Giordino stepped out of the doorway and without comment pointed inside at a bloodhound lying on his back with his paws in the air, big floppy ears splayed to the sides, his tongue half hanging out.
“Is he dead?”
“He might as well be, for all the enthusiasm he's shown at my presence,” said Giordino. “He hasn't twitched or blinked an eye since I came on board.”
“What is so unusual about the engine?”
“You've got to see this.” Giordino led the way through the one room that composed the living room, bedroom, and kitchen of the shantyboat to a trapdoor in the floor. He lifted the cover and pointed below into the compact engine room in the hull. “A Ford 427-cubic-inch V-8 with dual quad carburetors. An oldie but goodie. It's got to have at least four hundred horsepower.”
“Probably closer to four hundred twenty-five,” said Pitt, admiring the powerful engine that appeared in immaculate condition. “How the old man must have laughed after I asked him if the engine could move the boat against the river current.”
“As big as this floating shack is,” said Giordino, “I'd guess we could make close to twenty-five miles an hour if we had to.”
“Keep it slow and easy. We don't want to look like we're in a hurry.”
“How far is the canal?”
“I haven't measured the distance, but it looks to be close to sixty miles.”
“We'll want to get there sometime before sunset,” said Giordino, mentally calculating a leisurely cruising speed.
“I'll cast off. You take the helm and head her into the channel while I store the groceries.”
Giordino needed no coaxing. He couldn't wait to start the big 427 Ford and feel its torque. He hit the starter and it rumbled into life with a mean and nasty growl. He let it idle for a few moments, savoring the sound. It did not turn over smoothly, but loped. It was too good to believe, Giordino thought to himself. The engine was not stock. It was modified and tuned for racing. “My God,” he murmured to himself. “It's far more powerful than we thought.”
Knowing without a shade of doubt Giordino would soon get carried away and push the engine throttle to its stop, Pitt secured the groceries so they wouldn't end up on the deck. Then he stepped over the sleeping Romberg, went out onto the forward veranda and relaxed in a lawn chair, but not before bracing his feet against the bulwark and wrapping his arm around the railing.
Giordino waited until the Atchafalaya River was clear and there were no boats in sight. He laid out the nautical chart of the river provided by Doug Wheeler and studied the river depths ahead. Then, true to form, he increased the speed of the old shantyboat until the flat nose bow was a good foot above the water and the stern was burrowed, cutting a wide groove across the surface. To see such an ungainly craft barreling upriver at better than thirty-five miles an hour was an extraordinary and incongruous sight. On the forward veranda, the wind resistance and the raised angle of the bow pressed Pitt back against the wall of the house with such force he felt constrained and barely able to move.
Finally, after about two miles of spreading a three-foot-high wash behind the shantyboat that swept into the marshlands and splayed the unbroken green mat of water hyacinth that spread from the river channel, Giordino observed two small fishing boats approaching on their way to Morgan City. He eased back the throttle and brought the shantyboat to a crawl. The water hyacinth is a pretty plant but is a disaster to inland waterways, growing at a prolific rate and choking off streams and bayous. They are kept afloat by their stems full of air bladders. The hyacinth sprouts beautiful lavender-pink flowers, but unlike most other flowering plants, it smells like a fertilizer factory when pulled from the water.
Feeling as if he had survived a roller-coaster ride, Pitt returned inside, retrieved the topographical map and began studying the twists and turns in the river as well as familiarizing himself with the network of swampy bayous and lakes between Wheeler's Landing and the canal dug by Qin Shang Maritime. He traced and compared the landmarks and river bends with those on the map. It was refreshing to sit comfortably in the shade of the veranda overhang and experience the pleasant sensation of traveling smoothly over timeless waters that only a boat can provide. Riverbank vegetation varied from mile to mile. Thick forests with willows, cotton-woods and cypresses interspersed with berry bushes, and wild grapevines slowly gave way to a moist, primeval swamp, a prairie of soaring reeds swaying under a light breeze that swept off to the horizon. A lone cypress rose majestically out of the grass like a frigate on the sea. He saw herons walking on their long, sticklike legs along the fringe of water, their necks bent into an S shape as they pecked for food in the mud.
To a hunter kayaking or paddling a canoe through the swamps of southern Louisiana, the trick was to find a firm piece of ground on which to pitch a tent for the night. Duckweed and hyacinth floated on much of the open water. Forests grew from the brackish muck, not dry land. It was hard for Pitt to imagine that all the water he could see came from as far away as Ontario and Manitoba, North Dakota and Minnesota, and every state below. Only behind the safety of thousands of miles of levee systems did people cultivate farms and build cities and towns. It was a landscape unlike any he'd ever seen.
The day was pleasantly cool, with just enough breeze to make small waves across the surface of the water. The hours rolled by as if time was as limitless as space. As idyllic as the lazy cruise up the river seemed, they were on serious business that could easily be the cause of their deaths. There could be no mistakes, no errors in planning their reconnaissance of the mysterious canal.
A few minutes after noon, Pitt took a salami sandwich and a bottle of beer up to Giordino in the little wheelhouse on the roof. Pitt offered to take the helm, but Giordino wouldn't hear of it. He was having too much fun, so Pitt returned to his chair on the veranda.
Although time seemed to have no meaning, Pitt's hours were neither idle nor aimless. He spent the time laying out their diving equipment. He unpacked and adjusted the controls on the little AUV he had used at Orion Lake. Lastly, he removed the night-vision goggles from their case and laid them on the cushions of an old, worn sofa.
Shortly after five o'clock in the afternoon, Pitt stepped inside the house and stood at the base of the ladder leading up to the pilothouse on the roof. “One half mile before we reach the mouth of the canal,” he alerted Giordino. “Move on past another half mile to the next bayou. Then swing a turn to starboard.”
“What's it called?” asked Giordino.
“Hooker's Bayou, but don't bother looking for a sign at the intersection. Take it for about six miles to where the map shows an abandoned dock by a capped oil well. We'll tie up there and have dinner while we wait for darkness.”
Giordino eased the shantyboat around a long string of barges pushed downriver by a large towboat. The captain of the tow-boat gave a blast from his air horn as they passed, no doubt thinking the owner was on board the shantyboat. Pitt had returned to his chair on the bow and waved. Using a pair of binoculars, he scrutinized the canal as they crossed its mouth. It was carved in a perfectly straight course nearly a quarter of a mile wide that seemed to roll like a green carpet over the horizon. A rusty chain stretched across the mouth and was attached to concrete pilings. Large, billboard-sized signs were raised with red letters against a background of white that said,
NO TRESPASSING. ANYONE CAUGHT ON QIN SHANG MARITIME PROPERTY WILL BE PROSECUTED.
Small wonder the local residents hate Qin Shang, thought Pitt. He seriously doubted that the local sheriff would go out of his way to arrest friends and neighbors for hunting or fishing on foreign-owned property.
Forty minutes later, Giordino eased back on the throttle and swung the bulky shantyboat from the narrow channel of Hooker's Bayou and crept to a halt toward the remains of a concrete pier, nudging the flat, raked bow onto a low bank. Stenciled lettering on the concrete pilings read, CHEROKEE OIL COMPANY, BATON ROUGE, LOUISIANA. The boat had no anchor, so they took up long poles that were tied to th
e catwalks for the purpose and rammed them into the mud. Then they tied the mooring lines from the boat to the poles. Lastly, a gangplank was run out onto firm ground.
“I have a contact on radar moving across the marsh from the southeast,” Giordino calmly reported.
“They're coming from the direction of the Mystic Canal.”
“They're coming fast,” Giordino said in a deliberate tone.
“Shang's security didn't waste any time tagging us.” Pitt went inside and returned with a large square net with vertical supports he'd found on the aft veranda. “Drag Romberg out here and get yourself a bottle of beer.”
Giordino looked at the net. “You think you're going to catch crab for dinner?”
“No,” Pitt answered, catching a glint from the setting sun on a shiny object far away in the ocean of grass. “The trick is to look like I know what I'm doing.”
“A helicopter,” Giordino said in a deliberate tone, “or an ultralight like Washington.”
“Too low, more likely a hovercraft.”
“Are we on Qin Shang's real estate?”
“According to the map, we're a good three hundred yards off their property line. They must be paying a social call to check us out.”
“What's the scenario?” asked Giordino.
“I'll play a crab fisherman, you act like a redneck swilling beer and Romberg can play Romberg.”
“Not easy for an Italian to pretend he's French Cajun.”
“Chew on some okra.”
The dog cooperated when dragged out onto the veranda, not out of obedience, but out of necessity. He walked slowly across the gangplank and did his duty. The hound has an iron bladder, Giordino thought, to have lasted this long. Then Romberg abruptly became alert, barked at a rabbit that darted through the grass and chased after him. “No Academy Award nomination for you, Romberg!” Giordino yelled at the dog as it took off onto a path leading along the bank. Then he flopped in a lawn chair, removed his sneakers and socks and propped his bare feet up on a railing, a bottle of Dixie beer clutched in one hand.
Onstage for the opening act, Pitt with his old .45 Colt stashed in a bucket at his feet and covered by a rag, Giordino with the Aserma 12-gauge shotgun from Pitt's hangar resting beneath the pad on his lawn chair, they watched the black dot that was the hovercraft grow in size as it flew over the marshlands, swirling and flattening a swath through the reeds. It was an amphibious craft that could make the transition from water to land. Propelled by twin aircraft engines with propellers at the stern, the hovercraft was supported by a cushion of air contained within a heavy rubber structure and produced by a smaller engine attached to a horizontal fan. Control was accomplished with a set of rudders much like those used on aircraft. Pitt and Giordino watched as it moved effortlessly and rapidly over the marshlands and mud flats.
“She's fast,” commented Pitt. “Capable of fifty miles an hour. About twenty feet long with a small cabin. By the look of her, she can carry six people.”
“And none of them are smiling,” muttered Giordino as the hovercraft approached the shantyboat and slowed. At that moment, Romberg came bounding from the swamp grass, barking up a storm.
“Good old Romberg,” said Pitt. “Right on cue.”
The hovercraft came to a stop ten feet away, its skirted hull resting in the bayou. The engines died away to a dull murmur. The five men on board all wore side arms but carried no rifles. They were wearing the same Qin Shang security uniforms Pitt had seen at Orion Lake. Every eye had the unmistakable slant of an Asian. They weren't smiling; their sunburned faces looked dead serious. This was clearly an attempt at intimidation.
“What are you doing here?” asked a hard-faced individual in fluent English. He wore the insignia on his shoulders and hat of someone in command, and he looked like a man who would enjoy sticking pins hi living insects, a man who would welcome the opportunity to shoot another human being. He eyed Romberg with a gleam in his eye.
“We're havin' fun,” Pitt said casually. “What's y'alls problem?”
“This is private property,” the hovercraft's commander said coldly. “You cannot moor here.”
“Ah happen to know for a fact that the land around Hooker's Bayou belongs to the Cherokee Oil Company.” Pitt actually wasn't certain who owned the property, but he assumed it had to be Cherokee Oil.
The commander turned to his men and they jabbered among themselves in Chinese. Then the commander stepped to the side of the hovercraft and announced, “We are coming aboard.”
Pitt tensed and readied himself to snatch up the old Colt. Then he realized the demand to come aboard was a deception. But Giordino didn't fall for it. “The hell y'all are,” said Giordino, threateningly. “Y'all got no authority. Now get your ass out of here before we call the sheriff.”
The commander looked at the weathered shantyboat and the faded and shabby clothing worn by Pitt and Giordino. “You have a radio or a cellular phone on that boat?”
“A flare gun,” Giordino answered, scratching an imaginary itch between the toes of one foot. “We shoot flares and the law comes a-runnin'.”
The hovercraft's commander's eyes narrowed. “I do not find that believable.”
“Exhibiting a pompous attitude toward intellectual impeccability will get you nowhere,” Pitt suddenly said smartly.
The commander tensed. “What was that?” he demanded. “What did you say?”
“Ah said, leave us alone,” Pitt drawled. “We ain't hurtin' nothin'.”
Another conference between the commander and his men. Then he pointed a finger at Pitt. “I warn you. Do not enter Qin Shang Maritime property.”
“Who'd want to?” Giordino said nastily. “Y'all's company ruined the swamp, killed the fish and drove off the wildlife with your dredging. No reason to go in there anyways.”
The commander arrogantly turned his back and dismissed them as the first drops of a rainsquall began to splatter on the roof of the shantyboat. He gave the still barking Romberg a withering stare and said something to his crew. The engines accelerated and the hovercraft began moving off in the direction of the canal. A moment later they disappeared from view as the rain poured down in blinding torrents.
Giordino sat enjoying the rain splashing on his bare feet as they dangled over the railing. He cringed as Romberg shook his wet fur, sending a barrage of water flying in every direction. “A glittering performance except for your attempt at a drawing-room put-down.”
Pitt laughed. “A bit of keen and boisterous freewheeling humor never fails to get a rise.”
“You might have given us away.”
“I wanted them to record our arrogance. Did you catch the video camera on top of the cabin? At this moment, our pictures are being sent by satellite to Shang's security headquarters in Hong Kong for identification. A pity we can't be there to see Shang's face when he's informed that we're poking around another one of his sensitive projects.”
“Then our friends will be back.”
“You can bet the farm on it.”
“Romberg will protect us,” Giordino said jokingly.
Pitt looked around for the dog and found him curled up inside the shantyboat, having quickly returned to his catatonic state. “That I seriously doubt.”
AFTER THE RAINSQUALL PASSED AND BEFORE THE LAST RAYS of the sun vanished beyond the marshlands in the west, Pitt and Giordino moved the shantyboat into a narrow tributary of Hooker's Bayou and moored it beneath a huge cottonwood tree to cloak it from the hovercraft's radar. Then they camouflaged the boat with reeds and dead branches from the cottonwood. Romberg only came alive when Pitt fed him a bowl filled with catfish. Giordino offered him some hamburger, but Romberg wouldn't touch it, happily licking his chops and drooling from his flews while consuming the fish.
After closing the shutters and hanging blankets over the windows and doors to black out interior light, Pitt spread the topo map on the dining table and traced out a plan of action. “If Shang's security force runs true to form, they'll
have a command post somewhere along the banks of the canal, probably in the center so they can cover both ends quickly against trespassing locals.”
“A canal by any other name is a canal,” said Giordino. “What exactly are we looking for?”
Pitt shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine.”
“Bodies like you found in Orion Lake?”
“God, I hope not,” Pitt said soberly. “But if Qin Shang is smuggling illegals through Sungari, you can bet he's got a killing ground somewhere in the area. Dead bodies are easy to hide in the marshlands. But according to Doug Wheeler, boat traffic from the river into the canal is nonexistent.”
“Qin Shang didn't excavate an eighteen-mile trench as an exercise in futility.”
“Not him,” Pitt said acridly. “The catch is that two miles of excavation could have easily supplied all the fill he required to build Sungari. And the question is, why dig another sixteen miles?”
“Where do we begin?” asked Giordino.
“We'll take the skiff because it's less likely to be detected by their security systems. After loading the equipment, we paddle up Hooker's Bayou until it empties into the canal. Then continue east to Calzas. After we see whatever there is of interest, we work back toward the Atchafalaya and around to the shantyboat.”
“They must have detection systems to spot trespassers.”
“I'm counting on them using the same limited technology they had at Orion Lake. If they have laser detectors, the beams must be set to sweep above the marsh grass. Hunters with swamp vehicles or fishermen standing in their boat to throw a net can be distinguished from five miles away. By keeping low in the skiff and skirting the banks, we can stay below any sweeping beam.”
Giordino listened to Pitt's plan of action and remained silent for a few moments after he finished. He sat with his Etruscan features twisted in a scowling expression, looking like a mask from a voodoo ceremony. Then he slowly moved his head from side to side, visualizing long, aching hours of paddling the skiff.
“Well,” he said finally, “Mrs. Giordino's boy is going to have a pair of sore arms before this night is over.”
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