Emmett’s face took on a compassionate look. The thought of a badly wounded man trailing blood for two miles in the scorching heat of summer stirred his normally rock-hard emotions.
Sandecker moved closer to the speaker. “What of Pitt and Giordino?”
“The NUMA people and one of my agents were flying surveillance in our helicopter,” Griffin answered. “They got the hell shot out of them and crashed somewhere upriver. I doubt there were any survivors.”
Sandecker stepped back, his expression gone lifeless.
Emmett leaned over the speaker. “Griffin?”
His only reply was a vague muttering.
“Griffin, listen to me. Can you go on?”
“Yes, sir… I’ll try.”
“The barge, what is the situation with the barge?”
“Tug… tug pushed it away.”
“Pushed it where?”
“Downriver… last seen going toward Head of Passes.”
“Head of Passes?”
“The bottom end of the Mississippi where the river splits into three main channels to the sea,” answered Sandecker. “South Pass, Southwest Pass, and Pass a Loutre. Most major shipping uses the first two.”
“Griffin, how long since the barge left your area?”
There was no answer, no buzzing of a broken connection, no sound at all.
“I think he’s passed out,” said Metcalf.
“Help is on the way. Do you understand, Griffin?”
Still no reply.
“Why move the barge out to sea?” Brogan wondered aloud.
“No reason I can think of,” said Sandecker.
Emmett’s phone buzzed on his interoffice line.
“There’s an urgent call for Admiral Sandecker,” said Don Miller, his deputy director.
Emmett looked up. “A call for you, Admiral. If you wish, you can take it in the outer office.”
Sandecker thanked him and stepped into the anteroom, where Emmett’s private secretary showed him to a telephone at an empty desk.
He punched the blinking white button. “This is Admiral Sandecker.”
“One moment, sir,” came the familiar voice of the NUMA headquarters’ chief operator.
“Hello?”
“Sandecker here. Who’s this?”
“You’re a tough nut to crack, Admiral. If I hadn’t said my call concerned Dirk Pitt, your secretary would never have arranged our connection.”
“Who is this?” Sandecker demanded again.
“My name is Sal Casio. I’m working on the Bougainville case with Dirk.”
Ten minutes later, when Sandecker walked back into Emmett’s office, he appeared stunned and shaken. Brogan instantly sensed something was wrong.
“What is it?” he asked. “You look like you’ve rubbed shoulders with a banshee.”
“The barge,” Sandecker murmured quietly. “The Bougainvilles have struck a deal with Moran. They’re taking it out into the open sea to be scuttled.”
“What are you saying?”
“Loren Smith and Vince Margolin are sentenced to die so Alan Moran can be President. The barge is to be their tomb in a hundred fathoms of water.”
70
“Any sign of pursuit?” the river pilot asked, synchronizing the control levers of the helm console with the finesse of a conductor leading an orchestra.
Lee Tong stepped back from the large open window at the rear of the pilothouse and lowered the binoculars. “Nothing except a strange cloud of black smoke about two or three miles astern.”
“Probably an oil fire.”
“Seems to be following.”
“An illusion. The river has a habit of doing weird things to the eyes. What looks to be a mile away is four. Lights where no lights are supposed to be. Ships approaching in a channel that fade away as you get closer. Yes, the river can fool you when she gets playful.”
Lee Tong gazed up the channel again. He had learned to tune out the pilot’s never-ending commentary on the Mississippi, but he admired his skill and experience.
Captain Kim Pujon was a longtime professional river pilot for Bougainville Maritime Lines, but he still retained his Asian superstitious nature. He seldom took his eyes off the channel and the barge ahead as he expertly balanced the speeds of the four engines generating 12,000 horsepower and delicately guided the towboat’s four forward rudders and six backing rudders. Under his feet the huge diesels pounded over at full power, driving the barge through the water at nearly sixteen miles an hour, straining the cables that held the two vessels together.
They hurtled past an inbound Swedish oil tanker, and Lee Tong braced himself as the barge and towboat swept up and over the wash. “How much further to deep water?”
“Our hull passed from fresh to salt about ten miles back. We should cross the coastal shallows in another fifty minutes.”
“Keep your eyes open for a research ship with a red hull and flying the British blue ensign.”
“We’re boarding a Royal Navy ship after we scuttle?” Pujon asked in surprise.
“A former Norwegian merchantman,” explained Lee Tong. “I purchased her seven years ago and refitted her out as a research and survey vessel — a handy disguise to fool customs authorities and the Coast Guard.”
“Let us hope it fools whoever chases after us.”
Lee Tong grunted. “Why not? Any American search force will be told we were picked up and are under lock and key by the finest English accent money can buy. Before the research ship docks in New Orleans, you, I and our crew will be long gone.”
Pujon pointed. “The Port Eads light coming up. We’ll be in open water soon.”
Lee Tong nodded in grim satisfaction. “If they couldn’t stop us by now, they’re too late, far too late.”
General Metcalf, laying his long and distinguished career on the line, ignored Moran’s threats and ordered a military alert throughout the Gulf Coast states. At Eglin Air Force Base and Hurlburt Field in Florida, tactical fighter wings and special operations gunships scrambled and thundered west while attack squadrons rose from Corpus Christi Naval Air Station in Texas and swept toward the east.
He and Sandecker raced by car to the Pentagon to direct the rescue operation from the war room. Once the vast machine was set into motion, they could do little but listen to reports and stare at an enormous satellite photomap thrown on the screen by a rear projector.
Metcalf failed to conceal his apprehension. He stood uneasily rubbing his palms together, peering at the lights on the map indicating the progress of the air strike as the planes converged on a circle lit in red.
“How soon before the first planes arrive?” asked Sandecker.
“Ten, no more than twelve minutes.”
“Surface craft?”
“Not less than an hour,” replied Metcalf bitterly. “We were caught short. No naval craft are in the immediate area except a nuclear sub sixty miles out in the gulf.”
“Coast Guard?”
“There’s an armed rescue-response cutter off Grand Island. It might make it in time.”
Sandecker studied the photomap. “Doubtful. It’s thirty miles away.”
Metcalf wiped his hands with a handkerchief. “The situation looks grim,” he said. “Except for scare tactics the air mission is useless. We can’t send in planes to strike the towboat without endangering the barge. One is practically on top of the other.”
“Bougainville would quickly scuttle the barge in any case.”
“If only we had a surface craft in the area. At least we might attempt a boarding.”
“And rescue Smith and Margolin alive.”
Metcalf sank into a chair. “We might pull it off yet. A Navy special warfare SEAL attachment is due to arrive by helicopter in a few minutes.”
“After what happened to those FBI agents, they could be going to a slaughter.”
“Our last hope,” Metcalf said helplessly. “If they can’t save them, nobody can.”