Pitt gripped her around the waist. "I'm sure you're not alone."
"Too abhorrent to contemplate," muttered the President.
General South looked at the President and said, "Sir, I think we should inspect the interior of the urn to make absolutely certain that ashes are truly inside."
President Wallace looked around the office. "Does anyone object?"
"I also think it wise," said Secretary of State Reed, "that the FBI labs do a thorough examination to prove they're human."
"Will you please remove the lid, General?" the President asked South.
Even the tough old soldier found it repulsive to touch the urn. Very reluctantly, he gently placed his fingers around the black eagle atop the urn and twisted it cautiously as he lifted. The lid came free and he set it on the desk as if it were tainted with a virus.
Everyone stood back whisper-silent as the President warily peered into the urn. His face took on a puzzled expression, and he looked up into a sea of grim, expectant faces.
"It's empty," he said vaguely. "There are no ashes inside."
The word "empty" was repeated throughout the room. "This certainly is a twist no one counted on," said Vice President Kingman, equally mystified.
"Is it possible the Wolfs took the ashes and rehid them?" General South said, voicing the thoughts of everyone present.
Only Giordino looked strangely contemplative. Then his face brightened as if he had suddenly witnessed a revelation. He turned and looked at Pitt queerly. "Oh no!" he muttered softly. "You didn't?"
"I did," Pitt answered honestly.
"What are you talking about?" asked Loren. "Do you know who took the ashes?"
"I do."
"Then who?"
"Me," Pitt replied, his opaline green eyes reflecting fiendish mirth. "I flushed them down the toilet in the White House men's room."
FINAL BLESSING
The day was typical for the nation's capital, the climate hot and sultry. The leaves hung green on their branches and the cool breeze of the coming fall was nowhere to be felt. Crowds of people were standing in long lines to view the recently opened wing of the Natural History Museum, which housed more than three thousand Amenes treasures and artifacts that had been recovered from St. Paul Island, the Ulrich Wolf, and the ongoing excavation of the lost city in the Antarctic.
Members of the Wolf family, as expected, walked free from the courts. But an international investigative force was formed for no other purpose than to keep all family members under strict surveillance. There was no way the Wolfs would be allowed to attempt another world-domination scheme without being discovered and stopped dead in their tracks. Destiny Enterprises was no more, and with the death of Karl, the family was rudderless. And without their enormous hoard of wealth and assets, most were forced to endure a far less luxurious lifestyle.
The Chilean government had promptly appropriated the four gigantic Destiny Enterprises ships. After the fjord was extensively dredged to allow their access to open water, the giant superships began sailing the seven seas, carrying vast numbers of passengers and gargantuan cargos that had been thought inconceivable a few short years before. The Ulrich Wolf was sold to a conglomerate of shipping lines for a reported three billion dollars. With minor modifications, she was put into service as a round-the-world cruise city with short-term staterooms and privately owned apartments and condominiums. She was renamed the Ocean Paradise, and proved extremely popular because international flights could land and take off on her long upper deck runway while she was cruising far offshore.
The other three gigantic ships were purchased by cargo transport lines and oil companies and soon became familiar sights in the few major port facilities that could receive them. Because they showed that leviathan superships could be profitable, it was not long before six other ships of comparable size were under construction.
Admiral Sandecker, along with Pitt, Loren Smith, Giordino, and Pat, who had flown in to help set up the display of Amenes descriptions, were members of a party of VIPs who were invited to preview the exhibits before they were open to the general public. No matter how many times they had seen them, Pitt and Giordino were still amazed at the magnitude of the treasures on display. No one who beheld them could believe they came from a race of people who vanished nine thousand years ago, long before most prehistoric civilizations had emerged from the stone age.
The centerpiece under a spacious stained-glass rotunda was a grouping of the beautifully preserved mummies of the Amenes rulers found on St. Paul Island by Giordino and Rudi Gunn. Everyone stood in awe in the presence of those who had lived and died so far in the past. Pitt found himself wondering if one of these ancient people might have been his direct ancestor.
Nearly five hours later, they exited the exhibit through a side door held open by a guard and began walking across the mall toward the newly built Smithsonian Transportation Museum. Loren looked dazzling, her cinnamon hair falling to her shoulders and accented by the sun. She was dressed comfortably in a light blue sleeveless silk dress that was cut short, revealing a shapely pair of tanned legs. Pitt wore a green golf shirt and light-tan slacks. Al and Pat, shunning any formal look in the heat, both wore light T-shirts and shorts. Like a pair of young lovers, they held hands as they walked across Madison Drive and took the pathway across the Mall, with Sandecker in the lead, puffing on one of his elephantine cigars.
"When are you returning to Okuma Bay?" Loren asked Pat.
"Next week."
Loren smiled at Giordino. "There goes your love life."
"Haven't you heard? The admiral is sending me back to the ancient city on a sabbatical. He's directed me to study and record the seafaring activities of the Amenes for Hiram Yaeger's computer archives. Pat and I will be working together for the next six months."
"That leaves just you and me," said Loren, squeezing Pitt's hand.
"Not for long." Pitt brushed his lips against her hair. "I'm leaving in two weeks to head up a research project on an underwater volcano that's rising toward the water surface southeast of Hawaii."
"How long will you be?"
"No more than three weeks."
"I guess I can endure three weeks without you," Loren said, with a faint little grin.
They crossed Jefferson Drive between the traffic and walked through the entrance of the Transportation Museum. Inside, on four acres of open space, were displayed hundreds of vehicles dating back to the late 1890s. They were laid out in chronological order from the early brass cars to the latest-concept cars from the auto manufacturers. Besides automobiles, every kind of conceivable vehicle was represented from manufacturers of trucks, farm tractors, motorcycles, and bicycles.
The gem of the collection was Admiral Byrd's Snow Cruiser. She sat in a gallery five feet below the main floor so the public could peer through the windows and open doors at eye level. Her new red paint and orange stripe gleamed under overhead lights, revealing the great machine in all her glory.
"They certainly did a masterful job restoring her," said Pitt quietly.
"Hard to believe," murmured Giordino, "considering how we left her."
Sandecker's gaze traveled from one end of the Snow Cruiser to the other. "A majestic piece of machinery. Remarkably modern lines for a vehicle designed nearly sixty-four years ago."