"That explains your presence," Pitt said, slapping the captain on the back.
"Spirits on a NUMA project," Summer murmured mockingly. "What would our esteemed leader, Admiral Sandecker, have to say about breaking his golden rule of no booze during working hours?"
"Your father was a bad influence on me," said Barnum. "He never came aboard ship without a case of vintage wine while his buddy Al Giordino always showed up with a humidor filled with the admiral's private stock of cigars."
"It seems everybody but the admiral knows that Al secretly buys the cigars from the same source," said Dirk, smiling.
"What's for a side dish?" asked Barnum.
"Fresh fish chowder and crab salad."
"Who's doing the honors?"
"Me," muttered Dirk. "The only seafood Summer can prepare is a tuna sandwich."
"That's not so," she pouted. "I'm a good cook."
Dirk gazed at her cynically. "Then why does your coffee taste like battery acid?"
Panfried in butter, the lobster and creamed spinach were washed down with the bottle of Jamaican wine, accompanied by tales of Barnum's seafaring adventures. Summer made a nasty face at her brother as she presented them with a lemon meringue pie she had baked in the microwave. Dirk was the first to admit she had performed a gourmet wonder, since baking and microwave ovens were not suited to one another.
Barnum stood to take his leave, when Summer touched his arm. "I have an enigma for you."
Barnum's eyes narrowed. "What kind of enigma?"
She handed him the object she'd found in the cavern.
"What is it?"
"I think it's some kind of pot or urn. We won't know until we clean off the encrustation. I was hoping you'd take it back to the ship and have someone in the lab give it a good scrubbing."
"I'm sure someone will volunteer for the job." He hoisted it in both hands as if weighing it. "Feels too heavy for terra-cotta."
Dirk pointed to the base of the object. "There's an open space free of growth where you can see that it's formed out of metal."
"Strange, there doesn't appear to be any rust."
"Don't hold me to it, but my guess is it's bronze."
"The configuration is too graceful for native manufacture," added Summer. "Though it's badly encrusted, it appears to have figures molded around the middle."
Barnum peered at the urn. "You have more imagination than I do. Maybe an archaeologist can solve the riddle after we return to port, if they don't go into hysterics because you removed it from the site."
"You won't have to wait that long," said Dirk. "Why not transmit photos of it to Hiram Yaeger in NUMA's computer headquarters in Washington? He should be able to come up with a date and where it was produced. Chances are it fell off a passing ship or came from a shipwreck."
"The Vandalia lies nearby," offered Summer.
"There's your probable source," said Barnum.
"But how did it get inside a cavern a hundred yards away?" Summer asked no one in particular.
Her brother smiled foxlike and murmured, "Magic, lovely lady, voodoo island magic."
Darkness had settled over the sea when Barnum finally bid good night.
As he slipped through the entry lock door, Pitt asked, "How does the weather look?"
"Pretty calm for the next couple of days," replied Barnum. "But a hurricane is building up off the Azores. The ship's meteorologist will keep a sharp eye on it. If it looks like it's heading this way, I'll evacuate the two of you and we'll make full speed out of its path."
"Let's hope it misses us," said Summer.
Barnum placed the urn in a net bag and took the pouch of water samples Summer had collected before he dropped out of the entry lock into the night-blackened water. Dirk switched on the outside lights, revealing schools of vivid green parrot fish swimming in circles, seemingly indifferent to the humans living in their midst.
Without bothering to don air tanks, Barnum took a deep breath, beamed a dive light ahead of him and stroked to the surface in a free ascent fifty feet away, exhaling as he rose. His little aluminum rigid-hull inflatable boat bobbed on its anchor that he'd dropped earlier a safe distance from the habitat. He swam over, climbed in and pulled up the anchor. Then he turned the ignition and started the two one-hundred-and-fifty-horsepower Mercury outboard motors and skimmed across the water toward his ship, whose superstructure was brightly illuminated with an array of floodlights embellished with red and green navigation lamps.
Most oceangoing vessels were usually painted white with red, black or blue trim. A few cargo ships sported an orange color scheme. Not the Sea Sprite. As with all the other ships in the National Underwater and Marine Agency fleet, she was painted a bright turquoise from stem to stern. It was the hue the agency's feisty director, Admiral James Sandecker, had chosen to set his ships apart from the other vessels that roamed the seas. There were few mariners who didn't recognize a NUMA vessel when they passed one at sea or in port.
Sea Sprite was large, as her type of vessel went. She measured 308 feet in length with a 65-foot beam. State of the art in every detail, she had started life as an icebreaker tug and spent her first ten years stationed in and around the north polar seas, battling frigid storms while towing damaged ships out of ice floes and around icebergs. She could bulldoze her way through six-foot-thick ice and tow an aircraft carrier through rough seas and do it with motion stability.
Still in her prime when purchased by Sandecker for NUMA, he ordered her refitted into an ultra-multipurpose ocean research and dive support vessel. Nothing was spared in the major refurbishment. Her electronics were designed by NUMA engineers as were her automated computerized systems and communications. She also possessed high-quality laboratories, adequate work space and low vibration. Her computer networks could monitor, collect and pass processed data to the NUMA laboratories in Washington for immediate investigation that turned the results into vital ocean knowledge.
Sea Sprite was powered by the most advanced engines modern technology could create. Her two big magnetohydrodynamic engines could move her through the water at nearly forty knots. And, if she could tow an aircraft carrier through turbulent seas before, she could now pull two without breathing hard. No research ship in any country in the world could match her rugged sophistication.
Barnum was proud of his ship. She was one of only thirty research ships in the NUMA fleet but easily the most unique. Admiral Sandecker had placed him in charge of her refit and Barnum was more than happy to oblige, especially when the admiral told him cost was no problem. No corner was cut and Barnum never doubted that this command was the pinnacle of his marine career.
Deployed a full nine months a year overseas, her scientists were rotated with every new project. The other three months were spent in voyaging to and from study sites, dock maintenance and upgrading equipment and instruments with newer technical advances.
As he approached, he gazed at the eight-story superstructure, the great crane on the stern that had lowered Pisces to the bottom and was used to lift and retrieve robotic vehicles and manned submersibles from the water. He studied the huge helicopter platform mounted over the bow and the array of communications and satellite equipment growing like trees around a large dome containing a full range of radar systems.
Barnum turned his attention to steering alongside the hull. As he shut down the engines, a small crane swung out from above and lowered a cable with a hook. He attached the hook to a lift strap and relaxed as the little boat was lifted aboard.
Once he stepped onto the deck, Barnum immediately carried the enigmatic object to the ship's spacious laboratory. He handed it to two intern students from the Texas A&M School of Nautical Archaeology.