Pitt knelt and studied the indentations. He could easily distinguish his and Teri’s prints since they had both been barefoot. His mouth twisted grimly. In several places, the shoe prints covered the bare ones.
Someone had followed Teri toward the beach, he reasoned. He raised one hand, and shielded his eyes, looking at the sun. It was still quite early so he decided to pursue the trail. The tracks led half-way down the path and then veered off in the direction of the rocks. Here the trail ended so he scrambled over the hard craggy surface and picked up the scent again on the other side. The tracks angled back to the road, only further away from the path this time. A branch scraped a thorny limb across Pitt’s arm, drawing thin lines of blood, but he was not aware of it. He was beginning to sweat when he stepped back on the road.
At last the hobnailed prints ended and heavy tire tracks began. The tire’s tread left a peculiar set of diamond-shaped patterns in the dirt beside the pavement. There was no traffic visible in either direction so Pitt calmly laid the towel down in the center of the road, sat on it and began to re-enact the scene in his mind.
Whoever shadowed Teri had parked here, walked back to her car and then followed her down the path. But before reaching the beach, the stalker must have heard voices so he turned and made his way In the darkness to the rocks where he hid, spying on the girl and Pitt. After it became light from the dawn, the intruder returned to the road, using the rocks to conceal his movements, It was an elementary puzzle, and it fit neatly together, except for the fact that three pieces were missing. Why had Teri been followed and by whom? A thought occurred to Pitt and he smiled to himself. The simple answer was very likely a local peeping tom. If that were the case the observer got more than he bargained for. A knot formed in Pitt’s stomach. It was the third missing piece that bothered him the most. Something in his logical mind would not jell. He looked over at the tire tracks again. They were too large for an ordinary car. They could only come from a more massive vehicle, say a truck. His eyes narrowed, and his brain began to churn. He wouldn’t have heard Teri drive up because he was asleep. And the truck had probably coasted to a stop, noiselessly.
Pitt’s intent gaze turned from the diamond tread tire tracks to the beach. The tide was creeping over the sand and erasing all signs of recent human activity. He gauged the distance from the road to the beach and began to term the problem in the manner of a fifth grade school teacher.
If a truck is at point A, and two people are on the beach 250 feet away at point B, why wouldn’t the two people on the beach hear the truck start its engine in the silence of early morning?
The answer eluded him, so Pitt shrugged and gave up. He shook out the towel and wrapping it around his neck, walked back along the deserted road toward the main gate, whistling, “It’s a Long Road to Tipperary.”
3
The young blond crewman cast off the lines, and the little twenty-six foot double-ended whaleboat surged sluggishly away from the makeshift dock near Brady Field. setting a course over the blue carpet of water toward the First Attempt. The throbbing four-cylinder Buda engine pushed the sturdy boat along at eight knots and cast the familiar nautical stink of diesel fumes over the deck. It was a few minutes to nine now, and the sun was hotter and even a slight breeze from the sea offered no relief.
Pitt stood and watched the shore recede until the dock became a dirty speck on the surf line. Then he hoisted his one hundred and ninety pounds onto the high tubular railing that circled the stern and sat with his buttocks hanging precariously over the boat’s frothing white wake. From his unusual position he could feel the pulsations from the shaft, and by looking straight down, he could see the propeller drill its way through the water. The whaleboat was only a quarter of a mile from the First Attempt when Pitt noticed the young crewman at the helm eyeing him with a mild look of respect.
“Excuse me, sir, but you look like you’ve spent some time in a double-ender.” The blond crewman nodded at Pitt’s seat on the railing. The young man had an academic air about him that implied scientific intelligence. Well tanned from the Aegean sun, he wore Bermuda shorts and nothing else except a long, sparse, yellow beard.
Pitt wrapped a hand around the stern light staff for support and groped in a breast pocket with his other hand for a cigarette. “I used to have one when I was in high school,” he said casually.
“You must have lived near the water,” said the young crewman.
“Newport Beach, California.”
“That’s a great place. I used to drive up there all the time when I was taking post graduate courses at Scripps in LaJolla.” The young crewman cracked a crooked smile, “Man oh man, was that ever a great place for girls. You must have had a ball growing up there.”
“I could think of worse places to go through puberty.” As long as the young man was talking freely, Pitt switched the subject. “Tell me, what sort of trouble have you been having on the project?”
“Everything went fine for the first couple of weeks, but as soon as we found a promising location to investigate, things turned sour and we’ve had nothing but rotten luck since.”
“For instance?”
“Mostly equipment failure; broken cables, missing and damaged parts, generator breakdowns, you know, things like that.”
They were nearing the First Attempt now and the Young crewman turned back to the helm and maneuvered the small boat along side of the boarding ladder.
Pitt stood and looked up at the larger vessel, surveying its outward appearance. By maritime standards she was a small ship; eight hundred twenty tons, one hundred fifty-two feet in length overall. Her keel was originally laid on an ocean-going tug in the Dutch shipyards of Rotterdam before World War II.
Immediately after the Germans invaded the lowlands, her crew Slipped her away to England where she performed outstanding and meritorious service throughout the war, towing torpedoed and crippled ships into the British port of Liverpool under the noses of Nazi U-boats. After the end of European hostilities, her tired and battered hull was traded by the Dutch Government to the U.S. Navy, who promptly enlisted her in the mothball fleet at Olympia, Washington. There she sat for twenty-five long years, sleeping under a gray plastic cocoon. Then the newly formed National Underwater Marine Agency purchased her remains from the Navy and converted her to a modern oceanographic vessel, rechristening her the First Attempt.
Pitt squinted from the bright glare of the white paint, coating the ship from stem to stern staff. He climbed the boarding ladder and was greeted on the deck by an old friend, Commander Rudi Gunn, the skipper and project director of the ship.
“You look healthy,” said Gunn unsmilingly, “except for your bloodshot eyes.” He reached for a cigarette. Before he lit it, he offered one to Pitt, who shook his head and held up one in his hand.
“I hear you’ve got problems,” said Pitt.
Gunn’s face turned grim. “You’re damn right I do,” he snapped. “I didn’t ask Admiral Sandecker to send you all the way from Washington just for fun and games.”
Pitt’s eyebrows went up in surprise. This sudden harshness did not fit Gunn. Under normal circumstances the little commander was a warm and humorous person. “Take it easy, Rudi,” said Pitt softly. “Let’s get out of the sun, and you can brief me on what this mess is all about”
Gunn removed his horned rimmed glasses and rubbed a wrinkled handkerchief across his forehead.
“I'm sorry, Dirk, it’s just that I’ve never seen so many things go wrong at one time. It’s highly frustrating after all the planning that went into this project. I guess it’s beginning to make me irritable as hell. Even the crew has noticeably avoided me the last three days.”