“A stone sarcophagus,” blurted Giordino with uncharacteristic excitement. “We’ve got a sarcophagus.” He rushed over to his console and checked the readings. “The nonferrous scan shows large amounts of metal inside the cabin area and the sarcophagus.”

“Pharaoh Menkura’s gold,” Pitt murmured softly.

“What do we have for a date?”

“Twenty-six hundred B.C. The time frame and configuration are right on the money,” Pitt said, smiling broadly. “And the computer analysis shows charred wood forward, indicating the bow as burned away.”

“Then we have Menkura’s missing funeral barge.”

“I wouldn’t bet against it,” said Pitt, his expression set in absolute euphoria.

Marx anchored the research boat directly over the wreck site. Then for the next six hours, Pitt and Giordino subjected the funeral barge to a battery of electronic scans and probes, accumulating an extensive record of its condition and disposition for Egyptian authorities.

“God, how I wish we could get a camera inside the cabin and sarcophagus.” Giordino opened another beer but promptly forgot to drink it in the excitement.

“The inner coffins of the sarcophagus might be intact;” said Pitt. “But the dampness has probably rotted away most of the mummy. .As to the artifacts … who’s to say? They might possibly equal the treasures of Tutankhaten.”

“Menkura was a far bigger nabob than King Tut. He must have carried a larger hoard with him for the afterlife.”

“Well we won’t see any of it,” Pitt said, stretching his arms to the cabin ceiling. “We’ll be dead and buried ourselves before the Egyptians find the funding to raise and preserve the wreck for the Cairo museum.”

“Visitors,” Marx alerted them. “An Egyptian river patrol boat approaching downriver.”

“Word travels fast around here,” said Giordino incredulously. “Who could have tipped them off?”

“A routine patrol,” said Pitt. “They’ll pass by in midchannel.”

“They’re coming straight toward us,” warned Marx.

“So much for a routine patrol,” grunted Giordino.

Pitt stood and removed a file folder from a cabinet. “They’re just being nosy and want to check us out. I’ll meet them on deck with our permits from the antiquities office.”

He walked through the cabin door into the roasting air outside and stood on the open stern deck. The froth of the bow-wave died away to a series of ripples, the metallic hum of the twin diesels loping on idle as the dark gray patrol boat slipped alongside less than a meter away.

Pitt gripped a railing as the wash rocked the research vessel. He watched casually as two seamen, dressed in the uniform of the Egyptian navy, leaned over the sides and held the patrol boat at bay with padded boat hooks. He could see the captain inside the wheelhouse and was mildly surprised when a hand was raised in a friendly salute but no attempt was made to board. His surprise turned to astonishment when a wiry little man leaped over the gunwales and landed lightly on the deck almost on Pitt’s feet.

Pitt gaped at him incredulously. “Rudi! Where in hell did you drop from?”