Night Probe! (Dirk Pitt 6)

Pitt's eyes took on a detached look, as though they were focused on an object beyond the walls of the room. "Forty-eight hours to assemble a crew and gear, twenty-four to load and outfit a vessel. Then allowing for good sailing weather, we should be moored over the Empress in five days."

"And the Manhattan Limited?"

"I can put a boat equipped with magnetometer, side-scan sonar and a sub-bottom profiler on site by this time the day after tomorrow," Giordino replied positively.

The time estimates seemed optimistic to Sandecker, but he never questioned the men in front of him.

They were the best in the business and they rarely disappointed him. He stood up and nodded at Giordino.

"Al, the Manhattan Limited search is yours. Rudi, you'll head the salvage operation on the Empress of Ireland." He turned to Pitt. "Dirk, you'll act as combined projects director."

"Where would you like me to start?" asked Heidi.

"With the ship. The builder's blueprints, deck plans, the exact area of Harvey Shields' stateroom. Any relevant data that will lead us to the treaties."

Heidi nodded. "The public inquiry into the disaster was held in Quebec. I'll begin by digging into the transcript of the findings. If your secretary will book me on the next flight, I'll be on my way."

She looked mentally and physically exhausted, but Sandecker was too pressured for time to voice a gentlemanly offer of a few hours' sleep. He paused a few moments, staring into each determined face.

"AU right," he said without emotion. "Let's do it."

General Morris Simms, casually attired as a fisherman, felt oddly out of character carrying a bamboo rod and wicker creel as he walked down a worn path to the River Blackwater near the village of Seward's End, Essex. He stopped at the edge of the bank under a picturesque stone bridge and nodded a greeting to a man who was seated on a folding chair, patiently contemplating a bobber on the surface of the water.

"Good morning, Prime Minister."

"Good morning, Brigadier."

"Frightfully sorry to trouble you on your holiday."

"Not at all," said the Prime Minister. "The bloody perch aren't biting anyway." He tilted his head toward the portable table beside him that held a bottle of wine and what looked to Simms like a ham-and-veal pie. "There's extra glasses and plates in the basket. Help yourself to the sherry and pie."

"Thank you, sir, I think I shall."

"What's on your mind?"

"The North American Treaty, sir." He paused as he poured the sherry. "Our man in the States reports the Americans are going to make an all-out effort to find it."

"Any chance they might?"

"Very doubtful." Simms held up the bottle. "More sherry?"

"Yes, thank you."

Simms poured. "At first I thought they might make a few simple probes. Nothing elaborate, of course, a small operation to convince themselves there was little hope of a document surviving. However, it now seems they're going after it in deadly earnest."

"Not good," the Prime Minister grunted. "That indicates, to me at least, that if they're remotely successful, they intend to exercise the terms set down in the treaty."

"My thought also," Simms agreed.

"I can't picture the Commonwealth without Canada," said the Prime Minister. "The entire framework of our overseas trade organization would begin an inevitable collapse. As it is, our economy is in shambles.

The loss of Canada would be a disaster."

"As bad as all that?"

"Worse." The Prime Minister stared into the stream while he spoke. "If Canada goes, Australia and New Zealand would follow in three years. I don't have to tell you where that would leave the United Kingdom."

The enormity of the Prime Minister's dire prediction was beyond Simms' comprehension. England without an empire was inconceivable. And yet, sadly, deep down he knew British stoicism could find a way to accept it.