Текст книги "Inca Gold"

Автор книги: Clive Cussler

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Текущая страница: 33 (всего у книги 34 страниц)

    "The admiral is right," said Giordino. "There could be a dozen cascades like the one Pitt and I went over. Even with a Hovercraft like the Wallowing Windbag, it's extremely doubtful anyone can gain safe passage through a hundred kilometers of water peppered with rapids and rocks."

    "If that isn't enough," added Duncan, "there's the submerged caverns to get through before surfacing in the Gulf. Without an ample air supply, drowning would be inescapable."

    How far do you think he might drift?" Sandecker asked him.

    "From the treasure chamber?"

    "Yes."

    Duncan thought a moment. "Pitt might have a chance if he managed to reach a dry shore within five hundred meters. We could tie a man on a guideline and safely send him downstream that far, and then pull them back against the current."

    "And if no sign of Pitt is found before the guideline runs out?" asked Giordino.

    Duncan shrugged solemnly. "Then if his body doesn't surface in the Gulf, we'll never find him."

    "Is there any hope for Dirk?" Loren pleaded. "Any hope at all?"

    Duncan looked from Giordino to Sandecker before answering. All eyes reflected abject hopelessness and their faces were etched with despair. He turned back to Loren and said gently, "I can't lie to you, Miss Smith." The words appeared to cause him great discomfort. "Dirk's chances are as good as any badly injured man's of reaching Lake Mead outside of Las Vegas after being cast adrift in the Colorado River at the entrance to the Grand Canyon."

    The words came like a physical blow to Loren. She began to sway on her feet. Giordino reached out and grabbed her arm. It seemed that her heart stopped, and she whispered, "To me, Dirk Pitt will never die."

    "The fish are a little shy today," said Joe Hagen to his wife, Claire.

    She was lying on her belly on the roof of the boat's main cabin, barely wearing a purple bikini with the halter untied, reading a magazine. She pushed her sunglasses on top of her head and laughed. "You couldn't catch a fish if it jumped up and landed in the boat."

    He laughed. "Just wait and see."

    "The only fish you'll find this far north in the Gulf is shrimp," she nagged.

    The Hagens were in their early sixties and in reasonably good shape. As with most women her age, Claire's bottom had spread and her waist carried a little flab, but her face was fairly free of wrinkles and her breasts were still large and firm. Joe was a big man who fought a losing battle with a paunch that had grown into a well-rounded stomach. Together they ran a family auto dealership in Anaheim specializing in clean, low-mileage used cars.

    After Joe bought a 15-meter (50-foot) oceangoing ketch, and named it The First Attempt, out of Newport Beach, California, they began leaving the management of their business to their two sons. They liked to sail down the coast and around Cabo San Lucas into the Sea of Cortez, spending the fall months cruising back and forth between picturesque ports nestled on the shores.

    This was the first time they had sailed this far north. As he lazily trolled for whatever fish took a fancy to his bait, Joe kept half an eye on the fathometer as he idled along on the engine with the sails furled. The tides at this end of the Gulf could vary as much as 7 meters (23 feet) and he didn't want to run on an uncharted sandbar.

    He relaxed as the stylus showed a depression under the keel to be over 50 meters (164 feet) deep. A puzzling feature, he thought. The seafloor on the north end of the Gulf was uniformly shallow, seldom going below 10 meters at high tide. The bottom was usually a mixture of silt and sand. The fathometer read the underwater depression as uneven hard rock.

    "Aha, they laughed at all the great geniuses," said Joe as he felt a tug on his trolling line. He reeled it in and discovered a California corbina about the length of his arm on the hook.

    Claire shaded her eyes with one hand. "He's too pretty to keep. Throw the poor thing back."

    "That's odd."

    "What's odd?"

    "All the other corbinas I've ever caught had dark spots on a white body. This sucker is colored like a fluorescent canary."

    She adjusted her halter and came astern to have a closer look at his catch.

    "Now this is really weird," said Joe, holding up one hand and displaying palm and fingers that were stained a bright yellow. "If I weren't a sane man, I'd say somebody dyed this fish."

    "He sparkles under the sun as if his scales were spangles," said Claire.

    Joe peered over the side of the boat. "The water in this one particular area looks like it was squeezed out of a lemon."

    "Could be a good fishing hole."

    "You may be right, old girl." Joe moved past her to the bow and threw out the anchor. "This looks as good a place as any to spend the afternoon angling for a big one."

    There was no rest for the weary. Pitt went over four more cataracts. Providentially, none had a steep, yawning drop like the one that almost killed him and Giordino. The steepest drop he encountered was 2 meters (6.5 feet). The partially deflated Wallowing Windbag bravely plunged over the sharp ledge and successfully ran an obstacle course through rocks hiding under roaring sheets of froth and spray before continuing her voyage to oblivion.

    It was the boiling stretches of rapids that proved brutal. Only after they extracted their toll in battering torment could Pitt relax for a short time in the forgiving, unobstructed stretches of calm water that followed. The bruising punishment made his wounds feel as if they were being stabbed by little men with pitchforks. But the pain served a worthy purpose by sharpening his senses. He cursed the river, certain it was saving the worst for last before smashing his desperate gamble to escape.

    The paddle was torn from his hand, but it proved a small loss. With 50 kilograms (110 pounds) of equipment in a collapsing boat in addition to him, it was useless to attempt a sharp course change to dodge rocks that loomed up in the dark, especially while trying to paddle with one arm. He was too weak to do little more than feebly grasp the support straps attached to the interior of the hull and let the current take him where it might.

    Two more float cells were ruptured after colliding with sharp rocks that sliced through the thin skin of the hull, and Pitt found himself lying half-covered with water in what had become little more than a collapsed air bag. Surprisingly, he kept a death grip on the flashlight with his right hand. But he had completely drained three of the air tanks and most of the fourth while dragging the sagging little vessel through several fully submerged galleries before reaching open caverns on the other side and reinflating the remaining float cells.

    Pitt never suffered from claustrophobia but it would have come easy for most people in the black never-ending void. He avoided any thoughts of panic by singing and talking to himself during his wild ride through the unfriendly water. He shone the light on his hands and feet. They were shriveled like prunes after the long hours of immersion.

    "With all this water, dehydration is the least of my problems," he muttered to the dank, uncaring rock.

    He floated over transparent pools that dropped down shafts of solid rock so deep the beam of his lamp could not touch bottom. He toyed with the thought of tourists coming through this place. A pity people can't take the tour and view these crystallized Gothic caverns, he thought. Perhaps now that the river was known to exist, a tunnel might be excavated to bring in visitors to study the geological marvels.

    He had tried to conserve his three flashlights, but one by one their batteries gave out and he dropped them over the side. He estimated that only twenty minutes of light remained in his last lamp before the Stygian gloom returned for good.

    Running rapids in a raft under the sun and blue sky is called white-water rafting, his exhausted mind deliberated. Down here they could call it black-water rafting. The idea sounded very funny and for some reason he laughed. His laughter carried into a vast side chamber, echoing in a hundred eerie sounds. If he hadn't known it came from him, it would have curdled his blood.

    It no longer seemed possible that there could be any place but this nightmare maze of caverns creeping tortuously end on end through such an alien environment. He had lost all sense of direction. "Bearings" was only a word from a dictionary. His compass was made useless by an abundance of iron ore in the rock. He felt so disoriented and removed from the surface world above that he wondered if he had finally crossed the threshold into lunacy. The only breath of sanity was fueled by the stupendous sights revealed by the light from his lamp.

    He forced himself to regain control by playing mind games. He tried to memorize details of each new cavern and gallery, of each bend and turn of the river, so he could describe them to others after he escaped to sunlight. But there were so many of them his numbed mind found it impossible to retain more than a few vivid images. Not only that, he found he had to concentrate on keeping the Windbag afloat. Another float cell was hissing its buoyancy away through a puncture.

    How far have I come? he wondered dully. How much farther to the end? His fogged mind was wandering. He had to get a grip on himself. He was beyond hunger, no thoughts of thick steaks or prime rib with a bottle of beer flooded through his mind. His battered and spent body had given far more than he expected from it.

    The shrunken hull of the Hovercraft struck the cavern's roof which arched downward into the water. The craft revolved in circles, bumping against the rock until it worked off to one side of the mainstream of the river and gently grounded on a shoal. Pitt lay in the pool that half-filled the interior, his legs dangling over the sides, too played out to don the last air tank, deflate the craft, and convey it through the flooded gallery ahead.

    He couldn't pass out. Not now. He had too far to go. He took several deep breaths and drank a small amount of water. He groped for the thermos, untied it from a hook and finished the last of the coffee. The caffeine helped revive him a bit. He flipped the thermos into the river and watched it float against the rock, too buoyant to drift through to the other side.

    The lamp was so weak it barely threw a beam. He switched it off to save what little juice was left in the batteries, lay back, and stared into the suffocating blackness.

    Nothing hurt anymore. His nerve endings had shut down and his body was numb. He must have been almost two pints low on blood, he figured. He hated to face the thought of failure. For a few minutes he refused to believe he couldn't make it back to the world above. The faithful Wallowing Windbag had taken him this far, but if it lost one more float cell he would have to abandon it and carry on alone. He began concentrating his waning energies on the effort that still lay ahead.

    Something jogged his memory. He smelled something. What was it they said about smells? They can trigger past events in your mind. He breathed in deeply, trying not to let the scent get away before he could recall why it was so familiar. He licked his lips and recognized a taste that hadn't been there before. Salt. And then it washed over him.

    The smell of the sea.

    He had finally reached the end of the subterranean river system that climaxed in the Gulf.

    Pitt popped open his eyes and raised his hand until it almost touched the tip of his nose. He couldn't distinguish detail, but there was a vague shadow that shouldn't have been there in the eternal dark of his subterranean world. He stared down into the water and detected a murky reflection. Light was seeping in from the passage ahead.

    The discovery that daylight was within reach raised immensely his hopes of surviving.

    He climbed out of the Wallowing Windbag and considered the two worst hazards he now faced– length of dive to the surface and decompression. He checked the pressure gauge that ran. from the manifold of the air tank. Eight hundred fifty pounds per square inch. Enough air for a run of maybe 300 meters (984 feet), providing he stayed calm, breathed easily, and didn't exert himself. If surface air was much beyond that, he wouldn't have to worry about the other problem, decompression. He'd drown long before acquiring the notorious bends.

    Periodic checks of his depth gauge during his long journey had told him the pressure inside most of the airfilled caverns ran only slightly higher than the outside atmospheric pressure. A concern but not a great fear. And he had seldom exceeded 30 meters of depth when diving under a flooded overhang that divided two open galleries. If faced with the same situation, he would have to be careful to make a controlled 18-meter (60-foot) per-minute ascent to avoid decompression sickness.

    Whatever the obstacles, he could neither go back nor stay where he was. He had to go on. There was no other decision to make. This would be the final test of what little strength and resolve was still left in him.

    He wasn't dead yet. Not until he breathed the last tiny bit of oxygen in his air tank. And then he would go on until his lungs burst.

    He checked to see that the manifold valves were open and the low-pressure hose was connected to his buoyancy compensator. Next, he strapped on his tank and buckled the quick-release snaps. A quick breath to be sure his regulator was functioning properly and he was ready.

    Without his lost dive mask, his vision would be blurred, but all he had to do was swim toward the light. He clamped his teeth on the mouthpiece of his breathing regulator, gathered his nerve, and counted to three.

    It was time to go, and he dove into the river for the last time.

    As he gently kicked his bare feet he'd have given his soul for his lost fins. Down, down the overhang sloped ahead of him. He passed thirty meters, then forty. He began to worry after he passed fifty meters. When diving on compressed air, there is an invisible barrier between sixty and eighty meters. Beyond that a diver begins to feel like a drunk and loses control of his mental faculties.

    His air tank made an unearthly screeching sound as it scraped against the rock above him. Because he had dropped his weight belt after his near-death experience over the great waterfall, and because of the neoprene in his shredded wet suit, he was diving with positive buoyancy. He doubled over and dove deeper to avoid the contact.

    Pitt thought the plunging rock would never end. His depth gauge read 75 meters (246 feet) before the current carried him beneath and around the tip of the overhang. Now the upward slope was gradual. Not the ideal situation. He'd have preferred a direct ascent to the surface to cut the distance and save his dwindling air supply.

    The light grew steadily brighter until he could read the numbers of his dive watch without the aid of the dying beam from the lamp. The hands on the orange dial read ten minutes after five o'clock. Was it early morning or afternoon? How long since he dove into the river? He couldn't remember if it was ten minutes or fifty. His mind sluggishly puzzled over the answers.

    The clear, transparent emerald green of the river water turned more blue and opaque. The current was fading and his ascent slowed. There was a distant shimmer above him. At last the surface itself appeared.

    He was in the Gulf. He had exited the river passage and was swimming in the Sea of Cortez. Pitt looked up and saw a shadow looming far in the distance. One final check of his air pressure gauge. The needle quivered on zero. His air was almost gone.

    Rather than suck in a huge gulp, he used what little was left to partially inflate his buoyancy compensator so it would gently lift him to the surface if he blacked out from lack of oxygen.

    One last inhalation that barely puffed out his lungs and he relaxed, exhaling small breaths to compensate for the declining pressure as he rose from the depths. The hiss of his air bubbles leaving the regulator diminished as his lungs ran dry.

    The surface appeared so close he could reach out and touch it when his lungs began to burn. It was a spiteful illusion. The waves were still 20 meters (66 feet) away.

    He put some strength into his kick as a huge elastic band seemed to tighten around his chest. Soon, the desire for air became his only world as darkness started seeping around the edges of his eyes.

    Pitt became entangled in something that hindered his ascent. His vision, blurred without a dive mask, failed to distinguish what was binding him. Instinctively, he thrashed clumsily in an attempt to free himself. A great roaring sound came from inside his brain as it screamed in protest. But in that instant before blackness shut down his mind, he sensed that his body was being pulled toward the surface.

    "I've hooked a big one!" shouted Joe Hagen joyously,

    "You got a marlin?" Claire asked excitedly, seeing her husband's fishing pole bent like a question mark.

    "He's not giving much fight for a marlin," Joe panted as he feverishly turned the crank on his reel. "Feels more like a dead weight."

    "Maybe you dragged him to death."

    "Get the gaff. He's almost to the surface."

    Claire snatched a long-handled gaff from two hooks and pointed it over the side of the yacht like a spear. "I see something," she cried. "It looks big and black."

    Then she screamed in horror.

    Pitt was a millimeter away from unconsciousness when his head broke into a trough between the waves. He spit out his regulator and drew in a deep breath. The sun's reflection on the water blinded eyes that hadn't seen light in almost two days. He squinted rapturously at the sudden kaleidoscope of colors.

    Relief, joy of living, fulfillment of a great accomplishment– they flooded together.

    A woman's scream pierced his ears and he looked up, startled to see the Capri-blue hull of a yacht rising beside him and two people staring over the side, their faces pale as death. It was then that he realized he was entangled in fishing line. Something slapped against his leg. He gripped the line and pulled a small skipjack tuna, no longer than his foot, out of the water. The poor thing had a huge hook protruding from its mouth.

    Pitt gently gripped the fish under one armpit and eased out the hook with his good hand. Then he stared into the little fish's beady eyes.

    "Look, Toto," he said jubilantly, "we're back in Kansas!"

    Commander Maderas and his crew had moved out of San Felipe and resumed their search pattern when the call came through from the Hagens.

    "Sir," said his radioman, "I just received an urgent message from the yacht The First Attempt."

    "What does it say?"

    "The skipper, an American by the name of Joseph Hagen, reports picking up a man he caught while fishing."

    Maderas frowned. "He must mean he snagged a dead body while trolling."

    "No, sir, he was quite definite. The man he caught is alive."

    Maderas was puzzled. "Can't be the one we're searching for. Not after viewing the other one. Have any boats in the area reported a crew member lost overboard?"

    The radioman shook his head. "I've heard nothing."

    "What is The First Attempt's position?"

    "Twelve nautical miles to the northwest of us."

    Maderas stepped into the wheelhouse and nodded at Hidalgo. "Set a course to the northwest and watch for an American yacht." Then he turned to his radioman. "Call this Joseph Hagen for more details on the man they pulled from the water and tell him to remain at his present position. We'll rendezvous in approximately thirty-five minutes."

    Hidalgo looked at him across the chart table. "What do you think?"

    Maderas smiled. "As a good Catholic, I must believe what the church tells me about miracles. But this is one I have to see for myself."

    The fleet of yachts and the many boats of the Mexican fishing fleets that ply the Sea of Cortez have their own broadcast network. There is considerable bantering among the brotherhood of boat owners, similar to the old neighborhood telephone party lines. The chatter includes weather reports, invitations to seaboard social parties, the latest news from home ports, and even a rundown of items for sale or swap.

    The word went up and down the Gulf about the owners of The First Attempt catching a human on a fishing line. Interest was fueled by those who embellished the story before passing it on through the Baja net. Yacht owners who tuned in late heard a wild tale about the Hagens catching a killer whale and finding a live man inside.

    Some of the larger oceangoing vessels were equipped with radios capable of reaching stations in the United States. Soon reports were rippling out from Baja to as far away as Washington.

    The Hagen broadcast was picked up by a Mexican navy radio station in La Paz. The radio operator on duty asked for confirmation, but Hagen was too busy jabbering away with other yacht owners and failed to reply. Thinking it was another of the wild parties in the boating social swing, he noted it in his log and concentrated on official navy signals.

    When he went off duty twenty minutes later, he casually mentioned it to the officer in charge of the station.

    "It sounded pretty loco," he explained. "The report came in English. Probably an intoxicated gringo playing games over his radio."

    "Better send a patrol boat to make an inspection," said the officer. "I'll inform the Northern District Fleet Headquarters and see who we have in the area."

    Fleet headquarters did not have to be informed. Maderas had already alerted them that he was heading at full speed toward The First Attempt. Headquarters had also received an unexpected signal from the Mexican chief of naval operations, ordering the commanding officer to rush the search and extend every effort for a successful rescue operation.

    Admiral Ricardo Alvarez was having lunch with his wife at the officers' club when an aide hurried to his table with both signals.

    "A man caught by a fisherman." Alvarez snorted. "What kind of nonsense is this?"

    "That was the message relayed by Commander Maderas of the G-21," replied the aide.

    "How soon before Maderas comes in contact with the yacht?"

    "He should rendezvous at any moment."

    "I wonder why Naval Operations is so involved with an ordinary tourist lost at sea?"

    "Word has come down that the President himself is interested in the rescue," said the aide.

    Admiral Alvarez gave his wife a sour look. "I knew that damned North American Free Trade Agreement was a mistake. Now we have to kiss up to the Americans every time one of them falls in the Gulf."

    So it was that there were more questions than answers when Pitt was transferred from The First Attempt soon after the patrol vessel came alongside. He stood on the deck, partially supported by Hagen, who had stripped off the torn wet suit and lent Pitt a golf shirt and a pair of shorts. Claire had replaced the bandage on his shoulder and taped one over the nasty cut on his forehead.

    He shook hands with Joseph Hagen. "I guess I'm the biggest fish you ever caught."

    Hagen laughed. "Sure something to tell the grandkids."

    Pitt then kissed Claire on the cheek. "Don't forget to send me your recipe for fish chowder. I've never tasted any so good."

    "You must have liked it. You put away at least a gallon."

    "I'll always be in your debt for saving my life. Thank you."

    Pitt turned and was helped into a small launch that ferried him to the patrol boat. As soon as he stepped onto the deck, he was greeted by Maderas and Hidalgo before being escorted to the sick bay by the ship's medical corpsman. Prior to ducking through a hatch, Pitt turned and gave a final wave to the Hagens.

    Joe and Claire stood with their arms around each other's waist. Joe turned and looked at his wife with a puzzled expression and said, "I've never caught five fish in my entire life and you can't cook worth sour grapes. What did he mean by your great-tasting fish chowder?"

    Claire sighed. "The poor man. He was so hurt and hungry I didn't have the heart to tell him I fed him canned soup doused with brandy."

    Curtis Starger got the word in Guaymas that Pitt had been found alive. He was searching the hacienda used by the Zolars. The call came in over his Motorola Iridium satellite phone from his office in Calexico. In an unusual display of teamwork, the Mexican investigative agencies had allowed Starger and his Customs people to probe the buildings and grounds for additional evidence to help convict the family dynasty of art thieves.

    Starger and his agents had arrived to find the grounds and airstrip empty of all life. The hacienda was vacant and the pilot of Joseph Zolar's private plane had decided now was a good time to resign. He simply walked through the front gate, took a bus into town, and caught a flight to his home in Houston, Texas.

    A search of the hacienda turned up nothing concrete. The rooms had been cleaned of any incriminating evidence. The abandoned plane parked on the airstrip was another matter. Inside, Starger found four crudely carved wooden effigies with childlike faces painted on them.

    "What do you make of these?" Starger asked one of the agents, who was an expert in ancient Southwest artifacts.

    "They look like some kind of Indian religious symbols."

    "Are they made from cottonwood?"

    The agent lifted his sunglasses and examined the idols close up. "Yes, I think I can safely say they're carved out of cottonwood."

    Starger ran his hand gently over one of the idols. "I have a suspicion these are the sacred idols Pitt was looking for."

    Rudi Gunn was told while he was lying in a hospital bed. A nurse entered his room, followed by one of Starger's agents.

    "Mr. Gunn. I'm Agent Anthony Di Maggio with the Customs Service. I thought you'd like to know that Dirk Pitt was picked up alive in the Gulf about half an hour ago."

    Gunn closed his eyes and sighed with heavy relief. "I knew he'd make it."

    "Quite a feat of courage, I hear, swimming over a hundred kilometers through an underground river."

    "No one else could have done it."

    "I hope the good news will inspire you to become more cooperative," said the nurse, who talked sweetly while carrying a long rectal thermometer.

    "Isn't he a good patient?" asked Di Maggio.

    "I've tended better."

    "I wish to hell you'd give me a pair of pajamas," Gunn said nastily, "instead of this peekaboo, lace-up-the-rear, shorty nightshirt."

    "Hospital gowns are designed that way for a purpose," the nurse replied smartly.

    "I wish to God you'd tell me what it is."

    "I'd better go now and leave you alone," said Di Maggio, beating a retreat. "Good luck on a speedy recovery."

    "Thank you for giving me the word on Pitt," Gunn said sincerely.

    "Not at all."

    "You rest now," ordered the nurse. "I'll be back in an hour with your medication."

    True to her word, the nurse returned in one hour on the dot. But the bed was empty. Gunn had fled, wearing nothing but the skimpy little gown and a blanket.

    Strangely, those on board the Alhambra were the last to know.

    Loren and Sandecker were meeting with Mexican Internal Police investigators beside the Pierce Arrow when news of Pitt's rescue came from the owner of a luxurious powerboat that was tied up at the nearby fuel station. He shouted across the water separating the two vessels.

    "Ahoy the ferry!"

    Miles Rodgers was standing on the deck by the wheelhouse talking with Shannon and Duncan. He leaned over the railing and shouted back. "What is it?"

    "They found your boy!"

    The words carried inside the auto deck and Sandecker rushed out onto the open deck. "Say again!" he yelled.

    "The owners of a sailing ketch fished a fellow out of the water," the yacht skipper replied. "The Mexican navy reports say it's the guy they were looking for."

    Everyone was on an outside deck now. All afraid to ask the question that might have an answer they dreaded to hear.

    Giordino accelerated his wheelchair up to the loading ramp as if it were a super fuel dragster. He apprehensively yelled over to the powerboat. "Was he alive?"

    "The Mexicans said he was in pretty poor shape, but came around after the boat owner's wife pumped some soup into him."

    "Pitt's alive!" gasped Shannon.

    Duncan shook his head in disbelief. "I can't believe he made it through to the Gulf!"

    "I do," murmured Loren, her face in her hands, the tears flowing. The dignity and the poise seemed to crumble. She leaned down and hugged Giordino, her cheeks wet and flushed red beneath a new tan. "I knew he couldn't die."

    Suddenly, the Mexican investigators were forgotten as if they were miles away and everyone was shouting and hugging each other. Sandecker, normally taciturn and reserved, let out a resounding whoop and rushed to the wheelhouse, snatched up the Iridium phone and excitedly called the Mexican Navy Fleet Command for more information.

    Duncan frantically began poring over his hydrographic charts of the desert water tables, impatient to learn what data Pitt had managed to accumulate during the incredible passage through the underwater river system.

    Shannon and Miles celebrated by breaking out a bottle of cheap champagne they had found in the back of the galley's refrigerator, and passing out glasses. Miles reflected genuine joy at the news, but Shannon's eyes seemed unusually thoughtful. She stared openly at Loren, as a curious envy bloomed inside her that she couldn't believe existed. She slowly became aware that perhaps she had made a mistake by not displaying more compassion toward Pitt.