Clive Cussler - Treasure

Giordino grinned at her. "That's because they won't stake their precious reputations on it."

Sandecker looked at Yaeger. "Let's give the project another try Yaeger looked at Pitt. "What shorelines do you want me to cover?"

Pitt scratched his chin. He realized he badly needed a shave. "Begin at the fjord in Greenland and work south down to Panama." He paused to stare at the chart projection with thoughtful curiosity. "It has to be along there somewhere."

Captain Oliver Collins rapped a knuckle against the bridge barometer. He squinted at the needle barely visible from the lights on shore and cursed under his breath at the fair-weather reading. If only there was a storm, he thought, the ship could not have left the harbor. Captain Collins was a firstrate seaman, but a poor judge of human nature.

Suleiman Aziz Ammar would have ordered the Lady Flamborough to sea in the middle of a hurricane with ninety-knot winds. He sat tensely in the captain's seat behind the bridge windows and wiped away the sweat from around his neck that had trickled from his chin.

The mask was a torture in the humid climate, and so were the gloves he wore constantly. He suffered the discomfort stoically. If the hijacking failed and he escaped, international intelligence services could never identify him with witnesses or fingerprints.

One of his men had taken the hetm and was looking at him expectantly across the darkened bridge. Two more were guarding the bridge doorways, their guns aimed at Collins and First Officer Finney, who was standing next to Ammar's helmsman.

The tide had come in and swung the ship on her anchor until her bow was pointing toward the harbor entrance. Ammar made one final sweep of the harbor and dock area with a pair of binoculars and then motioned at Finney with his hand while speaking into a small radio.

"Now," he ordered, "get her underway and launch the labor crews."

Finney, his face twisted in anger, looked at Collins imploringly for a sign of defiance. But the Captain gave a subdued shrug and the first officer reluctantly gave the command to raise the anchor.

Two minutes later, dripping silt from the harbor bottom, the anchor rose out of the black water and was pulled tight against the hawsehole. The helmsman stood by the wheel but made no move to grasp the spokes. On modern ships manual steering is used mostly during heavy weather and while under the command of pilots upon entering and departing port. It was Finney who steered the ship and regulated the speed from a panel tied through fiber optics to the ship's automated control system. He also kept a sharp eye on the radar screen.

Once the ship was free of port the helm was placed on automatic pilot, and ringing the chief engineer down below for "Slow Ahead" on the bridge telegraph was quickly becoming more of a tradition than a necessity.

Moving wraithlike in the evening darkness, her outline visible only when she blocked off lights from the opposite shore, the Lady Flamborough slipped through the crowded harbor indistinct and unnoticed. Her diesels murmured faintly as the big bronze screws bit through the water.

Like a ghost feeling its way through the tombstones of a cemetery, the ship wove its way around the other moored ships and turned into the narrow channel for the open sea.

Ammar picked up the bridge phone and called the communications room.

"Anything?" he asked tersely.

"Nothing yet," answered his man who monitored the radio frequencies of the Uruguayan navy patrol boats.

"Patch any signal through to the bridge speakers."

"Affirmative."

"A small boat crossing our bow dead ahead," announced Finney. "We have to give way."

Ammar placed the muzzle of an automatic pistol against the base of Finney's skull. "Maintain course and speed."

"We're on a collision course," Finney protested. "The Flamborough has no lights. They can't see us."

Ammar's only reply was to increase the pressure of the gun muzzle.

They could clearly see the approaching boat now. She was a large custom-designed motor yacht. Collins guessed her dimensions at forty meters in length with a beam of eight meters. She was beautiful and elegant, and she blazed with lights. There was a party on board and people were grouped in conversation or dancing on her spacious sun decks. Collins was stricken to see the radar antenna wasn't turning.

"Give them a blast of the horn," he implored. "Warn them while they still have a chance to give way."

Anunar ignored him.

The seconds ticked away under a cloud of dread until the collision was inevitable. The people partying on the yacht and the man at its helm were completely oblivious to the steel monster bearing down on them out of the dark.

"Inhuman!" Collins gasped. "This is inhuman."

The Lady Flamborough bow-on into the starboard side of the big yacht.

There was no heavy jar or shriek of metal against metal. The men on the bridge of the cruise liner felt only a very slight tremor as the four-story bow crushed the smaller boat nearly under the water before slicing its hull in two.

The destruction was as devastating as a sledgehammer smashing a child's toy.

Collins' fists were clenched on the forward bridge panel as he gazed m horror at the disaster. He clearly heard the panicked screams of women as the yacht's shattered bow and stern sections scraped along the sides of the Lady Flamborough before they sank less than fifty meters astern.

The dark surface of the Flamborough's wake was littered with wreckage and bodies.

A few of the unfortunate passengers were thrown clear and were trying to swim clear while the injured grasped anything that would keep them afloat. Then they were lost in the night.

The bitterness and rage welled up in Finney's throat. "You murdering bastard!" He spat at Ammar "Only Ali knows the unforeseen," said Ammar, his voice remote and indifferent. He slowly pulled the automatic away from Finney's skull. "As soon as we clear the channel, bear on a heading of one-five-five degrees magnetic and engage the automatic pilot."

Gray-faced beneath his tropic tan, Couins turned and faced Ammar. "for God's sake, radio the Uruguayan sea-rescue service and give them a chance to save those poor people."

"No communications."

"They don't have to know who sent the transmission."

Ammar shook his head. "Less than an hour after the local authorities are alerted to the accident, an investigation will be underway by security forces. Our absence will quickly be discovered and a pursuit launched. I'm sorry, Captain, every nautical mile we put between our stern and Punta del Este is critical. The answer is no."

Collins stared into Ammar's eyes, stared without speaking while his stunned mind fought to orient itself. Then he said, "What price must be paid before you'release my ship?"

"If you and your crew do what I command, no harm will come to any of you."

"And the passengers, Presidents De Lorenzo and Hasan and their staffs?

What are your plans for them?"

"Eventually they will be ransomed. But for the next ten hours they're all going to get their hands dirty."

Bitter helplessness was sharp in Collins's mouth, but his voice was impassive. "You have no intention of holding them as hostages for money."

"Are you a mind reader as well as a sea captain?" asked Ammar with detached interest.

"It doesn't take an anthropologist to see your men were born in the Middle East. My guess is you intend to assassinate the Egyptians."

Ammar smiled emptily. "Allah decides man's fate. I only carry out my instructions."

"Instructions from what source?"

Before Ammar could reply, a voice broke over the bridge speakers.

"Rendezvous at approximately zero two-thirty, Commander."

Animar acknowledged on his portable transmitter. Then he looked at Collins. "There's no more reason for conversation, Captain. We have a great deal to accomplish before daylight."