"We can indict," acknowledged Harper, "but whether we can convict is another story. We're looking at a long, drawn-out legal fight that federal prosecutors are not certain they can win. Qin Shang will counterattack with a task force of highly paid and respected Washington attorneys. He has the Chinese government and certain ranking members of Congress on his side, and also, I'm sorry to say, possibly the White House. When we look at all the political IOUs that he will undoubtedly call due, you can see that we are not getting in the ring with a lightweight, but rather a very powerful and highly connected man."
"Wouldn't Chinese government leaders turn their backs on him if it meant a huge scandal?" inquired Frank Stewart.
Harper shook his head. "His services and influence in Washington cancel out any political liabilities that might result."
"Surel
y, you have enough on Qin Shang to close down Sungari and cut off all shipping by Qin Shang Maritime into the United States," probed General Montaigne, speaking for the first time.
"Yes, it's within our power," answered Harper. "But the billions of dollars' worth of Chinese goods that are pouring into the United States are carried on Qin Shang Maritime ships, subsidized by their government. They'd be cutting their own throat if they sat by and remained silent while we slammed the door on Qin Shang's shipping line." He paused to massage his temples. Harper was clearly a man who did not relish losing a battle to forces beyond his control. "At the moment all we can do is prevent his smuggling operations from succeeding and hope that he makes a colossal mistake."
A knock came at the door, and Lieutenant Stowe entered. He silently handed Captain Lewis a message and just as quietly departed. Lewis scanned the wording and looked over the table at Frank Stewart. "A communication from your first officer, Captain. He said you wished to be kept informed on any new developments concerning the old luxury liner the United States."
Stewart nodded at Pitt. "Dirk is the one who is monitoring the ship's passage up the Mississippi."
Lewis handed the message to Pitt. "
ardon me for reading it, but it simply says the United States has passed under the Crescent City Connection and greater New Orleans bridges and is approaching the city's commercial waterfront, where it will be docked as a permanently floating hotel and casino."
"Thank you, Captain. Another puzzling project with Qin Shang's tentacles wrapped around it.""Quite a feat just sailing it up the river from the Gulf," said Montaigne. "You might compare it with dropping a pin through a straw without it touching the sides."
"I'm glad you're here, General," said Pitt. "I have nagging questions that only you, as an expert on the river, can answer."
"I'll be glad to try."
"I have a crazy theory that Qin Shang built Sungari where he did because he intends to destroy a section of the levee and divert the Mississippi into the Atchafalaya, making it the most important port on the Gulf of Mexico."
It would be an overstatement to say that the men and one woman seated in the wardroom all accepted Pitt's fanciful scenario-all, that is, except General Montaigne. He nodded his head like a professor who threw a trick question at a student and received the correct answer. "It may surprise you to learn, Mr. Pitt, that I've had the same notion bouncing around inside my own head for the past six months."
"Divert the Mississippi," Captain Lewis said in a careful sort of voice. "There are many, myself included, who would say that's unthinkable."
"Unthinkable, perhaps, but not unimaginable to a man with Qin Shang's diabolic mind," Giordino said evenly.
Sandecker looked thoughtfully into the distance. "You've hit upon a rationale that should have been obvious from the first day of Sungari's construction."
Every eye was drawn to General Montaigne when Harper asked the obvious question. "Is it possible, General?"
"The Army Corps has been fighting Nature for over a hundred and fifty years to keep her from accomplishing the same cataclysm," answered Montaigne. "We all live with the nightmare of a great flood, greater than ever recorded since the first explorers saw the river. When that happens, the Atchafalaya River will become the main stream of the Mississippi. And that section of 'Old Man River' that presently runs from the northern border of Louisiana to the Gulf will become a silted-in tidal estuary. It's happened in the ancient past and it will happen again. If the Mississippi wants to head west, we can't stop her. The event is only a matter of time."
"Are you telling us that the Mississippi changes course on a set schedule?" asked Stewart.
Montaigne rested his chin on the head of his cane. "Not predictable by the hour or year, but it has wandered back and forth across Louisiana seven times in the past six thousand years. Had it not been for man, and especially the Army Corps of Engineers, the Mississippi would probably be flowing down the Atchafalaya Valley, over the sunken ruins of Morgan City and into the Gulf as we speak."
"Let us suppose Qin Shang destroys the levee and opens a vast spillway from the Mississippi into the canal he's had dredged into the Atchafalaya," Pitt speculated. "What would be the result?"
"In one word, catastrophic," answered Montaigne. "
ushed by a spring runoff current of seven miles an hour, a turbulent flood tide twenty, maybe thirty feet high would explode down the Mystic Canal and rage across the valley. The lives of two hundred thousand residents living on three million acres will be endangered. Most of the marshlands will become permanently inundated. The wall of water will sweep away whole towns, causing a tremendous death toll. Hundreds of thousands of animals, cows, horses, deer, rabbits, family dogs and cats swept away as though they'd never been born. Oyster beds, shrimp nurseries and catfish farms will be destroyed by the sudden decrease in salinity due to the overpowering flow of fresh water. Most of the alligator population and water life will vanish."
"You paint a grim picture, General," said Sandecker.
"That's only the pitiful part of the forecast," said Montaigne. "On the economic side, the surge would collapse the highway and railroad bridges that cross the valley, closing down all transportation from east to west. Generating plants and high-voltage lines will likely be undermined and destroyed, disrupting electrical service for thousands of square miles. The fate of Morgan City would be sealed. It will cease to exist. Interstate gas pipelines will rupture, cutting off major portions of natural gas to every state from Rhode Island and Connecticut to the Carolinas and Florida.
"And then we have the unrepairable damage to what's left of the Mississippi," he continued. "Baton Rouge would become a ghost town. All barge and water traffic would cease. The Great American Ruhr Valley, with its industrial magnitude of oil refineries, petrochemical plants and grain elevators, could no longer operate efficiently beside a polluted creek. Without fresh water, without the river's ability to scour a channel, it would soon build a wasteland of silt. Isolated from interstate commerce, New Orleans would go the way of Babylon, Angkor Wat and Pueblo Bonito. And like it or not, all oceangoing shipping would be diverted from New Orleans to Sungari. The terrible loss to the economy alone would be measured in the tens of billions of dollars."
"There's a thought that brings on a migraine," muttered Giordino.
"Speaking of relief." Montaigne looked at Captain Lewis. "I don't suppose you have a bottle of whiskey on board?"