Flood Tide dp-14

by Clive Cussler

  Giordino smoothly joined the act. “You guys got any beer on this tub?”

  “Ten different brands,” said a crewman, slapping him on the back. “Glad to have passengers with a little guts on board.”

  Pitt lowered the gun and eased the hammer back in the safety position. “I get the feeling we've been had.”

  “Sorry to inconvenience you,” said Smith heartily, “but we can't let our guard down for even a moment.” He turned to his men and issued an order. “Weigh anchor, boys, and get under way for Hong Kong.”

  “Admiral Sandecker said this was a singularly uncommon ship,” said Pitt, replacing the automatic in his tote bag. “But he didn't say anything about the crew.”

  “If we can dispense with the theatrics,” said Smith, “I'll show you below.” He dropped down the ladder through the narrow hatch and disappeared. Pitt and Giordino followed, finding themselves in a brightly lit, carpeted hallway whose walls were painted in pastel colors. Smith opened a smoothly varnished door and nodded inside. “You can share this cabin. Stow your gear, get comfortable, use the head and then I'll introduce you to the captain. You'll find his cabin behind the fourth door on the port side aft.”

  Pitt stepped inside and switched on the light. This was no Spartan cabin on a decrepit freighter. It was every bit as swank as any stateroom on a luxury cruise ship. Ornately decorated leading to a private veranda. The only suggestion of the outside world was a porthole painted black. “What,” exclaimed Giordino, “no bowl of fruit?”

  Pitt stared around the cabin in fascination. “I wonder if we have to dress formal when we dine with the captain.”

  They heard the anchor chain rattle up out of the water and felt the engines begin to throb through the deck under their feet as the Oregon began beating her way across Manila Bay toward her destination in Hong Kong. A few minutes later they knocked on the door to the captain's cabin. A voice on the other side responded. “Please come in.”

  If their cabin resembled a deluxe stateroom, this one would have easily rated as the penthouse suite. It resembled a decorator showroom on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. The furniture was expensive yet tasteful. The walls, or bulkheads in nautical terms, were either richly paneled or covered by curtains. The carpet was thick and plush. Two of the paneled walls were covered by original oil paintings. Pitt walked up to one and studied it. The painting inside an ornate frame was a seascape depicting a black man lying on the deck of a small, demasted sloop with a school of sharks swimming around its hull.

  “Winslow Homer's Gulf Stream,” said Pitt. “I thought it was hanging in a New York museum.”

  “The original is,” said a man standing beside a large antique rolltop desk. “What you see are forgeries. In my line of business no insurance company would insure the real thing.” A handsome man in his mid-forties with blue eyes and blond hair in a crewcut stepped forward and stuck out a manicured hand. “Chairman Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, at your service.” He pronounced Cabrillo as Ka-bree-yo.

  “Chairman, like in chairman of the board?”

  “A departure from maritime tradition,” Cabrillo explained. “This ship is run like a business, a corporation if you will. The personnel prefer to be assigned corporate titles.”

  “That's a twist,” Giordino said equably. “Don't tell me, I'm keen to guess. Your first officer is president.”

  Cabrillo shook his head. “No, my chief engineer is president. My first officer is executive vice president.”

  Giordino lifted an eyebrow. “This is the first I've heard the Kingdom of Oz owns a ship.”

  “You'll get used to it,” Cabrillo said tolerantly.

  “If I recall my California history,” said Pitt, “you discovered California in the early fifteen hundreds.”

  Cabrillo laughed. “My father always claimed Cabrillo the explorer as an ancestor, but I've had my doubts. My grandparents walked across the border at Nogales from Sonora, Mexico, in nineteen thirty-one and became American citizens five years later. In honor of my birth they insisted my mother and father name me after a famous historical figure in California.”

  “I believe we've met before,” said Pitt. “Like about twenty minutes ago,” added Giordino. “Your imitation of a waterfront derelict, Chairman Cabrillo, alias Mr. Smith, was very professional.”

  Cabrillo laughed merrily. “You gentlemen are the first to see through my disguise as a rum-soaked barnacle.” Unlike his staged character, Cabrillo was well-built and slightly on the thin side. The hook nose was gone, along with the tattoos and the overstuffed belly.

  “I must admit, you had me fooled until I saw the van.” “Yes, our shore transportation is not quite what it appears.” “This ship,” said Pitt, “your playacting, the facade, what's it all about?”

  Cabrillo gestured for them to sit in a leather sofa. He walked over to a teak bar. “A glass of wine?” “Yes, thank you.” “I'd prefer a beer,” said Giordino. Cabrillo poured and held out a mug to Giordino. “A Philippine San Miguel.” Then a wineglass to Pitt. “Wattle Creek Chardonnay from Alexander Valley, California.”

  “You have excellent taste,” Pitt complimented Cabrillo. “I have the feeling it extends to your kitchen.”

  Cabrillo smiled. “I pirated my chef from a very exclusive restaurant in Brussels, Belgium. I might also add that should you get heartburn or indigestion from overindulging, we have an excellent hospital staffed by a top surgeon who doubles as a dentist.”

  “I'm curious, Mr. Cabrillo, what sort of trade is the Oregon engaged in, and who exactly do you work for?”

  “This ship is a state-of-the-art intelligence-gathering vessel,” Cabrillo replied without hesitation. “We go where no U.S. Navy warship can go, enter ports closed to most commercial shipping and transport highly secret cargo without arousing suspicion. We work for any United States government agency that requires our unique array of services.”

  “Then you're not under the CIA.”

  Cabrillo shook his head. “Although we're staffed by a few ex-intelligence agents, the Oregon is operated by an elite crew of former naval men and naval officers, all of whom are retired.”

  “I couldn't tell in the dark. What flag do you fly?”

  “Iran,” replied Cabrillo with a faint smile. “The last country any port authority would identify with the United States.”

  “Am I correct in assuming,” said Pitt, “you're all mercenaries?”

  “I can honestly say we're in business to make a profit, yes. By performing a variety of clandestine services for our country, we are paid extremely well.”

  “Who owns the ship?” asked Giordino.

  “Everyone on board is a stockholder in the corporation,” answered Cabrillo. “Some of us own more stock than others, but there isn't a single crew member who hasn't at least five million dollars stashed away in foreign investments.”

  “Does the IRS know about you?”

  “The government has a secret fund for operations like ours,” Cabrillo explained. “We have an arrangement whereby they pay our fees through a network of banks in countries that do not open their records to IRS auditors.”

  Pitt took a sip of his wine. “A sweet setup.”

  “But one that isn't unknown to peril and occasional disaster. The Oregon is our third ship. The others were destroyed by unfriendly forces. I might add that over thirteen years we've been in operation, we've lost no fewer than twenty men.”

  “Foreign agents caught on to you?”

  “No, we've yet to be unmasked. There were other circumstances.” Whatever they were, Cabrillo didn't explain them.

  “Who authorized this trip?” inquired Giordino.

  “Between you and me and the nearest porthole, our sailing orders came from within the White House.”

  “That's about as high as you can go.”

  Pitt looked at the captain. “Do you think you can put us reasonably close to the United States? We have a couple of acres of hull to inspect, and our time underwater is limited due to the Sea D
og IFs battery power. If you have to moor the Oregon a mile or more away, just getting to the liner and back will cut our downtime considerably.”

  Cabrillo stared back at him confidently. “I'll put you near enough to fly a kite over her funnels.” Then he poured himself another glass of the chardonnay and held it up. “To a very successful voyage.”

  PlTT WENT OUT ON DECK AND LOOKED UP AT THE MAST LIGHT as it swayed back and forth across the Milky Way. He planted his arms on the railing and gazed across the water at the island of Corregidor as the Oregon sailed out of Manila Bay. The indefinable black mass rose from the night, guarding the entrance to the bay in tomblike silence. A few lights glimmered on the interior of the island along with red warning lights on a transmitter tower. It was difficult for Pitt to imagine the onslaught of death and destruction that inundated the rocky outcropping during the war years. The number of men who died there, Americans in 1942, Japanese in 1945, numbered in the thousands. A small village of huts sat near the decaying dock from which General Douglas MacArthur had boarded Commander Buckley's torpedo boat for the initial stage of his journey to Australia and later return.

  Pitt smelled the pungent odor of cigar smoke and turned as a crewman moved beside him at the railing. Under the running lights, Pitt could see a man who was in his late fifties. He recognized Max Hanley, who had been introduced earlier, not as the chief engineer or first officer, but as the corporate vice president in charge of operational systems.

  Once safely out to sea, Hanley, like the rest of the dedicated crew members, transformed himself into a different person by donning comfortably casual clothes better suited for a golf course. He wore sneakers and was dressed in white shorts and a maroon polo shirt. He held a cup of coffee in one hand. His skin was reddened with no trace of tan, the brown eyes alert, a bulbous nose and only a wisp of auburn hair splayed across his head.

  “A lot of history on that old rock,” said Hanley. “I always come topside when we slip past her.”

  “She's pretty quiet now,” replied Pitt. “My father died over there in 'forty-two when the big gun he was manning took a direct hit from a Japanese bomber.”

  “A lot of good men died with him.”

  “That they did.” Hanley looked into Pitt's eyes. "I'll be directing the descent into the water and retrieval of your submersible. Anything me or my engineers can help you with in regard to your equipment and electronics, you just holler.

  There is something.

  Name it."

  “Could your crew do a quick repaint of the Sea Dog II? The NUMA turquoise trademark color is highly visible in shallow water from the surface.”

  “What color would you like?” asked Hanley. “A medium green,” explained Pitt, “a shade that blends with the water in the harbor.”

  “I'll get my boys on it first thing.” Hanley turned and leaned against the rail with his back, staring up at the wisp of smoke drifting from the ship's funnel. “Seems to me it might have been a whole lot simpler to use one of them underwater robotic vehicles.”

  “Or an autonomous underwater vehicle,” said Pitt, smiling. “Neither would prove as efficient as a manned submersible for inspecting the bottom of a hull the size of the United States. The sub's manipulator arm may also prove useful. There are certain projects where human eyesight is advantageous over video cameras. This happens to be one of them.”

  Hanley read the dial of an old pocket watch whose chain was hooked to a belt loop. “Time to program the engine and navigation systems. Now that we've reached open water, the chairman will want to triple our speed.”

  “We must be doing close to nine or ten knots now,” said Pitt, his curiosity piqued.

  “Strictly a performance,” Hanley said candidly. “Whenever the old Oregon is in sight of prying eyes around the harbor or other ships that pass at sea, we like to make her look as if her antique engines and screws are straining to make headway. Which is the way she should appear for an old tub. In truth, she's been modified with two screws turned by twin diesel turbine engines that can push her past forty knots.”

  “But with a full load of cargo, your hull is riding low in the water and causing a heavy drag.”

  Hanley tilted his head toward the cargo hatches and the wooden crates tied to the deck. “All empty. We ride low because we fill specially installed ballast tanks to give the appearance of a heavily laden ship. Once they're pumped out, she'll rise six feet and take off four times faster than when she was built.”

  “A fox in disguise.”

  “With the teeth to match. Ask Chairman Cabrillo to show you how we bite back if we're attacked.”

  “I'll do that.”

  “Good night, Mr. Pitt.”

  “Good night, Mr. Hanley.”

  Ten minutes later Pitt felt the ship come to life as the vibrations from the engines increased dramatically. The wake turned from a white spreading scar to a boiling cauldron. The stern sank by a good three feet, the bow raised in an equal proportion and creamed white. The water rushed along the hull as if swept away by a giant broom. The sea shimmered under an awning of stars that outlined a scattering of thunderclouds on the horizon. It was a postcard South China Sea evening with an orange-tinted sky to the west.

  The Oregon approached the outer reaches of Hong Kong Harbor two days later, making landfall at sunset. She had made the crossing from Manila in remarkable time. Twice, upon meeting other freighters during daylight, Cabrillo gave the order for slow speed. Several of the crew always quickly dressed in their shabby coveralls, assembled on deck and peered across the gap between the passing ships, staring blankly at what Cabrillo called a show of dummies. In an unwritten tradition of the sea, the crews of overtaking or passing ships coming together at sea never showed any animation. Only their eyeballs moved and blinked. Passengers wave, but merchant seamen always act uneasy when looking at crewmen on another ship. Usually, they offer a stiff little wave from a hand draped over the rail before disappearing inside their ship. Once the strange vessel was a safe distance in the Oregon's wake, Cabrillo ordered a return to fast cruising speed.

  Pitt and Giordino were given a tour of the remarkable ship. The wheelhouse above the aft house or superstructure was kept in a grimy and dirty state to mislead visiting port officials and harbor pilots. The unused officer and crew quarters below the wheelhouse were also kept in a slovenly mess to avoid suspicion. There was, however, no way of masquerading the engine room to make it look like a scrap heap. Vice president Hanky wouldn't hear of it. If any customs or harbor inspector came on board and wanted to see his engines, Hanley fixed up a passageway with enough dirty oil and sludge covering the deck and bulkheads to discourage even the most zealous officials from wanting to enter. None ever realized that the hatch beyond the filthy passageway opened onto an engine room as immaculate as a hospital's operating room.

  The actual officer and crew cabins were concealed under the cargo holds. For defense the Oregon fairly bristled with weaponry. Like the German raiders of both wars and the British Q-ships of World War I, whose sides dropped away to reveal six-inch guns and vicious torpedo tubes, the Oregon's hull secreted an array of sea-to-sea and sea-to-air missile launchers. The ship was remarkably different from any whose decks Pitt had set foot on before. It was a masterwork of deception and fabrication. He suspected there was no other like it on the seas.

  He ate an early dinner with Giordino before going to the wheelhouse for a conference with Cabrillo. He was introduced to the ship's chef, Marie du Gard, a lady from Belgium with credentials that would send any restaurant or hotel owner on his knees begging her to work as his chef de cuisine. She was on board the Oregon because Cabrillo made her an offer she couldn't refuse. Through wise investments of her considerable fee as the ship's chef, she planned on opening her own restaurant in midtown Manhattan after two more undercover operations.

  The menu was extraordinary. Giordino's tastebuds were mundane, so he settled for the boeuf & la mode, braised beef covered with aspic and glazed vegetables. Pi
tt opted for ris de veau ou cervelles au beurre noir, sweetbreads in brown butter sauce served with baked mushroom caps stuffed with crab enhanced by a boiled artichoke with hollandaise sauce. He allowed the chef to select for him a fine 1992 Ferrari-Carano Siena from Sonoma County. Pitt could not boast of having eaten a more savory meal, and certainly not on board a ship such as the Oregon.

  After an espresso, Pitt and Giordino took a companionway up to the wheelhouse. Here pipes and iron fittings were stained with rust. Paint was flaking from bulkheads and window frames. The deck was deeply marred and spotted with old cigarette burns. Very little equipment seemed up-to-date. Only the brass on the old-fashioned binnacle and telegraph gleamed under the antiquated light fixtures still containing sixty-watt bulbs.

  Chairman Cabrillo was standing on a bridge wing, pipe firmly clamped between his teeth. The ship had entered the West Lamma Channel leading to Hong Kong Harbor. Traffic was heavy, and Cabrillo ordered slow speed in preparation of taking on the harbor pilot. Her ballast tanks refilled when twenty miles out, the Oregon looked like any one of a hundred old freighters fully laden with cargo entering the busy harbor. The ruby lights on the television and microwave antennas atop Mount Victoria blinked on and off as a warning to low-flying aircraft. The thousands of lights decorating the palatial Jumbo Floating Restaurant near Aberdeen on Hong Kong Island sprinkled the water like clouds of fireflies.

  If there was any risk and danger attached to the planned covert activity, the men and officers congregated in the wheel-house demonstrated an utter immunity to it. The chartroom and the deck around the helm had become a corporate boardroom. The merits of different Asian stocks and bonds were being weighed. They were savvy investors who followed the market with seemingly more interest than they showed for the coming spy job on the United States.

  Cabrillo stepped in from the bridge wing, noticed Pitt and Giordino, and approached them. “My friends in Hong Kong have informed me that the United States is tied up at Qin Shang Maritime's terminal dock at Kwai Chung north of Kowloon. The proper harbor officials have been bribed, and we've been given a berth in the channel about five hundred yards from the liner.”