Flood Tide Page 21

  Overhead, the hull of the United States stretched above them into the dusky water like a dark, ominous shroud. There was a sense of loneliness on the desolate bottom. The real world above did not exist.

  "I think it best if we took a few minutes and thought this thing out," said Pitt.

  "Don't ask me why," said Giordino, "but a dumb joke from my childhood suddenly popped into my head."

  "What joke is that?"

  "The goldfish that blushed when it saw the Queen Mary's bottom."

  Pitt made a sour face. "The simple things that come from simple minds. You should rot in purgatory for resurrecting that old turkey."

  Giordino acted as if he didn't hear. "Not to change the titillating subject, but I wonder if these clowns thought of using eavesdropping sensors around the hull."

  "Unless we bump into one dangling from the dock, we have no way of telling."

  "Still pretty dark to make out any detail."

  "I'm thinking we can set our light beams on the low end and begin inspecting the keel. Our chances of being spotted that deep beneath the hull are unlikely."

  "Then as the sun rises higher in the sky, we can work out and up toward the waterline."

  Pitt nodded. "Hardly a brilliant plan, but it's the best I can come up with under the circumstances."

  "Then we'd better get a move on," said Giordino, "if we don't want to suck our oxygen dry."

  Pitt engaged the thrusters, and the submersible slowly rose from the silt until it was only four feet below the keel. He concentrated on keeping the Sea Dog II on an even plane, glancing every few seconds at his positioning monitor to guide him on a straight track while Giordino peered upward, his eyes searching for any irregularity that indicated an exit or entry hatch that had been riveted in the bottom of the hull, taping any suspicious piece or workmanship with the video camera. After a few minutes, Pitt found it more expedient to ignore the monitor and simply follow the horizontal seams between the hull plates through the transparent canopy.

  On the surface, the sun's rays pierced the depths, increasing visibility. Pitt switched off the exterior lights. The steel plates, black in the earlier darkness, now became a dull red as the antifouling paint became more evident. There was a slight current caused by the outgoing tide, but Pitt held the submersible steady as the inspection continued. For the next two hours they glided back and forth as if mowing a lawn, each man strangely silent, intent on his job.

  Suddenly, Cabrillo's voice broke the silence. "Care to make a progress report, gentlemen?"

  "No progress to report," Pitt answered. "One more sweep and we'll have finished the bottom of the hull. Then it's up the sides toward the waterline."

  "Let's hope your new paint job makes it tough to spot you from the surface."

  "Max Hanley and his crew laid on a darker green tint than I'd planned," said Pitt. "But if nobody stares down in the water, we should be okay."

  "The ship still looks deserted."

  "I'm glad to hear it."

  "See you in two hours and eighteen minutes," said Cabrillo jovially. "Try not to be late."

  "We'll be there," Pitt promised. "Al and I don't want to hang around down here any longer than we have to."

  "Standing by and out."

  Pitt leaned his head toward Giordino without looking at him. "How's our oxygen supply?" he asked.

  "Tolerable," Giordino replied briefly. "Battery power still reads steady, but it's creeping slowly toward the red line."

  They finished the final run working out from the keel. Pitt guided the little craft along the section of the hull that curved upward toward the waterline. The next hour passed with agonizing slowness, and nothing out of the ordinary was revealed. The tide turned and began flowing in from the sea, bringing cleaner water and increasing visibility to nearly thirty feet. Swinging around the bow they began working the starboard side, which was moored next to the dock, not rising to within ten feet of the surface.

  "Time remaining?" Pitt asked tersely without lifting a hand to glance at his Doxa dive watch.

  "Fifty-seven minutes to rendezvous with the Oregon's launch," replied Giordino.

  "This trip definitely wasn't worth the effort. If Qin Shang is sneaking aliens on and off the United States, it isn't by means of an underwater passage or submarine-type vessel."

  "Doesn't figure he'd do it topside in the open," said Giordino. "Not in enough numbers to make it pay. Immigration agents would tag the operation ten minutes after the boat hit port."

  "Nothing more we can do here. Let's wrap up and head home."

  "That may present a problem."

  Pitt glanced sideways at Giordino. "How so?"

  Giordino nodded through the canopy. "We have visitors."

  Ahead of the submersible, three divers materialized out of the green void, swimming toward them like evil demons in their black wet suits.

  "What do you think the fine is for trespassing in these parts?"

  "I don't know, but I'll bet it's more than a slap on the wrist."

  Giordino studied the divers who were approaching, one in the center, the other two circling from the flank. "Most odd they didn't spot us earlier, long before we made our last run just under the waterline."

  "Somebody must have looked over the side and reported a funny green monster," Pitt said facetiously.

  "I'm serious. It's almost as if they sat back observing us until the last minute."

  "Do they look mad?"

  "They ain't bringing flowers and candy."

  "Weapons?"

  "Looks like Mosby underwater rifles."

  The Mosby was a nasty weapon that fired a missile with a small explosive head through water. Though devastating against human body tissue, Pitt didn't believe it could cause serious damage to a submersible able to withstand the pressures of the deep. "The worst we can expect is scratched paint and a few dents."

  "Don't get cocky just yet," said Giordino, staring at the approaching divers as a doctor might study an X ray. "These guys are making a coordinated assault. Their helmets must contain miniature radios. Our pressure hull may take a few good knocks, but one lucky shot into the impellers of our thrusters and we'll end up desecrated."

  "We can outrun them," said Pitt confidently. He banked the Sea Dog II in a tight turn, set the thrusters on HIGH, and steered for the stern of the liner. "This boat can travel a good six knots faster than any diver encumbered with air tanks."

  "Life isn't fair," Giordino muttered, more annoyed than fearful as they unexpectedly found themselves confronting another seven divers hovering in a semicircle beneath the ship's mammoth propellers, blocking off their avenue of escape. "It seems the goddess of serendipity has turned her back on us."

  Pitt switched on his microphone and hailed Cabrillo over the radio. "This is Sea Dog II. We have a total of ten villains in hot pursuit."

  "I read you, Sea Dog, and will take appropriate steps. No need to contact me further, out.""Not good," said Pitt grimly. "We might dodge past two or three but the rest can get close enough to do us real damage." Then a notion struck him. "Unless ..."

  "Unless what?"

  Pitt didn't answer. Orchestrating the handgrip controls, he threw the Sea Dog II into a dive, then leveling out less than a foot off the bottom and began a search pattern. Within ten short seconds, he found what he was looking for. The deck grate he'd seen earlier loomed up out of the silt.

  "Can you lift that thing out of the muck with the manipulator arm?" he asked Giordino.

  "The arm can handle the weight, but the suction is an unknown. It depends on how deep the grate is buried."

  "Try."

  Giordino nodded silently and quickly slipped his hands over the ball-shaped controls to the mechanical arm and tightened his fingers.

  Exercising a delicate touch, he rotated the balls in a manner similar to moving the mouse on a computer. He extended the arm, which was articulated at the elbow and wrist like human joints. Next, he placed the mechanical handgrip over the top of the g
rate and tightened the three hinged fingers.

  "One grate in hand," he announced. "Give me all the vertical thrust in the cupboard."

  Pitt tilted the thrusters upward and poured on every ounce of their remaining battery power as the divers from Qin Shang's security force closed to within twenty feet. For a tormenting few seconds nothing happened. Then the grate slowly began to slip from the silt, stirring up a great cloud of silt as the sub pulled it free.

  "Twist the arm until the grate is in a horizontal position," ordered Pitt. "Then hold it over the front of the thruster intakes."

  "They can still shoot an explosive up our tail."

  "Only if they carry muck-penetrating radar," said Pitt, reversing the thrusters and tilting them down so their exhaust blasted into the bottom, raising great billows of swirling silt. "Now you see us, now you don't."

  Giordino grinned approvingly. "An armored shield, a self-induced smoke screen-what more could we ask? Now let's get the hell out of here."

  Pitt needed no coaching. He sent the submersible careening across the bottom, stirring up silt as he went. Traveling every bit as visually blind as the divers through the agitated sediment but not nearly as confused, he had the advantage of an acoustics system that homed him in on the antenna buoy. He had traveled only a short distance when the submersible experienced a hard thump.

  "They hit us?" Pitt asked.

  Giordino shook his head. "No, I think you can scratch one of our attackers off as a road kill. You almost tore his head off with the starboard wing."

  "He won't be the only casualty if they blindly miss and shoot each other-"

  Pitt was cut off as an explosive thud rocked the Sea Dog II. Two more followed in quick succession. The submersible's speed fell off by a third.

  "There's that lucky shot I was talking about," said Giordino matter-of-factly. "They must have slipped one under the grate."

  Pitt glanced at his instruments. "They caught the port thruster."

  Giordino placed a hand on the transparent nose, which had a series of tiny cracks and stars on its outer surface. "They pitted the hell out of the windshield too."

  "Where did the third missile strike?"

  "Impossible to see through this stuff, but I suspect the vertical stabilizer on the starboard wing is gone."

  "I figured as much," said Pitt. "She's pulling to the port."

  Unknown to them, the team of ten divers was down to six. Besides the one Pitt crashed into, the others, shooting indiscriminately through the brownout, had struck and killed three of their own number. Firing and reloading their Mosby underwater rifles as fast as they could insert a new explosive charge, the divers overlooked the danger to themselves. One was brushed by the submersible as it surged past and he fired point-blank.

  "Another hit," reported Giordino. He twisted his body in the confined space and gazed back along the submersible's starboard hull. "This time they caught the battery case.""Those Mosby explosive heads must be more powerful than I was led to believe."

  Giordino jerked his eyes back and to the side as another explosion burst on the frame between the starboard hull and the nose-viewing shield. Water began to spurt in where metal met glass. "Those things do more than scratch paint and make dents," said Giordino. "I can vouch for it."

  "We're losing power to the thrusters," came Pitt's voice in a precision display of unruffled coolness. "That last strike must have caused a short in the system. Dump the grate. It's causing too much drag."

  Giordino complied, working the manipulator controls and releasing the grate. Through the silt cloud he could see several places in the grate where the rusting iron had been gouged away by the explosive charges. He watched it fall out of sight back into the sediment on the bottom. "So long, old pal, you served your purpose."

  Pitt stared briefly at a small navigation monitor. "Two hundred feet to the antenna. I make us about to pass under the liner's screws."

  "No hits in the last minute," said Giordino. "We must have left our angry friends behind in the fog. I suggest you cut back on your throttles and conserve whatever battery power is left."

  "Nothing left to conserve," replied Pitt, pointing to the instrument dial indicating battery power. "We're down to one knot and the needle is in the red."

  Giordino smiled tightly. "It would make my day if Shang's divers got lost and gave up the chase."

  "We'll know soon," said Pitt. "I'm going to angle up and out of the cloud. The instant we break into clear water, look astern and tell me what you see."

  "If they're still hanging around," said Giordino, "and they spot us limping along at half a knot, they'll be all over us like maddened wasps."

  Pitt said nothing as the Sea Dog II emerged from the swirling mud storm. He squinted his eyes, trying to pierce the velvet-green water, searching for the antenna line and Cabrillo's diver. A vague silhouette wavering seventy to eighty feet ahead and slightly to port slowly evolved into the bottom of the launch rocking in the waves rolling across the harbor.

  "We're almost home!" Pitt exclaimed, his spirits lifted.

  "Stubborn little devils," said Giordino morosely. "Five of them are swimming like sharks up our tail."

  "Smart fellas to catch on so quick. They must have kept one man in the clear as a lookout. Soon as he caught us rising out of the gunk, he alerted his pals by radio."

  An explosive charge smashed against one of the Sea Dog IIs tail stabilizers and blew it away. A second charge narrowly missed the hemispherical nose section. Pitt fought for control, urging, willing the submersible on a straight course toward the launch. The instant he saw one of Shang's divers out of the corner of his eyes, overtaking and coming in from the flank of the sub, he knew it was all but over. Without battery power and help from Cabrillo, there was no escape.

  "So near, yet so far," Giordino mumbled, staring upward at the keel of the launch as he waited helpless but unperturbed for the inevitable final assault.

  Then suddenly a series of concussions swamped and reverberated all around the submersible. Pitt and Giordino were thrown about the interior like rats inside a rolling pipe. The water around them erupted in a mass of froth and bubbles that raged crazily in all directions before heading for the surface. The divers, who were about to close in on the Sea Dog II, died instantly, their bodies crushed to gelatin by the sledgehammer blows. The men inside the sub were both stunned and deafened by underwater detonations. They were saved from serious injury by the pressure hull.

  It took several moments for Pitt to realize that Cabrillo, forewarned of the chase in progress, waited until the submersible and its attackers were close enough to the Oregon's launch to throw concussion grenades into the water. Through the ringing in his ears, Pitt heard someone calling over the radio.

  "You guys all right down there?" came Cabrillo's welcome voice.

  "My kidneys will never be the same," Pitt answered back, "but we're behaving ourselves."

  "How about the vigilantes?"

  "They look like they came out of a Jell-o mold," replied Giordino.

  "If we were attacked underwater," Pitt warned Cabrillo, "it stands to reason they'll come after you on the surface."

  "Funny you should mention that," said Cabrillo airily. "There just happens to be a small cruiser coming this way as we speak. Nothing we can't handle, of course. Sit tight. I'll have my diver hook you up to the towline after we greet our callers."

  "Sit tight," Giordino repeated acidly. "We have no power. We're dead in the water. He must think we're in an underwater amusement park."

  "He means well," Pitt sighed as the tension inside the sub eased. He lay there idly, his hands loosely holding the handgrips of his now nonfunctioning controls, staring through the transparent canopy at the bottom of the launch, wondering what cards Cabrillo was about to deal.

  "They mean business," Cabrillo said to Eddie Seng, the Oregon's former CIA agent who was their man in Beijing for nearly twenty years before he was forced to make a sudden departure back to the States and retire
ment. Cabrillo peered through a small, single-lens telescope at the rapidly approaching cabin cruiser. Its configuration reminded him of a U.S. Coast Guard rescue boat, except that this one was not in the business of saving lives. "They figured the game when they detected the submersible, but they can't be sure we're tied in until they board and investigate."

  "How many do you make out?" asked Seng.

  "About five, all carrying arms except the helmsman."

  "Any good-sized weapons mounted on the boat?" asked Seng.