The Navy began airlifting the people whom their rescue operation had pulled from the water, flying them to naval air stations and hospitals nearest their homes. These were the first to be interviewed, and their conflicting stories blamed the explosion on everything from a floating mine of World War Two, to a cargo of weapons and munitions being smuggled by the Russians into Central America.
The Soviet diplomatic missions across the United States reacted badly by accusing the U.S. Navy of carelessly launching a missile at the Leonid Andreyev: a charge that had good play in the Eastern bloc countries but was generally shrugged off elsewhere as a crude propaganda ploy.
The excitement rose to a crescendo over a human interest story not seen since the sinking of the Andrea Doria in 1956. The continued silence from the Chalmette infuriated the reporters and correspondents. There was a mad rush to charter boats, airplanes and helicopters to meet the ship as she neared the coast. Fueled by the Korean captain’s silence, speculation ran rampant as the tension built. Investigations into the cause were being demanded by every politician who could contrive an interview.
The Chalmette remained obstinate to the end. As she entered the main channel, she was surrounded by a wolf pack of buzzing aircraft and circling pleasure yachts and fishing boats crawling with reporters blasting questions through bullhorns. To their utter frustration, the Korean seamen simply waved and shouted back in their native tongue.
Slowly approaching the docking terminal at Dodge Island in the Port of Miami, the Chalmette was greeted by a massive crowd of over a hundred thousand people surging against a police cordon blocking the entrance to the pier. A hundred video and film cameras recorded the scene as the giant container ship’s mooring lines were dropped over rusting bollards, gangways were rolled against the hull, and the survivors stood at the railings, astounded at the turnout.
Some appeared overjoyed to see dry land once again, others displayed solemn grief for husbands or wives, sons or daughters, they would never see again. A great hush suddenly fell on the mass of spectators. It was later described by an anchorman on the evening TV news as “the silence one experiences at the lowering of a coffin into the ground.”
Unnoticed in the drama, a host of FBI agents dressed in the uniforms of immigration officials and customs inspectors swarmed aboard the ship, confirming the identities of the surviving passengers and crewmen of the Leonid Andreyev, interrogating each on the whereabouts of Congresswoman Smith, and searching every foot of the ship for any sign of her.
Al Giordino questioned the people whose faces he recalled seeing in the lifeboat. None of them could remember what happened to Loren or the Oriental steward after climbing aboard the Chalmette. One woman thought she saw them led away by the ship’s captain, but she couldn’t be sure. To many of those who had narrowly escaped death, their minds conveniently blanked out much of the catastrophe.
The captain and his crew claimed to know nothing. Photos of Loren provoked no recognition. Interpreters interrogated them in Korean, but their stories were the same. They never saw her. Six hours of in-depth search turned up nothing. At last the reporters were allowed to scramble on board. The crew were acknowledged heroes of the sea. The image harvested by Bougainville Maritime and their courageous employees, who braved a sea of blazing oil to save four hundred souls, was a public relations windfall, and Min Koryo made the most of it.
It was dark and raining when Giordino wearily made his way across the now emptied dock and entered the customs office of the terminal. He sat at a desk for a long time staring out into the rain-soaked murk, his dark eyes mere shadows on his face.
He turned and looked at the telephone as though it was the enemy. Hyping his courage by a drink of brandy from a half-pint bottle in his coat pocket and lighting a cigar he had stolen from Admiral Sandecker, he dialed a number and let it ring, almost hoping no one would answer. Then a voice came on.
Giordino moistened his lips with his tongue and said, “Forgive me, Dirk. We were too late. She was gone.”
The helicopter came in from the south and flashed on its landing lights. The pilot settled his craft into position, and then lowered it onto the roof of the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan. The side door dropped open and Lee Tong stepped out. He swiftly walked over to a privately guarded entrance and took an elevator down to his grandmother’s living quarters.
He bent down and kissed her lightly on the forehead. “How was your day, aunumi?”
“Disastrous,” she said tiredly. “Someone is sabotaging our bank records, shipping transactions, every piece of business that goes through a computer. What was once a study in efficient management procedures is now a mess.”
Lee Tong’s eyes narrowed. “Who can be doing it?”
“Every trail leads to NUMA.”
“Dirk Pitt.”
“He’s the prime suspect.”
“No more,” said Lee Tong reassuringly. “Pitt is dead.”
She looked up, her aged eyes questioning. “You know that for a fact?”
He nodded. “Pitt was on board the Leonid Andreyev. An opportune stroke of luck. I watched him die.”
“Your Caribbean mission was only half favorable. Moran lives.”
“Yes, but Pitt is out of our hair and the Leonid Andreyev evens the score for the Venice and the gold.”
Min Koryo suddenly lashed out at him. “That slimy scum Antonov tricked us out of one billion dollars in gold and cost us a good ship and crew, and you say the score is even?”
Lee Tong had never seen his grandmother so furious. “I’m enraged too, aunumi, but we’re hardly in a position to declare war on the Soviet Union.”
She leaned forward, her hands clasped so tightly around the armrests of her wheelchair, the knuckles showed through the delicate skin. “The Russians don’t know what it’s like to have terrorists striking at their throats. I want you to mount bombing attacks against their merchant fleet, especially their oil tankers.”
Lee Tong put his arm around her shoulder as he would a hurt child. “The Hebrew eye-for-an-eye proverb may satisfy the vindictive soul, but it never adds to the bank account. Do not blind yourself with anger.”
“What do you expect?” she snapped. “Antonov has the President and the gold where his Navy can salvage it. We allowed Lugovoy and his staff to leave with the President. Years of planning and millions of dollars wasted, and for what?”
“We have not lost our bargaining power,” said Lee Tong. “Vice President Margolin is still secure at the laboratory. And we have an unexpected bonus in Congresswoman Loren Smith.”
“You abducted her?” she asked in surprise.
“She was also on board the cruise ship. After the sinking, I arranged to have her flown off the Chalmette to the laboratory.”
“She might prove useful,” Min Koryo conceded.
“Don’t be disheartened, aunumi,” said Lee Tong. “We are still in the game. Antonov and his KGB bedfellow Polevoi badly underestimated the Americans’ pathological devotion to individual rights. Instructing the President to close Congress to increase his powers was a stupid blunder. He will be impeached and thrown out of Washington within the week.”
“Not so long as he has the backing of the Pentagon.”
Lee Tong inserted a cigarette in the long silver holder. “The Joint Chiefs are sitting on the fence. They can’t keep the House from meeting forever. Once they’ve voted for impeachment, the generals and admirals won’t waste any time in swinging their support to Congress and the new chief executive.”