“Well, hello, Sleeping Beauty.” The words came from a warm, deep voice.
“You ... you're the man at the camp,” Sarah stammered.
“Yes. My apologies for not properly introducing myself on the island, Sarah. My name is Dirk Pitt.” He neglected to add “Junior,” although he shared the same name as his father.
“You know who I am?” she asked, still confused.
“Well, not intimately,” Dirk smiled non threateningly “but a brainy scientist named Irv told me a little about you and your project on Yu-naska. Irv seemed to think he poisoned everyone with his chili.”
“Irv and Sandy! Are they all right?”
“Yes. They took a little nap, like you, but are fine now. They're resting just down the hall,” Dirk said, motioning with his thumb toward the corridor. He could see the look of bewilderment in Sarah's eyes and touched her shoulder with his hand in a reassuring squeeze.
“Don't worry, you're in good hands. You're aboard the National Underwater and Marine Agency research ship Deep Endeavor. We were returning from an underwater survey of the Aleutian Basin when we picked up a distress call from the Coast Guard weather station on Yu-naska. I flew to the station in a helicopter we have on board and happened to see your camp while flying back to the ship. I gave you and your friends an all-expense-paid aerial tour of Yunaska, but you slept through the whole thing,” Dirk added with mock disappointment.
“I'm sorry,” Sarah murmured, feeling somewhat bashful. “I guess I owe you a big thanks, Mr. Pitt.”
“Please, call me ”Dirk.“ ”
“Okay, Dirk,” Sarah replied with a smile, feeling an odd flutter as she spoke his name. “How are the Coast Guard people?”
Dirk's face went dark and a look of sorrow crossed his brow. “I'm afraid we didn't make it in time. We found two men and a dog at the station. They were all dead.”
A shiver went up Sarah's spine. Two men dead, and she and her companions nearly as well. None of it made any sense.
“What on earth happened?” Sarah asked in shock.
“We don't know for sure. Our ship's doctor is running some tests, but, as you can imagine, his resources are somewhat limited. It appears to have been some sort of airborne fume or toxin. All we know for sure is that the Coast Guard station thought there was something in the air. We flew in with gas masks and were not impacted. We even took some white mice from our shipboard lab with us. They all survived fine, without any apparent symptoms. Whatever it was, it must have dissipated by the time we landed at the Coast Guard station. You and your team were apparently far enough away from the source to be impacted less severely. You probably didn't receive a full dose of whatever it was.”
Sarah's eyes dropped and she fell quiet. The horror and pain of the whole ordeal came back to her with a showering of fatigue. She wanted to sleep it all off and hope it was just a bad dream.
“Sarah, I'll have the doctor check on you, then let you sleep some more. Perhaps later I can buy you a plate of king crab legs for dinner?” Dirk asked with a smile.
Sarah smiled briefly in return. “I'd like that,” she murmured, then fell fast asleep.
Kermit Burch stood at the helm reading a fax communique when Dirk stepped into the bridge from the starboard wing door. The seasoned captain of the Deep Endeavor shook his head slightly as he read the document, then turned to Dirk with a slightly annoyed look on his face.
“We've notified the Coast Guard and the Department of Homeland Security, but nobody intends to do anything until the local authorities have filed their report. The village public safety officer from Atka is the area law enforcement official and he can't get to the island until morning,” Burch snorted. “Two men dead and they treat it as an accident.”
“We don't have much to go on,” Dirk replied. “I spoke with Carl Nash, our saltwater environmental analyst, who is well versed on terrestrial pollutants. According to Nash, there are naturally occurring environmental emissions, such as sulfuric volcanic releases, which could have killed the men. High concentrations of industrial pollutants are another potential culprit, although I'm not aware of any neighborhood chemical plants in the Aleutians.”
“The public safety officer told me it sounds to him like a classic case of carbon monoxide poisoning from the station house generator. Of course, that doesn't explain our friends from the CDC succumbing to similar effects four miles away.”
“Nor does it explain the dog I found dead outside of the station house,” Dirk added.
“Well, perhaps the CDC crew can shed some light on the matter. How are our three guests doing, by the way?”
“A little groggy still. They don't remember much, other than that it struck pretty rapidly.”
“The sooner we get them to a proper medical facility, the sooner I'll rest easier. The nearest airfield is Unalaska, which we can make in under fourteen hours. I'll radio ahead for a medical flight to transfer them to Anchorage.”
“Captain, I'd like to take the helicopter back out and reconnoiter the island. We didn't have much of a chance to look around on the last flight. Maybe there's something we missed. Any objections?”
“No ... just so long as you take that Texas joker with you,” Burch replied with a pained grin.
As Dirk ran through a preflight checklist from the pilot seat of the NUMA Sikorsky S-76C+ offshore helicopter, a sandy-haired man with a bushy mustache ambled across the flight platform. With scuffed cowboy boots, chiseled arms, and a ubiquitous scowl that hid a mordant sense of humor, Jack Dahlgren looked like a bull rider who got lost on the way to the rodeo. A notorious practical joker, Dahlgren had already worked his way under Burch's skin by spiking the galley's coffee urn with a cheap bottle of rum on their first night at sea. An engineering whiz who grew up in west Texas, Dahlgren knew his way around horses and guns, as well as every type of mechanical equipment that operated above or below the sea.
“Is this the scenic island tour my travel agent recommended?” he asked Dirk, sticking his head through a sliding cockpit window.
“Step right up, sonny boy, you won't be disappointed. All the water, rocks, and sea lions your eyes can absorb.”
“Sounds swell. I'll give you an extra quarter if you can find me a bar with a short-skirted waitress.”
“I'll see what I can do,” Dirk grinned as Dahlgren climbed into the copilot's seat.
The two men had become fast friends years before, while studying ocean engineering at Florida Atlantic University. Avid divers, they regularly cut classes together in order to spearfish the coral reefs lying off Boca Raton, using their fresh-caught fish to woo local sorority girls with barbecues on the beach. After graduating, Jack completed his college ROTC commitment in the Navy while Dirk obtained a master's degree from the New York Maritime College and trained at a commercial dive school. The two men were reunited when Dirk joined his father at NUMA as a special projects director and convinced his old friend to accompany him at the prestigious research agency.
After years of diving together, there was almost an unspoken bond between the two men. They knew they could depend on each other and performed at their best when the chips were down. Dahlgren had seen the look of determination in Dirk's eyes before and knew the dogged persistence that came with it. The mysterious events on Yu-naska were weighing on his friend, Dahlgren noticed, and he wasn't likely to let it go.
The main rotor blade of the Sikorsky wound to a high pitch as Dirk gently eased the helicopter up and off a small landing platform mounted amidships of the Deep Endeavor. Climbing to one hundred feet, Dirk held the helicopter stationary for a moment, admiring the bird's-eye view of the NUMA research ship. The wide-beamed, turquoise-colored survey ship had a stubby look to her 270-foot length. But the lack of a svelte streamline made for a stable work platform, ideal for operating the myriad of cranes and hoists strategically positioned about the large, open stern deck. In the middle of the deck, a bright yellow submersible sparkled like a jewel in the late afternoon sunlight as it rested on a
large wooden cradle, while several technicians tinkered with its thrusters and electronics. One of the technicians stood and waved his cap toward the suspended helicopter. Dirk threw the man a quick wave, then banked the chopper and headed northeast toward the island of Yunaska, less than ten miles away.
“Back to Yunaska?” asked Dahlgren.
“The Coast Guard station we scouted this morning.”
“Great,” Dahlgren moaned. “We acting as a flying hearse?”
“No, just checking out the source of whatever killed the men and dog.”
“And are we looking for animal, vegetable, or mineral?” Dahlgren asked through his headset, his teeth mashing a large wad of gum.
“All three,” Dirk replied. “Carl Nash told me that a toxic cloud could be created by anything from an active volcano to an algae bloom, not to mention your garden-variety industrial pollutant.”
“Just stop at the next walrus and I'll ask for directions to the closest pesticide factory.”
“That reminds me, where's Basil?” Dirk asked, his eyes glancing about the cockpit.
“Right here, safe and sound,” Dahlgren replied, grabbing a small cage from beneath his seat and holding it up in front of his face. Inside, a small white mouse peered back at Dahlgren, his tiny whiskers twitching back and forth.
“Breathe deep, little friend, and don't go to sleep on us,” Dahlgren requested of the furry rodent. He then strung the cage from an overhead lanyard, like a canary in a coal mine, so they could easily see if the mouse succumbed to any toxins in the air.
The grassy island of Yunaska crested out of the slate green water ahead of them, a sprinkling of light cirrus clouds dancing about the larger of the island's two extinct volcanic peaks. Dirk gradually increased the helicopter's altitude as they approached the craggy shoreline, then banked left along the water's edge. Flying counterclockwise around the island's perimeter, it took only a few minutes before they spotted the yellow building of the Coast Guard station. Bringing the helicopter to a hover, Dirk and Dahlgren carefully examined the ground surrounding the station for any unusual signs. Dirk eyed the body of Max the husky still lying outside the hut's door and it brought back to mind the look of pain and horror on the dead men's faces inside when he and Dahlgren first landed at the station earlier in the day. He carefully shelved his emotions and shifted his mental motor to discovering the source of the deadly toxic breeze.
Dirk nodded past the windscreen to the right. “The prevailing winds come from the west, so the source would likely have come from farther up the coast. Or possibly from offshore.”
“Makes sense. The CDC team was camped to the east of here and they obviously caught a less lethal dose of the mystery gas,” Dahlgren replied while peering at the ground through low-power binoculars.
Dirk applied a gentle force to the cyclic control lever and the helicopter edged forward and away from the yellow structure. For the next hour the two men strained eyeballs searching the grassy island for signs of a natural or man-made origin to the toxin. Dirk traced wide semicircular arcs north and south across the island, expanding their way west until they reached the western coast and returned to the vicinity of the Coast Guard station.
“Nothing but grass and rocks,” Dahlgren grumbled. “The seals can keep it, as far as I'm concerned.”
“Speaking of which, take a look down there,” Dirk replied, pointing to a small gravel beach ahead of them.
A half-dozen brown sea lions lay stretched out on the ground, seemingly enjoying the rays of the late afternoon sun. Dahlgren looked closer his forehead suddenly wrinkling in puzzlement.
“Geez, they're not moving. They've all bought it, too.”
“This thing must not have come from Yunaska but from the sea, or the next island over.”
“Amukta is the next rock pile to the west,” Dahlgren replied, running his finger across a chart of the region.
Dirk could clearly see the dirty gray outline of the island on the horizon. “Looks to be about twenty miles from here.”
Eyeing the helicopter's fuel gauge, he continued, “I think we've got time for a quick gander before our fuel runs low. Okay if you miss your pedicure treatment in the ship's salon?”
“Sure I'll just reschedule it with my body wrap tomorrow,” Dahlgren replied.
“I'll let Burch know where we're headed,” Dirk said, dialing up the ship's radio frequency.
“Tell him to hold supper in the galley,” Dahlgren added while rubbing his stomach. “I'm working up an appetite taking in all this scenery.”
As Dirk radioed the survey ship, he guided the Sikorsky toward the island of Amukta, skimming low over the open water. The powerful helicopter, designed for offshore oil transport, flew straight as a rail under Dirk's firm hand. After cruising steadily for ten minutes, Dahlgren quietly lifted an arm and pointed out the cockpit window to an object on the horizon. It was a white speck, growing larger by the second, until it slowly revealed itself as a large boat complete with trailing wake. Without a word, Dirk applied gentle pressure to his left pedal control until the helicopter eased about on the same line as the boat. Approaching rapidly, they could see it was a steel-hulled fishing trawler, running to the southwest at full bore.
“Now, there's a tub calling out for a little spit and polish,” Pitt remarked as he eased off the throttle to match speeds with the boat.
Though not appearing particularly old, the fishing vessel had obvious signs of hard use over the years. Scrapes, dents, and grease marks abounded both on the hull and throughout the open deck. Its original coating of white paint was worn thin in the spots where rust had not yet declared victory. By outward appearance, she looked as tired as the frayed bald tires hanging over her sides like a string of donuts. Yet like many disheveled-appearing work boats her twin diesel engines were newly rebuilt and pushed the hulk hard through the waves with a barely a wisp of black smoke from the funnel.
Dirk studied the boat carefully, noting with interest that no flags flew from the mast, which might identify nationality. Both the bow sides and the stern were absent a ship name or home port. As he perused the stern deck, two Asian men in blue jumpsuits stepped into view and peered at the helicopter with looks of angst.
“Don't look overly friendly now, do they?” Dahlgren remarked before waving and grinning toward the boat. The two jumpsuits simply scowled in return.
“You wouldn't be, either, if you worked on that mangy derelict,” Dirk said as he steadied the Sikorsky in a hover just aft of the churning boat. “Anything strike you as odd about that fishing boat?” he asked, eyeing the stern deck.
“You mean the fact that no fishing equipment is anywhere to be seen?”
“Precisely,” Dirk replied, inching the helicopter closer to the boat. He noted an odd trestle mounted in the center of the deck, built up approximately fifteen feet high. No streaks of rust could be seen on the metal framing, indicating it was a recent addition to the boat. In a star-shaped pattern at the base of the trestle was a gray powdery marking that appeared singed into the surface of the deck.
As the helicopter crept closer, the two men on deck suddenly began jabbering animately with each other, then ducked down a stairwell. At the head of the stairwell, five sea lion carcasses were stretched out on the deck side by side like sardines in a tin. To the left of the corpses was a small steel pen, which contained three live sea lions.
“Since when has the demand for seal blubber surpassed the market for crab legs?” Dahlgren said idly.
“Not sure, but I don't think Nanook of the North would be too happy about these guys stealing his dinner.”
Then came the flash of fire. Dirk detected it out of the corner of his eye and instinctively pressed hard on the left foot pedal, throwing the Sikorsky into a quick half spin. The move saved their lives. As the helicopter began to turn, a spray of bullets found their mark and burst into the machine. But rather than smashing into the forward section of the cockpit, the hail of fire entered in front of the pilots and
ripped into the instrument panel. The console, gauges, and radio shattered into bits, but the pilots and critical mechanical components went unharmed.
“Guess they didn't like the Nanook comment,” Dahlgren dead-panned as he watched the two men in jumpsuits reappear and fire into the helicopter with automatic rifles.
Dirk said nothing as he throttled up the Sikorsky to its maximum thrust and attempted to swing clear of the gunmen. On the port half deck of the trawler, the two men were continuing to fire their Russian-made AK-74s at the helicopter. Without contemplating their target, they foolishly aimed their fire at the cabin rather than the more susceptible rotors. Inside the helicopter, the rackety sound of the machine-gun fire was lost to the whine of the engine and rotors. Dirk and Dahlgren could hear only a slight tapping behind them on the fuselage.
Dirk wheeled the helicopter around in a wide arc to the starboard side of the trawler, putting the ship's bridge between him and the gunmen, shielding themselves from the gunfire. Temporarily free from attack, he muscled the helicopter level, then aimed it toward the island of Amukta looming in the distance.
But the damage had been done. The cockpit began filling with smoke as Dirk fought the fiercely bucking controls. The rain of lead had smashed into the electronics, pierced hydraulic lines, and riddled the control gauges. Dahlgren detected a warm trickle on his ankle and felt down to find a neat hole shot through his calf. Several rounds had also found the turbine, but still the rotor chugged on, coughing and cajoling itself in gasps.
“I'll try for the island, but be prepared to ditch,” Dirk shouted over the racket of the disintegrating engine. A foul blue smoke filled the cockpit, accompanied by the acrid odor of burning wiring. Through the haze, Dirk could barely make out the island ahead, and what looked like a small beach.
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