Clive Cussler - Deep Six

Pitt had barely set foot on the scaly rungs when there was a crack like thunder and something fell past him and struck the deck. He threw the light beam up. At that instant the hatch cover disintegrated and tons of rock and debris cascaded into the hold.

“Climb, damn it, climb!” he yelled at Dover. His chest heaved and the blood roared in his ears. With an inner strength he thrust Dover’s 220 pounds up the ladder.

Suddenly a voice shouted. The light showed a figure leaning through the upper hatch, his hands grabbing Dover and pulling him through into the aft hold. Pitt instinctively knew it was Giordino. The burly little Italian had a keen sense of arriving at the right place at the right moment.

Then Pitt was at the top and crawling into the hold containing the nerve agent. The hatch cover was still intact, because the sloping ground above was not as dense near the stern section. When he reached the bottom of the ladder, willing hands were helping Dover toward the after deckhouse and temporary safety. Giordino gripped Pitt’s arm.

“We took casualties during the quake,” he said grimly.

“How bad?” asked Pitt.

“Four injured, mostly broken bones, and one dead.”

Giordino hesitated and Pitt knew.

“Mendoza?”

“One of the drums crushed her legs,” Giordino explained, his voice more solemn than Pitt had ever known it. “She suffered a compound fracture. A bone splinter pierced her suit.” His words died.

“The nerve agent leaked onto her skin,” Pitt finished, a sense of helplessness and shock flooding through him.

Giordino nodded. “We carried her outside.”

Pitt found Julie Mendoza lying on the Pilottown’s stern deck. Overhead a great cloud of volcanic ash rose into a blue sky and fortuitously drifted northward and away from the ship.

She lay alone and off to one side. The uninjured people were attending to the living. Only the young officer from the Catawba stood beside her, and his entire body was arching convulsively as he was being violently sick into his air filter.

Someone had removed her helmet. Her hair flared out on the rusty deck and glinted orange under the setting sun. Her eyes were open and staring into nothingness, the jaw jutting and rigid in what must have been indescribable agony. The blood was hardening as it dried in sun-tinted copper rivers that had gushed from her gaping mouth, nose and ears. It had even seeped from around the edges of her eyes. What little facial skin still showed was already turning a bluish black.

Pitt’s only emotion was cold rage. It swelled up inside him as he knelt down beside her and struck the deck repeatedly with his fist.

“It won’t end here,” he snarled bitterly. “I won’t let it end here.”

Oscar Lucas stared moodily at his desktop. Everything depressed him: the acid tasting coffee in a cold cup, his cheaply furnished government office, the long hours on his job. For the first time since he became special agent in charge of the presidential detail, he found himself longing for retirement, cross-country skiing in Colorado, building a mountain retreat with his own hands.

He shook his head to clear the fantasies, sipped at a diet soft drink and studied the plans of the presidential yacht for perhaps the tenth time.

Built in 1919 for a wealthy Philadelphia businessman, the Eagle was purchased by the Department of Commerce in 1921 for presidential use. Since that time, thirteen Presidents had paced her decks.

Herbert Hoover tossed medicine balls while on board. Roosevelt mixed martinis and discussed war strategy with Winston Churchill. Harry Truman played poker and the piano. John Kennedy celebrated his birthdays. Lyndon Johnson entertained the British Royal Family, and Richard Nixon hosted Leonid Brezhnev.

Designed with an old straight-up-and-down bow, the mahogany-trimmed yacht displaced a hundred tons and measured 110 feet in length with a beam of twenty feet. Her draft was five feet and she could slice the water at fourteen knots.

The Eagle was originally constructed with five master staterooms, four baths and a large glass-enclosed deckhouse, used as a combination dining and living room. A crew of thirteen Coast Guardsmen manned the yacht during a cruise, their quarters and galley located forward.

Lucas went through the files on the crew, rechecking their personal backgrounds, family histories, personality traits, the results of psychological interviews. He could find nothing that merited any suspicion.

He sat back and yawned. His watch read 9:20 P.M. The Eagle had been tied up at Mount Vernon for three hours. The President was a night owl and a late riser. He would keep up his guests, Lucas was certain, sitting around the deckhouse, thrashing out government affairs, with little thought given to sleep.

He twisted sideways and looked out the window. A falling mist was a welcome sight. The reduced visibility eliminated the chances of a sniper, the greatest danger to a President’s life. Lucas persuaded himself that he was chasing ghosts. Every detail that could be covered was covered.

If there was a threat, its source and method eluded him.

The mist had not yet reached Mount Vernon. The summer night still sparkled clear and the lights from nearby streets and farms danced on the water. The river at this stretch widened to slightly over a mile, with trees and shrubs lining its sweeping banks. A hundred yards from the shoreline, a Coast Guard cutter stood at anchor, her bow pointing upriver, radar antenna in constant rotation.

The President was sitting in a lounge chair on the foredeck of the Eagle, earnestly promoting his Eastern European aid program to Marcus Larimer and Alan Moran. Suddenly he came to his feet and stepped to the railing, his head tilted, listening. A small herd of cows were mooing in a nearby pasture. He became momentarily absorbed; the problems of the nation vanished and a country boy surfaced. After several seconds he turned and sat down again.

“Sorry for the interruption,” he said with a broad smile. “For a minute there I was tempted to find a bucket and squeeze us some fresh milk for breakfast.”

“The news media would have a field day with a picture of you milking a cow in the dead of night.” Larimer laughed.

“Better yet,” said Moran sarcastically, “you could sell the milk to the Russians for a fat profit.”

“Not as farfetched as it sounds,” said Margolin, who was sitting off to one side. “Milk and butter have all but disappeared from Moscow state food stores.”

“It’s a fact, Mr. President,” said Larimer seriously. “The average Russian is only two hundred calories a day from a starvation diet. The Poles and Hungarians are even worse off. Why, hell, our pigs eat better than they do.”

“Exactly my point,” said the President in a fervent voice. “We cannot turn our backs on starving women and children simply because they live under Communist domination. Their plight makes my aid plan all the more important to echo the humanitarian generosity of the American people. Think of the benefits such a program will bring in good will from the Third World countries. Think of how such an act could inspire future generations. The potential rewards are incalculable.”

“I beg to differ,” said Moran coldly. “In my mind what you propose is foolish, a sucker play. The billions of dollars they spend annually propping up their satellite countries have nearly wiped out their financial resources. I’ll take bets the money they save by your proposed bailout plan would go directly into their military budget.”

“Perhaps, but if their troubles continue unchecked the Soviets will become more dangerous to the U.S.,” the President argued. “Historically, nations with deep economic problems have lashed out in foreign adventures.”