Clive Cussler: Cyclops

"He give a reason?"

"No, sir."

"Damned odd."

"My hunch is it has something to do with that bigwig we took on as a passenger in Rio."

"The consul general?"

"I received my orders right after he came on board= Sparks broke off and pressed the headset to his ears. Then he began scribbling an incoming message on a pad of paper. After a few moments he turned, his face grim.

"A distress signal."

Church stood up. "What position?"

"Twenty miles southeast of the Anguilla Cays."

Church mentally calculated. "That puts them about fifty miles off our bow. What else?"

"Name of vessel, Crogan Castle. Prow stove in. Superstructure heavily damaged. Taking on water. Require immediate assistance."

"Prow stove in?" Church repeated in a puzzled tone. "From what?"

"They didn't say, Lieutenant."

Church started for the door. "I'll inform the captain. Tell the Crogan Castle we're coming at full steam."

Sparks's face took on a pained look. "Please, sir, I can't."

"Do it!" Church commanded. "I'll take full responsibility.'

He turned and ran down the alleyway and up the ladder to the wheelhouse. Worley was still sitting in the wicker chair, swaying with the roll of the ship. His spectacles were dipped low on his nose and he was reading a dog-eared Liberty magazine.

"Sparks has picked up an SOS," Church announced. "Less than fifty miles away. I ordered him to acknowledge the call and say we were altering course to assist."

Worley's eyes went wide and he launched himself out of the chair and clutched a startled Church by the upper arms. "Are you crazy?" he roared. "Who in hell gave you the authority to countermand my orders?"

Pain erupted in Church's arms. The viselike pressure from those huge hands felt as if it were squeezing his biceps into pulp. "Good God, Captain, we can't ignore another vessel in distress."

"We damn well can if I say so!"

Church was stunned at Worley's outburst. He could see the reddened, unfocused eyes and smell the breath reeking of whisky. "A basic rule of the sea," Church persisted. "We must render assistance."

"Are they sinking?"

"The message said `taking on water.' "

Worley shoved Church away. "The hell you say. Let the bastards man the pumps until their ass is saved by any ship but the Cyclops."

The helmsman and the duty officer looked on in amazed silence as Church and Worley faced each other with unblinking eyes, the atmosphere in the wheelhouse charged with tension. Any rift that was between them in the past weeks was hurled wide open.

The duty officer made a move as if to intervene. Worley twisted his head and snarled, "Keep to your business and mind the helm."

Church rubbed his bruised arms and glared at the captain. "I protest your refusal to respond to an SOS and I insist it be entered in the ship's log."

"I warn you

"I also wish it noted that you ordered the radio operator not to transmit."

"You're out of bounds, mister." Worley spoke coldly, his lips compressed in a tight line, his face bathed in sweat. "Consider yourself under arrest and confined to quarters."

"You arrest any more of your officers," Church snapped, his anger out of control, "and you'll have to run this jinx ship by yourself."

Suddenly, before Worley could reply, the Cyclops lurched downward into a deep trough between the swells. From instinct, honed by years at sea, everyone in the wheelhouse automatically grabbed at the nearest secure object to keep his footing. The hull plates groaned under the stress and they could hear several cracking noises.

"Mother of God," muttered the helmsman, his voice edged with panic.

"Shut up!" Worley growled as the Cyclops righted herself. "She's seen worse seas than this."

A sickening realization struck Church. "The Crogan Castle, the ship that sent the distress signal, said her prow was stove in and her superstructure damaged."

Worley stared at him. "So what?"

"Don't you see, she must have been struck by a giant, rogue wave."

"You talk like a crazy man. Go to your cabin, mister. I don't want to see your face until we reach port."

Church hesitated, his fists clenched. Then slowly his hands relaxed as he realized any further argument with Worley was a waste of breath. He turned without a word and left the wheelhouse.

He stepped onto the deck and stared out over the bow. The sea appeared deceptively mild. The waves had diminished to ten feet and no water was coming over the deck. He made his way aft and saw that the steam lines that ran the winches and auxiliary equipment were scraping against the bulwarks as the ship rose and fell with the long, slow swells.

Then Church went below and checked two of the ore holds, probing his flashlight at the heavy shorings and stanchions installed to keep the manganese cargo from shifting. They groaned and creaked under the stress, but they seemed firm and secure. He could not see any sign of trickling grit from the ship's motion.

Still, he felt uneasy, and he was tired. It took all his willpower to keep from heading to the snug confines of his bunk and gratefully closing his eyes to the grim set of problems surrounding the ship. One more inspection tour down to the engine room to see if any water was reported rising in the bilges. A trip that proved negative, seeming to confirm Worley's faith in the Cyclops.

As he was walking down a passageway toward the wardroom for a cup of coffee a cabin door opened and the American consul general to Brazil, Alfred Gottschalk, hesitated on the threshold, talking to someone inside. Church peered over Gottschalk's shoulder and saw the ship's doctor bent over a man lying in a bunk. The patient's face looked tired and yellow-skinned, a youngish face that belied the thick forest of white hair above. The eyes were open and reflected fear mingled with suffering and hardship, eyes that had seen too much. The scene was only one more strange element to be added to the voyage of the Cyclops.

As officer of the deck before the ship departed Rio de Janeiro, Church had observed a motor caravan arrive on the dock. The consul general had stepped out of a chauffeur-driven town car and directed the loading of his steamer trunks and suitcases. Then he looked up, taking in every detail of the Cyclops from her ungainly straight-up-and-down bow to the graceful curve of her champagne-glass stern. Despite his short, rotund, and almost comical frame, he radiated that indefinable air of someone accustomed to the upper rungs of authority. He wore his silver-yellow hair cropped excessively short, Prussian style. His narrow eyebrows very nearly matched his clipped moustache.

The second vehicle in the caravan was an ambulance. Church watched as a figure on a stretcher was lifted out and carried on board, but he failed to discern any features because of heavy mosquito netting that covered the face. Though the person on the stretcher was obviously part of his entourage, Gottschalk took little notice, turning his attention instead to the chain-drive Mack truck that brought up the rear.

He gazed anxiously as a large oblong crate was hoisted in the air by one of the ship's loading booms and swung into the forward cargo compartment. As if on cue, Worley appeared and personally supervised the battening down of the hatch. Then he greeted Gottschalk and escorted him to his quarters. Almost immediately, the mooring lines were cast off and the ship got under way and was heading out to sea through the harbor entrance.

Gottschalk turned and noticed Church standing in the passageway. He stepped from the cabin and closed the door behind him, his eyes narrowed with suspicion. "Something I can help you with, Lieutenant. . ."

"Church, sir. I was just finishing an inspection of the ship and heading for the wardroom for a cup of coffee. Would you care to join me?"