to Zavala. The man held a pistol down by his thigh and was inspecting a paper bull’s-eye pinned to a tree. A cloud of purple smoke hung in the air. The man slipped a pair of ear protectors off his head just as Zavala stepped on a twig. He turned at the snapping sound and saw Zavala creeping around the corner with the gun clutched in his hands.
Kurt Austin, Zavala’s boss on NUMA’s Special Assignments Team, grinned and said, “Going on a turkey shoot, Joe?”
Zavala lowered the gun and walked over to the tree to inspect the hole that had been punched slightly off the center ring of the target.
“
Austin removed his yellow protective shooting goggles to reveal blue eyes the color of coral under water. “I’ll stick to stationary targets for now.” He glanced at Zavala’s pistol. “What’s with the SWAT team imitation?”
Zavala tucked the gun into his belt. “You didn’t tell me you’d turned your expensive riverfront property into a shooting gallery.”
Austin blew the smoke away from the pistol barrel like a gun-fighter who’d beaten his opponent to the draw.
“I couldn’t wait to try out my new toy at a shooting range.”
He handed the flintlock dueling pistol to Zavala, who inspected the walnut stock and the engraved octagonal barrel.
“Nice balance,” he said, hefting the weapon. “How old is it?”
“It was made in 1785 by Robert Wogdon, a London gunsmith. He fashioned some of the most accurate dueling pistols of his day. You test a dueling pistol by dangling it down at arm’s length. Then you bring it up quickly and hold it just long enough to check the sights and squeeze off a shot. It should be right on target.”
Zavala aimed for another tree and clicked his tongue to simulate gunfire.
“Bull’s-eye,” Austin said.
Zavala handed the pistol back. “Didn’t you tell me your pistol collection was complete?”
“Blame it on Rudi,” Austin said with a shrug. Rudi Gunn was the assistant director of NUMA.
“All he said was to decompress after our last assignment,” Zavala said.
“You make my case. Idle time is a dangerous thing in the hands of a collector.” Austin ripped the target off the tree and tucked it into his pocket. “What brings you to Virginia? Run out of women to date in Washington?”
Zavala’s quiet-spoken charm and dark good looks made him much in demand on the Washington dating scene. The corners of his mouth turned up slightly in his trademark smile.
“I won’t say I’ve been living a monk’s life because you’d never believe me. I stopped by to show you a project I started months ago.”
“Project S? You can fill me in while we work on a couple of beers,” Austin said.
He put the shooting gear in a bag, wrapped the pistol in a soft cloth, and led the way up a staircase to a wide deck that overlooked the river.
Austin had bought the boathouse near Langley when he was with a clandestine undersea unit of the CIA. The purchase was beyond his budget, but the panoramic view of the river had closed the deal, and he got the price down because the boathouse was a wreck. He had spent thousands of dollars and countless hours transforming it from a run-down repository for boats to a comfortable retreat from the demands of his job as director of the Special Assignments Team.
Austin got couple of cold Tecate beers from the refrigerator, went out to the deck and handed one to Zavala. They clinked bottles and took a swig of the Mexican brew. Zavala took a sheet of computer paper from his pocket, placed it on a table, and smoothed out the folds with his hand.
“What do you think of my new wet submersible?”
In a wet submersible, the pilot and passenger wore scuba gear and sat on the outside of the vehicle rather than inside an enclosed cockpit. Wet submersibles commonly echoed the shape of their dry counterparts, with propellers at one end of a torpedo-shaped vehicle, the pilot at the other end.
The vehicle that Zavala had designed had a long, sloping hood, tapering trunk, and a wraparound windshield. It had dual headlights, white, so-called cove panels on the side, and a two-toned interior. The submersible had four thrusters instead of wheels.
Austin cleared his throat. “If I didn’t know this was a submersible, I’d swear it looked like a 1961 Corvette.
Zavala pinched his chin between his thumb and forefinger. “This is turquoise. My car is red.”
“She looks fast,” Austin said appraisingly.
“My car can do zero to sixty in about six seconds. This is a little slower. But she’ll move out on or under the water and handles the curves as if they weren’t there. She’ll do everything a car can do except peel rubber.”
“Why the departure from more, uh, conventional submersible models, like the saucer, torpedo, or bulbous shape?”
“Apart from the challenge, I wanted something I could use on NUMA assignments that would be fun to drive.”
“Will this thing work?”
“Field trials have gone well. I’ve designed a complete vehicle transport, launch, and recovery system too. The prototype is on its way to Turkey. I’m going over in a week to help out with an underwater archaeological dig of an old port they found in Istanbul.”
“A week should give us plenty of time.”
“Time for
Austin handed Zavala a science magazine that was open to an article describing the work of a ship that lassoed and towed icebergs threatening Newfoundland oil and gas rigs.
“How would you like to join me on a cruise to Iceberg Alley?”
Zavala scanned the magazine article.
“I don’t know, Kurt. Sounds mighty cold. Cabo might be more appealing to my warm-blooded Mexican American nature.”
Austin gave Zavala a look of disgust. “C’mon, Joe. What would you be doing in Cabo? Lying on the beach sipping margaritas. Watching the sun set with your arm around a beautiful senorita. Same old same old. Where’s your sense of adventure?”
“Actually, my friend, I was thinking of watching the sun come
“You’d be pressing your luck,” Austin said with a snort. “Don’t forget, I’ve
Zavala harbored no illusions about his singing voice, which tended to be off-key. “Good point,” he said with a sigh.
Austin picked up the magazine. “I don’t want to push you into this, Joe.”
Zavala knew from past experience that his colleague didn’t push; he
Austin smiled and said, “If you’re interested, I need a quick decision. We’d leave tomorrow. I just got the okay. What do you say?”
Zavala rose from his chair and gathered up his submersible diagrams. “Thanks for the beer.”
“Where are you going?”
Zavala headed for the door.
“
Chapter 5
“DOWN THERE, MISTER, is tomb of queen.”
The wizened Bedouin jabbed the air, his bony finger pointing to a fissure about a yard wide and two feet high in the side of the pockmarked limestone hill. The rough-edged layers of strata above and below the opening were like lips afflicted with a bad case of trench mouth.
