Текст книги "Flood Tide"

Автор книги: Clive Cussler

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Текущая страница: 34 (всего у книги 35 страниц)

“The barge has been filled and is on its way to the surface,” replied Pitt, his nose catching the smell of coffee from the galley and yearning for a cup.

“I never cease to be amazed by the sheer numbers of it all,” said Gunn, taking his place in front of the communications console and array of video screens.

“The Princess Dou Wan was incredibly overloaded,” said Pitt. “It's no small wonder she broke up and sank in heavy weather.”

“How close are we to wrapping it up?” “Most all the loose packing crates have been recovered from the lake bed. The stern section is about cleaned out. The cargo holds should be emptied before the end of the next shift. Now it's down to ferreting out all the smaller cases that were stowed in the passageways and staterooms in the center part of the ship. The deeper they penetrate, the more difficult it is for the men in the Newtsuits to cut through the bulkheads.”

“Any word on when Qin Shang's salvage ship is due to arrive?” Gunn asked.

“The Jade Adventurer?” Pitt looked down on a chart of the Great Lakes spread out on a table. “At last report she passed Quebec on her way down the St. Lawrence.”

“That should put her here in a little under three days.”

“She didn't waste any time coming off her search operation off Chile. She was on her way north less than an hour after Zhu Kwan received your phony report from Perlmutter.”

“It's going to be close,” said Gunn as he watched a sub-mersible's articulated fingers delicately pick up a porcelain vase protruding from the muck. “We'll be lucky to finish up and get out of the neighborhood before the Jade Adventurer and our friend come charging onto the scene.”

“We've been lucky Qin Shang didn't send any of his agents ahead to scout out the environment.”

“The Coast Guard cutter that patrols our search area has yet to report an encounter with a suspicious vessel.”

“When I came on my shift last night, Al said a reporter from a local newspaper somehow got a call through to the Ocean Retriever. Al strung him along when the reporter asked what we were doing out here.”

“What did Al tell him?”

“He said we were drilling cores in the bottom of the lake, looking for signs of dinosaurs.”

“And the reporter bought it?” Gunn asked skeptically.

“Probably not, but he got excited when Al promised to bring him on board over the weekend.”

Gunn looked puzzled. “But we should be gone by then.”

“You get the picture,” Pitt laughed.

“We should consider ourselves lucky that rumors of treasure haven't brought out swarms of salvors.”

“They come as soon as they get the word and rush out to pick over the scraps.”

Julia came into the control room balancing a tray on one hand. “Breakfast,” she announced gaily. “Isn't it a beautiful morning?”

Pitt rubbed the stubble of a beard on his chin. “I hadn't noticed.”

“What are you so happy about?” Gunn asked her.

“I just received a message from Peter Harper. Qin Shang came off a Japanese airliner at the Quebec airport disguised as a crew member. The Canadian Royal Mounted Police followed him to the waterfront, where he boarded a small boat and rendezvoused with the Jade Adventurer.”

“Hallelujah!” exclaimed Gunn. “He took the bait.” “Hook, line and sinker,” said Julia, flashing her teeth. She set the tray on the chart table and removed a tablecloth, revealing plates of eggs and bacon, toast, grapefruit and coffee.

“That is good news,” said Pitt, pulling a chair up to the table without being told. “Did Harper say when he plans to take Qin Shang into custody?”

“He's meeting with the INS legal staff to formulate a plan. I must tell you, there is great fear the State Department and White House may intervene.” “I was afraid of that,” said Gunn.

“Peter and Commissioner Monroe are very afraid Qin Shang will slip through the net because of his political connections.” “Why not board the Jade Adventurer and haul his ass off now?” Gunn asked.

“We can't legally apprehend him if his ship skirts the Canadian shoreline while sailing through Lakes Ontario, Erie and Huron,” explained Julia. “Only after the Jade Adventurer has passed through the Straits of Mackinac into Lake Michigan will Qin Shang be on American waters.”

Pitt slowly ate his grapefruit. “I'd like to see his face when his crew lays a camera on the Princess and finds her guts ripped out and her cupboards bare.”

“Did you know that he's filed a claim on the ship and its cargo through one of his subsidiary corporations in state and federal district courts?”

“No,” said Pitt. “But I'm not surprised. That's the way he operates.”

Gunn rapped a knife on the table. “If any of us were to stake a claim on a treasure ship through legal channels, we'd be laughed out onto the street. And whatever artifacts we found would have to be turned over to the government.”

“People who search for treasure,” Pitt said philosophically, “believe their problems are over when they make the big strike, never realizing their troubles are only beginning.”

“How true,” Gunn assented. “I've yet to hear of a treasure discovery that wasn't contested in court by a parasite or government bureaucrat.”

Julia shrugged. “Maybe so, but Qin Shang has too much influence to have the door slammed in his face. If anything, he's bought off all opposition.”

Pitt looked at her as though his fatigued mind had suddenly thought of something. “Aren't you eating?” he asked.

She shook her head. “I had a bite in the galley earlier.”

The ship's first officer leaned in the doorway and motioned to Pitt. “The barge has surfaced, sir. You said you wanted to take a look at her payload before she was towed away.”

“Yes, thank you,” Pitt acknowledged. He turned back to Gunn. “She's all yours, Rudi. I'll see you, same time, same place tomorrow.”

Gunn waved without taking his eyes from the monitors. “Sleep tight.”

Julia hung on Pitt's arm as they stepped out onto the bridge wing and gazed down at the big barge that had risen from the depths. The interior cargo hold was filled with crates of all sizes containing incredible treasures from China's past. All had been neatly spaced by the cranes and submersibles. In a divided compartment with extra-thick padding, the artworks whose packing crates had been either damaged or destroyed sat open and exposed. Some were musical instruments—tuned chimes of stone, bronze bells and drums. There was a three-legged cooking stove with a hideous face molded on the door, large jade ceremonial carvings of half-size men, women and children, and animal sculptures in marble.

“Oh, look,” she said, pointing. “They brought up the emperor on the horse.”

Standing under the sun for the first time in over half a century, the water glistening on the bronze armor of the rider and streaming from his horse, the two-thousand-year-old sculpture looked little the worse for wear than the day it came out of the mold. The unknown emperor now stared over a limitless horizon, as if in search of new lands to conquer.

“It's all so incredibly beautiful,” said Julia, staring at the ancient wonder. Then she gestured at the other crates, their contents still hidden. “I'm amazed the wooden containers did not rot away after being submerged all these years.”

“General Hui was a thorough man,” Pitt said. “Not only did he insist that the crates be built with an outer wall and an inner lining, he specified teak instead of a more common wood. It was probably transported to Shanghai from Burma by freighter for use in the shipyards. Hui knew that teak is extraordinarily strong and durable, and he undoubtedly seized the shipment to construct the crates. What he couldn't have predicted at the time was that his foresight paid off in protecting the treasures for the fifty years they were resting underwater.”

Julia raised a hand to shield her eyes from the glare of the sun on the water. “A pity he couldn't have made them watertight. The lacquerware, wooden carvings and paintings cannot have survived without some damage or disintegration.”

“The archaeologists will know soon enough. Hopefully, the icy, fresh water will have preserved many of the more delicate objects.”

As the tugboat maneuvered into position to tow the barge to the receiving dock in Chicago, a crewman stepped from the wheelhouse with a paper in his hand. “Another message for you, Ms. Lee, from Washington.”

“Must be another message from Peter,” she said, taking the communication. She studied the wording for a long time, her facial expression turning from surprise to utter frustration to downright anger. “Oh, good God,” she muttered. “What is it?”

Julia held out the message to Pitt. “The INS operation to apprehend Qin Shang has been called off by order of the White House. We are not to molest or harass him in any way. Any and all treasure recovered from the Princess Dou Wan is to be turned over to Qin Shang as acting representative of the Chinese government.”

“That's crazy,” Pitt said wearily, too tired to display outrage. “The man is a proven mass murderer. Give him the treasure? The President must have a brain hemorrhage.”

“I've never felt so helpless in my life,” Julia said, furious. Suddenly, unpredictably, Pitt's lips spread in a crazy grin. “I wouldn't take it too badly if I were you. There's always a bright side.”

She stared at him as if he was certifiably insane. “What are you talking about? Where do you see a bright side in allowing that scum to roam free and steal the art masterpieces for himself?”

“The orders from the White House definitely state that the INS is not to molest or harass Qin Shang.” “So?” “The orders,” Pitt said, still grinning but with a hard edge to his voice, “make no mention of what NUMA can or cannot do—”

He broke off as Gunn ran excitedly from the control room onto the bridge wing. “Al thinks he's got them,” the words rushed out. “He's coming to the surface now and wants to know how you want them handled.”

“Very carefully,” said Pitt. “Tell him to rise slowly and maintain a good grip. When he surfaces, we'll lift the Sappho IV aboard with them.”

“Who is them?” asked Julia.

Pitt gave her a quick glance before he rushed down a ladder to the submersible recovery deck. “The bones of Peking man, that's who.”

Word quickly spread throughout the salvage fleet, and the Ocean Retriever's crew began assembling on the stern work deck. The crews of the other vessels crowded their railings, watching the activity aboard the NUMA ship. There was a strange silence as the turquoise Sappho TV broke the surface and rolled slightly from the low waves of the lake. Divers waited in the water to attach the crane's cable hook to the lifting ring on top of the submersible. Every eye was on the large wire-mesh basket between the twin articulated arms. Two wooden boxes sat in the basket. They all held their breath as the submersible was slowly lifted from the lake. The crane operator used great caution in swinging the underwater craft over the stern before lowering it gently into its cradle.

The crowd on deck gathered around the sub as the ship's archaeologist directed the unloading of the crates on the deck. While the archaeologist, a blond lady in her forties by the name of Pat O'Connell, was engaged in exposing the interior of the crates, Giordino threw back the hatch from inside the submersible and pushed his head and shoulders into the open air.

“Where did you find them?” Pitt shouted up at him.

“Using a diagram of the deck plans I managed to force entry into the captain's cabin.”

“The location sounds right,” said Gunn, peering through his eyeglasses.

With the help of four eager pairs of hands, archaeologist O'Connell pried off the top of the crate and peered inside. “Oh my, oh me, oh my,” she muttered in awe.

“What is it?” Pitt demanded. “What do you see?”

“Military footlockers with U.S.M.C. stenciled on the top.”

“Well, don't stand there. Open it up.”

“It really should be opened in a laboratory,” O'Connell protested. “Proper methodology, you know.”

“No!” Pitt said flatly. “Proper methodology be damned. These people worked long and hard. And by God they deserve to see the fruits of their labor. Open the footlocker.”

Seeing that Pitt was not to be denied, and glancing at the sea of faces around her reflecting expressions of hostility, O'Connell knelt down and began working open the latch on the front of the footlocker with a small crowbar. The wall around the latch quickly fell away as if it were made of clay, and she lifted the lid open very, very slowly.

Inside the footlocker the upper tray held several objects neatly wrapped in sodden gauze and exactingly placed in little individual compartments. As if she was unwrapping the Holy Grail, O'Connell delicately removed the covering from the largest object. When the last piece of gauze fell away, she held up what looked like a yellow-brown circular bowl.

“A skullcap,” she said in a hushed voice, “from Peking man.”

THE CAPTAIN OF THE JADE ADVENTURER, CHEN JlANG, HAD served Qin Shang Maritime Limited for twenty of his thirty years at sea. Tall and thin with straight white hair, he was quiet and efficient in the operation of his ship. He forced back a smile and spoke to bis employer.

“There is your ship, Qin Shang.”

“I can't believe after all these years I'm seeing her at last,” said Qin Shang, his eyes locked on the video monitor receiving images from an ROV that was moving over the sunken wreck.

“We are very lucky the depth is only four hundred and thirty feet. If the ship had, indeed, foundered off the coast of Chile, we'd have found ourselves working in ten thousand feet.”

“It appears the hull is separated in two parts.”

“Not unusual for ships caught in storms on the Great Lakes to break up,” explained Chen Jiang. “The Edmund Fitzgerald, a legendary ore carrier, was twisted apart when she sank.”

During the search, Qin Shang had paced the deck of the wheelhouse restlessly. He appeared impassive to the captain and officers of the ship, but beneath the cold exterior, his adrenaline was pumping madly. Qin Shang was not a patient man. He hated doing nothing but waiting while the ship swept back and forth before finally striking the wreck he hoped was the Princess Dou Wan. The tedious search was a torment he could have happily done without.

The Jade Adventurer did not look like the usual businesslike survey-and-salvage ship. Her sleek superstructure and twin catamaran hulls gave her more the look of an expensive yacht. Only the stylized, contemporary A-frame crane on her stern suggested that she was anything but a pleasure cruiser. Her hulls were painted blue with a red stripe running around the leading edges. The upperworks gleamed white.

A big ship with a length of 325 feet, elegant and brutishly powered, she was a marvel of engineering, loaded from the keel with the latest and most sophisticated equipment and instrumentation. She was Qin Shang's pride and joy, expressly designed and constructed to his specifications for this moment, the salvage of the Princess Dou Wan.

The ship had arrived on site early in the morning, relying on the approximate position Zhu Kwan had received from St. Julien Perlmutter. Qin Shang was relieved to see only two ships within twenty miles. One was an ore carrier heading toward Chicago, the other Chen Jiang identified as a research vessel only three miles away, showing her starboard broadside as she moved on an opposite course with uncommon lethargy.

Using the same basic techniques and equipment as Pitt and the crew of the Divercity, the Jade Adventurer was only in the third hour of the search when the sonar operator announced a target. After four more passes to improve the quality of the recording, the sonar operator could safely say they had a ship on the bottom that, although broken up, matched the dimensions of the Princess Dou Wan. Then a Chinese-manufactured ROV was lowered over the side and descended to the wreck.

After another hour of passionately staring at the monitor, Qin Shang snapped angrily. “This cannot be the Princess Dou Wan! Where is her cargo? I see nothing that confirms the report of wooden crates protecting the art treasures.”

“Odd,” murmured Chen Jiang. “The steel plates of the hull and superstructure look scattered around the wreck. It looks as if the ship was burst apart.”

Qin Shang's face went pale. “This wreck cannot be the Princess Dou Wan,” he repeated.

“Move the ROV around the stern,” Chen Jiang ordered the operator.

In a few minutes the little underwater prowler stopped and the operator zoomed the camera in on the lettering across the stern of the hulk. There was no mistaking the name,

PRINCESS YUNG T'AI, SHANGHAI.

“It is my ship!” Qin Shang's eyes were stricken as he stared into the monitor.

“Could it have been salvaged without your knowledge?” asked Chen Jiang.

“Not possible. No treasure that immense could have remained hidden all these years. Pieces of it would have most certainly surfaced.”

“Shall I order the crew to prepare the submersible?”

“Yes, yes,” Qin Shang said anxiously. “I must have a closer look.”

Qin Shang hired his own engineers to design the submersible he named Sea Lotus. She was built at a company in France that specialized in deep-undersea vehicles. He had watched over every aspect of her construction. Unlike most submersibles, where the requirements of the equipment came before the comfort of the crew, the Sea Lotus was built more like an office than a Spartan chamber for scientific study. She was a pleasure craft to Qin Shang. He trained himself in her operation and often piloted her around the Hong Kong harbor shortly after she was built, making suggestions for modifications to suit his personal demands.

He also ordered a second submersible built, called Sea Jasmine. Her purpose was to act as backup in case Sea Lotus suffered mechanical problems while on the seabed.

An hour later, Shang's private submersible was rolled out of her compartment onto the stern of the salvage vessel and stationed beneath the modernistic A-frame that would lift her out and into the water. When all systems were checked, the copilot stood at the hatch, waiting for Qin Shang to enter.

“I will pilot the craft alone,” he said imperiously.

Captain Chen Jiang looked up at him from the deck. “Do you think that wise, sir? You are unfamiliar with these waters.”

“I am quite familiar with the operation of the Sea Lotus. You forget, Captain, I created her. I will go down alone. It is for me to be the first to see the treasures stolen from our country all these years. I have dreamed too long of this moment to share it.”

Chen Jiang shrugged and said nothing. He merely nodded for the submersible's copilot to stand aside as Qin Shang descended the ladder down through the tower that prevented rough water from cascading into the open hatch leading to the control and pressure chamber. He pulled the hatch closed and sealed it, then turned on the life-support systems.

Diving to 430 feet was child's play for a vessel built to withstand the immense squeeze that water exerted at depths of 25,000 feet. He sat in a comfortable chair of his own design, facing the control console and a large viewing window on the bow of the submersible.

Sea Lotus was swung out over the water by the A-frame away from the ship's fantail, where she hung for a few moments until her rocking motion ceased. Then she was lowered into Lake Michigan. Divers released the lift hook and made a final check of the exterior before Qin Shang took her into the frigid depths.

“You are free of the lift line and cleared to descend,” Chen Jiang's voice came over the communications speaker.

“Flooding ballast tanks,” Qin Shang replied.

Chen Jiang was too experienced an officer to allow his employer to override his responsibilities as captain of the Jade Adventurer. He turned to an officer and issued an order unheard by Qin Shang. “Have the Sea Jasmine prepared to launch as a safety precaution.”

“Do you expect trouble, sir?”

“No, but we cannot allow harm to come to Qin Shang.”

The Sea Lotus quickly slipped out of sight beneath the waves and began her slow fall to the bottom of the lake. Qin Shang stared through the viewing window into the dark green water as it magically went black and he saw his reflection inside the pressure chamber. His eyes were cold, his mouth was in a tight line, unsmiling. Within the brief span of an hour he had gone from a man of supreme confidence to someone who looked sick and tired and baffled. He did not like what he saw in the nebulous face staring back at him, seemingly outside in the depths. For the only time in his life that he could remember, he felt a growing surge of anxiety. The treasures had to be somewhere inside the broken hulks, he told himself over and over as the submersible sank ever deeper into the cold waters of the lake. They had to be. It was inconceivable that someone had come before.

The descent took less than ten minutes, but to Qin Shang the seconds passed like hours. He gazed into pure blackness before switching on the exterior lights. It was also becoming cold inside the chamber, and he set a small heating unit to seventy degrees. The echo sounder indicated the bottom was coming up fast. He allowed a small amount of pressurized air to flow into the ballast tanks to slow his descent. On deep-water dives beyond one thousand feet, he would have dropped weights attached to the keel of the submersible.

The flat, barren lake bed emerged under the lights. He adjusted the ballast and stopped five feet from the bottom. Then Qin Shang turned on the electric thrusters and began banking in a wide circle. “I am on the bottom,” he called to his support crew above. “Can you see where I am in relation to the wreck?”

“The sonar shows you only forty yards west of the starboard side of the main wreckage,” Jiang answered.

Qin Shang's heartbeat raced in anticipation. He banked the Sea Lotus until it was moving parallel to the hull, and then brought the sub upward until it passed over the railing along the edge of the forward cargo deck. He saw the cranes looming out of the black void and banked to miss them. Now he was over one of the cargo holds. Hovering the submersible and tilting its stern upward so the lights beamed down, his eyes strained into the darkness as he stared into the gaping cavern.

With indescribable dread, he saw that it was empty.

Then something moved in the shadows. At first he merely thought it was a fish, but then it moved up from the black of the cargo hold and materialized into an unspeakable monstrosity, an apparition that belonged in another world. Slowly it rose, as if levitated in air, like some hideous creature from the murky abyss, and moved toward the submersible.

On the surface, Captain Chen Jiang stared with mounting apprehension as the research vessel he'd sighted earlier had turned on a ninety-degree course and was now facing the Jade Adventurer. Abruptly presenting its bows after having showed its starboard broadside, the research vessel now revealed a United States Coast Guard cutter that it had shielded from view. Now both vessels were traveling at full speed directly toward the Chinese salvage ship.

QIN SHANG LOOKED LIKE A MAN WHO HAD SEEN THE DEEPEST pit in hell and wanted no part of it. His face was as white and rigid as hardened putty. Sweat streamed from his forehead, his eyes glazed with shock. For a man totally in control of his emotions during his entire life, he was suddenly paralyzed. He stared awestruck at the face inside the bubble-shaped head of the yellow and black monster as it broke into a ghastly grin. And then he recognized the familiar features.

“Pitt!” he gasped in a rasping whisper.

“Yes, it's me,” Pitt answered over his underwater communications system inside the Newtsuit. “You do hear me, don't you, Qin Shang?”

The trauma of disbelief, then revulsion at who the apparition was, released a flow of venom in Qin Shang's veins as shock turned into crazed wrath. “I hear you,” he said slowly, his thoughts coming back under his iron control. He did not demand to know where Pitt came from or what he was doing here. There was only one question in Qin Shang's mind.

“Where is the treasure?”

“Treasure,” Pitt said, his face taking on a witless expression behind the transparent bubble on the globular helmet of the Newtsuit. “I ain't got no treasure.”

“What has happened to it?” Qin Shang demanded, his eyes sick with the cold realization of defeat. “What have you done with the historical masterworks of my country?”

“Put it all in a place where it's safe from scum like you who want it all to themselves.”

“How?” he asked simply.

“With much luck and many good people,” Pitt said impassively. “After my researcher discovered a survivor who pointed the way, I put together a salvage project combining NUMA, the U.S. Navy and the Canadians. Together, they completed the salvage in ten days before leaking the Princess Dou Wan's position to your researcher. I believe his name is Zhu Kwan. Then it was merely a matter of sitting back and waiting for you to show up. I knew you were obsessed by the treasure, Qin Shang. I read you like a book. Now it's payoff time. By coming back into the U.S. you've forfeited any chance you had of a long life. Unfortunately, because there is a great lack of ethics and morality in the world these days, your money and political influence has undoubtedly kept you out of prison. But the final entry in your ledger, Qin Shang, is that you are going to die. You are going to die as retribution for all those innocent people you murdered.”

“You create amusing plots, Pitt.” There was a sneer in Qin Shang's voice, but it was contradicted by a deep uneasiness in his eyes. “And who is going to see that I die?”

“I've been waiting for you,” Pitt said, hate mirrored in his green eyes. “There was never a doubt that you would come and come alone.”

“Are you quite finished? Or do you wish to bore me to death?”

Qin Shang knew his life was hanging by a thread, but he had yet to figure by what means he was supposed to die. Although Pitt's casualness made him uncomfortable, all fear was slowly replaced by an inner self-defense mechanism. His conspiring mind began to concentrate on a plan to save himself. His hopes rose when he comprehended that Pitt had no support from a surface ship. A diver inside a Newtsuit did not make descents and ascents without an umbilical cable. He had to be lowered and raised by winch from a mother ship on the surface. The cable also served as a communications link. Pitt was breathing self-contained air that could not last much longer than an hour.

Without life support on the surface, Pitt was on borrowed time and totally defenseless.

“You're not as clever as you think,” Qin Shang said, a faint pallor on his face. “From my side of the viewing port, it looks like you are the one who is going to die, Mr. Pitt. Your ingenious diving apparatus against my submersible? You stand about as much chance as a sloth against a bear.” “I'm willing to give it a try.” “Where is your support ship?”

“I don't need one,” Pitt said with unnerving nonchalance. “I walked from shore.”

“You are very humorous for a man who will never see the sun again.”

As Qin Shang spoke, his hands moved furtively toward the controls of the submersible's manipulator arms and their claws. “I can either drop my weights and float to the surface, leaving you alone to your fate. Or, I can call my crew and order them to send down my backup submersible.”

“Not fair. That would make it two bears against one sloth.”

The man's imperturbable composure is inhuman, thought Qin Shang. Something is not as it seems. “You act sure of yourself,” he said, as he measured his options.

Pitt raised one of the Newtsuit's manipulator arms and displayed a small, watertight box with an antenna. “In case you're wondering why you haven't heard from your friends topside, this little device scrambles all communications within five hundred feet.”

That explained why he had received no calls from the Jade Adventurer. But that piece of news did nothing to deter Qin Shang's determination to wreak punishment on Pitt.

“You have meddled in my affairs for the last time.” Qin Shang's fingers slowly curled around the throttle of the thrust-ers and the manipulator controls. “I can not waste another minute with you. I must seek out where you've hidden the treasure. Farewell, Mr. Pitt. I'm dropping my ballast weights and returning to the surface.”

Pitt knew full well what was coming. Even through the murky water that separated them, he detected the sudden shift in Qin Shang's eyes. He threw up his manipulator arms to protect his vulnerable bubble mask and reversed the two small motors mounted on each side of the Newtsuit's waist. His reaction came at almost the same instant as the submersible lurched forward.

It was a battle Pitt could not win. One second the Sea Lotus was hovering level, the next it was relentlessly coming toward him. His much smaller manipulator pincers were no match for the larger claws on the arms of the submersible. Qin Shang's vehicle could also move at twice the speed of the Newtsuit. If the submersible's mechanical claws cut through the Newtsuit, it would be all over.

Pitt could do nothing but helplessly watch as the big ugly manipulator arms spread in preparation of encircling him in a death grip, squeezing until the integrity of the Newtsuit was gashed open to the water waiting to rush inside. When that happened, Pitt would die an agonizing death.

He had no wish to wait for the water to gush down his open throat into his lungs. The burst of sudden pressure alone would make his final moments unbearable. He had come close to drowning on at least two occasions, and he had no desire to repeat the events. Tormented, struggling and dying with no one near him to see except his most vicious enemy was not what Pitt had in mind.

Pitt longed to drive the Newtsuit forward, using his own manipulator pincers to smash Qin Shang's viewing window of the submersible, but they were too short and would have easily been knocked away by the arms on the submersible. Also, an aggressive attack was not part of his plan. He looked into the twin jaws of death, saw the evil leer on Qin Shang's face and maneuvered his cumbersome pressure suit backward in a losing effort to stall for time.