Dirk Pitt 1 - Pacific Vortex (14 page)

“Code Overland Six, yes sir,” replied the rough voice from the speaker.

“What makes you think we didn't get through?” Boland asked.

“Except for the Lillie Marlene, no one else ever got off a message. Not even the Starbuck. It stands to reason that our unknown friends aren't about to let the world know what we've found.”

“If you're correct, then they must be jamming our transmissions.”

“You bet your life they're jamming,” Pitt said seriously. “That explains why no signals ever came from the missing ships. They sent them out all right, but nothing was received at the maritime stations on Oahu. It also explains the fake position report from Dupree before the Starbuck supposedly vanished. Our unknown friends have a high-power radio transmitter stashed somewhere. Probably on one of the Hawaiian Islands. They'd need a land base to support an antenna tall enough to overpower signals from ships at sea.”

“Commander Boland?” a voice rasped from the speaker.

“Boland here. Let's have it.”

“Nothing, just nothing, sir. They acknowledge all right, but not on Code Overland Six. I've repeated the call four times. All they do is send back a request for a message. Can't figure it, Commander. The calls on the maritime channel came in letter perfect. Somebody is trying to get cute.”

Boland flicked off the intercom. Nobody said anything. It didn't seem important that we were in contact, Pitt thought. All that mattered was that we were in contact with the wrong party.

“Not good,” said Boland, his expression grim.

“That answers one question. But what really happened to the Starbuck's crew six months ago? And, if she's sitting down there all prim and proper, why hasn't she been put in operation?”

“We can scratch the Russians or any other foreign power,” said Boland. “No way they could have kept this a secret this long.”

“Crazy as it sounds,” said Pitt, “I don't think the capture ot the Starbuck was a conspiracy, or a preconceived act”

“You're right. It sounds crazy,” Boland said evenly. “It's not exactly the easiest trick in the world to unintentionally put the grab on a nuclear submarine in mid-ocean.”

“Somebody mastered it,” Pitt retorted. “March and I found nothing to indicate the slightest damage inside or out of tiie hull.”

“It won't wash. An army couldn't have gained entrance inside the sub. The array of sophisticated detection gear must have given off a warning. The Starbuck has automatic alarms that will wake up the dead when activated by open ventilators or hatches. Nothing but fish could have come within spitting distance.”

“Still, even modern submarines aren't prepared to repel boarders.”

Before Boland could reply, lie was interrupted by the intercom speaker. “Skipper?” “Go ahead.”

“Could you please come to the bridge, sir. There's something you ought to see up here.” “Give me a clue.”

“Well... sir... it's land of crazy...” “Come man,” Boland snapped, “spit it outl” The voice from the bridge hesitated. “Fog, Commander, Fog is coming up out of the water and covering the surface like an old Frankenstein flick. I've never seen anything like it. It's unreal.” “I'll be right there.” Boland stared grimly at Pitt.

“ What do you make of it?” “I'd say,” Pitt murmured softly, “we've had it”

The fog was a thick white quilt rising over the water^ swirling in coils from the light breeze, opaque and oppressive in its clammy wetness. The men on the bridge strained their eyes, peering vainly into the billowing mist; they feared something beyond that can't be seen or touched or understood. Already a shroud of moisture was crawling over the ship, and the visible light became an eerie mixture of orange and gray from the light refraction of the setting sun.

Boland rubbed the sweating beads from his forehead, took a reassuring glance through the wheelhouse windows, and said: “It looks common enough; density is somewhat high.”

“There's nothing common about that fog except the color,” Pitt said. Visibility barely took in the bows of the Martha Ann. “The high temperature, time of day, and a three-knot breeze hardly make for normal fog conditions.” He leaned past Boland and studied the radar, watching closely for nearly a minute, checking his wristwatch every so often while making a series of mental calculations. “It shows no signs of movement or dissipation; the wind hasn't budged its mass. I doubt whether old Mother Nature could come up with a freak like this.”

They went out on the port bridge wing, two shaded silhouettes against the peculiar light of the mist. The ship rolled a scant degree or two under the gentle Pacific swells. It was as though time had ceased to exist. Pitt sniffed the air. He couldn't place it at first, but then he became conscious of what he was trying to connect; a distant memory.

“Eucalyptus!”

'What did you say?" Boland asked.

“Eucalyptus,” Pitt said. “Don't you smell it?”

Boland's eyes narrowed questioningly. “I smell something but I don't recognize it,”

“Where are you from and where did you grow up?” Pitt asked.

Boland looked at him, mesmerized by Pitt's urgency. “Minnesota. Why?”

“God, I haven't smelled this in years,” Pitt said. “Eucalyptus trees are common around Southern California. They have a distinct aroma and yield an oil used for inhalation purposes.”

“That doesn't make sense.”

“I agree, but there's no denying the fact that this fog reeks of eucalyptus.”

Boland flexed his fingers, speaking to Pitt without facing him. “What do you suggest?”

“ In simple English, I suggest we get the hell out of here.”

“My thoughts, exactly.” He stepped back into the wheelhouse and leaned over the intercom, “Engine room? How soon can we be underway?”

“Say when, Commander,” the voice down in the bowels of the ship echoed metallically.

“Now!” Boland said. He turned to a young officer on watch. “Up anchor, Lieutenant.”

“Up anchor,” the boyish watch officer affirmed.

“Detection room? This is Commander Boland. Any •readings?”

“Stanley here, sir. All quiet. Nothing except a school of fish about a hundred yards off the starboard beam.”

“Ask him how many and how large,” Pitt said, his face set

Boland nodded silently and issued the request to the detection room.

“By rough count, over two hundred of them swimming at three fathoms.”

“Size, man. Size!” Boland snapped.

“Somewhere between five and seven feet in length.”

Pitt's eyes shifted from the speaker to Boland. “Those aren't fish. They're men.”

It took a moment for Pitt's words to hit. “Men?” Boland said flatly, as if trying to memorize it. “How can they attack from the surface? The Martha Ann has twenty feet of freeboard.”

“They'll do it; you can be sure of that.”

“The hell they will,” Boland said harshly. He pounded his fist on the binnacle, snatched a microphone and Pitt could hear his voice echoing throughout the ship. “Lieutenant Riley; issue sidearms to the entire crew. We may have uninvited visitors.”

“It'll take more than a few sidearms to turn back a horde that size,” Pitt said. “If they make it over the railings, there will be little fifteen men can do against two hundred.”

“Well stop them,” Boland said resolutely.

“You better be prepared to ditch the ship if the worst happens.”

“No,” Boland said calmly. “This decrepit-looking old gutbucket may not look like much, but she still belongs to the United States Navy. I'm not going to give her up without making somebody pay.  Tell Admiral Hunter what happened here. Tell him...” Tell him yourself. I'm not lifting that helicopter off this ship without you and your crew."

Boland's lips arched into a grim smile. “Good luck!”

 “I'll see you on the flight pad,” was all Pitt said.

Then he turned and passed through the door.

The pilot's seat was damp and sticky as Pitt climbed onto its vinyl padding. He went through his preflight checklist as the mist tightened around the ship. The atmosphere was heavy and all light was muted. Nothing could be seen outside the ship; the sea was gone, the sky was gone, and only a tiny world of two hundred square feet was recognizable from the cockpit windows.

He engaged the auxiliary power unit and pushed the starter switch. The APU struggled and moaned in protest as its electrical output shoved the copter's turbine into even faster revolutions until the exhaust temperature gauge and the whine from the exhaust pad notified him of a smooth start Then the rotor gears meshed and the giant blades began slowly beating the misty air with their peculiar swishing sound.

When the needles of the gauges on the instrument panel settled in their normal operating positions, Pitt reached over to the copilot's seat and picked up the towel-encased Mauser. He laid the gun in his lap and quickly unwrapped it, making certain the shoulder stock was attached securely. Then he shoved the fifty-shot clip into the receiver, climbed from the cockpit, and peered into the ghostly light. Nothing could be distinguished. The landing skid offered him some protection as he crouched on his heels and aimed the gun into the gloom.

Ninety seconds was all Pitt had to wait before two spectral forms materialized over the railing at the stern and drifted menacingly toward the vibrating helicopter. Pitt waited until he was certain they were not members of the Martha Ann's crew. Then the Mauser spat.

The pair of seminude figures fell silently as their now familiar projectile guns dropped from their hands and clattered to the steel plates of the deck Pitt swung around and scanned a full three-hundred-sixty-degree circle before he briefly inspected the fallen men. They lay twisted and limp beside each other, their life oozing from their torn chests. The green-colored, almost nonexistent attire around their hips, and the weapons they'd carried, were identical to those he'd seen on the men he'd lolled on the Star-buck. The only difference his eyes could detect, a difference he hadn't had time to notice before, was a small plastic box that seemed to be adhered to each man's chest under their armpits.

Before he could study the corpses in more detail, his gaze was diverted by another figure that slowly rose over the handrail. Pitt pointed the gun and fanned the trigger with one gentle kiss of the finger. A short blast shattered the sound of the copter's whirling blades for the second time, and the indistinct form suddenly vanished backward into the mist Cautiously Pitt crept over to the handrail. He was almost on top of what he was searching for when his hand brushed against it. It was a grappling hook, its six curved prongs covered under a thick sheathing of foam rubber, its length disappearing into the unseen water below.

It was now easy for him to see how these strange men from the sea, under concealment of the fog, had silently dispatched almost a hundred ships and thousands of their crewmen to the bottom of this godforsaken piece of the Pacific Ocean.

Pitt's thoughts were interrupted by the heavy thunder of the .45 automatics, punctuated by the sharper crack of the .30-caliber carbines. Screams from wounded men reverberated the mist. Pitt felt remote and oddly detached from the fight that was growing in intensity.

A stray bullet whined past the helicopter and dropped far out into the water. “Damn you!” Pitt shouted. One bullet into a vital part would destroy the copter.

Three shapes that became men stumbled onto the flight pad, with glazed eyes and sweat trailing down their faces. “Cmon, don't lag,” Pitt boomed. “Get a move on!” Pitt didn't turn as he spoke; he kept his eyes peeled into the gloom. Nearly a full minute passed before another figure ran onto the flight pad. The young sailor's panicky headlong dash was so rapid that he slipped on the wet deck and would have skidded between the railing bars and over the side but for Pitt's strong grasp on a flailing arm.

“Take it easy!” Pitt admonished. “It's a long swim home.”

“I'm sorry, sir,” the seaman blurted. “You can't see the bastards; they're on you before you have a chance.”

Pitt pushed the young seaman under the haven of the helicopter as four more men appeared out of the gray film. One was the helmsman with Farris in tow. The sole survivor of the Starbuck was mentally disconnected from the battle going on around him. He looked straight through Pitt, his eyes wide and dull with abstract unconcern.

“Set him in the copilot's seat and strap him in tight,” Pitt ordered the helmsman. Then he turned his attention toward the forward part of the ship. He cupped his left ear and listened, picking up heavy footsteps several feet beyond the unpenetrable haze.

“Pitt, you there?” a voice yelled.

“Keep coming,” Pitt shouted back. “No sudden moves!”

“No problem there,” said the voice. “I'm lugging a wounded man.”

Out of the fog came Lieutenant Harper, the engineering officer who weighed almost two hundred fifty pounds. Over his shoulder he carried a boy who could not have been more than nineteen years of age. The boy's face was ashen, and a thick stream of blood ran down the length of his right leg, splattering in dark, maroon-colored drops to the deck. Pitt reached out and grasped a huge bicep, pulling the massive body attached to it onto the flight pad.

“How many more behind you?”

“We're the last.”

“Commander Boland?”

“A whole gang of those naked bastards jumped him and Lieutenant Stanley just aft of the bridge.” Harper's voice was apologetic. “I'm afraid they got 'em both.”

“Get the kid into the copter and see what can be done to stop the bleeding,” Pitt ordered. “And have the men form a firing line with what weapons you have left. I'm going to make one last check for wounded.”

“Watch your step, sir. You're the only pilot we got.”

Pitt didn't wait to answer. He jumped off the pad and lunged blindly across the deck, his feet slipping on the wet plates, his breath coming in short deep pants. Shapes loomed up in the mist and Pitt opened up with the Mauser and cut them apart Three men from the sea went down like wheat beneath a scythe. Pitt kept his finger on the trigger, spraying a path in front of him. His foot caught on a rope and he fell sprawling on the deck, the raised rivets marking a neat pattern of bruises in his chest. He lay there a moment, his injured leg throbbing in sledgehammer blows of pain. It was quiet, far too quiet; no shouting voices or gun flashes arose from the fog.