Deep Six (Dirk Pitt 7)

"Is this a game?"

"Believe you me, this is no game," Sandecker growled.

"Admiral!" Yaeger muttered, coming alert. "I'll get right on it.

What are your dimensions?"

Pitt thumbed to the correct page in the notebook and read them off into the speaker phone. "A hundred sixty-eight feet in length at inside perpendiculars by thirty-three feet in the beam. The approximate height is ten feet."

"Not much to go on," Yaeger grumbled.

"Try", Sandecker replied sternly.

"Hold on. I'm moving to the keyboard."

Giordino smiled at the admiral. "Care to make a wager?"

"Name it."

"A bottle of Chivas Regal against a box of your cigars Dirk's right."

"No bet," said Sandecker. "My specially rolled cigars cost far more than a bottle of scotch."

Yaeger could be heard clearing his throat. "Here it is." There was a slight pause. "Sorry, not enough data. Those figures are a rough match for any one of a hundred different craft."

Pitt thought a moment. "Suppose the height was the same from bow to stern."

"You talking a flat superstructure?"

"Yes."

"Hold on," said Yaeger. "Okay, you've lowered the numbers.

Your mystery vessel looks like a barge."

"Eureka," exclaimed Giordino.

"Don't cash in your coupons yet," Yaeger cautioned. "The dimensions don't fit any known barge in existence."

"Damni" Sandecker blurted. "So near, yet-"

"Wait," Pitt cut in.

"Suvorov gave us interior measurements." He leaned over the speaker phone. "Yaeger, and two feet all around and run it through again."

"You're getting warmer," Yaeger's voice rasped over the speaker.

"Try this on for size-no pun intended-one hundred and ninety-five by thirty-five by twelve feet."

"Beam and height correspond," said Pitt, "but your length is way off."

"You gave me interior length between perpendicular bulkheads.

I'm giving you overall length including a raked bow of twenty-five feet."

"He's right," said Sandecker. "We didn't allow for the scoop of the forward end."

Yaeger continued. "What we've got is a dry cargo barge, steel construction, two hundred and eighty to three hundred tons-selfenclosed compartments for carrying grain, lumber and so forth.