The well-trained security force rapidly broke down into two units, one heading into the elevator, the other rushing up the emergency fire stairs. Pitt and Giordino knelt over the two unconscious guards they had pulled from the elevator and made a show of examining them, until they saw an opportunity to walk quietly from the lobby through the front doors.
"I can't believe we pulled it off," said Giordino, as they commandeered a cart and sped off toward the dock where the Ulrich Wolf was moored.
"Luckily, they were all too focused on apprehending the evil intruders to take a good look at our faces and recognize us as strangers."
"My security uniform is too long and too tight. How about yours?"
"Too short and too loose, but we don't have time to stop off at a tailor," Pitt muttered, as he steered the cart back toward the first dock while dodging around a soaring crane that was moving ponderously over its rail track. He kept his foot flat on the pedal, but the cart had a top speed of only about twelve miles an hour and the pace seemed agonizingly slow.
They traveled alongside the stupendous floating city, avoiding the busy loading activities. The dock was packed with a milling horde of workers, many moving about in electric carts, others on bicycles, with quite a few darting in and around all obstacles on rollerblades. Pitt had to frequently ram his foot onto the brake to keep from colliding with workers who moved carelessly into his path, absorbed in their jobs.
Huge forklifts also ignored their approach and crossed in front of them to deliver their loads, moving up ramps and into the cavernous cargo holds. There were any number of raised fists and angry shouts as Pitt careened around all obstacles, humans or solid objects.
If it wasn't for the black security uniforms, stolen off the guards in the elevator, they would have surely been stopped and threatened with a beating for such reckless driving. Seeing an opportunity to board the ship without climbing long gangways, Pitt cramped the steering wheel and sent the cart into a hard right turn up a ramp empty of loading vehicles, across the main deck, and then down another ramp into the bowels of the floating city, to where the cargo was stored and all ship maintenance was performed.
Inside a yawning cargo depot, with huge passageways leading in all directions through the lower warehouse bays of the ship, Pitt spotted a man in red coveralls who looked to be in charge of loading supplies and e
quipment. He alerted Giordino on what to ask in Spanish and came to an abrupt stop.
"Quickly, we have an emergency at Level Six, K Section," shouted Giordino. "Which is the shortest route to take?"
Recognizing the black uniform of the shipyard security guards, the man asked, "Don't you know?"
"We've just been transferred from shore security," Giordino answered vaguely, "and we're not familiar with the Ulrich Wolf."
Accepting the presence of security people on an emergency mission, the loading director pointed down a passageway. "Drive to the second elevator on the right. Park your cart and take the elevator up to Deck Floor Four. That will put you at Tram Station Eight. Board the Tram to K Section. Then take the corridor leading amidships to the security office and ask again, unless you know which residence you're looking for."
"The one where the American scientist and her daughter are being confined."
"I have no idea where that would be. You'll have to ask the chief security officer or the leader of K
Section when you arrive."
"Muchas gracias," Giordino said over his shoulder, as Pitt sped off in the direction indicated. "So far so good, said the man on his way down to the sidewalk after jumping from the Empire State Building." Then he added, "My compliments. Swapping our orange goon suits for black security uniforms was a master stroke."
"It was the only way I could think of to get through the trap," said Pitt modestly.
"How much time do you think we have before they cut us off at the pass?"
"If you struck the guard a good clout, he won't come around anytime soon and give the show away.
All they'll discover in the next ten minutes is that we drove straight to the Ulrich Wolf and came on board.
They still don't know who we are or who we're after."
They followed the Cargo Deck leader's directions and brought the cart to a halt next to the second elevator. It was built to carry heavy freight, and it was expansive. Workers were accompanying a pallet piled with boxes of canned food. Pitt and Giordino joined them and stepped off onto Level Six, near a boarding platform raised above twin tracks that encircled the entire ship. They paced the platform impatiently for five minutes, before an electric tram with five cars painted a soft yellow outside and hyacinth violet inside approached and quietly rolled to a stop. The doors slid open with a soft hissing sound. They stepped inside the first car and found a forty-passenger vehicle that was half full of people clothed in a rainbow of coverall uniforms. As if drawn by a magnet, Giordino sat down next to an attractive woman with silver-blond hair and blue eyes whose coveralls were a soft blue-gray. Pitt tensed as he recognized the unvarying image of one of the Wolf family.
She looked at them and smiled. "You look like Americans," she said in English with a touch of a Spanish accent.
"How can you tell?" asked Pitt.
"Most all our security people were recruited from the American military," she replied.
"You are a member of the Wolf family," he said softly, as if speaking to a member of the elite.
She laughed lightheartedly. "It must look to strangers as if we all came out of the same pod."
"Your resemblance to one another is quite striking."