Текст книги "Flood Tide"

Автор книги: Clive Cussler

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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 35 страниц)

“A thousand-yard round trip,” said Pitt, mentally calculating the submersible's downtime.

“Sea Dog 7 has batteries—how far can you stretch them?” asked Cabrillo.

“Fourteen hours if we treat them gently,” replied Giordino.

“Can you be towed behind a launch while underwater and out of sight?”

Pitt nodded. “A tow to and from would give us an extra hour under the liner's hull. I must warn you, though, the submersible is no lightweight. Its underwater drag will make ponderous going for a small launch.”

Cabrillo smiled evenly. “You don't know what type of engines power our shore launch and lifeboats.”

“I'm not even going to ask,” said Pitt. “But I'm guessing they could hold their own in a Gold Cup hydro race.”

“We've given away enough of the Oregon's technical secrets for you to write a book on her.” Cabrillo turned and peered through the bridge window as the pilot boat came out from the harbor, made a 180-degree turn and came alongside. The ladder was dropped, and the pilot stepped from his boat and climbed to the deck while both vessels were still under way. He went directly to the bridge, greeted Cabrillo and took charge of the helm.

Pitt walked outside onto the bridge wing and viewed the incredible carnival of colored lights of Kowloon and Hong Kong as the ship slipped through the channel to her assigned anchorage northwest of the central harbor. Along the waterfront of Victoria Harbor, the skyscrapers were illuminated like a forest of giant Christmas trees. In appearance, the city had changed little after it was taken over in 1997 by the People's Republic of China. For most of the residents life went on as before. It was the wealthy, along with many of the giant corporations, who had moved, primarily to the West Coast of the United States.

He was joined by Giordino as the ship closed on Qin Shang's dock terminal. The transatlantic ocean liner that was once the pride of America's maritime fleet appeared and grew larger.

During the flight to Manila he and Giordino had studied a lengthy report on the United States. The brainchild of the famed ship designer William Francis Gibbs, she was built by the Newport News Ship Building & Dry Dock Company, who laid her keel in 1950. Gibbs, a genius and a genuine character, was to marine engineering and design what Frank Lloyd Wright was to dry-land architecture. His dream was to create the fastest and most beautiful passenger liner yet built. He achieved his dream, and his masterpiece became the pride and apex of America during the age of great liners. She was truly the ultimate in elegant refinement and speed.

Gibbs was fanatical about weight and fireproofing. He insisted on using aluminum whenever possible. From the 1.2 million rivets driven into her hull to the lifeboats and their oars, stateroom furnishings and bathroom fixtures, baby's high chairs, even coat hangers and picture frames, all had to be aluminum. The only wood on the entire ship was a fireproof Steinway piano and the chef's butcher block. In the end, Gibbs had reduced the weight of the superstructure by 2,500 tons. The result was a ship of remarkable stability.

Considered huge then and now with a gross tonnage of 53,329 and measuring 990 feet in length with a 101-foot beam, she was not the world's largest liner. At the time of her construction the Queen Mary outweighed her by over 30,000 tons and the Queen Elizabeth was forty-one feet longer. The Cunard Line Queens may have provided a more ornate and baroque atmosphere, but the American ship's lack of rich wood paneling and fancy decor in favor of tasteful restraint, and her speed and safety were the elements that set the United States apart from her contemporaries. Unlike foreign competing liners, the Big U, as her crew had affectionately called her, gave her passengers 694 unusually spacious staterooms and air conditioning. Nineteen elevators carried passengers between the decks. Besides the usual gift shops, they could enjoy three libraries and two cinemas and could worship in a chapel.

But her two greatest assets were a military secret at the time of her building and operation. Not until several years later did it become known that she could be converted into a military transport capable of carrying 14,000 troops within a few weeks. Powered by eight massive boilers creating superheated steam, her four Westinghouse-geared turbines could put out 240,000 horsepower, 60,000 for each of her four propeller shafts, and drive her through the water just under fifty miles an hour. She was one of the few liners that could slip through the Panama Canal, charge across the Pacific to Singapore and back to San

Francisco without refueling. In 1952, the United States won the prestigious Blue Riband, awarded for the fastest speed across the Atlantic. No liner has won it since.

A decade after she left the shipyard, she had become an anachronism. Commercial airplanes were already becoming competition to the famed greyhounds of the sea. By 1969, rising operating costs and the public's desire to reach their destination in the shortest time possible by air, spelled the end for America's greatest ocean liner. She was retired and laid up for thirty years at Norfolk, Virginia, before eventually finding her way to China.

Borrowing a pair of binoculars, Pitt studied the huge ship from the bridge of the Oregon. Her hull was still painted black, her superstructure white, her two great, magnificent funnels red, white and blue. She looked as magnificent as the day she broke the transatlantic record.

He was puzzled to see her ablaze with light. The sounds of activity echoed across the water. It puzzled him that Qin Shang's shipyard crews were working on her around the clock without any attempt at secrecy. Then, curiously, all sounds and activity suddenly stopped.

The pilot nodded at Cabrillo, who rang the ancient telegraph to STOP ENGINES. Unknown to the pilot, the telegraph was nonfunctional and Cabrillo muttered orders through a handheld radio. The vibration died, and the Oregon went as quiet as a tomb as she slowly moved forward under her own momentum. Then the command came for slow astern, followed shortly by all stop.

Cabrillo gave the order to let go the anchor. The chain rattled, and it fell with a splash into the water. Then he shook hands with the pilot after signing the usual affidavits and logging the mooring. He waited until the pilot was on board the pilot boat before motioning to Pitt and Giordino.

 “Come join me in the chartroom and we'll go over tomorrow's program.”

“Why wait another twenty-four hours?” asked Giordino.

Cabrillo shook his head. “Tomorrow after dark is soon enough. We still have customs officials due aboard. No sense in alerting suspicions.”

Pitt said, “I think we have a breakdown in communications.”

Cabrillo looked at him. “You see a problem?”

“We have to go during daylight. We have no visibility at night.”

“Can't you use underwater lights?”

“In black water any bright light stands out like a beacon. We'd be discovered ten seconds after we switched on our floods.”

“We'll be inconspicous when we're under the keel,” Giordino added. “It's when we're inspecting the hull on the sides below the waterline that we're vulnerable to detection from above.”

“What about the darkness caused by the shadow of the hull?” asked Cabrillo. “What if underwater visibility is lousy? What then?”

“We'd have to rely on artificial lighting, but it would be imperceptible to anyone staring over the side of the dock with sun over their head.”

Cabrillo nodded. “I understand your dilemma. Romantic adventure novels say it's darkest before dawn. We'll drop you and your submersible over the side and tow you within spitting distance of the United States, putting you on station before sunup.”

“Sounds good to me,” Pitt said gratefully.

“Can I ask you a question, Mr. Chairman?” inquired Giordino.

“Go right ahead.”

“If you carry no cargo, how do you justify entering and exiting a port?”

Cabrillo gave Giordino a canny look. “The empty wooden crates you see on the deck and the ones in the cargo holds above our concealed cabins and galley are stage props. They will be off-loaded onto the dock, then consigned to an agent who works for me and transported to a warehouse. After a proper length of time, the crates are re-marked with different descriptions, returned to the dock and loaded back on board. As far as the Chinese are concerned, we dumped one cargo and took on another.”

“Your operation never ceases to amaze,” said Pitt.

“You were given a tour of our computer compartment in the bow of the ship,” said Cabrillo. “So you know that ninety percent of the Oregon's operation is under the command of computer-automated systems. We go manual when entering and departing a port.”

Pitt handed the binoculars to Cabrillo. “You're an old pro at stealth and covert activities. Doesn't it strike you odd that Qin Shang is converting the United States into a first-class smugglers' transport right out in the open under the eyes of anyone looking on? Crewmen on cargo ships, passengers on ferries and tour boats?”

“It does seem peculiar,” Cabrillo admitted. He lowered the glasses momentarily in thought, puffed on his pipe, and peered through the lenses again. “It's also peculiar that all work on the ship appears to have stopped. No sign of tight security either.”

“Tell you anything?” asked Giordino.

“It either tells Qin Shang is uncommonly careless or our renowned intelligence agencies have been outsmarted by him,” said Cabrillo quietly.

“We'll know better after we check out the ship's bottom,” said Pitt. “If he intends to smuggle illegal aliens into foreign countries under the noses of their immigration officials, he'd have to have a technique for removing them off the ship undetected. That can only mean some kind of watertight passage beneath the waterline to shore or even possibly a submarine.”

Cabrillo tapped his pipe on the rail, watching as the ashes spiraled down into the harbor. Then he looked thoughtfully across the water at the former pride of America's passenger fleet, her superstructure and two rakish funnels brilliantly lit like a movie set. When he spoke it was slowly and solemnly. “You fully realize, I assume, that if something should go wrong, a minor mishap, an overlooked detail, and you are caught in what is considered an act of espionage by the People's Republic of China, you will be treated accordingly.”

“Like being tortured and shot,” said Giordino.

Cabrillo nodded. “And without anyone in our government so much as lifting then” little finger to stop the execution."

“Al and I are fully aware of the consequences,” said Pitt. “But you're placed in the hazardous position of risking your entire crew and your ship. I wouldn't fault you for a second if you wanted to toss us in the bay and steam off into the sunset”

Cabrillo stared at him and smiled craftily. “Are you serious? Skip out on you? I'd never consider it. Certainly not for the enormous sum of money a certain secret government fund is paying me and the crew. As far as I'm concerned, this has far less risk than robbing a bank.”

“In excess of seven figures?” Pitt asked.

“More like eight,” replied Cabrillo, suggesting a fee of over ten million dollars.

Giordino looked over at Pitt sadly. “When I think of what our pitiful monthly stipend from NUMA adds up to, I can't help wondering where we went wrong.”

UNDER THE COVER OF PREDAWN DARKNESS, THE SUBMERSIBLE Sea Dog II, with Pitt and Giordino inside, was lifted from her crate by the loading crane, swung over the side of the ship and slowly lowered into the water. A crewman standing on top of the submersible unhooked the cable and was hauled back on board. Then the Oregon's shore launch pulled alongside and attached a towline. Giordino stood in the open hatch that was raised three feet above the water while Pitt continued ticking off the instrument and equipment checklist.

“Ready when you are,” announced Max Hanley from the launch.

“We'll descend to ten feet,” said Giordino. “When we reach that level you can get under way.” “Understood.”

Giordino closed the hatch and stretched out beside Pitt in the submersible, which had the appearance of a fat Siamese cigar with stubby wings on each side that curved to vertical on the tips. The twenty-foot long, eight-foot wide, 3,200-pound vehicle may have looked ungainly on the surface, but underwater she dived and turned with the grace of a baby whale. She was propelled with three thrusters in the twin tail section that

impelled water through the front intake and expelled it out the rear. With a light touch on the two handgrips, one controlling pitch and dive, the other banks and turns, along with the speed-control lever, the Sea Dog II could glide smoothly a few feet under the surface of the sea or dive to a depth of two thousand feet in a matter of minutes. The pilots, who lay prone with their heads and shoulders extending into a single transparent glass bow, had a much wider range of visibility than provided by most submersibles with only small viewing ports.

Visibility beneath the surface was nil. The water enclosed the sub like a thick quilt. Looking up and ahead, they could just barely make out the shadowy outline of the launch. Then came a deep rumble as Cabrillo increased the rpms of the powerful Rodeck 539-cubic-inch, 1,500-horsepower engine that drove the big double-ender launch. The propeller thrashed the water, the stern dug in and the launch strained before surging forward with the bulky submersible in tow. Like a diesel locomotive pulling a long train up a grade, the launch struggled to gain momentum, finally increasing its speed until it was dragging the deadweight below the water at a respectable eight knots. Unknown to Pitt and Giordino, Cabrillo had the throttle of the powerful engine set at only one-third power.

During the short journey from the Oregon to the United States, Pitt programmed the on-board computer analyzer that automatically set and monitored the oxygen level, electronics and the depth control systems. Giordino activated the manipulator arm by running it through a series of exercises.

“Is the communications antenna up?” Pitt asked him.

Lying next to him, Giordino nodded slightly. “I let out the cable to a maximum length of sixty feet as soon as we entered the water. She's dragging on the surface behind us.”

“How did you disguise it?”

Giordino shrugged. “Another cunning ploy of the great Albert Giordino. I encased it in a hollowed-out cantaloupe.”

“Stolen from the chef, no doubt.”

Giordino gave Pitt a hurt look. “Waste not, want not. It was overripe and she was going to throw it in her garbage collector.”

Pitt spoke into a tiny microphone. “Chairman Cabrillo, do you read me?”

“Like you were sitting next to me, Mr. Pitt,” Cabrillo came back quickly. Like the other five men in the launch, he was dressed as a local fisherman.

“As soon as we reach our drop zone, I'll release the communications-relay antenna so we can remain in contact after you've returned to the Oregon. When I drop the antenna, its weighted line will settle into the silt and it will act as a buoy.” “What is your range?”

“Underwater, we can transmit and receive up to fifteen hundred yards.”

“Understood,” said Cabrillo. “Stand by, we're only a short distance away from the liner's stern. I won't be able to come in much closer than fifty yards.” “Any sign of a security force?”

“The whole ship and dock look as dead as a crypt in winter.” “Standing by.”

Cabrillo was better than his word. He slowed the launch until it barely maintained headway and steered it almost directly under the stern of the United States. The sun was coming up as a diver slipped over the side and descended down the towline to the submersible. “Diver is down,” Cabrillo announced.

“We see him,” answered Pitt, looking up through the transparent nose. He watched as the diver released the connection mechanism mounted on top of the submersible between the twin tubes and gave the familiar “okay” sign with one hand before disappearing up the towline. “We are free.”

“Make a turn forty degrees to your starboard,” directed Cabrillo. “You are only eighty feet west of the stern.”

Giordino gestured up through the murky depth at the immense shadow that gave the illusion it was passing over them, The seemingly unending shape was enhanced by the sunlight filtering between the dock and the gigantic hull. “We have her.”

“You're on your own. Rendezvous will be at four-thirty. I'll – have a diver waiting at your antenna mooring.”

“Thank you, Juan,” said Pitt, feeling free to use the chairman's first name. “We couldn't have done it without you and your exceptional crew.”

“I wouldn't have it any other way,” Cabrillo came back cheerfully.

Giordino gazed in awe at the monstrous rudder looming overhead and pressed the lever that dropped the antenna's anchor into the silt on the bottom. From their position the hull seemed to travel off into infinity. “She appears to be riding high. Do you recall her draft?”

“I'd have to make a wild guess,” said Pitt. “Somewhere around forty feet, give or take?”

“Judging from the look of her, your guess is a good five feet on the low side.”

Pitt made Cabrillo's course correction and dipped the Sea Dog /Ts bows into deeper water. “I'd better be careful or we'll bump our heads.”

Pitt and Giordino had worked as a team on countless dives into the abyss and operated a score of submersibles on various NUMA projects. Without any discussion each man spontaneously assumed his well-practiced responsibilities. Pitt acted as pilot while Giordino kept an eye on the systems monitor, operated the video camera and worked the manipulator arm.

Pitt gently eased the throttle lever forward, directing the sub's movement by angling and tilting the three thrusters with the handgrip controls, dodging beneath the giant rudder and banking around the two starboard screws. Like some nocturnal flying machine, the submersible slipped around the three-bladed bronze propellers that spanned the watery gloom like great, beautifully curved fans. The Sea Dog II continued silently through the water, which became an eerie opaque green.

The bottom appeared as distant land through a fog. Assorted trash dumped off ships and the dock over the years lay partially embedded in the silt. They soared over a rusting deck grate that was home to a small school of squid that drifted in and out of the parallel rows of square openings. Pitt guessed that it had simply been dumped by dockyard workers sometime in the past. He stopped the thrusters and settled the craft into the soft bottom beneath the liner's stern. A small cloud of silt filtered up and outward like a brown vapor, momentarily obscuring any view through the forward canopy.

Overhead, t ic 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 levelled 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 grate 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 selfinduced 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 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.”