“Hang them!” Knox cried, startling everyone. His eyes blinked open suddenly, gazing through the people in the cabin at some unknown image beyond the bulkhead. “Hang the murdering bastards!”
They stared at him in astonishment. Salazar stood shaken. Stacy and Deerfield rushed toward the bed to calm Knox as he feebly tried to lift himself to an upright position.
“Hang the bastards!” Knox repeated with a vengeance. It was as though he was uttering a curse. “They’ll murder again. Hang them!”
But before Deerfield could inject him with a sedative, Knox stiffened, his eyes glistened for an instant, and then a misty film coated them and he fell back, gave a great heaving sigh, and went limp.
Deerfield swiftly applied cardiopulmonary resuscitation, fearful that Knox was too devastated by acute radiation sickness to bring back. He continued until he was panting from fatigue and sweating streams in the humid atmosphere. Finally he acknowledged sadly that he had done everything within his limited power. No man or miracle could bring Jimmy Knox back.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured between breaths.
As if under a hypnotic spell, Stacy and Salazar slowly walked from the cabin. Salazar remained quiet while Stacy began to softly cry. After a few moments, she wiped away the tears with her hand and straightened.
“He saw something,” she murmured.
Salazar looked at her. “Saw what?”
“He knew, in some incredible way he knew.” She turned and looked through the open doorway to the silent figure on the bunk. “Just before the end, Jimmy could see who was responsible for the horrible mass death and destruction.
11
YOU COULD TELL from his body, slim almost to the state of emaciation, that he was a fitness and nutrition fanatic. He was short, chin and chest thrust out like a banty rooster, and nattily dressed in a light blue golf shirt with matching pants and a Panama straw hat pulled tight over closely cropped red hair to keep it from blowing away. He had an exactingly trimmed red Vandyke beard that came to a point so sharp you’d swear he could stab flesh with it if he lunged suddenly.
He stormed up the gangway of the junk, a huge cigar poked in his mouth throwing sparks from the breeze, as regally as if he was holding court. If style awards were handed out for dramatic entrances, Admiral James Sandecker, Director of the National Underwater and Marine Agency, would have won hands down.
His face looked strained from the grievous news he’d received from Giordino while in flight. As soon as his feet hit Shanghai Shelly’s deck, he raised his hand at the pilot of the flying boat, who gave an acknowledging wave. The aircraft turned into the wind and bounced forward over the crests of the waves until it was airborne and soaring in a graceful bank southeast toward the Hawaiian Islands.
Giordino and Murphy stepped forward. Sandecker focused his gaze on the junk’s owner. ,
“Hello, Owen. I never expected to meet you out here.”
Murphy smiled and shook hands. “Likewise, Jim. Welcome aboard. It’s good to see you.” He paused and pointed to the grimfaced NUMA team who were crowded around them on the open deck. “Now maybe someone will tell me what that big light and thunder show was on the horizon yesterday, and why all these people are popping up in the middle of the ocean.”
Sandecker did not reply directly. He looked about the deck and up at the draped sails. “What have you got yourself here’?”
“Had it custom built in Shanghai. My crew and I were sailing her to Honolulu and then on to San Diego, where I plan to dock her.”
“You know each other?” Giordino asked finally.
Sandecker nodded. “This old pirate and I went to Annapolis together. Only Owen was smarter. He resigned from the Navy and launched an electronics company. Now he’s got more money than the U.S. Treasury.”
Murphy smiled. “Don’t I wish.”
Sandecker suddenly turned serious. “What news of the base since you briefed me over the radio?” he asked Giordino.
“We’re afraid it’s gone,” Giordino replied quietly. “Underwater phone communications from our remaining sub have gone unanswered. Keith Harris thinks the major shock wave must have struck shortly after we evacuated. As I reported, there wasn’t enough space to evacuate everybody in two subs. Pitt and a British marine scientist volunteered to stay below.”
“What’s being done to save them?” Sandecker demanded.
Giordino looked visibly cast down, as though all emotion had been drained away. “We’ve run out of options.”
Sandecker went cold in the face. “You fell down on the job, mister. You led me to believe you were returning in the backup submersible.”
“That was before Lowden surfaced with shorted batteries!” Giordino snapped back resentfully. “With the first sub sunk and the second inoperable, we were stonewalled.”
Sandecker’s expression softened, the coldness was gone, his eyes saddened. He realized Giordino had been dogged by ill luck. To even suggest the little Italian had not tried his best was wrong, and he regretted it. But he was shaken by Pitt’s apparent loss too.
To him, Pitt was the son he never had. He’d have ordered out an entire army of specially trained men and secret equipment the American public had no idea existed if fate granted him another thirty-six hours. Admiral Sandecker had that kind of power in the nation’s capital. He didn’t arrive where he was because he’d answered a help wanted ad in the Washington Post.
He said, “Any chance the batteries can be repaired?”
Giordino nodded over the side at the submersible rolling in the swells twenty meters away, tethered on a stern line to Shanghai Shelly. “Lowden is working like a madman trying for a quick fix, but he’s not optimistic.”
“If anyone is to blame, it’s me,” Murphy said solemnly.
“Pitt could still be alive,” said Giordino, ignoring Murphy. “He’s not a man who dies easily.”
“Yes.” Sandecker paused, then went on almost absently. “He’s proven that many times in the past.”
Giordino stared at the admiral, a spark glowing in his eyes. “If we can get another submersible out here…”
“The Deep Quest can dive to ten thousand meters,” Sandecker said, coming back on keel. “She’s sitting on our dock in Los Angeles Harbor. I can have her loaded aboard an Air Force C-Five and on her way here by sundown.”
“I didn’t know a C-Five could land on water,” Murphy interrupted.
“They can’t,” Sandecker said definitely. “The Deep Quest, all twelve metric tons of her, will be air-dropped out the cargo doors.” He glanced at his watch. “I’d guess about eight hours from now.”
“You’re going to drop a twelve-ton submersible out of an airplane by parachute?”
“Why the hell not? It’d take a week to get here by boat.”
Giordino stared at the deck thoughtfully. “We could eliminate a mass of problems if we worked off a support ship with launch and retrieval capacity.”
“The Sounder is the closest ocean survey ship to our area that fits the picture. She’s sonar-mapping the seafloor south of the Aleutians. I’ll order her captain to cut his mission and head toward our position as fast as he can push her.”
“How can I be of help?” asked Murphy. “After sinking your sub, the least I can do is offer the services of my ship and crew.”
Giordino smiled inwardly as Sandecker lifted his arms and gripped Murphy’s shoulders. Laying on the hands, Pitt used to call it. Sandecker didn’t just ask an unsuspecting subject for a favor, he made his victims feel as if they were being baptized.
“Owen,” the admiral said in his most reverent tone, “NUMA will be in your debt if we can use your junk as a fleet command ship.”
Owen Murphy was no slouch when it came to recognizing a con job. “What fleet?” he asked with feigned
