“You'd have thought our defense department would have seen the light and converted her years ago,” said Giordino. “She could have moved an entire division of troops from the States to Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War in less than five days.”
Sandecker stroked his beard in thought. “Airlifts are the thing to transport men these days. Ships are used primarily to haul in supplies and equipment. Any way you look at it, the former pride of the transatlantic greyhounds was way past her prime.”
“So what's our job?” Pitt asked with diminishing forbearance. “If the President wants to prevent the United States from smuggling aliens into the country, why doesn't he order a nuclear submarine to quietly put a couple of Mark XII torpedoes into her side.”
“And give the Chinese military a bona fide excuse to retaliate by blasting a cruise ship filled with American tourists out of the water?” Sandecker said sharply. “I don't think so. There are more practical and less hazardous ways of cutting Qin Shang off at the knees.”
“Like what?” Giordino asked guardedly.
“Answers!” Sandecker snapped back. “There are perplexing questions that must be answered before the INS can take action.”
“We're not undercover specialists,” said Pitt, unmoved by it all. “What does he expect us to do? Pay our ticket, reserve a stateroom and then send questionnaires to the captain and crew?”
“I am aware that you find this uninspiring,” said Sandecker, seeing that both Pitt and Giordino were regarding their mission with a marked lack of enthusiasm, “but I'm dead serious when I say that the information you're to obtain is vital to the future welfare of the country. Illegal immigration cannot continue hi an uncontrolled flood. Sleaze like Qin Shang are conducting modern versions of the slave trade.” Sandecker paused and gazed at Pitt. “From what I've been told, you saw an example of their inhumanity with your own eyes.”
Pitt nodded almost imperceptibly. “Yes, I saw the horror.”
“There must be something the government can do to rescue these people from bondage,” said Gunn.
“You can't protect people who are illegally in your country if they've disappeared and gone underground after they were smuggled in,” Sandecker replied.
“Can't a task force be formed to search them out, free them and release them into society?” Gunn persisted.
“The INS has sixteen hundred investigators in the fifty states, not counting those working in foreign countries, who made over three hundred thousand arrests of illegal aliens engaged in criminal activities. It would take twice that number of investigators just to stay even.”
“How many illegals are coining into the Unites States each year?” asked Pitt.
“There is no way to achieve an accurate count,” answered Sandecker. “Estimates run as high as two million aliens who poured in last year from China and Central America alone.”
Pitt stared out the window at the calm waters of Puget Sound. The rain had passed, and the clouds were becoming scattered. A rainbow slowly formed over the docks. “Has anybody a clue to where it will all end?”
“With a hell of a lot of people,” Sandecker said. “The last census put the U.S. population at roughly two hundred and fifty million. With the coming increase in births and immigration, legal and illegal, the population will soar to three hundred and sixty million by the year twenty fifty.”
“Another hundred million in the next fifty years,” said Giordano dolefully.
“I hope I'm gone by then.” Gunn said thoughtfully, “Hard to imagine the changes in store for the country.”
“Every great nation or civilization either fell by corruption from within or was altered forever by foreign migration,” said Sandecker.
Giordino's face registered indifference. The future was of little concern to him. Unlike Pitt, who found pleasure in the past, Giordino lived only for the present. Gunn, contemplative as ever, stared down at the floor, trying to picture the problems a population increase of fifty percent would bring with it.
Pitt said dryly, “And so the President in his infinite wisdom expects us to plug the dike with our fingers.”
“Just how are we supposed to conduct this crusade?” asked Giordino, carefully removing a huge cigar from a cedar wrapper and slowly, very slowly, rolling the end over the flame from a lighter.
Sandecker stared at the cigar, his face reddening as he recognized it as one from his private cache. “When you arrive in Manila at the international airport, you will be met by a man named John Smith—”
“That's original,” Giordino muttered. “I've always wanted to meet the guy whose signature I see above mine on motel registers.”
To a stranger sitting in on the discussion, it would seem none of the NUMA men had the slightest respect for one another, and that there was a cloud of animosity hanging over them. Nothing could be further from the truth. Pitt and Giordino had nothing but total and unabridged admiration for Sandecker. They were as close to him as to their own fathers. Without the slightest hesitation, they had on more than one occasion risked their own lives to save his. The give-and-take was a game they had played many times over the years. The apathy was a sham. Pitt and Giordino were too wildly independent to accept instructions without a display of rebellion. Nor were they known to jump up and salute before dashing out the door to do their duty with an overabundance of fervor. It was a scene of puppets pulling the strings of puppets with an underlying sense of humor.
“We land in Manila and wait for a John Smith to make himself known,” said Pitt. “I hope there's more to the plan than that.”
Sandecker went on. “Smith will escort you to the dock area, where you'll board a tired old intercoastal freighter. A singularly uncommon vessel, as you will discover. By the time you set foot on the deck, NUMA's Sea Dog II submersible will be secured aboard. Your job, when the opportunity arises, will be to inspect and photograph the hull of the United States below the waterline.”
Pitt shook his head, his expression one of incredulity. “We cruise around, examining the bottom of a ship that's the length of three football fields. Shouldn't take more than forty-eight hours of downtime. Naturally, Qin Shang's security people wouldn't think of dropping sensors around the hull for just such an intrusion.” He looked at Giordino. “How do you see it?”
“Like giving a nipple to a baby,” Giordino said casually. “My only problem is, how does a submersible with a top speed of four knots keep up with a ship that cruises at thirty-five knots?”
Sandecker gave Giordino a long, sour look, then answered the question. “You conduct your underwater survey while the ship is docked in port. That goes without saying.”
“What port have you got in mind?” asked Pitt.
“CIA informants in Sevastopol report that the ship's destination is Hong Kong, where the final interiors and furnishings will be fitted before she takes on passengers for voyages in and around port cities of the United States.”
“The CIA is in on this?”
“Every investigative agency in the government is cooperating with INS until they can work together to bring the situation under control.”
“The intercoastal freighter,” said Pitt. “Who owns and operates it?”
“I know what you're thinking,” Sandecker replied. “You can forget any connection with an intelligence agency. The vessel is privately owned. That's all I can tell you.”
Giordino exhaled a large blue cloud of cigar smoke toward a tank full of fish. “There must be over a thousand miles of water between Manila and Hong Kong. Any old tramp steamer I've ever seen seldom made more than eight or nine knots. We're looking at a voyage of almost five days. Do we have the luxury of that much time?”
“You'll be docked in Hong Kong less than a quarter of a mile from the United States and staring up at her keel within forty-eight hours after leaving the Philippines,” answered San-decker.
“That,” said Giordino, his eyebrows raised in skepticism, “should prove interesting.”
IT WAS
ELEVEN O'CLOCK IN THE EVENING, PHILIPPINES TIME, when Pitt and Giordino stepped off a commercial flight from Seattle, passed through customs and entered the main terminal lobby of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport. Off to the side of a milling crowd they found a man holding a crudely lettered cardboard sign. Placards in the hands of greeters usually advertised the names of arriving passengers. This one simply said SMITH.
He was a great slob of a man. He might have been an Olympic weight lifter at one time, but his body had gone to seed and his stomach had grown into an immense watermelon. It sagged and hung over a pair of soiled pants and an over-stressed leather belt three sizes too small. The face appeared scarred from dozens of fights, and his great hooked nose had been broken so often it veered to one side across the left cheek. Stubble covered the lips and chin. It was difficult to tell whether his eyes looked bloodshot from too much booze or too little sleep. The black hair was plastered over his head like some kind of greasy skullcap, and the teeth were irregular and yellow. His biceps and forearms seemed remarkably taut and muscled in comparison with the rest of him, and were laden with tattoos. He wore a grimy yachtsman's cap and dingy coveralls. “Shiver me timbers,” muttered Giordino, “if it isn't old Blackboard hisself.”
Pitt walked up to the mangy derelict and said, “Good of you to meet us, Mr. Smith.”
“Happy to have you aboard,” Smith said with a cheerful smile. “The captain's expecting you.”
Carrying only a few articles of underwear, toiletries and work shirts and pants picked up at a surplus store on the way to the Seattle airport, and all stuffed in a pair of small carry-on tote bags, Pitt and Giordino had no reason to wait at the baggage carousel. They fell in behind Smith and walked out of the terminal into the airport parking lot. Smith stopped at a Toyota van that looked as if it spent its life in endurance runs around the Himalayan Mountains. Half the windows were broken out and taped closed with plywood boards. The body paint was faded to the primer, and the rocker panels were rusted away. Pitt observed the deeply treaded off-road tires and listened with interest to the throaty roar of a powerful engine as it immediately kicked to life when Smith pressed the starter.
The van moved off with Pitt and Giordino sitting on the torn and worn vinyl upholstery. Pitt lightly prodded his friend with his elbow to get his attention and spoke loud enough for the driver to hear. “Tell me, Mr. Giordino, is it true you're a very observant person?”
“That I am,” Giordino came back, picking up Pitt's intent instantly. “Nothing escapes me. And let us not forget you, Mr. Pitt. Your powers of prognostication are also world-renowned. Would you like to demonstrate your talents?” “I would indeed.”
“Let me begin by asking, what do you make of this vehicle?”
“I have to say it looks like a prop out of a Hollywood movie that no self-respecting hippie would be caught dead in, and yet it sports expensive tires and an engine that puts out around four hundred horsepower. Most peculiar, wouldn't you say?” “Very astute, Mr. Pitt. My vision exactly.” “And you, Mr. Giordino. What does your remarkable insight see in our bon vivant driver?”
“A man obsessed with chicanery, skulduggery and connivery; in short, a rip-off artist.” Giordino was in his element and on the verge of getting carried away. “Have you noticed his bulging stomach?”
“A poorly positioned pillow?”
“Exactly,” Giordino exclaimed as if it were a revelation. “Then there are the scars on the face and the flattened nose.”
“Poorly applied makeup?” Pitt asked innocently.
“There's no fooling you, is there?” The driver's ugly face twisted in a scowl through the rearview mirror, but there was no stopping Giordino. “Of course you caught the hairpiece floating in pomade.”
“I most certainly did.”
“How do you read his tattoos?”
“Inscribed by pen and ink?” offered Pitt.
Giordino shook his head. “I'm disappointed in you, Mr. Pitt. Stencils. Any apprentice remote viewer would envision them being stenciled on the skin.”
“I stand rebuked.”
Unable to remain quiet, the driver snapped over his shoulder. “You two pretty boys think you're smart.”
“We do what we can,” said Pitt lightly.
Having done their dirty work and advertised the fact that they had not fallen off a pumpkin wagon, Pitt and Giordino remained silent as the van drove onto a pier of a shipping terminal. Smith dodged around huge overhead cranes and stacked freight, finally stopping opposite an opening in a railing along the pier's edge. Without a word of instruction, he stepped from the vehicle and walked toward a ramp leading to a launch that was tied to a small floating dock. The two NUMA men obediently followed and climbed into the launch. The sailor standing at the helm in the stern of the boat was a concert in black—black pants, black T-shirt and black stocking cap pulled down over the ears despite the tropical heat and humidity.
The launch eased away from the wooden pilings and turned her bow toward a ship that lay anchored about two-thirds of a mile from the terminal. Around her were the lights from other ships waiting for their turn to load or unload cargo under the great cranes. The atmosphere was as clear as cut glass, and far across Manila Bay the colored lights of fishing boats sparkled like gemstones against the black sky.
The shape of the ship began to rise in the night, and Pitt could see that she was not the typical tramp steamer that plowed the South Seas from island to island. He correctly identified her as a Pacific Coast lumber hauler with clean, unencumbered holds and no amidships superstructure. Her engine room was in the stern below the crew's quarters. A single stack rose just aft of the wheelhouse and behind it, a tall mast. A second, smaller mast rose from the forecastle on the bow. Pitt guessed her at somewhere between four and five thousand tons with a length of just under three hundred feet and a forty-five-foot beam. A vessel her size could have carried nearly three million board feet of lumber. Her time had long come and gone. Her sister ships, which had carried the product of saw mills, had settled into the silt of the boneyard almost fifty years earlier, having been replaced by more modern towboats and barges.
“What's her name?” Pitt asked Smith.
“The Oregon.”
“I imagine she carried a goodly amount of lumber in her day.”
Smith looked at Pitt across the launch, inspecting him closely. “How could a pretty boy like you know that?”
“When my father was a young man, he crewed on a lumber ship. He made ten runs between San Diego and Portland before finishing college. He has a picture of the ship on his office wall.”
“The Oregon sailed from Vancouver to San Francisco for close to twenty-five years before she was retired.”
“I wonder when she was built.”
“Long before you or I were born,” said Smith.
The helmsman swung the launch alongside the hull, once painted a dark orange but now discolored by rust, as revealed by the running lights on the masts and the glow from the starboard navigation light. There was no gangway, only a rope boarding ladder with wood rungs.
“After you, pretty boy,” said Smith, gesturing topside.
Pitt went first, trailed by Giordino. On the way up, Pitt wiped his fingers across a large scale of rust. The patch felt smooth, and no smudge dirtied his fingertips. The hatches on the deck were closed and the cargo booms sloppily stowed. Several large wooden crates stacked on the deck looked like they had been secured by untrained chimpanzees. To all appearances the crew ran what was often called “a loose ship.” None of them were seen, and the decks seemed deserted. The only indication of life was a radio playing a Strauss waltz. The music was inconsistent with the ship's overall appearance. Pitt thought an ode to a trash dump would have been more appropriate. He saw no sign of the Sea Dog II. “Did our submersible arrive?” Pitt asked Smith. “She's stowed in that large crate just behind the forecastle.” “Which way to the captain's cabin?” The mangy escort lifted a plate in the deck that revealed a lad
der leading into what seemed a cargo compartment. “You'll find him down there.”
“Ship captains aren't generally quartered in concealed compartments.” Pitt looked up at the superstructure on the stern. “On any ship I've known the captain's cabin is below the wheelhouse.”
“Down there, pretty boy,” Smith repeated. “What in hell has Sandecker gotten us into,” murmured Giordino suspiciously as he turned his back to Pitt's and instinctively went into a fighting crouch.
Calmly, as if it was the most natural thing in the world, Pitt laid his tote bag on the deck, unzipped a pocket and retrieved his old .45 Colt. Before Smith knew what was happening the muzzle was jammed under his chin. “Forgive me for not mentioning it, but I blew the head off the last jerk who called me pretty boy.”
“Okay, pal,” Smith said without a hint of fear. “I recognize a gun when I see one. Not one in mint condition, but obviously well used. Please point it somewhere else. You wouldn't want to get hurt now, would you?”
“I don't think it's me who's going to get hurt,” Pitt said conversationally.
“You might be wise to look around you.”
It was the oldest trick in the book, but Pitt had nothing to lose. He glanced around the deck as men stepped out of the shadows. Not two men, nor four, but six men every bit as disreputable as Smith, each holding automatic weapons pointed at Pitt and Giordino. Big, silent men dressed as mangily as Smith.
Pitt pulled back the hammer and pressed the Colt another quarter inch into the flesh under Smith's chin. “Would it matter if I said, if I go, you go with me?”
“And allow your friend to be killed too?” said Smith with an ungodly grin. “From what little I know about you, Pitt, you're not that dumb.”
“Just what do you know about me?” “Put the gun away, and we'll talk.” “I can hear you perfectly well from where I stand.” “Relax, boys,” said Smith to his men. “We must show a little class and treat our guests with respect.”
Incredibly, the crew of the Oregon lowered their guns and began laughing. “Serves you right, skipper,” one of them said. “You said they were probably a couple nerds from NUMA who drank milk and ate broccoli.”
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