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  Julia told them everything she had witnessed since leaving China. But she couldn't explain how or why the man from NUMA came to be under the catamaran at the exact moment she and the others were dropped into the cold waters of the lake, nor could she explain why he made a reconnaissance of the prison building on his own initiative. She did not know his incentive. It was as though Pitt's involvement was a dream sequence. How else could she explain his presence and actions on Orion Lake? Finally, she ended her account by saying his name, her voice trailing off into silence.

  "Dirk Pitt, the special projects director for NUMA?" Harper blurted.

  Russell turned to Harper, who was staring at Julia in disbelief. "It's true. Pitt was the one who helped reveal the retreat as a prison and provided the people in our district office in Seattle with vital information to conduct the raid. Without his timely appearance and exceptional courage, Agent Lee would have died and the mass killing at Orion Lake would have gone on indefinitely. Thanks to him, the macabre operation was exposed, enabling our Seattle district office to shut it down."

  Harper looked at Julia steadily. "A man materializes in the dead of night underwater who is not a trained undercover agent nor a member of the Special Forces but a marine engineer with the National Underwater and Marine Agency and singlehandedly kills the crew of a murder boat and destroys a yacht and an entire dock. Then he leads you through a gauntlet of smugglers who strafe a boatload of illegal immigrants from light aircraft while they're speeding down a river in a seventy-year-old boat. An incredible story, to say the least, Ms. Lee."

  "And every word of it true," said Julia firmly.

  "Commissioner Monroe and I met with Admiral Sandecker of NUMA only a few nights ago, asking for their help in combating Qin Shang's smuggling operation. It seems unimaginable that they could have acted so quickly."

  "Although we never had time to compare notes, I'm certain Dirk acted on his own without orders from his superior."

  By the time Harper and Russell had asked her a barrage of questions and changed the cassette in the recorder four times, Julia was fighting a losing battle with fatigue. She had journeyed far beyond the call of duty, and now all she wanted was sleep. After her face returned to an assemblage of normality, she hoped to see her family, but not before.

  Almost in a trancelike state, she wondered how Dirk Pitt would have described the events had he been there. She smiled, knowing that he would have probably reacted by making a joke out of the whole exploit, making light of his actions and participation. How odd, she thought, that I can predict his reactions and thoughts when I knew him for less than a few hours.

  "You've been through more than any of us had any right to expect," said Russell, seeing that Julia was having a hard time keeping her eyes open.

  "You're a credit to the service," Harper said sincerely as he switched off the recorder. "A fine report. Because of you an important link in the smuggling of illegal immigrants is history."

  "They'll just pop up somewhere else," said Julia, stifling a yawn.

  Russell shrugged. "Too bad we don't have enough evidence to convict Qin Shang in an international court of law."

  Julia suddenly became alert. "What are you saying? Not enough evidence? I have proof the phony cruise ship, filled with illegal aliens, was registered to Qin Shang Maritime Limited. That alone, plus the bodies lying in Orion Lake, should be enough to indict and convict Qin Shang."

  Harper shook his head. "We checked. The ship was legally registered to an obscure shipping company in Korea. And though Shang's representatives handled all real-estate transactions, the Orion Lake property is in the name of a holding company in Vancouver, Canada, by the name of Nanchang Investments. Offshore corporations with one dummy corporation leading to another in different countries is quite common, and makes it tough to trace the thread to the mother company and its owner, directors and stockholders. As rotten as it sounds, no international court of law would convict Qin Shang."

  Julia looked vacantly through the window of her room. Between two buildings she could just make out the gray, ominous buildings of Alca-traz, the famous and now abandoned prison. "Then everything," she said disgustedly, "the sacrifice of innocent people in the lake, my ordeal, Pitt's heroic efforts, the raid on the retreat-all for nothing. Qin Shang will laugh up his sleeve and go on operating as if it was all a minor inconvenience."

  "On the contrary," Harper assured her. "Your information is invaluable. Nothing comes easy, and it will take time, but sooner or later we're going to put Qin Shang and his kind out of business."

  "Peter is right," added Russell. "We've only won a minor skirmish in the war, but we've cut off an important tentacle of the octopus. We also have a new insight into China's smuggling-operations policy. Our jobs have become a bit easier now that we know which back alleys to investigate."

  Harper gathered up his briefcase and headed for the door. "We'll be on our way and let you rest."

  Russell patted her gently on the shoulder. "I wish I could send you on extended leave, courtesy of the INS, but headquarters wants you in Washington as soon as you're up and about."

  "I'd like to ask a favor," said Julia, stopping both men at the door.

  "Name it," said Russell.

  "Except for a brief visit with my mother and father here in San Francisco, I would like to return to duty by the beginning of next week. I formally request that I remain on the investigation of Qin Shang."

  Russell looked at Harper, who smiled. "That goes without saying," said Russell. "Why do you think they want you in Washington? Who in INS knows more about Shang's alien-smuggling operation than you?"

  After they left, Julia made one last effort to fight off creeping drowsiness. She picked up the bedside phone, dialed an outside line and then the area code and number for long-distance information. Obtaining the number, she called the NUMA headquarters building in Washington and asked for Dirk Pitt.

  She was put through to his secretary, who informed her that Pitt was out on vacation and had not returned to work yet. Julia hung up the phone and settled her head into the pillows. In some odd manner she felt transformed. Here I am acting like a brazen hustler, she thought, pursuing a man I hardly know. Why, she wondered, of all the men in all the world, why did someone like Dirk Pitt have to walk into my life?

  14

  PITT AND GIORDINO never made it back to Washington. When they returned the helicopter to the NUMA marine-science laboratory in Bremerton through a rainstorm, they found Admiral Sandecker waiting for them. Most men in Sandecker's position would have remained in a dry office, sitting comfortably on a couch drinking coffee, making others come to him. But he did not march to the same drummer as most. Sandecker stood outside in a misting rain, raising his arm to shield his face from the clouds of spray that swirled beneath the rotor blades of the aircraft. He remained standing until the blades spun to a stop before stepping toward the hatch. He waited patiently until Gunn swung it open and dropped to the ground, followed by Giordino.

  "I expected you over an hour ago," grunted Sandecker.

  "We weren't forewarned you'd be here, Admiral," said Gunn. "When last we spoke, you elected to remain in Washington."

  "I changed my mind," Sandecker said gruffly. Not seeing anyone left in the cockpit, he looked at Giordino. "Didn't you bring Dirk with you?"

  "He slept like a rock between Grapevine Bay and here," answered Giordino without his usual grin. "He's not in the best of shape. As if he wasn't already a classic case of battle fatigue when he arrived at Orion Lake, he had to go and get himself shot again."

  "Shot?" Sandecker's face clouded. "Nobody told me he'd been shot. How bad is it?"

  "Not serious. Luckily, the bullet just missed the pelvis, going in and coming out the upper side of his right buttock. A doctor in Grapevine examined and dressed the wound. He insisted that Dirk shouldn't be up and running around, but our friend laughed and demanded on finding a bar, claiming a couple shots of tequila would make him as good as new."

&n
bsp; "Did two shots of tequila do it?" Sandecker asked cynically.

  "More like four." Giordino turned as Pitt emerged from the helicopter. "See for yourself."

  Sandecker looked up and found himself looking at a man dressed like a backwoods hiker, thin and played out, as if he'd been existing on little else but berries in a forest. His hair was tangled in every direction, face drawn and haggard but split by a smile as broad as a highway billboard with eyes clear and intense.

  "By God, it's the admiral," Pitt boomed. "You're the last man I expected to see standing out in the rain."

  Sandecker wanted to laugh, but he fixed a frown on his face and spoke as if angered. "I thought it might be nice to demonstrate my charitable disposition and save you a five-thousand-mile round trip."

  "You don't want me back at my desk?"

  "No. You and Al are leaving for Manila."

  "Manila," said Pitt, puzzled. "That's in the Philippines."

  "It hasn't been moved that I was aware of," Sandecker said.

  "When?"

  "Within the hour."

  "Within the hour?" Pitt stared at him.

  "I've booked you on a commercial flight across the Pacific. You and Al will be on it."

  "What are we supposed to do once we get to Manila?"

  "If you'll come in out of the rain before we drown, I'll tell you."

  After Pitt was ordered to drink two cups of coffee, Sandecker gathered his finest team of ocean engineers in the privacy of an aquarium. Sitting among tanks filled with North Pacific sea life under study by NUMA marine biologists, the admiral briefed Pitt and Giordino on the meeting he and Gunn had with the President and officials of the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

  "The man whose criminal operation you screwed up at Orion Lake directs a vast smuggling empire that traffics in illegal immigrants, transporting them into nearly every country of the world. He literally smuggles millions of Chinese into the Americas, Europe and South America. Under a shroud of secrecy, he is supported and often funded by the Chinese government. The more people he can remove from the overpopulated country and place in positions of influence overseas, the better the potential to achieve international power bases working under directives from the mother country. It is a worldwide conspiracy with incredible consequences if Qin Shang continues unchecked."

  "The man is responsible for hundreds of dead bodies lying on the bottom of Orion Lake," said Pitt angrily. "You're telling me he can't be charged with mass murder and hanged?"

  "Charging him and convicting him are different sides of the street," answered Sandecker. "Qin Shang has more corporate barriers around him than waves pounding a shore. I'm told by the commissioner of INS, Duncan Monroe, that Qin Shang is so far removed, politically and financially, there is no direct evidence linking him to the mass murders on Orion Lake."

  "The man seems impregnable," said Gunn.

  Pitt said in a measured tone, "No man is impregnable. We all have an Achilles' heel."

  "How do we nail the bastard?" Giordino asked bluntly.

  Sandecker answered partially by explaining the two objectives the President had ordered NUMA to investigate, the old ocean liner United States and Qin Shang's shipping port of Sungari in Louisiana. He concluded by saying, "Rudi here will be in charge of a special team for an underwater probe of Sungari. Dirk and Al will examine the former ocean liner."

  "Where do we find the United States?" asked Pitt.

  "Until three days ago, she was at Sevastopol in the Black Sea undergoing a refit. But according to satellite surveillance photos, she's left dry dock and passed through the Dardanelles on her way to the Suez Canal."

  "That's covering a lot of territory for a fifty-year-old ship," said Giordino.

  "Not unusual," said Pitt, staring at the ceiling as if retrieving something once cataloged in his mind. "The United States could leave the best of them in her wake. She beat the Queen Mary's best time across the Atlantic by an amazing ten hours. On her maiden voyage she set a speed record between New York and England, averaging thirty-five knots, that still stands."

  "She must have been fast," said Gunn admiringly. "That works out to about forty-one miles an hour."

  Sandecker nodded. "She's still faster than any commercial ship built before or since."

  "How did Qin Shang get his hands on her?" asked Pitt. "It was my understanding that the U.S. Maritime Administration would not sell her unless she remained under the American flag."

  "Qin Shang easily got around that by purchasing the ship through an American company who in turn could then sell it to a buyer who represented a friendly nation. In this case a Turkish businessman. Too late, American authorities discovered that a Chinese national bought the ship, posing as the Turkish buyer."

  "Why would Qin Shang want the United States?" Pitt asked, still in the dark.

  "He's in league with the Chinese People's Liberation Army," replied Gunn. "The deal he struck with them gives him the right to operate the ship, possibly to smuggle illegal aliens under the guise of a cruise ship. The Chinese military, for their purposes, has the option of commandeering the ship and quickly converting it to a troop transport."

  "You'd have thought our defense department would have seen the light and converted her years ago," said Giordino. "She could have moved an entire division of troops from the States to Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War in less than five days."

  Sandecker stroked his beard in thought. "Airlifts are the thing to transport men these days. Ships are used primarily to haul in supplies and equipment. Any way you look at it, the former pride of the transatlantic greyhounds was way past her prime."

  "So what's our job?" Pitt asked with diminishing forbearance. "If the President wants to prevent the United States from smuggling aliens into the country, why doesn't he order a nuclear submarine to quietly put a couple of Mark XII torpedoes into her side."

  "And give the Chinese military a bona fide excuse to retaliate by blasting a cruise ship filled with American tourists out of the water?" Sandecker said sharply. "I don't think so. There are more practical and less hazardous ways of cutting Qin Shang off at the knees."

  "Like what?" Giordino asked guardedly.

  "Answers!" Sandecker snapped back. "There are perplexing questions that must be answered before the INS can take action."

  "We're not undercover specialists," said Pitt, unmoved by it all. "What does he expect us to do? Pay our ticket, reserve a stateroom and then send questionnaires to the captain and crew?"

  "I am aware that you find this uninspiring," said Sandecker, seeing that both Pitt and Giordino were regarding their mission with a marked lack of enthusiasm, "but I'm dead serious when I say that the information you're to obtain is vital to the future welfare of the country. Illegal immigration cannot continue in an uncontrolled flood. Sleaze like Qin Shang are conducting modern versions of the slave trade." Sandecker paused and gazed at Pitt. "From what I've been told, you saw an example of their inhumanity with your own eyes."

  Pitt nodded almost imperceptibly. "Yes, I saw the horror."

  "There must be something the government can do to rescue these people from bondage," said Gunn.

  "You can't protect people who are illegally in your country if they've disappeared and gone underground after they were smuggled in," Sandecker replied.

  "Can't a task force be formed to search them out, free them and release them into society?" Gunn persisted.

  "The INS has sixteen hundred investigators in the fifty states, not counting those working in foreign countries, who made over three hundred thousand arrests of illegal aliens engaged in criminal activities. It would take twice that number of investigators just to stay even."

  "How many illegals are coming into the Unites States each year?" asked Pitt.

  "There is no way to achieve an accurate count," answered Sandecker. "Estimates run as high as two million aliens who poured in last year from China and Central America alone."

  Pitt stared out the window at the calm
waters of Puget Sound. The rain had passed, and the clouds were becoming scattered. A rainbow slowly formed over the docks. "Has anybody a clue to where it will all end?"

  "With a hell of a lot of people," Sandecker said. "The last census put the U.S. population at roughly two hundred and fifty million. With the coming increase in births and immigration, legal and illegal, the population will soar to three hundred and sixty million by the year twenty fifty."

  "Another hundred million in the next fifty years," said Giordino dolefully. "I hope I'm gone by then."

  Gunn said thoughtfully, "Hard to imagine the changes in store for the country."