Dragon (Dirk Pitt 10)

"Not good enough," Pitt murmured. "We came up a dollar long and a penny short."

"Mind telling me how you planned to do it without the convenience of a pressure lock to escape the vehicle and a personnel transfer capsule to carry us to the surface?"

"My original idea was to swim home."

Plunkett raised an eyebrow. "I hope you didn't expect us to hold our breath."

No.

"Good," Plunkett said, satisfied. "Speaking for myself, I'd have expired before ascending thirty meters." He hesitated and stared at Pitt curiously. "Swim, you can't be serious?"

"A ridiculous hope bred of desperation," Pitt replied philosophically. "I know better than to believe our bodies could survive the onslaught of extreme pressure and decompression."

"You say that was your original idea. Do you have another-- like trying to float this monster off the bottom?"

"You're getting warm."

"Lifting a fifteen-ton vehicle can only be accomplished in a vivid imagination."

"Actually, it hinges on Al Giordino," Pitt answered with forbearance. "If he's read my mind, he'll meet us in a submersible equipped with--"

"But he let you down," said Plunkett, sweeping an arm over the empty seascape.

"There has to be a damn good reason for it."

"You know and I know, Mr. Pitt, no one will come. Not within hours, days, or ever. You gambled on a miracle and lost. If they do come to search, it'll be over the wreckage of your mining community, not here."

Pitt did not reply but gazed into the water. The lights of the DSMV had drawn a school of hatchetfish.

Silver with deep bodies and flattened on the sides, slender tails wavered in the water as rows of light organs flashed along their lower stomachs. The eyes were disproportionately large and protruded from tubes that rose upward. He watched as they swirled gracefully in lazy spirals around the great nose of Big John.

Slowly he bent forward as if listening, then sank back again. "Thought I heard something."

"A mystery we can still hear over that blaring music," Plunkett grunted. "My eardrums have ceased to function."

"Remind me to send you a condolence card at a later date," said Pitt. "Or would you rather we give up, flood the cabin, and end it?"

He froze into immobility, eyes focused on the hatchetfish. A great shadow crept over them, and as one they darted into the blackness and va

nished.

"Something wrong?" asked Plunkett.

"We have company," Pitt said with an I-told-you-so grin. He twisted in his seat, tilted his head, and looked through the upper viewing window.

One of the NUMA Soggy Acres submersibles hung suspended in the void slightly above and to the rear of the DSMV. Giordino wore a smile that was wide as a jack-o'-lantern's. Next to him, Admiral Sandecker threw a jaunty wave through the large round port.

It was the moment Pitt had wished for, indeed silently prayed', for, and Plunkett's great bear hug showed how gladly he shared the moment.

"Dirk," he said solemnly, "I humbly apologize for my negative company. This goes beyond instinct.

You are one crafty bastard."

"I do what I can," Pitt admitted with humorous modesty.

There were few times in his life Pitt had seen anything half as wonderful as Giordino's smiling face from inside the submersible. Where did the admiral come from? he wondered. How could he have arrived on the scene so quickly?

Giordino wasted little time. He motioned to a small door that shielded an exterior electrical receptacle.