"Why can't reptiles twenty to fifty meters in length, with snakelike features, still live in the seas as they did during the Mesozoic era? The sea is not a crystal windowpane. We cannot see into its depths and scan far horizons as on land. Who knows how many giant species, still unknown to science, roam the seas?"
"I'm almost afraid to ask," Pitt said, his eyes smiling. "What category does Basil fall into?"
"I've classified Basil as a mega-eel. He has a cylindrical body thirty meters long, ending in a tail with a point. His head is slightly blunt like the common eel's but with a wide canine mouth filled with sharp teeth.
He is bluish with a white belly, and his jet-black eyes are as large as a serving dish. He undulates in the horizontal like other eels and snakes. Twice I saw him raise the front part of his body a good ten meters out of the water before falling back with a great splash."
"When did you first see him?"
"When I was about ten," Maeve answered. "Deirdre and I were sailing about the lagoon in a little cutter our mother had given us, when suddenly I had this strange sensation of being watched. A cold shiver shot up my spine. Deirdre acted as if nothing was happening. I slowly turned around. There, about twenty meters behind our stern, was a head and neck rising about three meters out of the water. The thing had two glistening black eyes that were staring at us."
"How thick was the neck?"
"A good two meters in diameter, as big as a wine vat, as father often described it."
"He saw it too?"
"The whole family observed Basil on any number of occasions, but usually when someone was about to die."
"Go on with your description."
"The beast looked like a dragon out of a child's nightmare. I was petrified and couldn't say a word or scream, while Deirdre kept staring over the bow. Her attention was focused on telling me when to tack so we wouldn't run onto the outer reef."
"Did it make a move toward you?" Pitt asked.
"No. It just stared at us and made no attempt to molest the boat as we sailed away from it."
"Deirdre never saw it."
"Not at that time, but she later sighted it on two different occasions."
"How did your father react when you told him what you had seen?"
`He laughed and said, `So you've finally met Basil.' "
"You said the serpent made itself known when there was a death?"
"A family fable with some kernel of truth. Basil was seen in the lagoon by the crew of a visiting whaler when Betsy Fletcher was buried, and later when my great-aunt Mildred and my mother died, both in violent circumstances."
"Coincidence or fate?"
Maeve shrugged. "Who can say? The only thing 1 can be sure of is that my father murdered my mother."
"Like Grandfather Henry supposedly killed his sister Mildred."
She gave him a strange look. "You know about that too."
Public knowledge."
She stared over the black sea to where it met the stars, the bright moon illuminating her eyes, which seemed to grow darker and sadder. "The last three generations of Dorsetts haven't exactly set virtuous standards."
"Your mother's name was Irene."
Maeve nodded silently.
"How did she die?" Pitt asked gently.
"She would have eventually died, brokenhearted from the abuse heaped upon her by the man she desperately loved. But while walking along the cliffs with my father, she slipped and fell to her death in the surf below." An expression of hatred became etched on her delicate face. "He pushed her," she said coldly. "My father pushed her to her death as sure as there are stars in the universe."
Pitt held her tightly and felt her shudder. "Tell me about your sisters," he said, changing the subject.
The look of hatred faded, and her features became delicate again. "Not much to tell. I was never very close to either of them. Deirdre was the sneaky one. If I had something she wanted, she simply stole it and pretended it was hers all along. Of the three, Deirdre was Daddy's little girl. He lavished most of his affection on her, I guess because they were kindred spirits. Deirdre lives in a fantasy world created by her own deceit. She can't tell the truth even when there is no reason to lie."
"Has she ever married?"
"Once, to a professional soccer player who thought he was going to live out his life as a member of the jet set with his own set of toys. Unfortunately for him, when he wanted a divorce and demanded a settlement that equaled Australia's national budget, he conveniently fell off one of the family yachts. His body was never found."
"It doesn't pay to accept invitations to go sailing with the Dorsetts," Pitt said caustically.
"I'm afraid to think about all the people Father has eliminated who stood in his way in fact or in his imagination."
"And Boudicca?"
"I never really knew her," she said distantly. "Boudicca is eleven years older than me. Soon after I was born, Daddy enrolled her in an exclusive boarding school, or so I was always told. It sounds odd to say my sister was a total stranger to me. I was nearly ten years old when I met her for the first time. All I really know about her is that she has a passion for handsome young men. Daddy isn't pleased, but he does little to stop her from sleeping around."
"She's one strong lady."
"I saw her manhandle Daddy once, when he was striking our mother during a drunken rampage."
"Odd that they all have such a murderous dislike for the only member of the family who is loving and decent."
"When I escaped the island, where my sisters and I were kept virtual prisoners after Mother died, Daddy could not accept my independence. My earning my own way through university without tapping the Dorsett fortune angered him. Then, when I was living with a young man and became pregnant, instead of opting for an abortion I decided to go the whole nine months after the doctor told me I was having twins. I refused to marry the boy, so Daddy and my sisters severed all my ties to the Dorsett empire. It all sounds so mad, and I can't explain it. I legally changed my name to that of my great-great-great grandmother and went on with my life, happy to be free of a dysfunctional family."
She had been racked by wicked forces over which she had no control, and Pitt pitied her while respecting her fortitude. Maeve was a loving woman. He looked into the guileless blue eyes of a child.
He swore to himself that he would move heaven and earth to save her.
He started to say something, but out of the blackness he caught sight of the seething crest of a huge wave bearing down on them. The giant swell appeared to break across his entire field of vision. A cold dread gripped the nape of his neck as he saw three similar waves rolling behind the first.
He gave a warning shout to Giordino and flung Maeve to the floor. The swell curled down on top of the boat, inundating it with foam and spray, rolling over and pressing down the starboard quarter as it struck. The opposite side was flung into the air, and the boat twisted sideways as it fell into a deep trough, broadside to the next wall of water.
The second wave rose and touched the stars before surging over them with the force of a freight train.
The boat plunged under the black tempest, completely submerged. Overwhelmed by the maddened sea, Pitt 's only option for staying alive was to grip a buoyancy tube as tightly as possible in a replay of the earlier typhoon. To be cast overboard was to stay overboard. Any legitimate bookmaker would have preferred the odds covering the sharks over drowning.
The little boat had somehow struggled to the surface when the final two waves struck it violently in succession. They wrenched it around in a writhing inferno of raging water. The helpless passengers were plummeted under the liquid wall and immersed again. Then they were sliding down the smooth back of the final wave, and the sea went as calm as if nothing had happened. The tumultuous combers raced past and swept into the night,
"Another precision display of the sea's temper," sputtered Giordino, his arms locked in a death grip around the console. "What did we do to make her so mad?"
r /> Pitt immediately released Maeve and lifted her to a sitting position. "Are you all right?"
She coughed for several seconds before gasping, "I expect . . . I'll live. What in God's name hit us?"
"I suspect a seismic disturbance on the sea bottom. It doesn't take a quake of great magnitude to set off a series of rogue waves."
Maeve wiped the wet strands of blond hair out of her eyes. "Thankfully, the boat didn't capsize and none of us was thrown out."
"How's the rudder?" Pitt asked Giordino.
"Still hanging. Our paddle-mast survived in good shape, but our sail has a few rips and tears."
"Our food and water supply also came through in good shape," volunteered Maeve.
"Then we came through nearly unscathed," said Giordino, as though he didn't quite believe it.
"Not for long, I fear," Pitt said tautly.
Maeve stared around the seemingly uninjured boat. "I don't see any obvious damage that can't be repaired."
"Nor I," Giordino agreed after examining the integrity of the buoyancy tubes.
"You didn't look down."
In the bright moonlight they could see the grim tension that was reflected on Pitt's face. They stared in the direction he gestured and suddenly realized that any hope of survival had rapidly vanished.
There, running the entire length of the bottom hull, was a crack in the fiberglass that was already beginning to seep water.
Rudi Gunn was not into sweat and the thrill of victory. He relied on his mental faculties, a regimen of disciplined eating habits and his metabolism to keep him looking young and trim. Once or twice a week, as today, when the mood struck him, he rode a bicycle during his lunch hour, along side Sandecker, who was a jogging nut. The admiral's daily run took him ten kilometers over one of several paths that ran through Potomac Park. The exercise was by no means conducted in silence. As one man ran and the other rode, the affairs of NUMA were discussed as if they were conversing in an office.
"What is the record for someone adrift at sea?" asked Sandecker as he adjusted a sweatband around his head.
"Steve Callahan, a yachtsman, survived 76 days after his sloop sank off the Canary Islands," answered Gunn, "the longest for one man in an inflatable raft. The Guinness World Record holder for survival at sea is held by Poon Lim, a Chinese steward who was set adrift on a raft after his ship was torpedoed in the South Atlantic during World War Two. He survived 133 days before being picked up by Brazilian fishermen."
"Was either adrift during a force ten blow?"
Gunn shook his head. "Neither Callahan nor Poon Lim was hit with a storm near the intensity of the typhoon that swept over Dirk, Al and Miss Fletcher."
"Going on two weeks since Dorsett abandoned them," said Sandecker between breaths. "If they outlasted the storm, they must be suffering badly from thirst and exposure to the elements."
"Pitt is a man of infinite resourcefulness," said Gunn indisputably. "Together with Giordino, I wouldn't be surprised if they washed up on a beach in Tahiti and are relaxing in a grass shack."
Sandecker stepped to the side of the path to allow a woman pushing a small child in a three-wheeled carrier to jog past in the other direction. After he resumed running, he murmured, "Dirk always used to say, the sea does not give up its secrets easily."
"Things might have been resolved if Australian and New Zealand search-and-rescue forces could have joined NUMA's efforts."
"Arthur Dorsett has a long reach," Sandecker said, irate. "I received so many excuses as to why they were busy on other rescue missions I could have papered a wall with them."
"There's no denying the man wields incredible power." Gunn stopped pedaling and paused beside the admiral. "Dorsett's bribe money reaches deep into the pockets of friends in the United States Congress and the parliaments of Europe and Japan. Astounding, the famous people who work for him."
Sandecker's face turned crimson, not from exertion but from hopelessness. He could not restrain his anger and resentment. He came to a stop, leaned down and gripped his knees, staring at the ground. "I'd close down NUMA in a minute for the chance to get my hands around Arthur Dorsett's neck."
"I'm sure you're not alone," said Gunn. "There must be thousands who dislike, distrust and even hate him. And yet they never betray him."
"Small wonder. If he doesn't arrange fatal accidents for those who stand in his way, he buys them off by filling their Swiss bank safety deposit boxes with diamonds."
"A powerful persuader, diamonds."
"He'll never influence the President with them."
"No, but the President can be misled by bad advice."
"Surely not when the lives of over a million people are at stake."
"No word yet?" asked Gunn. "The President said he'd be back to you in four days. It's been six."
"The urgency of the situation wasn't lost on him--"
Both men turned at the honk of a horn from a car with NUMA markings. The driver pulled to a stop in the street opposite the jogging path. He leaned out the passenger's window and shouted. "I have a call from the White House for you, Admiral."
Sandecker turned to Gunn and smiled thinly. "The President must have big ears."
As the admiral stepped over to the car, the driver handed him a portable phone. "Wilbur Hutton on a safe line, sir."
"Will?"
"Hello, Jim, I'm afraid I have discouraging news for you."
Sandecker tensed. "Please explain."
"After due consideration, the President has postponed any action regarding your acoustic plague."
"But why?" Sandecker gasped. "Doesn't he realize the consequences of no action at all?"
"Experts on the National Science Board did not go along with your theory. They were swayed by the autopsy reports from Australian pathologists at their Center for Disease Control in Melbourne. The Hussies conclusively proved that the deaths on board the cruise ship were caused by a rare form of bacterium similar to the one causing Legionnaires' disease."
"That's impossible!" Sandecker snapped.
"I only know what I was told," Hutton admitted. "The Hussies suspect that contaminated water in the ship's heating system humidifiers was responsible."
"I don't care what the pathologists say. It would be folly for the President to ignore my warning. For God's sake, Will, beg, plead or do whatever it takes to convince the President to use his powers to shut down Dorsett's mining operations before it's too late."
"Sorry, Jim. The President's hands are tied. None of his scientific advisers thought your evidence was strong enough to run the risk of an international incident. Certainly not in an election year."
"This is insane!" Sandecker said desperately. "If my people are right, the President won't be able to get elected to clean public bathrooms."
"That's your opinion," said Hutton coldly. "I might add that Arthur Dorsett has offered to open his mining operations to an international team of investigators."
"How soon can a team be assembled?"
"These things take time. Two, maybe three weeks."
"By then you'll have dead bodies stacked all over Oahu."
"Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, you're in a minority in that belief."
Sandecker muttered darkly, "I know you did your best, Will, and I'm grateful."
"Please contact me if you come upon any further information, Jim. My line is always open to you."
"Thank you."
"Goodbye."
Sandecker handed the phone back to the driver and turned to Gunn. "We've been sandbagged."
Gunn looked shocked. "The President is ignoring the situation?"
Sandecker nodded in defeat. "Dorsett bought off the pathologists. They turned in a phony report claiming the cause of death of the cruise ship passengers was contamination from the heating system."
"We can't give up," Gunn said, furious at the setback. "We must find another means of stopping Dorsett's madness in time."
"When in doubt," Sandecke
r said, the fire returning to his eyes, "bank on somebody who is smarter than you are." He retrieved the phone and punched in a number. "There is one man who might have the key."
Admiral Sandecker bent down and teed up at tire Camelback Golf Club in Paradise Valley, Arizona.
It was two o'clock in the afternoon under a cloudless sky, only five hours after he had jogged with Rudi Gunn in Washington. After landing at the Scottsdale airport, he borrowed a car from a friend, an old retired Navy man, and drove directly to the golf course. January in the desert could be cool, so he wore slacks and a long-sleeve cashmere sweater. There were two courses, and he was playing on the one called Indian Bend.
He sighted on the green 365 meters away, took two practice swings, addressed his ball and swung effortlessly. The ball soared nicely, sliced a bit to the right, bounced and rolled to a stop 190 meters down the fairway.
"Nice drive, Admiral," said Dr. Sanford Adgate Ames. "I made a mistake talking you into a friendly game of golf. I didn't suspect old sailors took a ground sport seriously." Behind a long, scraggly gray beard that covered his mouth and came down to his chest, Ames looked like an old desert prospector.
His eyes were hidden behind blue-tinted bifocals.
"Old sailors do many strange things," Sandecker retorted.
Asking Dr. Sanford Adgate Ames to come to Washington for a high-level conference was no different from praying to God to conjure up a sirocco wind to melt the polar ice cap. Neither was likely to respond. Ames hated New York and Washington with equal passion and absolutely refused to visit either place. Offers of testimonial dinners and awards wouldn't budge him from his hideaway on Camelback Mountain in Arizona.
Sandecker needed Ames, needed him urgently. Biting the bullet, he requested a meeting with the soundmeister, as Ames was called among his fellow scientists. Ames agreed, but with the strict provision Sandecker bring his golf clubs, as all discussion would take place on the links.
Highly respected in the scientific community, Ames was to sound what Einstein was to time and light.