“I thought Merchant had his skull fractured on Kunghit Island.”
“A hairline crack. Just enough to make him insane for revenge. He insisted on being in on the kill.”
“And you and Boudicca?” asked Deirdre.
“We’ll come across in the yacht and should arrive by midnight,” answered Dorsett. “That still leaves us ten hours to firm up our preparations.”
“That means we’ll be forced into seizing them during daylight.”
Dorsett gripped Deirdre by the shoulders so hard she winced. “I’m counting on you, Daughter, to overcome any obstacles.”
“A mistake, thinking we could trust Maeve,” Deirdre said reproachfully. “You should have guessed she would come chasing after her brats the first chance she got.”
“The information she passed on to us before disappearing was useful,” he insisted, angrily. Excuses for miscalculation did not come easily to Arthur Dorsett.
“If only Maeve had died on Seymour Island, we wouldn’t have this mess.”
“The blame is not entirely hers,” said Dorsett. “She had no prior knowledge of Pitt’s intrusion on Kunghit. He’s cast out a net, but any information he might have obtained cannot hurt us.”
Despite the minor setback, Dorsett was not overly concerned. His mines were on islands whose isolation was a barrier to any kind of organized protest. His vast resources had shifted into gear. Security was tightened to keep any reporters from coming within several kilometers of his operations. Dorsett attorneys worked long hours to keep any legal opposition at bay while the public relations people labeled the stories of deaths and disappearances throughout the Pacific Ocean as products of environmentalist rumor mills and attempted to throw the blame elsewhere, the most likely target being secret American military experiments.
When Dorsett spoke it was with renewed calm. “Twenty-three days from now any storm raised by Admiral Sandecker will die a natural death when we close the mines.”
“We can’t make it look as though we’re admitting guilt by shutting down our operations, Daddy. We’d open ourselves to a mountain of lawsuits by environmentalists and families of those who were killed.”
“Not to worry, Daughter. Obtaining evidence that proves our mining methods cause underwater ultrasonic convergence that kills organic life is next to impossible. Scientific tests would have to be conducted over a period of months. In three weeks’ time, scientists will have nothing to study. Plans have been made to remove every nut and bolt from our diamond excavations. The acoustic plague, as they insist on calling it, will be yesterday’s headlines.”
The little Chinese girl returned with their drinks and served them from a tray. She retreated into the shadows of the veranda as soundlessly as a wraith.
“Now that their mother has betrayed us, what will you do with Sean and Michael?”
“I’ll arrange for her never to see them again.”
“A great pity,” Deirdre said as she rolled the icy glass over her forehead.
Dorsett downed the gin as if it were water. He lowered the glass and looked at her. “Pity? Who am I supposed to pity, Maeve or the twins?”
“Neither.”
“Who then?”
Deirdre’s exotic-model features wore a sardonic grin. “The millions of women around the world, when they find out their diamonds are as worthless as glass.”
“We’ll take the romance out of the stone,” Dorsett said, laughing. “That, I promise you.”
Wellington, observed Pitt through the window of the NUMA aircraft, couldn’t have rested in a more beautiful setting. Enclosed by a huge bay and a maze of islands, low mountains with Mount Victoria as the highest peak, and lush, green vegetation, the port boasted one of the finest harbors in the world. This was his fourth trip in ten years to the capital city of New Zealand, and he had seldom seen it without scattered rain showers and gusting winds.
Admiral Sandecker had given Pitt’s mission his very reluctant blessing with grave misgivings. He considered Arthur Dorsett a very threatening man, a greedy sociopath who killed without a shred of remorse. The admiral cooperated by authorizing a NUMA aircraft for Pitt and Giordino to fly, with Maeve, to New Zealand and take command of a research ship as a base of operations for the rescue, but with the strict condition that no lives be risked in the attempt. Pitt gladly agreed, knowing the only people at risk, once the Ocean Angler stood a safe distance off Gladiator Island, would be the three of them.
His plan was to use an underwater submersible to slip’ into the lagoon, then land and help Maeve reclaim her sons before returning to the ship. It was, Pitt thought bemusedly, a plan without technicalities. Once on shore, everything hinged on Maeve.
He looked across the cockpit at Giordino, who was piloting the executive Gulfstream jet. His burly friend was as composed as if he were lounging under a palm tree on a sandy beach. They had been close friends since that first day they had met in elementary school and got ten into a fistfight. They played on the same high school football team, Giordino as a tackle, Pitt as quarterback, and later at the Air Force Academy. Blatantly using his father’s influence-George Pitt happened to be the senior Senator from California-to keep them together, Dirk and Al had trained in the same flight school and flown two tours with the same tactical squadron in Vietnam, When it came to the ladies, however, they differed. Giordino reveled in affairs, while Pitt felt more comfortable with relationships.
Pitt rose from his seat, moved back into the main cabin and stared down at Maeve. She had slept fitfully during the long and tedious flight from Washington, and her face looked tired and drawn. Even now her eyes were closed, but the way she constantly changed position on the narrow couch indicated she had not yet crossed over the threshold into unconscious slumber. He reached over and gently shook her. “We’re about to land in Wellington,” he said.
Her indelible blue eyes fluttered open. “I’m awake,” she murmured sleepily.
“How do you feel?” he asked with gentleness and concern.
She roused herself and nodded gamely. “Ready and willing.”
Giordino flared the aircraft, dropping smoothly till the tires touched and smoked briefly on contact with the ground. He taxied off the runway onto the flight line to ward the parking area for transient and privately owned aircraft. “You see a NUMA vehicle?” he shouted over his shoulder at Pitt in the back.
The familiar turquoise and white colors were not in sight. “Must be late,” said Pitt. “Or else we’re early.”
“Fifteen minutes early by the old timepiece on the instrument panel,” replied Giordino.
A small pickup truck with a flight-line attendant in the bed motioned for Giordino to follow them to an open parking space between a line of executive jet aircraft Giordino rolled to a stop when his wingtips were even with the planes on either side of him and began the procedure for shutting down the engines.
Pitt opened the passenger door and set a small step at the end of the stairs. Maeve followed him out and walked back and forth to stretch her joints and muscles, stiff and tensed after the long flight. She looked around the parking area for their transportation. “I thought someone from the ship was going to meet us,” she said between yawns.
“They must be on their way.”
Giordino passed out their traveling bags, locked up the aircraft and took cover with Pitt and Maeve under one wing while a sudden rain squall passed over the airport. Almost as quickly as it appeared, the storm moved across the bay, and the sun broke through a rolling mass of white clouds. A few minutes later, a small Toyota bus with the words HARBOR SHUTTLE painted on the sides splashed through the puddles and stopped. The driver stepped to the ground and jogged over to the aircraft. He was slim with a friendly face and dressed like a drugstore cowboy.
“One of you Dirk Pitt?”
“Right here,” Pitt acknowledged.
“Carl Marvin. Sorry I’m running late. The battery went dead in the shore van we carry aboard the Ocean Angler, so I had to borrow tr
ansportation from the harbormaster. I do hope you weren’t inconvenienced.”
“Not at all,” said Giordino sourly. “We enjoyed the typhoon during intermission.”
The sarcasm flew over the driver’s head. “You haven’t been waiting long, I hope.”
“No more than ten minutes,” said Pitt.
Marvin loaded their bags in the back of the shuttle bus and drove away from the aircraft as soon as his passengers were seated. “The dock where the ship is moored is only a short drive from the airport,” he said cordially. “Just sit back and enjoy the trip.”
Pitt and Maeve sat together, held hands like teenagers and talked in low tones. Giordino settled into the seat in front of them and directly behind the driver. He spent most of the drive studying an aerial photo of Gladiator Island that Admiral Sandecker had borrowed from the Pentagon.
Time passed quickly and they soon turned off the main road into the bustling dock area, which was quite close to the city. A fleet of international cargo vessels, representing mostly Asian shipping lines, were moored beside long piers flanked by huge storage buildings. No one paid any attention to the wandering course taken by the driver around the buildings, ships and huge cargo cranes. His eyes watched the passengers in the rearview mirror almost as often as they were turned on the piers ahead.
“The Ocean Angler is just on the other side of the next warehouse,” he said, vaguely gesturing at some unseen object through the windshield.
“Is she ready to cast off when we board?” asked Pitt.
“The crew is standing by for your arrival.”
Giordino stared thoughtfully at the back of the driver’s head. “What’s your duty on the ship?” he asked.
“Mine?” said Marvin without turning. “I’m a photographer with the film crew.”
“How do you like sailing under Captain Dempsey?”
“A fine gentleman. He is most considerate of the scientists and their work.”
Giordino looked up and saw Marvin peering back in the rearview mirror. He smiled until Marvin refocused his attention on his driving. Then, shielded by the back rest of the seat in front of him, he wrote on a receipt for aircraft fuel that was pumped aboard in Honolulu before they headed toward Wellington. He wadded up the paper and casually flipped it over his shoulder on Pitt’s lap.
Talking with Maeve, Pitt had not picked up on the words that passed between Giordino and the driver. He casually unfolded the note and read the message:
THIS GUY IS A PHONY.
Pitt leaned forward and spoke conversationally without staring suspiciously at the driver. “What makes you such a killjoy?”
Giordino turned around and spoke very softly. “Our, friend is not from the Ocean Angler.”
“I’m listening.”
“I tricked him into saying Dempsey is the captain.”
“Paul Dempsey skippers the Ice Hunter. Joe Ross is captain of the Angler.”
“Here’s another inconsistency. You and I and Rudi Gunn went over NUMA’s scheduled research project, and assigned personnel before we left for the Antarctic.”
“So?”
“Our friend up front not only has a bogus Texas accent, but he claims to be a photographer with the Ocean Angler’s film crew. Get the picture?”
“I do,” Pitt murmured. “No film crew was recruited to go on the project. Only sonar technicians and a team of geophysicists went on board, to survey the ocean floor.”
“And this character is driving us straight into hell,” said Giordino, looking out the window and toward a dockside warehouse just ahead with a large sign across a pair of doors that read:
DORSETT CONSOLIDATED MINING LTD.
True to their fears, the driver swung the bus through the gaping doors and between two men in the uniforms of Dorsett Consolidated security guards. The guards quickly followed the bus inside and pushed the switch to close the warehouse doors.
“In the final analysis, I’d have to say we’ve been had,” said Pitt.
“What’s the plan of attack?” asked Giordino, no longer speaking in a hushed voice.
There wasn’t time for any drawn-out conference. The bus was passing deeper into the darkened warehouse. “Dump our buddy Carl and let’s bust out of here.”
Giordino did not wait for a countdown. Four quick steps and he had a chokehold on the man who called himself Carl Marvin. With unbelievable speed, Giordino swung the man from behind the steering wheel, opened the entry door of the bus and heaved him out.
As if they had rehearsed, Pitt jumped into the driver’s seat and jammed the accelerator to the carpeted floorboard. Not an instant too soon, the bus surged forward through a knot of armed men, scattering them like leaves in the wake of a tornado. Two pallets holding cardboard boxes of electrical kitchen appliances from Japan sat directly in front of the bus. Pitt’s expression gave no hint that he was aware of the approaching impact. Boxes, bits and pieces of toasters, blenders and coffeemakers burst into the air as though they were shrapnel from an exploding howitzer shell.
Pitt swung a broadside turn down a wide aisle separating tiers of stacked crates of merchandise, took aim at a large metal door and crouched over the steering wheel. With a metallic clatter that sent the door whirling from its mountings, the Toyota bus roared out of the warehouse onto the loading dock, Pitt twisting the wheel rapidly to keep from clipping one leg of a towering loading crane.
This part of the dockyard was deserted. No ships were moored alongside, loading and unloading their cargo holds. A party of workers repairing a section of the pier were taking a break, sitting elbow to elbow in a row on a long wooden barricade that stretched across an access road leading from the pier as they ate their lunch. Pitt lay on the horn, spinning the wheel violently to avoid striking the workers, who froze at the sight of the vehicle bearing down on them. As the bus slewed around the barricade, Pitt almost missed it entirely, but a piece of the rear bumper caught a vertical support and spun the barricade around, slinging the dockworkers about the pier as if they were on the end of a cracked whip.
“Sorry about that!” Pitt yelled out the window as he sped past. .
He regretted not having been more observant, and belatedly realized the phony driver had purposely taken a roundabout route to confuse them. A ploy that worked all too well. He had no idea which way to turn for the entrance to the highway leading into the city.
A long truck and trailer pulled in front of him, blocking off his exit. He frantically cramped the steering wheel in a crazy zigzag to avoid smashing into the huge truck There was a loud metallic crunch, followed by the smashing of glass and the screech of tortured metal as the bus sideswiped the front end of the truck. The bus, its entire right side gouged and smashed, bounced wildly out of control. Pitt corrected and fishtailed the shattered vehicle until it straightened. He pounded the steering wheel angrily at seeing fluid spraying back over the newly cracked windshield. The impact had sprung the radiator from its mounts and loosened the hoses to the engine. That wasn’t the only problem. The right tire was blown and the front suspension knocked out of alignment.
“Do you have to hit everything that comes across your path?” Giordino asked irritably. He sat on the floor on the undamaged side of the bus, his huge arms circled around Maeve.
“Thoughtless of me,” said Pitt. “Anyone hurt?”
“Enough bruises to win an abuse lawsuit,” said Maeve bravely.
Giordino rubbed a swelling knot on one side of his head and gazed at Maeve woefully. “Your old man is a sneaky devil. He knew we were coming and threw a surprise ply.”
“Someone at NUMA must be on his payroll.” Pitt spared Maeve a brief glance. “Not you, I hope.”
“Not me,” Maeve said firmly.
Giordino made his way to the rear of the bus and stared out the window for signs of pursuit. Two black vans careened around the damaged truck and took up the chase “We have hounds running up our exhaust pipe.”
“Good guys or bad?” asked Pitt.
�
��I hate to be the bearer of sad tidings, but they ain’t wearing white hats.”
“You call that a positive identification?”
“How about, they have Dorsett Consolidated Mining logos painted on their doors.”
“You sold me.”
“If they come any closer, I could ask for their driver’s license.”
“Thank you, I have a rearview mirror.”
“You’d think we’d have left enough wreckage to have a dozen cop cars on our tails by now,” grumbled Giordino. “Why aren’t they doing their duty and patrolling the docks? I think it only fitting they arrest you for reckless driving.”
“If I know Daddy,” said Maeve, “he paid them to take a holiday.”
With no coolant, the engine rapidly heated up and threw clouds of steam from under the hood. Pitt had almost no control over the demolished vehicle. The front wheels, both splayed outward, fought to travel in opposite directions. A narrow alleyway between two warehouses suddenly yawned in front of the bus. Down to the final toss of the dice, Pitt hurled the bus into the opening. His luck was against him. Too late he realized the alleyway led onto a deserted pier with no exit except the one he passed through.
“The end of the trail,” Pitt sighed.
Giordino turned and looked to the rear again. “The posse knows it. They’ve stopped to gloat over their triumph.”
“Maeve?”
Maeve walked to the front of the bus. “Yes?” she said quietly.
“How long can you hold your breath?”
“I don’t know; maybe a minute.”
“Al? What are they doing?”
“Walking toward the bus, holding nasty-looking clubs.”
“They want us alive,” said Pitt. “Okay, gang, take a seat and hold on tight.”
“What are you going to do?” asked Maeve.
“We, love of my life, are going for a swim. Al, open all the windows. I want this thing to sink like a brick.”
“I hope the water’s warm,” said Giordino as he unlatched the windows. “I hate cold water.”
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