"Mr. Gunn. I'm Agent Anthony Di Maggio with the Customs Service. I thought you'd like to know that Dirk Pitt was picked up alive in the Gulf about half an hour ago."
Gunn closed his eyes and sighed with heavy relief. "I knew he'd make it."
"Quite a feat of courage, I hear, swimming over a hundred kilometers through an underground river."
"No one else could have done it."
"I hope the good news will inspire you to become more cooperative," said the nurse, who talked sweetly while carrying a long rectal thermometer.
"Isn't he a good patient?" asked Di Maggio.
"I've tended better."
"I wish to hell you'd give me a pair of pajamas," Gunn said nastily, "instead of this peekaboo, lace-up-the-rear, shorty nightshirt."
"Hospital gowns are designed that way for a purpose," the nurse replied smartly.
"I wish to God you'd tell me what it is."
"I'd better go now and leave you alone," said Di Maggio, beating a retreat. "Good luck on a speedy recovery."
"Thank you for giving me the word on Pitt," Gunn said sincerely.
"Not at all."
"You rest now," ordered the nurse. "I'll be back in an hour with your medication."
True to her word, the nurse returned in one hour on the dot. But the bed was empty. Gunn had fled, wearing nothing but the skimpy little gown and a blanket.
Strangely, those on board the Alhambra were the last to know.
Loren and Sandecker were meeting with Mexican Internal Police investigators beside the Pierce Arrow when news of Pitt's rescue came from the owner of a luxurious powerboat that was tied up at the nearby fuel station. He shouted across the water separating the two vessels.
"Ahoy the ferry!"
Miles Rodgers was standing on the deck by the wheelhouse talking with Shannon and Duncan. He leaned over the railing and shouted back. "What is it?"
"They found your boy!"
The words carried inside the auto deck and Sandecker rushed out onto the open deck. "Say again!"
he yelled.
"The owners of a sailing ketch fished a fellow out of the water," the yacht skipper replied. "The Mexican navy reports say it's the guy they were looking for."
Everyone was on an outside deck now. All afraid to ask the question that might have an answer they dreaded to hear.
Giordino accelerated his wheelchair up to the loading ramp as if it were a super fuel dragster. He apprehensively yelled over to the powerboat. "Was he alive?"
"The Mexicans said he was in pretty poor shape, but came around after the boat owner's wife pumped some soup into him."
"Pitt's alive!" gasped Shannon.
Duncan shook his head in disbelief. "I can't believe he made it through to the Gulf!"
"I do," murmured Loren, her face in her hands, the tears flowing. The dignity and the poise seemed to crumble. She leaned down and hugged Giordino, her cheeks wet and flushed red beneath a new tan. "I knew he couldn't die."
Suddenly, the Mexican investigators were forgotten as if they were miles away and everyone was shouting and hugging each other. Sandecker, normally taciturn and reserved, let out a resounding whoop and rushed to the wheelhouse, snatched up the Iridium phone and excitedly called the Mexican Navy Fleet Command for more information.
Duncan frantically began poring over his hydrographic charts of the desert water tables, impatient to learn what data Pitt had managed to accumulate during the incredible passage through the underwater river system.
Shannon and Miles celebrated by breaking out a bottle of cheap champagne they had found in the back of the galley's refrigerator, and passing out glasses. Miles reflected genuine joy at the news, but Shannon's eyes seemed unusually thoughtful. She stared openly at Loren, as a curious envy bloomed inside her that she couldn't believe existed. She slowly became aware that perhaps she had made a mistake by not displaying more compassion toward Pitt.
"That damned guy is like the bad penny that always turns up," said Giordino, fighting to control his emotions.
Loren looked at him steadily. "Did Dirk tell you he asked me to marry him?"
"No, but I'm not surprised. He thinks a lot of you."
"But you don't think it's a good idea, do you?"
Giordino slowly shook his head. "Forgive me if I say a union between you two would not be made in heaven."
"We're too headstrong and independent for one another. Is that what you mean?"
"There's that, all right. You and he are like express trains racing along parallel tracks, occasionally meeting in stations but eventually heading for different destinations."
She squeezed his hand. "I thank you for being candid."
"What do I know about relationships?" He laughed. "I never last with a woman more than two weeks."
Loren looked into Giordino's eyes. "There is something you're not telling me."
Giordino stared down at the deck planking. "Women seem to be intuitive about such things."
"Who was she?" Loren asked hesitantly.
"Her name was Summer," replied Giordino honestly. "She died fifteen years ago in the sea off Hawaii."
"The Pacific Vortex affair. I remember him telling me about it."
"He went crazy trying to save her, but she was lost."
"And he still carries her in his memory," said Loren.
Giordino nodded. "He never talks about her, but he often gets a faraway look in his eyes when he sees a woman who resembles her."
"I've seen that look on more than one occasion," Loren said, her voice melancholy.
"He can't go on forever longing for a ghost," said Giordino earnestly. "We all have an image of a lost love who has to be put to rest someday."
Loren had never seen the wisecracking Giordino this wistful before. "Do you have a ghost?"
He looked at her and smiled. "One summer, when I was nineteen, I saw a girl riding a bicycle along a sidewalk on Balboa Island in Southern California. She wore brief white shorts and a soft green blouse tied around her midriff. Her honey-blond hair was in a long ponytail. Her legs and arms were tanned mahogany. I wasn't close enough to see the color of her eyes, but I somehow knew they had to be blue.
She had the look of a free spirit with a warm sense of humor. There isn't a day that goes by I don't recall her image."
"You didn't go after her?" Loren asked in mild surprise.
"Believe it or not, I was very shy in those days. I walked the same sidewalk every day for a month, hoping to spot her again. But she never showed. She was probably vacationing with her parents and left for home soon after our paths crossed."
"That's sad," said Loren.
"Oh, I don't know." Giordino laughed suddenly. "We might have married, had ten kids and found we hated each other."
"To me, Pitt is like your lost love. An illusion I can never quite hold on to."
"He'll change," Giordino said sympathetically. "All men mellow with age."
Loren smiled faintly and shook her head. "Not the Dirk Pitts of this world. They're driven by an inner desire to solve mysteries and challenge the unknown. The last thing any of them wants is to grow old with the wife and kids and die in a nursing home."
The small port of San Felipe wore a festive air. The dock was crowded with people. Everywhere there was an atmosphere of excitement as the patrol boat neared the entrance to the breakwaters forming the harbor.
Maderas turned to Pitt. "Quite a reception."
Pitt's eyes narrowed against the sun. "Is it some sort of local holiday?"
"News of your remarkable journey through the earth has drawn them."
"You've got to be kidding," said Pitt in honest surprise.
"No, senor. Because of your discovery of the river flowing below the desert, you've become a hero to every farmer and rancher from here to Arizona who struggles to survive in a harsh wasteland." He nodded at two vans with technicians unloading television camera equipment. "That's why you've become big news."
"Oh, God." Pitt groaned. "All
I want is a soft bed to sleep in for three days."
Pitt's mental and physical condition had improved considerably upon receiving word over the ship's radio from Admiral Sandecker that Loren, Rudi, and Al were alive, if slightly the worse for wear.
Sandecker also brought him up to date on Cyrus Sarason's death at the hands of Billy Yuma and the capture of Zolar and Oxley, along with Huascar's treasure, by Gaskill and Ragsdale with the help of Henry and Micki Moore.
There was hope for the little people after all, Pitt thought stoically.
It seemed like an hour, though it was only a few minutes before the Porqueria tied up to the Alhambra for the second time that day. A large paper sign was unfolded across the upper passenger deck of the ferryboat, the letters still dripping fresh paint. It read, WELCOME BACK FROM THE DEAD.
On the auto deck a Mexican mariachi street band was lined up, playing and singing a tune that seemed familiar. Pitt leaned over the railing of the patrol boat, cocked an ear, and threw back his head in laughter. He then doubled over with pain as his merriment caused a burst of fire inside his rib cage.
Giordino had pulled off the ultimate coup.
"Do you know the song they're playing?" asked Maderas, mildly alarmed at Pitt's strange display of mirth and agony.
"I recognize the tune, but not the words," Pitt gasped through the hurt. "They're singing in Spanish."
Miralos andando
Vealos andando
Lleva a tu novia favorita, tu companero real
Bajate a la represa, dije la represa
Juntate con ese gentio andando, oiga la musica y la cancion
Es simplemente magnifico camarada, esperando en la represa
Esperando por el Roberto E. Lee.
"Miralos andando," repeated Maderas, confused. "What do they mean, `Go to the dam'?"
"Levee," Pitt guessed. "The opening words of the song are, `Go down to the levee.' "
As the trumpets blared, the guitars strummed, and the seven throats of the band warbled out a mariachi version of "Waiting for the Robert E. Lee," Loren stood among the throng that had mobbed on board the ferry and waved wildly. She could see Pitt search the crowd until he found her and happily waved back.
She saw the dressing wrapped around his head, the left arm in a sling, and the cast on one wrist. In his borrowed shorts and golf shirt he looked out of place among the uniformed crew of the Mexican navy.
At first glance, he appeared amazingly fit for a man who had survived a journey through hell, purgatory, and a black abyss. But Loren knew Pitt was a master at covering up exhaustion and pain. She could see them in his eyes.
Pitt spotted Admiral Sandecker standing behind Giordino in his wheelchair. His wandering eyes also picked out Gordo Padilla with his arm around his wife, Rosa. Jesus, Gato, and the engineer, whose name he could never remember, stood nearby brandishing bottles in the air. Then the gangplank was down, and Pitt shook hands with Maderas and Hidalgo.
"Thank you, gentlemen, and thank your corpsman for me. He did a first-rate job of patching me up."
"It is we who are in your debt, Senor Pitt," said Hidalgo. "My mother and father own a small ranch not far from here and will reap the benefits when wells are sunk into your river."
"Please make me one promise," said Pitt.
"If it's within our power," replied Maderas.
Pitt grinned. "Don't ever let anyone name that damned river after me."
He turned and walked across to the auto deck of the ferry and into a sea of bodies. Loren rushed up to him, stopped, and slowly put her arms around his neck so she would not press her body against his injuries. Her lips were trembling as she kissed him.
She pulled back as the tears flowed, smiled and said, "Welcome home, sailor."
Then the rush was on. Newsmen and TV cameramen from both sides of the border swarmed around as Pitt greeted Sandecker and Giordino.
"I thought sure you'd bought a tombstone this time," said Giordino, beaming like a neon sign on the Las Vegas strip.
Pitt smiled. "If I hadn't found the Wallowing Windbag, I wouldn't be here."
"I hope you realize," said Sandecker, faking a frown, "that you're getting too old for swimming around in caves."
Pitt held up his good hand as if taking an oath. "So help me, Admiral, if I ever so much as look at another underground cavern, shoot me in the foot."
Then Shannon came up and planted a long kiss on his lips that had Loren fuming. When she released him, she said, "I missed you."
Before he could reply, Miles Rodgers and Peter Duncan were pumping his uninjured hand. "You're one tough character," said Rodgers.
"I busted the computer and lost your data," Pitt said to Duncan. "I'm genuinely sorry."
"No problem," Duncan replied with a broad smile. "Now that you've proven the river runs from Satan's Sinkhole under Cerro el Capirote and shown where it resurges into the Gulf, we can trace its path with floating sonic geophysical imaging systems along with transmitting instrument packages."
At that moment, unnoticed by most of the mob, a dilapidated Mexicali taxi smoked to a stop. A man jumped out and hurried across the dock and onto the auto deck wearing only a blanket. He put his head down and barreled his way through the mass of people until he reached Pitt.
"Rudi!" Pitt roared as he wrapped his free arm around the little man's shoulder. "Where did you fall from?"
As if he'd timed it, Gunn's splinted fingers lost their grip on the blanket and it fell to the deck, leaving him standing in only the hospital smock. "I escaped the clutches of the nurse from hell to come here and greet you," he said, without any sign of embarrassment.
"Are you mending okay?"
"I'll be back at my desk at NUMA before you."
Pitt turned and hailed Rodgers. "Miles, you got your camera?"
"No good photographer is ever without his cameras," Rodgers shouted over the noise of the crowd.
"Take a picture of the three battered bastards of Cerro el Capirote."
"And one battered bitch," added Loren, squeezing into the lineup.
Rodgers got off three shots before the reporters took over.
"Mr. Pitt!" One of the TV interviewers pushed a microphone in front of his face. "What can you tell us about the subterranean river?"
"Only that it exists," he answered smoothly, "and that it's very wet."
"How large would you say it is?"
He had to think a moment as he slipped his arm around Loren and squeezed her hip. "I'd guess about two-thirds the size of the Rio Grande."
"That big?"
"Easily."
"How do you feel after swimming through underground caverns for over a hundred kilometers?"
Pitt was always irritated when a reporter asked how a mother or father felt after their house burned down with all their children inside, or how a witness felt who watched someone fall from an airplane without a parachute.
"Feel?" stated Pitt. "Right now I feel that my bladder will burst if I don't get to a bathroom."
HOMECOMING
November 4, 1998
San Felipe, Baja California
Two days later, after everyone gave detailed statements to the Mexican investigators, they were free to leave the country. They assembled on the dock to bid their farewells.
Dr. Peter Duncan was the first to leave. The hydrologist slipped away early in the morning and was gone before anyone missed him. He had a busy year ahead of him as director of the Sonoran Water Project, as it was to be called. The water from the river was to prove a godsend to the drought-plagued Southwest. Water, the lifeblood of civilization, would create jobs for the people of the desert.
Construction of aqueducts and pipelines would channel the water into towns and cities and would turn a dry lake into a recreational reservoir the size of Lake Powell.
Soon to follow would be projects to mine the mineral riches Pitt had discovered on his underground odyssey and to build a tourist center beneath the earth.
Dr. Shannon Kelsey was in
vited back to Peru to continue her excavations of the ruins in the Chachapoyan cities. Where she went, Miles Rodgers followed.
"I hope we meet again," said Rodgers, shaking Pitt's hand.
"Only if you promise to stay out of sacred sinkholes," Pitt said warmly.
Rodgers laughed. "Count on it."
Pitt looked down into Shannon's eyes. The determination and boldness burned as bright as ever. "I wish you all the best."
She saw in him the only man she had ever met whom she couldn't have or control. She felt an undercurrent of affection toward him she couldn't explain. Just to spite Loren again, Shannon kissed Pitt long and hard.
"So long, big guy. Don't forget me."
Pitt nodded and said simply, "I couldn't if I tried."
Shortly after Shannon and Miles left in their rented car for the airport in San Diego, a NUMA helicopter dropped out of the sun and touched down on the deck of the Alhambra. The pilot left the engine idling as he jumped down from the cargo hatch. He looked around a moment and then, recognizing Sandecker, approached him.
"Good morning, Admiral. Ready to leave, or should 1 shut down the engine?"
"Keep it running," answered Sandecker. "What's the status of my NUMA passenger jet?"
"Waiting on the ground at the Yuma Marine Corps Air Station to fly you and the others back to Washington."
"Okay, we're set to board." Sandecker turned to Pitt. "So, you're going on sick leave?"
"Loren and I thought we'd join a Classic Car Club of America tour through Arizona."
"I'll expect you in one week." He turned to Loren and gave her a brief kiss on the cheek. "You're a member of Congress. Don't take any crap from him and see that he gets back in one piece, fit for work."
Loren smiled. "Don't worry, Admiral. My constituents want me back on the job infighting shape too."
"What about me?" said Giordino. "Don't I get time off to recuperate?"
"You can sit behind a desk just as easily in a wheelchair." Then Sandecker smiled fiendishly. "Now, Rudi, he's a different case. I think I'll send him to Bermuda for a month."