Clive Cussler - Deep Six

“She probably drifted into what was a shelving inlet before 1987,” replied Pitt. “According to Mendoza, that was the year the volcano last erupted. The explosion gases must have melted the ice around the mantle, forming millions of gallons of water. The mudflow, along with the cloud of ash, poured down the mountain until it met the sea and buried the ship.”

“Funny the stern wasn’t spotted before now.”

“Not so remarkable,” Pitt answered. “So little is showing it was next to impossible to detect from the air, and beyond a mile from shore it blends into the rugged shoreline and becomes nearly invisible. Erosion caused by recent storms is the only reason she’s uncovered now.”

Dover stood up, pressing his weight against the steep embankment to maintain his balance. He unraveled a thin knotted nylon rope from his waist and unfolded a small grappling hook tied to the end.

He looked down at Pitt. “If you’ll support my legs, I think I can heave the hook over the ship’s railing.”

Pitt grasped his left leg as Giordino edged over and held the right. The burly Coast Guardsman leaned back over the lip of the ledge, swung the hook in a widening arc and let it fly.

It sailed over the stern rails and caught.

The rest of the ascent took only a few minutes. Pulling themselves upward, hand over hand, they soon climbed onto the deck. Heavy layers of rust mingled with ash flaked away beneath their feet. What little they could see of the Pilottown looked a dirty, ugly mess.

“No sign of Mendoza,” said Dover.

“Nearest flat ground to land a copter is a thousand yards away,” Pitt replied. “She and her team will have to hike in.”

Giordino walked over to the railing beside the corroded shaft of the jackstaff and stared at the water below. “The poison must be seeping through the hull during high tide.”

“Probably stored in the after hold,” said Dover.

“The cargo hatches are buried under tons of this lava crap,” Giordino said in disgust. “We’ll need a fleet of bulldozers to get through.”

“You familiar with Liberty ships?” Pitt asked Dover.

“Should be. I’ve inspected enough of them over the years, looking for illegal cargo.” He knelt down and began tracing a ship’s outline in the rust. “Inside the aft deckhouse we should find a hatch to an escape trunk that leads to the tunnel holding the screw shaft. At the bottom is a small recess. We might be able to cut our way into the hold from there.”

They all stood silent when Dover finished. They should all have felt a sense of accomplishment at having found the source of the nerve agent. But instead they experienced apprehension — a reaction, Pitt supposed, that stemmed from a letdown after the excitement of the search. Then also there was a hidden dread of what they might actually find behind the steel bulkheads of the Pilottown.

“Maybe… maybe we better wait for the lab people,” one of the chemists stammered.

“They can catch up,” Pitt said pleasantly, but with cold eyes.

Giordino silently took a prybar from the toolpack strapped on Pitt’s back and attacked the steel door to the after deckhouse. To his surprise it creaked and moved. He put his muscle to it, the protesting hinges surrendered and the door sprang open. The interior was completely empty, no fittings, no gear, not even a scrap of trash.

“Looks as though the movers have been here,” observed Pitt.

“Odd it was never in use,” Dover mused.

“The escape trunk?”

“This way.” Dover led them through another compartment that was also barren. He stopped at a round hatch in the center of the deck. Giordino moved forward, pried open the cover and stepped back. Dover aimed a flashlight down the yawning tunnel, the beam stabbing the darkness.

“So much for that idea,” he said dejectedly. “The tunnel recess is blocked with debris.”

“What’s on the next deck below?”

“The steering gear compartment.” Dover paused, his mind working. Then he thought aloud. “Just forward of the steering gear there’s an after steering room. A holdover from the war years. It’s possible, barely possible, it might have an access hatch to the hold.”

They went aft then and returned to the first compartment. It felt strange to them to walk the decks of a ghost ship, wondering what happened to the crew that abandoned her. They found the hatchway and climbed down the ladder to the steering gear compartment and made their way around the old, still oily machinery to the forward bulkhead. Dover scanned the steel plates with his flashlight. Suddenly the wavering beam stopped.

“Son of a bitch!” he grunted. “The hatch is here, but it’s been welded shut.”

“You’re certain we’re in the right spot?” Pitt asked.

“Absolutely,” Dover answered. He rapped his gloved fist against the bulkhead. “On the other side is cargo hold number five — the most likely storage of the poison.”

“What about the other holds?” asked one of the EPA men.

“Too far forward to leak into the sea.”

“Okay, then let’s do it,” Pitt said impatiently.

Quickly they assembled the cutting torch and connected the oxygen-acetylene bottles. The flame from the tip of the torch hissed as Giordino adjusted the gas mixture. Blue flame shot out and assaulted the steel plate, turning it red, then a bright orange-white. A narrow gap appeared and lengthened, crackling and melting under the intense heat.

As Giordino was cutting an opening large enough to crawl through, Julie Mendoza and her lab people appeared, packing nearly five hundred pounds of chemical analysis instruments.

“You found it,” she stated straight from the shoulder.

“We can’t be sure yet,” Pitt cautioned.

“But our test samples show the water around this area reeks with Nerve Agent S,” she protested.

“Disappointment comes easy,” said Pitt. “I never count my chickens till the check clears the bank.”

Further conversation broke off as Giordino stood back and snuffed out the cutting torch. He handed it to Dover and picked up his trusty prybar.

“Stand back,” he ordered. “This thing is red hot and it’s damned heavy.”

He hooked one end of the bar into the jagged, glowing seam and shoved. Grudgingly, the steel plate twisted away from the bulkhead and crashed to the deck with a heavy clang and spray of molten metal.

A hush fell over the dark compartment as Pitt took a flashlight and leaned carefully through the opening, staying clear of the superheated edges. He probed the beam into the bowels of the darkened cargo hold, sweeping it around in a 180-degree arc.

It seemed a long time before he straightened and faced the bizarrely clad, faceless figures pressing against him.

“Well?” Mendoza demanded anxiously.

Pitt answered with one word: “Eureka!”

Four thousand miles and five hours ahead in a different time zone, the Soviet representative to the World Health Assembly worked late at his desk. There was nothing elaborate about his office in the Secretariat building of the United Nations; the furnishings were cheap and Spartan. Instead of the usual photographs of Russian leaders, living and dead, the only piece of wall decor was a small amateurish watercolor of a house in the country.

The light blinked and a soft chime emitted from his private phone line. He stared at it suspiciously for a long moment before picking up the receiver.

“This is Lugovoy.”

“Who?”

“Aleksei Lugovoy.”

“Is Willie dere?” asked a voice, heavy with the New York City accent that always grated on Lugovoy’s ears.

“There is no Willie here,” Lugovoy said brusquely. “You must have the wrong number.” Then he abruptly hung up.