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  "The reason I've asked you here tonight. I wish for you to put forth your greatest effort in finding a clue to the ship's final whereabouts. I will pay you well for any new information you discover."

  "You are a great patriot, Qin Shang."

  But any expectation Zhu Kwan had that Qin Shang was on a noble quest for the people of China was quickly dashed. Qin Shang looked at him and smiled. "I have achieved great wealth and power in my lifetime. I do not search for immortality. I do it because I cannot die unfulfilled. I shall never rest until the treasures are found and retrieved."

  The veil shrouding Qin Shang's evil intentions was ripped away. The billionaire was no moralist. If he was fortunate enough to find the Princess and her priceless cargo, he had every intention of keeping it for himself. Every piece, no matter how large or small, would become part of a hidden collection that only Qin Shang would enjoy.

  Qin Shang was lying in bed studying financial reports on his far-flung business empire when the phone beside his bed chimed softly. Unlike most unmarried men in his position, he usually slept alone. He admired women and summoned one when he occasionally felt desire, but business and finance were his passion. He thought smoking and drinking wasted time, as did seduction. He was too disciplined for a common affair. He felt only disgust for men of power and wealth who wasted themselves with dissipation and debauchery.

  He picked up the phone. "Yes?"

  "You asked me to call you regardless of time of night," came the voice of his secretary, Su Zhong.

  "Yes, yes," he said impatiently, his train of thought interrupted. "What is the latest report on the United States?"

  "She left her dock at seven o'clock this evening. All automated systems are functioning normally. Unless she encounters heavy storms at sea, she should make Panama in record time."

  "Is a crew standing by to board and to take her through the canal?"

  "Preparations have been made," answered Su Zhong. "Once the ship enters the Caribbean, the crew will reengage the automated systems for her journey to Sungari and disembark."

  "Any word on the intruders at the shipyard?"

  "Only that it was a very professional operation using a highly sophisticated submersible."

  "And my underwater security team?"

  "Their bodies have been recovered. None survived. Most appear to have died from concussion. The patrol boat was found at the Harbor Authority dock, but the crew has vanished."

  "The Iranian-registered freighter that was moored nearby the shipyard-has she been boarded and investigated?"

  "Her name is the Oregon. She departed slightly ahead of the United States. According to our sources at Naval Command, it was overtaken at your request by Captain Yu Tien of the cruiser Chengdo. His last message said that the freighter had heaved to and he was sending a boarding party of marines to inspect her."

  "Nothing from Captain Yu Tien since then?" asked Qin Shang.

  "Only silence."

  "Perhaps his boarding party found incriminating evidence and he has seized the ship and disposed of the crew under strict secrecy."

  "No doubt that is the situation," agreed Su Zhong.

  "What else do you have for me?"

  "Your agents are also questioning the guard at the main gate who claimed that three men, one of them wearing the uniform of a security officer, presented stolen credentials and entered the shipyard in a Rolls-Royce. It was thought they drove directly to the United States, but this cannot be verified since all guards were ordered off the dock just prior to her sailing."

  "I want answers," Qin Shang said angrily. "I want to know what organization is responsible for spying on my operations. I want to know who is behind the intrusion and the deaths of our security people."

  "Do you wish Pavel Gavrovich to head up the investigation?" asked Su Zhong.

  Qin Shang thought a moment. "No, I want him to concentrate on eliminating Dirk Pitt.""At last report, Pitt was in Manila."

  "The Philippines?" Qin Shang said, his composure slipping away. "

  itt was in the Philippines, just two hours away from Hong Kong by air? Why wasn't I told of this?"

  "Word only came in from Gavrovich an hour ago. He trailed Pitt to a dockyard in Manila, where he and his partner, Albert Giordino, were observed being taken aboard an Iranian cargo ship."

  Qin Shang's voice became quiet and vicious. "The same Iranian freighter that stood off the United States?""A positive match has not yet been confirmed," said Su Zhong. "But every indication suggests that they are one and the same."

  "Somehow, Pitt is mixed up in this affair. As the National Underwater and Marine Agency's special projects director, it stands to reason he can operate and pilot a submersible. But what possible interest can NUMA have in my operations?"

  "His involvement at Orion Lake appears to be accidental," said Su Zhong. "But perhaps he is now working with another United States investigative agency such as the INS or CIA?"

  "Very possible," said Qin Shang, the latent hostility reflected in his voice. "The devil has proven far more destructive than I ever conceived." A few seconds passed in silence. Then he said, "Inform Gavrovich that he is to be given full authority and an unlimited budget to uncover and stop any covert operation against Qin Shang Maritime."

  "And Dirk Pitt?"

  "Tell Gavrovich to postpone killing Pitt until he returns."

  "To Manila?"

  Qin Shang was breathing quickly, his mouth a thin white line. "No, when he returns to Washington."

  "How can you be sure he'll go straight to the American capital?"

  "Unlike you, Su Zhong, who can read people from photographs, I've studied the man's history from the time he was born until he devastated my operation at Orion Lake. Trust me when I say he will return to his home at the first opportunity."

  Su Zhong shuddered slightly, knowing what was about to come. "Are you speaking of the aircraft hangar where he lives with his old car collection?"

  "Exactly," Qin Shang hissed like a serpent. "

  itt will watch in horror as his precious automobiles go up in flames. I may even take the time and watch him burn with them."

  "Your calendar does not put you in Washington next week. You're scheduled for meetings with your company directors in Hong Kong and government officials in Beijing."

  "Cancel them," Shang said with an indifferent wave of one hand. "Set up meetings with my friends in Congress. Also arrange a meeting with the President. It's time I soothed any misgivings they might have about Sungari." He paused, and his lips tightened in a sinister smile. "Besides, I think it appropriate that I be on hand when Sungari becomes the premier shipping port in North America."

  21

  As THE SUN ROSE the Oregon bounded across a calm sea under clear skies at a speed of thirty knots. With her ballast tanks pumped dry to raise her hull out of the water to reduce drag, she made a strange sight with her stern dug deep in water thrashed white by wildly turning screws, her bows lifted nearly free of the troughs before bursting aside the crest of the next rolling swell. During the night the cargo deck had been cleared of debris while the ship's surgeon worked nonstop to bind wounds and operate on those who were seriously injured. The Oregon lost only one man, who had the misfortune of being struck in the head by fragments from the hundred-millimeter shell when it smashed into the upper section of the stern. None of the wounded were critical. The surgeon also managed to save all but six of the Chinese marines. Both officers had died and were dropped over the side with their men who had not survived.

  The women who served aboard the Oregon quickly turned into angels of mercy, assisting the surgeon and tending to the wounded. Pitt's unlucky curse held tight. Instead of an attractive nurse to bandage his hip wound, his luck of the draw was the ship's quartermaster or mistress (her actual title in Cabrillo's corporate structure was supply and logistics coordinator), who stood six feet and weighed two hundred pounds if she weighed an ounce. Her name was Monica Crabtree, and she was as bright and resourceful as they
came.

  After she finished, she gave Pitt a slap on his exposed tail. "All finished. And may I say that you've got a nice set of buns."

  "Why is it," Pitt said, pulling up his boxer briefs, "women always take advantage of me?"

  "Because we're smart enough to see through that steely exterior and know that inside beats the heart of a sentimental slob."

  Pitt looked at her. "Do you read palms, or more correctly, buns?"

  "No, but I'm a whiz with tarot cards." Crabtree paused and gave him a come-hither smile. "Come over to my quarters sometime and I'll give you a reading."

  Pitt would have rather rushed off for a root canal. "Sorry, knowing the future might upset my stomach."

  Pitt limped through the open doorway to the chairman's cabin. No bunk for the chairman of the board. Cabrillo was lying in a king-size bed with a Balinese carved headboard on top of clean green sheets. Bottles on a stand containing clear fluids flowed into him through tubes. Considering his ordeal, he looked reasonably healthy as he sat propped up by pillows reading damage reports while smoking a pipe. Pitt was saddened to see that his leg had been amputated below the knee. The stump was elevated on a pillow, a red stain having spread through the bandage.

  "Sorry about your leg," said Pitt. "I had hoped the surgeon might have somehow reattached it."

  "Wishful thinking," said Cabrillo with extraordinary grit. "The bone was too shattered for the doc to glue it back on."

  "I guess there is no sense in asking how you feel. Your constitution seems to be firing on all cylinders."

  Cabrillo nodded at his missing limb. "Not so bad. At least it's below the knee. How do you think I'd look with a peg leg?"

  Pitt looked down and shrugged. "Somehow I can't picture the chairman of the board stomping about the deck like some lecherous buccaneer."

  "Why not? That's what I am."

  "It's obvious," Pitt said, smiling, "that you don't need any sympathy."

  "What I need is a good bottle of Beaujolais to replace my blood loss."

  Pitt eased into a chair beside the bed. "I hear you've given orders to bypass the Philippines."

  Cabrillo nodded. "You heard correct. All hell must have broken loose when the Chinese learned we sank one of their cruisers along with its crew. They'll use every arm-twisting scheme in the diplomatic book to have us arrested and the ship impounded the minute we sail into Manila."

  "What then is our destination?"

  "Guam," answered Cabrillo. "We'll be safe in American territory."

  "I'm deeply sorry about the death and injuries to your crew and damage to your ship," said Pitt sincerely. "The blame belongs on my shoulders. If I hadn't insisted you delay your departure from Hong Kong to search inside the liner, the Oregon might have gotten clear."

  "Blame?" Cabrillo said sharply. "You think you're the cause of all that's happened? Don't flatter yourself. I wasn't ordered by Dirk Pitt to covertly search the United States. I made a contract with the U.S. government to fulfill a mission. All decisions relating to the search were mine and mine alone."

  "You and your crew paid a high price."

  "Maybe so, but the corporation was damn well rewarded for it. In fact, we're already guaranteed a fat bonus."

  "Still-"

  "Still, hell. The mission would have been a bust if you and Giordino hadn't learned what you did. To someone, somewhere in the hallowed halls of our intelligence agencies the information will be considered vital to the nation's interest."

  "All we really learned," said Pitt, "is that a former ocean liner, gutted of every nonessential piece of equipment and owned by a master criminal, is sailing without a crew to a port in the United States owned by the same master criminal."

  "I'd say that's quite a store of information."

  "What good is it if we've yet to fathom the motivation?"

  "I have confidence you'll divine the answer when you get back to the States."

  "We probably won't learn anything solid until Qin Shang tips his hand."

  "The Ancient Mariner and the Flying Dutchman had ghostly crews."

  "Yes, but they were works of classic fiction."

  Cabrillo set his pipe in an ashtray; he was beginning to look tired. "My theory about the United States blowing up the Panama Canal might have held water if you'd found her bowels filled with high explosives."

  "Like the old lend-lease destroyer during a commando raid at Saint-Nazaire, France, in World War II," said Pitt.

  "The Campbeltown. I remember. The British packed her with several tons of explosives and rammed her into the big dry dock at the Saint-Nazaire shipyard so the Nazis couldn't use it to refit the Tirpitz. With the help of a timing device, she blew to pieces several hours later, destroying the dry dock and killing over a hundred Nazis who came to stare at her."

  "You'd need several trainloads of explosives to blow a ship the size of the United States out of existence and everything within a mile around her."

  "Qin Shang is capable of most anything. Could it be he got his hands on a nuclear bomb?"

  "Suppose he did?" suggested Pitt. "What's his upside? Who'd waste a good nuclear bomb unless you've got a target of conspicuous magnitude? What could he gain by leveling San Francisco, New York or Boston? Why spend millions reconverting a nine-hundred-and-ninety-foot ocean liner into a bomb carrier when he could have used any one of a thousand old obsolete ships? No, Qin Shang is not a fanatical terrorist with a cause. His religion is domination and greed. Whatever his grand design, it has to be devious and brilliant, one that you and I wouldn't have thought of in a million years."

  "You're right," Cabrillo sighed. "Devastating a city and killing thousands of people is a no-win situation for a man of wealth. Especially when you consider that the bomb carrier could be traced back directly to Qin Shang Maritime."

  "Unless," Pitt added.

  "Unless?"

  Pitt gave Cabrillo a distant look. "Unless the scheme called for a minimal amount of explosives."

  "For what purpose?"

  "To blow the bottom out of the United States and scuttle her."

  "Now there's a possibility." Cabrillo's eyelids were beginning to droop. "I do believe you may be onto something."

  "That could explain why Al found all the doors to the crew's quarters and lower cargo holds welded shut."

  "Now all you need is a crystal ball to predict where Qin Shang intends to sink her ..." Cabrillo murmured softly. His voice trailed off as he drifted off to sleep.

  Pitt started to say something, but saw that he would only be talking to himself. He quietly stepped from Cabrillo's cabin and softly closed the door.

  Three days later the Oregon picked up the harbor pilot, passed through the shipping channel and slipped alongside the dock at Guam's commercial terminal. Except for the stump where her aft mast once stood and her pulverized stern, the ship looked little the worse for wear.

  A string of ambulances was waiting on the dock to receive the wounded and transport them to the hospital at the island's naval station. The Chinese marines were the first to be taken away, followed by the ship's crew. Cabrillo was the last of the injured to leave the ship. After saying their goodbyes to the crew, Pitt and Giordino muscled aside the stretcher bearers and carried him down the gangway themselves.

  "I feel like the sultan of Baghdad," said Cabrillo.

  "You'll get our bill in the mail," Giordino told him.

  They reached the ambulance and gently set the stretcher on the dock before loading it onto a gurney. Pitt knelt down and stared into Cabrillo's eyes. "It was an honor knowing you, Mr. Chairman."

  "And a privilege to work with you, Mr. Special Projects Director. If you ever decide to leave NUMA and want a job sailing the seven seas to exotic ports, send me your resume."

  "I don't mean to criticize, but I didn't exactly find the cruise aboard your ship a benefit to my health." Pitt paused and looked up at the rusty sides of the Oregon. "Sounds strange to say so, but I'm going to miss the old boat."

  "Like
wise," Cabrillo agreed.

  Pitt looked at him questioningly. "You'll mend and be back on board in no time."

  Cabrillo shook his head. "Not after this trip. The Oregon's next voyage is to the scrap yard."

  "Why?" asked Giordino. "Are the ashtrays full?"

  "She's outlived her usefulness."

  "I don't understand," said Pitt. "She looks perfectly sound."

  "She's been what is called in the spy trade 'compromised,' explained Cabrillo. "The Chinese are wise to her facade. Within days every intelligence service around the world will be on the lookout for her. No, I'm afraid her days as disguised gatherer of classified information are over."