Dirk Pitt18-Black Wind

by Cussler, Clive

  pair of ropes attached to the blimp's nose were pulled taut by three

  men standing off either side of the bow while four additional men

  grabbed onto side rails running the length of the gondola. Directly

  forward of the wide cockpit window that ran nearly to his feet, Pitt

  stared toward the crew chief, who stood at the base of the mobile

  mooring mast. At Pitt's command, the crew chief signaled another

  crewman, standing high atop the mooring mast, to release the nose

  tether. In unison, the ground crew then tugged at the weightless

  blimp, walking it away from the mooring mast several dozen yards to a

  safe launching point clear of obstacles.

  Pitt gave a thumbs-up signal to the crew chief, then reached over and

  pulled down a pair of levers protruding from the center console, increasing the throttle to the twin engines. As the ground crew let

  free of their clutches and moved clear, he gently pulled back on a

  center yoke control mounted in front of his seat. The controls

  manipulated the motor-driven propellers, which were each enclosed in

  swiveling ducts. As he pulled on the yoke, the ducts tilted upward,

  providing additional lift from the churning propellers. Immediately,

  the blimp began to rise, creeping forward as it climbed. Almost

  without the feeling of movement, the big airship rose off the ground

  and into the sky with its nose pointed high. Giordino cheerfully waved

  out an open side window to the ground crew below, who shrank to the

  size of bugs as the airship rapidly gained altitude.

  Despite Giordino's request for a low-flying pass over Malibu, Pitt

  steered the airship directly offshore from Oxnard after leaving the

  grounds of the airport and soon leveled the blimp off at a height of

  twenty-five hundred feet. The Pacific Ocean resonated a deep aqua

  color under a bright sun, and the men easily counted out the northerly

  Channel Islands of Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa, and San Miguel under the

  clear skies. As they floated east, Pitt noticed dew dripping off of

  the blimp, its fabric sides warming under the rays of the morning sun.

  He glanced at a helium pressure gauge, noting a slight rise in the

  needle as the helium expanded from the warming temperatures and higher

  cruising altitude. An automatic venting system would release any

  excess gas if the pressure rose too high, but Pitt kept the blimp well

  below its pressure height so as not to needlessly stave off helium.

  The controls of the Sentinel 1000 were heavy in his hands and he noted

  that the sensation of flying the blimp felt closer to sailing a

  twenty-meter racing yacht than piloting an airplane. Turning the huge

  rudders and elevators required some muscling of the yoke, which

  resulted in an anxious pause before the ship's nose would gradually

  respond. Correcting course, he absentmindedly watched the lines

  dangling off the blimp's nose sway back and forth. A boat bobbed into

  view beneath them, which he recognized as a charter fishing boat. The

  tiny-looking day fishermen on the boat's stern suddenly waved up

  at them with friendly abandon. There was something about an airship

  that always seemed to strike a warm chord with people. They captured

  the romance of the air, Pitt decided, offering a reminder of times past

  when flying was still a novelty. With his hands on the controls, he

  could feel the nostalgia himself. Floating at a leisurely pace over

  the water, he let his mind churn back to the days of the thirties when

  mammoth dirigibles like the Graf Zeppelin and Hindenburg shared the

  skies with the huge Navy airships Akron and Macon. Like the opulent

  cruise ships of the same era, they offered a certain relaxed majesty

  that simply no longer existed in modern travel.

  When they reached a distance of thirty miles offshore, Pitt angled the

  blimp south and began navigating a large, lazy arc off the Los Angeles

  metropolis. Giordino powered up the LASH optical system, tied into a

  laptop computer, which enabled him to spot the images of incoming

  surface vessels up to thirty-five miles away. The freighters and

  containerships came chugging in toward the ports of Los Angeles and

  Long Beach at a sporadic yet endless pace. The big vessels hailed from

  a variety of exotic-sounding home ports from Mumbai to Jakarta, though

  China, Japan, and Taiwan accounted for the largest volume of traffic.

  More than three thousand vessels a year entered the adjacent ports,

  creating a constant stream of traffic that crawled across the Pacific

  toward America's busiest port like ants to a picnic. As Giordino

  studied the laptop, he reported to Pitt that he could spot two large

  vessels inbound in the distance that figured to be commercial ships.

  Squinting out the cockpit window, Pitt could just make out the leading

  vessel on the horizon.

  "Let's go take a look," Pitt replied, aiming the nose of the airship

  toward the approaching ship. Flicking a button on the Coast Guard

  radio set newly installed in the cockpit, he spoke into his headset.

  "Coast Guard Cutter Halibut, this is airship Icarus. We are on

  station

  and preparing to survey two inbound vessels approximately forty-five

  miles due east of Long Beach, over."

  "Roger, Icarus" came a deep-voiced reply. "Glad to have you and your

  eyes in the sky with us. We have three vessels deployed and engaged in

  current interdiction actions. We'll await your surveillance reports on

  new inbound vessels as they approach. Out."

  "Eyes in the sky," Giordino grumbled. "I'd rather be the stomach on

  the sofa," he said, suddenly wondering if anyone had packed them a

  lunch aboard the airship.

  Throughout the night, the Odyssey had churned west, inching her way

  closer to the California coast that she had departed just days before.

  Tongju returned to the platform after resolving the launch position

  dispute and stole a few hours of sleep in the captain's cabin before

  rising an hour before dawn. Under the first trickles of morning light,

  he watched from the bridge as the platform followed in the Koguryo's

  wake, noticing the shadow of a sizable island in the distance off the

  starboard bow. It was San Nicolas Island, a dry and windblown rock

  farthest from shore of all the Channel Islands and owned by the Navy

  for use primarily as an amphibious training site. They continued west

  for another hour before the radio crackled with the voice of Captain

  Lee.

  "We are approaching the location that the Ukrainian engineers have

  indicated. Prepare to halt engines, and we will take up position to

  the southeast of you. We will be standing by to initiate launch

  countdown at your direction."

  "Affirmative," Tongju replied. "We will set position and ballast the

  platform. Stand by for positioning."

  Tongju turned and nodded to one of Kang's undercover crewmen who was

  piloting the Odyssey. With skilled confidence, the helmsman eased off

  the platform's forward-propulsion throttles, then activated

  the self-positioning thrusters. Using a GPS coordinate as a fixed

  target, the computer-controlled system of forward, side, and rear
<
br />   thrusters was activated, locking the Odyssey in a fixed position as if

  parked on a dime.

  "Position control activated," the helmsman barked in a crisp military

  voice. "Initiating ballast flooding," he continued, pushing a series

  of buttons on an illuminated console.

  Two hundred feet below the pilothouse, a series of gate valves were

  automatically opened inside the twin pontoons and a half-dozen ballast

  pumps began rapidly pumping salt water into the hollow steel hulls. The

  flooding was imperceptible to those standing on the platform deck, as

  the computer-controlled pumps ensured an even rate of flooding. On the

  bridge, Tongju studied a computerized three-dimensional image of the

  Odyssey on a monitor, its catamaran hulls and lower columns turning a

  bright blue as the seawater poured in. Like a lethargic elevator ride,

  as the men on the bridge watched rather than felt, the platform sank

  slowly toward the waves. Sixty minutes passed before the platform

  gently dropped forty-six feet, the bottom of its twin hulls submerged

  to a stabilizing depth seventy feet below the surface. Tongju noted

  that the platform had ceased its slow swaying evident earlier. With

  its submerged pontoons and partially sunken pilings, the Odyssey had

  become a rock-stable platform from which to launch a million-pound

  rocket.

  A buzzer sounded as the designated launch depth was attained, the

  rising blue water on the monitor graphic having reached a red

  horizontal line. The helmsman pressed a few more buttons, then stood

  back from the console.

  "Flooding complete. Platform is stabilized for launch," he said.

  "Secure the bridge," Tongju replied, nodding toward a Filipino crewman

  who stood near the radarscope. A guard standing near the door was

  waved over and quickly escorted the crewman off the bridge without

  saying a word. Tongju followed out the rear of the bridge, entering a

  small elevator, which he rode to the floor of the hangar. A dozen or so engineers were hovering around the huge horizontal rocket,

  examining an array of computer stations that were wired directly into

  the launch vehicle. Tongju approached a thick-haired man with round

  glasses named Ling who headed up the launch operations team. Before

  Tongju could speak, Ling gushed with a nervous testimony.

  "We have verified final tests on the payload with positive results. The

  launch vehicle is secure and all electromechanical systems have tested

  nominal."

  "Good. The platform is in the designated position and ballasted for

  launch. Is the rocket ready to be transported to the launch tower?"

  Ling nodded enthusiastically. "We have been awaiting word to proceed.

  We are prepared to initiate launch vehicle transport and erection."

  "There is no reason to dawdle. Proceed at once. Notify me when you

  are ready to evacuate the platform."

  "Yes, of course," Ling replied, then hurried over to a group of nearby

  engineers and spoke at them rapid-fire. Like a band of scared rabbits,

  the engineers scattered in a fury to their collective posts. Tongju

  stood back and watched as the massive hangar doors were opened,

  revealing a railed path across the deck to the standing launch tower at

  the opposite end of the platform. A series of electrical motors were

  then started, which reverberated loudly off the hangar's interior

  walls. Tongju walked behind a console panel and peered over Ling's

  shoulder as the launch leader's hands danced over the control board.

  When a row of lights suddenly glowed green, Ling pointed to another

  engineer, who activated the mobile cradle.

  The two-hundred-foot horizontal rocket rocked sluggishly toward the

  hangar doors, its support cradle creeping forward on a countless mass

  of wheels that churned like the legs of a centipede. With its base

  thrusters leading the way, the rocket crept through the doors and into

  the daylight, its white paint glistening under the morning sun. Tongju

  strolled alongside the rolling launch vehicle, admiring the potent

  power of the huge rocket while amazed at its massive girth in the prone

  position. Several hundred yards away, the Koguryo stood off the

  platform, a throng of crew and engineers craning from her top deck to

  catch a glimpse of the big rocket under way.

  Crossing the open deck, the mechanical caterpillar ground to a halt as

  it reached the base of the launch tower. The upper section of the

  rocket had not completely cleared the hangar and a sliding panel in the

  hangar roof suddenly crept open to provide clearance. The transporter

  was locked securely in place to the deck and then the erector

  mechanicals were engaged, activating hydraulic pumps that pushed gently

  against the rocket's cradle. With delicate patience, the launch

  vehicle was slowly tilted upright, its nose sliding through the hangar

  roof opening, until it stood vertically against the launch tower. A

  series of support braces clamped the rocket to the platform, while a

  jumble of fuel, cooling, and venting lines were affixed and checked.

  Several workmen on the tower plugged in a series of data cables that

  allowed the engineers on the Koguryo to monitor the dozens of

  electronic sensors embedded under the rocket's skin. Once the Zenit

  was affixed upright, the erector transporter support cradle was gently

  eased away, leaving the rocket braced only by the launch tower. With a

  hydraulic murmur, the cradle was slowly lowered to its original

  horizontal position and returned to the hangar, where it would be

  sheltered out of harm's way during launch.

  Ling spoke anxiously by radio to the Launch Control Center on the

  Koguryo before dashing over to Tongju.

  "Some minor anomalies, but, overall, the launch vehicle meets all major

  prelaunch parameters."

  Tongju looked up at the towering rocket with its payload of deadly

  virus, aimed to rain death on millions of innocent people. The

  suffering and deaths meant nothing to him, a man purged of emotional

  empathy decades ago. The power he felt before him was all that

  mattered, a power greater than he had ever known before, and he

  relished the moment. Gradually, his eyes played down from the tip of

  the

  rocket to its base, then swept slowly across the breadth of the plat

  form, before settling on Ling. The engineer stood waiting anxiously

  for a reply. Tongju let Ling wallow in discomfort a moment longer before breaking the silence in a deep, firm tone. "Very well," he said.

  "Begin the countdown."

  The crew OF the Deep Endeavor had quickly found interdiction support

  duty to be a monotonous assignment. After two days on station, they

  had only been requested to board and search one ship, a small freighter

  from the Philippines carrying a shipment of hardwood timber. The

  commercial shipping traffic that approached Los Angeles from the

  southwest had been light and ably handled by the nearby Coast Guard

  cutter Narwhal. The NUMA crew preferred to be put to work rather than

  circle aimlessly waiting for action and quietly hoped traffic would

  pick up in their quadrant.

  In the
ship's galley, Dirk sat sipping a cup of coffee with Summer

  while she studied a report on coral mortality in the Great Barrier Reef

  when a crewman approached and told them that they were wanted on the

  bridge.

  "We've received a call from the Narwhal," Delgado reported. "They're

  halfway through a container vessel search and asked us to confirm identification on a vessel approaching west of Catalina and

  then stand by for possible interdiction."

  "No advance identification from our eye-in-the-sky?" Dirk asked.

  "Your father and Al took off in the Icarus this morning. They're

  working their way down from the north and will probably make a pass

  through our quadrant within the next couple of hours."

  Summer peered out the bridge window to the north, spotting the Narwhal

  bobbing alongside a large containership that rode low in the water from

  its heavy cargo. Farther west, she spotted a red speck approaching on

  the horizon. The Deep Endeavor's pilot was already steering an

  intercept course toward it.

  "Is that her?" Summer asked, pointing a finger toward the object.

  "Yes," Delgado replied. "The Narwhal has already radioed her to halt,

  so we'll intercept her after she's had a chance to slow. She's

  reported herself as the Maru Santo out of Osaka."

  An hour later, the Deep Endeavor hove to alongside the Maru Santo, a

  rusty, multipurpose cargo freighter of small size by inter-Pacific

  standards. Aimes's Sea Marshal team, along with Summer, Dahlgren, and

  three other NUMA crewmen, climbed into a small launch and motored over

  to the freighter, tying up to a rust-stained stairwell that was lowered

  over the side. Having made fast friends with the bomb-sniffing dogs,

  Summer quickly volunteered to take the leash of one of the retrievers.

  As Aimes and Dahlgren met with the freighter's captain to review the