Dirk Pitt 1 - Pacific Vortex (5 page)

He was jolted back to reality by the sound of running water in the bathroom; the flow was too constant, too prolonged for normal routine. It took him three steps to reach the door—locked from the inside. No time for a theatrical “are you in there” line. Balancing on one leg, he kicked hard at the lock with the other, revealing an empty room.

Summer was gone. Her only trace was a trail of knotted bath towels, tied to the shower curtain railing and stretching over the windowsill. Casting an anxious eye below, he saw the last towel dangling only four feet above a chaise lounge on the balcony belonging to the room beneath his. No lights were showing, no shouts of alarm from the tenants. She had escaped safely. For that he was thankful.

He stood there recalling her face—a face that was probably compassionate and tender and gay.

Then he cursed himself for letting her get away.

It was early morning. Thin, ghostly trails of vapor were left behind from a light rain that had come and gone during the night The humidity would have been stifling but for the tradewinds that swept clean the sodden atmosphere and dispersed it over the blue ocean beyond the encircling reefs. The sandy strip of beach that curled from Diamond Head to the Reef Hotel was empty, but already tourists were beginning to trickle from the great glass and concrete hotels to begin a day of sightseeing and shopping excursions.

Lying crosswise on the sweat-dampened sheets of his bed, a naked Pitt gazed out the open window at a pair of myna birds who were fighting over a disinterested female perched in a neighboring palm tree. Black feathers flew in profusion as the birds squawked riotously, creating a disturbance heard for nearly a block. Then, just as the miniature brawl was about to reach its final round, Pitt's door chime sounded. Reluctantly, he slipped on a terrycloth robe, walked yawning to the door, and opened it.

“Good morning, Dirk.” A short, fire-haired man with a protruding face, stood in the hall. “I hope I'm not interrupting a romantic interlude?”

Pitt stretched out his hand. “No, I'm quite alone. Come on in.”

The little man crossed the threshold, looked unhurriedly about the room, then stepped out on the balcony, taking in the splendid view. He was nattily dressed in a light tan suit and vest, complete with watch and chain. He had a neatly trimmed Ahab, the whaler's red beard, with two evenly spaced white streaks on each side of the chin, presenting a facial growth that was strikingly uncommon. The olive face was beaded with perspiration either from the humidity or from climbing the stairs, or both. When most men wove their lives through the channels of least resistance, Admiral James Sandecker, Chief Director of the National Underwater and Marine Agency, hit every barrier, every obstacle in the shortest line from point A to point B.

Sandecker turned and nodded over his shoulder. “How in hell do you get any sleep with those damned crows screeching in your ears?”

“Fortunately, they don't fly amok until the sun's up.” Pitt motioned to the sectional couch. “Get comfortable, Admiral, while I get the coffee going.”

“Forget the coffee. Nine hours ago I was in Washington. The jet lag has my body chemistry all screwed up. I'd prefer a drink.”

Pitt pulled out a bottle of Scotch from a cabinet and poured. He glanced across the room only to be met by Sandecker's twinkling blue eyes. What was coming? The head of one of the nation's most prestigious governmental agencies didn't fly six thousand miles just to chat with his Special Projects Director about birds. He handed Sandecker a glass and asked, “What brings you from Washington? I thought you were buried in plans for the new deep-sea current expedition?”

“You don't know why I'm here?” He was using his quiet cynical tone, the one that always made Pitt involuntarily cringe. 'Thanks to your meddling in affairs that don't concern you, I had to make a special trip to bail you out of one mess and throw you into another."

“I don't follow.”

“A talent I know only too well.” There was the slight hint of a derisive smile. “It seems you aggravated a hornet's nest when you showed up with the Star-buck's message capsule. You unknowingly set off an earthquake in the Pentagon that was picked up on a seismograph in California. It also made you a big-man-on-campus with the Navy Department. I'm only a retired castoff to those boys, so I wasn't offered a peek behind the curtain. I was simply asked by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, courteously, I might add, to fly to Hawaii posthaste, explain your new assignment, and arrange for your loan to the Navy.”

Pitt's eyes narrowed. “Who's behind this?”

“Admiral Leigh Hunter of the 101st Salvage Fleet.”

“You can't be serious?”

“He personally requested you.”

Pitt shook his head angrily. “This is asinine. What's to stop me from refusing?”

“You force me to remind you,” Sandecker said calmly, “that in spite of your status with NUMA, you're still carried on the active rolls as a major in the Air Force. And, as you well know, the Joint Chiefs frown upon insubordination.”

Pitt's eyes looked resentfully into Sandecker's. “It won't work.”

“Yes it will,” Sandecker said. “You're a damn good marine engineer, the best I've got. I've already met with Hunter and I minced no words in telling him so.”

“There are other complications,” Pitt didn't sound very confident, “that haven't been considered.”

“You mean the fact that you've been laying Hunter's daughter?”

Pitt stiffened. “Do you know what that makes you, Admiral?”

“A sly, old devious son of a bitch?” Sandecker asked. “Actually, there's much more to this business than you've taken the trouble to notice.”

“You sound ominous as hell,” Pitt said, unimpressed.

“I mean to,” Sandecker replied seriously. “You're not joining the Navy to learn a new trade. You're to act as liaison between Hunter and myself. Before this thing's over with, NUMA will be involved up to its ears. NUMA has been ordered to help the Navy with whatever oceanographical data they demand.”

“Equipment?”

“If they ask for it.”

“Finding a submarine that disappeared six months ago won't be a picnic.”

“The Starbuck is only half the act,” Sandecker said. “The Navy Department has compiled thirty-eight documented cases of ships over the past thirty years that have sailed into a circular-shaped area north of the Hawaiian Islands and vanished. They want to know why.”

“Ships disappear in the Atlantic and Indian oceans too. It's not an unheard-of occurrence.”

“True, but under normal circumstances, marine disasters leave traces behind; bits of flotsam, oil slicks, even bodies. Wreckage will also float ashore to give a hint of a missing ship's fate, but no such remains have turned up from the ships that vanished in the Pacific Vortex.”

“The Pacific Vortex? ”

“That's the name the seamen in the maritime unions coined for it. They won't sign on a ship whose course takes them through the area.”

“Thirty-eight ships,” Pitt repeated slowly. “What about radio contact? A ship would have to go down in seconds not to transmit a Mayday signal.”

“No distress signals were ever received.”

Pitt didn't say anything. Sandecker simply sipped his Scotch, offering no further comment. As if on cue, the myna birds began their noisy antics again, shattering the brief silence. Pitt shut them from his mind and stared steadfastly at the floor; there were a hundred questions swirling around in his head, but it was far too early in the morning for him to conjure up theories on mysterious ship disappearances.

After the silence had dragged on a bit too long, Pitt spoke: “Okay, so thirty-seven ships will never reach port again. That leaves the thirty-eighth, the Starbuck. The Navy has the exact position from the capsule. What are they waiting for? If they locate the remains, their salvage ships won't require an act of God to raise her from ten fathoms.”

“It's not all that elementary.”

“Why not? The Navy raised the submarine F-4 from sixty fathoms right here on Oahu off the entrance of Pearl Harbor. And that was back in 1915.”

“The armchair admirals who do their thinking through computers today, aren't convinced that the message you found is genuine. At least not until they've had time to analyze the handwriting.”

Pitt sighed. “They suspect the dumb ass who brought in the capsule of perpetrating a hoax.”

“Something like that.”

Pitt forced back a laugh. “So that, at least, explains the transfer. Hunter wants to keep an eye on me.”

“You made the mistake of reading the capsule's message. This alone takes you from the ranks of innocent bystander, and classifies you as top secret material. Also, the 101st Fleet wants to borrow our new long-range FXH helicopter. None of the Navy's pilots are checked out on it. You are. And, if an unfriendly nation got it in their heads to try and locate and salvage Uncle Sam's newest and most advanced nuclear sub before we do — it's first come, first serve in international waters — you're a sitting duck for their undercover agents to kidnap in order to discover the Starbuck's position.”

“It's nice to be known and loved,” Pitt said. "But you forget; I'm not the only one who knows the Starbuck's final resting place

“Yes, but you're the easiest to come by. Hunter and his staff are safely confined to Pearl Harbor, working around-the-clock in an attempt to clear up the puzzle.” The admiral paused, stuck a massive cigar in his face, lit it, and puffed meditatively. “Knowing you like I do, my boy, an enemy agent wouldn't have to use muscle. They'd simply send their most seductive Mata Hari to the nearest bar and let you pick her up.”

Sandecker noticed the sudden look of pain that gripped Pitt's face but he went on.

“I might add, for your own information, that the 101st Fleet is one of the finest undercover salvage operations in the world.”

“Undercover?”

“Talking to you is like floundering on a reef,” San-decker said with forbearance. “Admiral Hunter and his men have raised a British bomber from the water only ten miles from the Cuban shore right under the nose of Castro. Then they salvaged the New Century off Libya, the Southwind in the Black Sea, the Tari Maru within sight of the lights of China. In each case the ships were all salvaged by the 101st before the nations whose waters the vessels sank in, knew the score. Don't underestimate Hunter and his gang of underwater scrap mongers. They're second to none.”

“The Starbuck,” Pitt said, “why all the cloak and dagger?”

“For one thing, Dupree's final position is an impossibility. The only way the Starbuck could possibly be where his message said it lay, was for the ship to fly. A feat marine architects haven't as yet accomplished. Not with ten thousand tons of steel, at any rate.”

Pitt looked steadily at Sandecker. “It's got to be out there. Underwater detection systems are far more advanced now. It doesn't figure that the Starbuck remains lost, or that a massive search turned up absolutely nothing.”

Sandecker held up his empty glass and stared at it “As long as there are seas, ships, and men, there will be strange unsolved mysteries. The Starbuck is only one.”

Pitt stood under the shower nozzle; the steaming hot water opening his pores. After finishing tinder a heavy spray of cold water, he stepped out, toweled, and shaved the stubble from the night before, taking his time. He hadn't the slightest intention of arriving at Hunter's headquarters on time. Mustn't spoil the old bastard my first day on the job, he thought, grinning in the mirror.

He decided on a white suit with a pink shirt. As he went through the intricacy of tying his tie, it occurred to him that it might not be a bad idea to carry a little protection. Summer had failed, but nevertheless, Pitt began to see the odds of his living to a ripe old age fade with each passing hour. He wasn't about to compete in hand-to-hand combat with highly trained, professional intelligence agents.

The Mauser, Model 712 Schnell Fueur Pistole Serial Number 47405, could only be described as a positively bloodthirsty firearm. It was a unique handgun due to its ability to fire one shot at a time or, automatically, like a machine gun. It was the perfect weapon to induce terror into any poor unfortunate who found himself gazing helplessly into its muzzle.

Pitt casually tossed the gun onto the bed and reached into the suitcase again, retrieving a wooden shoulder holster. The narrow end had a metal railing that slid on a notch in the broomstick-styled grip, converting the gun into a carbine for long-distance targets; it also served as a grasp when firing on full automatic. Pitt then inserted the gun into the holster and, along with a fifty-shot clip, wrapped the ugly killing machine in a beach towel.

Before the elevator reached the lobby, it obediently halted at every other floor to take on new passengers until it could hold no more. Pitt wondered to himself what thoughts his fellow riders might entertain if they'd had any inkling of what he carried under the towel. After the throng bumped shoulders as they spilled into the lobby, Pitt remained and punched the panel button marked B and rode down to the basement parking area. He unlocked the AC Cobra, shoved the Mauser into a narrow space behind the driver's seat, and climbed in behind the wheel.

He eased the car up the exit ramp and joined the traffic flow of Kalakaua Avenue, aiming its blunt snout toward the northern end of the city. The palm trees lining the street leaned their arched trunks over the block-long rows of contemporary-designed shops and offices, while the sidewalks snaked in a dense-moving column of tourists dressed in brightly colored shirts and dresses. The sun was strong and the savage glare bounced off the asphalt, causing Pitt to squint before he groped over the narrow dashboard for his sunglasses.

He was already over an hour late for his meeting with Hunter, but there was something he had to do, some small hunch in the back of his brain that begged for a chance to be heard. He didn't quite know what he expected to find as the tires crunched the red

volcanic pebbles that lined the driveway, but he had driven two miles out of his way and there was no reason not to see it through. He parked the car and walked past a small, neatly carved sign that read: