“I had a falling-out with an acquaintance.” He motioned his thumb over his shoulder. “The crowd at the port facility is the same bunch that rammed us. I borrowed one of their ATVs, and they aren’t too happy about it.”

Summer saw the urgency in his eyes. “We need to go?”

“I think that would be a good idea.”

He scooped her off the ground and carried her to the ATV.

“Wait,” she said. “The Barbarigo’s logbook.”

Dirk gave her a quizzical look.

“That’s a rubber raft buried in the sand. It’s from a vessel called the Barbarigo. I found a book wrapped in oilskin under the bench,” she said, pointing at the mound. “I can’t read it because it’s written in Italian, but it looks like a logbook.”

Dirk stepped to the partially buried raft and reached in. He froze when he saw a fully exposed skeleton, which he had somehow missed seconds earlier. The torso lay near a bench seat, on which sat the oilskin-wrapped logbook. He snatched it, climbed onto the ATV behind Summer, and handed it to her. “You didn’t mention its scribe was still hanging around.”

“There’s at least two other bodies. We need to have the ship’s archaeologist examine the site.”

Dirk reached around his sister and twisted the throttle. “Perhaps another day.”

Leaving the bones and beach behind, they rode up a rocky ridge that fingered into the sea. From its peak, they could view the opposite coastline curve before them in a broad expanse of sandy flats. The turquoise hull of the Alexandria bobbed in the swells several miles distant. Dirk focused his eyes on the ground, driving down the rocky hill as fast as he dared, aware of Summer’s impaired ability to stay seated.

Summer was the first to notice the vessel, a small Zodiac, skimming parallel to the beach ahead. When the ATV’s tires reached the flat sands, Dirk accelerated to top speed. The Zodiac was traveling away from them, but he quickly closed the gap. Honking the ATV’s high-pitched horn, he caught the attention of Jack Dahlgren, who was piloting the Zodiac with a NUMA crewman. The parties converged, Dirk driving his ATV into the waves as Dahlgren drew the Zodiac near.

“Enjoying the local tourist sights in comfort, Ah see,” Dahlgren said by way of greeting. The Texan’s relief at finding them alive was evident in his eyes.

“More than we really cared to,” Dirk said. “Permission to come aboard?”

Dahlgren nodded and inched the Zodiac alongside the ATV.

“Summer’s lost feeling in her left leg,” Dirk said. “We think she’s bent.”

Dahlgren plucked Summer, still clutching the Barbarigo’s logbook, off the ATV and set her in the inflatable boat.