Giordino was short, the top of his head came just up to Pitt's shoulder line. But his body was braced by massive biceps and a chest that preceded the rest of him like a wrecking ball, a feature that enhanced his determined walk and gave the impression that if he didn't come to a halt he would simply walk through whatever fence or wall happened to be in his path.
"Well, what do you make of it?" he asked Pitt.
"The British turned out a nice piece of work," Pitt replied admiringly as he exited the hatch.
Giordino studied the crushed spheres and shook his head. "They were lucky. Another five minutes and we'd have found corpses."
"How are they doing?"
"A speedy recovery," answered Giordino. "They're in the galley devouring our food stores and demanding to be returned to their ship on the surface."
"Anyone brief them yet?" asked Pitt.
"As you ordered, they've been confined to the crew's quarters, and anyone who comes within spitting distance acts like a deaf mute. A performance that's driven our guests up the walls. They'd give their left kidney to know who we are, where we came from, and how we built a livable facility this deep in the ocean."
Pitt gazed again at Old Gert and then motioned a hand around the chamber. "Years of secrecy flushed down the drain," he muttered, suddenly angry.
"Not your fault."
"Better I left them to die out there than compromise our project."
"Who you kidding?" Giordino laughed. "I've seen you pick up injured dogs in the street and drive them to a vet. You even paid the bill though it wasn't you who ran over them. You're a big softy, my friend.
Secret operation be damned. You'd have saved those people if they'd carried rabies, leprosy, and the black plague."
"I'm that obvious?"
Giordino's teasing look softened. "I'm the bully who gave you a black eye in kindergarten, remember, and you bloodied my nose with a baseball in return. I know you better than your own mother. You may be a nasty bastard on the outside, but underneath you're an easy touch."
Pitt looked down at Giordino. "You know, of course, that playing good samaritan has put us in a sea of trouble with Admiral Sandecker and the Defense Department."
"That goes without saying. And speaking of the devil, Communications just received a coded message.
The admiral is on his way from Washington. His plane is due in two hours. Hardly what you'd call advance notice. I've ordered a sub readied to head for the surface and pick him up."
"He must be psychic," mused Pitt.
"I'm betting that weird disturbance is behind his surprise visit."
Pitt nodded and smiled. "Then we have nothing to lose by raising the curtain for our guests."
"Nothing," Giordino agreed. "Once the admiral gets the story, he'll order them kept here under guard until we wrap up the project anyway."
Pitt began walking toward a circular doorway with Giordino at his side. Sixty years in the past, the domed chamber might have been an architect's vision of a futuristic aircraft hangar, but this structure covered no aircraft from rain, snow, or summer sun. Its carbon and ceramic reinforced plastic walls housed deep-water craft 5,400 meters beneath the sea. Besides Old Gert, the leveled floor held an immense tractorlike vehicle with an upper body housing shaped similar to a cigar. Two smaller submersibles sat side-by-side, resembling stubby nuclear submarines whose bows and sterns had been reattached after their center sections were removed. Several men and one woman were busily servicing the vehicles.
Pitt led the way through a narrow circular tunnel that looked like an ordinary drain pipe and passed through two compartments with domed ceilings. There were no right angles or sharp corners anywhere.
All interior surfaces were rounded to structurally resist the massive outside water pressure.
They entered a confined and spartan dining compartment. The one long table and its surrounding chairs were formed from aluminum, and the galley wasn't much larger than the kitchen on an overnight passenger train. Two NUMA crewmen stood on each side of the doorway keeping a tight eye on their unwelcome guests.
Plunkett, Salazar, and Stacy were huddled at the opposite end of the table in muffled conversation when Pitt and Giordino entered. Their voices stopped abruptly, and they looked up suspiciously at the two strangers.
So he could talk with them at their own level, Pitt planted himself solidly in a nearby chair and glanced swiftly from face to face as if he was an inspector of police examining a lineup.
Then he said politely, "How do you do. My name is Dirk Pitt. I head up the project you've stumbled upon."
"Thank God!" Plunkett boomed. "At last, somebody who can speak."