Flood Tide dp-14

by Clive Cussler

  “Not the least of which is Duncan Monroe's humble apology that he asked me to convey,” Harper said, making a show of penitence by pumping Pitt's and Giordino's hands. “I also wish to express my personal debt of gratitude to NUMA and to you gentlemen for ignoring our demands to disassociate yourselves from the investigation. Without your timely intervention at Bartholomeaux, our assault team would have found nothing but a dead INS agent and an empty sugar mill. The only unfortunate aspect was the killing of Ki Wong.”

  “I suppose in hindsight I should have kneecapped him,”

  Giordino said without remorse. “But he was not a nice man.”

  “I fully realize your act was justified,” admitted Harper,“but with Ki Wong dead, we lost a direct link to Qin Shang.”

  “Was he that essential to your case?” Captain Lewis queried Harper. “It seems to me you have more than enough proof to hang Qin Shang from the nearest tree. He was caught red-handed smuggling nearly four hundred illegal immigrants into Sungari and then up Bayou Teche to Bartholomeaux. All on vessels owned by his shipping company and by men on his payroll. What more could you want?”

  “Proving the orders came directly from Qin Shang.”

  Sandecker seemed as puzzled as Lewis. “Surely you have all the evidence you need to indict him now.”

  “We can indict,” acknowledged Harper, “but whether we can convict is another story. We're looking at a long, drawn-out legal fight that federal prosecutors are not certain they can win. Qin Shang will counterattack with a task force of highly paid and respected Washington attorneys. He has the Chinese government and certain ranking members of Congress on his side, and also, I'm sorry to say, possibly the White House. When we look at all the political lOUs that he will undoubtedly call due, you can see that we are not getting in the ring with a lightweight, but rather a very powerful and highly connected man.”

  “Wouldn't Chinese government leaders turn their backs on him if it meant a huge scandal?” inquired Frank Stewart.

  Harper shook his head. “His services and influence in Washington cancel out any political liabilities that might result.”

  “Surely, you have enough on Qin Shang to close down Sungari and cut off all shipping by Qin Shang Maritime into the United States,” probed General Montaigne, speaking for the first time.

  “Yes, it's within our power,” answered Harper. “But the billions of dollars' worth of Chinese goods that are pouring into the United States are carried on Qin Shang Maritime ships, subsidized by their government. They'd be cutting their own throat if they sat by and remained silent while we slammed the door on Qin Shang's shipping line.” He paused to massage his temples. Harper was clearly a man who did not relish losing a battle to forces beyond his control. “At the moment all we can do is prevent his smuggling operations from succeeding and hope that he makes a colossal mistake.”

  A knock came at the door, and Lieutenant Stowe entered. He silently handed Captain Lewis a message and just as quietly departed. Lewis scanned the wording and looked over the table at Frank Stewart. "A communication from your first officer,

  Captain. He said you wished to be kept informed on any new developments concerning the old luxury liner the United States."

  Stewart nodded at Pitt. “Dirk is the one who is monitoring the ship's passage up the Mississippi.”

  Lewis handed the message to Pitt. “Pardon me for reading it, but it simply says the United States has passed under the Crescent City Connection and greater New Orleans bridges and is approaching the city's commercial waterfront, where it will be docked as a permanently floating hotel and casino.”

  “Thank you, Captain. Another puzzling project with Qin Shang's tentacles wrapped around it.”

  “Quite a feat just sailing it up the river from the Gulf,” said Montaigne. “You might compare it with dropping a pin through a straw without it touching the sides.”

  “I'm glad you're here, General,” said Pitt. “I have nagging questions that only you, as an expert on the river, can answer.”

  “I'll be glad to try.”

  “I have a crazy theory that Qin Shang built Sungari where he did because he intends to destroy a section of the levee and divert the Mississippi into the Atchafalaya, making it the most important port on the Gulf of Mexico.”

  It would be an overstatement to say that the men and one woman seated in the wardroom all accepted Pitt's fanciful scenario—all, that is, except General Montaigne. He nodded his head like a professor who threw a trick question at a student and received the correct answer. “It may surprise you to learn, Mr. Pitt, that I've had the same notion bouncing around inside my own head for the past six months.”

  “Divert the Mississippi,” Captain Lewis said in a careful sort of voice. “There are many, myself included, who would say that's unthinkable.”

  “Unthinkable, perhaps, but not unimaginable to a man with Qin Shang's diabolic mind,” Giordino said evenly.

  Sandecker looked thoughtfully into the distance. “You've hit upon a rationale that should have been obvious from the first day of Sungari's construction.”

  Every eye was drawn to General Montaigne when Harper asked the obvious question. “Is it possible, General?”

  “The Army Corps has been fighting Nature for over a hundred and fifty years to keep her from accomplishing the same cataclysm,” answered Montaigne. “We all live with the nightmare of a great flood, greater than ever recorded since the first explorers saw the river. When that happens, the Atchafalaya River will become the main stream of the Mississippi. And that section of 'Old Man River' that presently runs from the northern border of Louisiana to the Gulf will become a silted-in tidal estuary. It's happened in the ancient past and it will happen again. If the Mississippi wants to head west, we can't stop her. The event is only a matter of time.”

  “Are you telling us that the Mississippi changes course on a set schedule?” asked Stewart.

  Montaigne rested his chin on the head of his cane. “Not predictable by the hour or year, but it has wandered back and forth across Louisiana seven times in the past six thousand years. Had it not been for man, and especially the Army Corps of Engineers, the Mississippi would probably be flowing down the Atchafalaya Valley, over the sunken ruins of Morgan City and into the Gulf as we speak.”

  “Let us suppose Qin Shang destroys the levee and opens a vast spillway from the Mississippi into the canal he's had dredged into the Atchafalaya,” Pitt speculated. “What would be the result?”

  “In one word, catastrophic,” answered Montaigne. “Pushed by a spring runoff current of seven miles an hour, a turbulent flood tide twenty, maybe thirty feet high would explode down the Mystic Canal and rage across the valley. The lives of two hundred thousand residents living on three million acres will be endangered. Most of the marshlands will become permanently inundated. The wall of water will sweep away whole towns, causing a tremendous death toll. Hundreds of thousands of animals, cows, horses, deer, rabbits, family dogs and cats swept away as though they'd never been born. Oyster beds, shrimp nurseries and catfish farms will be destroyed by the sudden decrease in salinity due to the overpowering flow of fresh water. Most of the alligator population and water life will vanish.”

  “You paint a grim picture, General,” said Sandecker.

  “That's only the pitiful part of the forecast,” said Montaigne. "On the economic side, the surge would collapse the highway and railroad bridges that cross the valley, closing down all transportation from east to west. Generating plants and high-voltage lines will likely be undermined and destroyed, disrupting electrical service for thousands of square miles. The fate of Morgan City would be sealed. It will cease to exist. Interstate gas pipelines will rupture, cutting off major portions of natural gas to every state from Rhode Island and Connecticut to the Carolinas and Florida.

  “And then we have the unrepairable damage to what's left of the Mississippi,” he continued. “Baton Rouge would become a ghost town. All barge and water traffic would cease.
The Great American Ruhr Valley, with its industrial magnitude of oil refineries, petrochemical plants and grain elevators, could no longer operate efficiently beside a polluted creek. Without fresh water, without the river's ability to scour a channel, it would soon build a wasteland of silt. Isolated from interstate commerce, New Orleans would go the way of Babylon, Angkor Wat and Pueblo Bonito. And like it or not, all oceangoing shipping would be diverted from New Orleans to Sungari. The terrible loss to the economy alone would be measured in the tens of billions of dollars.”

  “There's a thought that brings on a migraine,” muttered Giordino.

  “Speaking of relief.” Montaigne looked at Captain Lewis. “I don't suppose you have a bottle of whiskey on board?”

  “Sorry, sir,” replied Lewis with a slight shake of the head. “No alcohol allowed on a Coast Guard ship.”

  “It never hurts to ask.”

  “How would the new river compare to the old?” Pitt asked the general.

  “At the present time we control the flow of the Mississippi at the Old River Control Structure located about forty-five miles upriver from Baton Rouge. Our purpose is to maintain a distribution of thirty percent into the Atchafalaya and seventy percent into the Mississippi. When the two rivers merge with their full potential of a hundred-percent flow along a straighter path at half the distance to the Gulf compared to the channel through New Orleans, you're going to have one hell of a big river with current flowing at a great rate of speed.”

  “Is there no way to plug the gap should it occur?” asked Stewart.

  Montaigne thought for a moment. “With the right preparation, there are any number of responses the Corps can make, but the longer it takes to get our equipment in place, the more time the flood widens the hole in the levee. Our only salvation is that the dominant current of the Mississippi would continue in the channel until the levee erodes far enough to accept the entire flow.”

  “How long do you think that would take?”

  “Difficult to project. Perhaps two hours, perhaps two days.”

  “Would the process be speeded up if Qin Shang sank barges diagonally across the Mississippi to divert the main flow?” queried Giordino.

  Montaigne thought a moment, then said, “Even if a tow unit consisting of enough barges to block the entire width of the river could be pushed into the correct position and sunk—not an easy maneuver even by the best towboat pilots—the river's main current would still flow over the barges due to their low profile. Sitting on the riverbed, their upper cargo roofs would still have a good thirty to thirty-five feet of water flowing over them. As a diversionary dam, the concept would not prove practical.”

  “Is it possible for you to begin preparations for an all-out effort?” asked Captain Lewis. “And have your men and equipment in position ready to go if and when Qin Shang destroys the levee?”

  “Yes, it's possible,” answered Montaigne. “It won't come cheap to the taxpayers. The problem I face in issuing the order is that it's based simply on conjecture. We may suspect Qin Shang's motives, but without absolute proof of his intentions, my hands are tied.”

  Pitt said, “I do believe, ladies and gentlemen, we've fallen into the 'close the barn door after the horse has escaped' syndrome.”

  “Dirk is right,” Sandecker said solidly. “We'd be far better off to stop Qin Shang's operation before it takes place.”

  “I'll contact the St. Mary Parish sheriff's department and explain the situation,” volunteered Harper. “I'm sure they will cooperate and send deputies to guard the levee.”

  “A sound proposition,” agreed Montaigne. “I'll go one step further. My West Point classmate, General Oskar Olson, commands the National Guard in Louisiana. He'll be glad to send a contingent of troops to back up the sheriff's deputies if I make it a personal request.”

  “The first men on the scene should search out and disarm the explosives,” said Pitt.

  “They'll need equipment to torch open the iron door to a tunnel that Dirk and I discovered that runs under the highway and levee,” suggested Giordino. “Inside the tunnel is where the explosives are likely stored.”

  “If Qin Shang wants to cut a wide breach,” said Montaigne, “he'd have to pack additional explosives into side tunnels that branch out for at least a hundred yards.”

  “I'm certain Qin Shang's engineers have figured out what it will take to blow a giant hole in the levee,” said Pitt grimly.

  “It feels good,” Sandecker sighed, “to finally have a grip on Qin Shang's testicles.”

  “Now all we need to know is the scumbag's time schedule,” said Giordino.

  At that moment Lieutenant Stowe reentered the wardroom and handed Captain Lewis another communication. As he read the message, his eyes narrowed. Then he peered at Pitt. “It seems the pieces of the puzzle that were missing have appeared.”

  “If the message is for me,” said Pitt, “please read it aloud for everyone.”

  Lewis nodded and began reading. “ 'To Mr. Dirk Pitt, NUMA, on board Coast Guard ship Weehawken. Please be advised that the former passenger liner United States has not stopped at New Orleans. I repeat, has not stopped at New Orleans. With total disregard to scheduled docking procedures and welcoming ceremonies, the ship has continued upriver toward Baton Rouge. The captain has refused to answer all radio calls.' ” Lewis looked up. “What do you make of it?”

  “Qin Shang never intended to make the United States into a New Orleans hotel and gambling casino,” Pitt explained dryly. “He plans to use it as a diversionary dam. Once the ship's nine-hundred-ninety-foot hull with its height of ninety feet is scuttled diagonally across the river, it will block ninety percent of the Mississippi's flow, sending one enormous flood tide through the shattered levee into the Atchafalaya.”

  “Ingenious,” murmured Montaigne. “Then there would be no stopping the full force of the surge once it broke through. Nothing in this world could stop it.”

  “You know the Mississippi better than anyone here, General,” Sandecker said to Montaigne. “How long do you think it will take the United States to reach the Mystic Canal below Baton Rouge?”

  “Depends,” the general replied. “She'd have to slow to jockey her immense bulk around several sharp turns in the river, but she could use her top speed on the straighter reaches. From New Orleans to where the Mystic Canal stops, just short of the Bayou Goula bend of the Mississippi, is about a hundred miles.”

  “With her interior an empty steel shell,” said Pitt, “she rides high in the water, adding to her potential speed. With all her boilers fired up, she can conceivably cut water at close to fifty miles an hour.”

  “A band of angels would be powerless to help any barge or pleasure-craft traffic that's caught in her wash,” said Giordino.

  Montaigne turned to Sandecker. “She could arrive on site in less than three hours.”

  “We haven't a minute to lose in alerting the state emergency services to spread the alarm and begin evacuating every resident of the Atchafalaya Valley,” said Lewis, his face grave.

  “Almost five-thirty,” Sandecker said, studying his watch. “We have only until eight-thirty this evening to stop a disaster of incalculable magnitude.” He paused to rub his eyes. “If we fail, hundreds, maybe thousands of innocent people will die and their bodies will be swept out into the Gulf and never found.”

  After the meeting was over and everyone had left the wardroom, Pitt and Julia stood alone.

  “It seems we're always saying good-bye,” she said, standing with her arms at her sides, her forehead pressed into Pitt's chest.

  “A bad habit we have to break,” he said softly.

  “I wish I didn't have to return to Washington with Peter, but Commissioner Monroe has ordered me to serve on the task force to indict Qin Shang.”

  “You're an important lady for the government's case.”

  “Please come home soon,” she whispered as the tears began to form.

  He embraced and held her tightly. “You
can stay at my hangar. Between my security system and the bodyguards to protect you from harm, you'll be safe until I get there.”

  A mischievous twinkle came into her eyes through the tears. “Can I drive your Duesenberg?”

  He laughed. “When was the last time you drove a stick shift?”

  “Never,” she said, smiling. “I've always owned cars with automatic transmissions.”

  “I promise that as soon as I can get there, we'll take the Duesy and go on a picnic.”

  “Sounds wonderful.”

  He stood back and stared downward at her through his opaline-green eyes. “Try to be a good girl.”

  Then he kissed her and they both turned away, neither looking back as they walked apart.

  THE RIVER SOUNDS WERE MUTED BY A LIGHT MIST THAT HUNG over the dark water like a diaphanous quilt. The egrets and herons that walked silently along the shorelines, their long, curved beaks dipping into the silt for food, were the first to sense something not of their world moving toward them out of the night. It began as a slight tremor through the water that increased to a sudden rush of air and a loud throb that sent the startled birds flapping into the air.

  The few bystanders strolling the levees after dinner and watching the lights of the boats on the water were startled by the sudden appearance of the monstrous shadow. And then the leviathan materialized from the mist with her towering raked bows slicing through the water with incredible ease for an object of such massive proportions. Although her four bronze screws were throttled down to negotiate the sharp bend at Nine Mile Point, she still threw a massive wake that rolled up the levees nearly to the roads running along their crests, crushing small vessels anchored along the shore and sweeping a dozen people into the water. Only after she maneuvered into a straight reach did her engines go on full throttle and thrust her up the river at an incredible rate of speed.

  Except for a white light on the stub of her once-tall foremast and the red and green running lights, the only other illumination was an eerie glow that came from her wheelhouse. No movement could be seen on her decks, and only the occasional flicker of silhouettes on the bridge wings offered any signs of life. For the brief minutes it took for her to pass she seemed like a colossal dinosaur charging across a shallow lake. Her white superstructure was a shadow in the gloom, her black hull all but invisible. She flew no flag, her only identification the raised letters of her name on the bows and stern.