Atlantis Found by Clive Cussler Page A

to wash away.
    Pitt had always suspected that women had more acute hearing than men, from the times his various lady friends had visited his apartment and complained that the volume on his TV was too loud. His suspicions were confirmed when Pat said, “I think I hear a motorcycle.”
    “A Harley-Davidson or a Honda?” asked Marquez, laughing for the first time since leaving his house.
    “No, I’m serious,” Pat said firmly. “I swear it sounds like a motorcycle.”
    Then Pitt heard something, too. He turned and faced the tunnel from the direction they had come and cupped his hands to his ears. He made out the undeniable sound of exhaust from a high-performance off-road motorcycle. He stared soberly at Marquez. “Do the locals ride around old mine tunnels on motocross dirt bikes for a thrill?”
    Marquez shook his head. “Never. They’d become lost in a maze of tunnels, if they didn’t plunge down a thousand-foot shaft first. Then there’s the danger of their exhaust noise causing rotted beams to collapse and a cave-in to crush them. No, sir, nobody I know is fool enough to joyride underground.”
    “Where did they come from?” Pat asked no one in particular.
    “From another mine that’s still accessible. Lord only knows how they happened to be in the same tunnel as we are.”
    “A peculiar coincidence,” Pitt said, staring up the tunnel. He felt a sense of uneasiness. Why? He couldn’t be sure. He stood without moving a muscle, listening to the rattling sound of the exhaust as it grew louder. It was a foreign sound in the old mine labyrinth. It did not belong. He stood still as the first flash of light showed far down the tunnel.
    Pitt couldn’t tell yet if it was one or more motorcycles coming through the tunnel. It seemed a reasonable assumption that he should treat the biker or bikers as a threat. Better safe than sorry. As ancient and hackneyed as the words sounded, they still had meaning, and his cautious nature had saved him on more than one occasion.
    He turned and slowly walked past Ambrose and Marquez. Absorbed in the approach of the sound and lights, they took no notice as he slipped along one wall of the tunnel in the direction of the approaching bikers. Only Pat focused on Pitt as he unobtrusively stole into the darkness of a portal leading into a narrow bore between the timbers. One moment he was there, the next he had vanished like a wraith.
    There were three bikers. The front of their machines were packed with an array of halogen lights that blinded the exhausted survivors, who shielded their eyes with their hands and turned away as the engines slowed and idled in neutral. Two of the intruders dismounted their bikes and walked closer, their bodies silhouetted by the bright lights behind them. They looked like space aliens in their black, sleek helmets and two-piece jerseys worn under chest protectors. Their boots came halfway to their knees and their hands were encased in black, ribbed gloves. The third biker remained on his machine as the other two approached and raised the shields on their helmets.
    “You don’t know how happy we are to see you,” said Pat excitedly.
    “We sure could have used your help earlier,” said Ambrose wearily.
    “My compliments on making it this far,” said the figure on the right, in a voice deep and sinister. “We thought sure you’d drowned in the Amenes chamber.”
    “Amenes?” Pat repeated, puzzled.
    “Where did you guys come from?” demanded Marquez.
    “It doesn’t matter,” said the biker, as if he were brushing off a classroom student’s irrational question.
    “You knew we were trapped in the chamber by a rockfall and rising water?”
    “Yes,” the biker said coldly.
    “And you did nothing?” Marquez said incredulously. “You didn’t try to rescue us or go for help?”
    “No.”
    A stimulating conversationalist, this guy, thought Pitt. If he’d been a tiny bit suspicious earlier, he was downright convinced now that these men were