Serpent

Blurb

Serpent is the first book in the NUMA Files series of books co-written by best-selling author Clive Cussler and Paul Kemprecos, and was published in 1999. The main character of this series is Kurt Austin.
This is the first book with Cussler's new hero Kurt Austin.
The main plot is about a group of men who call themselves "The Brotherhood" and have ties to a 15th-century religious order. The group in modern times has attempted to hide and destroy all evidence of pre-Columbian contact between the New and Old Worlds.
The book begins with the wrecking of the ships SS Andrea Doria and MS Stockholm and moves to modern times with gun fights and chases from Boston and Washington DC to Africa and Mexico. The introduction of replacements for Dirk Pitt and his sidekick does not change Cussler's plot.
In 1956, off the coast of Nantucket Island, a crew member of the Stockholm causes the collision with the Andrea Doria then disappears. After the collision, a waiter aboard the Andrea Doria witnesses the murder of several men beside an armored vehicle in the hold of the ship.