Trojan Odyssey (Dirk Pitt 17)

"I could use some help!" He wasn't surprised that Giordino was the first to respond.

The little Italian burst through the engine room

hatch and leaned over the transom. "What have you got?"

"Enough explosives to disintegrate a battleship."

"You want me to lift it on board?"

"No." Pitt gasped, as a wave washed over his head. "Tie a long line to a life raft and throw it over the stern."

Giordino asked no questions as he hurried up a ladder to the roof of the deckhouse. There he feverishly yanked one of the two life rafts out of its cradle, where it was stowed untied so it could float free should the boat sink. Renee and Dodge appeared on the deck just in time to catch the raft as Giordino let it slide over the wheelhouse roof to the deck below.

"What's happening?" asked Renee.

Giordino nodded to Pitt's head bobbing in the water aft of the stern. "Dirk found an explosive device fastened to the hull."

Renee peered over the transom at the cannister revealed under the glow of Pitt's dive light. "Why doesn't he drop it on the bottom?" she murmured, her tone laced with fear.

"Because he has a plan," Giordino answered patiently. "Now give me a hand dropping the raft over the side."

Dodge said nothing, as the three of them manhandled the heavy raft over the railing into the water with a splash that covered Pitt's head. Kicking his fins furiously, he rose out of the water up to his chest, lifted the heavy cannister over his head and carefully lowered it onto the bottom of the raft, terribly aware that he could be overplaying his luck. His only consolation was that he would never realize he was sent to the great beyond until it was over.

Only after the cannister was safely secured inside the raft did Pitt utter a long sigh of relief.

Giordino dropped the boarding ladder and helped Pitt climb on board. As Giordino removed his air tanks, Pitt said, "Pour a few gallons of fuel into the raft, then pay out the line as far as it will go."

"You expect us to tow a raft full of explosives covered in gasoline?" Dodge asked hesitantly.

"That's the idea."

"What happens when it passes the buoy with the transmitter?"

Pitt looked at Dodge and flashed a crooked grin. "Then it will go bang."

20

When entering the harbor from seaward, the port buoy marking the sides of the channel is usually painted green with a matching colored light on top, and is given an odd number. The starboard buoy directly opposite is red, mounts a red light and sports an even number. As Poco Bonito exited Bluefields Harbor, the channel buoys appeared reversed, red to port, green to starboard.

Except for Giordino, who took the helm, everyone huddled on the stern deck and stared expectantly over the top of the transom as the outer harbor buoys came even with Poco Bonito's bow.

Secure in the knowledge that Pitt had discovered the explosives, and having witnessed him placing the cannister in the life raft before allowing it to fall astern, Ford and Dodge still half expected a fiery eruption that would destroy the boat. As they peered warily at the life raft, a small orange shape against the black water a hundred and fifty yards astern, you could have cut the cloud of apprehension with a chain saw until Poco Bonito's hull safely passed the buoys without disintegrating.

Then the tension mounted again, this time even higher as the raft was towed closer and closer to the buoys. Fifty yards, then twenty-five.

Renee instinctively ducked and placed her hands over her ears. Dodge crouched and turned his back toward the stern while Pitt and Giordino calmly gazed aft, as if waiting for a shooting star to dart through the stars.

"Soon as she blows," Pitt said to Dodge, "switch off our running lights so they think we've evaporated."

He had no sooner finished giving the order than the life raft vaporized.

The sound of the explosion thundered and echoed through the straits between the bluffs as the concussion rolled across the water, slapped their faces and rocked the boat. The darkness became a nightmare of flame and fiery debris as a great boiling upthrust of white water twenty feet wide burst out of a crater in midchannel. The fuel that Pitt had used to fill the life raft burst into a column of flame. The crew of Poco Bonito stared as if hypnotized at the atomized wreckage of the raft raining down from the sky like streaking meteors. Tiny bits and pieces splattered down on the boat without injuring anyone or doing damage.

Then, just as suddenly, the night went silent and the water astern the boat closed over the crater and was empty again.

The woman sat in the pickup truck and checked her watch a dozen times from the time the boat pulled away from the dock, and exhaled a deep breath of satisfaction when at last she heard the distant rumble and saw the brief flash in the blackness nearly two miles away. It had taken longer than she estimated. Eight minutes late, by her calculation. Perhaps the helmsman was cautious and sent the boat slowly through the black waters of the narrow channel. Or, perhaps there was a mechanical problem and the crew stopped the boat for a quick fix. Whatever the reason, it no longer mattered. She could inform her colleagues that the job was accomplished successfully. Rather than head directly for the airport and a waiting Odyssey corporate jet, she decided to go into the shabby downtown of Blue-fields and enjoy a glass of rum. For her work tonight, she felt entitled to a little rest and relaxation.

It had started to rain again, and she switched on the windshield wipers as she drove off the wharf and headed toward town.