Poseidon's Arrow (Dirk Pitt 22)

“Don’t worry,” Pitt said, “your cabin door has a lock on it, in case they grow legs in the night.”

“They’re no worse than a pet goldfish,” Gunn said. “Albeit, an ugly goldfish that can live a mile deep.”

“We’ll leave them in your care,” Pitt said. “Rudi, how soon can we shove off?”

Gunn tilted his head. “I think we can make like that pizza delivery outfit. Thirty minutes or less.”

“Then let’s get under way,” Pitt said. “I’m curious to find out where Ann is going to take us.”

TRUE TO HIS WORD, Gunn had the Drake inching away from the dock a half hour later. Ann joined him on the bridge with Pitt and Giordino, watching the green hills of Point Loma drift past as they exited the harbor. Feeling more secure at sea, she opened up and explained their objective to Gunn and Giordino, then handed Pitt a small piece of paper.

“Here’s the coordinates where the two bodies were picked up. Apparently they were within sight of each other.”

“That may be a good indication the currents didn’t get too daffy with them,” Giordino said.

Pitt typed the coordinates into the Drake’s navigation system, which plotted the position as a triangle on the digital map display. It lay just beyond a small rocky island grouping off the Mexican coast called the Coronados.

“The currents run southerly along the coast,” Pitt said, “so that would likely define a lower boundary from which to conduct the search.”

“The coroner’s report placed their time of death between eight and ten hours earlier,” Ann said.

“That gives us something to work with.” Pitt drew a box on the map with a cursor. “We’ll start with a ten-mile-square grid, working north of the discovery point, and expand beyond that as necessary.”

Ann contemplated the size of the Drake, then asked Pitt, “How are you going to handle the recovery?”

Pitt tilted his head at Gunn. “Rudi?”

“I found a local barge and crane that’s waiting on call. It’ll come to the site once we find her. I guess I should have asked, but how big a boat are we looking for?”

Ann glanced at her notes. “The Cuttlefish was registered at forty feet.”

“We’ll get her up.” Gunn took over the helm and set the Drake on a path to Pitt’s grid.

Two hours later, they reached the site where a passing sailboat had found the bodies of Heiland and his assistant Manny. Pitt saw the depth was around four hundred feet. He decided to conduct the search using the vessel’s towed array sonar, choosing ease of deployment over the deeper-diving AUV. Crewmen at the stern deployed the bright yellow sonar fish, which was soon relaying electrical pulses to a processing station on the bridge via its tethered cable. Pitt took a seat at the controls and adjusted the cable winch until the fish was skimming a few meters above the bottom.

Ann stood glued to Pitt’s shoulder, staring at the monitor that displayed a gold-tinted image of the sandy, undulating seafloor.

“What will the boat look like?”

“We’re running a wide swath, so it will appear small in scale but should be readily identifiable.” He pointed to the screen. “Here, you can see what a fifty-five-gallon drum looks like in comparison.”

Ann peered at a dime-sized object as it scrolled down the screen, easily recognizing it as an old barrel someone had dumped in the ocean.

“The clarity is quite remarkable.”

“The technology’s improved to where you can almost see a carbuncle on a clamshell,” Giordino said.

The seas were empty, save a large powerboat flying a Mexican flag a mile or two away, its occupants busy fishing. Gunn piloted the Drake in a slow, steady pattern, running wide survey lanes north and south. The sonar registered some tires, a pair of playful dolphins, and what looked to be a toilet—but no sunken boats.

After four hours of surveying, they drew near the Mexican powerboat, which held its position with a pair of unmanned fishing rods protruding over its stern.

“Looks like we’ll have to skip a lane to get around those guys,” Gunn said.

Pitt looked out the bridge window at the craft a quarter mile ahead, then turned back to the monitor. He smiled as a triangular object appeared at the top of the screen.

“Won’t be necessary, Rudi. I think we just found her.”

Ann leaned over in puzzlement, then saw the shape expand into a boat’s bow and grow into the full image of a cabin cruiser, sitting upright on the seafloor. Pitt marked the wreck’s position and measured its length against a digital scale.