to go, Pitt and Giordino were crazily windmilling beneath the craft. Giordino felt as if his arms were coming out of their shoulder sockets. Pitt, suffering no pain, could do little but clutch Giordino in a death grip and shout at the crewman to speed up the lift.
Pitt could see the strain of the agony on Giordino's face. For perhaps two minutes that were the longest minutes he had ever experienced, he was almost tempted to let go and fall, but one look at the water now nearly five hundred feet below his dangling feet quickly changed his mind.
Then he was looking into the dazed eyes of the crewman only five feet away. The crewman turned and shouted to the pilot, who deftly banked the copter just enough for Pitt and Giordino to fall inside the cargo section. The side door was rapidly slammed closed and locked.
The still-shocked crewman stared at the two men sprawled on the floor. 'You hombres are loco,' he grunted with a heavy Spanish accent. 'Lift only for mail sacks weighing one hundred pounds.'
'He speaks English,' Giordino observed.
'Not very well,' added Pitt. 'Remind me to write a letter of recommendation to the company who manufactured the winch.' He came to his feet and hurried into the cockpit, where he stared out a side window until he spotted the patrol boat. It had cut the chase and was circling back to the island.
'What in hell was that all about?' demanded the pilot. He was genuinely angry. 'Those clowns were actually shooting at us.'
'We're lucky they're bad shots.'
'I didn't count on trouble when I took this charter,' said the pilot, still keeping a wary eye on the boat. 'Who are you guys and why was that patrol boat after you?'
'Like your charter says,' Pitt answered. 'My friend and I are with the National Underwater and Marine Agency. My name is Dirk Pitt.'
The pilot removed one hand from the controls and extended it over his shoulder. 'Marvin Huey.'
'You're American. Montana, judging from your accent.'
'Close. I grew up on a ranch in Wyoming. After twenty years flying these things in the Air Force, and after my wife left me for an oilman, I retired down here and started a small charter company.'
Pitt shook the hand and gave the pilot a cursory look. He looked short behind the controls, with thinning red hair leaving a widow's peak. He was wearing faded Levi's with a flowered shirt and cowboy boots. The eyes were pale blue and looked like they had seen too much. He looked to be slightly on the downside of fifty.
Huey looked up at Pitt curiously. 'You haven't told me why the big getaway.'
'We saw something we shouldn't,' Pitt answered, without elaborating.
'What's to see in an abandoned lighthouse?'
'It isn't what it seems.'
Huey wasn't buying, but he didn't pursue the issue. 'We'll be on the ground at our field in Managua in another twenty-five minutes.'
'The sooner the better.' Pitt motioned to the empty copilot's seat. 'Do you mind?'
Huey gave a slight nod. 'Not at all.'
'I don't suppose you could make a pass over the Odyssey facility on the island?'
Huey turned fractionally and shot Pitt a look usually reserved for the insane. 'You're joking. That place is guarded tighter than Area 51 at Groom Lake, Nevada. I couldn't fly within five miles without a security aircraft chasing me away.'
'What goes on down there?'
'Nobody knows. The installation is so secret, the Nicaraguans deny it exists. What began as a small facility underwent vast expansion in the past five years. The security measures go beyond extreme. Huge warehouses, and what some people think are assembly areas, were constructed. Rumor has it there is a housing section accommodating three thousand people. The native Nicaraguans used to grow coffee and tobacco on the islands. Alta Garcia and Moyogalpa, the main towns, were torn down and burned after the Nicaraguan government forced the people off their land and relocated them in the mountains to the east.'
'The government must have a heavy investment in the facility.'
'I don't know about that, but they've been extremely cooperative in allowing Odyssey to operate without interference.'
'No one has ever sneaked through Odyssey security?' asked Pitt.
Huey smiled tautly. 'Nobody who lived.'
'It's that tough to penetrate?'
'The entire island's beaches are patrolled by vehicles equipped with high-tech surveillance gear. Patrol boats circle the island, assisted by helicopters. Remote sensors detect movement along every path and road leading to the complex. It's said Odyssey engineers perfected sensory equipment with the ability to smell a human approaching the buildings, and distinguish them from animals.'
'There must be satellite photos?' Pitt persisted.
'You can buy them from the Russians, but they won't tell you what goes on inside the maze of buildings.'
'There must be rumors.'
'Sure, lots of them. The only one that has any substance is that it's a research and development installation. What they research is anybody's guess.'
'It must have a name.'
'Only what the locals call it.'
'Which is?' Pitt had to prompt.
'In English,' Huey finally replied, 'house of the invisible ones.'
'Any reason?'
'They say it's because everybody who goes in is never seen again.'
'The local officials never investigate?' asked Pitt.
Huey shook his head. 'Nicaraguan bureaucrats keep a hands-off policy. The word is that Odyssey management has bought off every politician, judge and police chief in the country.'
'How about the Red Chinese? Are they involved?'
'They're everywhere in Central America these days. They contracted with Odyssey about three years ago to build a short canal through Lake Nicaragua's western shoreline at Pena Blanca, so deep-water cargo ships can enter and exit.'
'The nation's economy should have profited.'
'Not really. Most all of the ships that use the canal are from a Chinese cargo fleet.'
'COSCO?'
Huey nodded. 'Yeah, that's the one. They always dock at the Odyssey facility.'
Pitt spent the rest of the trip in silence, his mind sifting through the myriad of contradictions and unknowns of Odyssey, its strange founder and even stranger operations. As soon as Huey set the helicopter down at his company hangar two miles outside Managua, Pitt walked off by himself and called Admiral Sandecker.
As was his style, Sandecker minced no words. 'Haven't you taken off for Washington yet?'
'No,' Pitt replied smartly. 'And we're not going to.'
Sandecker knew something was on Pitt's mind and he went into neutral. 'I assume you have a good reason.'
'Are you aware of a huge secret facility built and owned by Odyssey on an island in Lake Nicaragua that sits directly over the tunnels?'
'The closest I can come is a report I read on Odyssey expanding a canal from the ocean into the lake to allow entry for cargo ships.' Sandecker paused. 'Come to think of it, the report was vague on the dock facilities the Nicaraguans were building at the port city of Granada a few miles east of Managua.'
'The report was vague because the dock facilities were built at Odyssey's complex on the island of Ometepe for their private use only.'
'What have you got in mind?' asked Sandecker, as if already reading Pitt's mind.
'I propose Al and I go into the complex and investigate their operation.'
Sandecker hesitated. 'After your narrow escape from the tunnels, you're pushing your luck.'
'We're getting good at breaking and entering.'
