Trojan Odyssey

The end, he came to realize, was rapidly crystallizing into dead certainty.

14

The top arc of the sun was falling below the horizon and dusk was only minutes away. The winds had fallen from a violent to a brisk breeze from the east, caressing and darkening the sea. The tension that had been building up among the crew when they learned that all communication had been lost with Pisces seemed to spill over Sea Sprite like a black cloud. The fear that harm had come to Dirk and Summer nagged at their minds.

Only one seriously damaged rigid-hull inflatable boat had survived the hurricane. The other three usually carried by Sea Sprite had been swept away by massive seas. During the high-speed run back to the original anchorage site off Navidad Bank, the boat was repaired just enough to carry three divers. Pitt, Giordino and Cristiano Lelasi, a master diver and equipment engineer from Italy who was aboard Sprite testing a new robotic vehicle, would conduct the search-and-rescue operation.

The three men were gathered in the ship's conference room along with most of the crew and concerned scientists. They listened intently as Barnum described the underwater geology to Pitt and Giordino. He paused to glance at a big twenty-four-hour clock on one bulkhead. 'We should be on site in another hour.'

'Since there has been no radio contact,' said Giordino, 'we must proceed under the belief that Pisces was damaged in the hurricane. And if Dirk's theory is correct, there is every reason to believe gigantic waves may have carried the habitat away from her last known position.'

Pitt took over. 'When we arrive at the habitat's position and it's gone, we'll launch our search using the grids programmed into our GPS computers. We'll fan out, with me in the middle, Al on my right and Cristiano to my left, and comb the bank toward the east.'

'Why east?' asked Lelasi.

'The direction the storm was moving when it struck Navidad Bank,' answered Pitt.

'I'll bring Sprite as close as I dare to the reef,' advised Barnum. 'I won't anchor, so I can move swiftly if the need arises. As soon as you spot the habitat and assess the position, report her condition.'

'Are there any questions?' Pitt asked Lelasi.

The burly Italian shook his head.

Everyone looked at Pitt with deep compassion in their eyes and hearts. This was not a search for strangers. Dirk and Summer had been their shipmates for the past two months and were regarded as much more than simply passing acquaintances or temporary friends. They were all allied in a quest to study and protect the sea. None dared entertain the thought that the brother and sister might have been lost.

'Then let's get started,' said Pitt, adding, 'God bless you all for your support.'

Pitt wanted one thing and one thing only, to find his son and daughter alive and unharmed. Though he had not known they existed the first twenty-two years of their lives, he had nourished a love that had mushroomed in the short time since they had shown up on his doorstep. His only regret, and a deep one, was that he was not present during their childhood. He was also deeply saddened he had not known their mother had been alive those many years.

The only other person in the world who had come to love the children as much as Pitt was Giordino. He was like a loving uncle to them, a sounding board and a hardy plank for them to lean on when their father proved stubborn or overly protective.

The dive team filed out and made their way to the boarding ladder ramp that hung over the hull into the water. A crewman had lowered the battered inflatable boat into the water and set the twin outboard motors popping away at idle.

Pitt and Giordino pulled on full wet suits this time, with reinforced padding at the knees, elbows and shoulders for protection against the sharp coral. They also decided to use air tanks instead of the re-breathing apparatus. Their full face masks were settled over their heads and a check made of their communication phones. Then, carrying their fins in one hand, they descended the ramp and climbed into the boat with their gear. As they boarded, the crewman jumped out and held the boat firmly against the ramp. Pitt stood at the console, took the wheel and eased the twin throttles forward as soon as the crewman cast off the lines.

Pitt had programmed Pisces's last known coordinates into his Global Positioning System instrument and set a direct course for the site less than a quarter of a mile away. Anxious to get there and almost afraid of what he might find, Pitt leaned on the throttles, sending the little boat whipping over the waves at nearly forty knots. When the GPS numbers indicated he was getting close, he slowed and approached their target with the motors idling.

'We should be on it,' he announced.

Almost before the words were out of his mouth, Lelasi slipped over the side with a small splash and disappeared. In three minutes he was back on the surface. Gripping a hand rope on the gunwale, he hoisted himself into the boat, air tanks and all, with one hand and rolled onto the bottom.

Giordino surveyed the feat with amused interest. 'I wonder if I can still do that.'

'I know I can't,' said Pitt. Then he knelt beside Lelasi, who shook his head and spoke through his headphone.

'Sorry, signore,' he spoke in accented Italian. 'The habitat is gone. I saw nothing but a few scattered tanks and some small debris.'

'No way of telling their exact position,' said Giordino soberly. 'Giant waves could have carried them more than a mile.'

'Then we follow,' Cristiano said hopefully. 'You were right, Signor Pitt. The coral appears crushed and broken in a trail toward the east.'

'To save time, we'll search from the surface. Stick your heads over the sides. Al, you take the starboard. Cristiano, the port. Guide me by voice and point toward the trail of broken coral. I'll steer by your directions.'

Hanging over the rounded hull of the inflatable, Giordino and Lelasi peered through their face masks into the water and traced the path of the storm-swept habitat. Pitt steered as if in a trance. Subconsciously, he aimed the bow toward the course pointed out by Giordino and Lelasi. Consciously, his mind wandered over the past two years since his son and daughter had entered his adventurous but sometimes lonely existence. He recalled the moment he met their mother in the venerable old Ala Moana Hotel on Waikiki Beach. He had been seated in the cocktail lounge in conversation with Admiral Sandecker's daughter when she appeared like a vision, her long flaming red hair cascading down her back. Her perfect body was encased in a tight, green silk Chinese-style dress split up the legs on the sides. The contrast was breathtaking. A solid bachelor who never believed in love at first sight, he knew in an instant that he was ready to die for love. Sadly, he thought she had drowned when her father's underwater dwelling off the north shore of Hawaii collapsed in an earthquake. She swam to the surface with him, but then, before he could stop her, she returned beneath the sea in an attempt to rescue her father.

He never saw her again.

'The smashed coral ends fifty feet dead ahead!' Giordino yelled, lifting his head from the water.

'Have you spotted the habitat?' Pitt demanded.

'There's no sign of it.'

Pitt refused to believe him. 'It couldn't have disappeared. It has to be there.'

In another minute it was Lelasi's turn to shout. 'I have it! I have it!'

'I see it too,' said Giordino. 'It's fallen into a narrow canyon. Looks like it's lying at a depth of about a hundred and ten feet.'

Pitt turned off the ignition and shut the motors down. He nodded at Lelasi. 'Throw out a buoy to mark the position, and mind the boat. Al and I are going down.'

Already geared up, all he needed to do was slip on his fins. He pulled them over his boots and went over the side without wasting another moment. He raised his feet and eased downward through a cloud of bubbles that