“That still takes in a lot of water.”
“I think we can slice it some.”
“By staying in the channel?”
“Yes, sir, deep water. If I was running the show, I’d sink her deep to prevent accidental discovery.”
“What’s the average depth of your search grid?”
“Thirty to forty feet.”
“Not enough.”
“True, but according to the depth soundings on the navigation charts, there are several holes that drop over a hundred.”
Sandecker paused and gazed out the wheelhouse window as Al Giordino marched along the dock carrying a pair of air tanks on his beefy shoulders. He turned back to Pitt and observed him thoughtfully.
“If you dive on it,” Sandecker said coldly, “you’re not to enter. Our job is strictly to discover and identify, nothing else.”
“What’s down there that we can’t see?”
“Don’t ask.”
Pitt smiled wryly. “Humor me. I’m fickle.”
“The hell you are,” grunted Sandecker. “What do you think is in the yacht?”
“Make that who.”
“Does it matter?” Sandecker asked guardedly. “It’s probably empty.”
“You’re jerking me around, Admiral. I’m sure of it. After we find the yacht, what then?”
“The FBI takes over.”
“So we do our little act and step aside.”
“That’s what the orders say.”
“I say screw them.”
“Them?”
“The powers who play petty secret games.”
“Believe me, this project isn’t petty.”
A hard look crossed Pitt’s face. “We’ll make that judgment when we find the yacht, won’t we?”
“Take my word for it,” said Sandecker, “you don’t want to see what might be inside the wreck.”
Almost as the words came out, Sandecker knew he’d waved a flag in front of a bull elephant. Once Pitt dropped beneath the river’s surface, the thin leash of command was broken.
29
Six hours later and twelve miles downriver, target number seventeen crept across the recording screen of the Klein High Resolution Sonar. It lay in 109 feet of water between Persimmon and Mathias points directly opposite Popes Creek and two miles above the Potomac River Bridge.
“Dimensions?” Pitt asked the sonor operator.
“Approximately thirty-six meters long by seven meters wide.”
“What kind of size are we looking for?” asked Giordino.
“The Eaglehas an overall length of a hundred and ten feet with a twenty-foot beam,” Pitt replied.
“That matches,” Giordino said, mentally juggling meters to feet.
“I think we’ve got her,” Pitt said as he examined the configurations revealed by the sidescan sonar. “Let’s make another pass — this time about twenty meters to starboard — and throw out a buoy.”
Sandecker, who was standing outside on the after deck keeping an eye on the sensor cable, leaned into the wheelhouse. “Got something?”
Pitt nodded. “A prime contact.”
“Going to check it out?”
“After we drop a buoy, Al and I’ll go down for a look.”
Sandecker stared at the weathered deck and said nothing. Then he turned and walked back to the stern, where he helped Giordino hoist a fifty-pound lead weight attached to a bright orange buoy onto the Hoki Jamoki’sbulwark.
Pitt took the helm and brought the boat about. When the target began to raise on the depth sounder, he shouted, “Now!”
The buoy was thrown overboard as the boat slowed. One of the engineers moved to the bow and lowered the anchor. The Hoki Jamokidrifted to a stop with her stern pointed downstream.
“Too bad you didn’t include an underwater TV camera,” said Sandecker as he helped Pitt into his dive gear. “You could have saved yourself a trip.”
“A wasted effort,” Pitt said. “Visibility is measured in inches down there.”
“The current is running about two knots,” Sandecker judged.
“When we begin our ascent to the surface, it will carry us astern. Better throw out a hundred-yard lifeline on a floating buoy to pull us aboard.”
Giordino tightened his weight belt and flashed a jaunty grin. “Ready when you are.”
Sandecker gripped Pitt on the shoulder. “Mind what I said about entering the wreck.”
“I’ll try not to look too hard,” Pitt said flatly.
Before the admiral could reply, Pitt adjusted his face mask over his eyes and dropped backwards into the river.
The water closed over him and the sun diffused into a greenish orange blur. The current pulled at his body and he had to swim on a diagonal course against it until he found the buoy. He reached out and clutched the line and stared downward. Less than three feet away the white nylon braid faded into the opaque murk.
Using the line as a guide and a support, Pitt slipped into the depths of the Potomac. Tiny filaments of vegetation and fine particles of sediment swept past his face mask. He switched on his dive light, but the dim beam only added a few inches to his field of vision. He paused to work his jaws and equalize the growing pressure within his ear canals.
The density increased as he dove deeper. Then suddenly, as if he’d passed through a door, the water temperature dropped by ten degrees and visibility stretched to almost ten feet. The colder layer acted as a cushion pushing against the warm current above. The bottom appeared and Pitt discerned the shadowy outline of a boat off to his right. He turned and gestured to Giordino, who gave an affirmative nod of his head.
As though growing out of a fog, the superstructure of the Eagleslowly took on shape. She lay like a lifeless animal, alone in haunted silence and watery gloom.
Pitt swam around one side of the hull while Giordino kicked around the other. The yacht was sitting perfectly upright with no indication of list. Except for a thin coating of algae that was forming on her white paint, she looked as pristine as when she rode the surface.
They met at the stern, and Pitt wrote on his message board, “Any damage?”
Giordino wrote back, “None.”
Then they slowly worked their way over the decks, past the darkened windows of the staterooms and up to the bridge. There was nothing to suggest death or tragedy. They probed their lights through the bridge windows into the black interior, but all they saw was eerie desolation. Pitt noted that the engine-room telegraph read ALL STOP.
He hesitated for a brief moment and wrote a new message on his board: “I’m going in.”
Giordino’s eyes glistened under the face-mask lens and he scrawled back, “I’m with you.”
Out of habit they checked their air gauges. There was enough time left for another twelve minutes of diving. Pitt tried the door to the wheelhouse. His heart squeezed within his chest. Even with Giordino at his side, the apprehension was oppressive. The latch turned and he pushed the door open. Taking a deep breath, Pitt swam inside.
The brass gave off a dull gleam under the dive lights. Pitt was curious at the barren look about the room. Nothing was out of place. The floor was clean of any spilled debris. It reminded him of the Pilottown.
Seeing nothing of interest, they threaded their way down a stairway into the lounge area of the deckhouse. In the fluid darkness the large enclosure seemed to yawn into infinity. Everywhere was the same strange neatness. Giordino aimed his light upward. The overhead beams and mahogany paneling had a stark, naked appearance. Then Pitt realized what was wrong. The ceiling should have been littered with objects that float. Everything that might have drifted to the surface and washed ashore must have been removed.