Dirk Pitt18-Black Wind

by Cussler, Clive

  They swam well away from the dock, so as not to arouse suspicion until

  they were directly offshore of the speedboat, then slowly worked their

  way in toward it. With handcuffs still clasped to their wrists, their

  swimming motions felt clumsy, but they quietly kept their hands under

  the water as they stroked.

  Furtively approaching the dock, they were blocked from view of the

  guardhouse until they reached the stern of the boat, where they again

  had a view of the shore. The guard was still in the security hut,

  where he could be seen sitting on a stool reading a magazine.

  Using hand motions, Dirk directed Summer to remove the boat's stern

  line while he would swim forward and take care of the bowline. Moving

  along the boat's hull, he felt the looming presence of Kang's yacht

  towering over him as he crossed the smaller boat's bow. Stretching to

  grab the mooring line in order to pull himself to the dock, he suddenly

  heard a sharp click directly above him and he froze still in the water.

  A spark of yellow light erupted briefly, and, in the glow, he could see

  the ruddy face of a guard lighting a cigarette on the fantail of Kang's

  yacht no more than ten feet away.

  Dirk didn't move a muscle, steadying himself with one hand clasped on

  the speedboat's prow, careful not to disturb the quietly lapping water.

  He watched patiently as the red ember of the cigarette rhythmically

  flared like a crimson beacon as the guard inhaled on the tobacco. Dirk

  found himself holding his breath, not for himself but for Summer, whom

  he hoped would avoid detection at the stern of the boat. The guard

  fully enjoyed his smoke, pulling at it for ten minutes before flinging

  the butt over the railing. The burning stub landed in the water just

  three feet from Dirk's head, extinguishing with a hiss.

  Waiting until he heard the padded sound of footsteps move away from the

  railing, Dirk ducked underwater and swam toward the rear

  of the speedboat. Surfacing just astern of the boat's propeller, he

  found Summer waiting with an impatient look on her face. Dirk shook

  his head at her, then quietly pulled himself up the rear transom of the

  speedboat and peered toward the pilot seat. In the darkness, he could

  just barely make out the dashboard ignition, which winked back at him

  void of a key. He slunk back into the water and looked at Summer, then

  reached for the loose mooring line in her hands. She was surprised

  when he ducked underwater for a minute, then surfaced empty-handed,

  expecting that he was going to retie the line to the dock, instead him

  pointing offshore. Summer followed his finger and began swimming

  silently away from the boat. When they were safely out of earshot,

  they stopped and rested.

  "What was that all about?" Summer asked with a tinge of annoyance.

  Dirk described the guard positioned on the stern of Kang's yacht.

  "There wasn't much chance without the starter key. As close as the

  boats are together, he'd have seen or heard me trying to rummage around

  hot-wiring the ignition. Chances are, there's a guard or two on the

  catamaran as well. I think we're going to have to settle for the

  skiff."

  The small skiff that Kang's thugs had used to ferry Dirk and Summer

  into the cavern was pulled up onto the shore, adjacent to the dock.

  "That's awfully close to the guardhouse," Summer noted.

  Dirk looked ashore, spotting the guard still sitting in the guardhouse,

  about twenty meters from the skiff. "Stealth it will be," he said

  confidently.

  Kicking back toward shore, they swam widely around the docked boats and

  approached the rocky beach from the east side. When their feet touched

  bottom, Dirk had Summer wait in the water while he crept slowly to the

  shoreline.

  Inching his way out of the water, he crawled snakelike on his belly

  toward the boat, which was wedged between two rocks about twenty feet

  from the water. Using the boat as a shield between him and the

  guardhouse, he burrowed alongside the wooden skiff until he could peer

  over the side. A spool of line, coiled on the front bench and tied to

  a small bow cleat, caught his eye. Reaching over the gunwale, he

  unfastened the line and pulled the coil to his chest, then burrowed

  backward over the loose pebble beach to the boat's stern, which faced

  the water. Running his hand along the top of the transom, he felt a

  bolt-hole for attaching an outboard motor and ran one end of the line

  through, tying it securely.

  Scurrying on his belly back into the water, he played out the line

  until he reached the end of its fifty-foot length. Summer swam over

  and they huddled together, hunched over in four feet of water with just

  their heads poking above the surface.

  "We'll reel it in like a marlin," Dirk whispered. "If anybody gets

  wise, we can duck back behind those rocks by the cavern," he said,

  tilting his head toward the protruding boulders nearby. Placing

  Summer's hands on the line, he leaned back in the water and gradually

  began applying tension to the line. Summer tightened her grip and then

  threw her weight onto the line as it drew taut.

  The small boat jumped easily from its perch, emitting a jarring grind

  as its hull scraped across its rocky berth. They quickly eased off the

  line and stared toward the guardhouse. Inside, the guard still had his

  nose stuck in the magazine, impervious to the noise made by the boat.

  They quietly took up the slack and continued to reel the boat toward

  them a foot at a time, stopping periodically to ensure they had not

  attracted any attention. Summer held her breath as the boat approached

  the water's edge, letting out a long sigh when they tugged it fully

  into the water, the scraping sound at last ceasing.

  "Let's tow her out a little farther," Dirk whispered, winding the

  towline over his shoulder and kicking toward the center of the cove.

  When they were a hundred meters from the shoreline, he tossed the line

  into the boat and pulled himself over the side, then grabbed Summer's

  hand and pulled her aboard.

  "Not exactly a Fountain offshore powerboat but I guess she'll do," he

  said, surveying the interior of the small boat. Spying a pair of oars

  under the bench seat, he popped the shafts into the side oarlocks and

  dipped the blades into the water. Facing the stern of the skiff, with

  Kang's compound illuminated in the background, he pulled heavily on the

  oars, propelling the small boat swiftly into the center of the cove.

  "It's about a mile to the main river channel," Summer estimated. "Maybe

  we can find a friendly South Korean naval or Coast Guard vessel on the

  river."

  "I'd settle for a passing freighter."

  "Sure," Summer replied. "Just as long as it doesn't have a Kang

  Enterprises lightning bolt on the funnel."

  Glancing toward the shoreline, Dirk suddenly detected a movement in the

  distance and squinted to better see across the water. As his eyes

  focused, he grimaced slightly.

  "I'm afraid it's not going to be a freighter offering us the first

  lift," he said as hi
s knuckles tightened their grip on the oars.

  The dock side guard had grown bored with his magazine and decided to

  patrol the moored boats once again. A fellow guard stationed on Kang's

  yacht was from a neighboring province and he loved to harass the man

  about the lack of attractive women in his home region. Walking toward

  the dock, he at first failed to take notice of the empty beach, but

  then tripped as he stepped onto the dock ramp. Grabbing the side rail

  to steady himself, his eyes fell to the ground nearby, detecting the

  scarred indentation of a boat that had been dragged across the pebbly

  beach. Only, the boat was gone.

  The embarrassed guard quickly radioed his discovery to the central

  security post and, in an instant, two heavily armed guards came running

  from the shadows. After a brief but heated exchange, several

  flashlights were produced, their yellow beams rapidly waved in a

  chaotic frenzy about the water, rocks, and sky in a frantic search for

  the missing skiff. But it was the guard on the stern of Kang's yacht

  who located the two escapees. Shining a powerful marine spotlight

  across the water of the cove, he pinpointed the small white boat

  lurching across the waves.

  "Not a good time to be in the limelight," Summer cursed as the rays of

  the distant searchlight fell over them. The clattering burst of an

  assault rifle rattled across the water, accompanied by the whistling of

  bullets that raced harmlessly over their heads.

  "Get down low in the boat," Dirk commanded his sister as he pulled

  harder on the oars. "We're out of accurate firing range but they could

  still get off a lucky shot."

  The small skiff was just midway across the cove and Dirk and Summer

  would be sitting ducks for a gunman in Kang's speedboat, which could be

  on them in a matter of seconds. Dirk silently hoped and prayed that

  nobody would notice the boat's stern line as they rushed to chase after

  them.

  On shore, one of the guards had already jumped into the green speedboat

  and started the motor. Tongju, awakened by the gunfire, burst out of

  his cabin on the catamaran and began barking inquiries at one of the

  guards.

  "Take the speedboat. Kill them if you have to," he hissed.

  The two other guards scrambled into the speedboat, one of them casting

  off the bowline as he jumped aboard. In the rushed moment, none of the

  men noticed that the stern line was dropped over the outboard side. The

  pilot saw only that the lines to the dock cleat were free. As the boat

  drifted clear of the dock, he jammed it into gear and pushed the

  throttle all the way to its stops.

  The green boat surged forward for a split second, then mysteriously

  stopped dead in its tracks. The engine continued to scream with a

  whine, churning at high rpm, but the boat sat drifting lazily. The

  confused pilot pulled back on the throttle, unsure of what was causing

  the lack of forward motion.

  "Idiot!" Tongju screamed from the deck of the catamaran with

  uncharacteristic emotion. "Your stern line is caught in the propeller.

  Put someone over the side to cut it free."

  Dirk's handiwork had paid off. Diving under the speedboat, he had

  tightly wrapped the stern line around the propeller and its exposed

  shaft, clogging its ability to spin freely. The heavy hand of the

  pilot on the throttle had only served to wind the line tighter,

  spinning it up and into the drive shaft coupling in a laborious mess.

  It would take a diver twenty minutes to cut and yank free the mass of

  coiled rope embedded in the driveline.

  Realizing the speedboat's predicament, Tongju burst into the cabin of

  the catamaran's pilot.

  "Start the engines. Get us under way immediately," he barked. The

  groggy pilot, clad in a pair of red silk pajamas, nodded sharply and

  made his way quickly to the wheelhouse.

  Three-quarters of a mile away, Dirk grunted as he pulled another stroke

  of the oars, his heart pounding fiercely. His shoulder and arm muscles

  began to burn from the strenuous effort to propel the skiff faster, and

  even his thigh muscles ached from pushing against the oars. His tired

  body was telling himself to slow the pace but his mental will pushed to

  keep rowing with all his strength. They had gained a few precious

  minutes by sabotaging the speedboat, but Kang's men still had two more

  boats at their disposal.

  In the distance, they could hear the deep muffled exhaust of the

  catamaran as its engines were started and revved. As Dirk rowed in a

  controlled rhythm, Summer helped guide him through the inlet they

  approached at the far end of the cove. Kang's compound and boats

  suddenly drifted from view as they began threading their way through

  the S-curved inlet.

  "We've got maybe five minutes," he exhaled between strokes. "You up

  for another swim?"

  "I can't exactly glide through the water like Esther Williams with

  these," she said, holding up the two handcuffs that dangled from her

  wrists, "but I can certainly do without another dose of Kang's

  hospitality-" She knew better than to ask whether Dirk was up for a

  strenuous swim. Despite his exhausted state, she knew her brother was

  like a fish in the water. Growing up in Hawaii, they swam in the warm

  surf constantly. Dirk excelled at marathon swimming and routinely swam

  five-mile ocean legs for pleasure.

  "If we can make it to the main channel, we may have a chance," he

  said.

  The inlet grew dark as they made their way past the first bend and the

  lights of Kang's compound became shielded by the surrounding hills. The

  otherwise still night was broken only by the faraway sound of the

  catamaran's four diesel engines, which they could detect were now

  throttled up. Like a machine himself, Dirk rhythmically tugged at the

  oars, smoothly dipping the blades in and out of the water in a long,

  efficient stroke. Summer acted as coxswain, offering subtle course

  changes to guide them through the channel in the shortest route

  possible while offering periodic words of encouragement.

  "We're coming up on the second bend," she said. "Pull to your right

  and we should clear the inlet in another thirty meters."

  Dirk continued his even stroke, easing off the left oar with every

  third pull to nose the bow into and through the bend. The beating

  drone of the catamaran's engines grew louder behind them as the speedy

  boat ripped across the cove. Though his limbs ached, Dirk seemed to

  grow stronger with the approach of their adversary, propelling the

  small boat even faster through the flat water.

  The ebony darkness softened around them as they rounded the last bend

  of the inlet and rowed into the expansive breadth of the Han River.

  Patches of starry lights twinkled across the horizon, shining from

  small villages scattered along the river and hillsides. The faint

  lights were the only clue to the river's width, which stretched nearly

  five miles across to the opposite shore. In the late hour of the

  night, traffic on the river was almost nonexistent. Several miles


  downstream sat a handful of small commercial freighters, moored for the

  night while

  waiting to traverse the Han to Seoul at first daylight. A brightly

  illuminated dredge ship was slowly making its way upstream nearly

  across from Dirk and Summer but was still some four miles away.

  Upriver, a small vessel with an array of multicolored lights appeared

  to be moving down the center of the river at a slow pace.

  "Afraid I don't see any passing water taxis," Summer said, scanning the

  dark horizons.

  As Dirk tried to row toward the center of the river, he could feel the

  current pushing them downstream. The river's flow was aided by an

  outgoing tide that pulled at the remains of the Han River as it

  dispersed into the dusky waters of the Yellow Sea. He eased off the

  oars for a moment to survey their options. The dredge ship looked

  appealing, but they would have to fight the crosscurrent to reach it,

  which would be near impossible once they took to the water. Peering

  downriver, he spotted a small cluster of yellow lights on the opposite

  shore twinkling fuzzily through the damp air.

  "Let's try for the village there," he said, pointing an oar in the

  direction of the lights, which were about two miles downstream. "If we

  swim directly across the river, the current should carry us pretty

  close." "Whatever entails the least swimming."

  Unbeknownst to both was the fact that the Korean demarcation line ran

  through this section of the Han River delta. The twinkling lights

  downriver were not a village at all but a heavily garrisoned North

  Korean military patrol boat base.

  Any further contingency planning was suddenly dashed by the abrupt roar