Pitt turned as Rudi Gunn stepped into the control room. The early sun flashed through the doorway, momentarily illuminating the compartment, which had no ports or windows. “You here already? I'd swear you just walked out.”
“It's that time,” Gunn answered, smiling. He was carrying a large, rolled mosaic photograph under one arm that had been shot above the wreck before the start of the salvage operation. The mosaic was invaluable in detecting artifacts that had been scattered in the debris field and for directing the submersibles and divers to different sections of the wreck. “How do we stand?” he asked.
“The barge has been filled and is on its way to the surface,” replied Pitt, his nose catching the smell of coffee from the galley and yearning for a cup.
“I never cease to be amazed by the sheer numbers of it all,” said Gunn, taking his place in front of the communications console and array of video screens.
“The Princess Dou Wan was incredibly overloaded,” said Pitt. “It's no small wonder she broke up and sank in heavy weather.”
“How close are we to wrapping it up?” “Most all the loose packing crates have been recovered from the lake bed. The stern section is about cleaned out. The cargo holds should be emptied before the end of the next shift. Now it's down to ferreting out all the smaller cases that were stowed in the passageways and staterooms in the center part of the ship. The deeper they penetrate, the more difficult it is for the men in the Newtsuits to cut through the bulkheads.”
“Any word on when Qin Shang's salvage ship is due to arrive?” Gunn asked.
“The Jade Adventurer?” Pitt looked down on a chart of the Great Lakes spread out on a table. “At last report she passed Quebec on her way down the St. Lawrence.”
“That should put her here in a little under three days.”
“She didn't waste any time coming off her search operation off Chile. She was on her way north less than an hour after Zhu Kwan received your phony report from Perlmutter.”
“It's going to be close,” said Gunn as he watched a sub-mersible's articulated fingers delicately pick up a porcelain vase protruding from the muck. “We'll be lucky to finish up and get out of the neighborhood before the Jade Adventurer and our friend come charging onto the scene.”
“We've been lucky Qin Shang didn't send any of his agents ahead to scout out the environment.”
“The Coast Guard cutter that patrols our search area has yet to report an encounter with a suspicious vessel.”
“When I came on my shift last night, Al said a reporter from a local newspaper somehow got a call through to the Ocean Retriever. Al strung him along when the reporter asked what we were doing out here.”
“What did Al tell him?”
“He said we were drilling cores in the bottom of the lake, looking for signs of dinosaurs.”
“And the reporter bought it?” Gunn asked skeptically.
“Probably not, but he got excited when Al promised to bring him on board over the weekend.”
Gunn looked puzzled. “But we should be gone by then.”
“You get the picture,” Pitt laughed.
“We should consider ourselves lucky that rumors of treasure haven't brought out swarms of salvors.”
“They come as soon as they get the word and rush out to pick over the scraps.”
Julia came into the control room balancing a tray on one hand. “Breakfast,” she announced gaily. “Isn't it a beautiful morning?”
Pitt rubbed the stubble of a beard on his chin. “I hadn't noticed.”
“What are you so happy about?” Gunn asked her.
“I just received a message from Peter Harper. Qin Shang came off a Japanese airliner at the Quebec airport disguised as a crew member. The Canadian Royal Mounted Police followed him to the waterfront, where he boarded a small boat and rendezvoused with the Jade Adventurer.”
“Hallelujah!” exclaimed Gunn. “He took the bait.” “Hook, line and sinker,” said Julia, flashing her teeth. She set the tray on the chart table and removed a tablecloth, revealing plates of eggs and bacon, toast, grapefruit and coffee.
“That is good news,” said Pitt, pulling a chair up to the table without being told. “Did Harper say when he plans to take Qin Shang into custody?”
“He's meeting with the INS legal staff to formulate a plan. I must tell you, there is great fear the State Department and White House may intervene.” “I was afraid of that,” said Gunn.
“Peter and Commissioner Monroe are very afraid Qin Shang will slip through the net because of his political connections.” “Why not board the Jade Adventurer and haul his ass off now?” Gunn asked.
“We can't legally apprehend him if his ship skirts the Canadian shoreline while sailing through Lakes Ontario, Erie and Huron,” explained Julia. “Only after the Jade Adventurer has passed through the Straits of Mackinac into Lake Michigan will Qin Shang be on American waters.”
Pitt slowly ate his grapefruit. “I'd like to see his face when his crew lays a camera on the Princess and finds her guts ripped out and her cupboards bare.”
“Did you know that he's filed a claim on the ship and its cargo through one of his subsidiary corporations in state and federal district courts?”
“No,” said Pitt. “But I'm not surprised. That's the way he operates.”
Gunn rapped a knife on the table. “If any of us were to stake a claim on a treasure ship through legal channels, we'd be laughed out onto the street. And whatever artifacts we found would have to be turned over to the government.”
“People who search for treasure,” Pitt said philosophically, “believe their problems are over when they make the big strike, never realizing their troubles are only beginning.”
“How true,” Gunn assented. “I've yet to hear of a treasure discovery that wasn't contested in court by a parasite or government bureaucrat.”
Julia shrugged. “Maybe so, but Qin Shang has too much influence to have the door slammed in his face. If anything, he's bought off all opposition.”
Pitt looked at her as though his fatigued mind had suddenly thought of something. “Aren't you eating?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I had a bite in the galley earlier.”
The ship's first officer leaned in the doorway and motioned to Pitt. “The barge has surfaced, sir. You said you wanted to take a look at her payload before she was towed away.”
“Yes, thank you,” Pitt acknowledged. He turned back to Gunn. “She's all yours, Rudi. I'll see you, same time, same place tomorrow.”
Gunn waved without taking his eyes from the monitors. “Sleep tight.”
Julia hung on Pitt's arm as they stepped out onto the bridge wing and gazed down at the big barge that had risen from the depths. The interior cargo hold was filled with crates of all sizes containing incredible treasures from China's past. All had been neatly spaced by the cranes and submersibles. In a divided compartment with extra-thick padding, the artworks whose packing crates had been either damaged or destroyed sat open and exposed. Some were musical instruments—tuned chimes of stone, bronze bells and drums. There was a three-legged cooking stove with a hideous face molded on the door, large jade ceremonial carvings of half-size men, women and children, and animal sculptures in marble.
“Oh, look,” she said, pointing. “They brought up the emperor on the horse.”
Standing under the sun for the first time in over half a century, the water glistening on the bronze armor of the rider and streaming from his horse, the two-thousand-year-old sculpture looked little the worse for wear than the day it came out of the mold. The unknown emperor now stared over a limitless horizon, as if in search of new lands to conquer.