“What are you doing in the mines that causes death throughout the ocean?” demanded Maeve.
“About a year ago, my engineers developed a revolutionary excavator using high-energy pulsed ultrasound to carve through the blue clay that contains the major deposits of diamonds. Apparently, the subterranean rock under the islands we mine creates a resonance that channels into the surrounding water. Though a rare event, it occasionally converges with the resonance from our other mining operations, near Siberia, Chile and Canada. The energy intensifies to a level that can kill animals and humans. However unfortunate, I cannot allow these aberrant side effects to throw off my time schedule.”
“Don’t you understand?” pleaded Maeve. “Don’t you care about the sea life and hundreds of people your greed has killed? How many more must die before this madness is satisfied?”
“Only after I have destroyed the diamond market will I stop,” Dorsett said coldly. He turned to Boudicca. “Where is the yacht?”
“I sent it on to Kunghit Island after I debarked in Honolulu and flew home. My chief of security there has informed me that the Canadian Mounties are becoming suspicious. They’ve been flying over the island, taking photographs and asking questions of the nearby inhabitants. With your permission, I would like to rejoin the yacht. Your geophysicists are also predicting another convergence approximately five hundred kilometers west of Seattle. I should be standing by to remove any possible wreckage to frustrate investigation by the American Coast Guard.”
“Take the company jet and return as soon as possible.”
“You know where the deaths will occur next?” Maeve demanded in dismay. “You must warn ships to stay out of the area.”
“Not a practical idea,” Boudicca answered, “letting the world in on our secret. Besides, Daddy’s scientists can only give rough estimates for where and when the sound waves will strike.”
Maeve stared at her sister, her lips slowly tightening. “You had a pretty good idea when you put Deirdre on the Polar Queen to save my life.”
Boudicca laughed. “Is that what you think?”
“That’s what she told me.”
“I lied to keep you from informing the NUMA people,” said Deirdre. “Sorry, sister dear, father’s engineers made a slight miscalculation in time. The acoustic plague was estimated to strike the ship three hours earlier...”
“Three hours earlier ...” Maeve murmured as the awful truth slowly dawned on her. “I would have been on the ship.”
“And you would have died with the others,” said Deirdre as if disappointed.
“You meant for me to die!” Maeve gasped, contempt and horror in her expression.
Her father looked at her as if he were examining a stone he’d picked up at his mine. “You turned your back on your sisters and me. To us, you no longer existed. You still don’t.”
A strawberry-red floatplane with Chinook Cargo Carriers painted in white block letters on the side of the fuselage rocked gently in the water beside a refueling dock near the Shearwater Airport in British Columbia. A short, brown-haired man with an unsmiling face, dressed in an old-fashioned leather flight suit, was holding a gas nozzle in one of the wing tanks. He looked down and examined the man who walked casually along the dock, carrying a backpack and a large black case. He was dressed in jeans with a skier’s down vest. A cowboy hat was set square on his head. When the stranger stopped beside the aircraft and looked up, the pilot nodded at the widebrimmed hat.
“A Stetson?”
“No, it was custom-shade by Manny Gammage out of Austin, Texas.”
The stranger studied the floatplane. It looked to have been built prior to 1970. “A de Havilland, isn’t she?”
The pilot nodded. “De Havilland Beaver, one of the finest bush planes ever designed.”
“An oldie but goody.”
“Canadian-built in 1967. She’ll lift over four thousand kilograms off a hundred meters of water. Revered as the workhorse of the North. Over a hundred of them are still flying.”
“Don’t see big radial engines much anymore.”
“You a friend of Ed Posey?” the pilot asked abruptly.
“I am,” answered Pitt without introducing himself.
“A bit breezy today.”
“About twenty knots, I should judge.”
“You a flyer?”
“I have a few hours in the air.”
“Malcolm Stokes.”
“Dirk Pitt.”
“I understand you want to fly to Black Water Inlet.”
Pitt nodded. “Ed Posey told me that’s where I could find a totem carver by the name of Mason Broadmoor.”
“I know Mason. His village sits at the lower end of Moresby Island, across the Houston Stewart Channel from Kunghit Island.”
“How long a flight?”
“An hour and a half across Hecate Strait. Should get you there in time for lunch.”
“Sounds good,” said Pitt.
Stokes gestured at the black case. “What you got in there, a trombone?”
“A hydrophone, an instrument for measuring underwater sound.”
Without further discussion, Stokes capped the fuel tank and inserted the nozzle back into the gas pump as Pitt loaded his gear on board. After untying the mooring lines and pushing the plane away from the dock with one foot, Stokes made his way to the cockpit.
“Care to ride up front?” he asked.
Pitt smiled inwardly. He saw no passenger seats in the cargo section. “Don’t mind if I do.”
Pitt strapped himself into the copilot’s seat as Stokes started and warmed up the big single radial engine and checked his gauges. Already the receding tide had carried the aircraft three meters from the dock. After a visual check of the channel for other boats or planes, Stokes eased the throttle forward and took off, banking the Beaver over Campbell Island and heading west. As they climbed, Pitt recalled the report Hiram Yaeger had given him before leaving Washington.
The Queen Charlotte Islands are made up of about 150 islands running parallel to the Canadian mainland 160 kilometers to the east. The total area of the islands comes to 9,584 square kilometers. The population of 5,890 is made up mostly of Haida Indians, who invaded the islands in the eighteenth century. The Haida used the abundant red cedars to build huge dugout canoes and. multifamily plank houses supported by massive portal poles, and to carve splendid totem poles as well as masks, boxes and dishes.
The economy is based on lumber and fishing as well as the mining of copper, coal and iron ore. In 1997, prospectors working for Dorsett Consolidated Mining Ltd., found a kimberlite pipe on Kunghit Island, the southernmost island in the Queen Charlotte chain. After drilling a test hole, 98 diamonds were found in one 52-kilogram sample. Although Kunghit Island was part of the South Moresby National Park Reserve, the government allowed Dorsett Consolidated to file a claim and lease the island. Dorsett then launched an extensive excavation operation and closed off the island to all visitors and campers. It was estimated by New York brokers C. Dirgo & Co. that the mine could bring out as much as $2 billion in diamonds.
Pitt’s thoughts were interrupted by Stokes. “Now that we’re away from prying eyes, how do I know you’re Dirk Pitt with the National Underwater & Marine Agency?”
“Do you have the authority to ask?”
Stokes took a leather case from his breast pocket and flipped it open. “Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Criminal Intelligence Directorate.”
“So I’m addressing Inspector Stokes.”
“Yes, sir, that is correct.”
“What would you like to see, credit cards, driver’s license, NUMA ID, a blood donor card?”
“Just answer one question,” said Stokes, “dealing with a shipwreck.”