Dirk slipped on his fins, then glanced at his watch. 'See you in ninety minutes,' he said to Summer, then pulled his dive helmet over his head.
'I'll leave the lights on,' Summer replied, shouting over the drone of the compressors. She moved to the rail and sorted a trio of air lines that would tail the underwater operation. Dirk threw her a wave then stepped off the side of the barge, followed by Dahlgren a second behind.
The bellow of the compressors evaporated as Dirk struck the surface and he submerged into the turquoise water. Clearing his ears, he thrust his head down and kicked to the bottom, quickly locating the airlift. Grabbing the pipe, he chased after Dahlgren, who was swimming toward deeper water. They stopped at a pair of small orange flags that poked up from the sandy bottom. Dirk lifted the airlift, standing it on end, then flipped the control lever to the air line. A rush of compressed air burst into the lower end of the pipe, then gurgled up toward the surface, drawing sand and water with it. Dirk swung the base of the airlift back and forth above the seabed, digging a small hole as he cleared away sand around the marker.
Dahlgren watched for a moment, then took up position a few feet away. In his hands, he carried a stainless steel shaft with a cross handle at one end. He began twisting the metal probe into the sand, driving it down nearly two feet until it struck something solid. His experienced hands could tell by the vibration that the probe had struck wood. Yanking the probe out, he moved over another foot and repeated the process. After a few more probes, he began marking the perimeter of the buried object with small orange flags.
The hole created by the airlift in Dirk's hands grew slowly. He had worked his way down to a flat surface that was heavily encrusted. Looking at the outline of marker flags Dahlgren had started laying down, he realized the object was of an immense size. If it was indeed a rudder, they might have to rethink the entire scale of the remaining ship.
On the deck of the barge, Summer checked the compressors once more, then took a seat in a beach chair across the deck but within sight of the air lines. A cool offshore gust blew across the barge, sending a shiver up her spine. She was thankful the morning sun was quickly warming up the deck.
She happily soaked in the surrounding environment, admiring the rugged Hawaiian coast and delicious smells of the nearby flora that wafted from the lush island. Gazing seaward, the rolling Pacific waters seemed to shine with an exotic intensity from its blue depths. Absently noting a black ship steaming in the distance, she took a deep breath of the fresh sea air and leaned back in her chair.
If this is work, she thought amusedly, then they can keep my vacation pay.
-41-
Pitt was already awake and dressed when an early-morning knock sounded on his hotel-room door. Opening it with some trepidation, he was relieved to find a smiling Al Giordino standing in the doorway.
'I found this vagrant panhandling in the lobby,' he said, jerking his thumb over his shoulder. 'I thought you might know what to do with him.'
A tired and disheveled Rudi Gunn peeked behind Giordino's thick frame with a look of relief on his face.
'Well, my long-lost deputy director,' Pitt grinned. 'We thought perhaps you had found yourself a nice babushka and taken up residence in the wilds of Siberia.'
'I was only too happy to depart the wilds of Siberia. However, I would have stayed had I known that Mongolia was twice as uncivilized,' Gunn harangued, entering the room and falling into a chair. 'Nobody told me that there isn't a paved road in the entire country. Drove all night on something I'm not even sure was a road. I feel like I hopped on a pogo stick from New York to L.A.'
Pitt handed him a cup of coffee from an in-room pot. 'You were able to bring our search gear and dive equipment with you?' he asked.
'Yes, I got it all onto a truck that the institute was kind enough to loan me, or sell me, I'm still not sure. It cost me every ruble I had to grease the palms of the Russian border guards to let me into Mongolia. I'm sure they think I'm CIA.'
'Your eyes aren't beady enough,' Giordino muttered.
'I guess I can't complain,' Gunn said, looking at Pitt. 'Al told me about your traipse across the Gobi Desert. Didn't sound like any picnic.'
'No, but a great way to see the countryside,' Pitt smiled.
'This nutcase at Xanadu ... he's still holding the oil survey team?'
'We know Roy is dead. We can only presume the others are there and still alive.'
A ring of the telephone interrupted the conversation. Pitt answered and spoke briefly, then slid the phone toward the center of the room and activated the speakerphone. Hiram Yaeger's easygoing voice boomed from the speaker.
'Greetings from Washington, where the local bureaucracy is beginning to wonder what has become of their favorite gurus of the deep,' he said.
'Simply busy enjoying the delightful underwater treasures of greater Mongolia,' Pitt replied.
'As I suspected. Of course, I'm sure you had a hand in the breaking political news coming from your part of the world.'
The three men in the hotel room looked at each other blankly.
'We've been a little preoccupied,' Pitt said. 'What news?'
'China declared this morning that they are acceding the territorial lands of Inner Mongolia to the country of Mongolia.'
'I noticed a gathering of people in the square down the street who looked like they were headed for a celebration,' Gunn said. 'I thought it might be a local holiday.'
'China is playing it up as a friendly diplomatic gesture to their old neighbor, and has garnered all kinds of accolades from the United Nations and Western government leaders. Underground movements have been afoot for years to seek independence for Inner Mongolia, or reunification with Mongolia proper. It has been a point of embarrassment with the Chinese for years. Privately, analysts are saying it was less about politics and more about economics. Some have speculated that it involved a pipeline deal and trade agreement to provide oil or other resources needed to keep China's economy growing, though no one seems to think Mongolia actually holds much in the way of oil reserves.'
'That's exactly what it is about. I guess you could say Al and I were indeed a part of the negotiations,'
Pitt said, glancing at Giordino with a knowing look.
'I knew you must have had something to do with it,' Yaeger laughed.
'It has a lot more to do with the Avarga Oil Company and Tolgoi Borjin. Al and I saw some of his resources. He's got storage facilities already in place along the border.'
'Pretty remarkable that he got hold of the keys to the castle so quickly,' Giordino said. 'He must have had some pretty good bargaining chips.'
'Or misinformation. Hiram, were you able to track down any of the info that I faxed you?' Pitt asked.
'Max and I pulled an all-nighter, digging up what we could. This guy and his company are quite an enigma. Well funded, but operating in an almost clandestine fashion.'
'A local Russian contact confirmed similar findings,' Giordino said. 'What did you make of his oil holdings?'
'There is no record of the Avarga Oil Company actually exporting any oil from Mongolia. But then, there isn't much to export. They are known to operate only a handful of active wells.'
'So they are not pumping enough volume sufficient to make a dent in China's demand, or anybody else's, for that matter?'
'There is no evidence of it. Funny thing is, we uncovered a number of sizeable contracts with a couple of Western oil field equipment suppliers. With oil prices surging over one hundred fifty dollars a barrel, there has been a mad rush for new exploration and drilling. The oil equipment suppliers have huge backlogs.
Yet Avarga was already at the front of the line. They have apparently been purchasing a massive amount of specialized drilling and pipeline equipment for the last three years, all shipped to Mongolia.'
'We found some of it here in Ulaanbaatar.'
