Rudolph and the pilot began a rapid-fire exchange that lasted for a solid three minutes. Finally the ship's doctor turned and said, "His name is Fyodor Gorimykin. He is chief pilot in command of locating whales for a whaling fleet from the port of Nikolayevsk. According to his story, he and his copilot and an observer were out scouting for the catcher ships--"
"Catcher ships?" inquired Angus.
"Swift-moving vessels about sixty-five meters in length that shoot explosive harpoons into unsuspecting whales," explained Briscoe. "The whale's body is then inflated with air to keep it afloat, marked with a radio beacon that sends out homing signals and left while the catcher continues its killing spree. Later, it returns to its catch and tows it back to the factory ship."
"I had drinks with a captain of a factory ship in Odessa a few years ago," said Avondale. "He invited me aboard. It was an enormous vessel, nearly two hundred meters in length, totally self-sufficient, with high-tech processing equipment, laboratories and even a well-staffed hospital. They can winch a hundred-ton blue whale up a ramp, strip the blubber like you'd peel a banana and cook it in a rotating drum. The oil is extracted and everything else is ground and bagged as fish-- or bonemeal. The whole process takes little more than half an hour."
"After being hunted to near extinction, it's a wonder there are any whales left to catch," muttered Angus.
"Let's hear the man's story," Briscoe demanded impatiently.
Failing to locate a herd," Rudolph continued, "he returned to his factory ship, the Aleksandr Gorchakov. After landing, he swears they found the entire crew of the vessel, as well as the crews on the nearby catcher ships, dead."
"And his copilot and observer?" Briscoe persisted.
"He says he panicked and took off without them."
"Where did he intend to go?"
Rudolph questioned the Russian and waited for the answer to pour out. "Only as far away from the mass death t as his fuel would take him."
"Ask him what killed his shipmates."
After an exchange, Rudolph shrugged. "He doesn't know. All he knows is that they had expressions of agony on their faces and appeared to have died in their own vomit."
"A fantastic tale, to say the least," observed Avondale.
"If he didn't look as if he'd seen a graveyard full of ghosts," said Briscoe, "I'd think the man was a pathological liar."
Avondale looked at the captain. "Shall we take him at his word, sir?"
Briscoe thought for a moment, then nodded. "Lay on another ten knots, then signal Pacific Fleet Command. Apprise them of the situation and inform them we are altering course to investigate."
Before action could be taken, a familiar voice came over the bridge speaker system. "Bridge, this is radar."
"Go ahead, radar," acknowledged Briscoe.
"Captain, those ships you ordered us to track."
"Yes, what about them?"
"Well, sir, they're not moving, but they're beginning to disappear off the scope."
"Is your equipment functioning properly?"
"Yes, sir, it is."
Briscoe's face clouded in bafflement. "Explain what you mean by `disappearing.' "
"Just that, sir," answered radar officer. "It looks to me as if those ships out there are sinking."
The Bridlington arrived at the Russian fishing fleet's last known position and found no ships floating on the surface. Briscoe ordered a search pattern, and after steaming back and forth a large oil slick was spotted, surrounded by a widely scattered sea of flotsam, some of it in localized clusters. The Russian helicopter pilot rushed to a deck railing, gestured at an object in the water and began crying out in anguish.
"Why is he babbling?" Avondale shouted to Rudolph from the bridge wing.
"He's saying his ship is gone, all his friends are gone, his copilot and observer are gone."
"What is he pointing at?" asked Briscoe.
Rudolph peered over the side and then looked up. "A flotation vest with Aleksandr Gorchakov stamped on it."
"I have a floating body," announced Angus, peering through binoculars. "Make that four bodies. But not for long. There are shark fins circling the water around them."
"Throw a few shells from the BOFORS at the bloody butchers," Briscoe ordered. "I want the bodies in one piece so they can be examined. Send out boats to retrieve whatever debris they can find.
Somebody, somewhere, is going to want as much evidence as we can collect."
As the twin forty-millimeter BOFORS guns opened up on the sharks, Avondale turned to Angus.
"Damned queer goings on, if you ask me. What do you make of it?"
Angus turned and gave the first officer a slow grin. "It would seem that after being slaughtered for two centuries, the whales finally have their revenge."
Pitt sat behind the desk in his office for the first time in nearly two months, his eyes distant, his hand toying with a Sea Hawk dive knife he used as a letter opener. He said nothing, waiting for a response from Admiral Sandecker who sat across from him.
He had arrived in Washington early that morning, a Sunday, and gone directly to the empty NUMA headquarters building, where he spent the next six hours writing up a detailed report on his discoveries on Kunghit Island and offering his suggestions on how to deal with the underwater acoustics. The report seemed anticlimactic after the exhausting rigors of the past few days. Now he resigned himself to allowing other men, more qualified men, to deal with the problem and come up with the proper solutions.
He swung around in his chair and gazed out the window at the Potomac River and envisioned Maeve standing on the deck of Ice Hunter, the look of fear and desperation in her face. He felt furious with himself for deserting her. He was certain Deirdre had divulged the kidnapping of Maeve's children by her father on board Ice Hunter. Maeve had reached out to the only man she could trust, and Pitt had failed to recognize her distress. That part of the story Pitt had left out of his report.
Sandecker closed the report and laid it on Pitt's desk. "A remarkable bit of fancy footwork. A miracle you weren't killed."
"I had help from some very good people," Pitt said seriously.
"You've gone as far as you can go on this thing. I'm ordering you and Giordino to take ten days off.
Go home and work on your antique cars."
"You'll get no argument from me," said Pitt, massaging the bruises on his upper arms.
"Judging from your narrow escape, Dorsett and his daughters play tough."
"All except Maeve," said Pitt quietly. "She's the family outcast."
"You know, I assume, that she is working with NUMA in our biology department along with Roy Van Fleet."
"On the effects of the ultrasound on sea life, yes, I know."
Sandecker studied Pitt's face, examining every line in the weathered yet still youthful-looking features.
"Can we trust her? She could be passing along data on our findings to her father."
Dirk's green eyes registered no sign of subtlety. "Maeve has nothing in common with her sisters."
Sensing Pitt's reluctance to discuss Maeve, Sandecker changed the subject. "Speaking of sisters, did Boudicca Dorsett give you any indication as to why her father intends to shut down his operations in a few weeks?"
"Not a clue."
Sandecker rolled a cigar around in his fingers pensively. "Because none of Dorsett's mining properties are on U.S. soil, there is no rapid-fire means to stop future killings."
"Close one mine out of the four," said Pitt, "and you drain the sound waves' killing potency."
"Short of ordering in a flight of B-1 bombers, which the President won't do, our hands are tied."
"There must be an international law that applies to murder on the high seas," said Pitt.
Sandecker shook his head. "Not one that covers this situation. The lack of an international law-enforcement organization plays in Dorsett's favor. Gladiator Island belongs only to the family, and it would take a year or more to talk the Russians into closing th
e mine off Siberia. Same with Chile. As long as Dorsett pays off high-ranking government officials, his mines stay open."
"There's the Canadians," said Pitt. "If given the reins, the Mounties would go in and close the Kunghit Island mine tomorrow, because of Dorsett's use of illegal immigrants for slave labor."
"So what's stopping them from raiding the mine?"
Pitt recalled Inspector Stokes' words about the bureaucrats and members of Parliament in Dorsett's wallet. "The same barriers; paid cronies and shrewd lawyers."
"Money makes money," Sandecker said heavily. "Dorsett is too well financed and well organized to topple by ordinary methods. The man is an incredible piece of avaricious machinery."
"Not like you to embrace a defeatist attitude, Admiral. I can't believe you're about to forfeit the game to Arthur Dorsett."
Sandecker's eyes took on the look of a viper about to strike. "Who said anything about forfeiting the game?"
Pitt enjoyed prodding his boss. He didn't believe for an instant that Sandecker would walk away from a fight. "What do you intend to do?"
"Since I can't order an armed invasion of commercial property and possibly kill hundreds of innocent civilians in the process, or drop a Special Forces team from the air to neutralize all Dorsett mining excavations, I'm forced to take the only avenue left open for me."
"And that is?" Pitt prompted.
"We go public," Sandecker said without a flicker or change in his expression. "First thing tomorrow I call a press conference and blast Arthur Dorsett as the worst monster unleashed on humanity since Attila the Hun. I'll reveal the cause of the mass killings and lay the blame on his doorstep. Next I'll stir up members of Congress to lean on the State Department, who in turn will lean on the governments of Canada, Chile and Russia to close all Dorsett operations on their soil. Then we'll sit back and see where the chips fall."
Pitt looked at Sandecker in long, slow admiration, then he smiled. The admiral was sailing in stormy waters without giving a damn for the torpedoes or the consequences. "You'd take on the devil if he looked cross-eyed at you."
"Forgive me for blowing off steam. You know as well as I there will be no press conference. Without solid, presentable evidence I would gain nothing but a quick trip into a mental institution. Men like Arthur Dorsett are self-regenerating. You cannot simply destroy them. They are created by a system of greed that leads to power. The pathetic thing about such men is that they don't know how to spend their wealth nor give it away to the needy." Sandecker paused and lit his cigar with a flourish. Then he said coldly, "I don't know how, but I swear by the Constitution I'm going to nail that slime bag to the barn so hard his bones will rattle."
Maeve put on a good face through her ordeal. At first she had wept whenever she was alone in the small colonial house in Georgetown that her father's aides had leased for her. Panic swept her heart at thoughts of what might be happening to her twin boys on Gladiator Island. She wanted to rush to their sides and sweep them away to safety, but she was powerless. She actually saw herself with them in her dreams. But the dreams of sleep became nightmares on awakening. There wasn't the least hope of fighting the incredible resources of her father. She never detected anyone, but she knew without doubt that his security people were watching her every move.
Roy Van Fleet and his wife, Robin, who had taken Maeve under her wing, invited her to join them in attending a party thrown by a wealthy owner of an undersea exploration company. She was loath to go, but Robin had pushed her, refusing to take no for an answer and insisting she put a little fun in her life, never realizing the torment Maeve was going through.
"Loads of capital bigwigs and politicians will attend," Robin gushed. "We can't miss it."
After applying her makeup and pulling her hair tightly back in a bun, Maeve put on a brown Empire-waist dress of silk chiffon and embroidered net with beaded bodice and a short three-tier skirt that came to several inches above her knees. She had splurged on the outfit in Sydney, thinking it quite stylish at the time. Now she wasn't so sure. She suddenly suffered pangs of shyness at showing too much leg at a Washington party.
"The devil with it," she said to herself in front of a full-length mirror. "Nobody knows me anyway."
She peered through the curtains at the street outside. There was a light layer of snow on the ground, but the streets were clear. The temperature was cold but not frigid. She poured herself a short glass of vodka on ice, put on a long black coat that came down to her ankles and waited for the Van Fleets to pick her up.
Pitt showed the invitation he'd borrowed from the admiral at the door of the country club and was passed through the beautiful wooden doors carved with the likenesses of famous golfers. He dropped off his topcoat at the cloakroom and was directed into a spacious ballroom paneled in dark walnut. One of Washington's elite interior decorators had created a stunning undersea illusion in the room. Cleverly designed paper fish hung from the ceiling, while hidden lighting gave off a soft wavering blue-green glow that provided an eye-pleasing watery effect.
The host, president of Deep Abyss Engineering, his wife and other company officials stood in a receiving line to greet the guests. Pitt avoided them and dodged the line, heading straight for one dim corner of the bar, where he ordered a tequila on the rocks with lime. Then he turned, leaned his back against the bar and surveyed the room.
There must have been close to two hundred people present. An orchestra was playing a medley from motion picture musical scores. He recognized several congressmen and four or five senators, all on committees dealing with the oceans and the environment. Many of the men wore white dinner jackets.
Most were in the more common black evening clothes, some with vividly patterned cummerbunds and bow ties. Pitt preferred the old look. His tux sported a vest with a heavy gold chain draped across the front, attached to a pocket watch that had once belonged to his great-grandfather, who had been a steam locomotive engineer on the Santa Fe Railroad.
The women, mostly wives with a few mistresses mixed in, dressed elegantly, some in long dresses, some in shorter skirts complemented by brocaded or sequined jackets. He could always tell the married from the single couples. The married stood beside each other as if they were old friends; the single couples were constantly touching each other.
Pitt wall-flowered at cocktail parties and did not enjoy mingling to make small talk. He was easily bored and seldom stayed more than an hour before heading back to the apartment above his aircraft hangar. Tonight was different. He was on a quest. Sandecker had informed him that Maeve was coming with the Van Fleets. His eyes wandered the tables and the crowded dance floor but found no sign of her.
Either she changed her mind at the last minute or hadn't arrived yet, he figured. Never one to compete for the attention of a gorgeous girl surrounded by admirers, he picked out a plain woman in her thirties who weighed as much as he. She was sitting alone at a dinner table and was thrilled when a good-looking stranger walked up and asked her to dance. The women other men ignored, the ones who lost out in the natural-born beauty department, Pitt discovered to be the smartest and most interesting. This one turned out to be a ranking official at the State Department, who regaled him with inside gossip on foreign relations. He danced with two other ladies who were considered by some to be unattractive, one a private secretary to the party's host and the other a chief aide to a senator who was chairman of the Oceans Committee. Having performed his pleasurable duty, Pitt returned to the bar for another tequila.
It was then that Maeve walked into the ballroom.
Just looking at her, Pitt was pleasantly surprised to find a warm glow settling over his body. The entire room seemed to blur, and everyone in it faded into a gray mist, leaving Maeve standing alone in the center of a radiant aura.
He came back down to earth as she stepped away from the receiving line ahead of the Van Fleets and paused to gaze at the crowded mass of partygoers. Her long blond hair, pulled back in a bun to reveal every detail of her face, highligh
ted her fabulous cheekbones. She self-consciously raised a hand and held it to her, between her breasts, fingers slightly spread. The short dress showed off her long, tapered legs and enhanced the perfect molding of her body. She was majestic, he thought with a trace of lust. There was no other word to describe her. She was poised with the grace of an antelope on the edge of flight.
Now there's a lovely sweet young thing," said the bartender, staring at Maeve.
"I couldn't agree more," said Pitt.
Then she was walking with the Van Fleets to a table, where they all sat down and ordered from a waiter. Maeve was no sooner settled in her chair when men, both young and old enough to be her grandfather, came up and asked her to dance. She politely turned down every request. He was amused to see that no appeals moved her. They quickly gave up and moved on, feeling boyishly rejected. The Van Fleets excused themselves to dance while they waited for the first course. Maeve sat alone.
"She's choosy, that one," observed the bartender.
"Time to send in the first team," Pitt said as he set his empty glass on the bar.
He walked directly across the dance floor through the swaying couples without stepping left or right. A portly man Pitt recognized as a senator from the state of Nevada brushed against him. The senator started to say something, but Pitt gave him a withering stare that cut him off.
Maeve was people watching out of sheer boredom when she became vaguely aware of a man striding purposefully in her direction. At first she paid him little notice, thinking he was only another stranger who wanted to dance with her. In another time, another place, she might have been flattered by the attention, but her mind was twenty thousand kilometers away. Only when the intruder approached her table, placed his hands on the blue tablecloth and leaned toward her did she recognize him. Maeve's face lit with inexpressible joy.
"Oh, Dirk, I thought I'd never see you again," she gasped breathlessly.
"I came to beg your forgiveness for not saying goodbye when A1 and I abruptly left the Ice Hunter."