"SO QUICKLY DID THE PALE SHIP appear, she seemed to spring whole from the depths, gliding like a ghost across the silver pool of luminescence cast by the near full moon."
"The power produced by the massive twin 14,600 horsepower diesels seemed to flow up from the engine room through the vibrating deck and into his body, which swayed almost imperceptibly to adjust for the slight roll."
"With a snap of his fingers the three crewmen on watch would jump to his orders."
"He chuckled, recognizing his hubris for what it was."
"The radar had been monitored constantly at twenty-mile range since three o'clock, when Superior Captain Piero Calamai walked onto the bridge wing and saw gray wisps hovering over the western sea like the souls of drowned men."
"The Andrea Doria was on the last leg of a 4,000-mile, nine-day voyage from its home port of Genoa carrying 1,134 passengers and 401 tons of freight."
"No one knew this any better than Captain Calamai, who had commanded the ship on all its transatlantic crossings."
"He prayed that passing ships had heard their SOS and could find them in the fog."
"The Andrea Doria was not just any ship. The twenty-nine-million-dollar Queen of the Italian Line was the most magnificent and luxurious passenger vessel afloat."
"He knew her decks better than the rooms of his own home."
"The passengers were the captain's first responsibility."
"The ship eventually came to a halt in the deep fog."
"Logic was telling him the situation was impossible."
"The evidence was in the slant of the chart-littered floor right at his feet."
"Angelo's dark eyes brightened with understanding."
"Fear tugged at his legs, tried to set them in motion."
"Angelo went beyond fear and was now in the throes of genuine terror."
"The bird who sings in the tree ends up in the cooking pot."
"You don't grow up in the home of the Mafia not knowing what a machinegun looked like and how it was aimed."
"The ship slid beneath the sea as if she'd been sucked under by the powerful tentacles of a gigantic sea monster."
"The dogs of skepticism who will rip you to pieces unless you present them with a dinner of hard evidence."
"Served her right for trying to shortcut the scientific process."
"The very element of danger that should have repelled her was seductive in its appeal."
"Even on the 'information highway, there are such things as dangerous detours."
"In another age he would have been a deadly swordsman whose blade would have found the beating hearts of men, not bulls."
"She had accomplished an incredible amount of work in a short time."
"What's a nice girl like you doing messing around in Meso?"
"Admitting to an open mind on diffusionism was a one-way ticket to oblivion for a mainstream archaeologist."
"It could be the biggest discovery since King Tut's tomb."
"The horror of the past several hours was nothing compared to what happened next."
"A trusty and gentle god who thinks just and kindly thoughts and never lies."
"Please sneak up and pull me out of danger any time you want."
"Of all the cops in Morocco, I get a Berber Inspector Clousseau."
"We're heading to the Yucatan peninsula to check out the impact area of the asteroid that may have wiped out the dinosaurs."
"We've got the most advanced research vessel in the world, two hundred fifty feet from stem to stern, with miles of fiberoptics and highspeed data communications in between."
"Like cowpokes on a cattle drive, they herded the reluctant throng."
"Forget the cocktails," he said with a quiet ferocity. "I've got a better idea."
"A classic Kurt Austin strategy, depending on split-second timing, unsupported assumptions, and lots of luck."
"With the butt of the dueling pistol sticking out of his blood-soaked sling, the silver-haired Austin could have passed for a Hollywood buccaneer in an Errol Flynn movie."
"Everything okay?" Zavala called. "Yeah, but it's the last time they'll come to one of our barbecues."
"Austin was not a coldblooded man, but he reserved his compassion for those who deserved it."
"The intense heat sucked the air out of their lungs. Before they could take a step they crumpled to the deck."
"The beauty of China was lost on Quinn. He could think only of Ferguson, his project manager."
"The scull glided upriver as quietly as a whisper past the stately old mansions that lined the shore."
"The sleek shell flew over the river as if the oars were wings."
"The admiral's agency was primarily scientific, but its operations as the undersea counterpart of NASA were naturally made for intelligence gathering that rivaled or even surpassed the best 'the Company' could come up with."
"Like a sculptor trying to find a figure in a piece of marble, he chipped the master list down in size."
"The vast data library was Yaeger's joy and his passion."
"When Amerigo Vespucci proved scientifically that Columbus had not reached India but had discovered a new continent, he was threatened with heresy, too."
"Admitting someone else had discovered the New World would invalidate claims to its riches and weaken power of the Spanish state."
"He felt like a child who knows there's a monster lurking in the shadows of his closet, can hear its heavy breathing and see the green eyes, only to have it disappear when he turns the lights on."
"Shipshape and Bristol fashion," he echoed with a grin.
"You could do well as a comic on the nightclub circuit, where, I understand, you've been spending your evenings in the company of young women. I imagine they've been assisting in your recovery?"
"I must have surprised you, a stranger coming up suddenly like that with a gun like a bandito. I apologize for my appearance."
"I carry my shade around with me, but I will accept your kind invitation."
"It's not really a hobby, although I find it fun and relaxing. It gives me an eye into the past, before the age of scientific drawings."
"What you're doing is fascinating. And worthwhile because it proves that archaeology is not a dead science of use to no one."
"I'm glad you did, but the Maya's artistic subjects tended toward birds, jaguars, and serpents."
"That just makes the subject more interesting."
"Not at all." He looked at a dock. "We'd be there about lunchtime, spend a couple of hours, and be back here by late afternoon."
"But if you don't mind, first we'll take a detour through the twelfth century."
"I could say we've got to stop meeting like this, but I wouldn't mean it."
"Welcome to the weird and wacky world of NUMA."
"He's right, I would have been totally distracted."
"I want them brought to justice whatever the cost."
"I've scouted the area around the ranch. The terrain out there has got more wrinkles than Sun City."
"What you see is the area immediately around the main one-acre plaza of a fairsized settlement."
"I've wondered the same thing. Why not at the monuments at Tulum, right on the Gulf?"
"Not many people do. Unfortunately it is not only the quantity of the stolen goods that is frightening but the quality."
"The Mayan culture went through many changes in the hundreds of years of its existence."
"I will live, but I can't say the same for the animal who struck me."
"It's my fault. I should not have brought you here."
"We have some time. They won't do anything until they confer with the traffickers who hired them about what to do with an American."
"The water is pure. The rainfall collects under the limestone and finds its way here and there to the surface through holes like this and underground caves."
"You wouldn't know a secret way out of here, would you?"
"A desert electrical storm doesn't simply sweep in and let loose a few desultory bolts of lightning. It picks a spot and hovers over it, unleashing torrents of rain and crooked bolts of lightning seconds apart, or sometimes in multiples."
"We must get this analyzed as soon as we can."
"Cisterns," Chi said. "You saw how hard it was to get a drink around here. The city people used to store their water in these things."
"I wouldn't mind getting my watch back But to be perfectly honest, no, I don't give a damn. See how he likes being stuck in a gopher hole."
"He must have worn his gloves to bed," Austin replied with a frown.
"We've learned not to underestimate these guys. We know they're well organized. And that they don't like loose ends."
"In fourteen hundred and ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue."
"You can't have pre-Columbian without Columbus."
"I sail to the Indies once again, perhaps never to return, for I am mortal, old and weakened by illness, and the way is hard and fraught with dangers."
"I perceived it to be a map of the coast I discovered, but the other writings and marks would not yield their secrets."
"Do you know Dr. Chi?" "Si, senor. I have met him. Sometimes the museum asks me to carry a message to him. He is muy pacifico. A gentleman. Always wants to cook tortillas for me."
"My roots are here," he tells me. You understand what he means?"
"Measure twice, cut once," Henry would say between puffs on his overripe pipe.
"We'll never make it past those rocks," Gamay yelled over the earsplitting thunder of rushing water. "I'm going to steer for land. We'll have to make a run for it in the forest."
"First me, then he will have his way with you on my body."
"Remember, before you feel too sorry for him, he wanted us to die in the cave and later in the river."
"Each taking a different section of riverside, they washed their bodies and clothes, which dried quickly in the hot sun."
"My guess is, that this is where we would be if we'd gone through the rapids."
"Conrad's Heart of Darkness came to her, the scene where Kurtz, the civilized man turned savage, whispers on his deathbed, 'The horror... the horror...'"
"A lunch bill would take a smaller bite out of Austin's wallet than a six-course dinner."
"If it is a forgery, it is a damned clever one."
"Instead of bribes, listening devices, and prostitutes to gather information on corporate rivals, Columbus pumped his sources with food and drink."
"Their experience not only proved one could sail to China or India, which is what Columbus thought he'd be doing. It showed how to get there and back!"
"Wars. Famine. Tidal waves. Revolutions. Plague. Genocide. These happen over and over again. Only the faces change."
"We wish to promote an understanding of the present and prepare for the future by studying the past."