"We'll come right up on them at half speed before reversing the engines," he said to the helmsman.
"You don't want to stop and drift up to them, Captain?" asked the blond, ponytailed man at the wheel.
"They're surrounded by a school of sharks," said Stewart. "We can't waste time with caution." He stepped over and spoke into the ship's speaker system. "We'll approach the survivors on the port side.
All available hands prepare to bring them aboard."
It was a neat bit of seamanship. Stewart stopped the ship within 2 meters of the life raft with only a slight wash. Several crewmen stared down and waved, leaning far over the railing and bulwark to shout greetings. The boarding ladder had been lowered and a crewman stood on the lower platform with a boat hook. He extended it, the end was grabbed by Giordino, and the raft was pulled in alongside the platform.
The sharks were forgotten and everyone began smiling and laughing with unabashed happiness at having survived death without major injuries at least four times since being taken hostage. Shannon stared up at the towering hull of the research ship, took in the ungainly superstructure and derricks, and turned to Pitt with a shrewd twinkle in her eyes.
"You promised us a four-star hotel and a refreshing bath. Certainly not a rusty old work boat."
Pitt laughed. "A rose by any other name. Any port in a storm. So you share my attractive, but homespun stateroom. As a gentleman, I'll give you the lower berth while I suffer the indignity of the upper."
Shannon looked at him with amusement. "Taking a lot for granted, aren't you?"
As Pitt relaxed and kept a paternal eye on the occupants of the raft, who were climbing the ladder one after the other, he smiled fiendishly at Shannon and murmured, "Okay, we'll keep a low profile. You can have the upper and I'll take the lower."
Jaun Chaco's world had cracked and crumbled to dust around him. The disaster in the Valley of Viracocha was far worse than anything he could have imagined. His brother had been the first to be killed, the artifact smuggling operation was in shambles, and once the American archaeologist, Shannon Kelsey, and the university students told their story to the news media and government security officials, he would be thrown out of the Department of Archaeology in disgrace. Far worse, there was every possibility he would be arrested, tried for selling his nation's historical heritage, and sentenced to a very long jail term.
He was a man wracked with anxiety as he stood beside the motor home in Chachapoya and watched the tilt-rotor aircraft come to a near halt in the air as the twin outboard engines on the end of the wings swiveled from forward flight to vertical. The black, unmarked craft hovered for a few moments before the pilot gently settled the extended landing wheels on the ground.
A heavily bearded man in dirty rumpled shorts and a khaki shirt with an immense bloodstain in its center exited the nine-passenger cabin and stepped to the ground. He looked neither right nor left, the expression on his face set and grim. Without a word of greeting, he walked past Chaco and entered the motor home. Like a chastised collie, Chaco followed him inside.
Cyrus Sarason, the impersonator of Dr. Steven Miller, sat heavily behind Chaco's desk and stared icily. "You've heard?"
Chaco nodded without questioning the bloodstain on Sarason's shirt. He knew the blood represented a fake gunshot wound. "I received a full report from one of my brother's fellow officers."
"Then you know Dr. Kelsey and the university students slipped through our fingers and were rescued by an American oceanographic research ship."
"Yes, I am aware of our failure."
"I'm sorry about your brother," Sarason said without emotion.
"I can't believe he's gone," muttered Chaco, strangely unmoved. "His death doesn't seem possible. The elimination of the archaeologists should have been a simple affair."
"To say your people bungled the job is an understatement," said Sarason. "I warned you those two divers from NUMA were dangerous."
"My brother did not expect organized resistance by an army."
"An army of one man," Sarason said acidly. "I observed the action from a tomb. A lone sniper atop the temple killed the officers and held off two squads of your intrepid mercenaries, while his companion overpowered the pilots and commandeered their helicopter. Your brother paid dearly for his overconfidence and stupidity."
"How could a pair of divers and a juvenile group of archaeologists scourge a highly trained security force?" Chaco asked in bewilderment.
"If we knew the answer to that question, we might learn how they knocked the pursuing helicopter out of the air."
Chaco stared at him. "They can still be stopped."
"Forget it. I'm not about to compound the disaster by destroying a U.S. government ship and all on board. The damage is already done. According to my sources in Lima, full exposure, including Miller's murder, was communicated to President Fujimori's office by Dr. Kelsey soon after she boarded the ship.
By this evening, the story will be broadcast all over the country. The Chachapoyan end of our operation is a washout."
"We can still bring the artifacts out of the valley." The recent demise of Chaco's brother had not fully pushed aside his greed.
Sarason nodded. "I'm ahead of you. A team is on its way to remove whatever pieces survived the rocket attack launched by those idiots under your brother's command. It's a miracle we still have something to show for our efforts."
"I believe there is a good possibility a clue to the Drake quipu may still be found in the City of the Dead."
"The Drake quipu." Sarason repeated the words with a faraway look in his eyes. Then he shrugged.
"Our organization is already working on another angle for the treasure."
"What of Amaru? Is he still alive?"
"Unfortunately, yes. He'll live the rest of his days as a eunuch."
"Too bad. He was a loyal follower."
Sarason sneered. "Loyal to whoever paid him best. Tupac Amaru is a sociopathic killer of the highest order. When I ordered him to abduct Miller and hold him prisoner until we concluded the operation, he put a bullet in the good doctor's heart and threw him in the damned sinkhole. The man has the mind of a rabid dog."
"He may still prove useful," said Chaco slowly.
"Useful, how?"
"If I know his mind, he'll swear vengeance on those responsible for his newly acquired handicap. It might be wise to unleash him on Dr. Kelsey and the diver called Pitt to prevent them from being used by international customs investigators as informants."
"We'd be skating on thin ice if we turned a crazy man like him loose. But I'll keep your suggestion in mind."
Chaco went on. "What plans do the Solpemachaco have for me? I am finished here. Now that my countrymen will know I have betrayed their trust with regard to our historical treasures, I could spend the rest of my life in one of our filthy prisons."
"A foregone conclusion." Sarason shrugged. "My sources also revealed that the local police have been ordered to pick you up. They should arrive within the hour."
Chaco looked at Sarason for a long moment, then said slowly "I am a scholar and a scientist, not a hardened criminal. There is no telling how much I might reveal during lengthy interrogation, perhaps even torture."
Sarason suppressed a smile at the veiled threat. "You are a valuable asset we cannot afford to lose.
Your expertise and knowledge of ancient Andean cultures is second to none. Arrangements are being made for you to take over our collection facilities in Panama. There you will direct the identification, cataloguing, and restoration operations on all artifacts we either purchase from the local huagueros or acquire under the guise of academic archaeological projects throughout South America."
Chaco suddenly looked wolfish. "I'm flattered. Of course I accept. Such an important position must pay well."
"You will receive two percent of the price the artifacts bring at our auction houses in New York and Europe."
Chaco was too far down the rungs of the organizational ladder to be privy to
the inner secrets of the Solpemachaco, but he well knew the network, and its profits were vast. "I will need help getting out of the country."
"Not to worry," said Sarason. "You'll accompany me." He nodded out a window at the ominous black aircraft sitting outside the motor home, the big threebladed rotors slowly beating the air at idle. "In that aircraft we can be in Bogota, Colombia, within four hours."
Chaco couldn't believe his luck. One minute he was a step away from disgrace and prison for defrauding his government, the next he was on his way to becoming an extremely wealthy man. The memory of his sibling was rapidly fading, they were only half-brothers and had never been close anyway.
While Sarason patiently waited, Chaco quickly gathered some personal items and stuffed them in a suitcase. Then the two men walked out to the aircraft together.
Juan Chaco never lived to see Bogota, Colombia. Farmers tilling a field of sweet potatoes near an isolated village in Ecuador paused to look up in the sky at the strange droning sound of the tilt-rotor as it passed overhead 500 meters (1600 feet) above the ground. Suddenly, in what seemed a horror fantasy, they caught sight of the body of a man dropping away from the aircraft. The farmers could also clearly see that the unfortunate man was alive. He frantically kicked his legs and clawed madly at the air as if he could somehow slow his plunging descent.
Chaco struck the ground in the middle of a small corral occupied by a scrawny cow, missing the startled animal by only 2 meters. The farmers came running from their field and stood around the crushed body that was embedded nearly half a meter into the soil. Simple countryfolk, they did not send a runner to the nearest police station over 60 kilometers (37 miles) to the west. Instead, they reverently lifted the broken remains of the mysterious man who had dropped from the sky and buried him in a small graveyard beside the ruins of an old church, unlamented and unknown, but embellished in myth for generations yet to come.
The top of Shannon's head was wrapped turban style with a towel, her hair still wet after a hot blissful bath in the captain's cabin. She had allowed the Peruvian female students to go first before luxuriating in the steaming water while sipping wine and eating a chicken sandwich thoughtfully provided by Pitt from the ship's galley. Her skin glowed all over and smelled of lavender soap after washing the sweat and grime out of her pores and the jungle mud from under her nails. One of the shorter crewmen, who was close to her size, lent her a pair of coveralls. The only female crew member, a marine geologist, had used most of her wardrobe to reclothe the Peruvian girls. As soon as Shannon was dressed she promptly threw the swimsuit and the dirty blouse in a trash container. They held memories she'd just as soon forget.
After drying and brushing out her hair, she sneaked a bit of Captain Stewart's aftershave lotion. Why is it, she wondered, men never use talcum powder after they shower? She was just tying her long hair in a braid when Pitt knocked on the door. They stood there for a moment staring at each other before breaking into laughter.
"I hardly recognized you," she said, taking in a clean and shaven Pitt wearing a brightly flowered Hawaiian aloha shirt and light tan slacks. He was not what you'd call devilishly good-looking, she thought, but any flaws in his craggy face were more than offset by a masculine magnetism she found hard to resist. He was even more tanned than she was, and his black, wavy hair was a perfect match for the incredibly green eyes.
"We don't exactly look like the same two people," he said with an engaging smile. "How about a tour of the ship before dinner?"
"I'd like that." Then she gave him an appraising look. "I thought I was supposed to bunk down in your cabin. Now I find out the captain has generously offered me his."
Pitt shrugged. "The luck of the draw, I guess."
"You're a fraud, Dirk Pitt. You're not the lecher you make yourself out to be."
"I've always believed intimacy should be drifted into gradually."
She suddenly felt uneasy. It was as though his piercing eyes could read her mind. He seemed to sense there was someone else. She forced a smile and wrapped her arm around his. "Where shall we begin?"
"You're speaking of the tour, of course."
"What else?"
The Deep Fathom was a state-of-the-art scientific work boat, and she looked it. Her official designation was Super-Seismic Vessel. She was primarily designed for deep ocean geophysical research, but she could also undertake a myriad of other subsea activities. Her giant stern and side cranes, with their huge winches, could be adapted to operate every conceivable underwater function, from mining excavation to deep water salvage and manned and unmanned submersible launch and recovery.
The ship's hull was painted in NUMA's traditional turquoise with a white superstructure and azure blue crapes. From bow to stern she stretched the length of a football field, berthing up to thirty-five scientists and twenty crew. Although she didn't look it from the outside, her interior living quarters were as plush as most luxurious passenger liners. Admiral James Sandecker, with rare insight given to few bureaucrats, knew his people could perform more efficiently if treated accordingly, and the Deep Fathom reflected his conviction. Her dining room was fitted out like a fine restaurant and the galley was run by a first-rate chef.
Pitt led Shannon up to the navigation bridge. "Our brain center," he pointed out, sweeping one hand around a vast room filled with digital arrays, computers, and video monitors mounted on a long console that ran the full width of the bridge beneath a massive expanse of windows. "Most everything on the ship is controlled from here, except the operation of deep water equipment. That takes place in compartments containing electronics designed for specialized deep sea projects."
Shannon stared at the gleaming chrome, the colorful images on the monitors, the panoramic view of the sea around the bows. It all seemed as impressive and modern as a futuristic video parlor. "Where is the helm?" she asked.
"The old-fashioned wheel went out with the Queen Mary," answered Pitt. He showed her the console for the ship's automated control, a panel with levers and a remote control unit that could be mounted on the bridge wings. "Navigation is now carried out by computers. The captain can even con the ship by voice command."
"For someone who digs up old potsherds, I had no idea ships were so advanced."
"After lagging as a stepchild for forty years, marine science and technology have finally been recognized by government and private business as the emerging industry of the future."
"You never fully explained what you're doing in the waters off Peru."
"We're probing the seas in search of new drugs," he answered.
"Drugs, as in take two plankton and call me in the morning?"
Pitt smiled and nodded. "It's entirely within the realm of possibility your doctor may someday actually prescribe such a remedy."
"So the hunt for new drugs has gone underwater."
"A necessity. We've already found and processed over ninety percent of all the land organisms that provide sources of medicine to treat diseases. Aspirin and quinine come from the bark of trees.
Chemicals contained in everything from snake venom to secretion from frogs to lymph from pigs' glands are used in drug compounds. But marine creatures and the microorganisms that dwell in the depths have been an untapped source, and might well be the hope of curing every affliction, including the common cold, cancer, or AIDS."
"But surely you can't simply go out and bring back a boatload of microbes for processing at a laboratory for distribution to your friendly pharmacy?"
"Not as farfetched as you might think," he said. "Any one of a hundred organisms that live in a drop of water can be cultivated, harvested, and rendered into medicines. Jellyfish, an invertebrate animal called a bryozoan, certain sponges, and several corals are currently being developed into anticancer medicines, anti-inflammatory agents for arthritis pain, and drugs that suppress organ rejection after transplant surgery. The test results on a chemical isolated from kelp look especially encouraging in combating a drug-resistant strain of tuberculosi
s."
"Just where in the ocean are you looking for these wonder drugs?" asked Shannon.
"This expedition is concentrating on a ridge of chimneylike vents where hot magma from within the earth's mantle comes in contact with cold seawater and spews through a series of cracks before spreading across the bottom. You might call it a deep-ocean hot spring. Various minerals are deposited over a wide area-copper, zinc, iron, along with water heavy in hydrogen sulfide. Incredibly, vast colonies of giant clams, mussels, huge tube worms, and bacteria that utilize the sulfur compounds to synthesize sugars live and thrive in this dark and toxic environment. It is this remarkable species of sea life that we're collecting with submersibles for laboratory testing and clinical trials back in the States."
"Are there many scientists working on these miracle cures?"
Pitt shook his head. "Around the world, maybe fifty or sixty. Marine medical research is still in its infancy."
"How long before we see the drugs on the market?"
"The regulatory obstacles are staggering. Doctors won't be prescribing many of these medications for another ten years."
Shannon walked over to an array of monitors that filled an entire panel of one bulkhead. "This looks impressive."
"Our secondary mission is to map the seafloor wherever the ship sails."
"What are the monitors showing?"
"You're looking at the bottom of the sea in a myriad of shapes and images," Pitt explained. "Our long-range, low-resolution side-scan sonar system can record a swath in three-dimensional color up to fifty kilometers wide."
Shannon stared at the incredible display of ravines and mountains thousands of meters below the ship.
"I never thought I'd be able to observe the land beneath the sea this clearly. It's like staring out the window of an airliner over the Rocky Mountains."
"With computer enhancement it becomes even sharper."
"Romance of the seven seas," she waxed philosophically. "You're like the early explorers who charted new worlds."