Valhalla Rising (Dirk Pitt 16)

"And just where am I supposed to scare up five hundred feet of hose, an air pump capable of pumping enough air to keep six hundred and seventeen people alive until rescue and a method of attaching it to the sunken boat?"

Pitt looked at his old pal of almost forty years and grinned. "If I know you, you'll think of something."

31

Four vessels arrived over the site of the sunken Golden Marlin within five hours after it sank. The Coast Guard cutter Joseph Ryan; the oil tanker King Zeus; the U.S. Navy oceangoing tug Orion; and the coastal cargo carrier Compass Rose. They were soon accompanied by a fleet of sailing yachts and powerboats out of Miami and Fort Lauderdale that had arrived on the scene more out of curiosity than a desire to help in the rescue. Admiral Sandecker had dispatched a NUMA salvage ship from Savannah, but it wasn't due to arrive for another twelve hours.

The Navy's deep submergence rescue vehicle, Mercury, its operations team and mother ship, Alfred Aultman, were pounding toward the disaster scene from Puerto Rico, where they were in the midst of conducting a practice mission. Messages were relayed back and forth from the Coast Guard vessel to the captain of the Aultman from Captain Baldwin on every aspect of the sunken cruise boat's condition.

Down below on the Golden Marlin, the passenger's children and their mothers were loaded on board the evacuation pod after O'Malley repaired the release mechanism. There were tearful farewells with fathers, and in many cases older relatives such as grandparents. A number of small children cried up a storm when entering the confined enclosure of the pod. Calming them was difficult, if not impossible.

Giordino tried to shut out the screaming infants and their mothers, and looked more forlorn than ever to be the only man escaping from the boat. "I feel like the guy who entered a Titanic lifeboat wearing a woman's dress."

Pitt put his arm around Giordino's shoulder. "You'll be more crucial to the rescue operation topside."

"I'll never be able to live this down," Giordino groaned. "You'd better come through this, you hear? If it all goes wrong and you don't make it-"

"I'll make it," Pitt assured him, "but only with you leading the rescue where it counts."

They shook hands one final time as Pitt nudged him into the only open seat in the evacuation pod. Pitt did his best to keep from grinning as a harried mother thrust one of her crying children into a cringing Giordino's arms. The tough little Italian looked as uncomfortable as though he were sitting on broken glass. Pitt could not recall seeing a more mournful look, as the pod door hissed closed and the launch sequence was activated. Sixty seconds later, there was a whoosh sound and the pod was on its way to the surface, floating upward very slowly because it was loaded almost to its buoyancy limit.

"I guess all we can do now is wait," said O'Malley, who was standing behind Pitt.

"No," said Pitt. "We prepare."

"Where do we start?"

"With the airlock escape chamber."

"What do you want to know?"

"Is the hatch compatible with the one on the Navy submersible rescue vehicle?"

O'Malley nodded. "I know for a fact that it was designed to the Navy's specifications to mate with their rescue vehicle or bell chambers for just such an emergency."

Pitt was already at the door. "Show me the way. I want to check it out for myself."

O'Malley led him up the elevator to the upper deck where the dining room was located, through the galley where the chefs were busily engaged in preparing dinner as if the voyage had never been interrupted. The scene seemed terribly unreal, considering the circumstances. Pitt followed the boat's engineer up a narrow stairway to a small chamber with bench seats along the bulkhead. In the center were steps leading to a platform. Above the platform was a ladder that disappeared into a tunnel that rose up to a hatch three feet in diameter. O'Malley climbed the ladder into the tunnel and studied the hatch. It seemed to Pitt the inspector spent an inordinate amount of time in the tunnel. Finally, he climbed down and sat wearily on the platform.

He looked up at Pitt and said, "Your friend was a very thorough character."

"What do you mean?"

"The frame is buckled and jammed solid around the hatch. It would take a ten-pound plastic charge to blow it free."

Pitt's eyes traveled up the tunnel, and he gazed at the bent and distorted escape hatch with an understanding bordering on horror. "Then there is no escape into the rescue vehicle."

"Not through here," O'Malley said, knowing all hope of saving six hundred and seventeen souls was gone. He stared at the deck and repeated, "Not through here. Not through anywhere."

Pitt and O'Malley carried the disastrous

news to Captain Baldwin on the bridge. He took it stoically. "You're positive? The escape hatch cannot be forced open?"

"A cutting torch might split it open," said Pitt, "but then we'd have no way of sealing it against the incoming water. At this depth we're looking at roughly seventeen atmospheres. Figuring one atmosphere for every thirty-three feet, the water pressure against our hull is two hundred and fifty pounds per square inch. No way the passengers could fight through the cascade into the rescue vehicle."

Baldwin's face was not pleasant to see. A man of few emotions, he could not bring himself to believe that he and everyone left on board the Golden Marlin were going to die. "We have no hope of rescue?"

"There is always hope," Pitt said gamely, "but not by the usual methods."