Текст книги "Flood Tide"

Автор книги: Clive Cussler

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Текущая страница: 23 (всего у книги 35 страниц)

All during dinner, Pitt had rarely taken his eyes off the old man observing the poker players. “Who's the old fellow over there straddling the chair?” he asked the waiter. “I know him but can't place where we met.”

The waiter swiveled his eyes around the bar, stopping them on the old man. "Oh, him. He owns a fleet of fishing boats.

Mostly trawls for crab and shrimp. Owns a big catfish farm, too. Wouldn't know it to look at him, but he's a wealthy man."

“Do you know if he charters boats?”

“Dunno. You'll have to ask him.”

Pitt looked at Giordino. “Why don't you work the bar and see if you can learn where Qin Shang Maritime's towboats dump their trash?”

“And you?”

“I'll ask about the dredging operations upriver.”

Giordino nodded silently and rose from the table. Soon he was laughing amid several fishermen, regaling them with inflated stories of his fishing days off California. Pitt moved over to the old fisherman and stood beside him.

“Excuse me, sir, but I wonder if I might have a word with you.”

The gray-bearded man's blue-green eyes slowly examined Pitt from his belt buckle to his black curly hair. Then he nodded slowly, rose from his chair and motioned Pitt to a booth in one corner of the bar. After he settled in and ordered another beer, the fisherman said, “What can I do for you Mr....”

“Pitt.”

“Mr. Pitt. You're not from around the bayou country.”

“No, I'm with the National Underwater and Marine Agency out of Washington.”

“You doing marine research?”

“Not this trip,” said Pitt. “My colleagues and I are cooperating with the Immigration Service in trying to stop the illegal smuggling of aliens.”

The old man pulled a cigar stub from the pocket of an old windbreaker and lit it. “How can I help?”

“I would like to charter a boat to investigate an excavation upriver—”

“The canal dug by Qin Shang Maritime for landfill at Sung-ari?” the fisherman interrupted knowledgeably.

“The same.”

“Not much to see,” said the fisherman. “Except a big ditch where the Mystic Bayou used to be. Folks call it the Mystic Canal now.”

“I can't believe it took that much fill to build the port,” said Pitt.

“What muck dredged from the canal that wasn't used for landfill was barged out to sea and dumped out in the Gulf,” answered the fisherman.

“Is there a nearby community?” asked Pitt.

“Used to be a town called Calzas that sat at the end of the bayou a short ways off the Mississippi River. But it's gone.”

“Calzas no longer exists?” asked Pitt.

“The Chinese spread the word that they was doing the townspeople a service by providing them with boating access to the Atchafalaya. The truth is, they bought out the landowners. Paid them three times what the property was worth. What's left standing is a ghost town. The rest was bulldozed into the marsh.”

Pitt was confused. “Then what was the purpose of excavating a dead-end canal when they could have just as easily dug fill anywhere in the Atchafalaya Valley?”

“Everybody up and down the river is curious about that, too,” said the fisherman. “The problem is that friends of mine who have fished that bayou for thirty years are no longer welcome. The Chinese have run a chain across their new canal and no longer give access to fishermen. Nor hunters either.”

“Do they use the canal for barge traffic?”

The fisherman shook his head. “If you're thinking they smuggle illegal aliens up the canal, you can forget it. The only towboats and barges that come upriver out of Sungari turn northwest up Bayou Teche and stop at a landing beside an old abandoned sugar mill about ten miles from Morgan City. Qin Shang Maritime bought it when they was building Sungari. A rail yard that used to run alongside the mill was restored by the Chinese.”

“Where does it connect?”

“To the main Southern Pacific line.”

The muddy waters were beginning to clear. Pitt didn't say anything for several moments as he sat there, staring off into space. The wake he had observed behind the Sung Lien Star showed an unusual, yet defined roll beneath the churned surface that was not normal for the basic hull design of a cargo ship. It seemed to him the hull either displaced more water than was consistent with the ship's design, or carried a second, outer hull. In his mind he began to visualize a separate vessel, perhaps a submarine, attached to the keel of the container ship. Finally he asked, “Is there a name for the landing?”

“Used to be called Bartholomeaux after the man who built the mill back in nineteen-oh-nine.”

“In order to get close enough to check out Bartholomeaux without raising suspicion, I'll need to charter some type of fishing boat.”

The old fisherman stared across the table at Pitt and then he gave a little shrug and smiled. “I can do better than that. What you fellows need is a shantyboat.”

“A shantyboat?”

“Some call them campboats. People use them to wander up and down the waterways, mooring in the bayous beside towns or farms before moving on again. Often they're left moored in the same location and used as vacation cabins. Not many people live full-time on them anymore.”

“A shantyboat must be like a houseboat,” said Pitt.

“Except a houseboat doesn't usually travel about under its own power,” said the gray-bearded fisherman. “But I have a boat that's livable and has a good engine tucked away inside the hull. It's yours if you think it's suitable. And since you intend to use it for the good of the country, you can have it at no charge. Just so long as you bring it back as good as you found it.”

“I think the man has made us an offer we can't refuse,” said Giordino, who had wandered over from the bar and was eavesdropping on the conversation.

“Thank you,” Pitt said sincerely. “We accept.”

“You'll find the shantyboat about a mile up the Atchafalaya tied at a dock on the left bank called Wheeler's Landing. Nearby is a small boatyard and a grocery store run by an old friend and neighbor, Doug Wheeler. You can buy your provisions from him. I'll see that the fuel tank is filled. If anybody questions you, just say you're friends of the Bayou Kid. That's what some people call me around here. Except for my old fishing pal, Tom Straight, the bartender. He still calls me by my given name.”

“Is the engine powerful enough to move it upriver against the current?” asked Pitt naively.

“I think you'll find she can do the job.”

Pitt and Giordino were elated and grateful for the old fisherman's significant cooperation. “We'll bring your shantyboat back in the condition we found it,” Pitt promised.

Giordino reached across the table and shook the old man's hand. When he spoke it was with uncharacteristic humility. “I don't think you'll ever know how many people will benefit from your kindness.”

The fisherman stroked his beard and waved an airy hand. “Glad to be of help. I wish you fellas luck. The illegal business of smuggling, especially that of human beings, is a rotten way to make money.”

He watched thoughtfully as Pitt and Giordino left Charlie's Fish Dock and stepped into the night outside. He sat and finished his beer. It had been a long day, and he was tired.

“Did you learn anything at the bar?” Pitt asked Giordino as they walked from the dock down an alley to a busy street.

“The rivermen aren't real friendly toward Qin Shang Maritime,” answered Giordino. “The Chinese refuse to use local labor or boat companies. All towboat and barge traffic out of Sungari is conducted by Chinese boats and crews who live at the port and never come into Morgan City. There is an undercurrent of anger that just might erupt into a small-scale war if Qin Shang doesn't begin showing more respect to St. Mary Parish residents.”

“I doubt if Shang ever cultivated an affinity for dealing with peasants,” commented Pitt drolly.

“What's the plan?”

“First we find a local bed and breakfast. Then, soon as the sun comes up, we'll board the shantyboat, travel upriver and canvass the canal to nowhere.”

“And Bartholomeaux?” Giordino persisted. “Aren't you curious to see if that's where the barge dumps human cargo?”

“Curious, yes. Desperate, no. We're not working under a deadline. We can size up Bartholomeaux after we check the canal.”

“If you want to conduct an underwater search,” said Giordino, “we'll need diving equipment.”

“Soon as we're settled in, I'll call Rudi and have him ferry our gear to wherever we're staying.”

“And Bartholomeaux?” Giordino continued. “Should we prove the old sugar mill is a staging and distribution depot for smuggled aliens, then what?”

“We'll turn the chore of conducting a raid over to INS agents, but only after we give Admiral Sandecker the satisfaction of informing Peter Harper that NUMA has uncovered another one of Qin Shang's illicit operations without his help.”

“I believe that is what you call poetic justice.”

Pitt grinned at his friend. “Now comes the hard part.”

“Hard part?”

“We have to find a taxi.”

As they stood on the curb Giordino turned and looked back over his shoulder at the bar and grill. “Did that old fisherman look familiar to you?”

“Now that you mention it, there was something about him that struck a chord.”

“We never did get his name.”

“Next time we see him,” said Pitt, “we'll have to ask if we've ever met.”

Back in Charlie's Fish Dock restaurant and bar, the old fisherman glanced up at the bar as the bartender yelled across the room at him.

“Hey, Cussler. You want another beer?”

“Why not?” The old man nodded. “One more brew before I hit the road won't hurt.”

“OUR HOME AWAY FROM HOME,” SAID GlORDINO AT HIS FIRST look of the shantyboat he and Pitt were borrowing from the old fisherman. “Hardly bigger than a North Dakota outhouse.”

“Not fancy but functional,” Pitt said as he paid the taxi driver and studied the ancient boat that was moored at the end of a rickety, sagging dock that extended from the riverbank on waterlogged pilings. Inside the dock, several small aluminum fishing boats bobbed in the green water, their outboard motors showing rust and grease from long, hard use.

“Talk about roughing it,” Giordino groaned as he unloaded their underwater equipment from the trunk of the taxi. “No central heating or air-conditioning. I'll bet this tub doesn't have running water or electricity to operate lights and a television.”

“You don't need running water,” said Pitt. “You can bathe in the river.”

“What about a toilet?”

Pitt smiled. “Use your imagination.”

Giordino pointed to a small reception dish on the roof. “Radar,” he muttered incredulously, “It has radar.”

The shantyboat's hull was broad and flat with easy rakes, much like that of a small barge. The black paint was heavily scarred from a hundred sideswipes against dock pilings and other boats, but the bottom that could be seen below the water-line appeared scraped clean of marine growth. A square box with windows and doors, which was the house, rose about seven feet, its weathered blue walls nearly flush with the sides of the hull. A small, roofed-over veranda sporting lawn chairs stretched across the bow. Above, centered on the house roof, as if it was an afterthought, sat a low, raised bridgelike structure that acted as a skylight and a small pilothouse. On the roof lay a short skiff with paddles lashed upside down. The black chimney pipe from a wood-burning potbellied stove stuck up from the aft end of the house.

Giordino shook his head sadly. “I've slept on bus benches that had more class than this. Kick me the next time I complain about my motel room.”

“Oh, ye of little faith, stop griping. Keep telling yourself that it didn't cost us anything.”

“I've got to admit that it has character.”

Pitt aimed the chronically complaining Giordino toward the shantyboat. “Go load up the equipment and check out the engine. I'll go over to the store and buy some groceries.”

“I can't wait to see our motive power,” Giordino groused. “Ten to one it doubles as an eggbeater.”

Pitt walked a boardwalk through a boatyard leading down the bank into the river. A worker was giving a wooden fishing boat set inside a cradle on rails a new coat of antifouling paint on the keel and hull. Next door, Pitt came to a wooden structure under a sign that proclaimed WHEELER'S LANDING. A long porch ran around the building, which was raised off the ground by rows of short pilings. The walls were painted a bright green with yellow shutters framing the windows. Inside, Pitt found it incredible that so much merchandise could be crammed in so small a space. Boating parts took up one end of the store, fishing and hunting supplies the other. The center was devoted to groceries. A compact refrigerator stocked with five times as much beer as soft drinks and dairy products stood against one wall.

Pitt picked up a hand basket and made out very well, selecting enough foodstuffs to feed him and Giordino three or four days, and, as with most men, he probably bought more than they could eat, especially specialty items and condiments. Setting the overloaded basket on the counter by the cash register, he introduced himself to the portly owner of the store who was busily stocking canned goods.

“Mr. Wheeler. My name is Dirk Pitt. My friend and I have charted the Bayou Kid's shanty boat.”

Wheeler brushed his thick mustache with the light touch of a finger and stuck out his hand. “Been expectin' you. The Kid said you'd be by this mornin'. She's all ready to go. Fuel tank filled, battery charged and topped off with oil.”

“Thank you for your trouble. We should be back in a few days.”

“I hear y'all is goin' up to the canal them Chinks built.”

Pitt nodded. “Word travels.”

“Y'all got charts of the river?” asked Wheeler.

“I was hoping you might supply them.”

Wheeler turned and checked the labels taped on a slotted cabinet hanging on the wall containing rolled nautical charts of the local waterways and topographical maps of the surrounding marshlands. He pulled out several and spread them on the counter. “Here's a chart showing depths of the river and a few topo maps of the Atchafalaya Valley. One of them shows the area around the canal.”

“You're a great help, Mr. Wheeler,” said Pitt sincerely. “Thank you.”

“I guess y'all know the Chinks won't let you on the canal. They've got it chained off.”

“Is there another way in?” asked Pitt.

“Sure, at least two of them.” Wheeler took a pencil and began marking the maps. “You can take either Hooker's or Mortimer's bayous. Both run parallel to the canal and empty into it about eight miles from the Atchafalaya. Y'all'll find Hooker's to be the easiest to navigate the shanty boat.”

“Does Qin Shang Maritime own the property around Hooker's Bayou, too?”

Wheeler shook his head. “Their borders only run a hundred yards on either side of the canal.”

“What happens if you cross the barrier?”

“Local fishermen and hunters sneak in sometimes. More often than not, they're caught and thrown out by an armed boatload of automatic rifle-to tin' Chinks who patrol the canal.”

“Then security is tight,” said Pitt.

“Not so much at night. Y'all could probably get in, see what y'all want to see, since we're havin' a quarter moon for the next two nights before it wanes, and get out before they know y'all been there.”

“Has anyone reported seeing anything strange in and around the canal?”

“Nothin' worth writin' home about. Nobody can figure why the fuss to keep people out of a ditch through a swamp.”

“Any barge or boat traffic in and out?”

Wheeler shook his head. “None. The chain barrier is fixed in place and can't be opened unless ya blast it with TNT.”

“Does the canal have a name?”

“Use to be known as Mystic Bayou,” Wheeler said wistfully. “And a pretty bayou it was, too, before it was dug all to hell. Lots of deer, ducks and alligator to hunt. Catfish, bream and bass to fish. Mystic Bayou was a sportsman's paradise. Now it's all gone, and what's left is off limits.”

“Hopefully my friend and I will have some answers in the next forty-eight hours,” said Pitt as he loaded the groceries in an empty cardboard box offered by Wheeler.

The boat-landing owner penciled several numbers on the corner of a map. “Y'all get into trouble, call my cell-phone number. Y'all hear? I'll see that you get help real quick.”

Pitt was touched by the amiable and intelligent people in southern Louisiana who had offered their advice and assistance. They were contacts to be treasured. He thanked Wheeler and carried the groceries down the dock to the shantyboat. As he stepped on board the veranda, Giordino stood in the doorway shaking his head in wonderment.

“You're not going to believe what you see in here,” he said.

“It's worse than you thought?”

“Not at all. The ulterior is clean and Spartan. It's the engine and our passenger that boggle the mind.”

“What passenger?”

Giordino handed Pitt a note he'd found pinned to the door. It read,

Mr. Pitt and Mr. Giordino. I thought that since you wanted to look like locals on a fishing trip, you should have a companion. So I loaned you Romberg to embellish your image as rivermen. He'II eat any kind offish you throw at him.

Luck, The Bayou Kid

“Who's Romberg?” asked Pitt.

Giordino stepped out of the doorway and without comment pointed inside at a bloodhound lying on his back with his paws in the air, big floppy ears splayed to the sides, his tongue half hanging out.

“Is he dead?”

“He might as well be, for all the enthusiasm he's shown at my presence,” said Giordino. “He hasn't twitched or blinked an eye since I came on board.”

“What is so unusual about the engine?”

“You've got to see this.” Giordino led the way through the one room that composed the living room, bedroom, and kitchen of the shantyboat to a trapdoor in the floor. He lifted the cover and pointed below into the compact engine room in the hull. “A Ford 427-cubic-inch V-8 with dual quad carburetors. An oldie but goodie. It's got to have at least four hundred horsepower.”

“Probably closer to four hundred twenty-five,” said Pitt, admiring the powerful engine that appeared in immaculate condition. “How the old man must have laughed after I asked him if the engine could move the boat against the river current.”

“As big as this floating shack is,” said Giordino, “I'd guess we could make close to twenty-five miles an hour if we had to.”

“Keep it slow and easy. We don't want to look like we're in a hurry.”

“How far is the canal?”

“I haven't measured the distance, but it looks to be close to sixty miles.”

“We'll want to get there sometime before sunset,” said Giordino, mentally calculating a leisurely cruising speed.

“I'll cast off. You take the helm and head her into the channel while I store the groceries.”

Giordino needed no coaxing. He couldn't wait to start the big 427 Ford and feel its torque. He hit the starter and it rumbled into life with a mean and nasty growl. He let it idle for a few moments, savoring the sound. It did not turn over smoothly, but loped. It was too good to believe, Giordino thought to himself. The engine was not stock. It was modified and tuned for racing. “My God,” he murmured to himself. “It's far more powerful than we thought.”

Knowing without a shade of doubt Giordino would soon get carried away and push the engine throttle to its stop, Pitt secured the groceries so they wouldn't end up on the deck. Then he stepped over the sleeping Romberg, went out onto the forward veranda and relaxed in a lawn chair, but not before bracing his feet against the bulwark and wrapping his arm around the railing.

Giordino waited until the Atchafalaya River was clear and there were no boats in sight. He laid out the nautical chart of the river provided by Doug Wheeler and studied the river depths ahead. Then, true to form, he increased the speed of the old shantyboat until the flat nose bow was a good foot above the water and the stern was burrowed, cutting a wide groove across the surface. To see such an ungainly craft barreling upriver at better than thirty-five miles an hour was an extraordinary and incongruous sight. On the forward veranda, the wind resistance and the raised angle of the bow pressed Pitt back against the wall of the house with such force he felt constrained and barely able to move.

Finally, after about two miles of spreading a three-foot-high wash behind the shantyboat that swept into the marshlands and splayed the unbroken green mat of water hyacinth that spread from the river channel, Giordino observed two small fishing boats approaching on their way to Morgan City. He eased back the throttle and brought the shantyboat to a crawl. The water hyacinth is a pretty plant but is a disaster to inland waterways, growing at a prolific rate and choking off streams and bayous. They are kept afloat by their stems full of air bladders. The hyacinth sprouts beautiful lavender-pink flowers, but unlike most other flowering plants, it smells like a fertilizer factory when pulled from the water.

Feeling as if he had survived a roller-coaster ride, Pitt returned inside, retrieved the topographical map and began studying the twists and turns in the river as well as familiarizing himself with the network of swampy bayous and lakes between Wheeler's Landing and the canal dug by Qin Shang Maritime. He traced and compared the landmarks and river bends with those on the map. It was refreshing to sit comfortably in the shade of the veranda overhang and experience the pleasant sensation of traveling smoothly over timeless waters that only a boat can provide. Riverbank vegetation varied from mile to mile. Thick forests with willows, cotton-woods and cypresses interspersed with berry bushes, and wild grapevines slowly gave way to a moist, primeval swamp, a prairie of soaring reeds swaying under a light breeze that swept off to the horizon. A lone cypress rose majestically out of the grass like a frigate on the sea. He saw herons walking on their long, sticklike legs along the fringe of water, their necks bent into an S shape as they pecked for food in the mud.

To a hunter kayaking or paddling a canoe through the swamps of southern Louisiana, the trick was to find a firm piece of ground on which to pitch a tent for the night. Duckweed and hyacinth floated on much of the open water. Forests grew from the brackish muck, not dry land. It was hard for Pitt to imagine that all the water he could see came from as far away as Ontario and Manitoba, North Dakota and Minnesota, and every state below. Only behind the safety of thousands of miles of levee systems did people cultivate farms and build cities and towns. It was a landscape unlike any he'd ever seen.

The day was pleasantly cool, with just enough breeze to make small waves across the surface of the water. The hours rolled by as if time was as limitless as space. As idyllic as the lazy cruise up the river seemed, they were on serious business that could easily be the cause of their deaths. There could be no mistakes, no errors in planning their reconnaissance of the mysterious canal.

A few minutes after noon, Pitt took a salami sandwich and a bottle of beer up to Giordino in the little wheelhouse on the roof. Pitt offered to take the helm, but Giordino wouldn't hear of it. He was having too much fun, so Pitt returned to his chair on the veranda.

Although time seemed to have no meaning, Pitt's hours were neither idle nor aimless. He spent the time laying out their diving equipment. He unpacked and adjusted the controls on the little AUV he had used at Orion Lake. Lastly, he removed the night-vision goggles from their case and laid them on the cushions of an old, worn sofa.

Shortly after five o'clock in the afternoon, Pitt stepped inside the house and stood at the base of the ladder leading up to the pilothouse on the roof. “One half mile before we reach the mouth of the canal,” he alerted Giordino. “Move on past another half mile to the next bayou. Then swing a turn to starboard.”

“What's it called?” asked Giordino.

“Hooker's Bayou, but don't bother looking for a sign at the intersection. Take it for about six miles to where the map shows an abandoned dock by a capped oil well. We'll tie up there and have dinner while we wait for darkness.”

Giordino eased the shantyboat around a long string of barges pushed downriver by a large towboat. The captain of the tow-boat gave a blast from his air horn as they passed, no doubt thinking the owner was on board the shantyboat. Pitt had returned to his chair on the bow and waved. Using a pair of binoculars, he scrutinized the canal as they crossed its mouth. It was carved in a perfectly straight course nearly a quarter of a mile wide that seemed to roll like a green carpet over the horizon. A rusty chain stretched across the mouth and was attached to concrete pilings. Large, billboard-sized signs were raised with red letters against a background of white that said,

NO TRESPASSING. ANYONE CAUGHT ON QIN SHANG MARITIME PROPERTY WILL BE PROSECUTED.

Small wonder the local residents hate Qin Shang, thought Pitt. He seriously doubted that the local sheriff would go out of his way to arrest friends and neighbors for hunting or fishing on foreign-owned property.

Forty minutes later, Giordino eased back on the throttle and swung the bulky shantyboat from the narrow channel of Hooker's Bayou and crept to a halt toward the remains of a concrete pier, nudging the flat, raked bow onto a low bank. Stenciled lettering on the concrete pilings read, CHEROKEE OIL COMPANY, BATON ROUGE, LOUISIANA. The boat had no anchor, so they took up long poles that were tied to the catwalks for the purpose and rammed them into the mud. Then they tied the mooring lines from the boat to the poles. Lastly, a gangplank was run out onto firm ground.

“I have a contact on radar moving across the marsh from the southeast,” Giordino calmly reported.

“They're coming from the direction of the Mystic Canal.”

“They're coming fast,” Giordino said in a deliberate tone.

“Shang's security didn't waste any time tagging us.” Pitt went inside and returned with a large square net with vertical supports he'd found on the aft veranda. “Drag Romberg out here and get yourself a bottle of beer.”

Giordino looked at the net. “You think you're going to catch crab for dinner?”

“No,” Pitt answered, catching a glint from the setting sun on a shiny object far away in the ocean of grass. “The trick is to look like I know what I'm doing.”

“A helicopter,” Giordino said in a deliberate tone, “or an ultralight like Washington.”

“Too low, more likely a hovercraft.”

“Are we on Qin Shang's real estate?”

“According to the map, we're a good three hundred yards off their property line. They must be paying a social call to check us out.”

“What's the scenario?” asked Giordino.

“I'll play a crab fisherman, you act like a redneck swilling beer and Romberg can play Romberg.”

“Not easy for an Italian to pretend he's French Cajun.”

“Chew on some okra.”

The dog cooperated when dragged out onto the veranda, not out of obedience, but out of necessity. He walked slowly across the gangplank and did his duty. The hound has an iron bladder, Giordino thought, to have lasted this long. Then Romberg abruptly became alert, barked at a rabbit that darted through the grass and chased after him. “No Academy Award nomination for you, Romberg!” Giordino yelled at the dog as it took off onto a path leading along the bank. Then he flopped in a lawn chair, removed his sneakers and socks and propped his bare feet up on a railing, a bottle of Dixie beer clutched in one hand.

Onstage for the opening act, Pitt with his old .45 Colt stashed in a bucket at his feet and covered by a rag, Giordino with the Aserma 12-gauge shotgun from Pitt's hangar resting beneath the pad on his lawn chair, they watched the black dot that was the hovercraft grow in size as it flew over the marshlands, swirling and flattening a swath through the reeds. It was an amphibious craft that could make the transition from water to land. Propelled by twin aircraft engines with propellers at the stern, the hovercraft was supported by a cushion of air contained within a heavy rubber structure and produced by a smaller engine attached to a horizontal fan. Control was accomplished with a set of rudders much like those used on aircraft. Pitt and Giordino watched as it moved effortlessly and rapidly over the marshlands and mud flats.

“She's fast,” commented Pitt. “Capable of fifty miles an hour. About twenty feet long with a small cabin. By the look of her, she can carry six people.”

“And none of them are smiling,” muttered Giordino as the hovercraft approached the shantyboat and slowed. At that moment, Romberg came bounding from the swamp grass, barking up a storm.

“Good old Romberg,” said Pitt. “Right on cue.”

The hovercraft came to a stop ten feet away, its skirted hull resting in the bayou. The engines died away to a dull murmur. The five men on board all wore side arms but carried no rifles. They were wearing the same Qin Shang security uniforms Pitt had seen at Orion Lake. Every eye had the unmistakable slant of an Asian. They weren't smiling; their sunburned faces looked dead serious. This was clearly an attempt at intimidation.

“What are you doing here?” asked a hard-faced individual in fluent English. He wore the insignia on his shoulders and hat of someone in command, and he looked like a man who would enjoy sticking pins hi living insects, a man who would welcome the opportunity to shoot another human being. He eyed Romberg with a gleam in his eye.

“We're havin' fun,” Pitt said casually. “What's y'alls problem?”

“This is private property,” the hovercraft's commander said coldly. “You cannot moor here.”

“Ah happen to know for a fact that the land around Hooker's Bayou belongs to the Cherokee Oil Company.” Pitt actually wasn't certain who owned the property, but he assumed it had to be Cherokee Oil.

The commander turned to his men and they jabbered among themselves in Chinese. Then the commander stepped to the side of the hovercraft and announced, “We are coming aboard.”

Pitt tensed and readied himself to snatch up the old Colt. Then he realized the demand to come aboard was a deception. But Giordino didn't fall for it. “The hell y'all are,” said Giordino, threateningly. “Y'all got no authority. Now get your ass out of here before we call the sheriff.”