Clive Cussler - Shock Wave

“Knowing Dorsett, he wouldn’t bat an eye when he gave the order to his security flunkies.”

“Have you ever met the man?” asked Pitt.

“Once was enough. His daughter, The Emasculator, is as bad as he is.”

“Boudicca.” Pitt smiled thinly. “She’s called The Emasculator?”

“Strong as an ox, that one,” said the engineer. “I’ve seen her lift a good-sized man off the ground with one arm.”

Before Pitt could ask any more questions, the elevator reached the surface level and stopped in the main lift building. The engineer stepped outside, glancing at a Ford van that drove past. Pitt followed him around the corner of the mess hall and behind the garbage containers.

The engineer nodded at Pitt’s jumpsuit. “Your gear belongs to a geologist who’s down with the flu. I’ll have to return it before he discovers it missing and wonders why.”

“Great,” Pitt muttered. “I probably contacted his flu germs from the respirator.”

“Your Indian friends have returned to their boats.” The engineer gestured at the food-storage loading dock. The tractor and trailers were gone. “The van that just passed by the elevator building is a personnel shuttle. It should return in a couple of minutes. Hail the driver and tell him to take you through the tunnel.”

Pitt stared at the old engineer dubiously. “You don’t think he’ll question why I didn’t leave with the other Haida?”

The old engineer took a notebook and a pencil from a pocket of his jumpsuit and scribbled a few words. He tore off the sheet of paper, folded it and passed it to Pitt. “Give him this. It will guarantee your safe passage. I have to return to work before Dapper John’s muscle boys begin to ask questions.”

Pitt shook his hand. “I’m grateful for your help. You took a terrible risk by revealing Dorsett Consolidated secrets to a perfect stranger.”

“If I can prevent future deaths of innocent people, any risk on my part will have been well worth it.”

“Good luck,” said Pitt.

“The same to you.” The engineer began to walk away, thought of something and turned back. “One more thing, out of curiosity. I saw the Dorsett gunship take off after a floatplane the other day. It never returned.”

“I know,” said Pitt. “It ran into a hill and burned.”

“You know?”

“I was on the floatplane.”

The engineer looked at him queerly. “And Malcolm Stokes?”

Pitt quickly realized that this was the undercover man Stokes had mentioned. “A metal splinter in one lung. But he’ll live to enjoy his pension.”

“I’m glad. Malcolm is a good man. He has a fine family.”

“A wife and five children,” said Pitt. “He told me after we crashed.”

“Then you got clear only to jump back in the fire.”

“Not very bright of me, was it?”

The engineer smiled. “No, I guess it wasn’t.” Then he turned and headed back into the elevator building, where he disappeared from Pitt’s view.

Five minutes later, the van appeared and Pitt waved it to a stop. The driver, in the uniform of a security guard, stared at Pitt suspiciously. “Where did you come from?” he asked.

Pitt handed him the folded note and shrugged wordlessly.

The driver read the note, wadded it up, tossed it on the floor and nodded. “Okay, take a seat. I’ll run you as far as the search house at the other end of the tunnel.”

As the driver closed the door and shifted the van into drive, Pitt took a seat behind him and casually leaned down and picked up the crumpled note. It read:

This Haida fisherman was in the john when his friends unknowingly left him behind. Please see that he gets to the dock before the fishing fleet departs.

C. Cussler

Chief Foreman

The driver stopped the van in front of the security building, where Pitt was explored from head to feet by X ray for the second time that morning. The doctor in charge of anatomical search nodded as he completed a checklist.

“No diamonds on you, big boy,” he said, stifling a yawn.

“Who needs them?” Pitt grunted indifferently. “You can’t eat stones. They’re a curse of the white man. Indians don’t kill each other over diamonds.”

“You’re late, aren’t you? Your tribesmen came through here twenty minutes ago.”

“I fell asleep,” said Pitt, hurriedly throwing on his clothes.

He took off at a dead run and rushed onto the dock. Fifty meters from the end he came slowly to a stop. Concern and misgiving coursed through him. The Haida fishing fleet was a good five kilometers out in the channel. He was alone with nowhere to go.

A large freighter was unloading the last of its cargo across the dock from the Dorsett yacht. He dodged around the big containers that were hoisted from the cargo holds on wooden skids and tried to lose himself amid the activity while moving toward the gangway in an attempt to board the ship. One hand on the railing and one foot on the first step was as far as he got.

“Hold it right there, fisherman.” The calm voice spoke from directly behind him. “Missed your boat, did you?”

Pitt slowly turned around and froze as he felt his heart double its beat. The sadistic Crutcher was leaning against a crate containing a large pump as he casually puffed on the stub of a cigar. Next to him stood a guard with the muzzle of his M-1 assault rifle wavering up and down Pitt’s body. It was the same guard Pitt had struck in Merchant’s office. Pitt’s heart went on triple time as Dapper John Merchant himself stepped from behind the guard, staring at Pitt with the cold authority of one who holds men’s lives in the palms of his hands.

“Well, well, Mr. Pitt, you are a stubborn man.”

“I knew he was the same one who punched me the minute I saw him board the shuttle van.” The guard grinned wolfishly as he stepped forward and thrust the gun barrel into Pitt’s gut. “A little payback for hitting me when I wasn’t ready.”

Pitt doubled over in sharp pain as the narrow, round muzzle jabbed deeply into his side, badly bruising but not quite penetrating the flesh. He looked up at the grinning guard and spoke through clenched teeth. “A social misfit if I’ve ever seen one.”

The guard lifted his rifle to strike Pitt again, but Merchant stopped him. “Enough, Elmo. You can play games with him after he’s explained his persistent intrusion.” He looked at Pitt apologetically. “You must excuse Elmo. He has an instinctive drive to hurt people he doesn’t trust.”

Pitt desperately tried to think of some way to escape. But except for jumping in the icy water and expiring from hypothermia or— and this was the more likely option of the two-being blasted into fish meal by Elmo’s automatic rifle, there was no avenue open.

“You must have an active imagination if you consider me a threat,” Pitt muttered to Merchant as he stalled for time.

Merchant leisurely removed a cigarette from a gold case and lit it with a matching lighter. “Since we last met, I’ve run an in-depth check on you, Mr. Pitt. To say you are a threat to those you oppose is a mild understatement. You are not trespassing on Dorsett property to study fish and kelp. You are here for another, more ominous purpose. I rather hope you’ll explain your presence in vivid detail without prolonged theatrical resistance.”

“A pity to disappoint you,” said Pitt, between deep breaths. “I’m afraid you won’t have time for one of your sordid interrogations.”

Merchant was not easily fooled. But he knew that Pitt was no garden-variety diamond smuggler. A tiny alarm went off in the back of his mind when he saw the utter lack of fear in Pitt’s eyes. He felt curious yet a trifle uneasy. “I freely admit I thought more highly of you than to expect a cheap bluff.”