Flood Tide dp-14

by Clive Cussler

Six submersibles, three owned by NUMA, one by the Canadians and two by the Navy worked in harmony, meticulously lifting the crates with their invaluable contents into the specially designed cargo compartment of the sunken barge.

  To facilitate the removal of the artwork from inside the hull, the divers in the Newtsuits cut through the steel plates with state-of-the-art torch systems that melted metal underwater at an incredible rate. Once an opening was made, the submersibles moved in and lifted out the treasures, aided by the clamshell claws from the cranes on the surface.

  The entire operation was observed and directed from a control room on board the Ocean Retriever. Video screens linked to cameras set at strategic locations around the wreck revealed every stage of the recovery project. The high-resolution video systems were carefully monitored by Pitt and Gunn, who managed the intricate deployment of men and equipment. They worked twelve-hour shifts, as did the crews of all three vessels. The around-the-clock project never stopped bringing up the seemingly endless mountain of artifacts on the bottom below. Pitt would have given his right arm to have worked on the wreck in one of the submersibles or Newtsuits, but as project director his experience was required to coordinate and guide the operation from the surface. He watched one of the monitors with envy as it showed Giordino being lifted into the Sappho TV submersible, broken leg and all. Giordino had over seven hundred hours in submersibles, and the one he was piloting was his favorite. On this shift, the wily little Italian planned to take his sub deep into the Princess Dou Wan's superstructure after the bulkheads were cut away by the divers inside the Newtsuits.

  Pitt turned as Rudi Gunn stepped into the control room. The early sun flashed through the doorway, momentarily illuminating the compartment, which had no ports or windows. “You here already? I'd swear you just walked out.”

  “It's that time,” Gunn answered, smiling. He was carrying a large, rolled mosaic photograph under one arm that had been shot above the wreck before the start of the salvage operation. The mosaic was invaluable in detecting artifacts that had been scattered in the debris field and for directing the submersibles and divers to different sections of the wreck. “How do we stand?” he asked.

  “The barge has been filled and is on its way to the surface,” replied Pitt, his nose catching the smell of coffee from the galley and yearning for a cup.

  “I never cease to be amazed by the sheer numbers of it all,” said Gunn, taking his place in front of the communications console and array of video screens.

  “The Princess Dou Wan was incredibly overloaded,” said Pitt. “It's no small wonder she broke up and sank in heavy weather.”

  “How close are we to wrapping it up?” “Most all the loose packing crates have been recovered from the lake bed. The stern section is about cleaned out. The cargo holds should be emptied before the end of the next shift. Now it's down to ferreting out all the smaller cases that were stowed in the passageways and staterooms in the center part of the ship. The deeper they penetrate, the more difficult it is for the men in the Newtsuits to cut through the bulkheads.”

  “Any word on when Qin Shang's salvage ship is due to arrive?” Gunn asked.

  “The Jade Adventurer?” Pitt looked down on a chart of the Great Lakes spread out on a table. “At last report she passed Quebec on her way down the St. Lawrence.”

  “That should put her here in a little under three days.”

  “She didn't waste any time coming off her search operation off Chile. She was on her way north less than an hour after Zhu Kwan received your phony report from Perlmutter.”

  “It's going to be close,” said Gunn as he watched a sub-mersible's articulated fingers delicately pick up a porcelain vase protruding from the muck. “We'll be lucky to finish up and get out of the neighborhood before the Jade Adventurer and our friend come charging onto the scene.”

  “We've been lucky Qin Shang didn't send any of his agents ahead to scout out the environment.”

  “The Coast Guard cutter that patrols our search area has yet to report an encounter with a suspicious vessel.”

  “When I came on my shift last night, Al said a reporter from a local newspaper somehow got a call through to the Ocean Retriever. Al strung him along when the reporter asked what we were doing out here.”

  “What did Al tell him?”

  “He said we were drilling cores in the bottom of the lake, looking for signs of dinosaurs.”

  “And the reporter bought it?” Gunn asked skeptically.

  “Probably not, but he got excited when Al promised to bring him on board over the weekend.”

  Gunn looked puzzled. “But we should be gone by then.”

  “You get the picture,” Pitt laughed.

  “We should consider ourselves lucky that rumors of treasure haven't brought out swarms of salvors.”

  “They come as soon as they get the word and rush out to pick over the scraps.”

  Julia came into the control room balancing a tray on one hand. “Breakfast,” she announced gaily. “Isn't it a beautiful morning?”

  Pitt rubbed the stubble of a beard on his chin. “I hadn't noticed.”

  “What are you so happy about?” Gunn asked her.

  “I just received a message from Peter Harper. Qin Shang came off a Japanese airliner at the Quebec airport disguised as a crew member. The Canadian Royal Mounted Police followed him to the waterfront, where he boarded a small boat and rendezvoused with the Jade Adventurer.”

  “Hallelujah!” exclaimed Gunn. “He took the bait.” “Hook, line and sinker,” said Julia, flashing her teeth. She set the tray on the chart table and removed a tablecloth, revealing plates of eggs and bacon, toast, grapefruit and coffee.

  “That is good news,” said Pitt, pulling a chair up to the table without being told. “Did Harper say when he plans to take Qin Shang into custody?”

  “He's meeting with the INS legal staff to formulate a plan. I must tell you, there is great fear the State Department and White House may intervene.” “I was afraid of that,” said Gunn.

  “Peter and Commissioner Monroe are very afraid Qin Shang will slip through the net because of his political connections.” “Why not board the Jade Adventurer and haul his ass off now?” Gunn asked.

  “We can't legally apprehend him if his ship skirts the Canadian shoreline while sailing through Lakes Ontario, Erie and Huron,” explained Julia. “Only after the Jade Adventurer has passed through the Straits of Mackinac into Lake Michigan will Qin Shang be on American waters.”

  Pitt slowly ate his grapefruit. “I'd like to see his face when his crew lays a camera on the Princess and finds her guts ripped out and her cupboards bare.”

  “Did you know that he's filed a claim on the ship and its cargo through one of his subsidiary corporations in state and federal district courts?”

  “No,” said Pitt. “But I'm not surprised. That's the way he operates.”

  Gunn rapped a knife on the table. “If any of us were to stake a claim on a treasure ship through legal channels, we'd be laughed out onto the street. And whatever artifacts we found would have to be turned over to the government.”

  “People who search for treasure,” Pitt said philosophically, “believe their problems are over when they make the big strike, never realizing their troubles are only beginning.”

  “How true,” Gunn assented. “I've yet to hear of a treasure discovery that wasn't contested in court by a parasite or government bureaucrat.”

  Julia shrugged. “Maybe so, but Qin Shang has too much influence to have the door slammed in his face. If anything, he's bought off all opposition.”

  Pitt looked at her as though his fatigued mind had suddenly thought of something. “Aren't you eating?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “I had a bite in the galley earlier.”

  The ship's first officer leaned in the doorway and motioned to Pitt. “The barge has surfaced, sir. You said you wanted to take a look at her payload before she was towed away.”

  “Yes, t
hank you,” Pitt acknowledged. He turned back to Gunn. “She's all yours, Rudi. I'll see you, same time, same place tomorrow.”

  Gunn waved without taking his eyes from the monitors. “Sleep tight.”

  Julia hung on Pitt's arm as they stepped out onto the bridge wing and gazed down at the big barge that had risen from the depths. The interior cargo hold was filled with crates of all sizes containing incredible treasures from China's past. All had been neatly spaced by the cranes and submersibles. In a divided compartment with extra-thick padding, the artworks whose packing crates had been either damaged or destroyed sat open and exposed. Some were musical instruments—tuned chimes of stone, bronze bells and drums. There was a three-legged cooking stove with a hideous face molded on the door, large jade ceremonial carvings of half-size men, women and children, and animal sculptures in marble.

  “Oh, look,” she said, pointing. “They brought up the emperor on the horse.”

  Standing under the sun for the first time in over half a century, the water glistening on the bronze armor of the rider and streaming from his horse, the two-thousand-year-old sculpture looked little the worse for wear than the day it came out of the mold. The unknown emperor now stared over a limitless horizon, as if in search of new lands to conquer.

  “It's all so incredibly beautiful,” said Julia, staring at the ancient wonder. Then she gestured at the other crates, their contents still hidden. “I'm amazed the wooden containers did not rot away after being submerged all these years.”

  “General Hui was a thorough man,” Pitt said. “Not only did he insist that the crates be built with an outer wall and an inner lining, he specified teak instead of a more common wood. It was probably transported to Shanghai from Burma by freighter for use in the shipyards. Hui knew that teak is extraordinarily strong and durable, and he undoubtedly seized the shipment to construct the crates. What he couldn't have predicted at the time was that his foresight paid off in protecting the treasures for the fifty years they were resting underwater.”

  Julia raised a hand to shield her eyes from the glare of the sun on the water. “A pity he couldn't have made them watertight. The lacquerware, wooden carvings and paintings cannot have survived without some damage or disintegration.”

  “The archaeologists will know soon enough. Hopefully, the icy, fresh water will have preserved many of the more delicate objects.”

  As the tugboat maneuvered into position to tow the barge to the receiving dock in Chicago, a crewman stepped from the wheelhouse with a paper in his hand. “Another message for you, Ms. Lee, from Washington.”

  “Must be another message from Peter,” she said, taking the communication. She studied the wording for a long time, her facial expression turning from surprise to utter frustration to downright anger. “Oh, good God,” she muttered. “What is it?”

  Julia held out the message to Pitt. “The INS operation to apprehend Qin Shang has been called off by order of the White House. We are not to molest or harass him in any way. Any and all treasure recovered from the Princess Dou Wan is to be turned over to Qin Shang as acting representative of the Chinese government.”

  “That's crazy,” Pitt said wearily, too tired to display outrage. “The man is a proven mass murderer. Give him the treasure? The President must have a brain hemorrhage.”

  “I've never felt so helpless in my life,” Julia said, furious. Suddenly, unpredictably, Pitt's lips spread in a crazy grin. “I wouldn't take it too badly if I were you. There's always a bright side.”

  She stared at him as if he was certifiably insane. “What are you talking about? Where do you see a bright side in allowing that scum to roam free and steal the art masterpieces for himself?”

  “The orders from the White House definitely state that the INS is not to molest or harass Qin Shang.” “So?” “The orders,” Pitt said, still grinning but with a hard edge to his voice, “make no mention of what NUMA can or cannot do—”

  He broke off as Gunn ran excitedly from the control room onto the bridge wing. “Al thinks he's got them,” the words rushed out. “He's coming to the surface now and wants to know how you want them handled.”

  “Very carefully,” said Pitt. “Tell him to rise slowly and maintain a good grip. When he surfaces, we'll lift the Sappho IV aboard with them.”

  “Who is them?” asked Julia.

  Pitt gave her a quick glance before he rushed down a ladder to the submersible recovery deck. “The bones of Peking man, that's who.”

  Word quickly spread throughout the salvage fleet, and the Ocean Retriever's crew began assembling on the stern work deck. The crews of the other vessels crowded their railings, watching the activity aboard the NUMA ship. There was a strange silence as the turquoise Sappho TV broke the surface and rolled slightly from the low waves of the lake. Divers waited in the water to attach the crane's cable hook to the lifting ring on top of the submersible. Every eye was on the large wire-mesh basket between the twin articulated arms. Two wooden boxes sat in the basket. They all held their breath as the submersible was slowly lifted from the lake. The crane operator used great caution in swinging the underwater craft over the stern before lowering it gently into its cradle.

  The crowd on deck gathered around the sub as the ship's archaeologist directed the unloading of the crates on the deck. While the archaeologist, a blond lady in her forties by the name of Pat O'Connell, was engaged in exposing the interior of the crates, Giordino threw back the hatch from inside the submersible and pushed his head and shoulders into the open air.

  “Where did you find them?” Pitt shouted up at him.

  “Using a diagram of the deck plans I managed to force entry into the captain's cabin.”

  “The location sounds right,” said Gunn, peering through his eyeglasses.

  With the help of four eager pairs of hands, archaeologist O'Connell pried off the top of the crate and peered inside. “Oh my, oh me, oh my,” she muttered in awe.

  “What is it?” Pitt demanded. “What do you see?”

  “Military footlockers with U.S.M.C. stenciled on the top.”

  “Well, don't stand there. Open it up.”

  “It really should be opened in a laboratory,” O'Connell protested. “Proper methodology, you know.”

  “No!” Pitt said flatly. “Proper methodology be damned. These people worked long and hard. And by God they deserve to see the fruits of their labor. Open the footlocker.”

  Seeing that Pitt was not to be denied, and glancing at the sea of faces around her reflecting expressions of hostility, O'Connell knelt down and began working open the latch on the front of the footlocker with a small crowbar. The wall around the latch quickly fell away as if it were made of clay, and she lifted the lid open very, very slowly.

  Inside the footlocker the upper tray held several objects neatly wrapped in sodden gauze and exactingly placed in little individual compartments. As if she was unwrapping the Holy Grail, O'Connell delicately removed the covering from the largest object. When the last piece of gauze fell away, she held up what looked like a yellow-brown circular bowl.

  “A skullcap,” she said in a hushed voice, “from Peking man.”

  THE CAPTAIN OF THE JADE ADVENTURER, CHEN JlANG, HAD served Qin Shang Maritime Limited for twenty of his thirty years at sea. Tall and thin with straight white hair, he was quiet and efficient in the operation of his ship. He forced back a smile and spoke to bis employer.

  “There is your ship, Qin Shang.”

  “I can't believe after all these years I'm seeing her at last,” said Qin Shang, his eyes locked on the video monitor receiving images from an ROV that was moving over the sunken wreck.

  “We are very lucky the depth is only four hundred and thirty feet. If the ship had, indeed, foundered off the coast of Chile, we'd have found ourselves working in ten thousand feet.”

  “It appears the hull is separated in two parts.”

  “Not unusual for ships caught in storms on the Great Lakes to break up,” explained Chen Jiang.
“The Edmund Fitzgerald, a legendary ore carrier, was twisted apart when she sank.”

  During the search, Qin Shang had paced the deck of the wheelhouse restlessly. He appeared impassive to the captain and officers of the ship, but beneath the cold exterior, his adrenaline was pumping madly. Qin Shang was not a patient man. He hated doing nothing but waiting while the ship swept back and forth before finally striking the wreck he hoped was the Princess Dou Wan. The tedious search was a torment he could have happily done without.

  The Jade Adventurer did not look like the usual businesslike survey-and-salvage ship. Her sleek superstructure and twin catamaran hulls gave her more the look of an expensive yacht. Only the stylized, contemporary A-frame crane on her stern suggested that she was anything but a pleasure cruiser. Her hulls were painted blue with a red stripe running around the leading edges. The upperworks gleamed white.

  A big ship with a length of 325 feet, elegant and brutishly powered, she was a marvel of engineering, loaded from the keel with the latest and most sophisticated equipment and instrumentation. She was Qin Shang's pride and joy, expressly designed and constructed to his specifications for this moment, the salvage of the Princess Dou Wan.

  The ship had arrived on site early in the morning, relying on the approximate position Zhu Kwan had received from St. Julien Perlmutter. Qin Shang was relieved to see only two ships within twenty miles. One was an ore carrier heading toward Chicago, the other Chen Jiang identified as a research vessel only three miles away, showing her starboard broadside as she moved on an opposite course with uncommon lethargy.

  Using the same basic techniques and equipment as Pitt and the crew of the Divercity, the Jade Adventurer was only in the third hour of the search when the sonar operator announced a target. After four more passes to improve the quality of the recording, the sonar operator could safely say they had a ship on the bottom that, although broken up, matched the dimensions of the Princess Dou Wan. Then a Chinese-manufactured ROV was lowered over the side and descended to the wreck.

  After another hour of passionately staring at the monitor, Qin Shang snapped angrily. “This cannot be the Princess Dou Wan! Where is her cargo? I see nothing that confirms the report of wooden crates protecting the art treasures.”