Clive Cussler: Pacific Vortex!

He scanned the beach, searching for someone who might have seen him enter the water, but the sand was empty for miles in either direction. Pitt didn't bother to examine the steep cliffs behind the shore; it was hopeless to expect anyone to be scaling the rocky slopes in the middle of the week.

He wondered why he took such a stupid and foolhardy risk. The mysterious yellow flotsam had given him an excuse to dare the odds, and once started, it never occurred to him to turn back Now the merciless sea held him securely.

For a brief moment he considered trying to swim in a. straight line back to shore. But only for a brief moment Mark Spitz might have made it, but Pitt felt certain he'd never have won all those gold medals at the Olympics while smoking a pack of cigarettes a day and consuming several shots of Cutty Sark Scotch every evening. Pitt decided to concentrate instead on beating Mother Nature at her own game.

Pitt was an old hand at rip currents and undertows; he had bodysurfed for years and knew their every trick. A man could be swept out to sea from one section of the shore, while a hundred yards away children cavorted in the diminishing waves without noticing the slightest tug from the current The unrelenting force of a rip current occurs when the longshore flow returns to the sea through narrow, stormgrooved valleys in offshore sandbars. Here the incoming surf changes direction and heads away from land, often as rapidly as four miles an hour. Now the current had nearly expended itself, and Pitt was certain he had but to swim parallel to the shoreline until he was out of the sandbars, and then head in at a different point along the beach.

The menace of sharks was his only worry. The sea's murder machines didn't always signal their presence with a water-slicing fin. They could easily attack from beneath with no warning, and without a face mask Pitt would never know when the slashing bite was coming, or from what direction. He could only hope to reach the safety of the surf before he was placed on the menu for lunch. Sharks, he knew, seldom ventured close to shore because the swirling turbulence of heavy wave action forced sand through their gills; this discouraged all but the hungriest from a handy meal.

There was no thought of conserving his energy now; he struggled through the water as if every man-eater in the Pacific Ocean was on his tail. It took nearly fifteen minutes of vigorous swimming before the first wave nudged him toward the beach. Nine more breakers marched by; the tenth caught the buoyancy of the cylinder and held it, carrying Pitt to within twelve feet of the tideline. The instant his knees touched sand again, he rose drunkenly like an exhausted shipwrecked sailor and staggered out of the water, dragging his prize behind him. Then he dropped thankfully onto the sun-warmed sand.

Wearily, Pitt turned his attention to the cylinder. Underneath the plastic covering was an unusual aluminum canister. The sides were ribbed with several small rods that resembled miniature railroad tracks. One end held a screw cap, so Pitt began twisting, intrigued by the great number of revolutions, before it finally dropped off in his hand. Inside was a tight roll of several papers, nothing else. He gently eased them into the daylight and began studying the handwritten manuscript exactingly penned among titled columns and lines.

As he read over the pages, an ice-chill hand touched his skin, and in spite of the ninety-degree heat, goose-flesh broke out over his body. More than once he tried to draw his eyes away from the pages, but was stunned by the enormity of what he held in his hands.

Pitt sat and gazed vacantly out over the ocean for a full ten minutes after he read the last sentence in the document. It ended with a name: ADMIRAL LEIGH HUNTER. Then, very slowly, Pitt gently inserted the papers back in the cylinder, screwed on the cap, and carefully rewrapped the yellow cover.

An eerie, unearthly blanket of silence had fallen over Kaena Point. As the breakers rolled in, their roar somehow seemed muted. He stood and brushed off the sand from his wet body, packed the cylinder under his arm, and began jogging up the beach. When he reached his mat, he quickly wound it around the object in his hands. Then he hurried up the pathway leading to the road alongside the beach.

The bright red AC Ford Cobra sat forlornly on the road. Pitt wasted no time. He threw his cargo on the passenger's seat and moved rapidly behind the steering wheel, his hand, fumbling with the ignition key.

He swung onto Highway 99, passing through Waialua and heading up the long grade that ran next to the picturesque and usually dry, Kaukomahua Stream. After the Schofield Barracks Military Reservation disappeared behind the rearview mirror, Pitt took the turnoff below Wahiawa and headed at high speed toward Pearl City, completely ignoring the threat of a wandering state highway patrolman.

The Koolau Range rose on his left, with their peaks buried underneath perpetual dark rolling rainclouds. Alongside of them the neat, green pineapple fields spread in vivid contrast against the rich, red volcanic soil. Pitt met a sudden rainstorm and automatically turned on the wipers.

At last the main gate at Pearl Harbor came into view. Pitt slowed the car as a uniformed guard came out of the office. Pitt pulled out his driver's license and his identification papers from his wallet, and signed in the visitors' logbook. The young marine simply saluted and waved Pitt through.

Pitt then asked the guard for directions to Admiral Hunter's headquarters. The marine pulled a pad and pencil from his breast pocket and politely drew a map which he handed to Pitt. He saluted once more.

Pitt pulled up and stopped in front of an inconspicuous concrete building near the dock area. He would have passed it but for a small, neatly stenciled sign that read: HEADQUARTERS, 101st SALVAGE FLEET.

He turned off the ignition, picked up the damp package, and left the car. Passing through the entrance, Pitt mentally wished he'd had the foresight to carry a sport shirt and a pair of slacks with him to the beach. He stepped to a desk where a seaman in the Navy summer white uniform mechanically punched a typewriter. A sign on the desk read:

SEAMAN G. YAGER.

«Excuse me,» Pitt murmured self-consciously, Td like to see Admiral Hunter.»

The typist looked up casually, then his eyes almost burst from their sockets.

«My God, buddy, are you off your gourd? What are you trying to pull, coming here wearing nothing but a bathing suit? If the old man catches you, you're dead. Now beat it quick or you'll wind up in the brig.»

«I know I'm not dressed for an afternoon social,» Pitt spoke quietly and pleasantly, «but it's damned urgent that I see the admiral.»

The seaman rose from the desk, his face turning red. «Stop clowning around,» he said loudly. «Either you go back to your quarters and sleep it off, or 1'll call the Shore Patrol.»

«Then call them!» Pitt's voice was suddenly sharp.

«Look, buddy,» the seaman's tone became one of controlled irritation. «Do yourself a favor. Go back to your ship and make a formal request to see the admiral through the chain of command.»

«That won't be necessary, Yager.» The voice behind them carried the finesse of a bulldozer scraping a cement highway.

Pitt turned and found himself locking eyes with a tall wizened man standing stiffly within an inner office doorway. He was dressed in white from collar to shoes and trimmed in gold braid beginning at the arms and working up to the rank boards on the shoulders. The hair was bushy and white, very nearly matching the tired cadaverous face beneath. Only the eyes seemed alive, and they glared curiously at the canister in Pitt's hand.

«I'm Admiral Hunter, and I'll give you just five minutes, big boy, so you better make it worth my while. And bring that object with you,» he said, pointing to the canister.