Clive Cussler dp-6

by Night Probe!

  "But not national security," said Mercier, a cool edge on his voice.

  "Nothing personal, Alan. I only added to the inner circle as each stage progressed."

  "So now it's my turn."

  The President nodded. "I want you and your staff to recruit and organize influential Canadians who see things as I do."

  Mercier dabbed a handkerchief at the sweat glistening on his face. "Good God. If this thing backfires and your announcement of national insolvency follows on its heels…...?" He let the implication hang.

  "It won't," the President said grimly.

  "You may have reached too far."

  "But if it is accepted, at least in principle, think of the opportunities."

  "You'll get your first indication when you spring it on the Canadian Parliament on Monday."

  "Yes, it'll be out in the open then." Mercier laid the folder on the table. "I have to hand it to you, Mr. President. When you sat silent and refused to intervene in Quebec's bid for independence, I thought you'd slipped a cog. Now I'm beginning to see the method behind your madness."

  "We've only opened the first door"-the President waxed philosophical-"to a long hallway."

  "Don't you think you're counting too heavily on finding the North American Treaty?"

  "Yes, I suppose you're right." The President stared out the window at Washington without seeing it. "But if a miracle happens on the Hudson River by Monday, we may have the privilege of designing a new flag."

  The sky hook was just what its name suggested: a helicopter capable of transporting bulky equipment to the tops of high buildings and heavy equipment across rivers and mountains. Its slender fuselage tapered to a length of 105 feet and the landing gear hung down like rigid stalks.

  To the men on the salvage site the ungainly craft looked like a monstrous praying mantis that had escaped from a Japanese science fiction movie. They watched fascinated as it flew two hundred feet above the river, the huge rotor blades whipping the water into froth from shore to shore.

  The sight was made even stranger by the wedge-shaped object that hung suspended from the sky hook's belly. Except for Pitt and Giordino, it was the first time any of the NUMA crew had set eyes on the Doodlebug.

  Pitt directed the lowering operation by radio, instructing the pilot to set his load beside the De Soto. The sky hook very slowly halted its forward motion and hovered for a few minutes until the Doodlebug's pendulum motion died. Then the twin cargo cables unreeled, easing the research vessel into the river. When the strain slackened, the De Soto's crane was swung over the side and divers scrambled up the ladder on the vertical hull. The cable hooks were exchanged on the hoisting loops and, free of its burden, the sky hook rose, banked into a broad half circle and headed back downriver.

  Everyone stood along the rails gawking at the Doodlebug, wondering about its purpose. Suddenly, adding to their silent bewilderment, a hatch popped open, a head appeared and a pair of heavy-lidded eyes surveyed the astonished onlookers. "Where in hell is Pitt?" the intruder shouted.

  "Here!" Pitt yelled back.

  "Guess what?"

  "You found another bottle of snakebite medicine in your bunk."

  "How'd you know?" Sam Quayle replied, laughing.

  "Lasky with you?"

  "Below, rewiring the ballast controls to operate in shallow water.

  "You took a chance, riding inside all the way from Boston."

  "Maybe, but we saved time by activating the electronic systems during the flight."

  "How soon before you're ready to dive?"

  "Give us another hour."

  Chase moved beside Giordino. "Just what is that mechanical perversion?" he asked.

  "If you had any idea what it cost," Giordino answered with an imperturbable smile, "you wouldn't call it nasty names."

  Three hours later-the Doodlebug, its top hatches rippling the water ten feet beneath the surface, crawled slowly across the riverbed. The suspense inside was hard to bear as the hull skirted dangerously close to the gnarled pieces of the bridge.

  Pitt kept a close eye on the video monitors while Bill Lasky maneuvered the craft against the current. Behind them, Quayle peered at a systems panel, focusing his attention on the detection readouts.

  "Any contact?" Pitt asked for the fourth time.

  "Negative," answered Quayle. "I've widened the beam to cover a twenty-meter path at a depth of one hundred meters into the geology, but all I read is bedrock."

  "We've worked too far upriver," Pitt said, turning to Lasky. "Bring it around for another pass."

  "Approaching from a new angle," acknowledged Lasky, his hands busy with the knobs and switches of the control console.

  Five more times the Doodlebug threaded its way through the sunken debris. Twice they heard wreckage scraping along the hull. Pitt was all too aware that if the thin skin was penetrated, he would be blamed for the loss of the six-hundred-million dollar vessel.

  Quayle seemed immune to the peril. He was infuriated that his instrument remained mute. He was particularly angry at himself for thinking the fault was his.

  "Must be a malfunction," he muttered. "I should have had a target by now."

  "Can you isolate the problem?" Pitt asked.

  "No, dammit!" Quayle abruptly snapped. "All systems are functioning normally. I must have miscalculated when I reprogrammed the computers."

  The expectations of a quick discovery began to dim. Frustration was worsened by false hopes and anticipation. Then, as they turned around for another run through the search grid, the never current surged against the exposed starboard area of the Doodlebug and swept its keel into a mud bank Lasky struggled with the controls for nearly an hour before the vessel worked free.

  Pitt was giving the coordinates for a new course when Giordino's voice came over the communications speaker. "De Soto to Doodlebug. Do you read?"

  "Speak," said Pitt tersely.

  "You guys have been pretty quiet."

  "Nothing to report," Pitt answered.

  "You better close up shop. A heavy storm front is moving in. Chase would like to secure our electronic marvel before the wind strikes."

  Pitt hated to give up, but it was senseless to continue. Time had run out. Even if they found the train in the next few hours, it was doubtful if the salvage crew could pinpoint and excavate the coach that carried Essex and the treaty before the President's address to Parliament.

  "Okay," said Pitt. "Make ready to receive us. We're folding the act.

  Giordino stood on the bridge and nodded at the dark clouds massing over the ship. "This project has had a curse on it from the beginning," he mumbled gloomily. "As if we don't have enough problems, now it's the weather."

  "Somebody up there plain doesn't like us," said Chase, pointing to the sky.

  "You blaming God, you heathen?" Giordino joked goodnaturedly.

  "No," answered Chase looking solemn. "The ghost."

  Pitt turned. "Ghost?"

  "An unmentionable subject around here," said Chase. "Nobody likes to admit they've seen it."

  "Speak for yourself." Giordino cracked a smile. "I've only heard the thing."

  "Its light was brighter than hell when it swung up the old grade to the bridge the other night. The beam lit up half the east shoreline. I don't see how you missed it."

  "Wait a minute," Pitt broke in. "are you talking about the phantom train?"

  Giordino stared at him. "You know?"

  "Doesn't everyone?" Pitt asked in mock seriousness."

  "Tis said the specter of the doomed train is still trying to cross the Deauville-Hudson bridge to the other side."

  "You don't believe that?" Chase asked cautiously.

  "I believe there is something up on the old track bed that goes chug in the night. In fact, it damn near ran over me."

  "When?"

  "A couple of months ago when I came here to survey the site."

  Giordino shook his head. "At least we won't go to the loony bin alone."

  "How
often has the ghost called on you?"

  Giordino looked at Chase for support. "Two, no, three times."

  "You say some nights you heard sounds but saw no lights?"

  "The first two intrusions came with steam whistles and the roar of a locomotive," explained Chase. "The third time we got the full treatment. The clamor was accompanied by a blinding light."

  "I saw the light too," Pitt said slowly. "What were your weather conditions?"

  Chase thought a moment. "As I recall, it was clear and blacker than pitch when the light showed."

  "That's right," added Giordino. "The noise came alone only on nights the moon was bright."

  "Then we've got a pattern," said Pitt. "There was no moon during my sighting."

  "All this talk about ghosts isn't putting us any closer to finding the real train," said Giordino blandly. "I suggest we get back to reality and figure a way to get under the bridge wreckage in the next"-he hesitated and consulted his watch- "seventy-four hours."

  "I have another suggestion," said Pitt.

  "Which is?"

  "To hell with it."

  Giordino looked at him, ready to smile if Pitt was joking. But he was not.

  "What are you going to tell the President?"

  A strange, distant look came over Pitt's face. "The President?" he repeated vaguely. "I'm going to tell him we've been fishing in the air, wasting an enormous amount of time and money searching for an illusion."

  "What are you getting at?"

  "The Manhattan Limited," Pitt replied. "It doesn't lie on the bottom of the Hudson River. It never has."

  The setting sun was suddenly snuffed out by the clouds. The sky went dark and menacing. Pitt and Giordino stood on the old track bed, listening to the deep rumbling of the storm as it drew closer. And then lightning crackled and the thunder echoed and the rain came.

  The wind swept through the trees with a demonic whine. The humid air was oppressive and charged with electricity. Soon the light was gone and there was no color, only black pierced by brief streaks of white. Raindrops, hurled in horizontal sheets by wind gusts, struck their faces with the stinging power of sand.

  Pitt tightened the collar of his raincoat, hunched his shoulders against the tempest and stared into the night.

  "How can you be sure it will appear?" Giordino shouted over the gale.

  "Conditions are the same as the night the train vanished," Pitt shouted back. "I'm banking on the ghost having a melodramatic sense of timing."

  "I'll give it another hour," said a thoroughly miserable Chase. "And then I'm heading back to the boat and a healthy slug of Jack Daniel's."

  Pitt motioned them to follow. "Come on, let's take a hike down the track bed."

  Reluctantly Chase and Giordino fell in behind. The lightning became almost incessant and, seen from shore, the De Soto looked like a gray ghost herself. A great shaft of brilliance flashed for an instant across the river behind her and she became a black outline. The only sign of life was the white light on the mast that burned defiantly through the downpour.

  After about half a mile, Pitt halted and tilted his head as if listening. "I think I hear something."

  Giordino cupped his hands to his ears. He waited until the last thunderclap died over the rolling hills. Then he heard it too: the mournful wail of a train whistle.

  "You called it," said Chase. "It's right on schedule."

  No one spoke for several seconds as the sound grew closer, and then there came the clang of a bell and the puff of the exhaust. It was drowned out momentarily by another burst of thunder. Chase swore later that he could feel time grinding to a stop.

  At that moment a light came around a curve and washed its beam on them, the rays eerily distorted by the rain. They stood there, each seeing the yellow reflections on the face of the others.

  They stared ahead, disbelieving, yet certain it was not a trick of their imaginations. Giordino turned to say something to Pitt and was astounded to see him smiling, actually smiling at the expanding blaze.

  "Don't move," Pitt said with incredible calm. "Turn around, close your eyes and cover them with your hands so you aren't blinded by the glare."

  Instinct dictated they do just the opposite. The urge for selfpreservation, to run or at least throw themselves flat on the ground tore at their conscious senses. Their only bond with courage was Pitt's firm words.

  "Steady…... steady. Be ready to open your eyes when I yell.

  God, it was unnerving.

  Giordino tensed for the impact that would smash his flesh and bones into a ghastly spray of crimson and white. He made up his mind he was going to die, and that was that. The deafening clangor was upon them, assaulting their ear drums. They felt as though they had been thrust into some strange vacuum where twentieth-century reasoning lost all relevance.

  Then, as if by magic, the impossible thing passed over them. "Now!" Pitt shouted above the din.

  They all dropped their hands and stared, eyes still adjusted to the dark.

  The light was now aimed away and traveling down the abandoned track bed, the locomotive sound diminishing in its wake. They could clearly see a black rectangle centered in the glow about eight feet off the ground. They watched fascinated as it grew smaller in the distance and then turned up the grade to the bridge, where it blinked out and the accompanying clatter died into the storm. "What in hell was that?" Chase finally muttered.

  "An antique locomotive headlamp and an amplifier," answered Pitt.

  "Oh, yeah?" grunted Giordino skeptically. "Then how does it float in mid-air?"

  "On a wire strung from the old telegraph poles."

  "Too bad there has to be a logical explanation," said Chase, sadly shaking his head. "I hate to see good supernatural legends debunked."

  Pitt gestured toward the sky. "Keep looking. Your legend should be returning anytime now."

  They grouped around the nearest telegraph pole and stared upward into the darkness. A minute later a black shape emerged and slipped noiselessly through the air above them. Then it melted back into the shadows and was gone. "Fooled hell out of me," Giordino admitted.

  "Where did the thing come from?" asked Chase.

  Pitt didn't answer immediately. He suddenly stood illuminated by a lightning strike in a distant field; the flash revealed a contemplative look on his face. Finally he said, "You know what I think?"

  "No, what?"

  "I think we should all have a cup of coffee and a slice of hot apple pie."

  By the time they knocked on Ansel Magee's door they looked like drowned rats. The big sculptor cordially invited them in and took their wet coats. While Pitt made the introductions, Annie Magee, true to expectations, hurried into the kitchen to rustle up coffee and pie, only this time it was cherry.

  "What brings you gentlemen out on such a miserable night?" asked Magee.

  "We were chasing ghosts," Pitt replied.

  Magee's eyes narrowed. "Any luck?"

  "May we talk about it in the depot office?"

  Magee nodded agreeably. "Of course. Come, come."

  It took little urging for him to regale Chase and Giordino with the history behind the office and its former occupants. As he talked, he built a fire in the potbellied stove. Pitt sat silently at Sam Harding's old rolltop desk. He'd heard the lecture before and his mind was elsewhere.

  Magee was in the midst of pointing out the bullet in Hiram Meecham's chessboard when Annie entered, carrying a tray with cups and plates.

  After the last scrap of pie was gone, Magee looked across the office at Pitt. "You never did say whether you found a ghost."

  "No," Pitt replied. "No ghost. But we did find a clever rig that fakes the phantom train."

  Magee's broad shoulders drooped and he shrugged. "I always knew someone would discover the secret someday. I even had the local folks fooled. Not that any of them minded. They're all quite proud of having a ghost they can call their own. Sort of gives them something to brag about to the tourists."

 
"When did you get wise to it?" Annie asked.

  "The night I came to your door. Earlier I was standing on the bridge abutment when you sent the phantom on a run. Just before it reached me the lamp blinked out and the sound shut down."

  "You saw how it worked then?"

  "No, I was blinded by the glare. By the time my eyes readjusted to the dark it was long gone. Baffled the hell out of me at first. My gut instinct was to search the ground level. That only added to my confusion when I failed to find tracks in the snow. But I'm a man with a curious streak. I wondered why the old railbed was torn up and hauled away down to the last cross tie and yet the telegraph poles were left standing. Railroad officials are a tightfisted lot. They don't like to leave any reusable equipment behind when they abandon a right-of-way. I began following the poles until I came to the last one in line. It stands at the door of a shed beside your private track. I also noticed that the headlamp was missing from your locomotive."

  "I have to give you credit, Mr. Pitt," said Magee. "You're the first to hit upon the truth."

  "How does the thing operate?" asked Giordino.

  "The same principle as a chair lift on a ski slope," Magee explained. "The headlamp and a set of four speakers hang suspended from a continuous cable strung along the crossbars of the telegraph poles. When the light and sound package reaches the edge of the old Deauville bridge, a remote switch shuts off the batteries and then it makes a hundred-and-eighty-degree turn and returns to the shed."

  "Why was it that some nights we only heard the sound but saw no lights?" asked Chase.

  "The locomotive headlamp is rather large," answered Magee. "It's too easily detectable. So on moonlit nights I remove it and run only the sound system."

  Giordino smiled broadly. "I don't mind admitting, Chase and I were ready to take up religion the first time it paid us a visit."

  "I hope I didn't cause you any unnecessary inconvenience."

  "Not at all. It was a great source of conversation."

  "Annie and I stand on the riverbank nearly every day and watch your salvage operation. Looks to me like you've experienced problems. Have any pieces of the Manhattan Limited been pulled up yet?"