Valhalla Rising (39 page)

“Turn around immediately!” Pitt ordered curtly. “Get into shallow water before it’s too late.”

Baldwin’s face hardened. “What are you talking about?”

“The divers were murdered because they found explosives attached to the hull of this boat. I’m not asking you, Captain. For the sake of the lives of everybody on board this boat, turn back and get into shallow water before it’s too late.”

“And if I don’t?” Baldwin challenged him.

Pitt’s green eyes turned cold as the Arctic Sea and pierced Baldwin as if they were ice picks. When he spoke, it was as if the devil himself were speaking. “Then, in the name of humanity, I swear I will kill you and take command of the ship.”

Baldwin jerked backward as if he was stabbed with a spear. Slowly, very slowly, he recovered and his white-mouthed lips spread in a taut smile. He turned and looked at the helmsman, who was standing stunned, his eyes as wide as automobile wheel covers. “Reverse course and come to full speed.” Then, “Does that satisfy you, Mr. Pitt?”

“I suggest you sound the warning signal and send the passengers to the stations at the evacuation pods.”

Baldwin nodded. “Consider it done.” Then he turned to First Officer Conrad and ordered, “Blow the ballast tanks. We can double our speed once we hit the surface.”

“Pray we make it in time,” Pitt said, the tenseness lessening slightly, “or we have a choice between drowning or suffocating while watching the fish swim by.”

K
elly was sitting inside the purser’s office, sifting through the crew’s personnel records, when she became aware of a presence. She looked up and saw a man who had walked in the room without making a sound. He was dressed in a golf shirt and shorts. There was an ominous smile on his face. She immediately recognized him as the passenger she and Pitt had discussed briefly earlier. As he stood there without speaking, she studied his face and a feeling of horror began creeping over her. “Your name is Jonathan Ford.”

“You know me?”

“No, not … really,” she stammered.

“You should. We met briefly on the
Emerald Dolphin.
”

Kelly was confused. There was a close resemblance to the black ship’s officer who had tried to kill her and her father, but the man standing in front of her was white. “You can’t be …”

“Ah, but I am.” The smile widened. “I can see that you’re mystified.” He paused and took a handkerchief from the pocket of his pants. He dabbed a corner on his tongue and then rubbed it against the top of his left hand. The white makeup came off, revealing coffee brown skin underneath.

Kelly stumbled from her chair and tried to run out the door, but the man grabbed her by the arms and pressed her against the wall. “My name is Omo Kanai. My orders are to take you with me.”

“Take me where?” she rasped in terror, hoping against all hope that Pitt and Giordino would walk in the door.

“Why, home, of course.”

The answer made no sense to her. She was only aware of the evil in his eyes as he pressed a cloth damp with a strange-smelling liquid against her face. Then a black pit opened beneath her feet and she fell into it.

I
t was a race against death now. That explosives had been placed on the hull was a certainty in Pitt’s mind. The Martins had discovered them, but were murdered before they could alert Captain Baldwin. Pitt called Giordino over the portable radio. “You can knock off the search and call in the inspectors. The explosives are not inside the ship.”

Giordino simply acknowledged the message and hurried to the bridge. “What do you know that I don’t?” Giordino asked, as he rushed through the door, followed by Rand O’Malley.

“We just got word that the divers were killed,” Pitt told them.

“That nails it,” Giordino muttered angrily.

“The divers inspecting the bottom of the boat?” asked O’Malley.

Pitt nodded. “It’s beginning to look as though the explosives were set to detonate while we were over deep water.”

“Which is where we are now,” said Giordino quietly, as he stared uneasily at the depth meter.

Pitt turned to Baldwin, who was standing at the control console with the helmsman. “How soon before we pass into shallow water?” he asked.

“Twenty minutes will put us over the edge of the trench and onto the Continental Slope,” Baldwin answered, his face beginning to show signs of stress now that he had come to believe his boat was truly in danger. “In ten more minutes, we’ll reach the surface, which will enable us to increase our speed by half and reach shallow water.”

Abruptly, the seaman standing at the ship’s main console called out. “Captain, something is happening with the evacuation pods.”

Baldwin and O’Malley stepped over and stared at the console in shock. All sixteen lights representing the evacuation pods were showing red except for one that still read green. “They’ve been activated,” Baldwin gasped.

“And before anyone could board,” added O’Malley grimly. “We’ll never get the crew and passengers off the boat now.”

The vision of an explosion on the hull, water flooding inside and dragging the boat unhindered into the abyss with seven hundred passengers and crew, was too horrible to contemplate but too real to dismiss.

Pitt knew that whoever had activated the evacuation pods had probably abandoned the boat in one of them, which meant that the explosives could detonate at almost any moment. He stepped over to the radar screen that sat side by side with the side-scan sonar display. The Continental Slope was rising, but too slowly. There were still almost a thousand feet of water below them. The
Golden Marlin’s
hull was built to withstand the water pressure at that depth, but any hope of rescue would be next to impossible. Every eye stared at the depth meter, every mind counted the seconds.

The seabed rose with agonizing slowness. Only another hundred feet remained before the boat broke the surface. A collective sigh of relief was heard in the control room as the
Golden Marlin
passed the edge of the Continental Slope, and the bottom came within six hundred feet of the hull. The water outside the view ports was becoming much lighter now and the restless surface could be seen sparkling under the sun.

“Depth under hull five hundred fifty and rising,” called out Conrad.

The words had barely left his mouth when the boat shuddered with sickening violence. There was barely time to react, to contemplate the inevitable disaster. The boat twisted, completely out of control. Those great technically advanced engines wound down to a stop as the hungry sea poured into the two wounds caused by the underwater explosives.

The
Golden Marlin
lay motionless, drifting in the mild current, but sinking foot by inexorable foot toward the sea floor. Tons of water began flooding into the hull in locations yet unknown to the men in the control room. The surface looked so tantalizingly near it seemed as if it could be touched with a yardstick.

Baldwin was under no illusions. His boat was going down. “Call the engine room and ask the chief to ascertain the damage,” he snapped to his second officer.

The reply came back almost immediately. “The chief engineer reports they’re taking water in the engine room. The baggage compartment is also flooding, but the hull is still intact. He has the pumps flowing at maximum capacity. He also reports that the ballast tank pump system was damaged by the forward blast water and is pouring into the tanks through the exhaust tubes. The crew is struggling to shut down the flow, but the water is rising too fast and they may have to evacuate the engine room. I’m sorry, sir, the chief says he can no longer keep the boat from losing neutral buoyancy.”

“Oh, God,” murmured a young officer standing at the control console. “We’re going to sink.”

Baldwin quickly came on keel. “Tell the chief to close all the watertight doors below and keep the generators going as long as he can.” Then he looked at Pitt, silent, expressionless, and said, “Well, Mr. Pitt, I guess now is the time for you to tell me ‘I told you so.’ ”

Pitt’s face was set, stonily thoughtful, the face of a man who was considering every possible contingency, every potential to save the ship and its passengers. Giordino had seen the look many times in the past. Pitt shook his head slowly. “I take no satisfaction in being right.”

“Bottom coming up.” First Officer Conrad’s eyes had never left the radar and side-scan sonar displays. He had no sooner spoken the words than the
Golden Marlin
struck the sea floor with loud creaking and groaning sounds of protest, as her hull settled into the silt, throwing up a vast brown cloud that blotted out all vision beyond the view ports.

It didn’t take a motion picture of the event for the passengers to know something very tragic was in the making. Yet as long as the passenger decks remained water-free and none of the crew looked frightened—since this was their first voyage in a submarine, none of them realized what real danger they were in—no one panicked. Captain Baldwin came on the speaker system and assured everyone that although the
Golden Marlin
had lost power, things would be back to normal shortly. The story, however, did not fly with the passengers and crew who’d noticed that almost all the pod chambers were empty. Some milled around in confusion. Some remained at the view ports and gazed at the fish who appeared after the silt settled. Some retired to the lounge and ordered drinks that were now on the house.

Captain Baldwin and his officers began studying emergency procedures that came out of corporate manuals written by those who had no concept of how to deal with a submarine cruise liner lying helpless on the bottom with seven hundred souls on board. While the hull was sounded to make certain it was still mostly watertight and the bulkhead doors closed, the engineering crew set the pumps in operation to keep up with the sea flowing into the engine room and baggage compartment. Fortunately, all the systems but propulsion appeared unaffected by damage from the explosions.

Baldwin sat in the communications room like a man in a daze. With great effort, he opened up communications with Lasch at the company headquarters, the Coast Guard and any ships that were within fifty miles, in that order. He issued a Mayday and gave the
Golden Marlin’s
position. That done, he sat back and laid his head in his hands. At first, he worried that his long career at sea would be ended. Then it came to him how unimportant his career was under the circumstances. His first duty was to his passengers and crew. “Damn the career,” he muttered under his breath. He stood and walked from the bridge, first to the engine room for a full report and then he roamed the ship reassuring the passengers that they were in no immediate danger. He gave out the story that there was a problem with the ballast tanks, and repairs were in effect.

Together, Pitt, Giordino and O’Malley went down to the evacuation pod deck. O’Malley began opening inspection panels and checking the system. There was something oddly reassuring about the big Irishman. He knew his job and knew it well. No lost motion with him. Less than five minutes after he began his inspection, he stepped back from the open panels, sat down in a chair and sighed. “Whoever activated the evacuation pods knew his business. He overrode the circuits leading to the bridge and set the pods in motion by using the emergency manual controls. Luckily, it looks like one pod failed to release.”

“Small consolation,” muttered Giordino.

Pitt slowly shook his head in defeat. “They’ve been two steps ahead of us from the beginning. I have to give than an A for planning.”

“Who’s they?” asked O’Malley.

“Men who will murder children as easily as you and I would kill flies.”

“It makes no sense.”

“Not to sane people.”

“We still have one pod to put the children in,” said Giordino.

“It’s the captain’s job to give the order,” Pitt said, staring at the remaining pod. “The question is, how many can we put in it?”

A
n hour later, a Coast Guard cutter arrived on the scene, hauled aboard the orange marker buoy released from the
Golden Marlin
with a telephone line and opened communications to the boat. Only then did Baldwin give the command to gather the passengers into the theater and explain the situation. He concentrated on minimizing the danger and stated that it was in keeping with company regulations to send the youngest to the surface in case of an emergency. None of it sat well. Questions were raised. Tempers flared, and it was all the captain could do to defuse the anger and fear.

Before the pod was loaded, Pitt and O’Malley sat at a computer in the purser’s office and estimated the number of bodies the pod could carry beyond the safe limits as stated by the manufacturer and still float free to the surface.

While they were absorbed in their work, Giordino left them to look for Kelly.

“How many children on board?” asked O’Malley.

Using the purser’s list of passengers, Pitt totaled up the number. “Fifty-four who are under the age of eighteen.”

“The pods are constructed to carry fifty people with an average weight of one hundred and sixty pounds, for a total weight limit of eight thousand pounds. Anything above that and they won’t float to the surface.”