Book excerpt: The second Humboldt Prior mystery, in which sunken warships, super computers, archaic weapons, and stolen treasure encompass Prior, now a corporate executive, in a web of ancient treachery, in which help may not be help, friends may not be friends, and success may not be success. A seemingly routine request made in the course of a seemingly routine business trip require that Humboldt Prior make his way through a network of intrigue reaching the highest levels of government and business. Action swirls from New York to London and from there to the misty north of Great Britain. Repeated attempts on Prior's life require him to recall his distant past, receive aid from unexpected sources, and to exact his own toll of destruction. The story ends in an explosion of violence and with an epilog of further deception.