Pacific Vortex Page 2

  Wearily, Pitt turned his attention to the cylinder. Underneath the plastic covering was an unusual aluminum canister. The sides were ribbed with several small rods that resembled miniature railroad tracks. One end held a screw cap, so Pitt began twisting, intrigued by the great number of revolutions, before it finally dropped off in his hand. Inside was a tight roll of several papers, nothing else. He gently eased them into the daylight and began studying the handwritten manuscript exactingly penned among titled columns and lines.

  As he read over the pages, an ice-chill hand touched his skin, and in spite of the ninety-degree heat, goose-flesh broke out over his body. More than once he tried to draw his eyes away from the pages, but was stunned by the enormity of what he held in his hands.

  Pitt sat and gazed vacantly out over the ocean for a full ten minutes after he read the last sentence in the document. It ended with a name: ADMIRAL LEIGH HUNTER. Then, very slowly, Pitt gently inserted the papers back in the cylinder, screwed on the cap, and carefully rewrapped the yellow cover.

  An eerie, unearthly blanket of silence had fallen over Kaena Point. As the breakers rolled in, their roar somehow seemed muted. He stood and brushed off the sand from his wet body, packed the cylinder under his arm, and began jogging up the beach. When he reached his mat, he quickly wound it around the object in his hands. Then he hurried up the pathway leading to the road alongside the beach.

  The bright red AC Ford Cobra sat forlornly on the road. Pitt wasted no time. He threw his cargo on the passenger’s seat and moved rapidly behind the steering wheel, his hand, fumbling with the ignition key.

  He swung onto Highway 99, passing through Waialua and heading up the long grade that ran next to the picturesque and usually dry, Kaukomahua Stream. After the Schofield Barracks Military Reservation disappeared behind the rearview mirror, Pitt took the turnoff below Wahiawa and headed at high speed toward Pearl City, completely ignoring the threat of a wandering state highway patrolman.

  The Koolau Range rose on his left, with their peaks buried underneath perpetual dark rolling rainclouds. Alongside of them the neat, green pineapple fields spread in vivid contrast against the rich, red volcanic soil. Pitt met a sudden rainstorm and automatically turned on the wipers.

  At last the main gate at Pearl Harbor came into view. Pitt slowed the car as a uniformed guard came out of the office. Pitt pulled out his driver’s license and his identification papers from his wallet, and signed in the visitors’ logbook. The young marine simply saluted and waved Pitt through.

  Pitt then asked the guard for directions to Admiral Hunter’s headquarters. The marine pulled a pad and pencil from his breast pocket and politely drew a map which he handed to Pitt. He saluted once more.

  Pitt pulled up and stopped in front of an inconspicuous concrete building near the dock area. He would have passed it but for a small, neatly stenciled sign that read: HEADQUARTERS, 101st SALVAGE FLEET.

  He turned off the ignition, picked up the damp package, and left the car. Passing through the entrance, Pitt mentally wished he’d had the foresight to carry a sport shirt and a pair of slacks with him to the beach. He stepped to a desk where a seaman in the Navy summer white uniform mechanically punched a typewriter. A sign on the desk read: SEAMAN G. YAGER.

  “Excuse me,” Pitt murmured self-consciously, “I’d like to see Admiral Hunter.”

  The typist looked up casually, then his eyes almost burst from their sockets.

  “My God, buddy, are you off your gourd? What are you trying to pull, coming here wearing nothing but a bathing suit? If the old man catches you, you’re dead. Now beat it quick or you’ll wind up in the brig.”

  “I know I’m not dressed for an afternoon social,” Pitt spoke quietly and pleasantly, “but it’s damned urgent that I see the admiral.”

  The seaman rose from the desk, his face turning red. “Stop clowning around,” he said loudly. “Either you go back to your quarters and sleep it off, or I’ll call the Shore Patrol.”

  “Then call them!” Pitt’s voice was suddenly sharp.

  “Look, buddy,” the seaman’s tone became one of controlled irritation. “Do yourself a favor. Go back to your ship and make a formal request to see the admiral through the chain of command.”

  “That won’t be necessary, Yager.” The voice behind them carried the finesse of a bulldozer scraping a cement highway.

  Pitt turned and found himself locking eyes with a tall wizened man standing stiffly within an inner office doorway. He was dressed in white from collar to shoes and trimmed in gold braid beginning at the arms and working up to the rank boards on the shoulders. The hair was bushy and white, very nearly matching the tired cadaverous face beneath. Only the eyes seemed alive, and they glared curiously at the canister in Pitt’s hand.

  “I’m Admiral Hunter, and I’ll give you just five minutes, big boy, so you better make it worth my while. And bring that object with you,” he said, pointing to the canister.

  “Yes sir,” was all Pitt could reply.

  Hunter had already spun and was striding into his office. Pitt followed and if he wasn’t embarrassed before he stepped into the admiral’s office, there was no doubt of his discomfort now that he was inside. There were three other naval officers besides Hunter seated around an ancient, immaculately polished conference table. Their faces registered astonishment at the sight of Pitt standing half naked with the strange-looking package under one arm.

  Hunter routinely made the introductions, but Pitt wasn’t fooled by the phony courtesy; the admiral was trying to frighten him with rank while studying Pitt’s eyes for a reaction. Pitt learned that the tall, blond lieutenant commander with the John Kennedy face was Paul Boland, the 101st Fleet’s Executive Officer. The heavyset captain who was perspiring profusely, possessed the odd name of Orl Cinana, the officer in command of Hunter’s small fleet of salvage ships. The short, almost gnomelike creature, who hurried over and pumped Pitt’s hand, introduced himself as Commander Burdette Denver, aide to the admiral. He stared at Pitt, as if trying to remember his face.

  “Okay, big boy.” That term again. Pitt would have given a month’s pay to ram his knuckles against Hunter’s teeth. Hunter’s voice oozed with sarcasm. “Now if you will be so kind as to tell us who you are and what this interruption is all about, we will all be eternally grateful.”

  “You’re pretty rude for someone anxious to know why I’m carrying this canister,” Pitt answered, settling his long body comfortably in a vacant chair, waiting for a reaction.

  Cinana glared across the table, his face twisted in a clouded mask of malevolence. “You scum! How dare you come in here and insult an officer!”

  “The man’s insane,” snapped Boland. He leaned toward Pitt, his expression cold and taut. He added, “You stupid bastard; do you know who you’re talking to?”

  “Since we’ve all been introduced,” Pitt said casually, “the answer is a qualified yes.”

  Cinana’s sweaty fist slammed to the table. “The Shore Patrol, by God. I’ll have Yager call the Shore Patrol and throw him in the brig.”

  Hunter struck a light to a long cigarette, flipped the match at an ashtray, missing it by six inches, and stared at Pitt thoughtfully. “You leave me no choice, big boy.” He turned to Boland. “Commander, ask Seaman Yager to call the Shore Patrol.”

  “I wouldn’t, Admiral” Denver rose from his chair, recognition flooding his face. “This man some of you have referred to as filth and a bastard and wish to cast into chains, is indeed Dirk Pitt, who happens to be the Special Projects Director of the National Underwater and Marine Agency, and whose father happens to be Senator George Pitt of California, Chairman of the Naval Appropriations Committee.”

  Cinana uttered something short and unprintable.

  Boland was the first to recover. “Are you certain?”

  “Yes, Paul, quite certain.” He moved around the table and faced Pitt. “I saw him several years ago, with his father, at a NUMA conference. He’s also a friend of my cousin, wh
o’s also in NUMA. Commander Rudi Gunn.”

  Pitt grinned happily. “Of course. Rudi and I have worked on several projects together. I can see the resemblance now. The only noticeable difference is that Rudi peers through horned-rimmed glasses.”

  “Used to call him Beaver Eyes,” Denver laughed, “when we were kids.”

  “Ill throw that at him next time I see him,” Pitt said, smiling.

  “I hope you... you won’t take offense to... to what we said,” stuttered Boland.

  Pitt tossed Boland his best cynical stare and simply said “No.”

  Hunter and Cinana exchanged looks that Pitt had no difficulty in deciphering. If they tried to ignore their uneasiness at having the son of a United States senator sitting in their midst, they failed badly at concealing it.

  “Okay, Mr. Pitt, it’s your quarter. We assume you’re here because of the canister. Would you explain how you got it?”

  I’m only an errand boy,” Pitt said quietly. “I discovered this while sunbathing on the beach this afternoon. It belongs to you.”

  “Well well,” Hunter said heavily. “I’m honored. Why me?”

  Pitt looked at the three men speculatively, and set the cylinder, still covered with the bamboo beach mat, on the table. “Inside, you’ll find some papers. One has your name on it.”

  There wasn’t a flicker of curiosity in Hunter’s expression.

  “Where did you find this thing?”

  “Near the tip of Kaena Point.”

  Denver hunched forward. “Washed up on the beach?”

  Pitt shook his head. “No, I swam out beyond the breakers and towed it in.”

  Denver looked puzzled. “You swam beyond the breakers at Kaena Point? I didn’t think it possible.”

  Hunter gave Pitt a very thoughtful look indeed, but he passed it off. “May we see what you have there?”

  Pitt nodded silently and unwrapped the cylinder, paying scant notice to the damp sand that spilled on the conference table. Then he passed it to Hunter.

  “This yellow plastic cover was what caught my eye.”

  Hunter took the cylinder in his hands and held it up for the other men to examine. “Recognize it, gentlemen?”

  The others nodded.

  “You’ve never served on a submarine, Mr. Pitt, or you’d know what a communications capsule looks like.” Hunter set the package down and touched it lightly. “When a submarine wishes to remain underwater and communicate with a surface ship following in her wake, a message is inserted in this aluminum capsule.” As he spoke he gently pulled away the yellow pfastic. “The capsule, with a reef dye marker attached, is then ejected through the submarine’s hull by means of a pneumatic tube. When the capsule reaches the surface, the dye is released, staining several thousand square feet of water, making it visible to the chase ship.”

  The fine threads on the cap,” Pitt said slowly, “they were machined to prevent leakage under extreme pressure.”

  Hunter gazed at Pitt expectantly. “You read the contents?”

  Pitt nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  Neither Boland, Cinana, nor Denver comprehended, or even saw, the sickness, the despair, in Hunter’s eyes.

  “Would you mind describing what you saw?” Hunter asked, knowing with dread certainty what the answer would be.

  Several seconds passed as Pitt silently wished to hell he had never seen that damned capsule, but there was no avenue of escape. One last sentence and he would be rid of the whole discomforting scene. He took a deep breath and spoke slowly.

  “Inside you will find a note addressed to you, Admiral. You will also find twenty-six pages torn from the logbook of the nuclear submarine Starbuck.”

  The following is a summary of Commander Dupree’s comments, narrated by Admiral Hunter:

  There is no explaining the hell of the last five days. I alone am responsible for the change in course that brought my ship and crew to what surely must seem a strange and unholy end. Beyond that, I can only describe as best I can, the circumstances of the disaster-my mind is not functioning as it should.

  The fact that Dupree was not in full command of his mental faculties is an astonishing confession from a man whose reputation was built upon a computerlike mind.

  At 2040 hours, June 14, we entered the fog bank. Shortly thereafter, with the seabed only ten fathoms beneath our keel, an explosion ripped the ship’s bow, and a roaring torrent of water burst into the forward torpedo compartment, flooding it almost instantly.

  The commander did not reveal, if indeed he knew, whether the explosion came from inside or outside the Starbuck’s hull.

  Of the full crew, twenty-six had the good fortune to die within seconds. The three still on the bridge, Lieutenant Carter, Seaman Farris, and Metford, we hoped had gotten clear before the ship settled beneath the surface. Tragic events proved otherwise.

  If, as Dupree indicates, the Starbuck was riding on the surface, it seems odd that Carter, Farris, and Metford could not clear the bridge and go below in less than thirty seconds. It is inconceivable that he would have secured the hatches and left the men to their fate. It is just as inconceivable that there was no time to save them-it was not a likely possibility that the Starbuck sank like a stone.

  Meanwhile, we sealed off the hatches and vents. I then ordered all ballast blown and hard rise on the planes; it was too late; little tearing sounds and groans forward meant the ship had plowed into the sea bottom bow on.

  It seems reasonable to assume that with all ballast tanks blown, and the bow buried in only one hundred sixty feet of water, the stern section of the Starbuck’s three-hundred-twenty-foot hull might still extend above the surface. Such was not the case.

  We now lie on the bottom. The deck canted eight degrees to starboard with a down angle of two degrees. Except for the forward torpedo room, all other compartments are secure and showing no signs of water. We are all dead now. I have ordered the men to resign the game. My folly killed us all.

  The most fantastic mystery yet. Allowing twenty-five feet from keel to topside, the distance from the aft escape hatch to the surface was one hundred thirty-five feet; a moderate ascent for a man with a self-contained breathing apparatus, a device carried on all submarines for crew members. During World War II, eight men from the sunken submarine Tang, swam one hundred eighty feet to the surface, surviving on nothing but lung power.

  The last few sentences are all the more bewildering. What precipitated Dupree’s madness? Was he overwhelmed by the stress of the whole nightmarish situation? He further retreated from reality.

  Food gone, air only good for a few hours at best. Drinking water gone after the third day.

  Impossible! With the nuclear reactor operable-and there’s no reason to believe it wasn’t-the crew could survive for months. The freshwater distillation units could easily provide a more than ample supply of drinking water, and with a few precautionary measures, the life support system which purified the sub’s atmosphere and produced oxygen, would have sustained sixty-three men comfortably until it ceased to function, an unlikely event. Only the food presented a long-range problem. Yet, since the Starbuck was outward bound the food stock should have been enough, if rationed, to last ninety days. Everything hinged on the reactor. If it died, the men died.

  My way is clear, I feel strangely at peace. I ordered the ship’s doctor to give the men injections to halt their suffering. I will, of course, be the last to go.

  My God! Is it possible Dupree could actually order the mass murder of his surviving crew?

  They’ve come again. Carter is tapping on the hull. Mother of Christ! Why does his ghost torture us so?

  Dupree had fallen over the edge and entered the realm of total madness. How can it be after only five days?

  We can hold them but a few hours more. They have nearly broken through the hatch in the aft escape compartment. No good, no good... [illegible]. They mean to kill us, but we will outwit them in the end. No satisfaction, no victory. We shall all be dead.

&nb
sp; Who in the hell does he mean by “they?” Is it possible another vessel, perhaps a Russian spy trawler, was trying to rescue the crew?

  It is dark on the surface now, and they have stopped work. I will send this message and the last pages of the log to the surface in the communications capsule. Good chance they’ll miss it at night Our position is [the first figures are crossed out] 32°43’15”N- 161°18’22”W.

  The position doesn’t figure. It’s over five hundred miles from the Starbuck’s last reported position. Not nearly enough time between the last radio contact and Dupree’s final position for the Starbuck to travel the required distance, even at flank speed.

  Do not search for us; it can only end in vain. They cannot allow a trace to be found. The shameful trick they used. If I had but known, we might well be alive to touch the sun. Please see this message is delivered to Admiral Leigh Hunter, Pearl Harbor.

  The final enigma. Why me? To my knowledge, I have never met Commander Dupree. Why did he single out me as the recipient of the Starbuck’s last testament?

  Pitt hunched over the bar of the old Royal Hawaiian Hotel, staring vacantly at his drink, as his mind wandered over the events of the day. They flickered past his unblinking eyes and dissolved into a haze. One scene refused to fade away: the memory of Admiral Hunter’s pallid face as he read the contents of the capsule-the terrible senselessness of the Starbucks tragic fate, and the bewildering, paranoiac words of Commander Dupree.

  After Hunter had finished, he slowly looked up and nodded at Pitt Pitt shook the admiral’s leathery outstretched hand in silence, mumbled his good-bye to the other officers, and, as if in an hypnotic state, slowly walked from the room. He could not remember driving through the twisting traffic flow of Nimitz Highway. He could not remember entering his hotel room, showering and dressing, and leaving in search of some opaque, unknown objective. Even now, as he slowly swirled the Scotch within the glass, his ears heard nothing of the babble of tongues around him in the cocktail lounge.