"I'll contact the St. Mary Parish sheriff's department and explain the situation," volunteered Harper. "I'm sure they will cooperate and send deputies to guard the levee."
"A sound proposition," agreed Montaigne. "I'll go one step further. My West Point classmate, General Oskar Olson, commands the National Guard in Louisiana. He'll be glad to send a contingent of troops to back up the sheriff's deputies if I make it a personal request."
"The first men on the scene should search out and disarm the explosives," said Pitt.
"They'll need equipment to torch open the iron door to a tunnel that Dirk and I discovered that runs under the highway and levee," suggested Giordino. "Inside the tunnel is where the explosives are likely stored."
"If Qin Shang wants to cut a wide breach," said Montaigne, "he'd have to pack additional explosives into side tunnels that branch out for at least a hundred yards."
"I'm certain Qin Shang's engineers have figured out what it will take to blow a giant hole in the levee," said Pitt grimly.
"It feels good," Sandecker sighed, "to finally have a grip on Qin Shang's testicles."
"Now all we need to know is the scumbag's time schedule," said Giordino.
At that moment Lieutenant Stowe reentered the wardroom and handed Captain Lewis another communication. As he read the message, his eyes narrowed. Then he peered at Pitt. "It seems the pieces of the puzzle that were missing have appeared."
"If the message is for me," said Pitt, "
lease read it aloud for everyone."
Lewis nodded and began reading. " 'To Mr. Dirk Pitt, NUMA, on board Coast Guard ship Weehawken. Please be advised that the former passenger liner United States has not stopped at New Orleans. I repeat, has not stopped at New Orleans. With total disregard to scheduled docking procedures and welcoming ceremonies, the ship has continued upriver toward Baton Rouge. The captain has refused to answer all radio calls.' " Lewis looked up. "What do you make of it?"
"Qin Shang never intended to make the United States into a New Orleans hotel and gambling casino," Pitt explained dryly. "He plans to use it as a diversionary dam. Once the ship's nine-hundred-ninety-foot hull with its height of ninety feet is scuttled diagonally across the river, it will block ninety percent of the Mississippi's flow, sending one enormous flood tide through the shattered levee into the Atchafalaya."
"Ingenious," murmured Montaigne. "Then there would be no stopping the full force of the surge once it broke through. Nothing in this world could stop it."
"You know the Mississippi better than anyone here, General," Sandecker said to Montaigne. "How long do you think it will take the United States to reach the Mystic Canal below Baton Rouge?"
"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.
A myriad of uneasy thoughts began to fade from Hung-chang's mind. There was no strong wind to push the ship off course. Ming Lin guided the ship through the intricate river bends with practiced mastery. And, most important of all, surprise was on his side. Before the Americans realized what was happening, it would be too late. Hung-chang would have the ship in the precise spot to divert the water through the breach blasted in the levee before he and his crew scuttled the ship and were to be in the air and on their way back to the safety of Sungari and the Sung Lien Star which was prepared to cast off immediately and head out to sea. The closer the United States steamed to trie scuttling point, the more distant such worries became.
He felt an unexpected shudder through the deck and tensed, looking quickly at Ming Lin, searching for a sign of an error, a tiny mistake in judgment. All he could detect was a few beads of sweat on the helm master's forehead and a tight set to the lips. Then the decks became placid again, except for the beat of the engines, as they again went to full speed up a straight reach of the river.
Hung-chang stood with both legs braced apart. He had never felt such incredible strength from a ship before: 240,000 horsepower, 60,000 each to drive her massive propellers, which in turn hurled her up the river at the incredible speed of fifty miles an hour, speed that Hung-chang could not imagine from a ship under his command. He studied his image in the front storm windows of the bridge and saw a face calm and poised with no stress lines. He smiled as the ship passed a large waterfront home with a tall pole flying the stars and bars of the Confederate flag. Soon, very soon, the flag would no longer be flapping in the wind over the mighty Mississippi, but over a muddy creek.
The bridge was strangely quiet. There was no need for Hung-chang to call out orders for course and speed changes. Ming Lin was in complete command of the ship's passage, his hands locked on the wheel, his eyes staring into a large monitor that displayed the vessel and its relation to the river in a three-dimensional image that was transmitted by infrared cameras mounted on the bow and funnels. Through the medium of digital science, a display across the bottom of the monitor also gave him recommended course deviations and velocity instructions, providing him with far better mastery over the ship's progress than if he had piloted by eye during daylight.
"We have a towboat pushing ten grain barges coming up ahead," announced Ming Lin.
Hung-chang picked up the ship's radiophone. "Captain of the tow-boat approaching St. James Landing. We are overtaking you. We are one-half mile behind and will overtake you on the Cantrelle Reach, passing on your starboard. We have a hundred-foot beam and suggest you give us a wide berth."
There was no response from the unknown towboat captain, but when the United States turned into Cantrelle Reach, Hung-chang could see through his night-vision glasses that the towboat was slowly turning to port, too slowly. The towboat captain had not followed the news from New Orleans and could never imagine that a giant behemoth the size of the United States was bearing down on him at unbelievable speed.
"He's not going to make it in time," Ming Lin certified calmly.
"Can we slow?" asked Hung-chang.
"If we don't pass him on a straight reach, it will be impossible after we enter the next series of bends."
"Then it's now or never."
Ming Lin nodded. "For us to deviate from our computer-programmed passage might very well imperil the operation."
Hung-chang picked up the radiophone. "Captain, please veer away quickly or we may run you down."
The towboat captain's voice came back angrily. "You don't own the river, Charlie Brown. Who the hell do you think you're threatening?"
Hung-chang shook his head wearily. "I think you had better look over your stern."
The reply came like a choked gasp. "Jeezez! Where did you come from?"
Then the towboat and her barges quickly veered to port. Although the move came in time, the great wash from the superliner, her hull displacing over forty thousand tons of water with her passing, cascaded over the towboat and barges, sweeping them sideways and depositing them high and dry on the bank of the levee.
In another ten minutes the ship rounded Point Houmas, named for a tribe of Indians who once lived there, before rushing past the town of Donaldsonville and successfully clearing the Sunshine Bridge. As the lights of the bridge faded around the last bend in the river, Hung-chang allowed himself the luxury of a cup of tea.
"Only twelve more miles until we're there," said Ming Lin. His words were not a report but came as casually as a statement that the weather was mild. "Twenty minutes, twenty-five at most."
Hung-chang was just finishing his tea when a crewman who was standing watch on the starboard bridge wing leaned through the door of the wheelhouse. "Aircraft, Captain. Approaching from the north. Sounds like helicopters."
He had hoped for a radar installation, but Qin Shang, knowing the United States was on her final voyage saw no reason for the added expense. "Can you tell how many?"
"I count two coming straight down the river," replied the crewman, staring through night-vision glasses."
No need for panic, thought Hung-chang. They were either state law-enforcement craft that could do little but issue warnings for the ship to stop, or those chartered by the news media. He raised his night-vision glasses and peered upriver. Then the veins in his neck became taut as he recognized the helicopters as belonging to the military.
In the same moment a long row of floodlights blinked on, illuminating the river as brightly as daylight, and he saw a convoy of armored tanks rise from the opposite side of the east levee and train their guns on the river channel where the ship was about to pass. Hung-chang was surprised to see no rocket launchers. Not trained in military weapons systems, he did not recognize the National Guard's older M1A1 tanks with their 105-millimeter guns. But he knew well the damage they were capable of against the unarmored superliner.
The two helicopters, Sikorsky H-76 Eagles, split apart and flew past the side of the ship on a height even with the upper deck. One
slowed and hovered above the stern while the other circled, drew even with the wheelhouse and trained a bright spotlight on it.
A voice from a loudspeaker boomed above the thump of the rotor blades. "Bring your ship to a halt immediately!"
Hung-chang gave no orders to comply. The fates had suddenly turned against him. The Americans must have somehow been warned. They knew! Damn them! They knew that Qin Shang intended to destroy the levee and use the superliner as a diverting dam.
"Halt immediately!" the voice came again. "We are coming aboard to secure your ship!"
Hung-chang hesitated as he weighed his chances of running the gauntlet. He counted six tanks lined up on the levee ahead. Lacking missiles with powerful warheads, the enemy would find the great ship next to impossible to sink by tank gunfire alone. The big engines were well below the waterline and immune to destruction from the surface. He glanced at his watch. Bayou Goula and the Mystic Canal were only fifteen minutes away now. For a moment, he considered stopping the ship and surrendering to the American military. But he was committed. To quit now would mean a loss of face. He would do nothing to dishonor his family. He made the decision to keep going.