Текст книги "Flood Tide"

Автор книги: Clive Cussler

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“There has to be a ship nearby,” said Katie through chattering teeth.

Gallagher shook his head. “The water is as empty as a homeless waif's piggy bank.” He didn't tell her that visibility was cut to less than fifty yards.

“I'll never forgive myself for abandoning Fritz,” Katie whispered, the tears falling down her cheeks before turning to ice.

“My fault,” Gallagher consoled her. “I should have grabbed him when we ran out of the cabin.”

“Fritz?” queried Hui.

“My little dachshund,” replied Katie.

“You lost a dog.”

Hui abruptly sat up. “You lost a dog?” he repeated. “I lost the heart and soul of my country—”

 He paused and went into a coughing spasm. Misery etched his face, despair clouded his eyes. He looked like a man whose life had lost all meaning. “I have failed in my duty. I must die.”

“Don't be stupid, man,” said Gallagher. “We'll come through. Just hang in a little longer.”

Hui appeared not to hear him. He seemed to wither and give up. Katie was gazing into the general's eyes. It was as if a light behind them had suddenly switched off. They took on a glazed, unseeing look.

“I think he's dead,” Katie murmured.

Gallagher checked to be sure. “Move over against his body and use it as a shield from the wind and spray. I'll lie on the other side of you.”

It seemed ghoulish to her, but Katie found that she could hardly feel Hui's cadaver through the bulk of her clothing. The loss of her faithful little dog, the ship plunging under the black water, the insane wind and crazed waters all seemed unreal to her. She hoped that it was all a nightmare and soon she would wake up. She burrowed deeper between the two men, one alive, the other dead.

Through the rest of the day and following night the intensity of the storm had slowly abated, but they were still exposed to a murderous windchill factor. Katie could no longer feel her hands and feet. She began to slip in and out of consciousness. Fantasies ran through her mind. Oddly, she found it macabre that she might have eaten her last meal. She thought she saw a sandy beach beneath swaying palm trees. She imagined Fritz running across the sand, barking as he came toward her. She talked to Gallagher as though they were sitting at a table at a restaurant, ordering dinner. Her dead father appeared to her, dressed in his captain's uniform. He stood in the raft, looked down and smiled. He told her she would live and not to worry. Land was only a short distance away. And then he was gone.

“What time is it?” she asked hoarsely.

“Sometime late in the afternoon, I should judge,” answered Gallagher. “My watch stopped soon after we abandoned the Princess.”

“How long have we been adrift?”

“A rough guess would put it about thirty-eight hours since the Princess went down.”

“We're near land,” she muttered abruptly.

“What makes you say that, darlin'?”

“My father told me.”

“He did, did he?” He smiled at her compassionately under a mustache and eyebrows caked white with ice. Icicles hanging from whatever hair was exposed, gave Gallagher the appearance of a monster risen from the depths of the South Pole in a science-fiction movie. Except for her lack of facial hair, Katie wondered if she looked the same.

“Can't you see it?”

Dreadfully stiff from the cold, Gallagher struggled to a sitting position and scanned the horizons of his restricted world. His view was blurred by the driving sleet, but he kept trying. Then he thought his eyes were deceiving him. He could just make out large boulders scattered along a shoreline. A short distance beyond, no more than fifty yards, snow blanketed trees swaying in the wind. He spotted what looked like the dark shape of a small cabin amid the trees.

His joints numb and unresponsive, Gallagher removed one boot and used it as a paddle. After a few minutes, the exertion seemed to warm his body and the effort became less arduous. “Take heart, darlin'. We'll be on dry land soon.”

The current was working parallel to the shore, and Gallagher fought to break out of its clutches. He felt as if he was struggling against a stream filled with molasses. The gap narrowed with agonizing slowness. The trees seemed so close he could reach out and shake them, but they were still a good sixty yards away.

Just when Gallagher had reached the end of his endurance and was about to collapse from exhaustion, he could feel the raft bumping against underwater boulders. He looked down at Katie. She was shivering uncontrollably from the damp and chill. She could not last much longer.

He shoved his frozen foot back inside the boot. Then, sucking in his breath, he prayed that the water would not close over his head and jumped in. It was a hazard he had to risk. Thankfully, the soles of his boots struck hard rock before the water level reached his crotch.

“Katie!” he shouted in happy delirium. “We've made it. We're on land.”

“That's nice,” Katie murmured, too paralyzed and oblivious to care.

Gallagher dragged the raft onto a shore covered with wave-smoothed rocks and pebbles. The exhausting effort took the last of his strength, and he sagged like a lifeless rag doll and dropped onto the cold, wet rocks. He never knew how long he lay there, but when he finally recovered enough to crawl up to the life raft and peer over the side, he saw that Katie's skin was blue and mottled. Fearful, he reached in and pulled her toward him. He wasn't sure whether she was alive or dead. Then he noticed a wisp of vapor coming from her nose. He felt for a pulse in her neck. It was faint and slow; her strong heart was still pumping, but death was very close to her.

He looked up at the sky. It was no longer a thick quilt of dark gray. The clouds were forming into distinct shapes and turning white. The storm was passing, and already he could sense the gusting wind diminishing to a settled breeze. He had little time. If he did not find warmth quickly, he would lose her.

Taking a deep breath, Gallagher slid his arms under Katie's body and lifted her out of the raft. Out of hatred he kicked the raft with General Hui's frozen body away from the shoreline. He watched for a few moments as the current caught the raft and began carrying it back into deep water. Then, clutching her close to his chest, he began trudging toward the cabin in the trees. The frigid air seemed suddenly warmer, and he no longer felt stiff and tired.

Three days later, the cargo ship Stephen Miller reported sighting a body in a life raft, which was later recovered. The dead man was Chinese and looked as if he had been sculpted from ice. He was never identified. The life raft, a model not in use for nearly twenty years, was marked in Chinese. Later translation indicated it came from a ship called the Princess Dou Wan.

A search was launched; bits of floating debris were spotted but never retrieved for investigation. No oil slick was discovered. No ship had been reported missing. Nowhere, on ship or ashore, had any distress signal or cry of “Mayday” been picked up. All rescue stations monitoring the standard ship-distress frequency received nothing, hearing only static from the heavy snow.

The mystery deepened when it was learned that a ship named Princess Dou Wan had been reported sunk off the coast of Chile the month before. The body found in the life raft was buried, and the strange enigma was quickly forgotten.

Dirk Pitt 14 – Flood Tide

PART I

Dirk Pitt 14 – Flood Tide

THE KILLING WATER

April 14, 2000 Pacific Ocean off Washington

AS IF SHE WERE STRUGGLING OUT OF A BOTTOMLESS PIT, CONsciousness slowly returned to Ling T'ai. Her whole upper body swam in pain. She groaned through clenched teeth, wanting to scream out in agony. She lifted a hand that was badly bruised and tenderly touched her fingertips to her face. One coffee brown eye was swollen closed, the other puffed but partially open. Her nose was broken, with blood still trickling from the nostrils. Thankfully, she could feel her teeth still in their gums, but her arms and shoulders were turning black-and-blue. She could not begin to count the bruises.

Ling T'ai was not sure at first why she was singled out for interrogation. The explanation came later, just before she was brutally beaten. There were others, to be sure, who were pulled from the mass of illegal Chinese immigrants on board the ship, tormented and thrown into a dark compartment in the cargo hold. Nothing was very clear to her, everything seemed confused and obscure. She felt as if she was about to lose her grip on consciousness and fall back into the pit.

The ship she had traveled on from the Chinese port of Qing-dao across the Pacific looked to all appearances like a typical cruise ship. Named the Indigo Star, her hull was painted white from waterline to the funnel. Comparable in size to most smaller cruise ships that carried between one hundred and one hundred fifty passengers in luxurious comfort, the Indigo Star crammed nearly twelve hundred illegal Chinese immigrants into huge open bays within the hull and superstructure. She was a facade, innocent on the outside, a human hellhole on the inside.

Ling T'ai could not have envisioned the insufferable conditions that she and over a thousand others had to endure. The food was minimal and hardly enough to exist on. Sanitary conditions were nonexistent and toilet facilities deplorable. Some had died, mostly young children and the elderly, their bodies removed and never seen again. It seemed likely to Ling T'ai that they were simply thrown into the sea as if they were garbage. The day before the Indigo Star was scheduled to reach the northwestern coast of the United States, a team of sadistic guards called enforcers, who maintained a climate of fear and intimidation on board the ship, had rounded up thirty or forty passengers and forced them to undergo an unexplained interrogation. When her turn finally came, she was ushered into a small, dark compartment and commanded to sit in a chair in front of four enforcers of the smuggling operation who were seated behind a table. Ling was then asked a series of questions.

“Your name!” demanded a thin man neatly attired in a gray pinstripe business suit. His smooth, brown face was intelligent but expressionless. The other three enforcers sat silently and glared malevolently. To the initiated, it was a classic act of interrogative coercion.                “My name is Ling T'ai.”

“What province were you born?”               “Jiangsu.”

“You lived there?” asked the thin man.

“Until I was twenty and finished my studies. Then I went to Canton, where I became a schoolteacher.”

The questions came dispassionately and devoid of inflection. “Why do you want to go to the United States?”

“I knew the voyage would be extremely hazardous, but the promise of opportunity and a better life was too great,” answered Ling T'ai. “I decided to leave my family and become an American.”

“Where did you obtain the money for your passage?”

“I saved most of it from my teacher's pay over ten years. The rest I borrowed from my father.”

“What is his occupation?”

“He is a professor of chemistry at the university in Beijing.”

“Do you have friends or family in the United States?”

She shook her head. “I have no one.”

The thin man looked at her in long, slow speculation, then pointed his finger at her. “You are a spy, sent to report on our smuggling operation.”

The accusation came so abruptly, she sat frozen for a few moments before stammering. “I do not know what you mean. I am a schoolteacher. Why do you call me a spy?”

“You do not have the appearance of one born in China.”

“Not true!” she cried in panic. ”My mother and father are Chinese. So were my grandparents."

“Then explain why your height is at least four inches above average for a Chinese woman and your facial features have the faint touch of European ancestry.”

“Who are you?” she demanded. “Why are you so cruel?”

“Not that it matters, my name is Ki Wong. I am the chief enforcer for the Indigo Star. Now please answer my last question.”

Acting frightened, Ling explained that her great-grandfather had been a Dutch missionary who headed up a mission in the city of Longyan. He took a local peasant girl as a wife. “That is the only Western blood in me, I swear.”

The inquisitors acted as if they did not credit her story. “You are lying.”

“Please, you must believe me!”

“Do you speak English?”

“I know only a few words and phrases.”

Then Wong got down to the real issue. “According to our records, you did not pay enough for your passage. You owe us another ten thousand dollars American.”

Ling T'ai leaped to her feet and cried out. “But I have no more money!”

Wong shrugged indifferently. “Then you will have to be transported back to China.”

“No, please, I can't go back, not now!” She wrung her hands until the knuckles went white. The chief enforcer glanced smugly at the three other men, who sat like stone sculptures. Then his voice changed subtly, “There may be another way for you to enter the States.”

“I will do anything,” Ling T'ai pleaded.

“If we put you ashore, you will have to work off the rest of your passage fee. Since you can hardly speak English it will be impossible for you to find employment as a schoolteacher. Without friends or family you'll have no means of support. Therefore, we will take it upon ourselves to generously provide you with food, a place to live and an opportunity for work until such time as you can subsist on your own.”

“What kind of work do you mean?” asked Ling T'ai hesitantly.

Wong paused, then grinned evilly.

 “You will engage in the art of satisfying men.”

This then was what it was all about. Ling T'ai and most of the other smuggled aliens were never intended to be allowed to roam free in the United States. Once they landed on foreign soil, they were to become indentured slaves subject to torture and extortion.

“Prostitution?” Horrified, Ling T'ai shouted angrily, “I will never degrade myself!”

“A pity,” said Wong impassively. “You are an attractive woman and could demand a good price.”

He rose to his feet, stepped around the table and stood in front of her. The smirk on his face suddenly vanished and was replaced with a look of malice. Then he pulled what looked like a stiff rubber hose from his coat pocket and began lashing at her face and body. He stopped only when he began to break out in sweat, pausing to grip her chin with one hand, staring into her battered face. She moaned and pleaded with him to stop.

“Perhaps you've had a change of mind.”

“Never,” she muttered through a split and bleeding lip. “I will die first.”

Then Wong's narrow lips curled into a cold smile. His arm was raised and then came down in a vicious swing as the hose caught her on the base of the skull. Ling T'ai was enveloped in blackness.

Her tormentor returned to the table and seated himself. He picked up a phone and spoke into the mouthpiece. “You may remove the woman and place her with those going to Orion Lake.”

“You do not think she can be converted into a profitable piece of property?” said a heavy-bodied man at the end of the table.

Wong shook his head as he looked down on Ling T'ai, lying bleeding on the floor. “There is something about this woman I do not trust. It is best to play safe. None of us dare to incur the wrath of our esteemed superior by jeopardizing the enterprise. Ling T'ai will get her wish to die.”

An elderly woman, who said she was a nurse, tenderly dabbed a wet cloth on Ling T'ai's face, cleaning away the caked blood and applying disinfectant from a small first-aid kit. After the old nurse finished tending the injuries, she moved off to console a young boy who was whimpering in his mother's arms. Ling T'ai half opened the eye that was only mildly swollen and fought off a sudden wave of nausea. Though suffering agonizing pain that erupted from every nerve ending, her mind was unmistakenly clear on every aspect of how she came to be in this predicament.

Her name was not Ling T'ai. The name on her American birth certificate read Julia Marie Lee, born in San Francisco, California. Her father had been an American financial analyst based in Hong Kong when he met and married the daughter of a wealthy Chinese banker. Except for dove-gray eyes under the brown contact lenses, she had favored her mother, who passed on beautiful blue-black hair and Asian facial features. Nor was she a schoolteacher from Jiangsu Province in China.

Julia Marie Lee was a special undercover agent for the International Affairs Investigations Division of the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service. By posing as Ling T'ai, she had paid a representative of an alien-smuggling syndicate in Beijing the equivalent of $30,000 in Chinese currency. Becoming part of the human cargo with its built-in misery, she compiled a wealth of information on the syndicate's activities and methods of operation.

Once she was smuggled on shore, her plan was to contact the field office of the assistant district director of investigations in Seattle, who was prepared and waiting for information to arrest the smugglers within territorial limits and break up the syndicate's pipeline into North America. Now her fate was uncertain, and she saw no avenue of escape. Through some untapped reservoir of fortitude she did not know she possessed, Julia had somehow survived the torture. Months of hard training had never prepared her for a brutal beating. She cursed herself for choosing the wrong course. If she had meekly accepted her fate, her plan to escape would have most likely been achieved. But she thought that by playing the role of a frightened but proud Chinese woman she could have deceived the smugglers. As it turned out, it was a mistake. She realized now that any sign of resistance was shown no mercy. Many of the men and women, she began to see in the dim light, were also badly beaten.

The more Julia thought about her situation, the more she became certain she and everyone in the cargo hold around her were going to be murdered.

THE OWNER OF THE SMALL GENERAL STORE AT ORION LAKE, ninety miles due west of Seattle, turned slightly and peered at the man who opened the door and stood momentarily on the threshold. Orion Lake was off the beaten track to most traffic, and Dick Colburn knew everyone in this rugged area of the Olympic Peninsula mountains. The stranger was either a tourist passing through or a fisherman from the city trying his luck with either the salmon or trout stocked in the nearby lake by the Forest Service. He wore a short leather jacket over an Irish knit sweater and corduroy pants. No hat covered a mass of wavy black hair that was streaked gray at the temples. Colburn watched as the stranger stared unblinkingly at the shelves and display cases before stepping inside.

Out of habit Colburn studied the man for a few moments. The stranger was tall; his head cleared the top of the door by less than three fingers. Not the face of an office worker, Colburn decided. The skin was too tan and craggy for a life spent indoors. The cheeks and chin were in need of a shave. The body seemed thin for the frame. There was the unmistakable look about him of a man who had seen too much; who had suffered hardship and grief. He appeared tired, not physically

tired, but emotionally used up, someone who cared little about life anymore. It was almost as if he had been tapped on the shoulder by death but had somehow shrugged him off. Yet there was a quiet cheerfulness in the opaline-green eyes that broke through the haggard features, and an obscure sense of pride.

Colburn concealed his interest well and went about his business of stocking the shelves. “Can I help you with anything?” he asked over his shoulder.

“Just dropped by to pick up a few groceries,” replied the stranger. Colburn's store was too small for shopping carts, so he picked up a basket, slinging the carrying handles over one arm.

“How's the fishing?”

“Haven't tried my luck yet.”

“There's a good hole at the south end of the lake where they've been known to bite.”

“I'll keep that in mind, thank you.”

“Got you a fishing license yet?”

“No, but I'll bet you're authorized to sell me one.”

“Resident or nonresident of the state of Washington?”

“Non.”

The grocer pulled out a form from beneath the counter and handed the stranger a pen. “Just fill in the applicable blanks. I'll add the fee onto your groceries.” To Colburn's practiced ear the accent was vaguely southwestern. “The eggs are fresh. Laid right here hi town. There's a sale on cans of Shamus O'Malley's stew. And the smoked salmon and the elk steaks taste like they came from heaven.”

For the first time a hint of a smile crossed the stranger's lips. “The elk steaks and the salmon sound good, but I think I'll pass on Mr. O'Malley's stew.”

After nearly fifteen minutes the basket was full and set on the counter beside an antique brass cash register. Instead of the usual selection of canned goods picked by most fishermen, this basket was filled with mostly fruits and vegetables.

“You must be planning on staying awhile,” said Colburn. “An old family friend loaned me his cabin on the lake. You probably know him. His name is Sam Foley.”

“I've known Sam for twenty years. His cabin is the only one that damned Chinaman hasn't bought up,” Colburn grumbled.

“Good thing too. If Sam sells out, there won't be an access for fishermen to launch their boats on the lake.”

“I wondered why most of the cabins looked run-down and abandoned, all except that odd-looking building. The one on the north side of the lake opposite the mouth of that small river flowing west.”

Colburn spoke as he rang up the groceries. “Used to be a fish cannery back in the forties until the company went broke. The Chinaman picked it up for a song and men remodeled it into a fancy mansion. Even built a nine-hole golf course. Then he began buying every piece of property that fronted on the lake. Your friend, Sam Foley, is the only holdout.”

“It seems half the population of Washington and British Columbia is Chinese,” commented the stranger.

“The Chinese have poured into the Pacific Northwest like a flood tide since the Communist government took over Hong Kong. They already own half of downtown Seattle and most of Vancouver. No telling what the population will look like in another fifty years.” Colburn paused and punched the TOTAL lever on the cash register. “With the fishing permit, that'll be seventy-nine-thirty-five.”

The stranger pulled his wallet from a hip pocket, handed Colburn a hundred-dollar bill and waited for the change. “The Chinaman you mentioned—what sort of business is he in?”

“All I heard is that he's a wealthy shipping tycoon from Hong Kong.” Colburn began sacking the groceries while gossiping away. “Nobody has ever seen him. Never comes through town. Except for drivers of big delivery trucks, nobody goes in or out. Strange goings-on, if you ask most of the folks around here. He and his cronies don't fish in the daytime. You can only hear boat motors at night, and they don't run lights. Harry Daniels, who hunts and camps along the river, claims he's seen an odd-looking work boat traveling the lake after midnight, and never under a moon.”

“Everybody loves a good mystery.”

“If I can do anything for you while you're in the neighborhood, just ask. My name's Dick Colburn.”

The stranger showed white, even teeth in a broad grin. “Dirk Pitt.”

“You be from California, Mr. Pitt?”

“You'd do Professor Henry Higgins proud,” said Pitt light-heartedly. “I was bom and grew up in Southern California, but for the past fifteen years I've lived in Washington.”

Colbum began to smell new ground. “You must work with the U.S. government.”

“The National Underwater and Marine Agency. And before you misreckon, I came to Orion Lake strictly to relax and unwind. Nothing more.”

“If you'll pardon me for saying so,” said Colburn sympathetically, “you look like a man who could use some rest.”

Pitt grinned. “What I really need is a good back rub.”

“Cindy Elder. She tends bar over at the Sockeye Saloon and gives a great massage.”

“I'll keep her in mind.” Pitt took the grocery sacks in both arms and headed for the door. Just before stepping outside, he stopped and turned. “Out of curiosity, Mr. Colburn, what is the Chinaman's name?”

Colburn looked at Pitt, trying to read something in the eyes that wasn't there. “He calls himself Shang, Qin Shang.”

“Did he ever say why he purchased the old canning factory?”

“Norman Selby, the real-estate agent who handled the trans-action, said Shang wanted a secluded area on water to build a fancy retreat where he could entertain affluent clients.” Col-burn paused and looked positively belligerent. “You must have seen what he did to a perfectly good cannery. Only a matter of time before the State Historical Commission would have named it as a historic site. Shang turned it into a cross between a modern office building and a pagoda. An abortion, I say, a damned abortion.”

“It does have a novel look about it,” Pitt agreed. “No doubt Shang, as a neighborly gesture, invites the town citizens to parties and golf tournaments?”

“Are you kidding?” said Colburn, venting his anger. “Shang won't even allow the mayor and city council within a mile of his property. Would you believe he even erected a ten-foot chain-link fence with barbwire on the top around most of the lake?”

“Can he get away with that?”

“He can and did, by buying off politicians. He can't keep people off the lake. It belongs to the state. But he can make it hard for them to get on.”

“Some people have a fetish for privacy,” said Pitt.

“Shang's got more than a fetish. Security cameras am armed goons crawl through the woods all around the place Hunters and fishermen who accidentally wander too close art hustled off the land and treated like common criminals.”

“I must remember to stay on my side of the lake.”

“Probably wouldn't be a bad idea.”

“See you in a few days, Mr. Colburn.”

“Come again, Mr. Pitt. Have a nice day.”

Pitt looked up at the sky. Not much of the day was left. The late-afternoon sun was partially shaded by the tops of the fit trees rising behind Colburn's store. He set the grocery bags on the rear passenger seat of his rental car and climbed behind the wheel. He turned the ignition key, shifted into drive and pressed the accelerator. Five minutes later, he turned off the asphalt highway onto a dirt road leading to the Foley cabin on Orion Lake. For two miles the road meandered through a forest of cedar, spruce and hemlock.

At the end of a quarter-mile straight, he came to a fork, each road skirting the shore of the lake in opposite directions until meeting up again on the far side, which happened to be Qin Shang's extravagant retreat. Pitt could not help but agree with the grocer's description. The former cannery had truly been transformed into an architectural miscarriage, totally inappropriate for a beautiful setting on an alpine lake. It was as though the builder had begun a modern structure of copper-tinted solar glass intermingled with exposed steel beams, then changed his mind and turned it over to a fifteenth-century Ming-dynasty contractor who topped the building with a golden tile roof straight off the majestic Hall of Supreme Harmony in the Forbidden City at Beijing.

After being told that the owner was cloistered by an elaborate security system, Pitt, while enjoying the solitude of the lake, now assumed his movements were being observed. He turned onto the road bearing left and continued for another half-mile before stopping beside a wooden stairway leading to a porch that ran around an attractive log cabin overlooking the lake. He remained sitting in the car for a minute, gazing at a pair of deer that were feeding in the woods.

The soreness had gone out of his injuries, and he could exercise movement almost as well as he could before the tragedy. The cuts and burns had for the most part healed. It was his mind and emotions that were taking longer.

He was ten pounds lighter and not making a concerted effort at putting the lost weight back on. He felt as if he had lost all sense of purpose. It was a case of actually feeling worse than he looked. But deep down there was a spark that was fanned by an inherent urge to peer into the unknown. The spark burst into flame soon after he carried the groceries inside the cabin and set them on the kitchen sink.

Something did not seem right. He couldn't put his finger on it, but it quietly gnawed at his mind, some unfathomable sixth sense that told him something was wrong. He stepped into the living room. Nothing out of the ordinary there. He cautiously entered the bedroom, glanced around, checked the closet and moved into the bathroom. And then he had it. The toiletry items from his shaving kit—razor, cologne, toothbrush, hairbrush—were always placed in neat order on the sink after he arrived at his destination. They were right where he had set them, all except the shaving kit itself. He distinctly recalled holding it by the outside strap and pushing it onto a shelf. Now the strap was facing the rear wall.

He went through the rooms now, carefully studying every loose object. Somebody, probably more than one person, had been over every inch of the cabin. They had to be professionals but became indifferent when they concluded that the resident was not a secret agent or a hired assassin but merely a guest of the cabin's owner enjoying a few peaceful days of relaxation. From the time Pitt left for town until he returned, they had a good forty-five minutes to do the job. At first the reason behind the search escaped Pitt, but then a light began to glow in the dim reaches of his brain.

There had to be something else. To an expert spy or gold-badge detective, the answer would be immediately transparent. But Pitt was neither. A former Air Force pilot and longtime special projects director for NUMA, his specialty was troubleshooting the agency's underwater projects, not undercover investigation. It took him a good sixty seconds to solve the dilemma.

He realized that the search was secondary. The real purpose was to install listening devices or miniature cameras. Someone doesn't trust me, Pitt thought. And that someone must be the chief of Qin Shang's security network.