Deep Six

  Deep Six

  By Clive Cussler

  eBook created by: cdog

  The Pacific Ocean

  The girl shaded the sun from her brown eyes and stared at a large pelican gliding above the ship's after cargo boom.

  She admired the bird's soaring grace for a few minutes, then, growing bored, she rose to a sitting position, revealing evenly spaced red bars across her tanned back, etched there by the slats of an ancient steamer chair.

  She looked around for signs of the deck crew, but they were nowhere in sight, so she shyly shifted her breasts to a more comfortable position inside the scoop-necked bra of her bikini.

  Her body was hot and sweaty from the humid tropical air. She moved her hand across her firm stomach and felt the sweat rising through the skin. She sat back in the chair again, soothed and relaxed, the throbbing beat of the old freighter's engines and the heavy warmth of the sun coaxing her into drowsiness.

  The fear that churned inside her when she came on board had faded.

  She no longer lay awake to the pounding of her heart, or searched the crew's faces for expressions of suspicion, or waited for the captain to grimly inform her that she was under ship's arrest. She was slowly closing her mind to her crime and beginning to think about the future.

  She was relieved to find that guilt was a fleeting emotion after all.

  Out of the corner of her eye she caught the white jacket of the Oriental mess boy as he stepped from a companionway. He approached apprehensively, his eyes staring down at the deck, as if he was embarrassed to look at her nearly nude figure.

  "Excuse me, Miss Wallace, he said. "Captain Masters respectfully requests you please dine with him and his officers tonight-if you are feeling better, that is."

  Estelle Wallace was thankful her deepening tan covered her blush.

  She had feigned illness since embarking in San Francisco and had taken all her meals alone in her stateroom to avoid any conversation with the ship's officers. She decided she couldn't remain a recluse forever.

  The time had come to practice living a lie.

  "Tell Captain Masters I feel much better. I'll be delighted to dine with him."

  "He'll be glad to hear that," the mess boy said with a broad smile that revealed a large gap in the middle of his upper teeth. "I'll see the cook fixes you something special."

  He turned and shuffled away with a gait that seemed to Estelle a trifle too obsequious, even for an Asian.

  Secure in her decision, she idly stared up at the three-deck-high ship superstructure of the San Marino. The sky was remarkably blue above the black smoke curling from the single stack, contrasting starkly with the flaking white paint on the bulkheads.

  "A stout ship," the captain had boasted when he led her to a stateroom. He reassuringly ticked off her history and statistics, as if Estelle were a frightened passenger on her first canoe rine down the rapins.

  Built during 1943 to the standard Liberty ship design, the San Marino had carried military supplies across the Atlantic to England, making the round-trip crossing sixteen times. On one occasion, when she had strayed from the convoy she was struck by a torpedo, but she refused to sink and made it under her own power to Liverpool.

  Since the war she had tramped the oceans of the world under the registry of Panamanian-one of thirty ships owned by the Manx Steamship Company of New York, plying in and out of backwater ports. Measuring 441 feet in length overall, with a raked stern and cruiser stern, she plodded through the Pacific swells at eleven knots. With only a few more profitable years left in her, the San Marino mould eventually end up as scrap.

  Rust streaked her steel skin. She looked as sodden as a Bowery hooker, but in the eyes of Estelle Wallace she was virgin and beautiful.

  Already Estelle's past was blurring. With each revolution of the worn engines, the gap winened between Estelle's drab life of self denial and an eagerly sought fantasy.

  The first step of Arta Casilighio's metamorphosis into Estelle Wallace was when she discovered a lost passport wedged under the seat of a Wilshire Boulevard bus during the Los Angeles evening rush hour.

  Without really knowing why, Arta slipped it into her purse and took it home.

  Days later, she had still not returned the document to the bus driver or mailed it to the rightful owner. She studied the pages with their foreign stamps for hours at a time. The face in the photo intrigued her. Although more stylishly made up, it bore a startling resemblance to her own. Both women were about the same age-less than eight months separated their birthdays. The brown shade of their eyes matched, and except for a difference in, hairstyles and a few shades of tint, they might have passed for sisters.

  She began to make herself up to look like Estelle Wallace, an alter ego that could escape, mentally at least, to the exotic places of the world that were denied timings, mousy Arta Casilighio.

  One evening after closing hours at the bank where she worked, she found her eyes locked on the stacks of newly printed currency delivered that afternoon from the Federal Reserve Bank in downtown Los Angeles.

  She had become so used to handling large sums of money during her four-year tenure that she was immune to the mere sight-a lassitude that afflicts all tellers sooner or later. Yet inexplicably, this time the piles of green-printed tender beguiled her. Subconsciously she began to picture it as belonging to her.

  Arta went home that weekend and locked herself in her apartment to fortify her resolve and plan the crime she intended to commit, practicing every gesture, every motion until they came smoothly to her without hesitation. All Sunday night she lay awake until the alarm went off, bathed in cold sweat, but determined to see the act through.

  The cash shipment arrived every Monday by armored car and usually totaled from six to eight hundred thousand dollars. It was then re-counted and held until distribution on Wednesday to the bank's branch offices, scattered throughout the Los Angeles basin.

  She had decided the time to make her move was on Monday evening, while she was putting her money drawer in the vault.

  In the morning, after she showered and made up her face, Arta donned a pair of panty hose. She wound a roll of two-sided sticky tape around her legs from min-calf to the top of her thighs, leaving the protective outer layer of the tape in place. This odd bit of handiwork was covered with a long skirt that came almost to her ankles, hining the tape with inches to spare.

  Next she took neatly trimmed packets of bond paper and slipped them into a large pouch-style purse. Each displayed a crisp new five-dollar bill on the outer sides and was bound with genuine blue and white Federal Reserve Bank wrappers. To the casual eye they would appear authentic.

  Arta stood in front of a full-length mirror and repeated over and over, "Arta Casilighio no longer exists. You are now Estelle Wallace."

  The deception seemed to work. She felt her muscles relax, and her breathing became slower, shallower. Then she took a deep breath, threw back her shoulders and left for work.

  In her anxiety to appear normal she inadvertently arrived at the bank ten minutes early, an astounding event to all who knew her well, but this was Monday morning and no one took notice. Once she settled behind her teller's counter every minute seemed an hour, every hour a lifetime. She felt strangely detached from the familiar surroundings, and yet any thought of forgetting the hazardous scheme was quickly suppressed. Mercifully, fear and panic remained dormant.

  When six o'clock finally rolled around, and one of the assistant vice presidents closed and locked the massive front doors, she quickly balanced her cash box and slipped quietly off to the ladies' room, where in the privacy of a stall she unwound the tape's outer layer from around her legs and flushed it down the toilet. She then took the bogus money packets and fixed them to the tape, stamping her feet to make certain
none would drop off as she walked.

  Satisfied everything was ready, she came out and dawdled in the lobby until the other tellers had placed their cash drawers in the vault and left. Two minutes alone inside that great steel cubicle was all she needed and two minutes alone was what she got.

  Swiftly she pulled up the skirt and with precise movements exchanged the phony packets for those containing genuine bills.

  When she stepped out of the vault and smiled a good evening to the assistant vice President as he nodded her out a side door, she couldn't believe she'd actually gotten away with it.

  Seconds after entering her apartment, she shed the skirt, stripped the money packets from her legs and counted them. The tally came to $51,000.

  Not nearly enough.

  Disappointment burned within her. She would need at least twice that sum to leave the country and maintain a minimal level of comfort while increasing the lion's share through investments.

  The ease of the operation had made her heady. did she dare make another foray into the vault? she wondered. The Federal Reserve Bank money was already counted and wouldn't be distributed to the branch banks until Wednesday. Tomorrow was Tuesday. She still had another chance to strike again before the loss was discovered.

  Why not?

  The thought of ripping off the same bank twice in two days excited her. Perhaps Arta Casilighio lacked the guts for it, but Estelle Wallace required no coaxing at all.

  That evening she bought a large old-fashioned suitcase at a secondhand store and made a false bottom in it. She packed the money along with her clothes and took a cab to the Los Angeles International Airport, where she stored the suitcase overnight in a locker and purchased a ticket to San Francisco on an early-evening Tuesday flight.

  Wrapping her unused Monday night ticket in a newspaper, she dropped it in a trash receptacle. With nothing remaining to be done, she went home and slept like a rock.

  The second robbery went as smoothly as the first. Three hours after leaving the Beverly-Wilshire Bank for the last time, she was re-counting the money in a San Francisco hotel. The combined total came to $128,000. Not a staggering prize by inflationary standards, but more than ample for her needs.

  The next step was relatively simple. She checked through the newspapers for ship departures and found the San Marino, a cargo freighter bound for Auckland, New Zealand, at six-thirty the following morning.

  An hour before sailing time, she mounted the gangplank. The captain claimed he seldom took passengers, but kindly consented to take her on board for a mutually agreed fare-which Estelle suspected went into his wallet instead of the steamship company's coffers.

  Estelle stepped across the threshold of the officers' dining saloon and paused uncertainly for a moment, facing the appraising stares of six men sitting in the room.

  Her coppery-tinted hair fell past her shoulders and nearly matched her tan. She wore a long, sleek pink T-shirt dress that clung in all the right places. A white bone bracelet was her only accessory. To the officers rising to their feet the simple elegance of her appearance created a sensation.

  Captain Irwin Masters, a tall man with graying hair, came over and took her arm. "Miss Wallace," he said, smiling warmly. "It's good to see you looking fit."

  "I think the worst is over," she said.

  "I don't mind admitting, I was beginning to worry. Not leaving your cabin for five days made me fear the worst. With no doctor on board, we would have been in a fix if you needed medical treatment."

  "Thank you," she said softly.

  He looked at her in mild surprise. "Thank me, for what?"

  "For your concern." She gave his arm a gentle squeeze. "It's been a long time since anyone worried about me."

  He nodded and winked. "That's what ship captains are for."

  Then he turned to the other officers. "Gentlemen, may I present Miss Estelle Wallace, who is gracing us with her lovely presence until we dock in Auckland."

  The introductions were made. She was amused by the fact that most of the men were numbered. The first officer, the second officer-even a fourth. They all shook her hand as if it were made of delicate china-all except the engineering officer, a short ox-shouldered man with a Slavic accent. He stiffly bent over and kissed the tips of her fingers.

  The first officer motioned at the mess boy, who was standing behind a small mahogany bar. "Miss Wallace, what's your pleasure?"

  "Would it be possible to have a daiquiri? I'm in the mood for something sweet."

  "Absolutely," the first officer replied. "The San Marino may not be a luxurious cruise liner, but we do run the finest cocktail bar in this latitude of the Pacific."

  "Be honest," the captain admonished good-naturedly. "You neglected to mention we're probably the only ship in this latitude."

  "A mere detail." The first officer shrugged. "Lee, one of your famous daiquiris for the young lady."

  Estelle watched with interest as the mess boy expertly squeezed the lime and poured the ingredients. Every movement came with a flourish. The frothy drink tasted good, and she had to fight a desire to down it all at once.

  "Lee," she said, "you're a marvel."

  "He is that," said Masters. "We were lucky to sign him on."

  Estelle took another sip of her drink. "You seem to have a number of Orientals in your crew."

  "Replacements," Masters explained. "Ten of the crew jumped ship after we docked in San Francisco. Fortunately, Lee and nine of his fellow Koreans arrived from the maritime hiring hall before sailing time."

  "All damned queer, if you ask me," the second officer grunted.

  Masters shrugged. "Crew members jumping ship in port has been going on since Cro-Magnon man built the first raft. Nothing queer about it."

  The second officer shook his head doubtfully. "One or two maybe, but not ten! The San Marino is a tight ship, and the captain here is a fair skipper. There was no reason for a mass exodus."

  "The way of the sea." Masters sighed. "The Koreans are clean, hardworking seamen. I wouldn't trade them for half the cargo in our holds."

  "That's a pretty stiff price," muttered the engineering officer.

  "Is it improper," Estelle ventured, to ask what cargo you're carrying?"

  "Not at all," the very young fourth officer offered eagerly. "In San Francisco our holds were loaded with-"

  "Titanium ingots," Captain Masters cut in.

  "Eight million dollars worth," Handed the first officer, eyeing the fourth sternly.

  "Once again, please," Estelle said, handing her empty glass to the mess boy. She turned back to Masters. "I've heard of titanium, but I have no idea what it's used for."

  "When properly processed in pure form, titanium becomes stronger and lighter than steel, an asset that puts it in great demand by builders of jet aircraft engines. It's also widely used in the manufacture of paints, rayon and plastics. I suspect you even have traces of it in your cosmetics."

  The cook, an anemic-looking Oriental with a sparkling white apron leaned through a side door and nodded at Lee, who in turn tapped a glass with a mixing spoon.

  "Dinner ready to be served," he said in his heavily accented English, while flashing his gap-toothed smile.

  it was a fabulous meal, one Estelle promised herself never to forget. To be surrounded by six handsomely uniformed-ned and attentive men was all that her female vanity could endure in one evening.

  After a demitasse, Captain Masters excused himself and headed for the bridge. One by one, the other officers drifted off to their duties, and Estelle took a tour of the deck with the engineering officer. He entertained her with tales of sea superstitions, eerie monsters of the deep and funny tinbits of scuttlebutt about the crew that made her laugh.

  At last they reached the door of her stateroom, and he gallantly kissed her hand again. She accepted when he asked her to join him for breakfast in the morning.

  She entered the tiny cabin, clicked the lock on the door and switched on the overhead light. Then she closed the c
urtain tightly over the single porthole, pulled the suitcase from under the bed and opened it.

  The top tray contained her cosmetics and carelessly jumbled under things, and she removed it. Next came several neatly folded blouses and skirts. These she also removed and set aside to later steam out the wrinkles in the shower. Gently inserting a nail file around the edges of the false bottom of the suitcase, she pried it up.

  Then she sat back and sighed with relief. The money was still there, stacked and bound in the Federal Reserve Bank wrappers.

  She had hardly spent any of it.

  She stood up and slipped her dress over her head-daringly, she wore nothing beneath-and collapsed across the bed, hands behind her head.

  She closed her eyes and tried to picture the shocked expressions on her supervisors' faces when they discovered the money and reliable little Arta Casilighio missing at the same time. -She had fooled them all! She felt a strange, almost sexual, thrill at knowing the FBI would post her on their list of most wanted criminals. The investigators would question all her friends and neighbors, search all her old haunts, check a thousand and one banks for sudden large deposits of consecutively numbered bills-but they would come up dry.