Giordino dropped an emptied bottle in a wastebasket. "It came through this morning, just before the colonel and I left Brady Field for the First Attempt." He paused, gazing up at a fly walking across the ceiling. Then he belched.

"Well?" Pitt grunted impatiently.

"The admiral had a crew of ten men pore through the national archives on a crash research program. When they were finished they all agreed on the same conclusion: there is no recorded document anywhere that indicates shipwrecked treasure near the Thasos coastline."

"Cargos, could any of the recorded wrecked vessels have carried valuable cargo?"

"Nothing worth mentioning." Giordino pulled a slip of paper from his breast pocket. "The admiral's secretary dictated over the radio the names of all the ships that were lost on or around Thasos in the last two hundred years. The list isn't impressive."

Pitt wiped the salty sting of sweat from his eyes. "Let's have a sample."

Giordino set the list on his knees and began reading aloud in a rapid monotone. "Mistral, French frigate, sunk 1753. Clara G., British coal collier, sunk 1856. Admiral DeFosse, French ironclad, sunk 1872. Scyla, Italian brig, sunk 1876. Daphne, British gunboat…"

"Skip to 1915," Pitt interrupted.

"H. M.S. Forshire, British cruiser, sunk by German shore batteries on the mainland, 1915. Von Schroder, German destroyer, sunk by British warship, 1916. U-19, German submarine, sunk by British aircraft, 1918."

"No need to continue," Pitt said, yawning. "Most of the lost wrecks on your list were warships. The chances are slim that one of them might have carried a king's ransom in gold."

Giordino nodded. "As the boys in Washington said, 'no recorded documents of sunken treasure.'"

The talk over treasure brought an alert gleam in Lewis' eyes. "What about ancient Greek or Roman vessels? Most records wouldn't go back that far."

"That's true," said Giordino. "But, as Dirk previously pointed out, Thasos is a long way off the beaten shipping paths. The same holds true for the trade routes of antiquity."

"But if there is a fortune under our feet," Lewis persisted, "and von Till found it, he'd most certainly keep it a secret."

"There's no law against finding sunken treasure." Giordino exhaled two streams of smoke through his nose. "Why bother to hide it?"

"Greed," said Pitt. "Insane greed; wanting one hundred percent, refusing to share with others or having to pay the government under which the riches were found any taxes or assessments."

"Considering the huge cut most governments demand," Lewis said angrily, "I can't say as I'd blame von Till for keeping the discovery a secret."

The cabin boy came and went, leaving three more bottles of beer. Giordino downed his with one tilt of the head and then dropped the empty bottle beside its mate in the wastebasket. "This whole game is like a bad deal," he complained. "I don't like it."