The sight was made even stranger by the wedge-shaped object that hung suspended from the sky hook's belly. Except for Pitt and Giordino, it was the first time any of the NUMA crew had set eyes on the Doodlebug.
Pitt directed the lowering operation by radio, instructing the pilot to set his load beside the De Soto. The sky hook very slowly halted its forward motion and hovered for a few minutes until the Doodlebug's pendulum motion died. Then the twin cargo cables unreeled, easing the research vessel into the river.
When the strain slackened, the De Soto's crane was swung over the side and divers scrambled up the ladder on the vertical hull. The cable hooks were exchanged on the hoisting loops and, free of its burden, the sky hook rose, banked into a broad half circle and headed back downriver.
Everyone stood along the rails gawking at the Doodlebug, wondering about its purpose. Suddenly, adding to their silent bewilderment, a hatch popped open, a head appeared and a pair of heavy-lidded eyes surveyed the astonished onlookers. "Where in hell is Pitt?" the intruder shouted.
"Here!" Pitt yelled back.
"Guess what?"
"You found another bottle of snakebite medicine in your bunk."
r /> "How'd you know?" Sam Quayle replied, laughing.
"Lasky with you?"
"Below, rewiring the ballast controls to operate in shallow water.
"You took a chance, riding inside all the way from Boston."
"Maybe, but we saved time by activating the electronic systems during the flight."
"How soon before you're ready to dive?"
"Give us another hour."
Chase moved beside Giordino. "Just what is that mechanical perversion?" he asked.
"If you had any idea what it cost," Giordino answered with an imperturbable smile, "you wouldn't call it nasty names."
Three hours later-the Doodlebug, its top hatches rippling the water ten feet beneath the surface, crawled slowly across the riverbed. The suspense inside was hard to bear as the hull skirted dangerously close to the gnarled pieces of the bridge.
Pitt kept a close eye on the video monitors while Bill Lasky maneuvered the craft against the current.
Behind them, Quayle peered at a systems panel, focusing his attention on the detection readouts.
"Any contact?" Pitt asked for the fourth time.
"Negative," answered Quayle. "I've widened the beam to cover a twenty-meter path at a depth of one hundred meters into the geology, but all I read is bedrock."
"We've worked too far upriver," Pitt said, turning to Lasky. "Bring it around for another pass."
"Approaching from a new angle," acknowledged Lasky, his hands busy with the knobs and switches of the control console.
Five more times the Doodlebug threaded its way through the sunken debris. Twice they heard wreckage scraping along the hull. Pitt was all too aware that if the thin skin was penetrated, he would be blamed for the loss of the six-hundred-million dollar vessel.
Quayle seemed immune to the peril. He was infuriated that his instrument remained mute. He was particularly angry at himself for thinking the fault was his.
"Must be a malfunction," he muttered. "I should have had a target by now."
"Can you isolate the problem?" Pitt asked.
"No, dammit!" Quayle abruptly snapped. "All systems are functioning normally. I must have miscalculated when I reprogrammed the computers."
The expectations of a quick discovery began to dim. Frustration was worsened by false hopes and anticipation. Then, as they turned around for another run through the search grid, the never current surged against the exposed starboard area of the Doodlebug and swept its keel into a mud bank Lasky struggled with the controls for nearly an hour before the vessel worked free.
Pitt was giving the coordinates for a new course when Giordino's voice came over the communications speaker. "De Soto to Doodlebug. Do you read?"