Clive Cussler - Cyclops

He said, "No kidding."

"Raymond taught me to fly the Prosperteer," she said. "I've logged over eighty hours at the controls and have a license."

"No kidding," Pitt repeated, becoming intrigued.

Giordino failed to see the humor. "Do you also know how to dive, Mrs. LeBaron?"

"Sky or scuba? I'm certified for both."

"We can't take a woman," said Gunn resolutely.

"Please, Mrs. LeBaron," pleaded the crew chief. "We don't know what happened to your husband. The flight might be dangerous."

"We'll use the same communication plan as Raymond's flight," she said, ignoring him. "If we find anything interesting we'll transmit in normal voice. No code this time."

"This is ridiculous," snapped Gunn.

Pitt shrugged. "Oh, I don't know. I'll vote for her."

"You don't really mean it!"

"Why not?" replied Pitt with a sardonic grin. "I firmly believe in equal rights. She has just as much right to get herself killed as we do."

The ground crew stood as silent as pallbearers, their eyes following the old blimp as she lifted into the sunrise. Suddenly she began dropping. They held their breath as the landing wheel touched the crest of a wave. Then she slowly bounced back into the air and struggled to rise.

Someone muttered anxiously, "Lift, baby, lift!"

The Prosperteer agonizingly rose a few feet at a time until she finally leveled out at a safe altitude. The ground crew watched motionless, staring until the blimp became a tiny dark speck above the silent horizon. They stood there when she was no longer in view, instinctively quiet, a sense of dread in their hearts. There would be no volleyball game this day. They all herded inside the maintenance truck, overburdening the air conditioning system, clustering around the radio.

The first message came in at 0700 hours. Pitt explained away the shaky liftoff. Jessie had under compensated for the lack of buoyancy caused by the extra payload Giordino and Gunn had placed on board.

From then on until 1400 hours, Pitt kept the frequency open and maintained a running dialogue, matching his observations with the transcribed report that was recorded during LeBaron's flight.

The crew chief picked up the microphone. "Prosperteer, this is Grandma's house. Over."

"Go ahead, Grandma."

"Can you give me your latest VIKOR satellite position?"

"Roger. VIKOR reading H3608 by T8090."

The crew chief quickly plotted the position on a chart. "Prosperteer, you're looking good. I have you five miles due south of Guinchos Cay on the Bahama Bank. Over."

"I read the same, Grandma."

"How are the winds?"

"Judging from the wave crests, I'd say the breeze has picked up to about Force 6 on the Beaufort scale."

"Listen to me, Prosperteer. The Coast Guard has issued a new update on Little Eva. She has doubled her speed and swung east. Hurricane warnings are up throughout the southern Bahamas. If she sticks to her present course, she'll strike the east coast of Cuba sometime this evening. I repeat, Little Eva has swung east and is heading in your direction. Call it a day, Prosperteer, and beat a course for home."

"Will do, Grandma. Turning onto new course for the Keys."

Pitt was silent for the next half hour. At 1435 hours, the crew chief hailed again.

"Prosperteer, come in, please. Over."

No reply.

"Come in, Prosperteer. This is Grandma's house. Do you read?"

Still nothing.

The stifling air inside the truck seemed suddenly to turn cold as fear and apprehension gripped the crew. The seconds crawled past and took forever to become minutes as the crew chief tried desperately to raise the blimp.

But the Prosperteer did not respond.

The crew chief slammed down the microphone and pushed his way outside the truck through the stunned ground crew. He ran over to the parked limousine and feverishly jerked open a rear door.

"They're gone! We've lost them, the same as the last time!"

The man sitting alone in the rear seat simply nodded. "Keep trying to raise them," he said quietly.

As the crew chief hurried back to the radio, Admiral James Sandecker lifted a telephone receiver from a varnished cabinet and placed a call.

"Mr. President."

"Yes, Admiral."

"They're missing."

"Understood. I've briefed Admiral Clyde Monfort of the Caribbean Joint Task Force. He's already put ships and planes on alert around the Bahamas. As soon as we hang up I'll order him to launch a search and rescue operation."

"Please impress upon Monfort the need for speed. I've also been informed the Prosperteer disappeared in the predicted path of a hurricane."

"Return to Washington, Admiral, and do not worry. Your people and Mrs. LeBaron should be sighted and picked up within a few hours."

"I'll try to share your optimism, Mr. President. Thank you."

If there was one doctrine Sandecker believed in with all his heart, it was "Never trust a politician's word." He placed another call on the limousine's phone.

"Admiral James Sandecker. I'd like to speak with Admiral Monfort."

"Right away, sir."

"Jim, is that really you?"

"Hello, Clyde. Good to hear your voice."

"Damn, it's been nearly two years. What's on your mind?"

"Tell me, Clyde, have you been alerted for a rescue mission in the Bahamas?"

"Where did you hear that?"

"The rumor mill."

"News to me. Most of our Caribbean forces are conducting an amphibious landing exercise on Jamaica."

"Jamaica?"

"A little muscle-flexing display of military capability to shake up the Soviets and Cubans. Keeps Castro off balance, thinking we're going to invade one of these days."

"Are we?"

"What in hell for? Cuba is the best advertising campaign we've got running that promotes communism as a big economic bust. Besides, better the Soviet Union throws twelve million dollars a day down Castro's toilet than us."

"You've received no orders to keep an eye on a blimp that left on a flight from the Keys this morning?"

There was an ominous silence on the other end of the line.

"I probably shouldn't be telling you this, Jim, but I did receive a verbal order concerning the blimp. I was told to keep our ships and aircraft out of the Bahama Banks and to put a blackout on all communications coming from the area."

"The order come direct from the White House?"

"Don't press your luck, Jim."

"Thanks for setting me straight, Clyde."

"Any time. Let's get together next time I'm in Washington."

"I'll look forward to it."

Sandecker hung up, his face red with anger, his eyes fired with fury.

"God help them," he muttered through clenched teeth. "We've all been had."

<<19>>

Jessie's smooth, high cheekboned face was tense from the strain of fighting the wind gusts and rain squalls that pounded against the skin of the blimp. Her arms and wrists were turning numb as she orchestrated the throttles and the big elevator pitch control. With the added weight from the rain it was becoming nearly impossible to keep the wallowing airship level and steady. She began to feel the icy caress of fear.

"We'll have to head for the nearest land," she said, her voice uneven. "I can't keep her aloft much longer in this turbulence."

Pitt looked at her. "The nearest land is Cuba."

"Better arrested than dead."

"Not yet," Pitt replied from his seat to the right and slightly behind her. "Hang on a little longer. The storm will sweep us back to Key West."

"With the radio out, they won't know where to look if we're forced to ditch in the sea."

"You should have thought of that before you spilled coffee on the transmitter and shorted its circuitry."

She stole a glance at him. God, she thought, it was maddening. He was leaning out the starboard window, nonchalantly peering through a pair of binoculars at the sea below. Giordino was observing out the port side, while Gunn was taking readings off the VIKOR navigating computer and laying out their course on a chart. Every so often, Gunn calmly examined the stylus markings on the recorder of a Schonstedt gradiometer, an instrument for detecting iron by measuring magnetic intensity. All three men looked at though they didn't have a care in the world.