Poseidon's Arrow dp-22 Page 21

  Pablo reached for her, but could only graze a passing ankle. As she stretched her arms before her, Ann plunged into the river, trailing just a small splash and vanishing into the dark muddy water.

  41

  THE ADELAIDE’S AUXILIARY STORAGE LOCKER WAS a dim, steamy oven befitting the devil. Pitt could smell decaying flesh mixed with sweat when the bolted door was flung open and he and Giordino were shoved inside at gunpoint. He had struggled to bear the weight of his wounded friend down to the main deck and tried not to collapse under him. He noticed a canvas tarp in the locker and gently laid Giordino on it as the door was slammed and locked behind them.

  “Is there a medic among you?” Pitt said. He glanced toward the Coast Guard team he saw huddled nearby.

  A young man stood up and slowly made his way to Pitt’s side.

  “Simpson, isn’t it?” Pitt said.

  “Yes, sir. I can help.” He knelt over Giordino, quickly noting the spreading pool of blood beneath his right leg. “Has he been shot?”

  “Yes.” Pitt ripped away a torn section of Giordino’s pants. “He’s lost a lot of blood.”

  Simpson located the blood-soaked wound on Giordino’s outer thigh and applied pressure with his palm. “I need something for a bandage.”

  Pitt removed his shirt and ripped off the sleeves, tearing them into long strips. Someone passed over a bottle of water, which the medic used to clean the wound. He took one of the strips and folded it into a pad. Applying it to the wound, he bound it with the remaining strips.

  Giordino opened his eyes and looked up. “Where we headed?”

  “To get some beer,” Pitt said. “Take a nap, and I’ll wake you when it’s on ice.”

  Giordino gave him a crooked grin, then drifted off a few seconds later.

  Simpson pulled a section of tarp over him and motioned Pitt aside. “He’s lucky. There were two wounds, indicating the bullet went clean through. Most likely, it missed the bone. But it must have nicked his femoral artery, hence all the blood. He may go into shock with that much blood loss, so we’ll need to keep an eye on him.”

  “He’s a tough old goat,” Pitt said.

  “He should be fine for now. His biggest problem will be avoiding infection in this stink hole.”

  Pitt saw in the dim light that Simpson had a bruise on his cheekbone. “What happened to you?”

  “Got jumped in the corridor on my way to watch. Bugger hit me with a chain. I was luckier than some of the guys.”

  Pitt looked around the bay, which was lit by a single flickering overhead lamp. The Coast Guard team sat nearby, while another group, members of the Adelaide’s real crew, was sprinkled about the rear of the compartment. Two oblong shapes, wrapped in canvas and positioned off to one side, were responsible for the horrible odor.

  “The captain and another man,” Simpson said. “Killed in the assault before we came along.”

  Pitt nodded, then turned his attention to the Coast Guard team. They all bore wounds and bruises. Plugrad sat among the men with his back to a bulkhead, a vacant look in his eye.

  “How’s Plugrad?”

  “They knocked the lieutenant upside the head pretty good,” Simpson said. “He’s got a concussion but otherwise appears okay.”

  Pitt stepped across the bay to the other group. They appeared weary but unhurt. A broad-shouldered man with a thick gray mustache rose and introduced himself.

  “Frank Livingston, executive officer,” he said with a thick Australian accent. “How’s your comrade?”

  “Gunshot wound to the leg. Lost some blood, but the medic thinks he’ll be okay.”

  “Sorry I couldn’t help. Our chief bosun was the ship’s medic. He’s over there with the captain.” He pointed toward the canvas-covered bodies.

  “How’d they take the ship?”

  “A fast freighter came alongside on the evening watch three nights ago. Pulled right alongside our beam, scaring the dickens out of the helmsman. When they didn’t respond on the radio, the captain went on deck with the chief bosun. The vessel fired up some sort of radar device amidships that killed them both.” His mouth tightening into a grimace. “Never seen anything like it. Almost as if they were cooked alive. The freighter sent over an armed boarding party shortly after. There wasn’t much we could do. We’ve been cooped up in here ever since.”

  “I’m sorry we were late to the scene,” Pitt said. “I guess they were tipped off to our arrival and came after you early.”

  Livingston’s tired eyes flared with vengeance. “Who are they?”

  Pitt shook his head. “They’re part of a ring we believe has hijacked a number of bulk carriers transporting rare earth elements.”

  “We’re loaded with something called monazite,” Livingston said. “Guess they got what they came for. Any idea where we’re headed?”

  Pitt looked around to make sure none of the other men were listening. “We think they usually transfer the cargo at sea, then scuttle the ships. At least two other carriers were sunk in these waters.”

  Livingston nodded, but not with the look of a man sentenced to die aboard a sinking ship. “Tell me, Mr. Pitt, how large were those other hijacked carriers?”

  “Not large. They were older dry bulk carriers, maybe ten thousand tons. Why do you ask?”

  “The Adelaide is rated at forty thousand tons. I got a good look at the attacking freighter before being tossed in here. She’s a runt compared to us, capable of carrying no more than half our cargo.”

  “Your entire cargo is monazite?”

  “Every last ounce. No, sir, I don’t think they’ll scuttle the Adelaide. Not just yet anyway. What we’re carrying is just too valuable.”

  Pitt glanced at the hurt and haggard men scattered around the fetid prison bay.

  “Mr. Livingston, I certainly hope you speak the truth.”

  42

  IT TOOK ONLY A FEW SECONDS FOR ANN TO PANIC.

  Striking the water cleanly, she kicked hard, with her hands outstretched in front of her, driving deep into the Ohio River. The water was warmer than she expected, easily in the seventies. Reaching a comfortable culmination point, she arched her torso and tried to stroke with her hands. But with her wrists bound by the cuffs, she couldn’t do it.

  A momentary flash of terror struck, telling her she was going to drown.

  “Relax. Relax. Relax,” a voice repeated in her head.

  With her heart pounding, she forced herself to hold still and drift with the current for a few seconds. It calmed her nerves, and she began scooping the water with her bound hands in a doggie paddle that would carry her to the surface. But in the inky black water, she no longer knew which way was up.

  The answer came quickly when her shoulder grazed the corroded underside of the barge. She pushed herself away and drifted clear, holding on a few more seconds, before ascending slowly into the cool night air.

  The current was swift, and she found herself moving away from the barge and towboat. She looked back and saw Pablo running along the dock, scanning the water. Spotting Ann’s head bobbing in the river, he pulled his Glock out of its holster.

  Ann instantly took a deep breath and rolled beneath the surface. She couldn’t tell whether he fired at her, but there was no sense in giving him a target.

  She glided more easily beneath the surface this time, holding her breath for nearly a minute, while kicking and paddling with the current. When she surfaced again, she was more than a hundred yards from the barge—all but invisible in the darkness to anyone on the dock. Still, Pablo had disappeared from her view.

  She turned her attention downriver, searching for a place to go ashore and find help. But the dock was on the outskirts of town, and the nearside riverbank was dark and empty. A sprinkling of lights glistened a short distance ahead on the opposite bank, marking the small town of Metropolis, Illinois.

  Feeling the lure of safety, Ann began kicking and paddling toward the lights. She struggled for a few minutes, fighting the downstream current.
Then she realized her efforts to reach the town would be in vain. The river was almost a mile across, and the current would sweep her well past its lights before she could reach the other side.

  The awkwardness of swimming with bound wrists increased her fatigue, so she rolled over and rested by floating on her back. Looking into the sky, she noticed a pair of red flashing lights in the distance. Turning herself over, she studied them as they flashed—airplane warning lights. In their brief stabs of illumination, she could see they were affixed to a pair of tall concrete smokestacks. They could only be part of a riverfront power plant.

  As she floated past the lights of Metropolis, she worked her way back toward the near shore. The riverbank went black for a mile, and Ann began feeling cold and alone. But she continued to track the blinking red lights and eventually drew closer. A haze of light at the base of the stacks crystallized into a profusion of bright lights that engulfed the power plant. The lights were set well back from shore, but as Ann passed a shrub-lined bank she spotted a thin inlet that had been cut from the river to the plant.

  When she approached the mouth of the inlet, she began kicking hard. The Ohio’s current tried to drag her past, but she broke free of its grasp and entered the inlet’s calm waters. The cut ran about a third of a mile toward the plant, where the water supplied the coal-fired steam boilers.

  Exhausted from her final struggle against the current, Ann made for the nearest bank. She rested in the mud for several minutes, then pulled herself off the bank and climbed up a berm that had been graded on top for vehicle access.

  She shivered in her wet clothes as she hiked toward the power plant, smelling the rich odor of burnt coal. As she drew closer, she counted several vehicles parked around the plant. Thankfully, a sizable night shift was on-site. Headlights flickered to her left, and she saw a white pickup truck move slowly from the parking lot, an orange light flashing atop its cab. Ann quickened her pace and began waving her bound arms as soon as she thought the driver might spot her.

  The truck sped up and turned onto the berm. It bounced along the narrow track and stopped in front of Ann with a swirl of dust. She raised her cuffed hands and approached the open driver’s window. “Can you please help me?”

  Her voice quivered when she saw Pablo stick his head out the window, brandishing a portable GPS unit keyed to her handcuffs and the Glock pistol.

  “No, my love,” he said in a cruel voice. “It is you who can help me.”

  PART III

  PANAMA RUN

  43

  SUMMER PITT LOOKED UP FROM A CLIPBOARD IN HER lap and gazed out the submersible’s acrylic dome window. With nothing to see but blackness, it felt like being locked in a closet. “How about some exterior illumination?” she asked.

  Her twin brother, seated at the pilot’s controls, flipped on a row of toggle switches. A battery of bright LED lights popped on, putting a glow into the coal-black water. But there was still little to see, aside from particles in the water rushing past the acrylic. At least it gave Summer a visual sense of their rate of descent.

  “Still afraid of the dark?” her brother asked.

  While Summer had inherited the pearlescent skin and red hair of her mother, Dirk Pitt, Jr., resembled his father. He had the same tall, lean build, the same dark hair, even the same easy smile.

  “Down here, what you can’t see can hurt you,” she said. She checked the depth indicator on an overhead monitor. “Coming up on the bottom in fifty meters.”

  Dirk adjusted the ballast tanks to slow their descent, easing the vessel to neutral buoyancy when the seafloor appeared to rise up beneath them. At their depth of three hundred feet, the seafloor was a walnut-colored desolation, populated only by a few small fish and crustaceans.

  “The fault line should be on a bearing of zero-six-five degrees,” Summer said.

  Dirk engaged the submersible’s electronic thrusters and propelled them on the northeast heading. Through the yoke, he could feel a strong bottom current sideswiping them. “The Agulhas Current is humming today. Like to take us to Australia.”

  The powerful Agulhas flowed down the east coast of Africa. Near the southern tip of Madagascar, where Dirk and Summer were diving, it converged with the East Madagascar Current and streams from the Indian Ocean to create an unpredictable swirl.

  “We likely drifted a considerable amount during our descent,” Summer noted, “but if we hold to the heading, we’ll still cross the fault line.” She pressed her nose against the bubble and scanned the lightly undulating seabed passing beneath them. After several minutes, she spotted a slight, but distinct, ridge. “That’s our uplift.”

  Dirk ascended slightly and positioned the submersible in a hover ten feet above the ridge. “Ready for video.”

  Summer powered on a pair of external cameras mounted to the submersible’s skids, then checked the feed on a monitor. “Cameras are rolling, marking start,” she said. “Take us down the line.”

  Dirk thrust the submersible forward, following the ridge in the seafloor. They were working in concert with a NUMA research ship that had surveyed the area previously with a multibeam sonar system, examining an active fault line off the Madagascar coast in hope of better predicting how earthquakes create tsunamis. The submersible’s video would give the shipboard geologists a baseline reference for the area. The submersible would then be sent back to bury small sensors that would precisely record seismic activity.

  The project required an interdisciplinary mix of talents that appealed to both siblings. With Dirk educated in marine engineering, and Summer specializing in oceanography, both twins had inherited their father’s love of the sea. They had joined Pitt at NUMA only a few years earlier but soon reveled in the opportunity to travel the globe to solve the sea’s mysteries. Their work was made all the better when the three of them could collaborate on a project, as they had recently in Cyprus, where they’d discovered a trove of ancient artifacts related to Jesus.

  “Passing kilometer number eight of the subsurface ridge that will never end,” Dirk said two hours into their trolling. The constant bucking of the current was taking a toll, and he could feel his arm muscles begin to tighten.

  “You’re not getting bored already?” Summer asked.

  Dirk stared at the unchanging brown bottom that scrolled beneath them. “It’d be all right with me if someone imported a whale shark or a giant squid to the neighborhood.”

  They tracked the uplift for another hour before Dirk became concerned about their battery reserves.

  “Fighting the current has put an extra strain on the motors. I suggest we think about breaking off the run soon.”

  Summer checked their distance covered. “How about another six hundred meters? That will put us at an even twelve thousand.”

  “Deal.”

  Completing that last remaining stretch, Dirk pulled the submersible to a halt while Summer turned off the video cameras. He began purging the ballast tanks to ascend when Summer motioned out the front bubble window.

  “Is that a shipwreck?”

  Beyond the effective range of the exterior lights, Dirk saw a faint object. “Could be.” He released the ballast pump and thrust the submersible forward.

  A towering black mass gradually emerged, taking on the distinctive shape of a ship’s hull. As they drew closer, the rest of the vessel took form, sitting upright on the bottom and appearing remarkably undisturbed. Maneuvering just a few feet off the seafloor, they approached amidships, inching close to the mystery vessel. The red paint that covered the hull reflected clearly under the submersible’s lights, detailing every rivet and seam.

  “She looks like she just went under,” Dirk said. He drove the submersible up the side of the hull and above the deck rail. There, they spotted three large open hatches on the forward deck. Dirk piloted the submersible toward the bow, skimming over cargo compartments filled with nothing but seawater. They peered down the sharp prow, detecting no damage around the bow. They turned back and surveyed alo
ng the starboard rail to the rear superstructure, where they ascended several levels to the bridge. From just a few feet away, they peeked through the intact windows at an empty control station.

  “Looks like the helm was stripped of most of its electronics,” Dirk said. “That makes a good argument for her being scuttled.”

  “Somebody call Lloyd’s of London,” Summer said. “I’ve never seen such a pristine shipwreck. She must have sunk recently.”

  “No more than a few months, judging by the minimal sea growth.”

  “Why would somebody scuttle a perfectly good freighter?”

  “Hard to say. It’s possible she was under tow, headed for a refit, and sank in poor weather.” He checked the status of their battery power. “It’s about time we head topside, but let’s see if we can get a ship’s name.”

  He guided the submersible around the superstructure to the stern and descended past the aft rail. A bent flagpole hung forlornly over the rail, its former colors long since vanished. When they were twenty feet off the ship, he turned the craft to face the freighter’s transom and adjusted their height so the lights would shine on the ship’s name.

  “Well, I’ll be,” he said in a low voice. “She was scuttled after all.”

  In front of them stood a blank wall of red bisected by a thick horizontal band of rust where the ship’s name and home port had once been posted. But somebody had intentionally ground away the name and covering paint, sending the freighter to the lonely depths in total anonymity.

  44

  THE NUMA RESEARCH SHIP ALEXANDRIA WAS stationed four miles away when the submersible broke the surface, and Summer radioed for recovery. As the submersible drifted with the current, she and Dirk passed the time studying the dusty brown shores of southern Madagascar, which seemed to rise and fall across the choppy sea.