“Coming up on her,” Giordino’s voice came over the earphones. “Mind you don’t slam into the railing and slice yourself into little pieces.”
He may have spoken as calmly as though he was parking a car in a garage, but there was a noticeable strain in Giordino’s voice as he struggled to keep the slow-moving helicopter stable while heading through frenzied crosswinds.
“And don’t you bloody your nose on those rocks,” Pitt shot back.
Those were the last words between them. From now on it was all by sight and gut instinct. Pitt had let himself down until he was almost fifteen meters below and behind the chopper. He fought against the pull and momentum that worked to twist him in circles, using his outstretched arms like the wings and ailerons of an aircraft. He felt himself drop a few meters as Giordino reduced speed.
To Giordino it seemed Polar Queen churned the water with her screws as though it was business as usual and she was on a tropical pleasure cruise. He eased back on the throttle as far as he dared. One more notch and all control would belong to the winds. He was flying with every shred of experience he’d gained during many thousands of hours in the air, if being tossed about by fickle air currents could be called flying. Despite the wind buffeting, if he maintained his present course, he could drop Pitt dead center onto the sundeck. He later swore that he was pitched and yawed by winds coming at him from six different directions. From his position at the end of the winch cable, Pitt marveled that Giordino kept the craft on a straight line.
The black cliffs loomed up beyond the ship, ominous and menacing. If it was a sight to daunt the bravest of sea captains, it certainly daunted Giordino. It wouldn’t do for him to make a spectacular head-on smash into the exposed rock, any more than it would do for Pitt to miscalculate and strike the side of the ship, breaking every bone in his body.
They were flying toward the lee side of the island, and the winds abated slightly. Not much, but enough for Giordino to feel he had firm control of the chopper and his destiny once more. One instant the cruise ship stretched in front of Giordino and the next the white superstructure and yellow hull swept out of sight beneath him. Then all he saw was ice-frozen rock that rose out of sight above his forward view. He could only hope Pitt was away as he abruptly threw the helicopter into a vertical ascent. The cliffs, wet from the billowing spray from the pounding waves, looked as if they were drawing him toward them like a magnet.
Then he was over the icy crest and was struck by the full force of the wind, which threw the aircraft on its tail, the rotor blades in a perpendicular position. Without any attempt at finesse, Giordino threw the helicopter around to a level position on a reverse course and beat back over the ship, his eyes darting as he looked out the window for a glimpse of Pitt.
Giordino did not know, could not have known, that Pitt had released his harness and made a perfect drop from a height of only three meters directly into the center of the sundeck’s open swimming pool. Even from that short height it looked no larger than a postage stamp, but to Pitt it seemed as enticing as the cushiness of a haystack. He flexed his knees and stretched out his arms to lessen his momentum. The depth was only two meters in the deep end, and he made a tremendous splash, hurling a huge amount of water onto the deck. His feet, encased in dive boots, impacted solidly on the bottom, and he stopped dead, immersed in a stooped position.
With growing apprehension, Giordino circled the superstructure of the ship, searching for a glimpse of Pitt. He didn’t spot him at first. He shouted into his microphone. “Did you make it down okay? Make yourself known, buddy.”
Pitt waved his arms and replied. “I’m here in the swimming pool.”
Giordino was dazed. “You fell in the pool?”
“I’ve a good notion to stay here,” Pitt replied happily. “The heater is still on and the water is warm.”
“I strongly suggest you get your butt to the bridge,” Giordino said with deadly seriousness. “She’s coming out of the backstretch and into the far turn. I give her no more than eight minutes before you hear a big scraping noise.”
Pitt needed no further encouragement. He hoisted himself out of the pool and took off at a dead run along the deck to the forward companionway. The bridge was only one deck above. He took the companionway four steps at a time, threw open the door of the wheelhouse and rushed inside. A ship’s officer was lying on the deck, dead, his arms clutching the base of the chart table. Pitt hurriedly scanned the ship’s automated navigation systems console. He lost a precious few seconds searching for the digital course monitor. The yellow light indicated that the electronic control was on manual override. Feverishly he dashed outside onto the starboard bridge wing. It was empty. He turned and rushed back across the wheelhouse onto the port bridge wing. Two more ship’s officers were lying in contorted positions on the deck, white and cold. Another ice-encrusted body hunched over the ship’s exterior control panel on his knees, arms frozen underneath and around its pedestal. He wore a foul-weather jacket with no markings but a cap with enough gold braid to show that he was surely the captain.
“Can you drop the anchors?” asked Giordino.
“Easier said than done,” Pitt replied irritably. “Besides, there is no flat bottom. The sides of the island probably drop at a near ninety-degree angle for a thousand fathoms. The rock is too smooth for the anchor flukes to dig in and grip.”
Pitt saw in a glance why the ship maintained a direct track for nearly two hundred kilometers before initiating a circular course to port. A gold medal on a chain had fallen outside the captain’s heavy jacket collar and hung suspended above the face of the control panel. Each gust of wind pushed it from side to side, and at the end of each pendulum swing, it struck against one of the toggle-type levers that controlled the movement of the ship, part of an electronics system almost all commanders of modern vessels use when docking in port. Eventually, the medal had knocked the directional lever into the half-port position, sending Polar Queen steaming around in corkscrewlike circles, ever closer to the Danger Islands.
Pitt lifted the medal and studied the inscription and image of a man engraved on one side. It was Saint Francis of Paola, the patron saint of mariners and navigators. Francis was revered for his miracles in saving sailors from resting in the deep. A pity Saint Francis had not rescued the captain, Pitt thought, but there was still a chance to save his ship.
If not for Pitt’s timely appearance, the simplest of events, the freak circumstance of a tiny bit of metal tapping against a small lever, a twenty-five hundred gross ton ship and all its passengers and crew, alive or dead, would have crashed into unyielding rock and fallen into a cold and dispassionate sea.
“You’d better be quick.” Giordino’s anxious voice came over the earphones.
Pitt cursed himself for lingering and sneaked a fast glance in awe at the sinister walls that seemed to stretch above his head into the upper atmosphere. They were so flat and smooth from eons of wave action that it was as though some giant hand had polished their surface. The breakers rising out of the sea were roaring into the exposed cliff less than two hundred meters away. As Polar Queen narrowed the gap, the incoming swells slammed into her beam, shoving her hull ever closer to disaster. Pitt estimated that she would strike on her starboard bow in another four minutes.
Unimpeded, the relentless waves swept in from the deep reaches of the ocean and dashed into the cliff with the explosive concussion of a large bomb. The white sea burst and boiled in a huge witch’s cauldron of blue water and white spray. It soared toward the top of the jagged rock island, hung there for a moment and then fell back, creating a return wave. It was this backwash that temporarily kept Polar Queen from being quickly swept against the palisades when she passed by.
Pitt tried to pull the captain away from the control panel, but he wouldn’t budge. The hands clasped around the base refused to give. Pitt gripped the body under the armpits and heaved with all his strength. There was a sickening tearing sound that Pitt knew was the patting of froz
en skin that had adhered to metal, then suddenly the captain was free. Pitt threw him off to the side, found the chrome lever that controlled the helm and pushed it hard against the slot marked PORT to increase the angle of turn away from calamity.
For nearly thirty seconds it seemed nothing was happening, then with agonizing slowness the bow began to swing away from the boiling surf. It was not nearly quick enough. A ship can’t turn in the same radius as a big semitrailer. It takes almost a kilometer to come to a complete stop, much less cut a sharp inside turn.
He briefly considered throwing the port screw into reverse and swinging the ship on her axis, but he needed every knot of the ship’s momentum to maintain headway through the quartering swell, and then there was the danger of the stern swinging too far to starboard and crashing into the cliff.
“She’s not going to make it,” Giordino warned him. “She’s caught by the rollers. You’d better jump while you still have a chance.”
Pitt didn’t answer. He scanned the unfamiliar control panel and spotted the levers that controlled the bow and stern thrusters. There was also a throttle command unit that linked the panel to the engines. Holding his breath, Pitt set the thruster levers in the port position and pushed the throttles to full ahead. The response was almost instantaneous. Deep belowdecks, as if guided by an unseen hand, the engine revolutions increased. Momentary relief swelled within Pitt as he felt the throbbing vibration of engines at work under his feet. Now he could do little but stand and hope for the best.
Above the ship, Giordino looked down with a sinking sensation. From his vantage point it didn’t seem the ship was turning. He saw no chance for Pitt to escape once the ship rammed into the island. Leaping into the boiling water meant only a futile struggle against the incredible power of a surging sea, an impossible situation at best.
“I’m coming in for you,” he apprised Pitt.
“Stay clear,” Pitt ordered. “You can’t feel it up there, but the air turbulence this close to the precipice is murderous.”
“It’s suicidal to wait any longer. If you jump now I can pick you up.”
“Like hell—” Pitt broke off in horror as the Polar Queen was caught broadside by a giant comber that rolled over her like an avalanche. For long moments she seemed to slide toward the cliff, nearer the frantic turmoil swirling around the rock. Then she was driving forward again, her icebreaker bow burying itself under the wave, the foaming crest curling as high as the bridge, spray streaming from it like a horse’s mane in the breeze. The ship descended ever deeper as if she were continuing a voyage to the bottom far below.
The torrent came with a roar louder than thunder and flung Pitt to the deck. He instinctively held his breath as the icy water surged over and around him. He clung desperately to the pedestal of the control console to keep from being swept over the side into the maelstrom. He felt as if he had dropped over a towering cascade. All he could see through his face mask was a billow of bubbles and foam. Even in his arctic dry suit the cold felt like a million sharp needles stabbing his skin. He thought his arms were being pulled from their sockets as he clung for his life.
Then Polar Queen struggled up and burst through the back of the wave, her bow forging another ten meters to port. She was refusing to die, game to fight the sea to the bitter end. The water drained from the bridge in rivers until Pitt’s head surfaced into the air again. He took a deep breath and tried to stare through the downpour of water that splashed back from the black rock of the cliffs. God, they seemed so close he could spit on them. So close that foam thrown upward by the horrendous collision of water against rock rebounded and fell over the ship like a cloudburst. The ship was abeam of the chaos, and he eased back on the stern thruster in an attempt to quarter the surge.
The bow thruster dug in and shouldered the forward part of the ship into the flood as the stern screws thrashed the water into foam, pushing her on an angle away from the vertical rock face. Imperceptibly, but by the grace of God, her bow was edging out to sea.
“She’s coming about!” Giordino yelled from above. “She’s coming about!”
“We’re not out of the woods yet.” For the first time since the inundation, Pitt had the luxury of replying. He warily eyed the next sequence of waves that came rolling in.
The sea wasn’t through with the Polar Queen yet. Pitt ducked as a huge sheet of spray crashed over the bridge wing. The next comber struck like an express train before colliding with the backwash from the last one. Bludgeoned by the impact from two sides, the ship was tossed upward until her hull was visible almost to the keel. Her twin screws rose into the air, throwing white water that reflected the sun like sparks of a fireworks pinwheel. She hung suspended for a terrible moment, finally dropping into a deep trough before she was struck by the next breaker in line. The bow was jerked to starboard, but the thruster battled her back on course.
Again and again the cruise ship heeled over as the waves rolled against the sides of her hull. There was no stopping her now. She was through the worst of it and shook off the endless swells as though she were a dog shaking water off its coat. The hungry sea might take her another time, but more likely she would end up at the scrappers thirty or more years from now. But this day she still sailed the brutal waters.
“You pulled it of! You really pulled it off!” shouted Giordino as though he didn’t believe his eyes.
Pitt sagged against the bridge-wing railing and felt suddenly tired. It was then he became conscious of a pain in his right hip. He recalled striking against a stanchion that supported a night light when he was immersed by the giant wave. He couldn’t see under the dry suit but he knew that his skin was forming a beautiful bruise.
Only after he set the navigation controls for a straight course south into the Weddell Sea did he turn and gaze at the pile of rock that towered above the sea like a jagged black column. There was an angry look about the cold face of the precipice, almost as if it were enraged at being cheated out of a victim. The barren island soon became little more than a pile of sea-ravaged rock as it receded in Polar Queen’s wake.
Pitt looked up as the turquoise helicopter hovered over the wheelhouse. “How’s your fuel?” he asked Giordino.
“Enough to make Ice Hunter with a few liters to spare,” Giordino answered.
“You’d better be on your way, then.”
“Did you ever stop to think that if you board and sail an abandoned ship into the nearest port you’d make a few million bucks from the insurance underwriters on a salvage contract?”
Pitt laughed. “Do you really think Admiral Sandecker and the United States government would allow a poor but honest bureaucrat to keep the pay without screaming?”
“Probably not. Can I do anything for you?”
“Just give Dempsey my position and tell him I’ll rendezvous at whatever position he chooses.”
“See you soon,” Giordino signed off. He was tempted to make a joke about Pitt’s having an entire cruise ship to himself, but the reality of the situation quickly set in. There could be no joy at knowing you were the only one alive on a ship of the dead. He did not envy Pitt for even one second as he swung the helicopter into a turn and set a course for the Ice Hunter.
Pitt removed his helmet and watched as the turquoise helicopter flew low across the blue ice-cold sea. He watched until it became a speck on the golden-blue horizon. A fleeting sense of loneliness shrouded him as he gazed around the empty ship. How long he stood gazing across the decks devoid of life, he never recalled. He stood there as if stalling, his mind blank.
He was waiting for some sort of sound besides the slap of the waves against the bow and the steady beat of the engines. Maybe he waited for a sound that indicated the presence of people, voices or laughter. Maybe he waited for some sign of movement from something other than the ship’s pennants flapping in the breeze. More likely he was seized by foreboding about what he would most certainly find. Already the scene at the Argentinean research station was being played out again. T
he dead passengers and crew, soaked through and sprawled on the upper decks, were only a sample of what he expected to find in the quarters and staterooms below.
At last he pulled his mind back on track and entered the wheelhouse. He set the engines on half speed and plotted an approximate course toward an interception point with Ice Hunter. Then he programmed the coordinates into the navigation computer and engaged the automated ship’s control system, linking it with the radar to self-steer the ship around any passing icebergs. Assured the ship was in no further danger, he stepped from the wheelhouse.
Several of the bodies on the outer decks were crewmen who died in the act of maintaining the ship. Two were painting bulkheads, others had-been working on the lifeboats. The bodies of eight passengers suggested that they had been admiring the unspoiled shoreline when they were struck down. Pitt walked down a passageway and looked in the ship’s hospital. It was empty, as was the health club. He took the carpeted stairs down to the boat deck, which held the ship’s six suites. They were all empty except one. An elderly woman lay as if sleeping. He touched her peck with his fingers. She was as cold as ice. He moved down to the salon deck.
Pitt began to feel like the Ancient Mariner on a ship of ghosts. The only thing missing was an albatross around his neck. The generators were still supplying electricity and heat, everything was orderly and everything in place. The interior warmth of the ship felt good after the inundation of icy water on the bridge wing. He was mildly surprised to find he had become immune to the dead bodies. He no longer bothered to closely examine them to see if there was a spark of life. He knew the tragic truth.
Though mentally prepared, he still found it hard to believe there was no life on board. That death had swept through the ship like a gust of wind was foreign to everything he’d ever experienced. It became most uncomfortable for him to intrude into the life of a ship that had known happier memories. He idly wondered what future passengers and crew would think, cruising on a jinxed ship. Would no one sail on her ever again, or would the tragedy attract sell-out crowds in search of adventure mixed with morbidness?
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