Clive Cussler - Pacific Vortex!

«There's more to the Martha Ann than meets the eye,» Boland said with a hesitant degree of modesty.

«You'd never know it to look at her, but she's crammed from keel to topside with salvage equipment.»

«A disguised salvage ship?» Pitt said slowly. «That's a new twist.»

Denver smiled. «The masquerade comes in handy for the, shall we say, more delicate reclamation projects.»

«Admiral Sandecker mentioned a few of your delicate accomplishments,» Pitt said. «Now I see how you carried them off.»

«No job too large, no job too small,» Boland said, laughing. «We could almost raise the Andrea Doria if they turned us loose on it»

«Suppose we do find the Starbuck, even with your automated gadgetry, you could never bring her to the surface with such a small crew.»

«Purely precautionary, my dear Pitt,» answered Denver. «Admiral Hunter insisted on a skeleton crew during the search operation. No sense in wasting lives if the Martha Ann should meet the same fate as the others. On the other hand, if we get lucky and discover the Starbuck, you and your whirlybird then begin a shuttle service between the recovery site and Honolulu by ferrying the salvage crew and any needed parts and equipment.»

«A tidy little package,» Pitt admitted. «Though I'd sleep better if we had an armed escort.»

Denver shook his head. «Can't chance it. The Russians would smell a shady plot the minute they got wind of an old tramp steamer escorted by a Navy missile cruiser. They'd have the Andrei Vyborg on our tail by sunup.»

Pitt's eyebrows lifted. The «Andrei Vyborg?»

«A Russian oceanographic vessel classified by Navy Intelligence as a spy ship. She's shadowed the Star-buck's search operation for the last six months and she's still out there somewhere hovering around poking for the sub.» Boland paused for a swallow of coffee. «The 101st Fleet has spent too much time and effort to maintain our cover as a merchantman. We can't afford to have it blown now.»

«As you can see,» Denver said, «the Martha Ann is completely divorced from the Navy. She's listed under United States registry as a merchant ship. And we intend to keep it that way, nice and discreet.»

«Isn't the Navy concerned by the fact that the Andrei Vyborg is nosing around alone?»

«She's not alone,» Boland said seriously. «We've four ships still combing the northern search area. The Navy never gives up on a search, no matter how hopeless it seems for survivors. Call it Naval tradition if you will, Major, but it's a damn good feeling when you're floating in the sea, clutching a piece of flotsam after your ship has gone down, knowing that nothing is spared to make your rescue…»

Boland's lecture was interrupted by a knock on the door. «Come in!» he shouted.

A young boy, no more than nineteen or twenty, stepped through the doorway. He was wearing a white butcher's cap on his head and a pair of blue coveralls. Ignoring Pitt and Denver, he spoke to Boland.

«Excuse me, sir, the chief engineer reports the engine room is in readiness and the bosun's mate has the crew standing by to cast off.»

Boland glanced at his watch. «Right. Pass the word to cast off and get underway in ten minutes.»

«Yes sir,» replied the young seaman. He saluted, turned, and disappeared into the pilothouse.

Boland smiled smugly at Denver. «Not bad. We're forty minutes ahead of schedule.»

«The copter tied down and secure?» asked Pitt.

Boland nodded. «She's snug. You can make your final flight checks when it's daylight.»

Pitt rose and walked over to the porthole, breathing deeply to cleanse his lungs of the stale smoke from Denver's cigarettes. The harbor air smelled sure in comparison to the stuffy chart room.

«Have you assigned accommodations for Dirk?» Denver asked Boland.

«There's a stateroom next to mine that we keep vacant for VTP's,» Boland replied, his lips curled in a sarcastic grin. «In Pitt's case, we'll make an exception.»

Pitt fixed a long hypnotic stare devoid of anger or animosity at the smoke curling up from the ashtray. He could shrug off a verbal dig with all the feeling of nipping a mosquito off an arm. Hunter was a clever old fox; placing two men with different temperaments together as a team.

«Well, I guess I'd best shove off,» Denver said, breaking the uneasy silence.

«We'll drop you a postcard from time to time,» Pitt said.

«You'd better do more than that,» Denver shot back, his lips curled in a tight smile, but his eyes hard. «I'm going to reserve the bar at the Reef Hotel for three weeks from today. And woe to the man who doesn't show up.» He turned to Boland. «You have the code, Paul. The admiral and I will track you by satellite. When you spot the Starbuck, simply radio under maritime transmission that you've stopped all engines to repair a burned shaft bearing. We'll have your exact position in a millisecond.»

Denver shook hands with Pitt and Boland. «Little else can be said but good luck!» Before the other two men could answer, Denver abruptly wheeled about and strode from the room.

A few minutes later Denver stood on the dock, leaning against a piling as he watched the crew slip the ship's lines and hoist the gangplank. He idly studied the starboard side of the Martha Ann as she moved slowly into the channel toward the mouth of the silent harbor. He stared at the navigation lights until the gentle throbbing beat of the ship's engines gradually diminished into the darkness. Then he flipped his cigarette into the calm, oily water, shoved his hands in his pockets, and wearily made his way along the dock to the parking lot Pitt stood at the rail of the fantail and idly watched the Martha Ann's propellers churn out their wake. The frothing blue and white mass swirled, slowly diminishing a quarter of a mile behind the stern before the sea relentlessly closed over and covered her as though healing a giant scar. The weather was warm and the sky was clear; a solid breeze rushed past from the northeast.

What a crazy group he'd run across in the last two days, he thought despairingly. A devious-minded girl who tried to ram a hypodermic needle into his back, an assassin with tobacco-stained teeth, a bastard of an admiral, a lieutenant commander with a ridiculous tattoo, and a little commander who was apparently the smartest of them all.

But yet, this group wasn't able to haunt the dim reaches of his mind. That was left for another character of the drama, a character who had yet to step on the stage; a giant of a man with golden eyes.

What was his reason for researching the lost island of Kanoli so many years ago? Could he have simply been a scholar trying to unearth a lost civilization, or an occult delving into myths and legends? Or someone with even stranger goals in mind? What was there in the tale of Kanoli that couldn't be found in half the drivel written about the lost continent of Mu, or in the overabundance of fiction dealing with Atlantis? The mysteries of the Pacific Vortex and the Bermuda Triangle were real enough. There had to be a logical solution to the riddles lying about somewhere, Pitt figured restlessly. A key that was so obvious that it was entirely overlooked.

«Mr. Pitt?»

Pitt's mental gymnastics were broken by the young man in coveralls.

Pitt smiled. «What can I do for you?»

The seaman was about to salute. He appeared flustered at how to act before a civilian, particularly one on a Navy ship.

«Commander Boland requests your presence on the bridge.»

«Thank you. I'm on my way.»

Pitt swung around and walked across the steel deck past the tarp-covered hatches. Beneath his feet the engines pounded away with a rhythmic beat as the ship ploughed into the calm water, throwing a white salty mist over the railings and onto the superstructure, coating the paint with a glistening layer of dripping wetness.