Deep Six (Dirk Pitt 7)

"True, but according to the depth soundings on the navigation charts, there are several holes that drop over a hundred."

Sandecker paused and gazed out the wheelhouse window as Al Giordino marched along the dock carrying a pair of air tanks on his beefy shoulders. He turned back to Pitt and observed him thoughtfully.

"If you dive on it," Sandecker said coldly, "you're not to enter.

Our job is strictly to discover and identify, nothing else."

"What's down there that we can't see?"

"Don't ask."

Pitt smiled wryly. "Humor me. I'm fickle."

"The hell you are," grunted Sandecker. "What do you think is in the yacht?"

"Make that who."

"Does it matter?" Sandecker asked guardedly. "It's probably empty."

"You're jerking me around, Admiral. I'm sure of it. After we find the yacht, what then?"

"The FBI takes over."

"So we do our little act and step aside."

"That's what the orders say."

"i say screw them."

"Them?"

"The powers who play petty secret games."

"Believe me, this project isn't petty."

A hard look crossed Pitts face. "We'll make that judgment when we find the yacht, won't we?"

"Take my word for it," said Sandecker, "you don't want to see what might be inside the wreck."

Almost as the words came out, Sandecker knew he'd waved a flag in front of a bull elephant. Once Pitt dropped beneath the river's surface, the thin leash of command was broken.

Six HOURS LATER and twelve miles down river, target number seventeen crept across the recording screen of the Klein High Resolution Sonar. It lay in 109 feet of water between Persimmon and Mathias points directly opposite Popes Creek and two miles above the Potomac River bridge.

"Dimensions?" Pitt asked the sonar operator.

"Approximately thirty-six meters long by seven meters wine."

"What kind of size are we looking for?" asked Giordino.

"The Eagle has an overall length of a hundred and ten feet with a twenty-foot beam," Pitt replied.

"That matches," Giordino said, mentally juggling meters to feet.

"I think we've got her," Pitt said as he examined the configurations revealed by the sidescan sonar. "Let's make another passthis time about twenty meters to starboard-and throw out a buoy."

Sandecker, who was standing outside on the after deck keeping an eye on the sensor cable, leaned into the wheelhouse. "Got something?" Pitt nodded. "A prime contact."

"Going to check it out?"