Clive Cussler - Cyclops

"It would appear," Fawcett said sardonically, "your inside track just washed out."

<<9>>

Thirty minutes later, Pitt rolled the Daimler into his parking stall in front of the tall, solar-glassed building that housed NUMA headquarters. He signed in at the security desk and took the elevator to the tenth floor. When the doors opened, he stepped into a vast electronic maze, comprising the communications and information network of the marine agency.

Hiram Yaeger looked up from behind a horseshoe-shaped desk, whose surface lay unseen beneath a jungle of computer hardware, and smiled. "Hullo, Dirk. All dressed up and no place to go?"

"The party's hostess decided I was persona non grata and made me walk the plank."

"Anybody I know?"

It was Pitt's turn to smile. He looked down at Yaeger. The computer wizard was a throwback to the hippie days of the early seventies. He wore his blond hair long and tied in a ponytail. His beard was untrimmed and kinky with uncontrolled curls. And his standard uniform for work and play was Levi jacket and pants stuffed into scruffy cowboy boots.

Pitt said, "I can't picture you and Jessie LeBaron traveling in the same social circles."

Yaeger gave out a low whistle. "You got booted from a Jessie LeBaron bash? Man, you're some kind of hero to the downtrodden."

"Are you in the mood for an excavation?"

"On her?"

"On him."

"Her husband? The one who's missing?"

"Raymond LeBaron."

"Another moonlight operation?"

"Whatever you want to call it."

"Dirk," Yaeger said, peering over the rims of his granny glasses, "you are a nosy bastard, but I love you just the same. I'm hired to build a world-class computer network and amass an archive on marine science and history, but every time I belch you turn up, wanting to use my creation for shady purposes. Why do I go along? Okay, I'll tell you why. Larceny flows faster in my veins than yours. Now, how deep do you want me to dig?"

"To the bottom of his past. Where he came from. What was the money base for his empire?"

"Raymond LeBaron was pretty secretive about his private life. He may have covered his trail."

"I realize that, but you've pulled skeletons out of the closet before."

Yaeger nodded thoughtfully. "Yes, the Bougainville shipping family a few months ago. A neat little caper, if I do say so."

"One more thing."

"Lay it on me."

"A ship called the Cyclops. Could you pull her history for me?"

"No sweat. Anything else?"

"That should do it," Pitt answered.

Yaeger stared at him. "What's going down this time, old friend? I can't believe you're going after the LeBarons because you were dumped at a society party. Take me, I've been thrown out of the worst sleaze joints in town. And I just accept it."

Pitt laughed. "No revenge. I'm just curious. Jessie LeBaron said something that struck me odd about her husband's disappearance."

"I read about it in the Washington Post. There was a paragraph mentioning you as the hero of the hour, saving LeBaron's blimp with your rope and palm tree trick. So what's the catch?"

"She claimed that her husband wasn't among the dead I found inside the control cabin."

Yaeger paused, his eyes uncomprehending. "Doesn't make sense. If old man LeBaron flew off in that gas bag, it stands to reason he'd still be inside when it turned up."

"Not according to the bereaved wife."

"Think she's got an angle, insurance or financial?"

"Maybe, maybe not. But there is a chance that because the mystery occurred over water, NUMA will be called in to assist in the investigation."

"And we'll already be on first base."

"Something like that."

"Where does the Cyclops fit in the picture?"

"She told me LeBaron was looking for it when he vanished."

Yaeger rose from his chair. "All right then, let's get off the mark. While I design a search program, you study what we have on the ship in our data files."

He led Pitt into a small viewing theater with a large monitor mounted on the far wall and motioned for him to sit behind a console containing a computer keyboard. Then he leaned over Pitt and pressed a series of commands on the keyboard.

"We installed a new system last week. The terminal is hooked into a voice synthesizer."

"A talking computer," said Pitt.

"Yes, it can comprehend over ten thousand verbal commands, make the appropriate reply, and actually carry on a conversation. The voice sounds a little weird, sort of like Hal, the giant computer in the movie 2001. But you get used to it. We call her Hope."

"Hope?"

"Yeah, we hope she'll come up with the right answers."

"Funny"

"I'll be at the main terminal desk if you need help. Just pick up the phone and dial four-seven."

Pitt looked up at the screen. It had a bluish-gray cast. He warily picked up a microphone and spoke into it.

"Hope, my name is Dirk. Are you ready to conduct a search for me?"

God, he felt like an idiot. It was like talking to a tree and expecting a reply.

"Hello, Dirk," replied a vaguely female voice that sounded as if it was coming out of a harmonica. "Ready when you are."

Pitt took a deep breath and made the plunge. "Hope, I'd like you to tell me about a ship named Cyclops."

There was a five-second pause, then the computer said, "You will have to be more specific. My memory disks contain data on five different vessels called Cyclops."

"This one had treasure on board."

"Sorry, none show any treasure in their cargo manifest."

Sorry? Pitt still couldn't believe he was conversing with a machine. "If I may digress for a moment, Hope, allow me to say you're a very bright and most congenial computer."

"Thank you for the compliment, Dirk. In case you're interested, I can also do sound effects, imitate animals, sing-- though not too well-- and pronounce `supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,' even if I haven't been programmed to its exact definition. Would you like me to say it backwards?"

Pitt laughed. "Some other time. Getting back to the Cyclops, the one I'm interested in probably sank in the Caribbean."

"That narrows it down to two. A small steamer that ran aground in Montego Bay, Jamaica, 5 May 1968, and a U.S. Navy collier-- an ore or coal transport-- lost without a trace, between 5 and 10 February 1918."

Raymond LeBaron wouldn't be flying around searching for a ship stranded in a busy harbor only twenty years ago, Pitt reasoned. The tale of the Navy collier came back to him. The loss was touted as one of the great mysteries of the mythical Bermuda Triangle.

"We'll go with the Navy collier," said Pitt.

"If you wish me to print out the data for you, Dirk, press the control button on your keyboard and the letters PT. Also, if you watch the screen I can project whatever photos are available."

Pitt did as he was told and the printer began pounding away. True to her word,' Hope flashed a picture of the Cyclops lying at anchor in an unnamed port.

Although her hull was slender with its old-fashioned straight-up-and-down bow and graceful champagne-glass stern, her superstructure had the look of a child's erector set gone wild. A maze of derricks, spiderwebbed by cables and laced by overhead supports, rose amidships like a dead forest. A long deckhouse ran along the aft part of the ship above the engine room, its roof festooned with towering twin smokestacks and several tall ventilators. Forward, the wheelhouse perched above the main deck like a vanity table on four legs, spotted with a single row of portholes and open beneath. Two high masts with a crossbar protruded from a bridge that could have passed for a football goalpost. She seemed ungainly, an ugly duckling that never made it to swan.

There was also a ghostly quality about her. At first Pitt couldn't put his finger on it, and then it struck him-- oddly, no crew member was visible anywhere on her decks. It was if she were deserted.