Deep Six

  "Hurry, soak these and any towels you can find in the shower!" Giordino took one look at Pitts dead-serious expression and did as he was told. Loren knelt and tried to lift Larimer's head and shoulders from the deck. The senator moaned and opened his eyes, looking up at Loren as if trying to recognize her. Moran cringed against the bulkhead, muttering to himself.

  Pitt rudely pushed Loren aside and lifted Larimer to his feet, slinging one arm around his shoulder. Giordino came out of the bathroom and distributed the wet blankets and towels.

  "All right, Al, you help me with the senator. Loren, you hold on to Congressman Moran and stick close behind me." He broke off and looked at everyone. "Okay, here we go."

  He yanked open the door and was engulfed by a rolling wau of smoke that came out of nowhere.

  Almost before the explosion faded, Captain Pokofsky shook off stunned disbelief and rushed to the bridge. The young watch officer was pounding desperately on the automated ship console in agonized frustration.

  "Close all watertight doors and actuate the fire control system!" Pokofsky shouted.

  "I can't" the watch officer cried helplessly. "We've lost all power!"

  "What about the auxiliary generators?"

  "They're out too." The watch officer's face was wrapped in undisguised shock. "The ship's phones are dead. The damage-control computer is down. Nothing responds. We can't give a general alarm."

  Pokofsky ran out on the bridge wing and stared aft. His once beautiful ship was vomiting fire and smoke from her entire midsection.

  A few moments before there was music and relaxed gaiety.

  Now the entire scene was one of horror. The open swimming pool and lounge decks had been turned into a crematorium. The two hundred people stretched under the sun were almost instantly incinerated by the tidal fall of fiery oil. Some had saved themselves by leaping into the pools, only to die after surfacing for air when the heat seared their lungs, and many had climbed the railings and thrown themselves overboard, their skin and brief clothing ablaze.

  Pokofsky stood sick and stunned at the sight of the carnage. It was a moment in time borrowed from hell. He knew in his heart that his ship was lost. There was no stopping the holocaust, and the list was increasing as the sea poured into the Leonin Andreyev's bowels. He returned to the bridge.

  "Pass the word to abandon ship," he said to the watch officer.

  "The port boats are burning. Load what women and children you can into the starboard boats still intact."

  As the watch officer hurried off, the chief engineer, Erik Kazinkin, appeared, out of breath from his climb from below. His eyebrows and half his hair were singed away. The soles of his shoes were smoldering but he appeared not to notice. His mind was numb to the pain.

  "Give me a report," Pokofsky ordered in a quiet tone. "What caused the explosion?"

  "The fuel tank blew," answered Kazinkin. "God knows why.

  Took out the power generating room and the auxiliary generator compartment as well. Boiler rooms two and three are flooded. We managed to manually close the watertight doors to the engine rooms, but she's taking on water at an alarming rate. And without power to operate the pumps He shrugged defeatedly without continuing.

  All options to save the Leonin Andreyev had evaporated. The only morbin question was whether she would become a burnedout derelict or sink first? Few would survive the next hour, Pokofsky accepted with dread certainty. Many would burn and many would drown, unable to enter the pitifully few lifeboats that were still able to be launched.

  "Bring your men up from below," said Pokofsky. "We're abandoning the ship."

  "Thank you, Captain," said the chief engineer. He held out his hand. "Good luck to you."

  They parted and Pokofsky headed for the communications room one deck below. The officer in charge looked up from the radio as the captain suddenly strode through the doorway.

  "Send out the distress call," Pokofsky ordered.

  "I took the responsibility, sir, of sending out Mayday signals immediately after the explosion."

  Pokofsky placed a hand on the officer's shoulder. "I commend your initiative." Then he asked calmly, "Have you managed to transmit without problem?"

  "Yes, sir. When the power supply went off, I switched to the emergency batteries. The first response came from a Korean container ship only ten miles to the southwest."

  "Thank God someone is close. Any other replies?"

  "The United States Navy at Guantdnamo Bay is responding with rescue ships and helicopters. The only other vessel within fifty miles is a Norwegian cruise ship."

  "Too late for her," said Pokofsky thoughtfully. "We'll have to pin our hopes on the Koreans and American Navy."

  With the soaked blanket over his head, Pitt had to feel his way along the passageway and up the smoke-filled staircase. Three or four times he and Giordino tripped over the bodies of passengers who had succumbed to asphyxiation.

  Larimer made a game effort of trying to keep in step, while Loren and Moran stumbled along behind, their hands clutching the belted trousers of Pitt and Giordino.

  "How far?" Loren gasped.

  "We have to climb four decks before we break out on the open promenade area," Pitt panted in reply.

  At the second landing they ran into a Solid wall of people. The staircase became so packed with passengers struggling to escape the smoke it became impossible to take another step. The crew acted with coolness, attempting to direct the human flow to the boat deck, but calm gave way to the inevitable contagion of panic, and they were trampled under the screaming, terror-driven mass of thrashing bodies.

  "To the left!" Giordino shouted in Pitts ear. "The passageway leads to another staircase toward the stern."

  Relying on a deep trust in his little friend, Pitt veered down the passageway, pulling Larimer along. The senator finally managed to get his footing on the smooth surface and began carrying his own weight.

  To their vast relief the smoke decreased and the frightened tidal wave of people thinned. When at last they reached the aft staircase they found it practically empty. By not following the herd instinct, Giordino had led them to temporary safety.

  They emerged in the clear on the deck aft of the observation lounge. After a few moments to ease their coughing spasms and cleanse their aching lungs with clean air, they looked in awe over the doomed ship.

  The Leonin Andreyev was listing twenty degrees to port. Thousands of gallons of oil had spilled out into the sea and ignited. The water around the jagged opening caused by the blast was a mass of fire. The entire midsection of the ship was a blazing torch. The tremendous heat was turning steel plates red hot and warping them into twisted, grotesque shapes. White paint was blistering black, teak decks were nearly burned through and the glass in the portholes popped like gunshots.

  The flames spread with incredible speed as the ocean breeze fanned them toward the bridge. Already the communications room was consumed and the officer in charge burned to death at his radio. Fire and swirling smoke shot upward through the companionways and ventilating ducts. The Leonin Andreyev, like all modern cruise liners, was designed and constructed to be fireproof, but no precise planning or visionary foresight could have predicted the devastating results of a fuel tank explosion that showered the ship like a flamethrower.

  An immense billowing cloud of oily smoke reached hundreds of feet above, flattening in the upper air currents, stretching over the ship like a pall. The base of the cloud was a Solid torrent of flame that twisted and surged in a violent storm of orange and yellow.

  While below, in the deeper reaches of the hull, the flames were an acetylene blue-white, fed into molten temperatures by the intake of air through the shattered plates, creating the effect of a blast furnace.

  Though many of the passengers were able to fight their way up the stairways, over a hundred lay dead below, some trapped and burned in their cabins, others overtaken by smoke inhalation during their attempt to escape topside. The ones who made it were being driven b
y the flames toward the stern and away from the lifeboats.

  All efforts by the crew to maintain order were engulfed by the chaos. The passengers were finally left to fend for themselves and no one knew which way to turn. All port lifeboats were ablaze, and only three were lowered on the starboard side before the fire drove the crew back. As it was, one boat was beginning to burn by the time it hit the sea.

  Now people began jumping into the water like migrating lemmings.

  The drop was nearly fifty feet, and a number of those who had life jackets made the mistake of inflating them before plummeting over the side and broke their necks on impact. Women stood spellbound with terror, too frightened to leap. Men cursed in desperation. In the water the swimmers struck out for the few lifeboats, but the crews who manned them started up the engines and sailed beyond reach for fear of being swamped by overloading.

  In the middle of the frenzied drama, the container ship arrived.

  The captain eased his vessel within a hundred yards of the Leonin Andreyev and put his boats over as fast as they could be lowered.

  A few minutes later, U.S. Navy sea rescue helicopters appeared and began plucking survivors from the sea.

  LOREN CAZED IN ABSTRACT FASCINATIONat the sheet of advancing fire. "Shouldn't we jump or something?" she asked in a vague tone.

  Pitt didn't answer immediately. He studied the slanting deck and judged the list to be about forty degrees. "No call to rush things," he said with expressionless calm. "The flames won't reach us for another ten minutes. The further the ship heels to port, the shorter the distance to jump. In the meantime, I suggest we start heaving deck chairs overboard so those poor souls in the water have something to hang on to until they're picked up."

  Surprisingly, Larimer was the first to react. He began sweeping up the wooden deck chairs in his massive arms and dropping them over the railings. He actually had the look on his face of a man who was enjoying himself. Moran stood huddled against a bulwark, silent, noncommittal, frozen in fear.

  "Take care you don't hit a swimmer on the head," Pitt said to Larimer, "I wouldn't dare," the senator replied with an exhausted smile.

  "They might be a constituent and I'd lose their vote."

  After all the chairs in sight had gone over the side, Pitt stood for two or three seconds and took stock. The blast from the heat was not yet unbearable. The fire wouldn't kill those packed on the stern deck, at least not for a few more minutes. He shouldered his way through the dense throng to the port railing again. The waves rolled only twenty feet below.

  He shouted to Giordino, "Let's help these people over the side."

  Then he turned and cupped his hands to his mouth.

  "There's no more time to lose!" he yelled at the top of his lungs to make himself heard over the did of the frightened crowd and the roar of the holocaust. "Swim for it or die!"

  Several men took the hint and, clutching the hands of their protesting wives, straddled the railing and slipped out of sight below.

  Next came three teenage girls who showed no hesitation but dove cleanly into the blue-green swells.

  "Swim to a deck chair and use it for a float," Giordino instructed everyone repeatedly.

  Pitt separated families into a group and while Loren cheered the children, he directed their parents to jump and latch onto a floating deck chair. Then he held the children over the side by the hands as far as he could reach and let them drop, holding his breath until the mother and father had them safely in tow.

  The great curtain of flame crept closer and breathing became more difficult. The heat felt as though they were standing in front of an open furnace. A rough head count told Pitt only thirty people were left, but it would be a close race.

  A great bulking fat man stopped and refused to move. "The water's full of sharks!" he screamed hysterically. "We're better off here, waiting for the helicopters."

  "They can't hover over the ship because of air turbulence from the heat," Pitt explained patiently. "You can burn to a cinder or take your chances in the water. Which is it? Be quick, you're holding up the others."

  Giordino took two paces, tensed his powerful muscles and lifted the fat procrastinator off his feet. There was no animosity, no expression of meanness in Giordino's linblinking eyes as he carried the man to the side and unceremoniously dumped him overboard.

  "Send me a postcard," Giordino shouted after him.

  The diverting action seemed to motivate the few passengers who hung back. One after the other, with Pitt assisting the elderly couples to take the plunge, they departed the burning ship.

  When the last of them was finally gone, Pitt looked around at Loren. "Your turn," he said.

  "Not without my colleagues," she said with a feminine resolve.

  Pitt stared below to make certain the water was clear. Larimer was so weak he could barely lift his legs over the rail. Giordino gave him a hand as Loren jumped arm in arm with Moran. Pitt watched anxiously until they all cleared the side and swam away, admiring Loren's endurance as she shouted words of encouragement to Larimer while towing Moran by the collar.

  "Better give her a hand," Pitt said to Giordino.

  His friend didn't have to be urged. He was gone before another word passed between them.

  Pitt took one last look at the Leonin Andreyev. The air around shimmered from the blasting heat waves as flames shot from her every opening. The list was passing fifty degrees and her end was only minutes away. Already her starboard propeller was clear of the water and steam was hissing in white tortured clouds around her waterline.

  As he was poised to leap, Pitt abruptly went rigin in astonishment. At the outer edge of his peripheral vision he saw an arm snake out of a cabin porthole forty feet away. Without hesitation, he picked up one of the still soggy blankets from the deck, threw it over his head and covered the distance in seven strines. A voice inside the cabin was screaming for help. He peered in and saw a woman's face, eyes wine in terror.

  "Oh, my God, please help us?"

  "How many are you?"

  "Myself and two children."

  "Pass out the kids."

  The face disappeared and quickly a boy about six years of age was thrust through the narrow port. Pitt set him between his legs, keeping the blanket suspended above the two of them like a tent.

  Next came a little girl no more than three. Incredibly she was sound asleep.

  "Give me your hand," Pitt ordered, knowing in his heart it was hopeless.

  "I can't get through!" the woman cried. "The opening is too small."

  "Do you have water in the bathroom?"

  "There's no pressure."

  "Strip nakedly" Pitt shouted in desperation. "Use your cosmetics.

  Smear your body with facial creams."

  The woman nodded in understanding and disappeared inside.

  Pitt turned and, clutching a child under each arm, rushed to the rail. With great relief he spied Giordino treading water, looking up.

  "Al," Pitt called. "Catch."

  If Giordino was surprised to see Pitt collar two more children he didn't show it. He reached up and gathered them in as effortlessly as if they were footballs 'Jump!" he yelled to Pitt. "She's going over."

  Without lingering to answer, Pitt raced back to the cabin port.

  He realized with only a small corner of his mind that saving the mother was a sheer act of desperation. He passed beyond conscious thought; his movements seemed those of another man, a total stranger.

  The air was so hot and dry his perspiration evaporated before it seeped from his pores. The heat rose from the deck and penetrated the soles of his shoes. He stumbled and nearly fell as a heavy shudder ran through the doomed ship, and she gave a sudden lurch as the deck dropped on an increasing angle to port. She was in her final death agony before capsizing and sinking to the sea bottom.

  Pitt found himself kneeling against the slanting cabin wall, reaching through the port. A pair of hands clasped his wrists and he pulled. The woman's shoulders and
breasts squeezed past the opening.

  He gave another heave and then her hips scraped through.

  The flames were running up and licking at his back. The deck was dropping away beneath his feet. He held the woman around the waist and leaped off the edge of the cabin as the Leonin Andreyev rolled over, her propellers twisting out of the water and arching toward the sun.

  They were sucked under by the fierce rush of water, swirled around like dolls in a maelstrom. Pitt lashed out with his free hand and feet and struggled upward, seeing the glimmering surface turn from green to blue with agonizing slowness.