Текст книги "Trojan Odyssey"

Автор книги: Clive Cussler

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 6 (всего у книги 30 страниц)

8

Most of the time, the oceans appear to be at rest. Unending waves no higher than the head of a German shepherd give the image of a sleeping giant, the surface of his chest slowly rising and falling with each breath. It is an illusion that beguiles the unwary. Sailors could fall asleep in their berths with clear skies and calm seas and wake up to a frenzied sea that quickly swept over thousands of square miles, engulfing every vessel in its path.

Hurricane Lizziehad all the ingredients for unmitigated disaster. If she looked nasty by morning, she was downright rotten by noon, and a shrieking hellion by evening. Two-hundred-and-twenty-mile-an-hour winds soon passed two hundred and fifty. They hurled and whipped the once-flat water into a giant turmoil that rose and fell a hundred feet between crest and trough as it advanced relentlessly toward Navidad Bank and the Dominican Republic, its first landfall.

The anchor was barely up and the Sea Spriteunder way when Paul Barnum turned for perhaps the twentieth time and stared over the sea to the east. Earlier he noted no change. But this time the horizon where the tanzanite blue water met a sapphire blue sky was smudged by a dark gray streak like a distant chinook dust storm rolling over the prairie.

Barnum gazed at the advancing nightmare, stunned by how rapidly it grew and began filling the sky. He had never experienced nor had he conceived that a storm could move with what seemed the speed of an express train. Even before he could program the computerized automated controls for course and speed, the storm was covering the sun in a death shroud while painting the sky the lead gray on the bottom of a well-used skillet.

For the next eight hours Sea Spriteran hard, as Barnum drove her in what seemed a futile attempt to put as much distance as possible between her hull and the sharp coral of Navidad Reef. But when he realized the worst of the storm was about to overtake him, he knew the most efficient way to survive was to head right into it, relying on Sea Spriteto fight her way through. He patted her helm affectionately, as if she was flesh and blood instead of cold steel. She was a staunch ship that had taken everything the sea could throw at her in her years of rigorous sailing in the polar regions. She might be mauled and hammered but Barnum didn't doubt she would survive.

He turned to his first officer, Sam Maverick, who looked like a high school dropout with his long red hair, shaggy beard and gold pendant dangling from his left ear. "Program a new course, Mr. Maverick. Bring her around on a heading of eighty-five degrees east. We can't outrun the storm so we'll ride into her bow-on."

Maverick looked at the seas that were cresting a good fifty feet over the stern and shook his head. He stared balefully at Barnum as if his captain had lost half his gray matter. "You want to bring her around in this sea?" he asked slowly.

"No time like the present," replied Barnum. "Better now than when the rogue waves hit."

It was ship handling at its most frightening. For an agonizing length of time, the ship's hull would swing and face the waves along her entire beam, leaving her vulnerable to a massive wave that would roll her over. Many a ship through the centuries was capsized by attempting the maneuver, going to the bottom without leaving a trace.

"When I see an interval between the swells, at my command, give her full speed." Then he spoke into the ship's radio. "We're coming around in a heavy sea. Everyone brace yourselves and hold on for dear life."

Hunched over the console in front of the bridge window, Barnum gazed unblinkingly through the windshield and waited with the patience of a rock until he saw a wave coming that was higher than any that had passed.

"Full speed, if you please, Mr. Maverick."

Maverick instantly obeyed Barnum's order, but was horrified, certain of disaster, as an enormous wave bore down on the research ship. He was about to curse Barnum for turning too soon, but realized what the captain had in mind. There were no timely intervals. The monstrous waves almost seemed to mesh on one another, like soldiers marching in close formation. Barnum had jumped the gun and begun the turn early, gaining a precious minute while the ship took the blunt of the wave on an angle.

The implacable wave tossed the bow up and shoved Sea Spritealmost over to her port side before sweeping her over and around. For fifteen seconds the ship was overwhelmed by a seething white mass of water as she struggled partially through the crest that towered above the bridge. Then she was fishtailing viciously down the other side, rolling heavily to port, the sea inundating her deck railings. Almost miraculously, with agonizing slowness, she righted in the trough and took the next sea bow-on, plunging through on an even keel.

Maverick had walked ships' decks for eighteen years, but he had never seen a more professional, more intuitive, display of seamanship. He stared at Barnum and was amazed to see a smile, perhaps a grim smile, but a smile nonetheless, on the captain's face. My God, Maverick thought, the man is actually enjoying himself.

Fifty miles to the south of Sea Sprite,the outer edge of Hurricane Lizzie was within minutes of slamming into the Ocean Wanderer.The forward edge of the menacing clouds swept past, cutting off the sun and plunging the sea into an eerie gray darkness. A dense sheet of rain followed, pelting the windows of the floating hotel like the blast from a thousand machine guns.

"Too late!" Morton moaned to himself while standing in his office staring at the tumult that was headed directly for the hotel as if it was an enraged Tyrannosaurus rexwith a vendetta. Despite the warnings and updates from Heidi Lisherness at the Hurricane Center, he did not conceive the incredible speed and distance the rampage had traveled since morning. Though Heidi Lisherness had given him up-to-date forecasts on the magnitude and speed, it didn't seem possible that calm seas and quiet skies could turn so fast. He could not believe Lizzie's forward fringe was already assaulting the building.

"Inform every staff director to assemble in the conference room immediately!" he snapped to his executive secretary as he marched into his office.

His anger at Specter's indecision to evacuate eleven hundred guests and employees when there was still of chance of transporting them to safety in the Dominican Republic only a few scant miles away bordered on fury. He became even more infuriated as the sound of aircraft engines warming up vibrated the windows. He walked over and stared below just in time to see Specter and his entourage board the Beriev Be-210 executive jet. The entry hatch was barely closed before the engines revved up and the plane began gathering speed, planing over the rising waves, throwing great billowing sheets of spray before lifting into the air and banking on a course toward the Dominican Republic.

"You rotten cowardly scum," Morton hissed at seeing Specter flee for his life without the least concern for the eleven hundred souls he left behind.

He watched until the plane was lost in the menacing clouds, and turned as his staff entered and gathered around the conference table. It was obvious by the expressions of apprehension on their faces that they were standing on the fine line between calm and panic.

"We underestimated the speed of the hurricane," he began. "Its full force is less than an hour away. Since it's too late to evacuate, we must move all guests and employees to the upper level of the hotel, where it's the safest."

"Can't the tugboats pull us out of harm's way?" inquired the reservation's director, a tall, perfectly groomed lady of thirty-five.

"The tugs were alerted early and should arrive shortly, but a rising sea will make it extremely difficult for them to make a connection with our towing capstans. If the procedure proves impossible then we have no choice but to weather the storm."

The concierge raised his hand. "Wouldn't itbe safer to ride out the storm on the guest floors below the surface?" asked the concierge.

Morton slowly shook his head. "If the worst happens and the crush of the storm waves break our mooring lines, and the hotel drifts…" he paused and shrugged his shoulders. "I don't want tothink about what would happen if we are driven onto Navidad Bank forty miles to the east or onto a rocky shoreline of the Dominican Republic that would tear out the glass walls of the lower floors."

The concierge nodded. "We understand. Once the water flooded into the lower levels the ballast tanks could not keep the hotel afloat and the waves would bash her to pieces on the rocks."

"And if it looks like that will happen?" asked Morton's assistant manager.

Morton's face turned very solemn indeed as he looked around the conference table. "Then we abandon the hotel, enter the life rafts and pray to God a few will survive."

9

Battered and lashed by Hurricane Lizzie, Barrett and Boozer fought to keep the plane on a level flight path. The double satanic gusts coming from flip-side directions and slamming into Galloping Gertieat almost the same time nearly tore her out of the air. Both pilots struggled with the controls together, fighting to keep Gertieon a straight course. With the rudder slack, they angled direction by reducing or increasing the rpms of their remaining two engines in unison with the ailerons.

Never in their combined years of chasing tropical storms had they ever encountered one that unleashed such incredible strength as Hurricane Lizzie. It was as though she was trying to twist the world apart.

Finally, after what seemed thirty hours but was closer to thirty minutes, the sky gradually turned from solid gray to dirty white to brilliant blue, as the badly pounded Orion escaped the fringes of the storm and staggered into calm weather.

"We'll never make it back to Miami," said Boozer, studying a navigation chart.

"A long shot with only two engines, a fuselage barely hanging together and our rudder frozen," Barrett said grimly. "Better divert to San Juan."

"San Juan, Puerto Rico, it is."

"She's all yours," said Barrett, taking his hands off the controls. "I'm going to check the science guys. No telling what I'll find back there."

He released his safety harness and stepped through the cockpit door into the main cabin of the Orion. The interior was a shambles. Computers, monitors and the racks of electronic instruments were scattered and piled as if thrown off a truck at a salvage yard. Equipment that had been mounted to sustain the worst turbulence had sheared from their bolts and screws as if ripped apart by a giant hand. Bodies were sprawled in different positions, a few unconscious and badly injured, lying against bulkheads, a few still on their feet tending to those who needed medical attention the most.

But that was not the most horrendous sight that met Barrett's eyes. The Orion's fuselage was cracked in a hundred places, rivets having popped out like bullets from a gun. In some areas he could actually see daylight. It was obvious that if they had lingered in the worst of the storm another five minutes, the plane would have ripped apart and crashed in a thousand pieces into the waiting arms of the murderous sea.

Weather scientist Steve Miller looked up from caring for an electrical engineer with a compound fracture of the lower arm. "Can you believe this?" he said, motioning around the destruction. "We were smashed by a wind blast of two hundred and ten miles an hour on the starboard side only seconds before an even stronger gust struck the port."

"I've never heard of wind driving that hard," muttered Barrett in awe.

"Take my word for it. Nothing like this has ever been measured. Two opposing gusts colliding in the same storm is a meteorological rarity, yet it happened. Somewhere in this mess we've got the records to prove it."

"Galloping Gertieis in no condition to make Miami," said Barrett, nodding at the fuselage that was barely hanging together. "We'll try for San Juan instead. I'll ask for emergency vehicles to stand ready."

"Don't forget to make a request for extra paramedics and ambulances," said Miller. "No one got off with less than cuts and bruises. The injuries on Delbert and Morris are serious, but no one is critical."

"I've got to get back to the cockpit and help Boozer. If there's anything…"

"We'll manage," answered Miller. "Just keep us in the air and not in the ocean."

"Don't think we won't work at it."

Two hours later they sighted the San Juan airport. Handling the controls with a masterful touch, Barrett flew the plane barely above stalling speed to reduce all the stress possible on the weakened aircraft. With flaps lowered, he took a long sweeping approach toward the runway. There would be one attempt and one attempt only. He knew his chances were slim for another approach if he botched this one.

"Gear down," he said, as the runway lined up through the windshield.

Boozer dropped the landing gear. Mercifully, the wheels came down and locked. Fire engines and ambulances lined the strip in expectation of a disaster, the emergency crews having heard the extent of the damage over the radio.

Staring through binoculars at the plane as it grew from a speck into full view, no one in the control tower could believe what they saw. With one engine dead and trailing smoke and one completely missing from the wing, it seemed impossible the Orion could still claw the air. They diverted all commercial traffic into holding patterns until the final curtain on the drama dropped. Then they watched and waited in hushed apprehension.

The Orion came in low and slow. Boozer worked the throttles, maintaining a straight flight while Barrett finessed the controls. He flared out and touched down as gently as humanly possible all too close to the end of the runway. There was just the slightest indication of a bounce when the tires screeched and settled onto the asphalt. There was no reversing the two props. Boozer pulled the throttles back to the stops and let the remaining engines idle as the plane sped down the runway.

Barrett gently tapped the brake pedals, staring at the fence just beyond the runway that loomed ahead. If worse came to worst, he could stand on the left brake and cut a sharp turn into the grass. But everything worked in his favor and Gertiedragged her feet and slowed down, rolling to a stop with less than two hundred feet of runway left to go.

Barrett and Boozer sat back in their seats and sighed with relief just as the aircraft shuddered and shook. They threw off the safety harnesses and rushed back into the science compartment. On the opposite end of the trashed instruments and injured scientists, they stared through a huge opening in the fuselage at the runway they'd just covered.

The entire tail section had twisted off and fallen to the ground.

The wind hurled itself at the flat-angled ocean side of the Ocean Wanderer.The engineers had done their job well. Though designed to take a one-hundred-and-fifty-mile-an-hour wind, the structure with its heavy plate windows was sustaining gusts up to two hundred without breakage. The only damage sustained in the early hours of the hurricane came on the roof where the sports center, with its golf greens, basketball and tennis courts, and dining tables and chairs, was swept away until there was nothing left but a freshwater swimming pool that overflowed, its water spilling down the slides to the sea far below.

Morton was proud of his staff. They had performed admirably. His worst initial fear was panic. But the managers, desk clerks, concierge and maids all worked together in moving the guests from their suites below the waterline and accommodating them in the ballroom, spas, theater and restaurants on the upper levels. Life jackets were passed out along with directions to the life rafts and instructions on which ones to enter.

What no one knew, not even Morton, because none of the employees had risked stepping out on the roof in the two-hundred-mile-an-hour gale, was that the life rafts had been swept away along with the sports facilities twenty minutes after the hurricane struck the floating hotel.

Morton kept in constant touch with his maintenance people, who roamed the hotel reporting on any damage and organizing repairs. So far the stout structure was holding its own. It was a horrifying experience for the guests to watch a monstrous wave rear up as high as the tenth floor and break against the angled side of the hotel, hearing the groan from below of the mooring cables and the shriek of the framework as it was stretched and twisted against its riveted steel joints.

So far there were only a few reports of minor leakage. All the generators and electrical and plumbing systems were still functioning. The Ocean Wanderermight shake off the assault for another hour, but Morton knew the beautiful structure was only stalling off the inevitable.

The guests and those of the hotel employees who were released from their regular work assignments stared in hypnotic horror at the maelstrom of confused water whipped by gale winds into swirling white vapor and spray. They watched helplessly as gigantic hundred-foot-tall waves thousands of feet in length and impelled by a two-hundred-mile-an-hour wind rushed toward the hotel, knowing that the only barrier separating them from millions of tons of water was a thin pane of reinforced glass. It was unnerving, to say the least.

The spectacular height of the waves defied comprehension. They could only stand and watch, men clutching women, women clutching children, gazing in rapt fear and fascination as the wave engulfed the hotel, then staring into a massive liquid void until the trough appeared.

Their shocked minds could not grasp the immensity of it all. Everyone hoped and prayed the next wave would be smaller, but it was not to be. If anything, they seemed to grow taller.

Morton took a momentary break and sat at his desk, his back to the windows, not wishing to be distracted from the responsibilities falling like an avalanche on his narrow shoulders. But mostly he faced away from the windows because he couldn't bear to watch the massive green seas surging against his exposed hotel. He sent frantic messages requesting immediate assistance in evacuating the guests and employees, begging for rescue before it was too late.

His pleas were answered and yet they were ignored.

Every ship within a hundred miles was worse off than the hotel. Already, a six-hundred-foot containership's Maydays had stopped transmitting. An ominous sign. Two other ships also failed to respond to radio signals. All hope was gone of nearly ten fishing vessels that had the misfortune of being caught in the path of Hurricane Lizzie…

All Dominican Republic military and sea rescue aircraft were grounded. All naval vessels were kept in port to brave out the storm. All Morton heard was "Sorry, Ocean Wanderer,you're on your own. We will respond as soon as the storm abates."

He kept in contact with Heidi Lisherness at the NUMA Hurricane Center, giving her reports on the magnitude of the storm.

"Are you certain about the height of the waves?" she asked, disbelieving his description.

"Believe me. I'm sitting a hundred feet above the waterline of the hotel and every ninth wave sweeps over the roof of the hotel."

"It's unheard-of."

"Take my word for it."

"I will," said Heidi, now in deep concern. "Is there anything I can do?"

"Just keep me informed as to when you think the sea and winds will decrease."

"According to our storm-hunter aircraft and satellite reports, not anytime soon."

"If you don't hear from me again," said Morton, finally turning and staring through a wall of water outside, "you'll know the worst has happened."

Before Heidi could reply, he switched off as another call came in. "Mr. Morton?"

"Speaking."

"Sir, this is Captain Rick Tapp of the Odyssey tug fleet."

"Go ahead, Captain. The storm is causing interference, but I can hear you."

"Sir, I regret to inform you that the tugs Albatrossand Pelicancannot come to your aid. The seas are far too rough. No one has ever experienced a storm of this magnitude. We could never reach you. As sturdy as our vessels are, they weren't built to make way through a sea this violent. Any attempt would be inviting suicide."

"Yes, I understand," Morton said heavily. "Come when you can. I don't know how much longer our mooring cables can withstand the strain. It's a miracle the hotel structure has stood up to the waves as long as it has."

"We'll do everything humanly possible to reach you the minute the worst of the storm passes the harbor."

Then as an afterthought, "Have you received any instructions from Specter?"

"No, sir, we've heard no word from him or his directors."

"Thank you, Captain."

Can it be that Specter, with a heart of cold stone, has already written off the Ocean Wandererand all the people inside her? Morton could not help wondering. The man was a bigger monster than he ever imagined. He could envision the fat man meeting with his advisors and directors to make plans distancing the company from a disaster in the making.

He was about to leave his office and inspect the battered hotel and to reassure the guests that they would survive the storm. He had never acted on a stage but he was about to give the performance of his life.

Abruptly, he heard a loud ripping sound and felt the floor lurch beneath his feet as the room twisted on a slight angle.

In almost the same instant, his portable communicator buzzed.

"Yes, yes, what is it?"

The familiar voice of his chief maintenance superintendent came over the little speaker. "This is Emlyn Brown, Mr. Morton. I'm down in the number two winch room. I'm looking at the frayed end of the mooring cable. It snapped a hundred yards out."

Morton's worst fear was rapidly becoming a reality. "Will the others hold?"

"With one gone and the rest taking up excess stress, I doubt if they can anchor us for long."

Each time a huge wave struck, the hotel shuddered, was buried in green raging waters and emerged like a fortress under siege, rock steady and immovable. Gradually, morale among the guests escalated as their confidence grew in the Ocean Wandererwhen she emerged seemingly unscathed after every gigantic wave. The guests were mostly affluent and had reserved their holiday on the floating resort in search of adventure. They all became mentally attuned to the menace threatening them and appeared to take it all in stride. Even the children eventually shook off their initial fright and began to enjoy watching the colossal mass of water smash into and flow over the luxury hotel.

Rising to the occasion, the chefs and kitchen workers somehow managed to turn out meals, served by waiters with impeccable manners throughout the crowded theater and ballroom.

During the ordeal, Morton could feel a growing sickness inside him. He became convinced that disaster was only minutes away and there was nothing any mere human could achieve against the incredible onslaught nature had created.

One by one, the cables parted, the final two within less than a minute of one another. Unleashed, the hotel began her precipitous drift toward the rocks along the shore of the Dominican Republic, driven unmercifully by a sea turned cruel beyond any that had been recorded by man.

In times past, the helmsman, or in many cases the captain of the ship, stood with legs firmly planted on the deck, hands locked around the spokes of the wheel in a death grip, battling the sea by steering with every ounce of his strength for long hours on end.

No more.

Barnum had but to program the ship's course into the computer, then he strapped himself into his raised leather chair in the pilothouse and waited as the electronic brain took over the Sea Sprite'sdestiny.

Fed a constant stream of data from the vast array of meteorological instruments and systems on board, the computer instantly analyzed the most efficient method of attacking the storm. Then it took command of the automated control system and began maneuvering the ship, measuring and anticipating the towering crests and cavernous troughs while critically judging time and distance for the best angle and speed to plunge through the brutal chaos.

Visibility was measured in inches. Driven crazy by the wind, salt spray and foam lashed the pilothouse windows during the short interval the ship wasn't buried under incalculable tons of water. The horrendous wave and wind conditions were enough to daunt any man who was not bred to the sea. But Barnum sat there like a rock, his eyes seemingly penetrating the treacherous waves and locking on some maddened god of the oceans but totally preoccupied with the problem of survival. Though he placed his explicit trust in the ship's computerized automated control system to battle the storm, an emergency could very well come up when he would have to take command.

He studied the waves as they rolled over his ship, gazing at the crest far above the pilothouse, staring into the solid mass of water until the Sea Spritestruggled through to the other side and dipped down into the trough.

The hours passed with no relief. A few of the crew and most all the scientists were seasick, yet none complained. There was no thought of coming out on the decks that were continuously swept clean by the great seas. One look at the immense sea was enough to send them to their cabins where they tied themselves to their bunks and prayed they would be alive to see tomorrow.

Their only measure of comfort was the mild tropical temperature. Those who peered through the ports saw waves as high as ten-story buildings. They watched in awe as the crests were blown away by the frightful winds into great clouds of foaming spray before disappearing within the demented rain.

To those below in the crew's quarters and engine room, the motion was not quite as extreme as that experienced by Barnum and his officers up in the pilothouse. He began to get aptly concerned at the way the seas were throwing Sea Spritearound like a car on a roller coaster. As the research ship took a steep roll to starboard, he watched the digital numbers on the clinometer. They showed that she heeled and hung at thirty-four degrees before the numbers gradually drifted back between five and zero.

"Another roll like that," he muttered to himself, "and we'll be living under the water permanently."

How the ship could sustain such wild and savage seas, he could not imagine. Then, almost as if it was an ordained blessing, the numbers on the wind speed instrument began to drop with increasing swiftness until it indicated less than fifty miles an hour.

Sam Maverick shook his head in wonder. "Looks like we're about toenter the eye of the hurricane, and yet the water seems more berserk than ever."

Barnum shrugged. "Who said it's darkest before the dawn?"

The communications officer, Mason Jar, a short dumpling of a man with bleached white hair and a large earring dangling from his left car, approached Barnum and handed him a message.

Barnum scanned the wording and looked up. "This just come in?

"Less than two minutes ago," answered Jar.

Barnum passed the message to Maverick, who read it aloud: "Hotel Ocean Wanderer suffering extreme sea conditions. Mooring cables have parted. Hotel is now adrift and being swept toward the rocks of the Dominican Republic shore. Any ships in the area please respond. Over a thousand souls on board."

He handed the message back to Barnum. "Judging from the Mayday calls, we're the only ship still afloat that can attempt a rescue."

"They didn't give a position," said the communications officer.

Barnum looked grim. "They're not seamen, they're innkeepers."

Maverick leaned over the chart table and manipulated a pair of dividers. "She was fifty miles south of our position when we pulled up anchor to tackle the storm. Won't be easy coming around inside Navidad Reef to effect a rescue."

Jar reappeared with another message. This one read…

TO SEA SPRITE FROM NUMA HEADQUARTERS, WASHINGTON. IF POSSIBLE, TRY TO EFFECT A RESCUE OF THE PEOPLE ABOARD OCEAN WANDERER FLOATING HOTEL. I WILL RELY ON YOUR JUDGMENT AND BACK YOUR DECISION. SANDECKER

"Well, at least we now have official authorization," said Maverick.

"We only have forty people on board Sea Sprite,"said Barnum. "The Ocean Wandererhas over a thousand. I can't in good conscience run away."

"What about Dirk and Summer down in Pisces?"

"They should be able to tough out the storm underwater protected by the reef."

"How's their air supply?" asked Maverick.

"Enough for four more days," replied Barnum.

"If this bloody storm passes, we should be back on station in two."

"Providing we can hook up with the Ocean Wandererand tow her a safe distance from shore."

Maverick looked out the windshield. "Once we enter the eye of the storm, we should be able to make good headway."

"Program the hotel's last position and predicted drift into the computer," ordered Barnum. "Then set a course for a rendezvous."

Barnum started to rise' from his chair to order his radio operator to report his decision to attempt a rescue of the Ocean Wandererto Admiral Sandecker, when to his horror a monstrous wave, more towering than any before, rose nearly eighty feet above the pilothouse that was already nearly fifty feet above the waterline, and came crashing down with unimaginable force that hammered and engulfed the entire vessel. The Sea Spritebravely surged through the watery mountain, plunging into what seemed a bottomless trough before rising again.

Barnum and Maverick looked into each other's eyes in stunned astonishment when another wave of even more staggering dimensions smashed and immersed the research ship, plunging her into its depths.

Crushed by millions of tons of water, the Sea Sprite'sbow dove down, down, deeper and deeper, as if she never intended to stop.