Deep Six

1

Black clouds rolled menacingly over the sea from Kodiak Island and turned the deep blue-green surface to lead. The orange glow of the sun was snuffed out like a candle flame. Unlike most storms that swept in from the Gulf of Alaska creating fifty- or hundred-mile-an-hour winds, this one bred a mild breeze. The rain began to fall, sparingly at first, then building to a deluge that beat the water white.

On the bridge wing of the Coast Guard cutter Catawba, Lieutenant Commander Amos Dover peered through a pair of binoculars, eyes straining to penetrate the downpour. It was like staring into a shimmering stage curtain. Visibility died at four hundred meters. The rain felt cold against his face and colder yet as it trickled past the upturned collar of his foul-weather jacket and down his neck. Finally he spat a waterlogged cigarette over the railing and stepped into the dry warmth of the wheelhouse.

“Radar!” he called out gruffly.

“Contact six hundred fifty meters dead ahead and closing,” the radar operator replied without lifting his eyes from the tiny images on the scope.

Dover unbuttoned his jacket and wiped the moisture from his neck with a handkerchief. Trouble was the last thing he expected during moderate weather.

Seldom did one of the fishing fleet or private pleasure craft go missing in midsummer. Winter was the season when the gulf turned nasty and unforgiving. Chilled Arctic air meeting warmer air rising from the Alaska Current detonated incredible winds and towering seas that crushed hulls and iced deck structures until a boat grew top-heavy, rolled over and sank like a brick.

A distress call had been received by a vessel calling herself the Amie Marie. One quick SOS followed by a Loran position and the words “… think all dying.”

Repeated calls requesting further information were sent out, but the radio on board the Amie Marie remained silent.

An air search was out of the question until the weather cleared. Every ship within a hundred miles changed course and steamed full speed in response to the emergency signals. Because of her greater speed, Dover reckoned the Catawba would be the first to reach the stricken vessel. Her big diesels had already pushed her past a coastal freighter and a halibut long-liner gulf boat, leaving them rocking in her wake.

Dover was a great bear of a man who had paid his dues in sea rescue. He’d spent twelve years in northern waters, stubbornly throwing his shoulder against every sadistic whim the Arctic had thrown him. He was tough and wind-worn, slow and shambling in his physical movements, but he possessed a calculatorlike mind that never failed to awe his crew. In less time than it had taken to program the ship’s computers, he had figured the wind factor and current drift, arriving at a position where he knew the ship, wreckage or any survivors should be found — and he’d hit it right on the nose.

The hum of the engines below his feet seemed to lake on a feverish pitch. Like an unleashed hound, the Catawba seemed to pick up the scent of her quarry. Anticipation gripped all hands. Ignoring the rain, they lined the decks and bridge wings.

“Four hundred meters,” the radar operator sang out.

Then a seaman clutching the bow staff began pointing vigorously into the rain.

Dover leaned out the wheelhouse door and shouted through a bullhorn. “Is she afloat?”

“Buoyant as a rubber duck in a bathtub,” the seaman bellowed back through cupped hands.

Dover nodded to the lieutenant on watch. “Slow engines.”

“Engines one third,” the watch lieutenant acknowledged as he moved a series of levers on the ship’s automated console.

The Amie Marie slowly emerged through the precipitation. They expected to find her half awash, in a sinking condition. But she sat proud in the water, drifting in the light swells without a hint of distress. There was a silence about her that seemed unnatural, almost ghostly. Her decks were deserted, and Dover’s hail over the bullhorn went unanswered.

“A crabber by the look of her,” Dover muttered to no one in particular. “Steel hull, about a hundred and ten feet. Probably out of a shipyard in New Orleans.”

The radio operator leaned out of the communications room and motioned to Dover. “From the Board of Register, sir. The Amie Marie’s owner and skipper is Carl Keating. Home port is Kodiak.”

Again Dover hailed the strangely quiet crab boat, this time addressing Keating by name. There was still no response.

The Catawba slowly circled and hove to a hundred meters away, then stopped her engines and drifted alongside.

The steel-cage crab pots were neatly stacked on the deserted deck, and a wisp of exhaust smoke puffed from the funnel, suggesting that her diesel engines were idling in neutral. No human movement could be detected through the ports or the windows of the wheelhouse.

The boarding party consisted of two officers, Ensign Pat Murphy and Lieutenant Marty Lawrence. Without the usual small talk they donned their exposure suits, which would protect them from the frigid waters if they accidentally fell into the sea. They had lost count of the times they had conducted routine examinations of foreign fishing vessels that strayed inside the Alaskan 200-mile fishing limit, yet there was nothing routine about this investigation. No flesh-and-blood crew lined the rails to greet them. They climbed into a small rubber Zodiac propelled by an outboard motor and cast off.

Darkness was only a few hours away. The rain had eased to a drizzle but the wind had increased, and the sea was rising. An eerie quiet gripped the Catawba. No one spoke; it was as though they were afraid to, at least until the spell produced by the unknown was broken.

They watched as Murphy and Lawrence tied their tiny craft to the crab boat, hoisted themselves to the deck and disappeared through a doorway into the main cabin.

Several minutes dragged by. Occasionally one of the searchers would appear on the deck only to vanish again down a hatchway. The only sound in the Catawba’s wheelhouse came from the static over the ship’s open radiophone loudspeaker, turned up to high volume and tuned to an emergency frequency.

Suddenly, with such unexpected abruptness that even Dover twitched in surprise, Murphy’s voice loudly reverberated inside the wheelhouse.

“Catawba, this is Amie Marie.”

“Go ahead, Amie Marie,” Dover answered into a microphone.

“They’re all dead.”

The words were so cold, so terse, nobody absorbed them at first.

“Repeat.”

“No sign of a pulse in any of them. Even the cat bought it.”

What the boarding party found was a ship of the dead. Skipper Keating’s body rested on the deck, his head leaning against a bulkhead beneath the radio. Scattered throughout the boat in the galley, the mess-room and the sleeping quarters were the corpses of the Amie Marie’s crew. Their facial expressions were frozen in twisted agony and their limbs contorted in grotesque positions, as though they had violently thrashed away their final moments of life. Their skin had turned an odd black color, and they had gushed blood from every orifice. The ship’s Siamese cat lay beside a thick wool blanket it had shredded in its death throes.

Dover’s face reflected puzzlement rather than shock at Murphy’s description. “Can you determine a cause?” he asked.

“Not even a good guess,” Murphy came back. “No indication of struggle. No marks on the bodies, yet they bled like slaughtered pigs. Looks like whatever killed them struck everyone at the same time.”

“Stand by.”

Dover turned and surveyed the faces around him until he spotted the ship’s surgeon, Lieutenant Commander Isaac Thayer.

Doc Thayer was the most popular man aboard the ship. An old-timer in the Coast Guard service, he had long ago given up the plush offices and high income of shore medicine for the rigors of sea rescue.

“What do you make of it, Doc?” Dover asked.

Thayer shrugged and smiled. “Looks as though I better make a house call.”

Dover paced the bridge impatiently while Doc Thayer entered a second Zodiac and motored across the gap dividing the two vessels. Dover ordered the helmsman to position the Catawba to take the crab boat in tow. He was concentrating on the maneuver and didn’t notice the radio operator standing at his elbow.

“A signal just in, sir, from a bush pilot airlifting supplies to a team of scientists on Augustine Island.”

“Not now,” Dover said brusquely.

“It’s urgent, Captain,” the radio operator persisted.

“Okay, read the guts of it.”

“ ‘Scientific party all dead.’ Then something unintelligible and what sounds like ‘Save me.’ “

Dover stared at him blankly. “That’s all?”

“Yes, sir. I tried to raise him again, but there was no reply.”

Dover didn’t have to study a chart to know Augustine was an uninhabited volcanic island only thirty miles northeast of his present position. A sudden, sickening realization coursed through his mind. He snatched the microphone and shouted into the mouthpiece.

“Murphy! You there?”

Nothing.

“Murphy… Lawrence… do you read me?”

Again no answer.

He looked through the bridge window and saw Doc Thayer climb over the rail of the Amie Marie. Dover could move fast for a man of his mountainous proportions. He snatched a bullhorn and ran outside.

“Doc! Come back, get off that boat!” his amplified voice boomed over the water.

He was too late. Thayer had already ducked into a hatchway and was gone.

The men on the bridge stared at their captain, incomprehension written in their eyes. His facial muscles tensed and there was a look of desperation about him as he rushed back into the wheelhouse and clutched the microphone.

“Doc, this is Dover, can you hear me?”

Two minutes passed, two endless minutes while Dover tried to raise his men on the Amie Marie. Even the earsplitting scream of the Catawba’s siren failed to draw a response.

At last Thayer’s voice came over the bridge with a strange icy calm.

“I regret to report that Ensign Murphy and Lieutenant Lawrence are dead. I can find no life signs. Whatever the cause it will strike me before I can escape. You must quarantine this boat. Do you understand, Amos?”

Dover found it impossible to grasp that he was suddenly about to lose his old friend. “Do not understand, but will comply.”

“Good. I’ll describe the symptoms as they come. Beginning to feel light-headed already. Pulse increasing to one fifty. May have contracted the cause by skin absorption. Pulse one seventy.”

Thayer paused. His next words came haltingly.

“Growing nausea. Legs… can no longer… support. Intense burning sensation… in sinus region. Internal organs feel like they’re exploding.”

As one, everybody on the bridge of the Catawba leaned closer to the speaker, unable to comprehend that a man they all knew and respected was dying a short distance away.

“Pulse… over two hundred. Pain… excruciating. Blackness closing vision.” There was an audible moan. “Tell… tell my wife…” The speaker went silent.

You could smell the shock, see it in the widened eyes of the crew standing in stricken horror.

Dover stared numbly at the tomb named the Amie Marie, his hands clenched in helplessness and despair.

“What’s happening?” he murmured tonelessly. “What in God’s name is killing everyone?”

2

“I say hang the bastard!”

“Oscar, mind your language in front of the girls.”

“They’ve heard worse. It’s insane. The scum murders four kids and some cretin of a judge throws the case out of court because the defendant was too stoned on drugs to understand his rights. God, can you believe it?”

Carolyn Lucas poured her husband’s first cup of coffee for the day and whisked their two young daughters off to the school bus stop. He gestured menacingly at the TV as if it were the fault of the anchorman announcing the news that the killer roamed free.

Oscar Lucas had a way of talking with his hands that bore little resemblance to sign language for the deaf. He sat stoop-shouldered at the breakfast table, a position that camouflaged his lanky six-foot frame. His head was as bald as an egg except for a few graying strands around the temples, and his bushy brows hovered over a pair of oak-brown eyes. Not one to join the Washington, D.C., blue pinstripe brigade, he was dressed in slacks and sportcoat.

In his early forties, Lucas might have passed for a dentist or bookkeeper instead of the special agent in charge of the Presidential Protection Division of the Secret Service. During his twenty years as an agent he had fooled many people with his nice neighbor-next-door appearance, from the Presidents whose lives he guarded to the potential assassins he’d stonewalled before they had an opportunity to act. On the job he came off aggressive and solemn, yet at home he was usually full of mischief and humor — except, of course, when he was influenced by the eight A.M. news.

Lucas took a final sip of coffee and rose from the table. He held open his coat — he was left-handed — and adjusted the high-ride hip holster holding a Smith and Wesson.357 Magnum Model 19 revolver with a 2½-inch barrel. The standard issue gun was provided by the Service when he had finished training and started out as a rookie agent in the Denver field office investigating counterfeiters and forgers. He had drawn it only twice in the line of duty, but had yet to pull the trigger outside a firing range.

Carolyn was unloading the dishwasher when he came up behind her, pulled away a cascade of blond hair and pecked her on the neck. “I’m off.”

“Don’t forget tonight is the pool party across the street at the Hardings’.”

“I should be home in time. The boss isn’t scheduled to leave the White House today.”

She looked up at him and smiled. “You see that he doesn’t.”

“I’ll inform the President first thing that my wife frowns on me working late.”

She laughed and leaned her head briefly on his shoulder. “Six o’clock.”

“You win,” he said in mock weariness and stepped out the back door.

Lucas backed his leased government car, a plush Buick sedan, into the street and headed downtown. Before reaching the end of the block he called the Secret Service central command office over his car radio.

“Crown, this is Lucas. I’m en route to the White House.”

“Have a nice trip,” a metallic voice replied.

Already he began to sweat. He turned on the air conditioner. The summer heat in the nation’s capital never seemed to slacken. The humidity was in the nineties and the flags along Embassy Row on Massachusetts Avenue hung limp and lifeless in the muggy air.

He slowed and stopped at the checkpoint gate on West Executive Avenue and paused for a few moments while a uniformed guard of the Service nodded and passed him through. Lucas parked the car and entered the west executive entrance on the lower level of the White House.

At the SS command post, code-named W-16, he stopped to chat with the men monitoring an array of electronic communication equipment. Then he took the stairs to his office on the second floor of the East Wing.

The first thing he did each morning after settling behind his desk was to check the President’s schedule, along with advance reports by the agents in charge of planning security.

Lucas studied the folder containing future presidential “movements” a second time, consternation growing across his face. There had been an unexpected addition — a big one. He flung down the folder in irritation, swung around in his swivel chair and stared at the wall.

Most Presidents were creatures of habit, ran tight schedules and rigidly adhered to them. Clocks could be set by Nixon’s comings and goings. Reagan and Carter seldom deviated from fixed plans. Not the new man in the Oval Office. He looked upon the Secret Service detail as a nuisance, and what was worse, he was unpredictable as hell.

To Lucas and his deputy agents it was a twenty-four-hour game trying to keep one step ahead of the “Man,” guessing where he might suddenly decide to go and when, and what visitors he might invite without providing time for proper security measures. It was a game Lucas often lost.

In less than a minute he was down the stairs and in the West Wing confronting the second most powerful man in the executive branch, Chief of Staff Daniel Fawcett.

“Good morning, Oscar,” Fawcett said, smiling benignly. “I thought you’d come charging in about now.”

“There appears to be a new excursion in the schedule,” Lucas said, his tone businesslike.

“Sorry about that. But a big vote is coming up on aid to the Eastern bloc countries and the President wants to work his charms on Senator Larimer and Speaker of the House Moran to swing their support for his program.”

“So he’s taking them for a boat ride.”

“Why not? Every President since Herbert Hoover has used the presidential yacht for high-level conferences.”

“I’m not arguing the reason,” Lucas replied firmly. “I’m protesting the timing.”

Fawcett gave him an innocent look. “What’s wrong with Friday evening?”

“You know damn well what’s wrong. That’s only two days away.”

“So?”

“For a cruise down the Potomac with an overnight layover at Mount Vernon my advance team needs five days to plan security. A complete system of communications and alarms has to be installed on the grounds. The boat must be swept for explosives and listening devices, the shores checked out — and the Coast Guard requires lead time to provide a cutter on the river as an escort. We can’t do a decent job in two days.”

Fawcett was a feisty, eager individual with a sharp nose, a square red face and intense eyes; he always looked like a demolition expert eyeing a deserted building.

“Don’t you think you’re making this into an overkill, Oscar? Assassinations take place on crowded streets, or in theaters. Who ever heard of a head of state being attacked on a boat?”

“It can happen anywhere, anytime,” Lucas said with an uncompromising look. “Have you forgotten the guy we stopped who was attempting to hijack a plane he intended to crash into Air Force One? The fact is, most assassination attempts take place when the President is away from his customary haunts.”

“The President is firm on the date,” Fawcett said. “As long as you work for the President you’ll do as you’re ordered, same as me. If he wants to row a dinghy alone to Miami, that’s his choice.”

Fawcett had struck the wrong nerve. Lucas’s face turned rigid and he moved until he was standing toe to toe with the White House Chief of Staff.

“First off, by order of Congress, I don’t work for the President. I work for the Treasury Department. So he can’t tell me to bug off and go his own way. My duty is to provide him with the best security with the least inconvenience to his private life. When he takes the elevator to his living quarters upstairs, my men and I remain below. But from the time he steps out on the first floor until he goes back up again, his ass belongs to the Secret Service.”

Fawcett was perceptive about the personalities of the men who worked around the President. He realized he’d overstepped with Lucas and was wise enough to call off the war. He knew Lucas was dedicated to his job and loyal beyond any question to the man in the Oval Office. But there was no way they could be close friends — professional associates perhaps, reserved, but watchful of each other. Since they were not rivals for power, they would never be enemies.

“No need to get upset, Oscar. I stand reprimanded. I’ll inform the President of your concern. But I doubt if he’ll change his mind.”

Lucas sighed. “We’ll do our best with the time left. But he must be made to understand that it’s imperative for him to cooperate with his security people.”

“What can I say? You know better than I do that all politicians think they’re immortal. To them power is more than an aphrodisiac — it’s a drug high and alcoholic haze combined. Nothing excites them or inflates their ego like a mob of people cheering and clamoring to shake their hand. That’s why they’re all vulnerable to a killer standing in the right place at the! right time.”

“Tell me about it,” said Lucas. “I’ve baby-sat four Presidents.”

“And you haven’t lost a one,” Fawcett added.

“I came close twice with Ford, once with Reagan.”

“You can’t predict behavior patterns accurately.”

“Maybe not. But after all these years in the protection racket you develop a gut reaction. That’s why I feel uneasy about this boat cruise.”

Fawcett stiffened. “You think someone is out to kill him?”

“Someone is always out to kill him. We investigate twenty possible crazies a day and carry an active caseload of two thousand persons we consider dangerous or capable of assassination.”

Fawcett put his hand on Lucas’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, Oscar. Friday’s excursion won’t be given to the press until the last minute. I promise you that much.”

“I appreciate that, Dan.”

“Besides, what can happen out on the Potomac?”

“Maybe nothing. Maybe the unexpected,” Lucas answered, a strange vacancy in his voice. “It’s the unexpected that gives me nightmares.”

Megan Blair, the President’s secretary, noticed Dan Fawcett standing in the doorway of her cubbyhole office and nodded at him over her typewriter. “Hi, Dan. I didn’t see you.”

“How’s the Chief this morning?” he asked, his daily ritual of testing the water before entering the Oval Office.

“Tired,” she answered. “The reception honoring the movie industry ran past one A.M.”

Megan was a handsome woman in her early forties, with a bright small-town friendliness. She wore her black hair cropped short and was ten pounds on the skinny side. She was a dynamo who loved her job and her boss like nothing else in her life. She arrived early, left late and worked weekends. Unmarried, with only two casual affairs behind her, she relished her independent single life. Fawcett was always amazed that she could carry on a conversation and type at the same time.

“I’ll tread lightly, and keep his appointments to a minimum so he can take it easy.”

“You’re too late. He’s already in conference with Admiral Sandecker.”

“Who?”

“Admiral James Sandecker. Director of the National Underwater and Marine Agency.”

A look of annoyance crossed Fawcett’s face. He look his role as the guardian of the President’s time seriously and resented any intrusion on his territory. Any penetration of his protective ring was a threat to his power base. How in hell had Sandecker sneaked around him? he wondered.

Megan read his mood. “The President sent for the admiral,” she explained. “I think he’s expecting you to sit in on the meeting.”

Pacified to a small degree, Fawcett nodded and walked into the Oval Office. The President was seated on a sofa studying several papers strewn on a large coffee table. A short, thin man with red hair and a matching Vandyke beard sat across from him.

The President looked up. “Dan, I’m glad you’re here. You know Admiral Sandecker?”

“Yes.”

Sandecker rose and shook his hand. The admiral’s grip was firm and brief. He nodded wordlessly to Fawcett, curtly acknowledging his presence. It was not rudeness on Sandecker’s part. He came across as a man who played straight ball, encasing himself in a cold, tensile shell, bowing to no one. He was hated and envied in Washington, but universally respected because he never chose sides and always delivered what was asked of him.

The President motioned Fawcett to the sofa, patting a cushion next to him. “Sit down, Dan. I’ve asked the admiral to brief me on a crisis that’s developed in the waters off Alaska.”

“I haven’t heard of it.”

“I’m not surprised,” said the President. “The report only came to my attention an hour ago.” He paused and pointed the tip of a pencil at an area circled in red on a large nautical chart. “Here, a hundred and eighty miles southwest of Anchorage in the Cook Inlet region, an undetermined poison is killing everything in the sea.”

“Sounds like you’re talking oil spill?”

“Far worse,” replied Sandecker, leaning back on the couch. “What we have here is an unknown agent that causes death in humans and sea life less than one minute after contact.”

“How is that possible?”

“Most poisonous compounds gain access to the body by ingestion or inhalation,” Sandecker explained. “The stuff we’re dealing with kills by skin absorption.”

“It must be highly concentrated in a small area to be so potent.”

“If you call a thousand square miles of open water small.”

The President looked puzzled. “I can’t imagine a substance with such awesome potency.”

Fawcett looked at the admiral. “What kind of statistics are we facing?”

“A Coast Guard cutter found a Kodiak fishing boat drifting with the crew dead. Two investigators and a doctor were sent on board and died too. A team of geophysicists on an island thirty miles away were found dead by a bush pilot flying in supplies. He died while sending out a distress signal. A few hours later a Japanese fishing trawler reported seeing a school of nearly a hundred gray whales suddenly turn belly up. The trawler then disappeared. No trace was found. Crab beds, seal colonies — wiped out. That’s only the beginning. There may be many more fatalities that we don’t have word on yet.”

“If the spread continues unchecked, what’s the worst we can expect?”

“The virtual extinction of all marine life in the Gulf of Alaska. And if it enters the Japan Current and is carried south, it could poison every man, fish, animal and bird it touched along the West Coast as far south as Mexico. The human death toll could conceivably reach into the hundreds of thousands. Fishermen, swimmers, anyone who walked along a contaminated shoreline, anybody who ate contaminated fish — it’s like a chain reaction. I don’t even want to think what might happen if it evaporates into the atmosphere and falls with the rain over the inland states!”

Fawcett found it almost impossible to grasp the enormity of it. “Christ, what in hell is it?”

“Too early to tell,” Sandecker replied. “The Environmental Protection Agency has a computerized mass data storage and retrieval system that contains detailed information on two hundred relevant characteristics of some eleven hundred chemical compounds. Within a few seconds they can determine the effects a hazardous substance can have when spilled, its trade name, formula, major producers, mode of transportation and threat to the environment. The Alaskan contamination doesn’t fit any of the data in their computer files.”

“Surely they must have some idea?”

“No, sir. They don’t. There is one slim possibility— but without autopsy reports it’s strictly conjecture.”

“I’d like to hear it,” the President said.

Sandecker took a deep breath. “The three worst poisonous substances known to man are plutonium, Dioxin and a chemical warfare system. The first two don’t fit the pattern. The third — at least in my mind—1 is a prime suspect.”

The President stared at Sandecker, realization and shock on his face. “Nerve Agent S?” he said slowly.

Sandecker nodded silently.

“That’s why the EPA wouldn’t have a handle on it,”! the President mused. “The formula is ultrasecret.”

Fawcett turned to the President. “I’m afraid I’m not familiar…”

“Nerve Agent S was an ungodly compound the scientists at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal developed about twenty years ago,” the President explained. “I’ve read the report on the tests. It could kill within a few seconds of touching the skin. It seemed the ideal answer In an enemy wearing gas masks or protective gear. It clung to everything it touched. But its properties were loo unstable — as dangerous to the troops dispersing it as to those on the receiving end. The Army gave up on it and buried it in the Nevada desert.”

“I fail to see a connection between Nevada and Alaska,” Fawcett said.

“During shipment by railroad from the arsenal outside Denver,” Sandecker enlightened him, “a boxcar containing nearly a thousand gallons of Nerve Agent S vanished. It is still missing and unaccounted for.”

“If the spill is indeed this nerve agent, once it’s found, what is the process for eliminating it?”

Sandecker shrugged. “Unfortunately, the present state of the art in containment and cleanup technology and the physical-chemical characteristics of Nerve Agent S are such that once it enters the water very little can be done to ameliorate the penetration. Our only hope is to cut off the source before it releases enough poison to turn the ocean into a cesspool devoid of all life.”

“Any lead on where it originates?” asked the President.

“In all probability a ship sunk between Kodiak Island and the Alaskan mainland,” replied Sandecker. “Our next step is to backtrace the currents and draw up a search grid.”

The President leaned over the coffee table and studied the red circle on the chart for a few moments. Then he gave Sandecker an appraising stare. “As director of NUMA, Admiral, you’ll have the dirty job of neutralizing this thing. You have my authority to tap any agency or department of the government with the necessary expertise — the National Science Board, the Army and Coast Guard, the EPA, whoever.” He paused thoughtfully, then asked, “Exactly how potent is Nerve Agent S in seawater?”

Sandecker looked tired, his face drawn. “One teaspoon will kill every living organism in four million gallons of seawater.”

“Then we better find it,” said the President, a touch of desperation in his voice. “And damned quick!”

3

Deep beneath the murky waters of the James River, off the shoreline of Newport News, Virginia, a pair of divers struggled against the current as they burrowed their way through the muck packed against the rotting hull of the shipwreck.

There was no sense of direction in the black dimensionless liquid. Visibility was measured in inches as they grimly clutched the pipe of an airlift that sucked up the thick ooze and spit it onto a barge seventy feet above in the sunlight. They labored almost by Braille, their only illumination coming from the feeble glimmer of underwater lights mounted on the edge of the crater they’d slowly excavated over the past several days. All they could see clearly were particles suspended in the water that drifted past their face masks like windswept rain.

It was hard for them to believe there was a world above, sky and clouds and trees bending in a summer breeze. In the nightmare of swirling mud and perpetual darkness it hardly seemed possible that five hundred yards away people and cars moved on the sidewalks and streets of the small city.

There are some people who say you can’t sweat underwater, but you can. The divers could feel the sweat forcing its way through the pores of their skin against the protective constriction of their dry suits. They were beginning to experience the creeping grasp of weariness, yet they had only been on the bottom for eight minutes.

Inch by inch they worked their way into a gaping hole on the starboard bow of the hulk. The planking that framed the cavernlike opening was shattered and twisted as though a giant fist had rammed into the ship. They began to uncover artifacts: a shoe, the hinge from an old chest, brass calipers, tools, even a piece of cloth. It was an eerie sensation to touch man-made objects that no one had seen in 127 years.

One of the men paused to check their air gauges. He calculated they could work another ten minutes and still have a safe supply of breathable air to reach the surface.

They turned off the valve on the airlift, stopping the suction, while they waited for the river current to carry away the cloud of disturbed silt. Except for the exhaust of their breathing regulators, it became very still. A little more of the wreck became visible. The deck timbers were crushed and broken inward. Coils of rope trailed into the murk like mud-encrusted snakes. The interior of the hull seemed bleak and forbidding. They could almost sense the restless ghosts of the men who had gone down with the ship.

Suddenly they heard a strange humming — not the sound made by the outboard motor of a small boat, but heavier, like the distant drone of an aircraft engine. There was no way of telling its direction. They listened for a few moments as the sound grew louder, magnified by the density of the water. It was a surface sound and did not concern them, so they reactivated the airlift and turned back to their work.

No more than a minute later the end of the suction pipe struck something hard. Quickly they closed off the air valve again and excitedly brushed away the mud with their hands. Soon they realized they were touching, not wood, but an object that was harder, much harder, and covered with rust.

To the support crew on the barge over the wreck site time seemed to have reversed itself. They stood spellbound as an ancient PBY Catalina flying boat made a sweeping bank from the west, lined up on the river and kissed the water with the ungainly finesse of an inebriated goose. The sun glinted on the aquamarine paint covering the aluminum hull, and the letters NUMA grew larger as the lumbering seaplane taxied toward the barge. The engines shut down; the co-pilot emerged from a side hatch and threw a mooring line to one of the men on the barge.

Then a woman appeared and jumped lightly onto the battered wooden deck. She was slim, her elegant body covered by a narrow-falling tan overshirt, worn long and loose, held low on the hip by a thin sash, over tapering pants in green cotton. She wore moccasin-style boater shoes on her feet. In her mid-forties, she was about five foot seven; her hair was the color of aspen gold and her skin a copper tan. Her face was handsome, with high cheekbones, the face of a woman who fits no mold but her own.

She picked her way around a maze of cables and salvage equipment and stopped when she found herself surrounded by a gallery of male stares registering speculation mixed with undisguised fascination. She raised her sunglasses and stared back through plum-brown eyes.

“Which one of you is Dirk Pitt?” she demanded without preamble.

A rugged individual, shorter than she was, but with shoulders twice the width of his waist stepped forward and pointed into the river.

“You’ll find him down there.”

She turned and her eyes followed the protruding finger. A large orange buoy swayed in the rippling current, its cable angling into the dirty green depths. About thirty feet beyond, she could see the diver’s bubbles boil to the surface.

“How soon before he comes up?”

“Another five minutes.”

“I see,” she said, pondering a moment. Then she asked, “Is Albert Giordino with him?”

“He’s standing here talking to you.”

Clad only in shabby sneakers, cutoff jeans and torn T-shirt, Giordino’s tacky outfit was matched by his black, curly windblown hair and a two-week beard. He definitely did not fit her picture of NUMA’s deputy director of special projects.

She seemed more amused than taken aback. “My name is Julie Mendoza, Environmental Protection Agency. I have an urgent matter to discuss with the two of you, but perhaps I should wait until Mr. Pitt surfaces.”

Giordino shrugged. “Suit yourself.” He broke into a friendly smile. “We don’t stock much in the way of creature comforts but we do have cold beer.”

“Love one, thank you.”

Giordino pulled a can of Coors from an ice bucket and handed it to her. “What’s an EPA man — ah— woman doing flying around in a NUMA plane?”

“A suggestion of Admiral Sandecker.”

Mendoza didn’t offer more, so Giordino didn’t press.

“What project is this?” Mendoza asked.

“The Cumberland.”

“A Civil War ship, wasn’t she?”

“Yes, historically very significant. She was a Union frigate sunk in 1862 by the Confederate ironclad Merrimack—or the Virginia, as she was known to the South.”

“As I recall, she went down before the Merrimack fought the Monitor, making her the first ship ever destroyed by one that was armored.”

“You know your history,” said Giordino, properly impressed.

“And NUMA is going to raise her?”

Giordino shook his head. “Too costly. We’re only after the ram.”

“Ram?”

“A hell of a battle,” Giordino explained. “The crew of the Cumberland fought until the water came in their gun barrels, even though their cannon shot bounced off the Confederate’s casemate like golf balls off a Brink’s truck. In the end the Merrimack rammed the Cumberland, sending her to the bottom, flag still flying. But as the Merrimack backed away, her wedge-shaped ram caught inside the frigate and broke off. We’re looking for that ram.”

“What possible value can an old hunk of iron have?”

“Maybe it doesn’t put dollar signs in the eyes of people like treasure from a Spanish galleon, but historically it’s priceless, a piece of America’s naval heritage.”

Mendoza was about to ask another question, but her attention was diverted by two black rubber-helmeted heads that broke water beside the barge. The divers swam over, climbed a rusty ladder and shrugged off their heavy gear. Water streamed from their dry suits, gleaming in the sunlight.

The taller of the two pulled off his hood and ran his hands through a thick mane of ebony hair. His face was darkly tanned and the eyes were the most vivid green Mendoza had ever seen. He had the look of a man who smiled easily and often, who challenged life and accepted the wins and losses with equal indifference. When he stood at his full height he was three inches over six feet, and the lean, hard body under the dry suit strained at the seams. Mendoza knew without asking that this was Dirk Pitt.

He waved at the barge crew’s approach. “We found it,” he said with a wide grin.

Giordino slapped him on the back delightedly. “Nice going, pal.”

Everyone began asking the divers a barrage of questions, which they answered between swallows of beer. Finally Giordino remembered Mendoza and motioned her forward.

“This is Julie Mendoza of the EPA. She wants to have a chat with us.”

Dirk Pitt extended his hand, giving her an appraising stare. “Julie.”

“Mr. Pitt.”

“If you’ll give me a minute to unsuit and dry off—”

“I’m afraid we’re running late,” she interrupted. “We can talk in the air. Admiral Sandecker thought the plane would be faster than a helicopter.”

“You’ve lost me.”

“I can’t take the time to explain. We have to leave immediately. All I can say is that you’ve been ordered to a new project.”

There was a huskiness in her voice that intrigued Pitt — not masculine exactly, but a voice that would be at home in a Harold Robbins novel. “Why the mad rush?” he asked.

“Not here or now,” she said, glancing around at the salvage crew tuned in to the conversation.

He turned to Giordino. “What do you think, Al?”

Giordino faked a bemused look. “Hard to say. The lady looks pretty determined. On the other hand, I’ve found a home here on the barge. I kind of hate to leave.”

Mendoza flushed in anger, realizing the men were toying with her. “Please, minutes count.”

“Mind telling us where we’re going?”

“Langley Air Force Base, where a military jet is waiting to take us to Kodiak, Alaska.”

She might as well have told them they were going to the moon. Pitt looked into her eyes, searching for something he wasn’t sure he’d find. All he could read was her dead seriousness.

“I think, to be on the safe side, I’d better contact the admiral and confirm.”

“You can do that on the way to Langley,” she said, her tone unyielding. “I’ve seen to your personal affairs. Your clothes and whatever else you might need for a two-week operation have already been packed and loaded on board.” She paused and stared him squarely in the eye. “So much for small talk, Mr. Pitt. While we stand here, people are dying. You couldn’t know that. But take my word for it. If you’re half the man you’re reported to be, you’ll stop screwing around and get on the plane — now!”

“You really go for the jugular, don’t you, lady?”

“If I have to.”

There was an icy silence. Pitt took a deep breath, then blew it out. He faced Giordino.

“I hear Alaska is beautiful this time of year.”

Giordino managed a faraway look. “Some great saloons in Skagway we should check out.”

Pitt gestured to the other diver, who was peeling off his dry suit. “She’s all yours, Charlie. Go ahead and bring up the Merrimack’s ram and get it over to the conservation lab.”

“I’ll see to it.”

Pitt nodded, and then along with Giordino walked toward the Catalina, talking between themselves as if Julie Mendoza no longer existed.

“I hope she packed my fishing gear,” said Giordino with a straight voice. “The salmon should be running.”

“I’ve a mind to ride a caribou,” Pitt carried on. “Heard tell they can outrun a dog sled.”

As Mendoza followed them, the words of Admiral Sandecker came back to haunt her: “I don’t envy you riding herd on those two devils, Pitt in particular. He could con a great white shark into becoming a vegetarian. So keep a sharp eye and your legs crossed.”

4

James Sandecker was considered a prime catch by the feminine circles of Washington society. A dedicated bachelor whose only mistress was his work, he seldom entered into a relationship with the opposite sex that lasted more than a few weeks. Sentiment and romance, the qualities women thrive on, were beyond him. In another life he might have been a hermit — or, some suggested, Ebenezer Scrooge.

In his late fifties and an exercise addict, he still cut a trim figure. He was short and muscular, and his red hair and beard had yet to show a trace of gray. He possessed an aloofness and coarse personality that appealed to women. Many cast out lures, but few ever put a hook in him.

Bonnie Cowan, an attorney for one of the city’s most respected law firms, considered herself fortunate to have wrangled a dinner date with him. “You look pensive tonight, Jim,” she said.

He did not look directly at her. His gaze drifted over the other diners seated amid the quiet decor of the Company Inkwell restaurant. “I was wondering how many people would dine out if there were no seafood.”

She gave him a puzzled stare, then laughed. “After dealing with dull legal minds all day, I’ll confess it’s like inhaling mountain air to be with someone who wanders in aimless circles.”

His stare returned over the table’s candle and into her eyes. Bonnie Cowan was thirty-five years old, and unusually attractive. She had learned long ago that beauty was an asset in her career and never tried to disguise it. Her hair was fine, silken and fell below her shoulders. Her breasts were small but nicely proportioned, as were the legs that were amply displayed by a short skirt. She was also highly intelligent and could hold her own in any courtroom. Sandecker felt remiss at his inattentiveness.

“That’s a damned pretty dress,” he said, making a feeble attempt at looking attentive.

“Yes, I think the red material goes well with my blond hair.”

“A nice match,” he came back vaguely.

“You’re hopeless, Jim Sandecker,” she said, shaking her head. “You’d say the same thing if I were sitting here naked.”

“Hmmmm?”

“For your information, the dress is brown, and so is my hair.”

He shook his head as if to clear the cobwebs. “I’m sorry, but I warned you I’d be poor company.”

“Your mind is seeing something a thousand miles away.”

He reached across the table almost shyly and held her hand. “For the rest of the evening, I’ll focus my thoughts entirely on you. I promise.”

“Women are suckers for little boys who need mothering. And you are the most pathetic little boy I’ve ever seen.”

“Mind your language, woman. Admirals do not take kindly to being referred to as pathetic little boys.”

“All right, John Paul Jones, then how about a bite for a starving deckhand?”

“Anything to prevent a mutiny,” he said, smiling for the first time that evening.

He recklessly ordered champagne and the most expensive seafood delicacies on the menu, as though it might be his last opportunity. He asked Bonnie about the cases she was involved with and masked his lack of interest as she relayed the latest gossip about the Supreme Court and legal maneuverings of Congress. They finished the entree and were attacking the pears poached in red wine when a man with the build of a Denver Bronco linebacker entered the foyer, stared around and, recognizing Sandecker, made his way over to the table.

He flashed a smile at Bonnie. “My apologies, ma’am, for the intrusion.” Then he spoke softly into Sandecker’s ear.

The admiral nodded and looked sadly across the table. “Please forgive me, but I must go.”

“Government business?”

He nodded silently.

“Oh, well,” she said resignedly. “At least I had you all to myself until dessert.”

He came over and gave her a brotherly kiss on the cheek. “We’ll do it again.”

Then he paid the bill, asked the maître d’ to call Bonnie a cab and left the restaurant.

The admiral’s car rolled to a stop at the special tunnel entrance to the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. The door was opened by a sober-faced man wearing a formal black suit.

“If you will please follow me, sir.”

“Secret Service?”

“Yes, sir.”

Sandecker asked no more questions. He stepped out of the car and trailed the agent down a carpeted corridor to an elevator. When the doors parted, he was led along the tier level behind the box seats of the opera house to a small meeting room.

Daniel Fawcett, his expression the consistency of marble, simply waved an offhand greeting.

“Sorry to break up your date, Admiral.”

“The message emphasized ‘urgent.’ “

“I’ve just received another report from Kodiak. The situation has worsened.”

“Does the President know?”

“Not yet,” answered Fawcett. “Best to wait until the intermission. If he suddenly left his box during the second act of Rigoletto, it might fuel too many suspicious minds.”

A Kennedy Center staff member entered the room carrying a tray of coffee. Sandecker helped himself while Fawcett idly paced the floor. The admiral fought off an overwhelming desire to light a cigar.

After a wait of eight minutes, the President appeared. The audience applause at the end of the act was heard in the brief interval between the opening and closing of the door. He was dressed in black evening wear with a blue handkerchief nattily tucked in the breast pocket of his jacket.

“I wish I could say it was good seeing you again, Admiral, but every time we meet we’re up to our butts in a crisis.”

“Seems that way,” Sandecker answered.

The President turned to Fawcett. “What’s the bad news, Dan?”

“The captain of an auto ferry disregarded Coast Guard orders and took his ship on its normal run from Seward on the mainland to Kodiak. The ferry was found a few hours ago grounded on Marmot Island. All the passengers and crew were dead.”

“Christ!” the President blurted. “What was the body count?”

“Three hundred and twelve.”

“That tears it,” said Sandecker. “All hell will break loose when the news media get the scent.”

“Nothing we can do,” Fawcett said helplessly. “Word is already coming over the wire services.”

The President sank into a chair. He seemed a tall man on the TV screens. He carried himself like a tall man but he was only two inches over Sandecker. His hairline was recessed and graying, and his narrow face wore a set and solemn expression, a look rarely revealed to the public. He enjoyed tremendous popularity, helped immensely by a warm personality and an infectious smile that could melt the most hostile audience. His successful negotiations to merge Canada and the United States into one nation had served to establish an image that was immune to partisan criticism.

“We can’t delay another minute,” he said. “The entire Gulf of Alaska has got to be quarantined and everyone within twenty miles of the coast evacuated.”

“I must disagree,” Sandecker said quietly.

“I’d like to hear why.”

“As far as we know the contamination has kept to open waters. No trace has shown up on the mainland. Evacuation of the population would mean a time-consuming and massive operation. Alaskans are a tough breed, especially the fishermen who, live in the region. I doubt if they’d willingly leave under any circumstances, least of all when ordered to by the federal government.”

“A hardheaded lot.”

“Yes, but not stupid. The fishermen’s associations have all agreed to restrict their vessels to port, and the canneries have begun burying all catches brought in during the past ten days.”

“They’ll need economic assistance.”

“I expect so.”

“What do you recommend?”

“The Coast Guard lacks the men and ships to patrol the entire gulf. The Navy will have to back them up.”

“That,” mused the President, “presents a problem. Throwing more men and ships in there increases the threat of a higher death toll.”

“Not necessarily,” said Sandecker. “The crew of the Coast Guard cutter that made the first discovery of the contamination received no ill effects, because the fishing boat had drifted out of the death area.”

“What about the boarding crew, the doctor? They died.”

“The contamination had already covered the decks, the railings, almost anything they touched on the exterior of the vessel. In the case of the ferry, its entire center section was open to accommodate automobiles. The passengers and crew had no protection. Modern naval ships are constructed to be buttoned up in case of radioactivity from nuclear attack. They can patrol the contaminated currents with a very small, acceptable degree of risk.”

The President nodded his consent. “Okay, I’ll order an assist from the Navy Department, but I’m not sold on dropping an evacuation plan. Stubborn Alaskans or not, there are still women and children to consider.”

“My other suggestion, Mr. President, or request if you will, is a delay of forty-eight hours before you initiate the operation. That might give my response team time to find the source.”

The President fell silent. He stared at Sandecker with deepening interest. “Who are the people in charge?”

“The on-scene coordinator and chairman of the Regional Emergency Response Team is Dr. Julie Mendoza, a senior biochemical engineer for the EPA.”

“I’m not familiar with the name.”

“She’s recognized as the best in the country on assessment and control of hazardous contamination in water,” Sandecker said without hesitation. “The underwater search for the shipwreck we believe contains the nerve agent will be headed by my special projects director, Dirk Pitt.”

The President’s eyes widened. “I know Mr. Pitt. He proved most helpful on the Canadian affair a few months ago.”

You mean, saved your ass, Sandecker thought, before he continued. “We have nearly two hundred other pollution experts who have been called in to assist. Every expert in private industry has been tapped to provide the experience and technical data for a successful cleanup.”

The President glanced at his watch. “I’ve got to cut this short,” he said. “They won’t start the third act without me. Anyway, you’ve got forty-eight hours, Admiral. Then I order an evacuation and declare the area a national disaster.”

Fawcett accompanied the President back to his box. He seated himself slightly to the rear but close enough so they could converse in low tones while feigning interest in the performance on stage.

“Do you wish to cancel the cruise with Moran and Larimer?”

The President imperceptibly shook his head. “No. My economic recovery package for the Soviet satellite countries has top priority over any other business.”

“I strongly advise against it. You’re waging a hopeless battle for a lost cause.”

“So you’ve informed me at least five times in the past week.” The President held a program over his face to conceal a yawn. “How do the votes stack up?”

“A wave of nonpartisan, conservative support is gaining ground against you. We’ll need fifteen votes in the House and five, maybe six, to pass the measure in the Senate.”

“We’ve faced bigger odds.”

“Yes,” Fawcett muttered sadly. “But if we’re defeated this time your administration may never see a second term.”

5

The dawn was creeping out of the east as a low, dark line began to rise above the horizon. Through the windows of the helicopter the black blur took on a symmetrical cone-shaped feature and soon became a mountain peak, surrounded by the sea. There was a three-quarter moon behind it. The light altered from ivory to indigo blue and then to an orange radiance as the sun rose, and the slopes could be seen mantled in snow.

Pitt glanced over at Giordino. He was asleep — a state he could slip in and out of like an old sweater. He had slept from the time they left Anchorage. Five minutes after transferring to the helicopter, he promptly drifted off again.

Pitt turned to Mendoza. She sat perched behind the pilot. The look on her face was that of a little girl eager to see a parade. Her gaze was fixed on the mountain. In the early light it seemed to Pitt her face had softened. Her expression was not so businesslike and the lines of her mouth held a tenderness that was not there before.

“Augustine Volcano,” she said, unaware that Pitt’s attention was focused on her and not out the window. “Named by Captain Cook in 1778. You wouldn’t know to look at it but Augustine is the most active volcano in Alaska, having erupted six times in the last century.”

Pitt regretfully turned away and stared below. The island seemed devoid of any human habitation. Long swirling flows of lava rock spilled down the mountain’s sides until they met the sea. A small cloud drifted about the summit.

“Very picturesque,” he said, yawning. “Might have possibilities as a ski resort.”

“Don’t bet on it.” She laughed. “That cloud you see over the peak is steam. Augustine is a constant performer. The last eruption in 1987 surpassed Mount St. Helens in Washington. The fall of ash and pumice was measured as far away as Athens.”

Pitt had to ask, “What’s its status now?”

“Recent data confirm the heat around the summit is increasing, probably forecasting an impending explosion.”

“Naturally, you can’t say when.”

“Naturally.” She shrugged. “Volcanoes are unpredictable. Sometimes they become violent without the slightest warning; sometimes they take months to build up to a spectacular climax that never happens. They sputter, rumble a little and then go dormant. Those earth scientists I told you about who died from the nerve agent — they were on the island to study the impending activity.”

“Where are we settling down?”

“About ten miles off the shore,” she replied, “on the Coast Guard cutter Catawba.”

“The Catawba,” he repeated as if reminiscing.

“Yes, you know of her?”

“Set a copter on her flight pad myself a few years ago.”

“Where was that?”

“North Atlantic, near Iceland.” He was gazing beyond the island now. He sighed and massaged his temples. “A good friend and I were hunting for a ship imbedded in an iceberg.”

“Did you find it?”

He nodded. “A burned-out hulk. Barely beat the Russians to it. Later we crashed in the surf on the Icelandic coast. My friend was killed.”

She could see his mind was reliving the events. The expression on his face took on a faraway sadness. She changed the subject.

“We’ll have to say goodbye — temporarily, I mean— when we land.”

He shook off the past and stared at her. “You’re leaving us?”

“You and Al will be staying on the Catawba to search for the nerve agent’s location. I’m going to the island where the local response team has set up a data base.”

“And part of my job is to send water samples from the ship to your lab?”

“Yes, by measuring trace levels of the contamination we can direct you toward the surface.”

“Like following breadcrumbs.”

“That’s one way of putting it.”

“After we find it, what then?”

“Once your salvage team brings up the drams containing the nerve agent, the Army will dispose of it by deep well injection, on an island near the Arctic Circle.”

“How deep is the well?”

“Four thousand feet.”

“All neat and tidy.”

The open-for-business look returned to her eyes. “It happens to be the most efficient method open to us.”

“You’re optimistic.”

She looked at him questioningly. “What do you mean?”

“The salvage. It could take months.”

“We can’t even afford weeks,” she came back almost vehemently.

“You’re treading in my territory now,” Pitt said as if lecturing. “Divers can’t risk working in water where one drop on their skin will kill them. The only reasonably safe way is to use submersibles — a damned slow and tedious process. And submersibles require highly trained crews, with specially constructed vessels as work platforms.”

“I’ve already explained,” she said impatiently, “presidential authority gives us carte blanche on any equipment we need.”

“That’s the easy part,” Pitt continued. “Despite your water sample directions, finding a shipwreck is like looking for a coin in the middle of a football field in the dark with a candle. Then if we get lucky and make contact, we may find the hull broken in sections and the cargo scattered, or the drums too corroded to move. Murphy’s Law can hit us from every angle. No deep-sea recovery operation is ever cut and dried.”

Mendoza’s face reddened. “I’d like to point out—”

“Don’t bother,” Pitt cut her off. “I’m the wrong guy for a gung-ho speech. I’ve heard them all before. You won’t get a chorus of the Notre Dame fight song from me. And save your breath for the ‘countless lives hang in the balance’ routine. I’m aware of it. I don’t have to be reminded every five minutes.”

She looked at him, annoyed with him for his arrogant charm, feeling that he was testing her somehow. “Have you ever seen someone who came in contact with Nerve Agent S?”

“No.”

“It’s not a pretty sight. They literally drown in their own blood as their internal membranes burst. Every body orifice bleeds like a river. Then the corpse turns black.”

“You’re very descriptive.”

“It’s all a game to you,” she lashed out. “It’s not a game to me.”

He didn’t reply. He simply nodded downward at the Catawba looming through the pilot’s windshield. “We’re landing.”

The pilot noted that the ship had turned bow-on to the wind from the fluttered ensign on the halyards. He eased the helicopter over the stern, hovered a few moments and set down on the pad. The rotor blades had hardly swung to a stop when two figures dressed from head to toe in astronaut-looking suits approached while unfolding a circular plastic tube about five feet in diameter that looked like a huge umbilical cord. They secured it around the exit door and gave three knocks. Pitt undid the latches and swung the door inward. The men outside passed him cloth hoods with see-through lenses and gloves.

“Best put them on,” commanded a muffled voice.

Pitt prodded Giordino awake and handed him a hood and pair of gloves.

“What in hell are these?” Giordino mumbled, emerging from the cobwebs.

“Welcome gifts from the sanitation department.”

Two more crewmen appeared in the plastic tunnel and took their gear. Giordino, still half asleep, stumbled from the helicopter. Pitt hesitated and stared into Mendoza’s eyes.

“What’s my reward if I find your poison in forty-eight hours?”

“What do you want it to be?”

“Are you as hard as you pretend?”

“Harder, Mr. Pitt, much harder.”

“Then you decide.”

He gave her a rakish smile and was gone.

6

The cars that made up the presidential motorcade were lined in a row beside the South Portico of the White House. As soon as the Secret Service detail was in position, Oscar Lucas spoke into a tiny microphone whose wire looped around the watch on his wrist and ran up the sleeve of his coat.

“Tell the Boss we’re ready.”

Three minutes later the President, accompanied by Fawcett, walked briskly down the steps and entered the presidential limousine. Lucas joined them and the cars moved out through the southwest gate.

The President relaxed into the leather of the rear seat and idly stared out the window at the passing buildings. Fawcett sat with an open attache case on his lap and made a series of notes inside the top folder. After a few minutes of silence, he sighed, snapped the case shut and set it on the floor.

“There it is, arguments from both sides of the fence, statistics, CIA projections, and the latest reports from your economic council on Communist bloc debts. Everything you should need to sell Larimer and Moran on your way of thinking.”

“The American public doesn’t think much of my plan, does it?” the President asked quietly.

“To be perfectly honest, no, sir,” Fawcett replied. “The general feeling is to let the Reds stew in their own problems. Most Americans are cheering the fact that the Soviets and their satellites are facing starvation and financial ruin. They consider it proof positive that the Marxist system is a pathetic joke.”

“It won’t be a joke if the Kremlin leaders, backs against an economic wall, strike out in desperation and march through Europe.”

“Your opposition in Congress feel the risk is offset by the very real threat of starvation, which will undermine Russia’s capacity to maintain its military machine. And there are those who are banking on the eroding morale of the Russian people to crystallize in active resistance toward the ruling party.”

The President shook his head. “The Kremlin is fanatical about its military buildup. They’ll never slack off in spite of their economic dilemma. And the people will never rise up or stage mass demonstrations. The party’s collar is too tight.”

“The bottom line,” said Fawcett, “is that both Larimer and Moran are dead set against taking the burden off Moscow.”

The President’s face twisted in disgust. “Larimer is a drunk and Moran is tainted with corruption.”

“Still, there is no getting around the fact you have to sell them on your philosophy.”

“I can’t deny their opinions,” the President admitted. “But I am convinced that if the United States saves the Eastern bloc nations from almost total disintegration, they will turn away from the Soviet Union and join with the West.”

“There are many who see that as wishful thinking, Mr. President.”

“The French and Germans see it my way.”

“Sure, and why not? They’re playing both ends of the field, relying on our NATO forces for security while expanding economic ties with the East.”

“You’re forgetting the many grass-roots American voters who are behind my aid plan too,” said the President, his chin thrust forward at his words. “Even they realize its potential for defusing the threat of nuclear holocaust and pulling down the Iron Curtain for good.”

Fawcett knew it was senseless to try to sway the President when he was in a crusading mood and passionately convinced he was right. There was a kind of virtue in killing your enemies with kindness, a truly civilized tactic that might move the conscience of reasonable people, but Fawcett remained pessimistic. He turned inward to his thoughts and remained silent as the limousine turned off M Street into the Washington Naval Yard and rolled to a stop on one of the long docks.

A dark-skinned man with the stony facial features of an American Indian approached as Lucas stepped from the car.

“Evening, George.”

“Hello, Oscar. How’s the golf game?”

“Sad shape,” answered Lucas. “I haven’t played in almost two weeks.”

As Lucas spoke he looked into the piercing dark eyes of George Blackowl, the acting supervisor and advance agent for the President’s movement. Blackowl was about Lucas’s height, five years younger and carried about ten pounds of excess weight. A habitual gum chewer — his jaws worked constantly — he was half Sioux and was constantly kidded about his ancestors’ role at the Little Big Horn.

“Safe to board?” asked Lucas.

“The boat has been swept for explosives and listening devices. The frogmen finished checking the hull about ten minutes ago, and the outboard chase boat is manned and ready to follow.”

Lucas nodded. “A hundred-and-ten-foot Coast Guard cutter will be standing by when you reach Mount Vernon.”

“Then I guess we’re ready for the Boss.”

Lucas paused for nearly a minute while he scanned the surrounding dock area. Detecting nothing suspicious, he opened the door for the President. Then the agents formed a security diamond around him. Blackowl walked ahead of the point man, who was directly in front of the President. Lucas, because he was left-handed and required ease of movement in case he had to draw his gun, walked the left point and slightly to the rear. Fawcett tailed several yards behind and out of the way.

At the boarding ramp Lucas and Blackowl stood aside to let the others pass.

“Okay, George, he’s all yours.”

“Lucky you,” Blackowl said, smiling. “You get the weekend off.”

“First time this month.”

“Heading home from here?”

“Not yet. I have to run by the office and clear my desk first. There were a few hitches during the last trip to Los Angeles. I want to review the planning.”

They turned in unison as another government limousine pulled up to the dock. Senator Marcus Larimer climbed out and strode toward the presidential yacht followed by an aide who dutifully carried an overnight bag.

Larimer wore a brown suit with a vest; he always wore a brown suit with a vest. It had been suggested by one of his fellow legislators that he was born in one. His hair was sandy colored and styled in the dry look. He was big and rough-cut, with the look of a hod carrier trying to crash a celebrity benefit.

He simply nodded to Blackowl and threw Lucas the standard politician’s greeting: “Nice to see you, Oscar.”

“You’re looking healthy, Senator.”

“Nothing a bottle of scotch won’t cure,” Larimer replied with a booming laugh. Then he swept up the ramp and disappeared into the main salon.

“Have fun,” Lucas said sarcastically to Blackowl. “I don’t envy you this trip.”

A few minutes later, while driving through the naval-yard gate onto M Street, Lucas passed a compact Chevrolet carrying Congressman Alan Moran going in the opposite direction. Lucas didn’t like the Speaker of the House. Not nearly as flamboyant as his predecessor, Moran was a Horatio Alger type who had succeeded not so much from intelligence or perception as from stowing away in the congressional power circles and supplying more favors than he begged. Once accused of masterminding an oil-leasing scheme on government lands, he had greased his way out of the impending scandal by calling in his political IOU’s.

He looked neither right nor left as he drove by. His mind, Lucas deduced, was grinding on ways to pick the President’s influential pocket.

Not quite an hour later, as the crew of the presidential yacht were preparing to cast off, Vice President Margolin came aboard with a garment bag draped over one shoulder. He hesitated a moment and then spied the President, seated alone in a deck chair near the stern, watching the sun begin to set over the city. A steward appeared and relieved Margolin of the garment bag.

The President looked up and stared as though not fully recognizing him.

“Vince?”

“Sorry I’m late,” Margolin apologized. “But one of my aides misplaced your invitation and I only discovered it an hour ago.”

“I wasn’t sure you could make it,” the President murmured obscurely.

“Perfect timing. Beth is visiting our son at Stanford and won’t be home until Tuesday, and I had nothing on my schedule that-couldn’t be shoved ahead.”

The President stood up, forcing a friendly smile. “Senator Larimer and Congressman Moran are on board too. They’re in the dining salon.” He tilted his head in their direction. “Why don’t you say hello and rustle up a drink.”

“A drink I could use.”

Margolin bumped into Fawcett in the doorway and they exchanged a few words.

The President’s face was a study in anger. As much as he and Margolin differed in style and appearance— the Vice President was tall and nicely proportioned, not a bit of fat on his body, with a handsome face, bright blue eyes and a warm, outgoing personality— they differed even more in their politics.

The President maintained a high level of personal popularity by his inspirational speeches. An idealist and a visionary, he was almost totally occupied with creating programs that would be of global benefit ten to fifty years in the future. Unfortunately, for the most part they were programs that did not fit in with the selfish realities of domestic politics.

Margolin, on the other hand, kept a low profile with the public and news media, aiming his energies more toward domestic issues. His stand on the President’s Communist bloc aid program was that the money would be better spent at home.

The Vice President was a born politician. He had the Constitution in his blood. He had come up the hard way — through the ranks, beginning with his state legislature, then governor and later the Senate. Once entrenched in his office in the Russell Building, he surrounded himself with a powerhouse staff of advisers who possessed a flair for strategic compromise and innovative political concepts. While it was the President who proposed legislation, it was Margolin who orchestrated its passage through the maze of committees into law and policy, all too often making the White House staff appear like fumbling amateurs, a situation that did not sit well with the President and caused considerable internal back-stabbing.

Margolin might have been the people’s choice for the Presidency, but he was not the party’s. Here his integrity and image as a “shaker and doer” worked against him. He too often refused to fall in line on partisan issues if he believed in a better path; he was a maverick who followed his own conscience.

The President watched Margolin disappear into the main salon, irritation and jealousy burning within him.

“What is Vince doing here?” Fawcett asked him nervously.

“Damned if I know,” snapped the President. “He said he was invited.”

Fawcett looked stricken. “Christ, somebody on the staff must have screwed up.”

“Too late now. I can’t tell him he’s not wanted and to please leave.”

Fawcett was still confused. “I don’t understand.”

“Neither do I, but we’re stuck with him.”

“He could blow it.”

“I don’t think so. Regardless of what we think about Vince, he’s never made a statement that tarnished my image. That’s more than a lot of Presidents could say about their VP’s.”

Fawcett resigned himself to the situation. “There aren’t enough staterooms to go around. I’ll give up mine and stay on shore.”

“I appreciate that, Dan.”

“I can stay on the boat until tonight and then bunk at a nearby motel.”

“Perhaps, under the circumstances,” the President said slowly, “it would be best if you remained behind. With Vince along, I don’t want our guests to think we’re ganging up on them.”

“I’ll leave the documents supporting your position in your stateroom, Mr. President.”

“Thank you. I’ll study them before dinner.” Then the President paused. “By the way, any word on the Alaskan situation?”

“Only that the search for the nerve agent is under way.”

The President’s eyes reflected a disturbed look. He nodded and shook Fawcett’s hand. “See you tomorrow.”

Later Fawcett stood on the dock among the irritated Secret Service agents of the Vice President’s detail. As he watched the aging white yacht cut into the Anacostia River before turning south toward the Potomac, a knot began to tighten in the pit of his stomach.

There had been no written invitations!

None of it made any sense.

Lucas was putting on his coat, about to leave his office, when the phone linked to the command post buzzed.

“Lucas.”

“This is ‘Love Boat,’ “ replied George Blackowl, giving the code name of the movement in progress.

The call was unexpected and like a father with a daughter on a date Lucas immediately feared the worst. “Go ahead,” he said tersely.

“We have a situation. This is no emergency, I repeat, no emergency. But something’s come up that isn’t in the movement.”

Lucas expelled a sigh of relief. “I’m listening.”

“ ‘Shakespeare’ is on the boat,” said Blackowl, giving the code name for the Vice President.

“He’s where?” Lucas gasped.

“Margolin showed up out of nowhere and came on board as we were casting off. Dan Fawcett gave him his stateroom and went ashore. When I queried the President about the last-minute switch in passengers, he told me to let it ride. But I smell a screwup.”

“Where’s Rhinemann?”

“Right here with me on the yacht.”

“Put him on.”

There was a pause and then Hank Rhinemann, the supervisor in charge of the Vice President’s security detail, came on. “Oscar, we’ve got an unscheduled movement.”

“Understood. How did you lose him?”

“He came charging out of his office and said he had to attend an urgent meeting with the President on the yacht. He didn’t tell me it was an overnight affair.”

“He kept it from you?”

“ ‘Shakespeare’ is tight-mouthed as hell. I should have known when I saw the garment bag. I’m sorry as hell, Oscar.”

A wave of frustration swept Lucas. God, he thought, the leaders of the world’s leading superpowers were like kids when it came to their own security.

“It’s happened,” said Lucas sharply. “So we’ll make the best of it. Where is your detail?”

“Standing on the dock,” answered Rhinemann.

“Send them down to Mount Vernon and back up Blackowl’s people. I want that yacht cordoned off tighter than a bass drum.”

“Will do.”

“At the slightest hint of trouble, call me. I’m spending the night at the command post.”

“You got a line on something?” Rhinemann asked.

“Nothing tangible,” Lucas replied, his voice so hollow it seemed to come from a distant source. “But knowing that the President and the next three men in line for his office are all in the same place at the same time scares the hell out of me.”

7

“We’ve turned against the current.” Pitt’s voice was quiet, almost casual, as he stared at the color video screen on the Klein hydroscan sonar that read the seafloor. “Increase speed about two knots.”

Dressed in bleached Levi’s, Irish knit turtleneck sweater and brown tennis shoes, his brushed hair laid back under a NUMA baseball cap, he looked cool and comfortable with a bored, indifferent air about him.

The wheel moved slowly under the helmsman’s hands and the Catawba lazily shoved aside the three-foot swells as she swept back and forth over the sea like a lawn mower. Trailing behind the stern like a tin can tied to the tail of a dog, the sidescan sonar’s sensor pinged the depths, sending a signal to the video display, which translated it into a detailed image of the bottom.

They took up the search for the nerve agent source in the southern end of Cook Inlet and discovered that the residual traces rose as they worked westward into Kamishak Bay. Water samples were taken every half-hour and ferried by helicopter to the chemical lab on Augustine Island. Amos Dover philosophically compared the project to a children’s game of finding hidden candy with an unseen voice giving “warmer” or “colder” clues.

As the day wore on, the nervous tension that had been building up on the Catawba grew unbearable.

The crew was unable to go on deck for a breath of air. Only the EPA chemists were allowed outside the exterior bulkheads, and they were protected by airtight encapsulating suits.

“Anything yet?” Dover asked, peering over Pitt’s shoulder at the high-resolution screen.

“Nothing man-made,” Pitt answered. “Bottom terrain is rugged, broken, mostly lava rock.”

“Good clear picture.”

Pitt nodded. “Yes, the detail is quite sharp.”

“What’s that dark smudge?”

“A school of fish. Maybe a pack of seals.”

Dover turned and stared through the bridge windows at the volcanic peak on Augustine Island, now only a few miles away. “Better make a strike soon. We’re coming close to shore.”

“Lab to ship,” Mendoza’s feminine voice broke over the bridge speaker.

Dover picked up the communications phone. “Go ahead, lab.”

“Steer zero-seven-zero degrees. Trace elements appear to be in higher concentrations in that direction.”

Dover gave the nearby island an apprehensive eye. “If we hold that course for twenty minutes we’ll park on your doorstep for supper.”

“Come in as far as you can and take samples,” Mendoza answered. “My indications are that you’re practically on top of it.”

Dover hung up without further discussion and called out, “What’s the depth?”

The watch officer tapped a dial on the instrument console. “One hundred forty feet and rising.”

“How far can you see on that thing?” Dover asked Pitt.

“We read the seabed six hundred meters on either side of our hull.”

“Then we’re cutting a swath nearly two thirds of a mile wide.”

“Close enough,” Pitt admitted.

“We should have detected the ship by now,” Dover said irritably. “Maybe we missed it.”

“No need to get uptight,” Pitt said. He paused, leaned over the computer keyboard and fine-tuned the image. “Nothing in this world is more elusive than a shipwreck that isn’t ready to be found. Deducing the murderer in an Agatha Christie novel is kindergarten stuff compared to finding a lost derelict under hundreds of square miles of water. Sometimes you get lucky early. Most of the time you don’t.”

“Very poetic,” Dover said dryly.

Pitt stared at the overhead bulkhead for a long and considering moment. “What’s the visibility under the water surface?”

“The water turns crystal fifty yards from shore. On the flood tide I’ve seen a hundred feet or better.”

“I’d like to borrow your copter and take aerial photos of this area.”

“Why bother?” Dover said curtly. “Semper Paratus, Always Ready, is not the Coast Guard’s motto for laughs.” He motioned through a doorway. “We have charts showing three thousand miles of Alaskan coastline in color and incredible detail, courtesy of satellite reconnaissance.”

Pitt nodded for Giordino to take his place in front of the hydroscan as he rose and followed the Catawba’s skipper into a small compartment stacked with cabinets containing nautical charts. Dover checked the label inserts, pulled open a drawer and rummaged inside. Finally he extracted a large chart marked “Satellite Survey Number 2430A, South Shore of Augustine Island.” Then he laid it on a table and spread it out.

“Is this what you have in mind?”

Pitt leaned over and studied the bird’s-eye view of the sea off the volcanic island’s coast. “Perfect. Got a magnifying glass?”

“In the shelf under the table.”

Pitt found the thick, square lens and peered through it at the tiny shadows on the photo survey. Dover left and returned shortly with two mugs of coffee.

“Your chances are nil of spotting an anomaly in that geological nightmare on the seafloor. A ship could stay lost forever in there.”

“I’m not looking at the seafloor.”

Dover heard Pitt’s words all right, but the meaning didn’t register. Vague curiosity reflected in his eyes, but before he could ask the obvious question the speaker above the doorway crackled.

“Skipper, we’ve got breakers ahead.” The watch officer’s voice was tense. “The Fathometer reads thirty feet of water under the hull — and rising damned fast.”

“All stop!” Dover ordered. A pause, then: “No, reverse engines until speed is zero.”

“Tell him to have the sonar sensor pulled in before it drags bottom,” Pitt said offhandedly. “Then I suggest we drop anchor.”

Dover gave Pitt a strange look, but issued the command. The deck trembled beneath their feet as the twin screws reversed direction. After a few moments the vibration ceased.

“Speed zero,” the watch officer notified them from the bridge. “Anchor away.”

Dover acknowledged, then sat on a stool, cupped his hands around the coffee mug and looked directly at Pitt.

“Okay, what do you see?”

“I have the ship we’re looking for,” Pitt said, speaking slowly and distinctly. “There are no other possibilities. You were mistaken in one respect, Dover, but correct in another. Mother Nature seldom makes rock formations that run in a perfectly straight line for several hundred feet. Consequently, the outline of a ship can be detected against an irregular background. You were right, though, in saying our chances were nil of finding it on the seafloor.”

“Get to the point,” Dover said impatiently.

“The target is on shore.”

“You mean grounded in the shallows?”

“I mean on shore, as in high and dry.”

“You can’t be serious?”

Pitt ignored the question and handed Dover the magnifying glass. “See for yourself.” He took a pencil and circled a section of cliffs above the tideline.

Dover bent over and put his eye to the glass. “All I see is rock.”

“Look closer. The projection from the lower part of the slope into the sea.”

Dover’s expression turned incredulous. “Oh, Jesus, it’s the stern of a ship!”

“You can make out the fantail and the top half of the rudder.”

“Yes, yes, and a piece of the after deckhouse.” Dover’s frustration was suddenly washed away by the mounting excitement of the discovery. “Incredible. She’s buried bow-on into the shore, as though she were covered by an avalanche. Judging from the cruiser stern and the balanced rudder, I’d say she’s an old Liberty ship.” He looked up, a deepening interest in his eyes. “I wonder if she might be the Pilottown?”

“Sounds vaguely familiar.”

“One of the most stubborn mysteries of the northern seas. The Pilottown tramped back and forth between Tokyo and the West Coast until ten years ago, when her crew reported her sinking in a storm. A search was launched and no trace of the ship was found. Two years later an Eskimo stumbled on the Pilottown caught in the ice about ninety miles above Nome. He went aboard but found the ship deserted, no sign of the crew or cargo. A month later, when he returned with his tribe to remove whatever they could find of value, it was gone again. Nearly two years passed, and she was reported drifting below the Bering Strait. The Coast Guard was sent out but couldn’t locate her. The Pilottown wasn’t sighted again for eight months. She was boarded by the crew of a fishing trawler. They found her in reasonably good shape. Then she disappeared for the last time.”

“I seem to recall reading something…” Pitt paused. “Ah, yes, the ‘Magic Ship.’ “

“That’s what the news media dubbed her,” Dover acknowledged. “They described her disappearing act as a ‘now you see it, now you don’t’ routine.”

“They’ll have a field day when it gets out she was drifting around for years with a cargo of nerve agent.”

“No way of predicting the horror if the hull had been crushed in an ice pack or shattered on a rocky shore, creating an instant spill,” Dover added.

“We’ve got to get in her cargo holds,” said Pitt. “Contact Mendoza, give her the position of the wreck and tell her to airlift a team of chemists to the site. We’ll approach from the water.”

Dover nodded. “I’ll see to the launch.”

“Throw in acetylene equipment in case we have to cut our way inside.”

Dover bent over the chart table and stared solemnly at the center of the marked circle. “I never thought for a minute I’d stand on the deck of the Magic Ship.”

“If you’re right,” said Pitt, staring into his coffee mug, “the Pilottown is about to give her last performance.”

8

The sea had been calm, but by the time the Catawba’s launch was a quarter-mile from the lonely, forbidding coast, a twenty-knot wind kicked up the water. The spray, tainted by the nerve agent, struck the cabin windows with the fury of driven sand. Yet where the derelict lay beached, the water looked reasonably peaceful, protected as it was by jagged pinnacles of rock that rose up a hundred yards offshore like solitary chimneys from burned-out houses.

Far above the turbulent waters Augustine Volcano seemed calm and serene in the late afternoon sun. It was one of the most beautifully sculptured mountains in the Pacific, rivaling the classic contour of Mount Fuji in Japan.

The powerful launch surfed for an instant on a whitecapped swell before diving over the crest. Pitt braced his feet, gripped a railing with both hands while his eyes studied the shore.

The wreck was heeled over at a twenty-degree angle and her stern section blanketed in brown rust. The rudder was canted in the full starboard position and two barnacle-encrusted blades of the propeller protruded from the black sand. The letters of her name and home port were too obscured to read.

Pitt, Giordino, Dover, the two EPA scientists and one of the Catawba’s junior officers all were garbed in white encapsulating suits to protect them from the plumes of deadly spray. They communicated by tiny transmitters inside their protective headgear. Attached to their waist belts were intricate filter systems designed to refine clean, breathable air.

The sea around them was carpeted with dead fish of every species. A pair of whales rolled lifelessly back and forth with the tide, united in rotting decay with porpoises, sea lions and spotted seals. Birds by the thousands floated amid the morbid debris. Nothing that had lived in the area had escaped.

Dover expertly threaded the launch between the threatening offshore barrier of projecting rock, the remnant of an ancient coastline. He slowed, waiting for a momentary lull in the surf, biding his time while carefully eyeing the depth. Then as a wave slammed onto the shore and its backwash spilled against the next one coming in, he aimed the bow at the small spit of sand formed around the base of the wreck and pushed the throttle forward. Like a horse bracing for the next hurdle at the Grand National, the launch rose up on the wave crest and rode it through the swirling foam until the keel dropped and scraped onto the spit.

“A neat bit of handiwork,” Pitt complimented him.

“All in the timing,” Dover said, a grin visible behind his helmet’s face mask. “Of course, it helps if you land at low tide.”

They tilted back their heads and stared up at the wreck towering above them. The faded name on the stern could be deciphered now. It read Pilottown.

“Almost a pity,” Dover said reverently, “to write finish to an enigma.”

“The sooner the better,” Pitt said, his tone grim as he considered the mass death inside.

Within five minutes the equipment was unloaded, the launch securely moored to the Pilottown’s rudder, and the men laboriously climbing the steep slope on the port side of the stern. Pitt took the lead, followed by Giordino and the rest as Dover brought up the rear.

The incline was not made up of solid rock but rather a combination of cinder ash and mud with the consistency of loose gravel. Their boots struggled to find a foothold, but mostly they slid back two steps for every three they gained. The dust from the ash rose and clung to their suits, coating them a dark gray. Soon the sweat was seeping through their pores and the increasingly heavy rasp of their breathing became more audible over the earphones inside their helmets.

Pitt called a halt at a narrow ledge, not four feet wide and just long enough to hold all six men. Wearily Giordino sank to a sitting position and readjusted the straps that held the acetylene tank to his back. When he could finally pant a coherent sentence, he said, “How in hell did this old rust bucket jam herself in here?”

“She probably drifted into what was a shelving inlet before 1987,” replied Pitt. “According to Mendoza, that was the year the volcano last erupted. The explosion gases must have melted the ice around the mantle, forming millions of gallons of water. The mudflow, along with the cloud of ash, poured down the mountain until it met the sea and buried the ship.”

“Funny the stern wasn’t spotted before now.”

“Not so remarkable,” Pitt answered. “So little is showing it was next to impossible to detect from the air, and beyond a mile from shore it blends into the rugged shoreline and becomes nearly invisible. Erosion caused by recent storms is the only reason she’s uncovered now.”

Dover stood up, pressing his weight against the steep embankment to maintain his balance. He unraveled a thin knotted nylon rope from his waist and unfolded a small grappling hook tied to the end.

He looked down at Pitt. “If you’ll support my legs, I think I can heave the hook over the ship’s railing.”

Pitt grasped his left leg as Giordino edged over and held the right. The burly Coast Guardsman leaned back over the lip of the ledge, swung the hook in a widening arc and let it fly.

It sailed over the stern rails and caught.

The rest of the ascent took only a few minutes. Pulling themselves upward, hand over hand, they soon climbed onto the deck. Heavy layers of rust mingled with ash flaked away beneath their feet. What little they could see of the Pilottown looked a dirty, ugly mess.

“No sign of Mendoza,” said Dover.

“Nearest flat ground to land a copter is a thousand yards away,” Pitt replied. “She and her team will have to hike in.”

Giordino walked over to the railing beside the corroded shaft of the jackstaff and stared at the water below. “The poison must be seeping through the hull during high tide.”

“Probably stored in the after hold,” said Dover.

“The cargo hatches are buried under tons of this lava crap,” Giordino said in disgust. “We’ll need a fleet of bulldozers to get through.”

“You familiar with Liberty ships?” Pitt asked Dover.

“Should be. I’ve inspected enough of them over the years, looking for illegal cargo.” He knelt down and began tracing a ship’s outline in the rust. “Inside the aft deckhouse we should find a hatch to an escape trunk that leads to the tunnel holding the screw shaft. At the bottom is a small recess. We might be able to cut our way into the hold from there.”

They all stood silent when Dover finished. They should all have felt a sense of accomplishment at having found the source of the nerve agent. But instead they experienced apprehension — a reaction, Pitt supposed, that stemmed from a letdown after the excitement of the search. Then also there was a hidden dread of what they might actually find behind the steel bulkheads of the Pilottown.

“Maybe… maybe we better wait for the lab people,” one of the chemists stammered.

“They can catch up,” Pitt said pleasantly, but with cold eyes.

Giordino silently took a prybar from the toolpack strapped on Pitt’s back and attacked the steel door to the after deckhouse. To his surprise it creaked and moved. He put his muscle to it, the protesting hinges surrendered and the door sprang open. The interior was completely empty, no fittings, no gear, not even a scrap of trash.

“Looks as though the movers have been here,” observed Pitt.

“Odd it was never in use,” Dover mused.

“The escape trunk?”

“This way.” Dover led them through another compartment that was also barren. He stopped at a round hatch in the center of the deck. Giordino moved forward, pried open the cover and stepped back. Dover aimed a flashlight down the yawning tunnel, the beam stabbing the darkness.

“So much for that idea,” he said dejectedly. “The tunnel recess is blocked with debris.”

“What’s on the next deck below?”

“The steering gear compartment.” Dover paused, his mind working. Then he thought aloud. “Just forward of the steering gear there’s an after steering room. A holdover from the war years. It’s possible, barely possible, it might have an access hatch to the hold.”

They went aft then and returned to the first compartment. It felt strange to them to walk the decks of a ghost ship, wondering what happened to the crew that abandoned her. They found the hatchway and climbed down the ladder to the steering gear compartment and made their way around the old, still oily machinery to the forward bulkhead. Dover scanned the steel plates with his flashlight. Suddenly the wavering beam stopped.

“Son of a bitch!” he grunted. “The hatch is here, but it’s been welded shut.”

“You’re certain we’re in the right spot?” Pitt asked.

“Absolutely,” Dover answered. He rapped his gloved fist against the bulkhead. “On the other side is cargo hold number five — the most likely storage of the poison.”

“What about the other holds?” asked one of the EPA men.

“Too far forward to leak into the sea.”

“Okay, then let’s do it,” Pitt said impatiently.

Quickly they assembled the cutting torch and connected the oxygen-acetylene bottles. The flame from the tip of the torch hissed as Giordino adjusted the gas mixture. Blue flame shot out and assaulted the steel plate, turning it red, then a bright orange-white. A narrow gap appeared and lengthened, crackling and melting under the intense heat.

As Giordino was cutting an opening large enough to crawl through, Julie Mendoza and her lab people appeared, packing nearly five hundred pounds of chemical analysis instruments.

“You found it,” she stated straight from the shoulder.

“We can’t be sure yet,” Pitt cautioned.

“But our test samples show the water around this area reeks with Nerve Agent S,” she protested.

“Disappointment comes easy,” said Pitt. “I never count my chickens till the check clears the bank.”

Further conversation broke off as Giordino stood back and snuffed out the cutting torch. He handed it to Dover and picked up his trusty prybar.

“Stand back,” he ordered. “This thing is red hot and it’s damned heavy.”

He hooked one end of the bar into the jagged, glowing seam and shoved. Grudgingly, the steel plate twisted away from the bulkhead and crashed to the deck with a heavy clang and spray of molten metal.

A hush fell over the dark compartment as Pitt took a flashlight and leaned carefully through the opening, staying clear of the superheated edges. He probed the beam into the bowels of the darkened cargo hold, sweeping it around in a 180-degree arc.

It seemed a long time before he straightened and faced the bizarrely clad, faceless figures pressing against him.

“Well?” Mendoza demanded anxiously.

Pitt answered with one word: “Eureka!”

9

Four thousand miles and five hours ahead in a different time zone, the Soviet representative to the World Health Assembly worked late at his desk. There was nothing elaborate about his office in the Secretariat building of the United Nations; the furnishings were cheap and Spartan. Instead of the usual photographs of Russian leaders, living and dead, the only piece of wall decor was a small amateurish watercolor of a house in the country.

The light blinked and a soft chime emitted from his private phone line. He stared at it suspiciously for a long moment before picking up the receiver.

“This is Lugovoy.”

“Who?”

“Aleksei Lugovoy.”

“Is Willie dere?” asked a voice, heavy with the New York City accent that always grated on Lugovoy’s ears.

“There is no Willie here,” Lugovoy said brusquely. “You must have the wrong number.” Then he abruptly hung up.

Lugovoy’s face was expressionless, but a faint pallor was there that was missing before. He flexed his fists, inhaled deeply and eyed the phone, waiting.

The light blinked and the phone chimed again.

“Lugovoy.”

“Youse sure Willie ain’t dere?”

“Willie ain’t here!” he replied, mimicking the caller’s accent. He slammed the receiver onto the cradle.

Lugovoy sat shock-still for almost thirty seconds, hands tightly clasped together on the desk, head lowered, eyes staring into space. Nervously, he rubbed a hand over his bald head and adjusted the horn-rimmed glasses on his nose. Still lost in thought, he rose, dutifully turned out the lights and walked from the office.

He exited the elevator into the main lobby and strode past the stained-glass panel by Marc Chagall symbolizing man’s struggle for peace. He ignored it, as he always had.

There were no cabs at the stand in front of the building, so he hailed one on First Avenue. He gave the driver his destination and sat stiffly in the back seat, too tense to relax.

Lugovoy was not worried that he might be followed. He was a respected psychologist, admired for his work in mental health among the underdeveloped countries. His papers on thought processes and mind response were widely studied. During his six months in New York with the United Nations he had kept his nose clean. He indulged in no espionage work and held no direct ties with the undercover people of the KGB. He was discreetly told by a friend with the embassy in Washington that the FBI had given him a low priority and only performed an occasional, almost perfunctory observation.

Lugovoy was not in the United States to steal secrets. His purpose went far beyond anything the American counterspy investigators ever dreamed. The phone call meant the plan that was conceived seven years earlier had been put into motion.

The cab pulled to a stop at West and Liberty streets in front of the Vista International Hotel. Lugovoy paid the driver and walked through the ornate lobby into the concourse outside. He paused and stared up at the awesome towers of the World Trade Center.

Lugovoy often wondered what he was doing here in this land of glass buildings, uncountable automobiles, people always rushing, restaurants and grocery stores in every block. It was not his kind of world.

He showed his identification to a guard standing by a private express elevator in the south tower and took it to the one hundredth floor. The doors parted and he entered the open lobby of the Bougainville Maritime Lines, Inc., whose offices covered the entire floor. His shoes sank into a thick white carpet. The walls were paneled in a gleaming hand-rubbed rosewood, and the room was richly decorated in Oriental antiques. Curio cases containing exquisite ceramic horses stood in the corners, and rare examples of Japanese-designed textiles hung from the ceiling.

An attractive woman with large dark eyes, a delicate oval Asian face and smooth amber skin smiled as he approached. “May I help you, sir?”

“My name is Lugovoy.”

“Yes, Mr. Lugovoy,” she said, pronouncing his name correctly. “Madame Bougainville is expecting you.”

She spoke softly into an intercom and a tall raven-haired woman with Eurasian features appeared in a high-arched doorway.

“If you will please follow me, Mr. Lugovoy.”

Lugovoy was impressed. Like many Russians he was naive in Western business methods and wrongly assumed the office employees had stayed late for his benefit. He trailed the woman down a long corridor hung with paintings of cargo ships flying the Bougainville Maritime flag, their bows surging through turquoise seas. The guide knocked lightly on an arched door, opened it and stepped aside.

Lugovoy crossed the threshold and stiffened in astonishment. The room was vast — mosaic floor in blue and gold floral patterns, massive conference table supported by ten carved dragons that seemed to stretch into infinity. But it was the life-size terra-cotta warriors in armor and prancing horses standing in silent splendor under soft spotlights in alcoves that held him in awe.

He instantly recognized them as the tomb guardians of China’s early emperor Ch’in Shin Huang Ti. The effect was dazzling. He marveled that they had somehow slipped through the Chinese government’s fingers into private hands.

“Please come forward and sit down, Mr. Lugovoy.”

He was so taken aback by the magnificence of the room that he failed to notice a frail Oriental woman sitting in a wheelchair. In front of her was an ebony chair with gold silk cushions and a small table with a teapot and cups.

“Madame Bougainville,” he said. “We meet at last.”

The matriarch of the Bougainville shipping dynasty was eighty-nine years old and weighed about the same number of pounds. Her glistening gray hair was pulled back from her temples in a bun. Her face was strangely unlined, but her body looked ancient and frail. It was her eyes that absorbed Lugovoy. They were an intense blue and blazed with a ferocity that made him uncomfortable.

“You are prompt,” she said simply. Her voice was soft and clear without the usual hesitation of advanced age.

“I came as soon as I received the coded telephone call.”

“Are you prepared to conduct your brainwashing project?”

“Brainwashing is an ugly term. I prefer mind intervention.”

“Academic terminology is irrelevant,” she said indifferently.

“My staff has been assembled for months. With the proper facilities we can begin in two days.”

“You’ll begin tomorrow morning.”

“So soon?”

“I’ve been informed by my grandson that ideal conditions have turned in our favor. The transfer will take place tonight.”

Lugovoy instinctively looked at his watch. “You don’t give me much time.”

“The opportunity has to be snatched when it arrives,” she said firmly. “I made a bargain with your government, and I am about to fulfill the first half of it. Everything depends on speed. You and your staff have ten days to finish your part of the project—”

“Ten days!” he gasped.

“Ten days,” she repeated. “That is your deadline. Beyond that I will cast you adrift.”

A shiver ran up Lugovoy’s spine. He didn’t need a detailed picture. It was plain that if something went wrong, he and his people would conveniently vanish— probably in the ocean.

A quiet muffled the huge boardroom. Then Madame Bougainville leaned forward in the wheelchair. “Would you like some tea?”

Lugovoy hated tea, but he nodded. “Yes, thank you.”

“The finest blend of Chinese herbs. It costs over a hundred dollars a pound on the retail market.”

He took the offered cup and made a polite sip before he set it on the table. “You’ve been informed, I assume, that my work is still in the research stage. My experiments have only been proven successful eleven times out of fifteen. I cannot guarantee perfect results within a set time limit.”

“Smarter minds than yours have calculated how long White House advisers can stall the news media.”

Lugovoy’s eyebrows rose. “My understanding was that my subject was to be a minor American congressman whose temporary disappearance would go unnoticed.”

“You were misled,” she explained matter-of-factly. “Your General Secretary and President thought it best you should not know your subject’s identity until we were ready.”

“If I’d been given time to study his personality traits, I could have been better prepared.”

“I shouldn’t have to lecture on security requirements to a Russian,” she said, her eyes burning into him. “Why do you think we’ve had no contact between us until tonight?”

Unsure of what to answer, Lugovoy took a long swallow of the tea. To his peasant taste it was like drinking watered-down perfume.

“I must know who my subject is,” he said finally, mustering his courage and returning her stare.

Her answer burst like a bomb in the cavernous room, reverberated in Lugovoy’s brain and left him stunned. He felt as though he’d been thrown into a bottomless pit with no hope of escape.

10

After years of buffeting by storms at sea, the drums containing the nerve agent had broken the chains holding them to wooden cradles and now they lay scattered about the deck of the cargo hold. The one-ton standard shipping containers, as approved by the Department of Transportation, measured exactly 81½ inches in length by 30½ inches in diameter. They had concave ends and were silver in color. Neatly stenciled on the sides in green paint were the Army code letters “GS.”

“I make the count twenty drums,” said Pitt.

“That tallies with the inventory of the missing shipment,” Mendoza said, the relief audible in her voice.

They stood in the hold’s depths, now brightly lit by floodlights connected to a portable generator from the Catawba. Nearly a foot of water flooded the deck, and the sloshing sounds as they waded between the deadly containers echoed off the rusting sides of the hold.

An EPA chemist made a violent pointing motion with his gloved hand. “Here’s the drum responsible for the leak!” he said excitedly. “The valve is broken off its threads.”

“Satisfied, Mendoza?” Pitt asked her.

“You bet your sweet ass,” she exclaimed happily. Pitt moved toward her until their faceplates were almost touching. “Have you given any thought to my reward?”

“Reward?”

“Our bargain,” he said, trying to sound earnest. “I found your nerve agent thirty-six hours ahead of schedule.”

“You’re not going to hold me to a silly proposition?”

“I’d be foolish not to.”

She was glad he couldn’t see her face redden under the helmet. They were on an open radio frequency and every man in the room could hear what they were saying.

“You pick strange places to make a date.”

“What I thought,” Pitt continued, “was dinner in Anchorage, cocktails chilled by glacier ice, smoked salmon, elk Remington, baked Alaska. After that—”

“That’s enough,” she said, her embarrassment growing.

“Are you a party girl?”

“Only when the occasion demands,” she replied, coming back on even keel. “And this is definitely not the occasion.”

He threw up his arms and then let them drop dejectedly. “A sad day for Pitt, a lucky day for NUMA.”

“Why NUMA?”

“The contamination is on dry land. No need for an underwater salvage job. My crew and I can pack up and head for home.”

Her helmet nodded imperceptibly. “A neat sidestep, Mr. Pitt, dropping the problem straight into the Army’s lap.”

“Do they know?” he asked seriously.

“Alaskan Command was alerted seconds after you reported discovering the Pilottown. A chemical warfare disposal team is on its way from the mainland to remove the agent.”

“The world applauds efficiency.”

“It’s not important to you, is it?”

“Of course it’s important,” Pitt said. “But my job is finished, and unless you have another spill and more dead bodies, I’m going home.”

“Talk about a hard-nosed cynic.”

“Say ‘yes.’ “

Thrust, parry, lunge. He caught her on an exposed flank. She felt trapped, impaled, and was annoyed with herself for enjoying it. She answered before she could form a negative thought. “Yes.”

The men in the hold stopped their work amid enough poison to kill half the earth’s population and clapped muted gloves together, cheering and whistling into their transmitters. She suddenly realized that her stock had shot up on the Dow Jones. Men admired a woman who could ramrod a dirty job and not be a bitch.

Later, Dover found Pitt thoughtfully studying a small open hatchway, shining his flashlight inside. The glow diminished into the darkness within, reflecting on dull sparkles on the oil-slicked water rippling from the cargo hold.

“Got something in mind?” Dover asked.

“Thought I’d do a little exploring,” Pitt answered.

“You won’t get far in there.”

“Where does it lead?”

“Into the shaft tunnel, but it’s flooded nearly to the roof. You’d need air tanks to get through.”

Pitt swung his light up the forward bulkhead until it spotlighted a small hatch at the top of a ladder. “How about that one?”

“Should open into cargo hold four.”

Pitt merely nodded and began scaling the rusty rungs of the ladder, closely followed by Dover. He muscled the dog latches securing the hatch, swung it open and clambered down into the next hold, again followed by Dover. A quick traverse of their lights told them it was bone empty.

“The ship must have been traveling in ballast,” Pitt speculated out loud.

“It would appear so,” said Dover.

“Now where?”

“Up one more ladder to the alleyway that runs between the fresh water tanks into the ship’s storerooms.”

Slowly they made their way through the bowels of the Pilottown, feeling like gravediggers probing a cemetery at midnight. Around every corner they half expected to find the skeletons of the crew. But there were no bones. The crew’s living quarters should have looked like an anniversary sale at Macy’s — clothes, personal belongings, everything that should have been strewn about by a crew hastily abandoning ship. Instead, the pitch-black interior of the Pilottown looked like the tunnels and chambers of a desert cavern. All that was missing were the bats.

The food lockers were bare. No dishes or cups lined the shelves of the crew mess. Even the toilets lacked paper. Fire extinguishers, door latches, furnishings, anything that could be unbolted or was of the slightest value was gone.

“Mighty peculiar,” muttered Dover.

“My thought too,” Pitt said. “She’s been systematically stripped.”

“Scavengers must have boarded and carried away everything during the years she was adrift.”

“Scavengers leave a mess,” Pitt disagreed. “Whoever was behind this job had a fetish for neatness.”

It was an eerie trip. Their shadows flitted on the dark walls of the alleyways and followed alongside the silent and abandoned machinery. Pitt felt a longing to see the sky again.

“Incredible,” mumbled Dover, still awed by what they’d found, or rather not found. “They even removed all the valves and gauges.”

“If I was a gambling man,” said Pitt thoughtfully, “I’d bet we’ve stumbled on an insurance scam.”

“Wouldn’t be the first ship that was posted missing for a Lloyd’s of London payday,” Dover said.

“You told me the crew claimed they abandoned the Pilottown in a storm. They abandoned her all right, but they left nothing but a barren, worthless shell.”

“Easy enough to check out,” said Dover. “Two ways to scuttle a ship at sea. Open the sea cocks and let her flood, or blow out the bottom with explosive charges.”

“How would you do it?”

“Flooding through the sea cocks could take twenty-four hours or more. Time enough for a passing ship to investigate. I opt for the charges. Quick and dirty; put her on the seafloor in a matter of minutes.”

“Something must have prevented the explosives from detonating.”

“It’s only a theory.”

“Next question,” Pitt persisted. “Where would you lay them?”

“Cargo holds, engine room, most any place against the hull plates so long as it was below the waterline.”

“No sign of charges in the after holds,” said Pitt. “That leaves the engine room and the forward cargo holds.”

“We’ve come this far,” Dover said. “We might as well finish the job.”

“Faster if we split up. I’ll search the engine room. You know your way around the ship better than I do—”

“The forward cargo holds it is,” Dover said, anticipating him.

The big Coast Guardsman started up a companion-way, whistling the Notre Dame fight song under his breath. His bearlike gait and hulking build, silhouetted by the wavering flashlight in his hand, grew smaller and finally faded.

Pitt began probing around the maze of steam pipes leading from the obsolete old steam reciprocating engines and boilers. The walkway gratings over the machinery were nearly eaten through by rust, and he treaded lightly. The engine room seemed to come alive in his imagination — creaks and moans, murmurings drifting out of the ventilators, whispering sounds.

He found a pair of sea cocks. Their handwheels were frozen in the closed position.

So much for the sea-cock theory, he thought.

An icy chill crept up the back of Pitt’s neck and spread throughout his body, and he realized the batteries operating the heater in his suit were nearly drained. He switched off the light for a moment. The pure blackness nearly smothered him. He flicked it on again and quickly swept the beam around as if he expected to see a specter of the crew reaching out for him. Only there were no specters. Nothing except the dank metal walls and the worn machinery. He could have sworn he felt the grating shudder as if the engines looming above him were starting up.

Pitt shook his head to purge the phantoms in his mind and methodically began searching the sides of the hull, crawling between pumps and asbestos-covered pipes that led into the darkness and nowhere. He fell down a ladder into six feet of greasy water. He struggled back up, out of the seeming clutches of the dead and evil and ugly bilge, his suit now black with oil. Out of breath, he hung there a minute, making a conscious effort to relax.

It was then he noticed an object dimly outlined in the farthest reach of the light beam. A corroded aluminum canister about the size of a five-gallon gas can was wired to a beam welded on the inner hull plates. Pitt had set explosives on marine salvage projects and he quickly recognized the detonator unit attached to the bottom of the canister. An electrical wire trailed upward through the grating to the deck above.

Sweat was pouring from his body but he was shivering from the cold. He left the explosive charge where he found it and climbed back up the ladder. Then he began inspecting the engines and boilers.

There were no markings anywhere, no manufacturer’s name, no inspector’s stamped date. Wherever there had been a metal ID tag it was removed. Wherever there had been letters or numbers stamped into the metal, they were filed away. After probing endless nooks and crannies around the machinery, he got lucky when he felt a small protrusion through his gloved hand. It was a small metal plate partially hidden by grease under one of the boilers. He rubbed away the grime and aimed the light on the indented surface. It read:

Pitt memorized the serial number and then made his way back to where he started. He wearily sank to the deck and tried to rest while suffering from the cold.

Dover returned in a little under an hour, carrying an explosive canister under one arm, as indifferently as if it were a jumbo can of peaches. Cursing fluently and often as he slipped on the oily deck, he stopped and sat down heavily next to Pitt.

“There’s four more between here and the forepeak,” Dover said tiredly.

“I found another one about forty feet aft,” Pitt replied.

“Wonder why they didn’t go off.”

“The timer must have screwed up.”

“Timer?”

“The crew had to jump ship before the bottom was blown out. Trace the wires leading from the canisters and you’ll find they all meet at a timing device hidden somewhere on the deck above. When the crew realized something was wrong, it must have been too late to re-board the ship.”

“Or they were too scared it would go up in their faces.”

“There’s that,” Pitt agreed.

“So the old Pilottown began her legendary drift. A deserted ship in an empty sea.”

“How is a ship officially identified?”

“What’s on your mind?”

“Just curious.”

Dover accepted that and stared up at the shadows of the engines. “Well, ID can be found most anywhere. Life jackets, lifeboats, on the bow and stern the name is often bead welded, outlining the painted letters. Then you have the builder’s plates, one on the exterior of the superstructure, one in the engine room. And, oh, yeah, the ship’s official number is burned into a beam around the outer base of the hatch covers.”

“I’ll wager a month’s pay that if you could dig the ship from under the mountain you’d find the hatch number burned off and the builder’s plate gone.”

“That leaves one in the engine room.”

“Missing too. I checked, along with all the manufacturer’s markings.”

“Sounds devious,” said Dover quietly.

“You’re damn right,” Pitt replied abruptly. “There’s more to the Pilottown than a marine insurance rip-off.”

“I’m in no mood to solve mysteries now,” Dover said, rising awkwardly to his feet. “I’m freezing, starved and tired as hell. I vote we head back.”

Pitt looked and saw Dover was still clutching the canister of explosives. “Bringing that along?”

“Evidence.”

“Don’t drop it,” Pitt said with a sarcastic edge in his voice.

They climbed from the engine room and hurried through the ship’s storerooms, anxious to escape the damp blackness and reach daylight again. Suddenly Pitt stopped in his tracks. Dover, walking head down, bumped into him.

“Why’d you stop?”

“You feel it?”

Before Dover could answer, the deck beneath their feet trembled and the bulkheads creaked ominously. What sounded like the muffled roar of a distant explosion rumbled closer and closer, quickly followed by a tremendous shock wave. The Pilottown shuddered under the impact and her welded seams screeched as they split under enormous pressure. The shock flung the two men violently against the steel bulkheads. Pitt managed to remain on his feet, but Dover, unbalanced by his heavy burden, crashed like a tree to the deck, embracing the canister with his arms and cushioning its fall with his body. A grunt of pain passed his lips as he dislocated his shoulder and wrenched a knee. He dazedly struggled to a sitting position and looked up at Pitt.

“What in God’s name was that?” he gasped.

“Augustine Volcano,” Pitt said, almost clinically. “It must have erupted.”

“Jesus, what next?”

Pitt helped the big man to his feet. He could feel Dover’s arm tense through the heavy suit. “You hurt?”

“A little bent, but I don’t think anything’s broken.”

“Can you make a run for it?”

“I’m all right,” Dover lied through clenched teeth. “What about the evidence?”

“Forget it,” Pitt said urgently. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

Without another word they took off through the storerooms and into the narrow alleyway between the freshwater tanks. Pitt slung his arm around Dover’s waist and half dragged, half carried him through the darkness.

Pitt thought the alleyway would never end. His breath began to come in gasps and his heart pounded against his ribs. He struggled to stay on his feet as the old Pilottown shook and swayed from the earth’s tremors. They reached cargo hold number four and scrambled down the ladder. He lost his grip and Dover fell to the deck. The precious seconds lost manhandling Dover over to the opposite ladder seemed like years.

Pitt had barely set foot on the scaly rungs when there was a crack like thunder and something fell past him and struck the deck. He threw the light beam up. At that instant the hatch cover disintegrated and tons of rock and debris cascaded into the hold.

“Climb, damn it, climb!” he yelled at Dover. His chest heaved and the blood roared in his ears. With an inner strength he thrust Dover’s 220 pounds up the ladder.

Suddenly a voice shouted. The light showed a figure leaning through the upper hatch, his hands grabbing Dover and pulling him through into the aft hold. Pitt instinctively knew it was Giordino. The burly little Italian had a keen sense of arriving at the right place at the right moment.

Then Pitt was at the top and crawling into the hold containing the nerve agent. The hatch cover was still intact, because the sloping ground above was not as dense near the stern section. When he reached the bottom of the ladder, willing hands were helping Dover toward the after deckhouse and temporary safety. Giordino gripped Pitt’s arm.

“We took casualties during the quake,” he said grimly.

“How bad?” asked Pitt.

“Four injured, mostly broken bones, and one dead.”

Giordino hesitated and Pitt knew.

“Mendoza?”

“One of the drums crushed her legs,” Giordino explained, his voice more solemn than Pitt had ever known it. “She suffered a compound fracture. A bone splinter pierced her suit.” His words died.

“The nerve agent leaked onto her skin,” Pitt finished, a sense of helplessness and shock flooding through him.

Giordino nodded. “We carried her outside.”

Pitt found Julie Mendoza lying on the Pilottown’s stern deck. Overhead a great cloud of volcanic ash rose into a blue sky and fortuitously drifted northward and away from the ship.

She lay alone and off to one side. The uninjured people were attending to the living. Only the young officer from the Catawba stood beside her, and his entire body was arching convulsively as he was being violently sick into his air filter.

Someone had removed her helmet. Her hair flared out on the rusty deck and glinted orange under the setting sun. Her eyes were open and staring into nothingness, the jaw jutting and rigid in what must have been indescribable agony. The blood was hardening as it dried in sun-tinted copper rivers that had gushed from her gaping mouth, nose and ears. It had even seeped from around the edges of her eyes. What little facial skin still showed was already turning a bluish black.

Pitt’s only emotion was cold rage. It swelled up inside him as he knelt down beside her and struck the deck repeatedly with his fist.

“It won’t end here,” he snarled bitterly. “I won’t let it end here.”

11

Oscar Lucas stared moodily at his desktop. Everything depressed him: the acid tasting coffee in a cold cup, his cheaply furnished government office, the long hours on his job. For the first time since he became special agent in charge of the presidential detail, he found himself longing for retirement, cross-country skiing in Colorado, building a mountain retreat with his own hands.

He shook his head to clear the fantasies, sipped at a diet soft drink and studied the plans of the presidential yacht for perhaps the tenth time.

Built in 1919 for a wealthy Philadelphia businessman, the Eagle was purchased by the Department of Commerce in 1921 for presidential use. Since that time, thirteen Presidents had paced her decks.

Herbert Hoover tossed medicine balls while on board. Roosevelt mixed martinis and discussed war strategy with Winston Churchill. Harry Truman played poker and the piano. John Kennedy celebrated his birthdays. Lyndon Johnson entertained the British Royal Family, and Richard Nixon hosted Leonid Brezhnev.

Designed with an old straight-up-and-down bow, the mahogany-trimmed yacht displaced a hundred tons and measured 110 feet in length with a beam of twenty feet. Her draft was five feet and she could slice the water at fourteen knots.

The Eagle was originally constructed with five master staterooms, four baths and a large glass-enclosed deckhouse, used as a combination dining and living room. A crew of thirteen Coast Guardsmen manned the yacht during a cruise, their quarters and galley located forward.

Lucas went through the files on the crew, rechecking their personal backgrounds, family histories, personality traits, the results of psychological interviews. He could find nothing that merited any suspicion.

He sat back and yawned. His watch read 9:20 P.M. The Eagle had been tied up at Mount Vernon for three hours. The President was a night owl and a late riser. He would keep up his guests, Lucas was certain, sitting around the deckhouse, thrashing out government affairs, with little thought given to sleep.

He twisted sideways and looked out the window. A falling mist was a welcome sight. The reduced visibility eliminated the chances of a sniper, the greatest danger to a President’s life. Lucas persuaded himself that he was chasing ghosts. Every detail that could be covered was covered.

If there was a threat, its source and method eluded him.

The mist had not yet reached Mount Vernon. The summer night still sparkled clear and the lights from nearby streets and farms danced on the water. The river at this stretch widened to slightly over a mile, with trees and shrubs lining its sweeping banks. A hundred yards from the shoreline, a Coast Guard cutter stood at anchor, her bow pointing upriver, radar antenna in constant rotation.

The President was sitting in a lounge chair on the foredeck of the Eagle, earnestly promoting his Eastern European aid program to Marcus Larimer and Alan Moran. Suddenly he came to his feet and stepped to the railing, his head tilted, listening. A small herd of cows were mooing in a nearby pasture. He became momentarily absorbed; the problems of the nation vanished and a country boy surfaced. After several seconds he turned and sat down again.

“Sorry for the interruption,” he said with a broad smile. “For a minute there I was tempted to find a bucket and squeeze us some fresh milk for breakfast.”

“The news media would have a field day with a picture of you milking a cow in the dead of night.” Larimer laughed.

“Better yet,” said Moran sarcastically, “you could sell the milk to the Russians for a fat profit.”

“Not as farfetched as it sounds,” said Margolin, who was sitting off to one side. “Milk and butter have all but disappeared from Moscow state food stores.”

“It’s a fact, Mr. President,” said Larimer seriously. “The average Russian is only two hundred calories a day from a starvation diet. The Poles and Hungarians are even worse off. Why, hell, our pigs eat better than they do.”

“Exactly my point,” said the President in a fervent voice. “We cannot turn our backs on starving women and children simply because they live under Communist domination. Their plight makes my aid plan all the more important to echo the humanitarian generosity of the American people. Think of the benefits such a program will bring in good will from the Third World countries. Think of how such an act could inspire future generations. The potential rewards are incalculable.”

“I beg to differ,” said Moran coldly. “In my mind what you propose is foolish, a sucker play. The billions of dollars they spend annually propping up their satellite countries have nearly wiped out their financial resources. I’ll take bets the money they save by your proposed bailout plan would go directly into their military budget.”

“Perhaps, but if their troubles continue unchecked the Soviets will become more dangerous to the U.S.,” the President argued. “Historically, nations with deep economic problems have lashed out in foreign adventures.”

“Like grabbing control of the Persian Gulf oil?” said Larimer.

“A gulf takeover is the threat they constantly dangle. But they know damned well the Western nations would intervene with force to keep the lifeblood of their economies flowing. No, Marcus, their sights are set on a far easier target. One that would open up their complete dominance of the Mediterranean.”

Larimer’s eyebrows raised. “Turkey?”

“Precisely,” the President answered bluntly.

“But Turkey is a member of NATO,” Moran protested.

“Yes, but would France go to war over Turkey? Would England or West Germany? Better yet, ask yourselves if we would send American boys to die there, any more than we would in Afghanistan? The truth is Turkey has few natural resources worth fighting over. Soviet armor could sweep across the country to the Bosporus in a few weeks, and the West would only protest with words.”

“You’re talking remote possibilities,” said Moran, “not high probabilities.”

“I agree,” said Larimer. “In my opinion, further Soviet expansionism on the face of their faltering system is extremely remote.”

The President raised a hand to protest. “But this is far different, Marcus. Any internal upheaval in Russia is certain to spill over her borders, particularly into Western Europe.”

“I’m not an isolationist, Mr. President. God knows my record in the Senate shows otherwise. But I, for one, am getting damned sick and tired of the United States being constantly twisted in the wind by the whims of the Europeans. We’ve left more than our share of dead in their soil from two wars. I say if the Russians want to eat the rest of Europe, then let them choke on it, and good riddance.”

Larimer sat back, satisfied. He had gotten the words off his chest that he didn’t dare utter in public. Though the President fervently disagreed, he couldn’t help wondering how many grass-roots Americans shared the same thoughts.

“Let’s be realistic,” he said quietly. “You know and I know we cannot desert our allies.”

“Then what about our constituents,” Moran jumped back in. “What do you call it when you take their tax dollars from a budget overburdened with deficit spending and use them to feed and support our enemies?”

“I call it the humane thing to do,” the President replied wearily. He realized he was fighting a no-win war.

“Sorry, Mr. President,” Larimer said, rising to his feet. “But I cannot with a clear conscience support your Eastern bloc aid plan. Now if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll hit the sack.”

“Me too,” Moran said, yawning. “I can hardly keep my eyes open.”

“Are you settled in all right?” asked the President.

“Yes, thank you,” replied Moran.

“If I haven’t been seasick by now,” said Larimer with a half grin, “I should keep my supper till morning.”

They bid their good nights and disappeared together down the stairs to their staterooms. As soon as they were out of earshot, the President turned to Margolin.

“What do you think, Vince?”

“To be perfectly honest, sir, I think you’re pissing up a rope.”

“You’re saying it’s hopeless?”

“Let’s look at another side to this,” Margolin began. “Your plan calls for buying surplus grain and other agricultural products to give to the Communist world for prices lower than our farmers could receive on the export market. Yet, thanks to poor weather conditions during the last two years and the inflationary spiral in diesel fuel costs, farms are going bankrupt at the highest rate since 1934… If you persist in handing out aid money, I respectfully suggest you do it here — not in Russia.”

“Charity begins at home. Is that it?”

“What better place? Also, you must consider the fact that you’re rapidly losing party support — and getting murdered in the polls.”

The President shook his head. “I can’t remain mute while millions of men, women and children die of starvation.”

“A noble stand, but hardly practical.”

The President’s features became shrouded with sadness. “Don’t you see,” he said, staring out over the dark waters of the river, “if we can show that Marxism has failed, no guerrilla movement anywhere in the world will be justified in using it as a battle cry for revolution.”

“Which brings us to the final argument,” said Margolin. “The Russians don’t want our help. As you know, I’ve met with Foreign Minister Gromyko. He told me in no uncertain terms that if Congress should pass your aid program, any food shipments will be stopped at the borders.”

“Still, we must try.”

Margolin sighed softly to himself. Any argument was a waste of time. The President could not be moved.

“If you’re tired,” the President said, “please don’t hesitate to go to bed. You don’t have to stay awake just to keep me company.”

“I’m not really in the mood for sleep.”

“How about another brandy then?”

“Sounds good.”

The President pressed a call button beside his chair and a figure in the white coat of a steward appeared on deck.

“Yes, Mr. President? What is your pleasure?”

“Please bring the Vice President and me another brandy.”

“Yes, sir.”

The steward turned to bring the order, but the President held up his hand.

“One moment.”

“Sir?”

“You’re not Jack Klosner, the regular steward.”

“No, Mr. President. I’m Seaman First Class Lee Tong. Seaman Klosner was relieved at ten o’clock. I’m on duty until tomorrow morning.”

The President was one of the few politicians whose ego was attuned to people. He spoke as graciously to an eight-year-old boy as he did to an eighty-year-old woman. He genuinely enjoyed drawing strangers out, calling them by their Christian names as if he’d known them for years.

“Your family Chinese, Lee?”

“No, sir. Korean. They immigrated to America in nineteen fifty-two.”

“Why did you join the Coast Guard?”

“A love of the sea, I guess.”

“Do you enjoy catering to old bureaucrats like me?”

Seaman Tong hesitated, obviously uneasy. “Well… if I had my choice, I’d rather be serving on an icebreaker.”

“I’m not sure I like coming in second to an icebreaker.” The President laughed good-naturedly. “Remind me in the morning to put in a word to Commandant Collins for a transfer. We’re old friends.”

“Thank you, Mr. President,” Seaman Tong mumbled excitedly. “I’ll get your brandies right away.”

Just before Tong turned away he flashed a wide smile that revealed a large gap in the middle of his upper teeth.

12

A heavy fog crept over the Eagle, smothering her hull in damp, eerie stillness. Gradually the red warning lights of a radio antenna on the opposite shore blurred and disappeared. Somewhere overhead a gull shrieked, but it was a muted, ghostly sound; impossible to tell where it came from. The teak decks soon bled moisture and took on a dull sheen under the mist-veiled floodlights standing above the pilings of the old creaking pier anchored to the bank.

A small army of Secret Service agents, stationed at strategic posts around the landscaped slope that gently rose toward George Washington’s elegant colonial home, guarded the nearly invisible yacht. Voice contact was kept by shortwave miniature radios. So that both hands could be free at all times, the agents wore earpiece receivers, battery units on their belts and tiny microphones on their wrists.

Every hour the agents changed posts, moving on to the next prescheduled security area while their shift leader wandered the grounds checking the efficiency of the surveillance network.

In a motor home parked in the drive beside the old manor house, agent Blackowl sat scanning a row of television monitors. Another agent manned the communications equipment, while a third eye-balled a series of warning lights wired to an intricate system of alarms spaced around the yacht.

“You’d think the National Weather Service could give an accurate report ten miles from its forecast office,” Blackowl groused as he sipped his fourth coffee of the night. “They said ‘light mist.’ If this is light mist, I’d like to know what in hell they call fog so thick you can dish it with a spoon?”

The agent in charge of radio communications turned and lifted the earphones on his headset. “The chase boat says they can’t see beyond their bow. They request permission to come ashore and tie up.”

“Can’t say I blame them,” said Blackowl. “Tell them affirmative.” He stood and massaged the back of his neck. Then he patted the communications agent on the shoulder. “I’ll take over the radio. You get some sleep.”

“As advance agent, you should be bedded down yourself.”

“I’m not tired. Besides, I can’t see crap on the monitors anyway.”

The agent looked up at a large digital clock on the wall. “Zero one fifty hours. Ten minutes till the next post change.”

Blackowl nodded and slid into the vacated chair. He had no sooner settled the earphones on his head than a call came from the Coast Guard cutter anchored near the yacht.

“Control, this is River Watch.”

“This is Control,” Blackowl replied, recognizing the voice of the cutter’s commander.

“We’re experiencing a problem with our scanning equipment.”

“What kind of problem?”

“A high-energy signal on the same frequency as our radar is fouling reception.”

A look of concern crossed Blackowl’s face. “Could someone be jamming you?”

“I don’t think so. It looks like cross traffic. The signal comes and goes as if messages are being transmitted. I suspect that some neighborhood radio freak has plugged onto our frequency by accident.”

“Do you read any contacts?”

“Boat traffic this time of night is nil,” answered the commander. “The only blip we’ve seen on the oscilloscope in the last two hours was from a city sanitation tug pushing trash barges out to sea.”

“What time did it go by?”

“Didn’t. The blip merged with the riverbank a few hundred yards upstream. The tug’s skipper probably tied up to wait out the fog.”

“Okay, River Watch, keep me assessed of your radar problem.”

“Will do, Control. River Watch out.”

Blackowl sat back and mentally calculated the potential hazards. With river traffic at a standstill, there was little danger of another ship colliding with the Eagle. The Coast Guard cutter’s radar, though operating intermittently, was operating. And any assault from the river side was ruled out because the absence of visibility made it next to impossible to home in on the yacht. The fog, it seemed, was a blessing in disguise.

Blackowl glanced up at the clock. It read one minute before the post change. He quickly reread the security plan that listed the names of the agents, the areas they were scheduled to patrol and the times. He noted that agent Lyle Brock was due to stand post number seven, the yacht itself, while agent Karl Polaski was slated for post number six, which was the pier.

He pressed the transmit button and spoke into the tiny microphone attached to his headset. “Attention all stations. Time zero two hundred hours. Move to your next post. Repeat, move to the next post on your schedule.” Then he changed frequencies and uttered the code name of the shift leader. “Cutty Sark, this is Control.”

A veteran of fifteen years in the service, agent Ed McGrath answered almost immediately. “Cutty Sark here.”

“Tell posts numbers six and seven to keep a sharp watch on the river.”

“They won’t see much in this slop.”

“How bad is it around the dock area?”

“Let’s just say you should have issued us white canes with red tips.”

“Do the best you can,” Blackowl said.

A light blinked and Blackowl cut transmission to McGrath and answered the incoming call.

“Control.”

“This is River Watch, Control. Whoever is screwing up our radar signals seems to be transmitting continuously now.”

“You read nothing?” asked Blackowl.

“The geographic display on the oscilloscope is forty percent blanked out. Instead of blips we receive a large wedge shape.”

“Okay, River Watch, let me pass the word to the special agent in charge. Maybe he can track the interference and stop any further transmission.”

Before he apprised Oscar Lucas at the White House of the radar problem, Blackowl turned and gazed curiously at the television monitors. They reflected no discernible image, only vague shadows wavering in wraithlike undulation.

Agent Karl Polaski refixed the molded earplug of his Motorola HT-220 radio receiver and wiped the dampness from his Bismarck mustache. Forty minutes into his watch on the pier, he felt damp and downright miserable. He wiped the moisture from his face and thought it odd that it felt oily.

His eyes wandered to the overhead floodlights. They gave out a dim yellowish halo, but the edges had a prismatic effect and displayed the colors of the rainbow. From where he stood, about midpoint on the thirty-foot dock, the Eagle was completely hidden by the oppressive mist. Not even her deck or mast lights were visible.

Polaski walked over the weatherworn boards, occasionally stopping and listening. But all he heard was the gentle lapping of the water around the pilings and the soft hum of the yacht’s generators. He was only a few steps from the end of the pier when the Eagle finally materialized from the gray tentacles of the fog.

He called softly to agent Lyle Brock, who was manning post seven on board the boat. “Hey, Lyle. Can you hear me?”

A voice replied slightly above a whisper. “What do you want?”

“How about a cup of coffee from the galley?”

“The next post change is in twenty minutes. You can get a cup when you come on board and take my place.”

“I can’t wait twenty minutes,” Polaski protested mildly. “I’m already soaked to the bones.”

“Tough. You’ll have to suffer.”

Polaski knew that Brock couldn’t leave the deck under any circumstances, but he goaded the other agent good-naturedly. “Wait till you want a favor from me.”

“Speaking of favors, I forgot where I go from here.”

Polaski gave a quizzical look at the figure in the shadows on the Eagle’s deck. “Look at your diagram, numb brain.”

“It got soggy and I can’t read it.”

“Post eight is fifty yards down the bank.”

“Thanks.”

“If you want to know where post nine is it’ll cost you a cup of coffee,” Polaski said, grinning.

“Screw you. I remember that one.”

Later, during the next post change, the agents merely waved as they passed each other, two indistinct forms in the mist.

Ed McGrath could not recall having seen fog this thick. He sniffed the air, trying to identify the strange aroma that hung everywhere, and finally wrote it off as a common oily smell. Somewhere in the mist he heard a dog bark. He paused, cocking one ear. It was not the baying of a hound in chase or the frightened yelps of a mutt, but the sharp yap of a dog alert to an unfamiliar presence. Not too far away, judging by the volume. Seventy-five, maybe a hundred, yards beyond the security perimeter, McGrath estimated.

A potential assassin would have to be sick or brain damaged or both, he thought, to stumble blindly around a strange countryside in weather such as this. Already, McGrath had tripped and fallen down, walked into an unseen tree branch and scratched his cheek, found himself lost three times, and almost got himself shot when he accidentally walked onto a guard post before he could radio his approach.

The barking stopped abruptly, and McGrath figured a cat or some wild animal had set the dog off. He reached a familiar bench beside a fork in a graveled path and made his way toward the riverbank below the yacht. He spoke into his lapel microphone.

“Post eight, coming up on you.”

There was no reply.

McGrath stopped in his tracks. “Brock, this is McGrath, coming up on you.”

Still nothing.

“Brock, do you read me?”

Post number eight was oddly quiet and McGrath began to feel uneasy. Moving very slowly, one step at a time, he cautiously closed on the guard area. He called faintly through the mist, his voice weirdly magnified by the heavy dampness. Silence was his only reply.

“Control, this is Cutty Sark.”

“Go ahead, Cutty Sark,” came back Blackowl’s tired voice.

“We’re missing a man on post eight.”

Blackowl’s tone sharpened considerably. “No sign of him?”

“None.”

“Check the boat,” Blackowl said without hesitation. “I’ll meet you there after I inform headquarters.”

McGrath signed off and hurried along the bank to the dock. “Post six, coming up on you.”

“Aiken, post six. Come ahead.”

McGrath groped his way onto the dock and found agent John Aiken’s hulking figure under a floodlight. “Have you seen Brock?”

“You kidding?” answered Aiken. “I haven’t seen shit since the fog hit.”

McGrath dogtrotted along the dock, repeating the call-warning process. By the time he reached the Eagle, Polaski had come around from the opposite deck to meet him.

“I’m missing Brock,” he said tersely.

Polaski shrugged. “Last I saw of him was about a half-hour ago when we changed posts.”

“Okay, stand here by the dockside. I’m going to take a look below decks. And keep an eye peeled for Blackowl. He’s on his way down from Control.”

When Blackowl lurched out into the damp morning, the fog was thinning and he could see the faint glimmer of stars through the fading overcast above. He steered his way from post to post, breaking into a run along the pathway to the pier as the visibility improved. Fear smoldered in his stomach, a dread that something was terribly wrong. Agents did not desert their posts without warning, without reason.

When at last he leaped aboard the yacht, the fog had disappeared as if by magic. The ruby lights of the radio antenna across the river sparkled in the newly cleared air. He brushed by Polaski and found McGrath sitting alone in the deckhouse, staring trancelike into nothingness.

Blackowl froze.

McGrath’s face was as pale as a white plaster death mask. He stared with such horror in his eyes that Blackowl immediately feared the worst.

“The President?” he demanded.

McGrath looked at him dully, his mouth moving but no words coming out.

“For Christ’s sake, is the President safe?”

“Gone,” McGrath finally muttered.

“What are you talking about?”

“The President, the Vice President, the crew, everybody, they’re all gone.”

“You’re talking crazy!” Blackowl snapped.

“True… it’s true,” McGrath said lifelessly. “See for yourself.”

Blackowl tore down the steps of the nearest companionway and ran to the President’s stateroom. He threw open the door without knocking. It was deserted. The bed was still neatly made and there were no clothes in the closet, no toilet articles in the bathroom. His heart felt as if it were being squeezed between two blocks of ice.

As though in a nightmare, he rushed from stateroom to stateroom. Everywhere it was the same; even the crew’s quarters lay in undisturbed emptiness.

The horror was real.

Everyone on the yacht had vanished as though they had never been born.