saltwater cave in the Bahamas? 'Anyone can die at any time on a cave dive.' In that peculiar way a particular fact learned in youth can stick in your mind forever, Pitt remembered that during the year 1974, twenty-six divers had lost their lives in Florida's underwater caves alone, and that the world total of deaths must have been three times that figure.
Pitt had never suffered from claustrophobia and fear seldom distracted him, but under hazardous conditions he experienced just enough uneasiness to sharpen his senses to unexpected dangers.
As it was, he didn't look forward to diving without a fixed guide or safety line. He well knew this operation could quickly turn into an exercise in self-destruction, especially once they became uncontrollably caught up in the river's current. Then there would be no escape until they reached the treasure chamber.
The horizontal fissure leading to the river expanded and tapered in a series of hourglass shapes. At 100 meters (328 feet) from the sinkhole they lost 90 percent of the outside light. They switched on the lamps attached to their hardhats. Another quick glance at his depth gauge told Pitt they had slowly ascended to within 20 meters (66 feet) of the water surface.
Giordino ceased his forward movement, turned, and waved with one hand. They had reached the outlet into the river system. Pitt answered with the hand signal for OK. Then he slipped his arm through the strap attached to the transport canister so it wouldn't be torn from him by unforeseen turbulence.
Giordino kicked his fins powerfully and angled upstream in a vigorous effort to pull the canister broadside into the river as far as possible before the main flow of the current swung him downstream before Pitt could exit the feeder stream. His timing was near perfect. Just as he lost his momentum and the current caught him in its grip, thrusting him around, Pitt and his end of the canister popped out of the side gallery.
As previously planned, they calmly inflated their buoyancy compensators, released the lead weights on the canister to make it buoyant, and calmly drifted upward while being carried downriver. After traveling close to 50 meters (164 feet), they broke surface, their lights revealing a large open gallery. The ceiling was covered by a strange black rock that was not limestone. Only when Pitt steadied his light did he recognize it as volcanic. Fortunately, the river's flow was smooth and uninterrupted by rocks, but the walls of the passage rose steeply out of the water, offering them no place to land.
He spit out his regulator mouthpiece and called to Giordino. 'Be ready to cut to the side when you see an open spot on the bank.'
'Will do,' Giordino said over his shoulder.
They quickly passed from the volcanic intrusion back into limestone that was covered by an odd gray coating that absorbed their light beams and gave the impression the batteries were giving out on their lamps. A steady, thunderous sound grew and echoed through the passage. Their worst fears-- being swept through unnavigable rapids or going over a waterfall before making a landingsuddenly loomed in the darkness ahead.
'Keep a tight grip,' Giordino shouted. 'It looks like we're in for a tumble.'
Pitt angled his head downward so the lights on his hardhat pointed directly to the front. It was a wasted motion. The passage was soon filled with a mist that rose out of the water like steam. Pitt had a sudden vision of going over Niagara Falls without a barrel. The roar was deafening now, magnified by the acoustics of the rocky cavern. And then Giordino passed into the mist and vanished.
Pitt could only hold on to the canister and watch with strangely paralyzed fascination as he was enveloped by the spray. He braced himself for an endless fall. But the endless fall never came. The thunder came not from the river plunging downward, but from a furious torrent that crashed down from above.
He was pummeled by a surging deluge that burst in a great plume from the limestone roof of the cavern. The huge torrent of water barreled down a tributary that fed into the subterranean river from another source. Pitt was baffled by the sight of so much water rushing under an and and thirsty desert no farther away than the distance a good outfielder could throw a baseball. He decided that it must feed into the river by great pressure from a system of underground aquifers.
Once through the curtain of mist, he could see the walls had spread and the roof sloped upward into a chamber of vast size and proportion. It was a bizarrely decorated cavern filled with grotesquely shaped helictites, a family of stalactites that ignores gravity and grows in eccentric directions. Mineral deposits had also formed beautifully sculpted mushrooms over a meter tall and delicate gypsum flowers with graceful plumes. The spectacular formations would have been described by veteran spelunkers as a showcase grotto.
Pitt couldn't but wonder how many other subterranean worlds sprawled through the earth in eternal darkness, waiting to be discovered and explored. It was easy to let the mind run amok and imagine a long-dead and lost race who had lived down here and carved the magnificent calcite sculptures.
Not Giordino. The beauty was lost on him. He turned, gazed back at Pitt with a big I'm-glad-to-be-alive smile and said, 'Looks like a hangout for the Phantom of the Opera.'
'I doubt if we'll find Lon Chaney playing the pipe organ down here.'
'We have a landing thirty meters ahead to the left,' Giordino said, his spirits lifting considerably.
'Right. Start your turn into shallow water and swim like hell to get out of the main current.'
Giordino needed no urging. He cut his angle sharply, pulling the canister behind him and kicking his fins furiously. Pitt released his grip on the big aluminum tube, swam strongly alongside until he was at its midpoint, and then, using his body as a drag, he heaved it after Giordino.
The approach worked as Pitt had hoped. Giordino broke free of the current and swam into calmer water. When his fins touched the bottom, he climbed ashore, dragging the canister with him.
Now unhampered, Pitt easily stroked into the shallows, landing ten meters below Giordino. He crawled out of the water, sat down, removed his fins and goggles, and carefully walked back upstream across the smoothly textured rocks as he removed his air tanks.
Giordino did the same before he began dismantling the canister. He looked up at Pitt with a look of profound accomplishment. 'Nice place you've got here.'
'Sorry for the mess,' muttered Pitt, 'but the seven dwarfs are on a break.'
'Does it feel as good to you as it does to me that we've come this far?'
'I'm not sad to be alive, if that's what you mean.'
'How far have we come?'
Pitt tapped in a command on the computer strapped to his arm. 'According to my faithful wonder of technology, we have traveled two kilometers through damnation and dropped another two meters toward hell.'
'Twenty-eight to go.'
'Yes,' Pitt said, smiling like a magician about to bedazzle an audience. 'But from here on, we go in style.'
Five minutes later the eight air chambers of the Wallowing Windbag were filled and the hull fully inflated, deployed, and ready to do battle with the river. Known as a water rescue response vehicle, the ungainly Hovercraft could ride on a cushion of air effortlessly over boiling rapids, quicksand, thin ice, and polluted quagmires. Vehicles in use by police and fire departments around the country had saved countless victims from death by drowning. Now this one was going on an endurance trial its builders never conceived.
Three meters (10 feet) in length and 1.5 meters (5 feet) wide, the compact craft mounted a four-cycle, 50-horsepower engine that could propel her over a flat surface at 64 kilometers (40 miles) an hour.
'Our engineers did a fine job of modifying the height,' said Giordino.
'Adopting a horizontal engine and fan was a stroke of genius,' Pitt agreed.
Amazing how much equipment they crammed inside the canister.'
Before they cast off, they stowed and tied down ten reserve air tanks, extra air bottles to reinflate the Hovercraft, a battery of lights including two aircraft landing lights built into waterproof housings, spare batteries, first aid equipment, and three additional breathing regulators.
From a watertight container Pitt retrieved his battered, old .45 Colt automatic and two ammo clips. He smiled as he also found a thermos of coffee and four bologna sandwiches. Admiral Sandecker never forgot the details that make for a successful operation. Pitt put the thermos and sandwiches back in the container. There was no time for a picnic. They had to push on if they were to reach the treasure chamber before it was too late to save Loren and Rudi. He inserted the gun and extra ammo clips into a plastic bag and sealed the opening. Then he unzipped the front of his wet suit and slipped the bag inside next to his stomach.
He stared for a moment at the black collapsible Hovercraft. 'Oh, Circe, who will guide us on this journey,'
