a prime catch by the older single women of Washington, he was inundated by invitations to intimate dinners and parties of the social elite. As much as he enjoyed the company of ladies, NUMA was his love, his passion. The marine science agency took the place of a family. It was spawned by him and bred into a giant institution revered and respected around the world.
Sundays, he cruised along the shores of the Potomac River in an old Navy double-ender whaleboat he had bought surplus and rebuilt. The arched bow brushed aside the murky brown water as he cut the wheel to dodge a piece of driftwood. There was history attached to the little eight-meter vessel. Sandecker had documented her chronology from the time she was built in 1936 at a small boatyard in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and then transported to Newport News, Virginia, where she was loaded on board the newly launched aircraft carrier Enterprise. Through the war years and many battles in the South Pacific, she served as Admiral Bull Halsey’s personal shore boat. In 1958, when the Enterprise was decommissioned and scrapped, the aging double-ender was left to rot in a storage area behind the New York Shipyard. It was there Sandecker found and bought the worn remains. He then beautifully restored her with loving care until she looked like the day she came out of that boatyard in New Hampshire.
As he listened to the soft chugging from the ancient four-cylinder Buda diesel engine, he reflected on events of the past week and contemplated his actions for the week to follow. His most pressing concern was Arthur Dorsett’s greed-inspired acoustic plague, which was devastating the Pacific Ocean. This problem was closely followed by the unanticipated abduction of Pitt and Giordino and their subsequent disappearance. He was deeply troubled that neither dilemma was blessed with even a clue toward a solution.
The members of Congress he had approached had refused his pleas to take drastic measures to stop Arthur Dorsett before his guilt was ironclad. In their minds there simply was not enough evidence to tie him to the mass deaths. Reasoning that was fueled by Dorsett’s highly paid lobbyists. Par for the course, thought a frustrated Sandecker. The bureaucrats never acted until it was too late. The only hope left was to persuade the President to take action, but without the support of two or more prominent members of Congress, that was also a lost cause.
A light snow fell over the river, coating the barren trees and winter-dead growth on the ground. His was the only boat in sight on the water that wintry day. The afternoon sky was ice blue and the air sharp and quite cold. Sandecker turned up the collar of a well-worn Navy peacoat, pulled a black stocking cap down over his ears and swung the whaleboat toward the pier along the Maryland shore where he kept it docked. As he approached from upriver, he saw a figure get out of the warm comfort of a four-wheel-drive Jeep and walk across the dock. Even at a distance of five hundred meters he easily recognized the strange hurried gait of Rudi Gunn.
Sandecker slipped the whaleboat across the current and slowed the old Buda diesel to a notch above idle. As he neared the dock, he could see the grim expression on Gunn’s bespectacled face. He suppressed a rising chill of dread and dropped the rubber bumpers over the port side of the hull. Then he threw a line to Gunn, who pulled the boat parallel to the dock before tying off the bow and stern to cleats bolted to the gray wood.
The admiral removed a boat cover from a locker, and Gunn helped him stretch it over the boat’s railings. When they finished and Sandecker stepped onto the dock, neither man had yet spoken. Gunn looked down at the whaleboat.
“If you ever want to sell her, I’ll be the first in line with a checkbook.”
Sandecker looked at him and knew Gunn was hurting inside. “You didn’t drive out here just to admire the boat.”
Gunn stepped to the end of the dock and gazed grimly out over the murky river. “The latest report since Dirk and Al were snatched from the Ocean Angler in Wellington is not good.”
“Let’s have it.”
“Ten hours after Dorsett’s yacht vanished off our satellite cameras—”
“The reconnaissance satellites lost them?” Sandecker interrupted angrily.
“Our military intelligence networks do not exactly consider the Southern Hemisphere a hotbed of hostile activity,” Gunn replied acidly. “Budgets being what they are, no satellites with the ability to photograph the earth in detail are in orbits able to cover the seas south of Australia.”
“I should have considered that,” Sandecker muttered in disappointment. “Please go on.”
“The National Security Agency intercepted a satellite phone call from Arthur Dorsett aboard his yacht to his superintendent of operations on Gladiator Island, a Jack Ferguson. The message said that Dirk, Al and Maeve Fletcher were set adrift in a small, powerless boat in the sea far below the fiftieth parallel, where the Indian Ocean meets the Tasman Sea. The exact position wasn’t given. Dorsett went on to say that he was returning to his private island.”
“He placed his own daughter in a life-threatening situation?” Sandecker muttered, incredulous. “I find that unthinkable. Are you sure the message was interpreted correctly?”
“There is no mistake,” said Gunn.
“That’s cold-blooded murder,” muttered Sandecker. “That means they were cast off on the edge of the Roaring Forties. Gale-force winds sweep those latitudes most of the year.”
“It gets worse,” said Gunn solemnly. “Dorsett left them drifting helplessly in the path of a typhoon.”
“How long ago?”
“They’ve been adrift over forty-eight hours.”
Sandecker shook his head. “If they survived intact, they’d be incredibly difficult to find.”
“More like impossible when you throw in the fact that neither our Navy nor the Aussies’ have any ships or aircraft available for a search.”
“Do you believe that?”
Gunn shook his head. “Not for a minute.”
“What are their chances of being spotted by a passing ship?” asked Sandecker.
“They’re nowhere near any shipping lanes. Except for the rare vessel transporting supplies to a subcontinent research station, the only other ships are occasional whalers. The sea between Australia and Antarctica is a virtual wasteland. Their odds of being picked up are slim.”
There was something tired, defeated about Rudi Gunn. If they were a football team with Sandecker as coach, Pitt as quarterback and Giordino as an offensive tackle, Gunn would be their man high in the booth, analyzing the plays and sending them down to the field. He was indispensable, always spirited; Sandecker was surprised to see him so depressed.
“I take it you don’t give them much chance for survival.”
“Three people on a small raft adrift, besieged by howling winds and towering seas. Should they miraculously survive the typhoon, then comes the onslaught of thirst and hunger. Dirk and Al have come back from the dead on more than one occasion in the past, but I fear that this time the forces of nature have declared war on them.”
“If I know Dirk,” Sandecker said irrefutably, “he’d spit right in the eye of the storm and stay alive if he has to paddle that raft all the way to San Francisco.” He shoved his hands deep in the pockets of his old peacoat. “Alert any NUMA research vessels within five thousand kilometers and send them into the area.”
“If you’ll forgive me for saying so, Admiral, it’s a case of too little, too late.”
“I’ll not stop there.” Sandecker’s eyes blazed with intent. “I’m going to demand that a massive search be launched, or by God I’ll make the Navy and the Air Force wish they never existed.”
Yaeger tracked down Sandecker at the admiral’s favorite restaurant, a little out-of-the-way ale and steak house below Washington, where he was having a somber dinner with Gunn. When the compact Motorola Iridium wireless receiver in his pocket beeped, Sandecker paused, washed down a bite of filet mignon with a glass of wine and answered the call. “This is Sandecker.”
“Hiram Yaeger, Admiral. Sorry to bother you.”
“No need for apologies, Hiram. I know you wouldn’t contact me outside the office if it wasn’t urgent.”
“Is it convenient for you to come to the data center?”
“Too important to tell me over the phone?”
“Yes, sir. Wireless communication has unwanted ears. Without sounding overdramatic, it is critical that I brief you in private.”
“Rudi Gunn and I will be there in half an hour.” Sandecker slipped the phone back into the pocket of his coat and resumed eating.
