Atlantis Found dp-15

by Clive Cussler

Pitt grabbed her by the arm as Giordino swept up the girl. "No time for hugs and kisses," he said quickly. "We've got a plane to catch."

  "Where did you two beautiful men come from?" she finally mumbled, incredulous, still unable to understand.

  "I don't know if I care to be described as beautiful," Pitt said, as he grabbed her around the waist and hustled her toward the shattered door.

  "Wait!" she snapped, twisting out from his encircling arm. She darted back inside and reappeared in seconds, clutching a small attaché case to her breast.

  The time for caution and furtive movements was gone- if either had truly existed in the men's minds. Tearing down the long corridor, rushing past workers who were putting the finishing touches on the ship, they were stared at queerly, but no one made a move to stop or question them.

  If the alarm was out by now, and Pitt was certain it was, the thought of a confrontation with the merciless Wolfs spurred him on. Getting off the ship, reaching the end of the dock, and disappearing into the old water of the fjord for a two-mile swim was only half his problem. Though pulled faster than they could swim by the diver propulsion vehicles, Pat and her daughter would probably die of hypothermia before they could reach the ravine and the Skycar.

  His fears suddenly mushroomed when the eerie sounds of high-pitched alarms began sounding throughout the shipyard just as they reached the nearest elevator.

  Luck was with them this far. The elevator was stopped on Level Six with the doors open. Three men in red coveralls were in the act of unloading office furniture. Without a word of explanation, Pitt and Giordino muscled the startled movers into the foyer, pushed Pat and her daughter inside, and sent the elevator moving downward in the space of fifteen seconds.

  While they temporarily caught their breath, Pitt smiled at Pat's daughter, a pretty young girl with hair the color of shimmering topaz and Capri-blue eyes. "What's your name, dear heart?"

  "Megan," she said, her eyes wide with fear.

  "Take a deep breath and relax," he said softly. "My name is Dirk, and my burly little munchkin friend is Al. We're going to take you safely home."

  His words had a soothing effect, and her expression of dire anxiety slowly altered to simple uneasiness. She placed her explicit trust in him, and Pitt began to dread for the second time that night what he might find when they reached their stop and the elevator doors opened. They could not shoot their way out, not with the women beside them.

  His fears were groundless, as it turned out. There was no army of guards with drawn guns waiting on the cargo level. "I am totally lost," he said, looking at a labyrinth of corridors.

  Giordino grinned ruefully. "Too bad we didn't pick up a street map."

  Pitt pointed at a golf cart parked in front of a door marked "Circuit Room." "Salvation is at hand," he said, jumping into the driver's seat and twisting the ignition key. Everyone climbed in, and he punched the accelerator to the floorboard almost before their feet left the deck. Unable to use his little direction finder except for course headings, he made a lucky guess after crossing the tram tracks and found a large freight passageway that opened onto a loading ramp leading down to the dock.

  The army of guards with drawn guns he was concerned about had arrived.

  They were pouring out of trucks and dispersing on the dock, weapons drawn and at the ready, as they clustered around the loading ramps. Pitt estimated that there were nearly four hundred of them, not counting a thousand already on duty aboard the ship. He instantly sized up their dilemma and shouted, "Hold on! I'm heading back toward the elevator." He slammed on the brake, spun the cart in a U-turn, and turned back into the freight passageway.

  Looking behind, all Giordino could see were black coveralls swirling like ants around the dock. "I hate it when things don't go right," he said morosely.

  "We'll never escape-" Pat broke off, clutching her daughter. "Not now.

  Pitt looked at Giordino. "Wasn't there an old war song called 'We Did It Before, and We Can Do It Again'?"

  "World War Two was before my time," said Giordino. "But I get your drift."

  They quickly reached the elevator, but Pitt didn't stop. The doors were still open, and he drove the cart inside just before they began to close. He pressed the button for the sixth level, pulled out the .45 and gestured for Giordino to do the same. As soon as the doors spread open, they came face-to-face with the three furniture movers they had thrown out of the elevator earlier. Still stunned by their eviction, the movers were shouting and gesturing at a man wearing yellow coveralls, who looked to be someone in command. At seeing Pitt and Giordino come charging out of the elevator on the cart like unleashed starving German shepherds, their guns drawn and aimed, the four men froze and threw their hands into the air.

  "Into the elevator!" Pitt ordered.

  The four men stood blank and uncomprehending until Giordino shouted the command in Spanish.

  "Sorry," said Pitt, suddenly self-conscious. "I got carried away by the drama of the moment."

  "You're forgiven," Giordino absolved him.

  The routine they'd hastily improvised in the office building was repeated. Six minutes later, they were all on their way again, leaving the four men in their underwear bound with duct tape and lying on the floor of the elevator. As soon as the doors opened wide, Pitt drove the cart onto the main cargo entry deck, stopped, and ran back. He sent the elevator upward and jammed the controls, leaping out before the doors closed. Then he followed the direction signs and drove toward the tram. Three of them now wore the red coveralls of interior ship workers, while the fourth- himself- was dressed in the yellow uniform of a supervisor.

  Security guards were already stationed at an intersection just short of the tram station. One of them stepped forward and held up his hand. Pitt brought the cart to an unhurried stop and looked at the guard questioningly.

  Not knowing that Pat and her daughter had been whisked from their quarters, the guard was not unduly disturbed at seeing two women in the uniforms of cargo loaders, since many of them had been recruited to operate forklifts and tow vehicles. Pat squeezed her daughter's arm as a warning not to speak or move. She also turned Megan's face away from the guard, so he wouldn't notice her tender age.

  Pitt figured the yellow coveralls he had appropriated represented authority, and the respectful look in the guard's eyes confirmed it.

  "What's going on here?" Giordino demanded, his Spanish improving with practice.

  "Two intruders in security guard uniforms have infiltrated the shipyard and are believed to have boarded the Ulrich Wolf."

  "Intruders? Why didn't you stop them before they entered the shipyard?"

  "I can't say," the guard replied. "All I know is that they killed four of our security force guards in an attempt to escape."

  "Four dead," Giordino said sadly. "A great pity. I hope you catch the murdering swine. Right, group?" He turned to the others and nodded spiritedly.

  "Si, Si," Pitt said, agreeing with a vigorous display of disgust.

  "We have to check everyone going on or coming off each ship," the guard persisted. "I must see your identification cards."

  "Do we look like trespassers in security guard uniforms?" Giordino demanded indignantly.

  The guard shook his head and smiled. "No."

  "Then let us pass!" Giordino's friendly voice went suddenly cold and official. "We have a cargo to load and a deadline that we won't meet sitting around the dock talking to you. I'm already late for a meeting with Karl Wolf. Unless you don't want to be left behind when the cataclysm hits, I suggest you step aside."

  Properly browbeaten, the guard lowered his weapon and yielded. "I'm sorry to have detained you."

  Not able to translate the exchange, Pitt stepped on the cart's accelerator pedal only after Giordino elbowed him in the ribs. Thinking it best to appear like ordinary shipyard workers on a job-related assignment, he continued toward the nearest tram station at a moderate pace, drowning an urge to run the cart at its full speed. With one hand o
n the steering wheel, he dialed the Globalstar phone with the other.

  Sandecker pounded the speaker button halfway through the first ring. "Yes?"

  "This is the Leaning Pizza Tower calling. Your order is on its way."

  "Do you think you can find the house all right?"

  "The issue is in doubt whether we can arrive before the pizza gets cold."

  "I hope you hurry," said Sandecker, suppressing an urgent tone in his voice. "There are hungry people here."

  "Traffic is heavy. Will do my best."

  "I'll leave a light on." Sandecker set down the phone and stared at Admiral Hozafel with a heavy face. "Forgive the rather silly talk, Admiral."

  "I understand perfectly," said the courtly old German.

  "What is their situation?" asked Little.

  "Not good," replied Sandecker. "They have Dr. O'Connell and her daughter, but must be facing enormous odds in escaping the shipyard. `Traffic is heavy' meant that they were under pursuit by Wolf security forces."

  Little looked directly at Sandecker. "What do you think their odds of making a clean getaway are?"

  "Odds?" Sandecker's expression seemed pained. He looked as though he had aged ten years in the past hour. "They have no odds."

  31

  The tram moved slowly out of the station, passing another tram going in the opposite direction. Though it picked up speed until it was gliding over the rails at nearly thirty miles an hour, Pitt felt as if the tram were crawling and he wanted to get out and help push it. Stations designated in the letters of the alphabet came and went, each one met with their expectation of security guards flooding on board and seizing them. When the tram exchanged passengers at W Station, Pitt's hopes began to rise, but at X Station, their luck ran out.

  Six black uniformed security guards boarded the end car and began checking the passengers' identification tags, which Pitt only now observed were carried on bracelets around their wrists. He cursed himself for not knowing earlier so he could have stolen the bracelets from the furniture movers. Too late, it occurred to him that the guards would make a special effort to search for people without them. He also noted that they seemed to be taking extra time to check any workers wearing red or yellow coveralls.

  "They're working their way closer," Giordino noted without emotion, as the guards entered the second car of the five-car tram.

  "One at a time," said Pitt, "move casually to the first car."

  Without a word passing between them, Giordino went first, followed by Megan and then Pat, with Pitt bringing up the rear.

  "We might make the next station before they reach this car," said Giordino. "But it's going to be close."

  "I doubt if we'll get off that easy," Pitt said grimly. "They'll probably be waiting there, too."

  He walked forward and peered through the window of the door leading to a small control cab in the front of the car. There was a console with lights, buttons, and switches, but no driver or engineer. The tram was fully automatic. He tried the door latch, but wasn't surprised to find it locked.

  He studied the symbols and markings on the console panel. One in particular struck his eye. Gripping the Colt, he rapped the barrel against the glass window and shattered it. Ignoring the startled looks of the car's passengers, he reached inside and unlocked the door. Without the slightest pause, he reached out and moved the first of five toggle switches connected to the tram's electronic couplings. Next he reset the computer that actuated the speed of the tram.

  The desired effect gave him a surge of pleasure. The four rear cars detached from the lead car and began to fall back. Though each car had its own power source, their preset speed was now slower than that of the forward car. The security guards could only contact other search teams and watch helplessly as the distances between the cars rapidly widened and their quarry gained a growing lead.

  Four minutes later, the car with Pitt and the others swept past Y Station without stopping, to the frustration of a team of security guards and the dumb expressions of the workers who stood on the platform. Pitt felt as if his stomach were being squeezed by a cold hand, and his mouth felt as though it were stuffed with dry leaves. He was playing a desperate gamble, with the dice loaded against him. He glanced behind him into the car and caught sight of Pat, sitting with an arm around Megan's shoulder, one arm still clutching the attaché case, her face pale and strangely sad and forlorn. He walked back and ran his hand through her streaming red hair.

  "We'll get through this," he said, with an air of conviction. "Old Dirk will take you over the water and the mountains."

  She looked up and managed a faint smile. "Is that a guarantee?"

  "Ironclad," he said, with a growing conviction inside him.

  Half a minute passed. Pitt walked back into the control cabin and saw that they were approaching the marina at the stern of the ship. Up ahead, he could see the tracks begin their curve toward the marina, where the tram, he was certain, was supposed to stop at Z Station before continuing around the ship. He didn't need mystical powers to know security guards had reached the station platform first and were waiting to blast them with an arsenal of weapons.

  "I'm going to slow the car to about ten miles an hour," Pitt said. "When I give the word, we jump. The edge of the tracks is planted with vegetation, so our landing should be fairly soft. Try to roll forward when you hit. At this point we can't afford to have anybody suffer a fractured ankle or leg."

  Giordino put his arm around Megan. "We'll go together. That way you'll have lots of fat to cushion your fall." It was a broad misstatement. Giordino didn't have an ounce of fat on his muscular body.

  Pitt reset the controls and the car slowed abruptly. The instant the red numbers on the speed scale dropped to ten miles an hour, he yelled, "All right, everyone out!"

  He hesitated, making sure they all had leaped from the tram. Then he punched up the numbers until the dial read sixty miles an hour, before running from the cab to the door and jumping as the tram car quickly accelerated toward its fastest speed. He struck soft earth feet first before rolling with the momentum of a cannonball into a bed of ornamental bonsai trees, crushing their distorted branches and mashing them into the soil with his weight. He staggered to his feet, one knee protested in pain, but he was still capable of active movement.

  Giordino was beside him, helping him regain his balance. He was relieved to see Pat and Megan, their faces clear of expressions of pain. They seemed more concerned with brushing the soil and pine needles from their hair. The tram had disappeared around the bend, but the stairway leading to the first pier was no more than fifty feet away, and no guards were nearby.

  "Where are we going?" Pat asked, regaining a small measure of composure.

  "Before we catch our plane," answered Pitt, "we have to take a little boat trip."

  He caught her by the arm and dragged her behind him, as Giordino hustled Megan along. They ran along the track until they reached the stairs leading down to Pier Number One. As Pitt suspected, the security guards had encircled the station at Z Section two hundred yards farther up the track in the center of the marina. Confusion reigned, as the tram car shot past the station and around the next bend on its way along the port side of the ship. The guards, completely deluded into thinking their prey was still hiding in the speeding car, hurriedly launched a pursuit, as the security director in command ordered the power circuits for the tram system to be closed down.

  Pitt figured it would take them another seven minutes before the guards could reach the stopped car and realize that it was empty. If he and the others weren't off the ship by then, capture was a foregone conclusion.

  None of the workers on the pier paid any attention to them as they calmly strolled down the steps and onto the pier. There were three boats moored between the first and second piers, a small twenty-four-foot sailboat, a vessel that Pitt recognized as a forty-two-foot Grand Banks cabin cruiser, and a twenty-four-foot classic runabout. "Climb aboard the big powerboat," said Pitt, walking placidl
y across the pier.

  "I guess we're not going to retrieve our dive gear," said Giordino.

  "Pat and Megan could never make it back alive in the water. Better we take our chances on the surface."

  "The runabout is faster," Giordino pointed out.

  "True," Pitt agreed, "but the security force will be suspicious of a fast boat speeding away from the shipyard. The Grand Banks powerboat, cruising calmly across the water, won't create near the attention."

  There was a dockhand hosing down the deck when Pitt walked up and stopped at the gangway. "Nice boat," he said, smiling.

  "Heh?" The dockhand looked at him, unable to understand English.

  Pitt moved up the gangway and gestured at the no-nonsense lines of the Grand Banks 42. "She's a nice boat," he repeated, boldly stepping into the bridge cabin.

  The dockhand followed him inside, protesting his trespass on the boat, but once they were out of sight of other workers on the pier, Pitt lashed out with his fist and decked him with a solid blow to the jaw. Then he leaned out the doorway and announced, "Al, cast off the lines. You ladies, all aboard."

  Pitt stood for a moment and studied the instruments on the console. He turned the key and hit the twin starter buttons. Down below in the engine compartment, a pair of big marine diesel engines turned over, the fuel inside their firing chambers compressing and igniting to the tune of high-pitched clacking. He slid open the starboard window and peered out. Giordino had untied the fore and aft lines and was climbing on board.

  Pitt engaged the reverse drive and very slowly began edging the boat away from the pier and backing it toward the open water twenty yards astern. He passed two dockworkers installing a railing around the pier, and waved. They waved back. It's so much easier to be sneaky, he thought, than to burst out of the corral like a wild bull.

  The boat passed the end of the pier into open water. Now the stern of the great ship soared above them. Pitt moved the shift lever into Forward and steered the Grand Banks on a course along the Ulrich Woof. To reach the fjord and escape the shipyard, they had to cruise entirely around the floating titan. Pitt set the throttles until the speed instruments read eight knots, a pace that he hoped would not arouse suspicions. So far, there had been no shouts, no bells or whistles, no signs of a chase or searchlights pinning them against the dark water.