Clive Cussler - Trojan Odyssey

"We've never worked on the same project together," said Renee in a husky voice only a few decibels above a whisper. "But we've sat together in conferences on several occasions."

"Likewise," said Dodge, as he shook hands.

Pitt was tempted to ask if Ford and Dodge shared a garage, but held back from making a bad joke. "Good to see you again."

"I trust we'll have a happy ship." Giordino flashed one of his congenial grins.

"Why wouldn't we?" Renee asked sweetly.

Giordino did not reply. It was another of the rare times he was at a loss for a comeback.

Pitt stood for several moments, listening to the water slapping against the wharf pilings. Not a soul could be seen. The wharf looked deserted. Almost, but not quite.

He dropped down to his cabin in the stern, removed a small black case from his suitcase and eased back up the stairway onto the side of the deck opposite the wharf. Using the deckhouse as a cover, he opened the case and removed what looked like a video camera. He switched on its transformer and it gave off a muted high-pitched whine. Next, he draped a blanket over his head and slowly rose until his eyes could peer over a pile of rope coiled on the deckhouse roof. He pressed his face against the eyepiece of the night-vision monocular as the scope automatically adjusted the amplification, brightness control and infrared illuminator. Then he peered into the darkness across the wharf that was now illuminated in a greenish image that gave him the night vision of an owl.

The Chevrolet pickup truck he'd noticed when arriving at the Poco Bonito was still sitting in the dark. The ambient light from the stars and two dim lights a hundred yards down the wharf were now enhanced twenty thousand times, revealing the driver of the truck as if he were in a well-lit room. But as Pitt studied the driver, he saw that he was a she. Pitt could tell by the way the observer swept her scope back and forth across the lit portholes of the hull that she did not suspect that she had been detected. He could even tell that her hair was wet.

Pitt lowered the scope slightly until it was focused on the pickup truck's driver's door. The snoop was no professional, Pitt thought. Nor was she cautious. Probably a construction worker doing double duty as a spy, since the name of her employer was painted on the side of the door in gold letters:

ODYSSEY

The name stood alone, no "Limited," no "Corporation," no "Company," after it.

Below the name was the stylized image of a horse running with its legs outstretched. It looked vaguely familiar to Pitt, but he couldn't recall where he'd seen it.

Why was Odyssey interested in a NUMA research expedition?

Pitt wondered. What possible threat was a team of ocean scientists? He saw no sense to the stakeout by a giant organization with nothing to gain.

He could not refrain from standing up and walking to the wharf side of the boat and waving to the woman in the pickup, who immediately trained her nightscope on him. Pitt held up his scope to his eyes and stared back. Definitely not a professional snoop, the woman became so shaken that she dropped her scope on the seat, hurriedly kicked over the engine and roared across the wharf into the darkness, spinning her rear tires in a screech of protest.

Renee looked up in unison with Giordino and Dodge. "What was that all about?" asked Renee.

"Someone in a hurry," Pitt said in amusement.

Renee cast off the bow and stern lines while the men looked on. With Gunn manning the pilothouse, the powerful engines sputtered and rumbled into life with a mellow hum, as they gently shivered the deck. Then Poco Bonito slipped away from the wharf and churned into the channel that ran through the Straits of Bluffs to the sea. The course, programed into the computerized navigation equipment, set the bow on a heading toward the northeast. But Gunn — like most airline pilots, who would rather take off and land a commercial airliner than allow a computer to do it — took the wheel and steered the vessel seaward.

Pitt descended a ladder to his cabin, replaced the nightscope in his bag and retrieved a Globalstar tri-mode satellite phone. Then he returned to the deck and relaxed in a tattered lounge chair. He turned and smiled as Renee extended her hand through a porthole of the galley with a cup in her hand.

"Coffee?" she inquired from inside the galley.

"You're an angel," said Pitt. "Thank you."

He sipped at the coffee and then punched a number on the satellite phone. Sandecker answered on the fourth ring. "Sandecker," the admiral snapped briskly.

"Did you forget to tell me something, Admiral?"

"You're not clear."

"Odyssey."

There was a silence. Then, "Why do you ask?"

"One of their people was spying on us as we boarded the boat. I'm interested in knowing why."

"Better you learn later," Sandecker said cryptically.

"Has this to do with Odyssey's excavation project in Nicaragua?" Pitt asked innocently.

Another silence and an echo. "Why do you ask?"

"Just curious."

"Where did you obtain your information?"

Pitt couldn't resist. "Better you learn later."

Then he closed the connection.

Gunn guided Poco Bonito through the black water separating the high-bluffed straits. The water was deserted of all shipping as he kept the bow aimed straight down the middle of the channel. The lights on the top of the buoys that marked the entrance to the harbor swayed with the waves in the distance, one with a blinking green light, the opposite showing red.

As Pitt was sitting in the lounge chair enjoying the tropical evening at sea and watching the yellow glow of Bluefields fade into the darkness astern, the memory of the spy on the dock stayed in his mind and spread, like a plant with roots. There was an indefinite thought that seemed distant and unfocused. He was not concerned that they had been observed as they cast off their moorings. That part of the intrigue seemed inconsequential. The pickup truck with odyssey painted on the door measured no more than two points on his trepidation scale. It was the haste of the driver when she shot off the dock that puzzled him. There had been no need for a quick getaway. So she was made by the NUMA crew? So what? They'd made no move to approach her. The answer had to lie somewhere else.

And then it all crystallized when he recalled the driver's wet hair.

Gunn's right hand was poised above the twin throttles leading to the big fuel-injected engines in readiness to ease them forward and send the boat whipping over the low swells rolling in from the Caribbean. Abruptly, Pitt sat up in his lounge chair and shouted.

"Rudi, stop the boat!"

Gunn half turned. "What?"

"Stop the boat! Stop it now!"

Pitt's voice was as sharp as a fencing saber, and Gunn quickly complied, pulling the throttles back to their stops. Then Pitt yelled at Giordino, who was down below in the galley with Ford and Dodge, savoring pie and coffee. "Al, bring up my dive gear!"

"What's this all about?" asked Gunn in confusion as he stepped from the side door of the pilothouse. Looking bewildered, Renee and Dodge also appeared on deck to see what all the fuss was about.

"I can't be certain," explained Pitt, "but I suspect we might have a bomb on board."

"What brought you to that conclusion?" asked Dodge skeptically.

"The driver of the truck couldn't wait to get away. Why the hurry? There must be a reason."

"If you're right," spoke up Dodge, seeing the light, "we'd better find it."

Pitt nodded decisively. "My thoughts exactly. Rudi, you, Renee and Patrick search every inch of the cabins. Al, you take the engine room. I'm going over the side on the possibility it was attached under the hull."

"Let's get a move on," said Al. "The explosives could be on a timer set to detonate as soon as we cleared the harbor and moved into deep water."