Deep Six (Dirk Pitt 7)

"About ten miles off the shore," she replied, "On the Coast Guard cutter Catawba."The Catawba," he repeated as if reminiscing.

"Yes, you know of her?"

"Set a copter on her flight pad myself a few years ago."

"Where was that?"

"North Atlantic, near Iceland." He was gazing beyond the island now. He sighed and massaged his temples. "A good friend and I were hunting for a ship imbedded in an i

ceberg."

"did you find it?"

He nodded. "A burned-out hulk. Barely beat the Russians to it.

Later we crashed in the surf on the Icelandic coast. My friend was killed."

She could see his mind was reliving the events. The expression on his face took on a faraway sadness. She changed the subject.

"We'll have to say goodbye-temporarily, I mean-when we land."

He shook off the past and stared at her. "You're leaving us?"

"You and Al will be staying on the Catawba to search for the nerve agent's location. I'm going to the island where the local response team has set up a data base."

"And part of my job is to send water samples from the ship to your lab?"

"Yes, by measuring trace levels of the contamination we Can direct you toward the surface."

"Like following breadcrumbs."

"That's one way of putting it."

"After we find it, what then?"

"Once your salvage team brings up the drums containing the nerve agent, the Army will dispose of it by deep well injection, on an island near the Arctic Circle."

"How deep is the well?"

"Four thousand feet."

"All neat and tiny." The open-for-business look returned to her eyes. "It happens to be the most efficient method open to us."

"You're optimistic."

She looked at him questioningly. "What do you mean?"

"The salvage. It could take months."

"We can't even afford weeks," she came back almost vehemently.

"You're treading in my territory now," Pitt said as if lecturing.

"Divers can't risk working in water where one drop on their skin will kill them. The only reasonably safe way is to use submersibles-a damned slow and tedious process. And submersibles require highly trained crews, with specially constructed vessels as work platforms."

"I've already explained," she said impatiently, "presidential authority gives us carte blanche on any equipment we need."

"That's the easy part," Pitt continued. "Despite your water sample directions, finding a shipwreck is like looking for a coin in the middle of a football field in the dark with a candle. Then if we get lucky and make contact, we may find the hull broken in sections and the cargo scattered, or the drums too corroded to move.