Clive Cussler - Trojan Odyssey

"Do you recall anything else leading up to the collision and fire?"

Rita shook her head slowly back and forth. "Nothing. They held me prisoner in my cabin and only let me out when they were preparing to capture another vessel."

"Why the hologram of the pirate ship?" asked Renee. "That seemed more like a gimmick to keep boats out of the area than an act of piracy."

Rita looked uncomprehending. "Hologram? I'm not even sure what one is."

Pitt smiled inwardly. He saw little cause not to believe that Rita Anderson was fabricating a wild story. Renee was right. Rita's makeup hardly looked like it belonged on a woman who had seen her husband murdered and had been cruelly dealt with by pirates. The beige-rose lipstick with lip gloss was too precisely applied, the eyes defined with a deep chestnut liner and a shimmer highlighter on the brow — all spelled a life of elegance. He decided to go for the jugular, watching closely for a reaction.

"What is your connection with Odyssey?" he said suddenly.

At first, she didn't get it. Then it began to dawn on her that these people were no innocent fishermen. "I don't know what you're talking about," she hedged.

"Wasn't your husband an employee of the Odyssey conglomerate?"

"Why do you ask?" she threw out, stalling while she came back on keel.

"Your boat bore the same image of a horse as the Odyssey logo."

The immaculately plucked and penciled eyebrows pinched fractionally. She was good, Pitt thought, very good. She didn't faze easily.

He began to realize that Rita was no mundane wife of a rich man. She was comfortable being in command, with power to wield. He was amused as she made a flank attack and tried to turn the tables.

"Who are you people?" Rita suddenly demanded. "You're not fishermen."

"No," Pitt said slowly, with effect. "We're with the United States National Underwater and Marine Agency on a scientific expedition to find the source of the brown crud."

He might as well have slapped her in the face. The calm composure abruptly fell away. Before she could stop herself, she blurted, "Not possible. You're—" She caught herself and her voice trailed off.

"Supposed to be dead from the explosion in Bluefields Channel," Pitt finished for her.

"You knew?" Renee gasped, moving toward the bed as if to strangle Rita.

"She knew," Pitt agreed, gently taking Renee by the arm and restraining her.

"But why?" Renee demanded. "What did we do to deserve a horrible death?"

Rita would say no more. The expression on her face altered from surprise to anger mixed with hatred. Renee would have loved to have rammed her fist into Rita's face. "What will we do with her?"

"Nothing," Pitt replied with a slight shrug. He knew he could no longer bluff Rita. She had said all she was going to say. "Keep her locked in the cabin until we reach Costa Rica. I'll have Rudi call ahead and have the local law authorities waiting on the dock to take her into custody."

Exhaustion crept up on Pitt. He was dead tired, but so were the others. He had one more chore to perform before he could catch a short catnap. He looked around for the lounge chair, but remembered Renee had thrown it overboard. He stretched out on the deck that had been cleared of the phony fishing gear, leaned his back against a bulwark and dialed his Globalstar tri-mode satellite phone.

Sandecker sounded angered. "Why haven't I heard from you people before now?"

"We've been busy," Pitt muttered. Then he spent the next twenty minutes bringing the admiral up to speed. Sandecker patiently listened without interruption until Pitt ended by relating his conversation with Rita Anderson.

"What could Specter possibly have to do with any of this?" Sandecker's voice sounded confused.

"At the moment, my best guess is that he has a secret he wants to keep and will murder the crew of any boat that stumbles into his realm."

"I've heard they have construction contracts with the Red Chinese throughout Nicaragua and Panama."

"Loren mentioned the same connection over dinner the other night."

"I'll order an investigation into Odyssey's activities," said Sandecker.

"You might also check out Rita and David Anderson and a yacht named Epona."

"I'll put Yaeger on it first thing."

"It will be interesting to see how this woman ties in to this thing."

"Did you discover a source of the brown crud?"

"We homed in on the position where it's rising from the seafloor."

"Then it looks like a natural phenomenon?"

"Patrick Dodge doesn't think so." Pitt stifled a yawn. "He claims there is no way the mineral ingredients that make up the crud can rise up from the bottom like it was shot out of a cannon. He says it has to be an artificial upwelling. There must be something nasty going on here that borders on The Twilight Zone."

"Then we're back to square one," said Sandecker.

"Not quite," Pitt said quietly. "I have a little expedition of my own I'd like to carry out."

"I've sent a NUMA jet transport to the airport near the Rio Colorado Lodge with a crew to patch up Poco Bonito before they sail it north. Gunn, Dodge and Ford will be transported back to Washington. I'd like you and Al to join them."

"The job isn't finished."

Sandecker didn't argue. He'd learned long ago that Pitt's judgment was generally on the money. "What is your plan?"

Pitt stared across the sea toward the green forested coastal mountain ranges rising beyond white sandy beaches. "I think a cruise up the San Juan River to Lake Nicaragua might be in order."

"What do you expect to find so far from the sea and the brown crud?"

"Answers," Pitt answered, his mind already traveling upriver. "Answers to this whole mess."

If there was one small benefit to Hurricane Lizzie, it was that she had swept the brown crud away from Navidad Bank. The water over the coral was blue-green again, with visibility at neatly two hundred feet. Along with the clean water, the fish had returned to their habitat and took up residence again as if no tempest had cast them out.

Another research vessel replaced Sea Sprite for the investigation of the sunken structure. Built and designed specifically as a dive support vessel for archaeological exploration in shallow water, Sea Yesteryear rarely worked out of sight of the shore. Her projects had included the underwater ruins of the Alexandria Library in Egypt, the. Chinese fleet sunk by kamikaze winds off Japan, early Swedish and Russian trade ships in the Baltic and a host of other historical events her team of scientists had surveyed.

She featured four-point mooring capabilities and both saturation and surface gas/air diving system configurations. A moon pool in the center of her hull was fully equipped for diving operations and robotic vehicle launch and recovery, and included machinery for retrieving artifacts from the seafloor. A spacious laboratory occupied the entire bow section of the boat and incorporated the most up-to-date scientific equipment for the analysis and conservation of recovered ancient artifacts.

Short by most research ship standards at one hundred and fifty-one feet in length, she was broad and roomy with an overall breadth of forty-five feet. Two big diesel engines moved her through the water at twenty knots, and she carried a crew of four and a team of ten scientists. Those who had served aboard Sea Yesteryear were proud of the times they had rewritten maritime history. And, as the Navidad Bank exploration proceeded, they were certain they were on the verge of the greatest discovery yet.