Giordino stared thoughtfully at the back of the driver’s head. “What’s your duty on the ship?” he asked.
“Mine?” said Marvin without turning. “I’m a photographer with the film crew.”
“How do you like sailing under Captain Dempsey?”
“A fine gentleman. He is most considerate of the scientists and their work.”
Giordino looked up and saw Marvin peering back in the rearview mirror. He smiled until Marvin refocused his attention on his driving. Then, shielded by the back rest of the seat in front of him, he wrote on a receipt for aircraft fuel that was pumped aboard in Honolulu before they headed toward Wellington. He wadded up the paper and casually flipped it over his shoulder on Pitt’s lap.
Talking with Maeve, Pitt had not picked up on the words that passed between Giordino and the driver. He casually unfolded the note and read the message:
THIS GUY IS A PHONY.
Pitt leaned forward and spoke conversationally without staring suspiciously at the driver. “What makes you such a killjoy?”
Giordino turned around and spoke very softly. “Our, friend is not from the Ocean Angler.”
“I’m listening.”
“I tricked him into saying Dempsey is the captain.”
“Paul Dempsey skippers the Ice Hunter. Joe Ross is captain of the Angler.”
“Here’s another inconsistency. You and I and Rudi Gunn went over NUMA’s scheduled research project, and assigned personnel before we left for the Antarctic.”
“So?”
“Our friend up front not only has a bogus Texas accent, but he claims to be a photographer with the Ocean Angler’s film crew. Get the picture?”
“I do,” Pitt murmured. “No film crew was recruited to go on the project. Only sonar technicians and a team of geophysicists went on board, to survey the ocean floor.”
“And this character is driving us straight into hell,” said Giordino, looking out the window and toward a dockside warehouse just ahead with a large sign across a pair of doors that read:
DORSETT CONSOLIDATED MINING LTD.
True to their fears, the driver swung the bus through the gaping doors and between two men in the uniforms of Dorsett Consolidated security guards. The guards quickly followed the bus inside and pushed the switch to close the warehouse doors.
“In the final analysis, I’d have to say we’ve been had,” said Pitt.
“What’s the plan of attack?” asked Giordino, no longer speaking in a hushed voice.
There wasn’t time for any drawn-out conference. The bus was passing deeper into the darkened warehouse. “Dump our buddy Carl and let’s bust out of here.”
Giordino did not wait for a countdown. Four quick steps and he had a chokehold on the man who called himself Carl Marvin. With unbelievable speed, Giordino swung the man from behind the steering wheel, opened the entry door of the bus and heaved him out.
As if they had rehearsed, Pitt jumped into the driver’s seat and jammed the accelerator to the carpeted floorboard. Not an instant too soon, the bus surged forward through a knot of armed men, scattering them like leaves in the wake of a tornado. Two pallets holding cardboard boxes of electrical kitchen appliances from Japan sat directly in front of the bus. Pitt’s expression gave no hint that he was aware of the approaching impact. Boxes, bits and pieces of toasters, blenders and coffeemakers burst into the air as though they were shrapnel from an exploding howitzer shell.
Pitt swung a broadside turn down a wide aisle separating tiers of stacked crates of merchandise, took aim at a large metal door and crouched over the steering wheel. With a metallic clatter that sent the door whirling from its mountings, the Toyota bus roared out of the warehouse onto the loading dock, Pitt twisting the wheel rapidly to keep from clipping one leg of a towering loading crane.
This part of the dockyard was deserted. No ships were moored alongside, loading and unloading their cargo holds. A party of workers repairing a section of the pier were taking a break, sitting elbow to elbow in a row on a long wooden barricade that stretched across an access road leading from the pier as they ate their lunch. Pitt lay on the horn, spinning the wheel violently to avoid striking the workers, who froze at the sight of the vehicle bearing down on them. As the bus slewed around the barricade, Pitt almost missed it entirely, but a piece of the rear bumper caught a vertical support and spun the barricade around, slinging the dockworkers about the pier as if they were on the end of a cracked whip.
“Sorry about that!” Pitt yelled out the window as he sped past. .
He regretted not having been more observant, and belatedly realized the phony driver had purposely taken a roundabout route to confuse them. A ploy that worked all too well. He had no idea which way to turn for the entrance to the highway leading into the city.
A long truck and trailer pulled in front of him, blocking off his exit. He frantically cramped the steering wheel in a crazy zigzag to avoid smashing into the huge truck There was a loud metallic crunch, followed by the smashing of glass and the screech of tortured metal as the bus sideswiped the front end of the truck. The bus, its entire right side gouged and smashed, bounced wildly out of control. Pitt corrected and fishtailed the shattered vehicle until it straightened. He pounded the steering wheel angrily at seeing fluid spraying back over the newly cracked windshield. The impact had sprung the radiator from its mounts and loosened the hoses to the engine. That wasn’t the only problem. The right tire was blown and the front suspension knocked out of alignment.
“Do you have to hit everything that comes across your path?” Giordino asked irritably. He sat on the floor on the undamaged side of the bus, his huge arms circled around Maeve.
“Thoughtless of me,” said Pitt. “Anyone hurt?”
“Enough bruises to win an abuse lawsuit,” said Maeve bravely.
Giordino rubbed a swelling knot on one side of his head and gazed at Maeve woefully. “Your old man is a sneaky devil. He knew we were coming and threw a surprise ply.”
“Someone at NUMA must be on his payroll.” Pitt spared Maeve a brief glance. “Not you, I hope.”
“Not me,” Maeve said firmly.
Giordino made his way to the rear of the bus and stared out the window for signs of pursuit. Two black vans careened around the damaged truck and took up the chase “We have hounds running up our exhaust pipe.”
“Good guys or bad?” asked Pitt.
“I hate to be the bearer of sad tidings, but they ain’t wearing white hats.”
“You call that a positive identification?”
“How about, they have Dorsett Consolidated Mining logos painted on their doors.”
“You sold me.”
“If they come any closer, I could ask for their driver’s license.”
“Thank you, I have a rearview mirror.”
“You’d think we’d have left enough wreckage to have a dozen cop cars on our tails by now,” grumbled Giordino. “Why aren’t they doing their duty and patrolling the docks? I think it only fitting they arrest you for reckless driving.”
“If I know Daddy,” said Maeve, “he paid them to take a holiday.”
With no coolant, the engine rapidly heated up and threw clouds of steam from under the hood. Pitt had almost no control over the demolished vehicle. The front wheels, both splayed outward, fought to travel in opposite directions. A narrow alleyway between two warehouses suddenly yawned in front of the bus. Down to the final toss of the dice, Pitt hurled the bus into the opening. His luck was against him. Too late he realized the alleyway led onto a deserted pier with no exit except the one he passed through.
“The end of the trail,” Pitt sighed.
Giordino turned and looked to the rear again. “The posse knows it. They’ve stopped to gloat over their triumph.”