12
AT that moment the Pisces and her two crew members were the last thing on Barnum's mind. Anxiously, he fidgeted in his chair as his gaze ceaselessly turned from the radar monitor to the windshield and back again. The titan-sized waves had dropped from gigantic to merely huge. Like clockwork they marched in formation against Sea Sprite, pitching her up and down in a continuous motion that became monotonous. No longer did they climb more than a hundred feet. Now the distance between crest and trough averaged only forty. Still heavy, but a lake compared to the goliaths earlier. It was almost as if the sea knew it had thrown its best punch against the research ship and failed to sink her. Frustrated, it relented and admitted defeat, dwindling to little more than a nuisance.
The hours passed, with Sea Sprite making headway with as much speed as Barnum dared to push her. Normally a humorous and friendly captain, he became cold and serious as he contemplated the hopeless task staring him in the face. He saw no way he could get a towline on the Ocean Wanderer. The great tow winch and its arm-thick cable had been removed long ago when the Sea Sprite had been converted to a NUMA research ship. Now the primary winch and cable on hoard the ship was for lowering and lifting deepwater submersibles. Installed on the stern deck behind the big crane, it was grossly inadequate for towing a floating hotel with a displacement tonnage more than that of a battleship.
Barnum's eyes tried to drill through the blowing sheets of rain. "We'd have her in sight if we could see through this muck," he said.
"According to the radar she's less than two miles away," advised Maverick.
Barnum stepped into the communications compartment and spoke to Mason Jar. "Have you heard anything from the hotel?"
"Nothing, sir. She's silent as a tomb."
"God, I hope we're not too late."
"I don't want to believe that."
"See if you can raise them again. The satellite communications. The guests and management are most likely to communicate with shore stations via phone than ship-to-shore radio."
"Let me try maritime radio first, Captain. At this distance there should be less interference. The hotel must have top-of-the-line equipment for communicating with other vessels when she's towed around the seas like a barge."
"Patch onto the bridge speakers so I can speak to them when they respond."
"Yes, sir."
Barnum returned to the pilothouse in time to hear Jar's voice through the speakers.
"This is Sea Sprite to Ocean Wanderer. We are two miles southeast of you and closing. Please respond."
There was half a minute of crackling static. Then a voice boomed through the speakers.
"Paul, are you ready to go to work?"
Because of the interference, Barnum did not recognize the voice at first. He picked up the bridge radio receiver and spoke into it. "Who is speaking?"
"Your old shipmate, Dirk Pitt. I'm in the hotel along with Al Giordino."
Barnum was stunned at putting a face with the voice. "How in God's name did you two come to be on a floating hotel in a hurricane?"
"It sounded like such a swell party, we didn't want to miss it."
"You must know we don't have the equipment to tow the Wanderer."
"All we need are your big engines."
Barnum had come to learn during their years with NUMA that Pitt and Giordino wouldn't be where they were without a plan. "What's on your devious mind?"
"We've already formed work crews to help us use the hotel's mooring cables for tow cables. Once you take them aboard Sea Sprite, you can join them together, then secure them to your stern capstan where they will form a bride for towing."
"Your plan sounds crazy," said Barnum, disbelieving. "How do you expect to send tons of cable that's dragging across the seabed under a hurricane-maddened sea over to my ship?"
There was a pause, and when the reply came Barnum could almost see the devilish grin on Pitt's face.
"We have apple-pie high-in-the-sky hopes."
The rain abated and visibility increased from two hundred yards to nearly a mile. Suddenly the Ocean Wanderer loomed through the storm dead ahead.
"God, just look at her," said Maverick. "She looks like a glass castle in a fairy tale."
The hotel seemed regal and magnificent amid the raging sea surrounding it. The crew and scientists, who were swept up in mounting excitement, had left their cabins and crowded onto the bridge to witness the spectacle of a modern edifice where none should have existed.
"It's so beautiful," murmured a blond, petite woman who was a marine chemist. "I never expected such creative architecture."
"Nor I," agreed a tall ocean chemist. "Coated with so much salt spray, she could pass for an iceberg."
Barnum trained a pair of binoculars on the hotel, whose mass swayed back and forth under the trouncing from the waves. "Her roof deck looks like it was swept clean."
"A miracle she survived," muttered Maverick in wonder. "Certainly beyond all expectations."
Barnum lowered his glasses. "Bring us around and set our stern on her windward side."
"After we take another battering getting in position to take on a tow-line, Captain, what then?"
Barnum stared pensively at the Ocean Wanderer. "We wait," he said slowly. "We wait and see what Pitt has up his sleeve after he waves his magic wand."
Pitt studied the detailed plans of the mooring cables given him by Morton. He, Giordino, Morton and Emlyn Brown, the hotel's chief maintenance superintendent, were standing around a table in Morton's office.
"The cables will have to be reeled in before we know their length after parting."
Brown, who had the wiry build of a college track-and-field miler, ran a hand through a bush of jet-black hair. "We've already reeled in what was left of them right after they snapped. I was afraid that if they snagged in the rocks it might cause the hotel to twist around under the devil's waves and cause damage."
"How far out did cables three and four break from their moorings?"
"I can only guess, mind you, but I'd say they both gave up the ghost about two hundred, maybe two hundred and twenty yards out."
Pitt looked at Giordino. "That doesn't leave Barnum enough safe latitude for maneuver. And if the Ocean Wanderer should sink, Barnum's crew will have no time to cut the cable. The Sea Sprite will be dragged down to the bottom along with the hotel."
"If I know Paul," said Giordino, "he won't hesitate to take the gamble with so many lives at stake."
"Am I to understand, you intend to use the mooring cables as towing lines?" inquired Morton, who stood on the opposite side of the table. "I was told your NUMA vessel is an oceangoing tugboat."
"She was once," replied Pitt. "But no more. She was converted from an icebreaker tug into a research ship. The big winch and tow cable were removed when she was refitted. All she has now is a crane for lifting submersibles. We'll have to improvise and make do with what we've got."
"Then what good is she?" Morton demanded angrily.
"Trust me." Pitt looked him in the eye. "If we can make a hookup, Sprite has enough power in her engines to tow this hotel."
"How will you get the ends of the cables over to the Sea Sprite?" Brown queried. "Once they're unreeled, they'll sink to the bottom."
Pitt looked at him. "We float them over."
"Float?"
"You must have fifty-gallon drums on board?"
"Very clever, Mr. Pitt. I see what you're aiming at." Brown paused and thought a moment. "We have quite a few that contain oil for the generators, cooking oil for the kitchens and liquid soap for cleaning personnel."