The Mediterranean Caper (Dirk Pitt 2)

“Of course. What do you wish to say?”

Pitt had already picked up a pad and pencil off desk. “I’ll write everything down including names addresses, but will have to fake my German spelling.

When Pitt finished he passed the pad to Zac. “Ask them to forward their reply to the First Attempt. I’ve add NUMA’s radio frequency.”

Zac scanned the pad. “I don’t understand your motives.”

“Just a wild hunch.” Pitt poured another shot Metaxa in his glass. “By the way, when will the Queen Artemisia make her detour by Thasos?”

“How . . but how do you know that?”

“I’m psychic,” Pitt said briefly. “When?”

“Tomorrow morning.” Zac looked at Pitt long and consideringly. “Sometime between four and five A.M. Why do you ask?”

“No reason, just curiosity.” Pitt braced himself for the burn and downed the drink. The jolt was almost too much. He shook his head from side to side, blinking away the tears that burst from his eyes.

“My God,” he whispered hoarsely. “That stuff goes down like battery acid.”

13

The eerie, phosphorescent froth gradually diminished and fell away from the old straight up and down bow of Queen Artemisia as the aging ship slowly lost way and came to a stop. Then the anchor clattered down into ten fathoms of water, and the navigation lights blinked out, leaving a black silhouette resting on an even blacker sea. It was as though the Queen Artemisia had never been.

Two hundred feet away, a small wooden packing crate bobbed lazily on the swells. It was a common type of crate, one of empty thousands that float in cast off neglect on every sea and waterway of the world. To the casual eye, at least, it looked like ordinary flotsam; even the stenciled letters that advertised “THIS END UP” pointed incongruously downward toward the seabed. There was, however, one thing that made this particular crate quite different; it wasn’t empty.

There must be a better way, Pitt thought wryly from inside the box as a wave bumped it against the top of his head, but at least this was a damn sight better than swimming in plain view when the morning light appeared. He took a mouthful of saltwater and coughed it out. Then he puffed lightly into the mouthpiece of his flotation vest, increasing his buoyancy, and returned his gaze to the ship through a jaggedly cut peephole.

The Queen Artemisia lay silent, only the faint hum of her generators and the slap of the waves of her hull betrayed her presence. Gradually the sounds faded away and the ship became a part of the silence. For a long time Pitt listened, but no other sounds traveled across the water to his bobbing outpost No footsteps on a steel deck, no masculine voices shouting commands, no clank of human operated machinery, nothing. The silence was total and very puzzling. It was like a phantom ship with a phantom crew.

The starboard anchor was down, and Pitt made his way toward it, slowly pushing the box from within. The light breeze and the incoming tide worked in his favor, and soon the box gently nudged the anchor chain. He swiftly removed the U.S. Divers air tank and attached its backpack webbing through one of the big steel chain links. Then using the regulator’s single air hose as a line, he slipped his fins, mask and snorkel over the second stage mouthpiece and let the whole package dangle just beneath the surface.

Pitt grabbed the chain, looking up at the seemingly endless links that vanished into the darkness, and felt like Jack climbing the beanstalk. He thought of Teri, lying asleep in a cozy bunk back on the First Attempt. He thought of her soft and fluid body and he began to wonder what in hell he was doing here.

Teri had wondered too, but over a different question. “Why take me to a ship? I can’t go out there and meet all those brainy scientists looking like this.” She lifted the hem of her transparent negligee, displaying her legs to the thighs.

“Oh what the hell,” Pitt laughed. “It’ll probably be the sexiest thing that’s happened to them in years.”

‘What about Uncle Bruno?”

“Tell him you went shopping on the mainland.

Tell him anything. you’re over twenty-one.”

“I guess it would be fun to be naughty,” she giggled. “It’s just like a romantic adventure story in the cinema.”

“That’s one way to look at It,” Pitt had said. He’d figured she would think that, and he’d been right.

Pitt went up the anchor chain, copying the style of a Polynesian native climbing a palm tree after coconuts. He soon reached the hawserhole and peered over the rail He hesitated, listening and watching for any movement in the shadows. Not a soul was visible. The foredeck was deserted.

He swung over the side, crouched low and moved silently across the deck to the foremast. The blacked-out ship was a blessing. If the cargo loading lamps had been on, the midships and foredeck would have been bathed in a flood of white light; not the best circumstances for sneaking around unnoticed. Pitt was also thankful that the darkness blotted out his dripping water trail across the foredeck. He paused, waiting for the expected sounds and movements that never came. It was quiet, far too quiet. There was something else about the ship that didn’t jell in Pitt’s subconscious mind, but he couldn’t pin it down. It eluded him for the present

Pitt reached down, unsheathing the diver’s knife strapped to his calf, and moved aft, holding the seven inch stainless blade well out in front of him.

It seemed incredible, but Pitt had a clear view of the bridge and, as far as he could see, it was abandoned. He melted into the shadows and climbed the ladder to the bridge, his feet padding noiselessly on the steel steps. The wheelhouse was dark and empty. The spokes of the wheel reached out in dark loneliness, and the binnacle stood like a mute, brass-plated sentinel. Pitt couldn’t make out the wording, but he knew from the angle of the pointers that, the telegraph stood at All Stop. In the dim light from the stars he was able to make out a rack attached to the ledge below the port window. His fingers. played over the contents; Aldis lamp, flare gun, flares. Then he got lucky. His hand touched the familiar cylindrical shape of flashlight. He slipped out of his swim trunks and wrapped them around the lens till the light offered nothing but a faint glow. Then he checked every foot of the wheelhouse; deck, bulkheads, equipment The tiny indicator lights of, the control console showed the only glimmer of life.

The curtains were drawn in the chartroom at the back of the wheelhouse. It was inconceivable that any chartroom could be so clean. The charts lay in orderly stacks, their fields of squares and numbers crossed by precisely drawn pencil lines. Pitt slipped the knife back in its sheath, propped the flashlight against a copy of Brown’s Nautical Almanac and scanned the chart markings. The lines coincided exactly with the Queen Artemisia’s known course from Shaughai. He noted the fact that there were no mistakes or erasures by whoever figured the compass corrections. It was neat, too much so.

The log book was open at the last entry: 03.52 hour’s - Brady Field Beacon bearing 312°, approximately eight miles. Wind southwest, 2 knots. The God’s protect Minerva. The time showed that this entry had been made Less than an hour before Pitt swam out from the beach. But where was the crew? There was no sign of the deck watch and the lifeboats