'You found another bottle of snakebite medicine in your bunk.'
'How'd you know?' Sam Quayle replied, laughing.
'Lasky with you?'
'Below, rewiring the ballast controls to operate in shallow water.
'You took a chance, riding inside all the way from Boston.'
'Maybe, but we saved time by activating the electronic systems during the flight.'
'How soon before you're ready to dive?'
'Give us another hour.'
Chase moved beside Giordino. 'Just what is that mechanical perversion?' he asked.
'If you had any idea what it cost,' Giordino answered with an imperturbable smile, 'you wouldn't call it nasty names.'
Three hours later-the Doodlebug, its top hatches rippling the water ten feet beneath the surface, crawled slowly across the riverbed. The suspense inside was hard to bear as the hull skirted dangerously close to the gnarled pieces of the bridge.
Pitt kept a close eye on the video monitors while Bill Lasky maneuvered the craft against the current. Behind them, Quayle peered at a systems panel, focusing his attention on the detection readouts.
'Any contact?' Pitt asked for the fourth time.
'Negative,' answered Quayle. 'I've widened the beam to cover a twenty-meter path at a depth of one hundred meters into the geology, but all I read is bedrock.'
'We've worked too far upriver,' Pitt said, turning to Lasky. 'Bring it around for another pass.'
'Approaching from a new angle,' acknowledged Lasky, his hands busy with the knobs and switches of the control console.
Five more times the Doodlebug threaded its way through the sunken debris. Twice they heard wreckage scraping along the hull. Pitt was all too aware that if the thin skin was penetrated, he would be blamed for the loss of the six-hundred-million dollar vessel.
Quayle seemed immune to the peril. He was infuriated that his instrument remained mute. He was particularly angry at himself for thinking the fault was his.
'Must be a malfunction,' he muttered. 'I should have had a target by now.'
'Can you isolate the problem?' Pitt asked.
'No, dammit!' Quayle abruptly snapped. 'All systems are functioning normally. I must have miscalculated when I reprogrammed the computers.'
The expectations of a quick discovery began to dim. Frustration was worsened by false hopes and anticipation. Then, as they turned around for another run through the search grid, the never current surged against the exposed starboard area of the Doodlebug and swept its keel into a mud bank Lasky struggled with the controls for nearly an hour before the vessel worked free.
Pitt was giving the coordinates for a new course when Giordino's voice came over the communications speaker. 'De Soto to Doodlebug. Do you read?'
'Speak,' said Pitt tersely.
'You guys have been pretty quiet.'
'Nothing to report,' Pitt answered.
'You better close up shop. A heavy storm front is moving in. Chase would like to secure our electronic marvel before the wind strikes.'
Pitt hated to give up, but it was senseless to continue. Time had run out. Even if they found the train in the next few hours, it was doubtful if the salvage crew could pinpoint and excavate the coach that carried Essex and the treaty before the President's address to Parliament.
'Okay,' said Pitt. 'Make ready to receive us. We're folding the act.
Giordino stood on the bridge and nodded at the dark clouds massing over the ship. 'This project has had a curse on it from the beginning,' he mumbled gloomily. 'As if we don't have enough problems, now it's the weather.'
'Somebody up there plain doesn't like us,' said Chase, pointing to the sky.
'You blaming God, you heathen?' Giordino joked goodnaturedly.
'No,' answered Chase looking solemn. 'The ghost.'
Pitt turned. 'Ghost?'
'An unmentionable subject around here,' said Chase. 'Nobody likes to admit they've seen it.'
'Speak for yourself.' Giordino cracked a smile. 'I've only heard the thing.'
'Its light was brighter than hell when it swung up the old grade to the bridge the other night. The beam lit up half the east shoreline. I don't see how you missed it.'
'Wait a minute,' Pitt broke in. 'are you talking about the phantom train?'
Giordino stared at him. 'You know?'
'Doesn't everyone?' Pitt asked in mock seriousness.'
'Tis said the specter of the doomed train is still trying to cross the Deauville-Hudson bridge to the other side.'
'You don't believe that?' Chase asked cautiously.
'I believe there is something up on the old track bed that goes chug in the night. In fact, it damn near ran over me.'
'When?'
'A couple of months ago when I came here to survey the site.'
Giordino shook his head. 'At least we won't go to the loony bin alone.'
'How often has the ghost called on you?'
Giordino looked at Chase for support. 'Two, no, three times.'
'You say some nights you heard sounds but saw no lights?'
'The first two intrusions came with steam whistles and the roar of a locomotive,' explained Chase. 'The third time we got the full treatment. The clamor was accompanied by a blinding light.'
'I saw the light too,' Pitt said slowly. 'What were your weather conditions?'
Chase thought a moment. 'As I recall, it was clear and blacker than pitch when the light showed.'
'That's right,' added Giordino. 'The noise came alone only on nights the moon was bright.'
'Then we've got a pattern,' said Pitt. 'There was no moon during my sighting.'
'All this talk about ghosts isn't putting us any closer to finding the real train,' said Giordino blandly. 'I suggest we get back to reality and figure a way to get under the bridge wreckage in the next'-he hesitated and consulted his watch- 'seventy-four hours.'
'I have another suggestion,' said Pitt.
'Which is?'
'To hell with it.'
Giordino looked at him, ready to smile if Pitt was joking. But he was not.
'What are you going to tell the President?'
A strange, distant look came over Pitt's face. 'The President?' he repeated vaguely. 'I'm going to tell him we've been fishing in the air, wasting an enormous amount of time and money searching for an illusion.'
'What are you getting at?'
'The Manhattan Limited,' Pitt replied. 'It doesn't lie on the bottom of the Hudson River. It never has.'
The setting sun was suddenly snuffed out by the clouds. The sky went dark and menacing. Pitt and Giordino stood on the old track bed, listening to the deep rumbling of the storm as it drew closer. And then lightning crackled and the thunder echoed and the rain came.
The wind swept through the trees with a demonic whine. The humid air was oppressive and charged with electricity. Soon the light was gone and there was no color, only black pierced by brief streaks of white. Raindrops, hurled in horizontal sheets by wind gusts, struck their faces with the stinging power of sand.
Pitt tightened the collar of his raincoat, hunched his shoulders against the tempest and stared into the night.
'How can you be sure it will appear?' Giordino shouted over the gale.
'Conditions are the same as the night the train vanished,' Pitt shouted back. 'I'm banking on the ghost having
