Clive Cussler - Pacific Vortex!

«My God,» March exclaimed. «They did it. They actually combined the engine room with the reactors and set them in the forward part of the ship.»

«I thought nuclear reactors had to be mounted in isolated compartments because of radiation danger.»

«They've improved the control, so that a man working in or around a reactor for nearly a year, will receive less radiation than a hospital X-ray technician in a week.»

March walked over to a large boilerlike piece of machinery that rose nearly twenty feet high and studied it carefully. He followed the heat exchanger tubes to where they finally merged with the main propulsion turbines.

«The starboard reactor is shut down,» he said softly. «But the rods are pulled on the port reactor. That's why the system is providing power.»

«How long could it sit unattended like this?» Pitt asked.

«Six months, maybe a year. This is a brand-new system, pretty advanced. Might even go longer.»

«Wouldn't you say this is an exceptionally clean engine room?»

«Somebody's kept it up, that's for sure,» March said, looking uneasily behind him.

«We'd better push on,» Pitt said briefly.

They climbed a ladder to another door and stepped over the sill. They found themselves in the crew's messroom; a large, spacious compartment brightly decorated with long wide tables covered in dark blue vinyl. It looked more like a Holiday Ion Coffee Shop than a dining compartment of a submarine. The grills on the galley stoves were cold and again everything was neat and orderly. No stacked pots and pans, no dirty dishes. Pitt didn't even find so much as a tiny crumb laying about anywhere. He couldn't help but smile as he moved past a thirty-two-inch color TV console and a mammoth stereo. Something didn't jell in the back of his mind. In fact, nothing jelled in this whole crazy, uninhabited vessel. Then he had it— a small piece of the baffling puzzle.

«No paper,» Pitt said to no one in particular.

March looked at him. «No what?»

«No sign of paper anywhere,» Pitt murmured. «This is where the crew passed time, isn't it? Then why no playing cards, magazines, books? Why no salt and pepper, no sugar…» Suddenly he broke off in mid-sentence and walked, quickly behind the serving line into the galley. He threw open the doors to the supply lockers and the galley storage compartment. They were completely barren. Only the cooking utensils and dishware remained. He noted with grim satisfaction the specks of corrosion on the dinnerware.

March was regarding him thoughtfully over the serving line counter. «What do you make of it?»

«This compartment's been flooded,» Pitt said slowly.

«Impossible,» March said simply. «The engine and reactor room.. «

«Were never touched by water,» Pitt finished. «That's obvious. You can't dry out a nuclear reactor like a load of laundry, but you can restore a galley that's been flooded.» He carefully closed the storage locker doors, leaving them as he had found them.

They hurried down a long corridor past the officers' ward room, the living compartments, and the captain's stateroom. Pitt made a rapid search of Commander Dupree's quarters but found nothing; even his clothing was gone. Pitt felt as if he were standing in a hospital room where a patient had just died and the orderlies had removed every item of the man's existence.

Swiftly, without speaking, Pitt continued down the corridor and stepped into what he correctly guessed was the main control room. Barf tightly clutched in his hand, he padded silently past rows of electronic equipment. His eyes scanned the panels and stainless steel gauges, the radar scopes, the illuminated charts, and transparent tracking screens. It was difficult for him to believe that he was in a submarine beneath the sea instead of a highly complex command center at the National Space Headquarters. The Starbuck was humming softly without human supervision, awaiting the day when a command was given that would awaken and send her surging through the seas once more.

At last Pitt found what he was looking for: the door to the radio room. The equipment waited forlornly, as if somehow expecting the operator to return any second. Pitt sat down and, pulling open the nearest drawer, retrieved a manual on the radio's operation. Good old Navy, he thought; operating instructions are never kept more than spitting distance away. He leaned forward over the transmitter and arranged the necessary dials and switches. Then he turned to March.

«Find the antenna control and shove it up as high as it'll go.»

It took March sixty seconds to discover and activate the topside antenna. Then Pitt gripped the microphone; absorbed in his task in the eerie emptiness of the submarine, the return trip to the surface was completely forgotten for the moment. He set the frequency to maritime transmission, knowing his message would be picked up back in the bunker at Pearl Harbor. This ought to make a few people believe in ghosts, he thought devilishly. Then he pressed the button for TRANSMIT.

«Hello, hello, Martha Ann. This is Starbuck. I repeat, Starbuck. Do you read me? Over.»

Boland had not been idle. Pitt had no sooner pulled the Starbuck's escape hatch closed when Boland ordered two of his best men to prepare for diving. They were to carry extra air tanks to replace the ones carried by Pitt and March, which, he figured, must surely be on reserve air by now. He pounded his fist helplessly on the chart table. They had been in that sub too long; they must be trapped in the escape compartment. Goddamn Pitt, he thought, Goddamn him to hell for pulling such a stupid stunt.

He grabbed the intercom mike. «You men on the dive platform. You've got less than five minutes to get them out of there. So move your ass.»

He jammed the microphone back in its cradle and turned to the TV monitors. His eyes locked on the viewing screens with a cold, impassive stare. «How long?»

Stanley glanced at his watch for the fiftieth time. «If they don't exert themselves, I give them another three minutes.»

As they watched the divers hit the water and swim furiously toward the submarine, footsteps sounded in the passageway outside; the boatswain burst into the detection room.

«We» ve got them!» he yelled. «We've got the Star-buck on the radio!»

«What are you talking about?» Boland snapped.

«We're in voice contact with the Starbuck» the boatswain said more slowly.

The radio man thought the boatswain had hardly left for the detection room before Boland was leaning over his shoulder. He looked up.

«Believe it or not, sir, Major Pitt is calling us from inside the submarine.»

«Tie me in and throw him on the speaker,» Boland said. He couldn't mask the excitement in his voice— perhaps Pitt could do the impossible after all.

«Starbuck? Boland transmitted, «this is Martha Ann. Over.»

Boland stared at the speaker as though he half expected Pitt to walk through it.

«Martha Ann, this is Starbuck. Over.»

«Is that you, Pitt? Over.»

«In the flesh.»

«What is your condition?»

«We're fit. March sends his love.» Pitt paused to increase his volume. «The Starbuck is not flooded. I repeat, the Starbuck is not flooded. If we had another ten men down here, we could sail her home.»

«The crew?»

«No trace. It's as though they never existed.»

Boland didn't answer immediately. He tried to digest the enormity of Pitt's words, vainly picturing in his mind a deserted and ghostly ship sitting unattended and ignored. He was conscious of nothing around him; he didn't even notice half of the crew of the Martha Ann standing in the passageway in stunned silence. First came the creeping wave of numbed disbelief, and then slowly, the agonizing, intolerable realization that it was true.