Flood Tide dp-14

by Clive Cussler

  Ferguson nodded. “You get the picture, Commander. There's more to Sungari than what meets the eye, and it's probably out of sight underwater.”

  The President stared pointedly at Sandecker with a faint smile. “No other government agency has the brains and technology of NUMA for underwater investigation.”

  Sandecker stared back. “You haven't made it clear what Shang has to do with alien smuggling.”

  “According to our intelligence sources, Shang is the mastermind responsible for fifty percent of the Chinese smuggled into the Western Hemisphere, and the number is growing rapidly.”

  “So if you stop Shang, you cut off the head of the snake.”

  The President nodded briefly. “That's pretty much our theory.”

  “You mentioned two areas for us to investigate,” Sandecker probed.

  Ferguson held up a hand to field the question. “The second is a ship. Another of Shang's projects we can't fathom was his purchase of the former transatlantic ocean liner, the S.S. United States.”

  “The United States went out of service and was laid up at Norfolk, Virginia, for thirty years,” said Gunn.

  Monroe shook his head. “Ten years ago she was sold to a Turkish millionaire who advertised that he was going to refit and put her into service as a floating university.”

  “Not a practical scheme,” Sandecker said bluntly. “No matter how she's refitted, by today's standards she's too large and too expensive to operate and maintain.”

  “A deception.” For the first time Monroe grinned. "The rich

  Turk turned out to be our friend Qin Shang. The United States was towed from Norfolk across the sea into the Mediterranean, past Istanbul and into the Black Sea to Sevastopol. The Chinese do not have a dry dock that can take a ship that size. Shang hired the Russians to convert her into a modern cruise ship."

  “It makes no sense. He'll lose his shirt, he must know that.”

  “It makes a lot of sense if Shang intends to use the United States as a cover to move illegal aliens,” said Ferguson. “The CIA also thinks the People's Republic bankrolled Shang. The Chinese have a small navy. If they should ever get serious about invading Taiwan, they'll need troop transports. The United States could transport an entire division, including then-heavy arms and equipment.”

  “I fully understand that sinister threats call for urgent measures.” Sandecker paused and massaged his temples with his fingertips for a few moments. Then he announced, “The resources of NUMA are at your command. We'll give it our best effort.”

  The President nodded as though he had expected that. “Thank you, Admiral. I'm sure Mr. Monroe and Admiral Ferguson join me in expressing our gratitude.”

  Gunn's thoughts were already on the job ahead. “It would be most helpful,” he said, his eyes on Monroe and Harper, “if you had agents on the inside of Shang's organization to feed us information.”

  Monroe made a helpless gesture with his hands. “Shang's security is incredibly tight. He's hired a top group of former Russian KGB agents to form an impenetrable ring that even the CIA has yet to infiltrate. They have a computerized personnel identification and investigation system that is second to none. There is no one within Shang's own management circles who is not under constant surveillance.”

  “To date,” added Harper, “we've lost two special agents who attempted to penetrate Shang's organization. Except for one of our agents who posed as an immigrant and bought her passage on board one of Shang's smuggling ships, our undercover missions are in shambles. I hate to admit such failure, but those are the hard facts.”

  “Your agent is a woman?” asked Sandecker. “Comes from a wealthy Chinese family. She's one of our best.”

  “Any idea where the smugglers will put your agent ashore?” asked Gunn.

  Harper shook his head. “We're not in contact with her. They could drop her and the rest of the illegal immigrants anywhere between San Francisco and Anchorage.”

  “How do you know Shang's security people haven't already caught on to her as they did your other two agents?”

  Harper's eyes remained fixed in space for a long time. Finally, he admitted solemnly, “We don't. All we can do is wait and hope until she makes contact with one of our West Coast district offices.”

  “And if you never hear from her?”

  Harper gazed down at the polished surface of the table as if seeing the unthinkable. “Then I send a letter of condolence to her parents and assign someone else to follow in her footsteps.”

  The meeting finally concluded at four o'clock in the morning. Sandecker and Gunn were ushered from the President's secret quarters and returned through the tunnel to the White House. As they were driven to their respective homes in the limousine, each man was lost hi gloomy thoughts. Finally Sandecker broke the somber mood.

  “They must be desperate if they need NUMA to help bail them out.”

  “I'd probably call in the Marines, the New York Stock Exchange and the Boy Scouts too if I was in the President's shoes,” said Gunn.

  “A farce,” snorted Sandecker. “My sources in the White House tell me the President has been in bed with Qin Shang since he was governor of Oklahoma.”

  Gunn looked at him. “But the President said—”

  “I know what he said, but what he meant is a different thing. Naturally, he wants the flow of illegal immigrants stopped, but he won't order any measures that might upset Beijing. Qin Shang is President Wallace's chief campaign fund-raiser in Asia. Many millions of dollars from the Chinese government were funneled through Hong Kong and Qin Shang Maritime into Wallace's campaign fund. It's corrupt influence peddling of the highest order. That's why Wallace stops short of any head-to-head confrontation. His administration is riddled with people working on China's behalf. The man has sold his soul to the detriment of American citizens.”

  “Then what does he hope to gain if we nail Qin Shang's ass to the wall?”

  “It won't happen,” said Sandecker acidly. “Qin Shang will never be indicted nor convicted of criminal activities, certainly not in the United States.”

  “Then I gather it's your plan to push ahead in the investigation,” said Gunn, “regardless of the consequences.”

  Sandecker nodded. “Do we have a research ship operating in the Gulf?”

  “The Marine Denizen. Her scientific team is conducting a study on the diminishing coral reefs off Yucatan.”

  “She's served NUMA for a long time,” Sandecker said, visualizing the ship.

  “The oldest in our fleet,” Gunn acknowledged. “This is her final voyage. After she returns to port in Norfolk, we're donating her to the Lampack University of Oceanography.”

  “The university will have to wait a while longer. An old marine-research ship with a crew of biologists should prove an ideal cover to investigate Shang's port facility.”

  “Who have you in mind to lead the investigation?”

  Sandecker turned to Gunn. “Our special projects director, who do you think?”

  Gunn hesitated. “Asking a bit much from Dirk, aren't we?”

  “Can you think of a better man?”

  “No, but he took quite a beating on the last project. When I saw him a few days ago, he looked like death warmed over. He needs more time to mend.”

  “Pitt is a fast healer,” Sandecker said confidently. “A challenge is just what he needs to get back into the swim of things. Track him down and tell him it's essential he contact me immediately.”

  “I don't know where to reach him,” Gunn said vaguely. “After you gave him a month's leave, he just took off without saying where he was going.”

  “He's in Washington State, up to his old tricks at a place called Orion Lake.”

  Gunn looked at the admiral suspiciously. “How do you know that?”

  “Hiram Yaeger sent him a truckload of underwater gear,” said Sandecker, his eyes glinting like a fox's. “Hiram thought he did it on the sly, but word has a funny way of filtering up to my office.”

&nb
sp; “Not much goes on around NUMA that you don't know about.”

  “The only mystery I haven't solved is how Al Giordino smokes my expensive Nicaraguan cigars when I never find any missing.”

  “Did it ever occur to you that you both might have the same source?”

  “Impossible,” snorted Sandecker. “My cigars are rolled by a family who are close friends of mine in Managua. Giordino couldn't possibly know them. And while we're on the subject, where is Giordino?”

  “Lying on a beach in Hawaii,” answered Gunn. “He decided it was as good a time as any to take a vacation until Dirk got back in the saddle again.”

  “Those two are usually as thick as thieves. It's a rare moment when they're not causing mischief together.”

  “You want me to brief Al on the situation and then send him out to Orion Lake to bring Dirk back to Washington?”

  Sandecker nodded. “A good idea. Pitt will listen to Giordino. You go along as backup. Knowing Dirk, if I called and ordered him to report back to work, he'd hang up the phone.”

  “You're absolutely right, Admiral,” Gunn said, smiling. “That's exactly what he would do.”

  JULIA LEE'S THOUGHTS, CERTAIN BELIEFS RATHER, CENTERED around an overwhelming sense of defeat. Deep down, she knew she had botched her mission. She had made the wrong moves, said the wrong things. There was a feeling of emptiness, shrouded by despair in her mind. She had learned much about the smugglers' operation. There were ashes in her mouth as she realized that it was all for nothing. The vital information she had obtained might never be passed on to the Immigration and Naturalization Service so they could apprehend the smugglers.

  She felt a sea of pain from her sadistically inflicted injuries, sick and empty and debased. She was also deathly tired and hungry. Her self-assurance had gotten the better of her. She failed by not acting meek and subjugated. By using the skills taught her during her training as a special INS agent and given enough time, she could have easily escaped her captors before being submitted to a life of rape. Now it was too late. Julia was too badly hurt to make an all-out physical effort. It was all she could do to stand upright without getting dizzy and losing her balance before falling to her knees.

  Because of dedication to her work, Julia had few close friends. The men in her life had passed through as if they were part of a reception line, little more than acquaintances. Sadness settled over her at the thought of never seeing her mother and father again. Strangely, she was conscious of no fear or revulsion. Whatever was to happen to her in the next few hours, nothing could change it.

  Through the steel deck she sensed the engines coming to a stop. Without headway the ship began rolling in the swells. A minute later the anchor chain clattered through the hawsehole. The Indigo Star had anchored just outside the territorial limits of the United States to evade law enforcement action.

  Julia's watch had been taken from her during the interrogation, and all she could be certain about the time was that it was sometime in the middle of the night. She looked around at the other forty or more pathetic individuals huddled hi the cargo hold, thrown in there after the interrogations. They all began chattering excitedly, thinking they had at last reached America and were going ashore to begin a new life. Julia might have felt the same, but she knew better. The truth would strike savagely and with cold indifference. Any expectation of happiness was short-lived. They had all been deceived. These were the intelligent ones, those of wealth and substance. They had been defrauded and robbed by the smugglers, and yet they still had the look of hope about them.

  Julia was certain their immediate future would be one of terror and extortion. She looked with great sadness at two families with young children and prayed they would live to escape the smugglers and the domination by the criminal cartels waiting on shore.

  Two hours was all the time the crew of smugglers needed to transfer the illegal Chinese aliens onto trawlers belonging to a fishing fleet owned by Qin Shang Maritime. Manned by documented Chinese who had taken out their citizenship papers, the fleet carried out legitimate fishing operations when not transporting illegal immigrants from the mother ship to transit points in small harbors and coves along the Olympic Peninsula coast. There, buses and cargo trucks waited to carry them to destinations throughout the country.

  Julia, the last one to be taken from the cargo hold, was led roughly by an enforcer to the outer deck. She could barely walk, and he half dragged her. Ki Wong was standing by the disembarkation ramp. He held up a hand and stopped the enforcer before he could escort her down the ramp to a strange-looking black boat, bobbing in the waves beside the ship.

  “One final word, Ling T'ai,” he said in a low, cold voice. “Now that you've had a chance to think over my offer, perhaps you've had a change of mind.”

  “If I agree to become your slave,” she murmured through her swollen lips. “What then?”

  He gave her his best jackal grin. “Why nothing. I don't expect you to become a slave. That opportunity has long since passed.”

  “Then what do you want from me?”

  “Your cooperation. I'd like you to tell me who else was working with you on board the Indigo Star.”

  “I don't know what you're talking about,” she muttered contemptuously.

  He stared at her and shrugged smugly. Then he reached in his coat pocket, drew out a piece of paper and pushed it at her. “Read this, and see that I was right about you.”

  “You read it,” she said with her last shred of defiance.

  He held the paper under a deck light and squinted his eyes. “ ”The fingerprint and description you sent via satellite were analyzed and identified. The woman Ling T'ai is an INS agent by the name of Julia Marie Lee. Suggest you deal with her in an expeditious manner.' "

  If Julia had a tiny thread of hope, it was abruptly swept away. They must have taken her prints after she was battered unconscious. But how was it possible for a band of Chinese smugglers to make her ID within a few hours from any source but the FBI in Washington, D.C.? The organization had to be far more complex and sophisticated than she and the field investigators at the INS suspected. She was not about to give Wong the slightest degree of satisfaction.

  “I am Ling T'ai. I have nothing more to say.”

  “Then neither do I.” Wong made a gesture with his hand toward the waiting black boat. “Goodbye, Miss Lee.”

  As the enforcer took her by the arm and pulled her off the counterfeit cruise ship, Julia looked back up the ramp at Wong, who still stood on the cruise ship's deck. The bastard was sneering at her. She stared up at him with pure hatred in her eyes.

  “You will die, Ki Wong,” she said caustically. “You will die very soon.”

  He returned her stare more out of amusement than annoyance. “No, Miss Lee. It is you who will die soon.”

  STILL SICKENED BY WHAT THE AUV HAD DISCOVERED, PITT spent the final hour of daylight staring across the lake at Qin Shang's retreat through his telescope. The maid on her rounds at the guesthouses, the same two golfers knocking balls all over the landscape—they were the only people he ever observed. Most curious, he thought. No cars or delivery trucks entered or left the grounds, nor did the security guards ever reveal themselves again. Pitt could not believe they stayed shut up in the little windowless huts day and night without relief.

  He called no one at NUMA to inform them of the grisly discovery, nor did he contact local law enforcement. He took it upon himself to attempt to uncover the mystery of how the bodies came to be carpeting the bottom of the lake. That Qin Shang was using the lake depths as a depository for his murder victims seemed obvious. But there was more to learn before he blew the whistle.

  Satisfied there was nothing more to see, he set the telescope aside and carried the second big carton sent by Yaeger into the boathouse. It was so heavy and bulky he had to use a small hand truck to roll the carton and its contents across the dock. Cutting open the lid, he removed a compact portable electric compressor and plugged its cord into an overhead
light socket. Then he connected the compressor to the dual-manifold air valve on twin eighty-cubic-foot diver's air cylinders. It popped away with less noise than the exhaust of an idling car engine.

  He returned to the cabin and lazily watched the sun descend over the small range of mountains between Orion Lake and the sea. After darkness settled over the lake, Pitt ate a light dinner and then watched satellite television. At ten o'clock he made ready for bed and turned out the lights. Gambling the surveillance cameras in the cabin did not work on infrared, he stripped naked, crept outside, crawled into the water and, holding his breath, swam up inside the boathouse.

  The water was frigid, but his mind was too occupied to notice. He toweled his body dry and pulled on a one-piece Shellpro nylon-and-polyester undergarment. The compressor had automatically shut off when the cylinders were topped off with the required air pressure. He attached a U.S. Divers Micra air regulator to the manifold valve and checked the straps to the backpack. Then he climbed into a custom-made, dark gray Viking vulcanized-rubber dry suit with attached hood, gloves and traction-soled boots. He preferred the dry suit over a wet suit for better thermal protection in cold water.

  Next came a U.S. Divers military buoyancy compensator and a Sigma Systems console with depth gauge, air pressure gauge, compass and dive timer. For weights, he used an integrated system with part of the weight in the backpack and the balance on his weight belt. A dive knife was strapped to his calf and an underwater miner's-type light was slipped over his hood.

  Finally, he slung a belt that looked like an old western bandit's bandolier over one shoulder. Its holster contained a compressed air gun that fired wicked-looking barbs on short shafts. Slots in the belt held twenty barbs.

  He was in a hurry to be on his way. He had a long swim ahead of him and many things to do and see. He sat on the edge of the dock, pulled on his fins, twisted his body to prevent the air tanks on his back from snagging the boards and splashed into the water. Before diving, he vented the air out of the dry suit. He saw not the slightest reason in the world why he should physically extend himself and waste the precious air in his tanks, so he lifted a compact, battery-powered Stingray diver-propulsion vehicle from the dock, extended it out in front of him by the handgrips, pressed the FAST speed switch to its stop and was instantly propelled from under the floats of the boathouse.