The dog levers were badly rusted and probably hadn't been opened in eighty years. But the bayou water did not have the salt content of the sea. The corrosion was not deep. Pitt gripped a dog lever with both hands, positioned his feet against the upper planks of the wharf and pulled downward.
To his delight, the lever gave and moved an inch on the first try. The next heave took it three inches; then it turned more easily. Finally, he twisted it out against its stop. The second dog lever came slightly easier, but the third fought him every inch of the way. Gasping and panting, Pitt rested for a minute before pulling the door open. It fought too. He had to put both feet against the breakwater and pull with every ounce of strength he had left.
At last the iron door grudgingly squeaked open on its rusting hinges. Pitt peered inside, but all he could see was darkness. He turned and swam under the wharf, stopping just before he reached the shantyboat's hull. He called up softly. "Al, are you there?"
His only response came from Romberg. Curious, the hound strolled onto the wharf and sniffed through the cracks in the planking just above Pitt's head. "Not you. I want Giordino."
Romberg began wagging his tail. He stretched out his front paws, and lay down on the wharf and playfully tried to dig through the wooden planking.
Inside the guard shack, Giordino turned every minute or two and stared at the shantyboat for an indication of Pitt's return. Seeing Romberg pawing and scratching on the wharf for something underneath made him curious. He slowly walked through the gate and stopped by the dog. "What are you sniffing at?" he asked.
"Me!" Pitt whispered through the planking.
"Jeez!" muttered Giordino. "For a second I thought Romberg could talk."
Pitt stared up between the cracks in the planks. "Where did you get the uniform?"
"The guard decided to take a nap, and charitable, benevolent fellow that I am, I offered to stand his watch."
"Even with my limited view I can tell it's a lousy fit."
"You might be interested to learn," said Giordino, facing away from the sugar mill and rubbing a two-day-whiskered chin to cover his lip movements, "this place is owned by the Butterfield Freight Corporation, not Qin Shang Maritime. Also, the guard may have Asian ancestry, but I figure he went to school in either L.A. or San Francisco."
"Butterfield has to be a corporate front used by Shang to move people in and out of here. There's a submerged vehicle connected to the bottom of the barge that has the capacity to transport close to four hundred bodies."
"Then we've found the mother lode."
"We'll know shortly, just as soon as I get inside."
"How?" asked Giordino simply.
"I found a chute that was used to load sugar onto barges. It appears to lead toward the main building."
"Watch your step and make it fast. I don't know how much longer I can fool whoever is monitoring me."
"They have a camera on you?" asked Pitt.
"I've counted three and suspect there may be a few more around the perimeter I haven't spotted yet," Giordino answered.
"Can you drop my forty-five over the side? I don't want to go in naked."
"I'll lower it over the side."
"You're okay, Al. I don't care what they say about you," said Pitt.
"If I hear a gunshot," said Giordino as he walked toward the shantyboat, "Romberg and I will come running."
"That should be a sight to behold."
Giordino entered the shantyboat, took Pitt's Colt automatic and shiftily lowered it on a string through a window until it hung just above the water surface opposite the wharf. He felt a sharp tug on the line and the gun was gone. Then he slowly made his way back to the guard shack, where he unholstered the impressive Wesson Firearms .357 Magnum revolver that he'd taken off the unconscious guard, and waited for something to happen.
Pitt dropped his air tank, weight belt and the rest of the dive gear below the shantyboat. Clad only in his wet suit and carrying the Colt above his head to keep it dry, he stroked under the wharf to the chute portal and climbed inside. It was a tight squeeze, and he had to pull his body along a few inches at a time. The Colt he slipped under the collar of his wet suit against his upper chest, making it easy merely to bend his arm and retrieve it should an unpleasant occasion arise. The light decreased the farther he penetrated the chute, his body blocking off a fair share of it. But he could still see well enough to pick out any obstacles that lay ahead. He fervently hoped he wouldn't run up against a poisonous snake. With almost no room to maneuver, he would either have to club it to death with the old Colt or shoot it. One event risked a bite from fangs, the other detection by security guards.
Then a belated fear flooded his mind. What if the other end was blocked by another iron door that could only be opened from the opposite side? There was no denying the possibility. But the gamble was worth the effort, he rationalized. Nothing ventured and all that. He forged on until the chute began to slope upward. The going became more difficult as gravity began to work against him.
Fingertips scraped raw from clawing the corroded lining of the chute, Pitt continued forward. A vivid imagination could have easily conjured up visions of nightmare monsters from an alien world lurking in the darkness ahead, but reality revealed an empty, hollow chute, nothing more. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the chute began to widen, as if blossoming into the upper half of a giant funnel. Then suddenly and completely unanticipatedly, he found himself crawling into a large bin that flared upward and out to the sides. The upper lip was only four feet away. He struggled upward, gaining a grip and pulling himself higher, then climbing toward the upper rim of the chute.
Automatic grasped in one hand and only dimly aware of the curious prickling sensation moving up the nape of his neck, he heard voices drifting into the chute, voices that were not speaking English. He also became strongly aware of the heavy, sickening odor of human bodies packed too long in a stifling atmosphere. Pitt raised his head until his eyes could see over the edge of the chute. He found himself gazing down from a height of twelve feet into a large chamber scarcely lit by a small dirty skylight in the ceiling. The walls of the chamber were dingy brick, the floor concrete.
Standing, lying or crouched in the stale atmosphere of the chamber, packed together shoulder to shoulder with little or no room to move about, were over three hundred men, women and children in varying states of sickness, malnutrition and fatigue. All appeared to be Chinese. Pitt scanned the chamber but saw no guards. The mass of humanity below was sealed in what was once the sugar-processing room; the only entrance was barred by a thick wooden door.
As he watched, the door abruptly swung open, and an Asian wearing the same uniform Giordino had taken off the guard at the dock roughly pushed a man into the crowded chamber. A woman, who Pitt assumed was the man's wife, had her arms tightly pinned by another guard in a passage outside. The door slammed shut with an echoing thud, and the man, in a highly emotional state, pounded on it and cried out in Chinese, clearly begging the guards not to take the woman away.
Without misgivings or thoughts of personal risk, Pitt dropped out of the chute opening onto the floor below, landing on his feet between two women, knocking both into people packed around them, creating a ripple in the mass. The women stared at him in startled curiosity but said nothing. No one else gave indication of his sudden appearance.
Pitt didn't bother to beg their pardon. He moved quickly through the huddled crowd of bodies toward the door. Reaching it, he gently pushed the sobbing man aside and then rapped on the door with the butt of his Colt. It was a familiar knock, one long, four short, two long, often given by someone friendly with the occupants on the other side. After the second try, Pitt's brazenness was rewarded. As he'd hoped, the guard's curiosity was aroused by the incomprehensible rap instead of the crazed pounding from a distraught husband.
The lock clacked and the door was thrown open again, only this time with Pitt standing behind it. A guard burst back into the chamber, grabbing the husband by the c
ollar and shaking him like a fruit tree. The other guard still stood in the passage, pinning the woman's arms cruelly behind her back. He spoke angrily in perfect English.
"Tell that dumb bastard for the last time, he isn't getting his wife back until he forks over another ten thousand U.S. dollars."
Pitt's arm whirled in a blurred arc downward, the butt of the Colt in his hand connecting solidly on the side of the first guard's head, sending him unconscious to the concrete floor. Then Pitt stepped into the open doorway, gun pointed steadily at the head of the man with the young woman.
"I don't mean to intrude, but I believe you have something that belongs to someone else."
The guard's jaw, already open at seeing his colleague crumpled in a heap, dead to the world, began working furiously as he stared pop-eyed at the apparition in the black wet suit. "Who the hell are you?"
"I was hired by your captives to act as their agent," Pitt said, smiling. "Now let the girl go."
The guard had guts, Pitt had to admit that. One arm moved up and encircled the young woman's neck. "Drop the gun or by God I'll snap her neck."
Pitt stepped forward and raised the Colt until the muzzle was only a few inches from the guard's left eye. "I'll blow your eyes out if you do. Is that what you want, to spend the rest of your days as a blind man?"
The guard was smart enough to know he was in a no-win situation. He looked up and down the passageway in hope of finding help. But he was alone. Slowly, he acted as if his hold was loosening around the woman's neck while his other hand inched toward a gun in a holster at his hip.
Pitt caught the movement and rammed the muzzle of the Colt into the guard's eye. "Not a wise gamble, my friend." He smiled pleasantly, his teeth gleaming in the pale light.
The guard gasped in pain, dropped his hold on the woman and clutched both hands to his eye. "Oh God, you blinded me!"
"No such luck," Pitt said briefly as he yanked the guard into the chamber by the collar. He didn't have to order the woman; she had already rushed by him and thrown herself into her husband's arms. "The worst you can expect is a bloodshot eyeball for a few days."
Pitt kicked the big door closed, crouched down and hurriedly removed the guards' revolvers from their holsters. Then he searched them for concealed weapons. The guard he'd knocked unconscious carried a small .32-caliber automatic strapped to his pants belt behind his back; the other had a bowie knife stuffed in one boot. Then he checked them for size to see which one came closest in height and weight. They were both considerably shorter, but one nearly matched his chest and waist measurements.
As he began to switch clothes, Pitt spoke to the hushed horde who stared back at him as if he was some kind of deity. "Do any of you speak English?"
Two people made their way toward him. One was an elderly man with a long white beard, the other an attractive woman in her mid-thirties. "My father and I can speak English," she said. "We both taught languages at Chungking University."
Pitt swept his hand around the chamber. "
lease tell them to bind and gag these men and hide their bodies as far away from the door as possible, where they can't be easily found."
The father and daughter nodded. "We understand," he replied. "We will also caution them to remain quiet."
"Thank you," said Pitt, as he stripped off his wet suit. "Am I correct in saying that you have all been treated badly by the smugglers who are extorting you for more money?"
"Yes," answered the woman, "all you say is true. We were subjected to unspeakable conditions during the voyage from China. After we arrived in the United States, we were brought here by the enforcers from Qin Shang Maritime, where we were turned over to an American-Chinese crime syndicate. It is they who are extorting us for more money by threatening to either kill or force us into indentured slavery if we do not pay."
"Tell them all to take heart," said Pitt solemnly. "Help is on the way."
He finished dressing, grinning when he noticed that a good three inches of socks showed between the guard's shoes-two sizes too small-and the bottom cuffs of the trousers. While the guards were dragged to the other end of the chamber and bound, Pitt slipped one revolver and the Colt automatic inside his pants and buttoned the shirt over them. Next he adjusted the holster containing the second guard's revolver at his side. Then, with a quick look of encouragement to the poor wretched immigrants, he stepped into the passage, quietly closed the door and locked it.
Twenty feet to the left of the door the passage ended in a tangled mass of old rusty machinery that filled it from floor to ceiling. Pitt went right and came to a stairway ascending to a corridor that opened onto a series of rooms with huge copper pots that had corroded over the decades until the once-bright metal had changed to a patinated green.
Pitt entered one of what had been the sugar cane cooking rooms and peered through a long row of dusty windows. Below him was a vast storage and shipping terminal. A pair of railroad tracks ran between two loading docks before stopping at a concrete barrier. Broad doors on one end of the floor were spread open to accommodate three freight cars that were being backed down a slope by a diesel-electric locomotive painted in the blue and orange colors of the Louisiana & Southern Railroad.
Next to the building near the railroad tracks, Pitt could see a parked pair of white stretch limousines, their drivers talking together while watching with interest as the train rolled past.
It became startlingly clear to Pitt that the immigrants he'd just left were about to be loaded on the freight cars. Accompanied by a growing knot in his stomach, he also observed that the loading docks were manned by nearly a dozen guards. After seeing all there was to see, he sat down below the window, back to the wall, and considered the situation.
Stopping the smugglers from boarding the immigrants onto the train looked grim. Stalling them was a tactic that lay open, but what good would delaying the inevitable do? He might take out four or five of the guards before they recovered from surprise and blasted him, but where were the percentages in that? There was almost no hope of terminating the departure, but there was a slim chance of bringing it to a standstill, at least for the next few hours.
Pitt removed his small arsenal and studied the two .357 magnum revolvers, the bowie knife and his steadfast old Colt. The six-shot revolvers gave him twelve rounds. Many years ago he had redesigned the grip on the Colt to hold a twelve-shot magazine. The revolvers were loaded with hollow-point cartridges, excellent for stopping power and producing extreme tissue damage in man and animal, but not efficient for what Pitt had in mind. His .45 packed Winchester 185-grain Silvertips, which were not as brutal on flesh but had better penetration. He had twenty-four chances to stop the train's departure. Only one lucky shot would do it. The problem was that although he had more than enough killing power, he was woefully short in the metal-piercing department. His intent was to strike a vital part of the diesel engines and electric generators, shutting down all power to the drive wheels.
Pitt sighed, rose to his knees, took the revolvers in both hands and commenced firing, aiming at the louvered sides of the locomotive.
37
JULIA HAD NO IDEA of how long she had been unconscious. The last thing she remembered was the soft face of a woman, a very beautiful woman, dressed in a red Oriental-silk sheath dress slit up the sides, tearing Julia's blouse from her shoulders. As the haze lifted she became aware of a fiery, burning sensation that coursed through her body. She also discovered that her hands and feet were in manacles with chains running around her waist and snaking through the bars of a gate, brutally pulling her arms out of their sockets, leaving her toes barely touching the floor. The chains were worked tight and looped over the door, making it impossible for her to move even fractionally.
Only the cool, damp air that touched and tingled her bare skin gave her relief from the searing fire flowing in her veins. She slowly came to realize that her clothes were gone and she was dressed in little else but her bra and panties.
The woman, who l
ooked Eurasian, stared at Julia from a nearby chair. She sat with her legs curled under her and smiled a catlike smile that sent a shiver running through Julia. Her hair was shiny black and fell in a long cascade down her back. Her shoulders were broad, her breasts nicely rounded, her slim waist neatly merging with trim hips. She wore makeup with skill and her nails were incredibly long. But it was her eyes that drew Julia's interest. The scientific term was hetero-chromia. One of her eyes was nearly black while the other was a light gray. The effect was hypnotic.
"Well?" she said sociably. "Welcome back to reality."
"Who are you?"
"My name is May Ching. I serve the Dragon Triad."
"Not Qin Shang?"
"No."
"Not very sporting of you to drug me," Julia whispered angrily, fighting off the internal torment raging inside her body.