Flood Tide (Dirk Pitt 14)

"I regret saying this, but the ship appears clean. I searched every deck and found no indication of illegal immigrants."

Captain Lewis on board the Weehawken replied without hesitation. "Are you secure?"

"Yes, I was accepted without reservation." "Do you wish to disembark?" "Not yet. I'd like to hang around a bit longer." "

lease keep me advised," said Lewis, "and be careful." Lewis's parting words came muffled, as the air trembled suddenly with a thumping sound followed by the exhaust roar of the Weehaw-ken's helicopter sweeping over the dock. Julia suppressed an urge to wave. She remained leisurely hunched over the railing, gazing at the aircraft with detached curiosity. She felt a wave of pleasure just knowing that she was watched over by a pair of U.S. coast guardsmen who were acting as her angels.

She was relieved that her job was done and angered that she had failed to discover any criminal activity. From the looks of it, Qin Shang had outsmarted everyone once again. If her mind ran in a practical vein, she could call Lewis to come get her or simply jump ship into the arms of the nearest immigration agent. But she could not bring herself to quit by default. There had to be an answer, and Julia was determined to find it. She moved around the stern to the lower portside deck until she could look directly down into the barge that was now half filled with plastic trash bags. She stood at the railing for a long minute, studying the barge and the towboat as its captain engaged the powerful engines to pull away from the Sung Lien Star. The wash from the twin propellers began beating the calm brownish water into foam.

Julia was seized with frustration. There was no crowd of immigrants huddled in sordid conditions on board the Sung Lien Star. Of that she was positive. Nor did she truly doubt the CIA agent's veracity who reported from Qingdao. Qin Shang was a shrewd customer. He must have devised a method that had fooled the best government investigators in the business.

There were no hard and fast answers. If there was a solution, perhaps it was connected with the towboat and barge pulling away from the ship. She was left with no other options. Failure was staring her in the face again. She felt overwhelmed by a sense of inadequacy and self-anger. She knew then, beyond all doubt, that she had to act.

One swift glance told her that the cargo door had been closed and there were no crewmen to be seen working the side of the ship's hull that faced the water opposite the dock. The captain of the towboat was standing at the helm while one crewman acted as lookout on the bridge wing and another stood forward on the bow of the barge, their eyes focused on the waters ahead. None were looking aft.

As the towboat passed her position she looked down on its stern deck. There was a long length of rope coiled aft of the funnel. She estimated the drop at ten feet, and climbed over the railing. There was no time to call Lewis and explain her action. Any hesitation was brushed aside, for Julia was a woman of quick decision. She took a deep breath and leaped.

Julia's dive into the barge was observed, not by any of the Sung Lien Star's crew, but by Pitt on board the Marine Denizen, which was anchored at the entrance to the port. For the past hour he had sat in the captain's chair on the bridge wing, tolerant of the sun and occasional passing rain shower, and scrutinized the activity swirling around the container ship through a pair of powerful binoculars. He was especially intrigued by the barge and towboat alongside. He watched intently as the trash accumulated on the long voyage from China was tied neatly in bags and dropped from a hatch in the ship's hull to the barge below. When the last trash bag was tossed overboard and the hatch closed, Pitt was about to turn his attention to the containers being hoisted onto the dock by the cranes when, unpredictably, he saw a figure climb the railing along the deck above and drop onto the roof of the towboat. "What the hell!" he burst.

Rudi Gunn, who was standing near Pitt, stiffened. "See something interesting?"

"Somebody just took a dive off the ship onto the towboat."

"Probably a crewman jumping ship."

"It looked like the ship's cook," Pitt said, keeping the glasses fixed on the boat.

"I hope he didn't injure himself," said Gunn.

"I think a coil of rope broke his fall. He appears to be uninjured."

"Have you discovered anything that still makes you think there is a some sort of submerged craft that can be moved from beneath the ship and under the barge?"

"Nothing that would hold up in court," Pitt admitted. Then the opaline-green eyes became intense and a faint glint radiated from them. "But all that could change in the next forty-eight hours."

32

THE MARINE DENIZEN'S little jet boat sped across the Intracoastal Waterway and then slowed as it cruised past the Morgan City waterfront. The town was protected from a flooding river by a concrete levee eight feet high and a giant seawall that rose twenty feet and faced the Gulf. Two highway bridges and a railway bridge span the Atchafalaya River in Morgan City, the white headlights and red taillights of the traffic moving like beads slipped through a woman's fingers. The lights of the buildings played across the water, wavering in the wash from passing boats. With a population of 15,000, Morgan City was the largest community in St. Mary Parish (Louisiana's civil divisions are called parishes instead of counties, as with most states). The city faced west overlooking a wide stretch of the Atchafalaya River called Berwick Bay. To the south ran Bayou Boeuf, which circled the town like a vast moat and ran into Lake Palourde.

Morgan City is the only town on the banks of the Atchafalaya and sits low, making it susceptible to floods and extreme high tides, especially during hurricanes, but the residents never bother to look southward toward the Gulf for menacing black clouds. California has its earthquakes, Kansas has it tornadoes and Montana has its blizzards, "so why should we worry" is the prevailing sentiment.

The community is a bit more urbane than most other towns and small cities throughout the Louisiana bayou country. It functions as a seaport, catering to fishermen, oil companies and boat builders, and yet it has the flavor of a river town much like those along the Missouri and Ohio rivers, with the majority of the buildings facing wate

r.

A procession of fishing boats passed. The sharp-prowed boats, with high freeboards and the cabins mounted well forward, masts and net booms aft on the stern, were heading into deep water in the Gulf. The boats that stayed in shallower water had flat bottoms for less draft, lower freeboards, rounded bows with the masts forward and little cabins at the stern. Both types trawled for shrimp. Oyster luggers were another breed. Since they mostly worked the inland waters they had no masts. One chugged by the NUMA jet boat, its decks barely above the surface and heaped with a small mountain of unshucked oyster shells piled six to seven feet high.

"Where do you want to be dropped off?" asked Gunn, who sat behind the wheel of the propless runabout.

"The nearest waterfront saloon would be a good place to meet the river men," said Pitt.

Giordino pointed toward a rambling block of wooden structures stretching along a dock. A neon sign over one building read, CHARLIE'S FISH DOCK, SEAFOOD AND BOOZE. "Looks like our kind of place."

"The packing house next door must be where fishermen bring their catch," Pitt observed. "As good a spot as any to ask about unusual goings-on upriver."

Gunn slowed the runabout and steered her between a small fleet of trawlers before coming to a stop at the bottom of a wooden ladder. "Good luck," he said, smiling, as Pitt and Giordino began climbing onto the dock. "Don't forget to write."

"We'll stay in touch," Pitt assured him.