blank expressions, she said, 'Quetzalcoatl and Kukulcan were incarnations of the Maya's most important god, Venus. The Maya plotted the planet's course with incredible accuracy. They knew there were eight days in the Venus cycle when the planet disappeared. The Mayans believed Venus went to the underworld during that time. They used architectural features to keep track of Venus and other celestial objects. Doorways, sculptures, pillars. The placement of streets. Professor Chi thinks these observatories were part of a greater plan. A map. Chart. Even a crude computer meant to solve a problem.'

'Like the problem of the Phoenician, excuse me, the as-yet-unidentified boats?' Austin said.

'Exactly' Paul replied. 'Page two in your folder is a map showing the locations.'

Another rustle of papers.

Gamay said, 'We tried connecting the temples, drawing parallel lines from them. Nothing made sense. While we were tearing our hair out we got a call from Dc Chi. He had come in from the field for supplies and heard we were trying to get in touch. We told him we were groping in the dark for something we were sure was there and needed his help.'

Paul announced, 'Page three in your folder, gentlemen. Dc Chi had this faxed from the national museum. The Spanish destroyed all but a few of the Mayan books. Thus is one of the few that survived. The Dresden Codex. It has detailed observation tables for Venus. The data were collected from observatories.'

'What bearing does it have on our mystery?' Gunn inquired.

'Mainly as an example of the type of information that was so important to the Maya,' Gamay replied. 'Try to imagine the Mayan priests night after night gazing at the stars. They collect the information on the movement of the stars, then, using architectural features built into these same temples; forecast what the stars and planets would do.' .

'I've got it,' blurted Yaeger. 'Sometimes it helps to be a nerd. You're saying that these eight temples and the carvings are the hardware. The Codex would be the software that tells the hardware what to do.' Yaeger blinked rapidly behind his wirerimmed glasses. 'Carrying the analogy forward, the physical form of software can be soft; like the floppy disk that contains the program, or hard, like the hard drive.'

'Or for our purposes, hard as stone,' ' Austin said.