Valhalla Rising (Dirk Pitt 16)

"Ten hours." Gunn braced himself for the outburst he was sure would come.

This time, Sandecker reacted as expected. "Ten hours! My instructions are that all survey and research ships on station maintain status reports to our communications department every two hours."

"Your instructions were carried out to the letter. Deep Encounter responded as scheduled."

"You've lost me."

"Someone claiming to be Captain Burch made contact every two hours and gave updated reports on the project to investigate the wreckage of the Emerald Dolphin. We know it was not the captain, because the voice systems recording on all our communications did not accept the voice patterns. Someone was attempting to imitate him. Did a rather poor job of it, too."

Sandecker was taking in every word, his razor-sharp mind sorting out the consequences of what Gunn was telling him. "You are very sure of this, Rudy?"

"I can honestly say I am absolutely certain."

"I can't believe the ship and all on board vanished into thin air."

Gunn nodded. "When our communications department alerted me, I took the liberty of having a friend at the National Oceanic Atmospheric Agency analyze satellite weather photos of the area where Deep Encounter was working. Photo enhancement shows no sign of the ship within a hundred miles."

"What were weather conditions?"

"Clear skies, ten-mile-an-hour winds and calm seas."

Sandecker was trying to sift through confusing doubts. "The ship couldn't have just gone under for no reason. She carried no chemicals that might have destroyed her. There is no way she could

have blown herself to pieces. A collision with another ship, perhaps?"

"She was out of regular shipping lanes and no other ships were close to her."

"A phony voice giving up-to-date reports." The admiral fixed Gunn with a piercing state. "What you're suggesting, Rudy, is that Deep Encounter was hijacked."

"It's beginning to look that way," acknowledged Gunn. "Short of her being sunk by an undetected submarine, a ridiculous theory at best, I see no alternative. She must have been seized and sailed out of range before the weather cameras on the satellite passed over."

"But if she was hijacked, where did they take her? How could she have disappeared in less than two hours? I know from experience that Deep Encounter's best speed is barely over fifteen knots. She couldn't have sailed more than a hundred and fifty nautical miles since her last status report."

"My fault," said Gunn. "I should have asked for an extended camera range. But I made the request before I knew of the phony radio communications, and hijacking was the last thing on my mind."

Sandecker leaned back in his chair and buried his face in his hands for a moment. Then he stiffened. "Pitt and Giordino, they were on the project," he said, more as a statement than a question.

"The last report, given by Captain Burch himself, stated that Pitt and Giordino were aboard the Abyss Navigator. They were preparing to lower into the water for their descent onto the wreck."

"This is madness!" snapped Sandecker. "Who would dare to hijack a United States government ship in the South Pacific? There are no wars or revolutions going on in that part of the world. I fail to see a motive."

"Nor I."

"Have you contacted the Australian and New Zealand governments and requested an extensive search?"

Gunn nodded. "They assured me of their full cooperation. Any ships near the area, military or commercial, have offered to depart from their scheduled course and begin searching."

"Obtain from whatever source, NOAA or one of the security agencies, expanded satellite photos for a thousand-square-mile grid of that part of the Pacific. I don't want to miss an inch. The Deep Encounter has to be out there somewhere. I refuse to believe she went to the bottom."

Gunn rose from his chair and headed for the door. "I'll see to it."

Sandecker sat there for several moments, staring at a photo gallery that covered one wall. His eyes setded on a color picture of Pitt and Giordino standing next to a submersible, drinking from a bottle of champagne as they celebrated the discovery and salvage of a Chinese government treasure ship in Lake Michigan. He also noted that Giordino was smoking one of the admiral's private cigars.

There was a very close friendship among the three men. Pitt and Giordino were like the sons he'd never had. In his wildest imagination, Sandecker could not believe the two men had died. He swiveled his executive chair and gazed out the window of his office on the top floor of the NUMA building overlooking the Potomac River.

"What mischief," he muttered softly to himself under his breath, "have you two guys gotten yourself into this time?"

16