'Then we'll go in underwater.'
'You can expect underwater sensors.'
'We'll find a way around that problem.'
'I can't agree to this,' Sandecker said quietly. 'Too much is on the line for NUMA. This is a job for Special Operations Forces or a Navy SEAL team.'
'Finding and rescuing Pat O'Connell and her daughter is only part of our plan,' explained Pitt. 'No one is better qualified than Al and I to investigate Destiny Enterprise's immense shipbuilding project. Less than a year ago, we performed a clandestine search under the hull of the former liner United States in a submersible at a shipyard in Hong Kong. In this circumstance, there has to be a method to the madness behind the Wolf family spending billions of dollars to build ships that can't reach the sea.'
'The FBI can't help you on this one,' said Helm. 'It's half a world out of our territory.'
Little nervously folded and unfolded his hands. 'Other than providing information, I'm afraid my agency's hands are tied. The State Department would squelch any involvement by the CIA to intervene.'
Pitt looked at Sandecker and smiled tightly. 'It seems we're elected.'
Sandecker did not smile in return. 'Are you sure there is a desperate urgency to penetrate the Wolfs' operation?'
'I do,' Pitt said heavily. 'I also believe, and I can't tell you why, that there is a far more sinister purpose behind their undertaking. A purpose with horrible consequences.'
THE narrow ravine meandered for a hundred yards before opening onto the waters of the fjord. The western shoreline sloped upward onto a peninsula with the strange name of Exmouth. The eastern coast was split by channels gouged by receding glaciers. The bright lights of the Wolf shipyard and those of the four floating cities reflected across the water on the north end of the fjord.
Giordino stopped and gestured for Pitt to stay in the shadows of a large rock. Two patrol boats running side by side on opposite sides of the channel moved across the black water, sweeping the surface and shore with searchlights. Giordino studied the patrol craft through his spectral imaging sensors, which turned darkness into a dusky daylight.
'You're the powerboat expert,' said Pitt. 'Can you identify them?'
'Thirty-eight-foot Dvichak Industries boat,' Giordino replied easily. 'Usually built as an oil spill response boat, but in this case they've loaded them with weapons. A good, tough, reliable boat. Not fast, about eighteen knots max, but the three-hundred-horsepower engine gives them enough torque to push and tow large barges. Serving as armed patrol boats is a new practice.'
'Can you make out the type of guns?'
'Twin automatics, big millimeter, fore and aft,' answered Giordino. 'That's all I can recognize.'
'Speed?'
'They seem to be loafing along at four knots, taking their time to look for intruders.'
'Slow enough for our Torpedo 2000s to keep pace,' said Pitt.
'What evil is swirling in your mind?'
'We wait underwater until they turn and begin sweeping back toward the shipyard,' answered Pitt. 'Then, when the boat passes over, we follow astern of its wake. The prop wash will screen our presence from their underwater security sensors.'
'Sounds like a winner.'
While the patrol boats continued their sweep to the south, Pitt and Giordino checked their equipment for a final time before slipping on dry hoods over their heads and gauntlet-style quarter-inch neoprene gloves onto their hands. Next they pulled their swim fins over the attached boots of their dry suits. They wore full face masks over their hoods, with Aquacom underwater communicators. Lastly, they each clipped a thin umbilical line to their weight belts. This line ran from one man to the other to keep them from becoming separated and losing one another in the pitch-black water.
After purging the air from his dry suit, Giordino gave a thumbs-up sign to indicate that he was ready. Pitt returned a brief wave and entered the water. The bottom near the shore was rocky and slippery with slimy growth. Loaded down by their equipment, they had to walk carefully to maintain their balance until the water rose to their waists and they could launch themselves forward and swim just beneath the surface. The bottom quickly fell away and Pitt descended to ten feet, where he paused and vented the last of the air out of his suit. He was breathing shallowly, and his descent gathered momentum until the water pressure compressed the suit and he added a small amount of air to maintain near-neutral buoyancy so he could hover motionlessly.
After he had moved fifty yards from shore, Pitt surfaced and looked south. The patrol boats had reached the end of their circuit and were turning to come back. 'Our escort is heading our way,' he spoke through the communicator. 'I hope you're right about them doing four knots. That's about as fast as our propulsion vehicles can pull us.'
Giordino's head slipped from the black water beside him. 'It will be close, but I think we can hang with them. Let's hope they have no infrared underwater cameras.'
'The fjord is at least half a mile wide- too large an area to be effectively covered by cameras.' Pitt swung around and gazed at the lights to the north. 'With three shifts working twenty-four hours, the Wolfs must be paying a king's treasury in wages.'
'What do you bet they don't tolerate employee unions?'
'What do you figure the patrol boat's draft at?'
'Less than two feet, but it's the prop we worry about. It's probably almost three feet in diameter.'
They watched closely as the patrol boat on their side of the fjord approached. Estimating its course, they swam out another ten yards and then curled over and swam down to twelve feet, before the searchlight could catch their heads protruding above the surface. Underwater, the boat's engine and thrashing propeller sounded four times louder than they did in the air. They rolled onto their backs and waited. They stared at the fjord's surface from below, watching the searchlight beams come closer at they danced over the icy water.
And then the boat's shadowed hull swept overhead, propelled by the big screw that churned past in a cyclone of froth and frenzied bubbles. Almost instantly, Pitt and Giordino pressed the magnetic speed switches against their stops, gripped the handles, and merged into the seething wake of the patrol boat.
At four knots, the prop wash was not as extreme as it would have been if the boat had been speeding along at its maximum of eighteen. They easily maintained a stabilized course behind the patrol boat without being pitched and buffeted. Their most pressing dilemma was that it was almost impossible to see where they were going. Fortunately, a bright stern light was visible to Pitt through the agitated water, so he kept his eyes locked on it, his hands gripped around the handles of the propulsion vehicle as he manhandled its torpedo-rounded bow so that it maintained a steady course through the turbulent water.
They trailed the boat for the next two miles, six feet below the cold surface water of the fjord, barely keeping pace, pushing their propulsion vehicles to their limits. They were draining the batteries at a rapid rate. Pitt could only hope they would have enough juice for the return trip to the ravine and the Skycar. His only consolation was that he and Giordino would not be easily visible so close to the surface under the brilliant lights from the shipyard. Though they were shielded by the wake and with their black dry suits blending into the freezing depths, a sharp-eyed crewman just might catch a glint of something suspicious. But no assault came. Pitt had correctly assumed that the crew had their eyes focused on the sweep of the searchlights forward.
'Can you hear me okay?' asked Pitt through the communicator inside his full face mask.
'Every syllable,' replied Giordino.
'My monitor shows we've covered almost two miles. The boat should be ready to begin a turn for its next pass down the fjord. The second we feel the wake cut either left or right, we head down to a safe depth for a few minutes before surfacing to get sight bearings.'
'I'll tag along,' said Giordino, as calmly as if he were waiting for a bus to come around the corner.
In less than three minutes, the patrol boat began a wide 180-degree turn. Sensing the wake begin to curve, Pitt and Giordino dove to twenty feet and hung in the water until the searchlight faded into the distance and could no longer be seen from underwater. Slowly, cautiously, they kicked their fins and ascended, not knowing exactly where they would surface in the shipyard.
Both heads inched above the water surface, both pair of eyes scanning the surrounding water. They found themselves drifting only seventy-five yards from the first of four enormous docks that extended over a mile into the
