Flood Tide (Dirk Pitt 14)

"Depends," the general replied. "She'd have to slow to jockey her immense bulk around several sharp turns in the river, but she could use her top speed on the straighter reaches. From New Orleans to where the Mystic Canal stops, just short of the Bayou Goula bend of the Mississippi, is about a hundred miles."

"With her interior an empty steel shell," said Pitt, "she rides high in the water, adding to her potential speed. With all her boilers fired up, she can conceivably cut water at close to fifty miles an hour."

"A band of angels would be powerless to help any barge or pleasure-craft traffic that's caught in her wash," said Giordino.

Montaigne turned to Sandecker. "She could arrive on site in less than three hours."

"We haven't a minute to lose in alerting the state emergency services to spread the alarm and begin evacuating every resident of the Atchafalaya Valley," said Lewis, his face grave.

"Almost five-thirty," Sandecker said, studying his watch. "We have only until eight-thirty this evening to stop a disaster of incalculable magnitude." He paused to rub his eyes. "If we fail, hundreds, maybe thousands of innocent people will die and their bodies will be swept out into the Gulf and never found."

After the meeting was over and everyone had left the wardroom, Pitt and Julia stood alone.

"It seems we're always saying good-bye," she said, standing with her arms at her sides, her forehead pressed into Pitt's chest.

"A bad habit we have to break," he said softly.

"I wish I didn't have to return to Washington with Peter, but Commissioner Monroe has ordered me to serve on the task force to indict Qin Shang."

"You're an important lady for the government's case."

"Please come home soon," she whispered as the tears began to form.

He embraced and held her tightly. "You can stay at my hangar. Between my security system and the bodyguards to protect you from harm, you'll be safe until I get there."

A mischievous twinkle came into her eyes through the tears. "Can I drive your Duesenberg?"

He laughed. "When was the last time you drove a stick shift?"

"Never," she said, smiling. "I've always owned cars with automatic transmissions."

"I promise that as soon as I can get there, we'll take the Duesy and go on a picnic."

"Sounds wonderful."

He stood back and stared downward at her through his opaline-green eyes. "Try to be a good girl."

Then he kissed her and they both turned away, neither looking back as they walked apart.

41

THE RIVER SOUNDS were muted by a light mist that hung over the dark water like a diaphanous quilt. The egrets and herons that walked silently along the shorelines, their long, curved beaks dipping into the silt for food, were the first to sense something not of their world moving toward them out of the night. It began as a slight tremor through the water that increased to a sudden rush of air and a loud throb that sent the startled birds flapping into the air.

The few bystanders strolling the levees after dinner and watching the lights of the boats on the water were startled by the sudden appearance of the monstrous shadow. And then the leviathan materialized from the mist with her towering raked bows slicing through the water with incredible ease for an object of such massive proportions. Although her four bronze screws were throttled down to negotiate the sharp bend at Nine Mile Point, she still threw a massive wake that rolled up the levees nearly to the roads running along their crests, crushing small vessels anchored along the shore and sweeping a dozen people into the water. Only after she maneuvered into a straight reach did her engines go on full throttle and thrust her up the river at an incredible rate of speed.

Except for a white light on the stub of her once-tall foremast and the red and green running lights, the only other illumination was an eerie glow that came from her wheelhouse. No movement could be seen on her decks, and only the occasional flicker of silhouettes on the bridge wings offered any signs of life. For the brief minutes it took for her to pass she seemed like a colossal dinosaur charging across a shallow lake. Her white superstructure was a shadow in the gloom, her black hull all but invisible. She flew no flag, her only identification the raised letters of her name on the bows and stern.

Before the mist shrouded her again, her decks seemed to come to life as men scurried about setting up weapons stations and arming an array of portable missile launchers against possible attack by American law enforcement. These were not foreign mercenaries or amateur terrorists. Despite their casual clothing, they were an elite team of fighters- ruthless, trained and disciplined for this mission. If captured alive, they were prepared to commit suicide or die fighting. If the operation went according to plan without interference, they would all be evacuated by helicopters before the ship was scuttled.

Captain Hung-chang had been right about the surprise and shock shown by the thousands of spectators lining the waterfront of New Orleans waiting to welcome the United States. After racing past the all-steel, stern-wheel steamboat called the Natchez IX, he had ordered full speed, watching amused as the great liner left the city behind her stern while crushing a small cabin cruiser and its occupants that had happened to get in the path of her sharp bow. He had laughed when he viewed the faces of the official welcoming committee, consisting of the Louisiana governor, the

mayor of New Orleans and other dignitaries, through his binoculars. They looked absolutely stricken when the United States failed to stop and raced on past the dock where she was to be moored and refurbished with plush rooms, restaurants, gift shops and gambling tables.

For the first thirty miles, a fleet of yachts, outboards and fishing boats followed in the liner's wake. A Coast Guard cutter also raced in pursuit up the river, along with sheriff and police patrol cars that tore along parallel highways with sirens screaming and red lights flashing. Helicopters from New Orleans television news channels swarmed around the ship, cameras aimed at the grand scene being enacted below. Hung-chang ignored all orders demanding the ship come to a stop. Unable to match the great ship's incredible speed on the straight runs of the river, the private craft and Coast Guard cutter soon fell back.

As darkness fell, the first real problem Hung-chang faced was not the narrowing of the shipping channel between New Orleans and Baton Rouge that decreased from one thousand to five hundred feet. He was reasonably safe with the forty-foot depth. Her hull was only 101 feet at its widest point, narrowing considerably toward the waterline. If she could pass through the Panama Canal, Hung-chang reasoned, the two-hundred-foot clearance on either side provided just enough leeway through the tight turns. It was clearing the six bridges that spanned the banks of the river that gave him his greatest concern. The spring runoff had added nearly fourteen feet to the height of the river, making for a tight passage.

The United States narrowly slipped under both the Crescent City Connection bridges, and the Huey P. Long Bridge, scraping the lower span with the tops of her towering funnels. The next two bridges, the Luling and Gramercy, provided a slim gap of less than twelve feet of space. Only the Sunshine Bridge at Donaldsonville remained, and Hung-chang had carefully calculated the United States could safely pass under with six feet to spare. After that, the liner was free of all obstructions on her dash to the Mystic Canal except for river traffic.