Pitt engaged the belt and moved it forward to the number 1 hold. He experimented with the controls until he figured out how to pivot the conveyor. Rotating it out from the Salzburg, he aimed it at Ann’s container. A separate vertical control allowed him to lower the far end of the belt, which he dropped beneath the rail.
Standing next to Ann’s container, Dirk was signaling him closer when a deep bellow sounded from the depths of the Salzburg. Containers everywhere shifted as the ship began to founder. In a slow, steady motion, the portside deck dipped toward the canal while the starboard side rose, sending the containers in a mad tumble into the water.
Pitt jammed the end of the belt ahead and below as far as it would go and engaged it. Looking out, all he could see was a mountain of containers spilling into the water. At the stern, he saw the captain and a handful of crewmen leap for their lives.
As the ship rotated, equipment, stores, and remaining cargo tumbled and crashed. With a sudden rush, the ship broke free of the Adelaideand capsized. The inverted Salzburgdrifted for a minute or two, then let out a gurgle and slipped beneath the waters of the canal.
The tip of the Adelaide’s conveyor belt dropped below water level, and Pitt thought he had failed. But the belt stammered and shook, and a beige slab appeared beneath the surface. A moment later, a shipping container emerged, riding unevenly up the belt. Pitt looked over the side to see Ann and Dirk clinging to its base, their feet dangling over the waves.
As water sloshed off the belt it pulled the container up to the side rail, where Pitt powered the conveyor off.
“Nice catch,” Dirk said, “though I wasn’t expecting a dip in the bargain.” He dropped to the deck as Ann touched her feet down beside him.
“You okay?” Pitt asked Ann.
“I thought my arm was going to leave its socket, but, yes, I’m all right.” She shook the water from her hair.
“Hand me the gun,” Pitt told his son.
Dirk pulled the SIG Sauer from his waist and handed it to his father. Pitt shook it to clear the water and held the muzzle to Ann’s handcuffs. The shot split the chain that linked the cuffs and freed Ann from the container.
“Would have tried that earlier, but you were too far underwater when we found you.”
“But then I would have missed the ride.” Ann smiled for the first time in days. She got to her feet and looked into the canal where the Salzburghad vanished. “The Sea Arrow’s motor was aboard.”
“They’re not going to get it now,” Pitt said.
“But they still have the plans,” she said. “I saw them in the boat with Pablo.”
Pitt nodded. He had seen Bolcke and Pablo flee in the boat while he tried to save Ann. “There’s only one place they can go.” Having examined a map of the canal on the Adelaide’s bridge, he knew the next lock was only a short distance away.
Dirk was already crossing the deck to an inflatable secured beneath a tarp. In minutes, he had it winched over the side and lowered into the water with Pitt and Ann aboard. Already drenched, he dove over the side of the Adelaideand swam to the side of the boat, where he was helped aboard. Pitt started its small outboard, and they were soon zipping up the canal.
The canal curved past Gold Hill, a small bluff that marked the continental divide and its deepest area of excavation. Just beyond it, the canal straightened, and the Pedro Miguel Locks appeared two miles away. Bolcke and Pablo had already reached the lock and sailed into the north chamber, whose gates had been opened in preparation for the Salzburg.
Pablo docked the boat against the center island, which bisected the lock’s two chambers. He assisted a pair of canal workers in attaching fore and aft mooring lines to the crew boat before he jumped off. With Bolcke still aboard, the workers walked the boat to the far end of the chamber and tied it off, forgoing the tiny locomotives used to maneuver larger vessels.
Pablo strode toward the control house, a multistory white structure in the middle of the island that managed the water flow for the chambers.
A gruff transit supervisor with a clipboard met Pablo. “That’s no four-hundred-foot bulk carrier.”
“We had an accident with the ship and need to make passage at once. Mr. Bolcke will pay triple your usual fee if you don’t book it.”
“Is that him in the boat?”
Pablo nodded.
“Haven’t seen him for a while.” He pulled a radio off his hip and called the control house. A minute later, the chamber’s massive gates began to close. Soon the waters in the chamber would drain out the bottom, lowering the boat for the next section of the canal.
“We’ll have you out of here in ten minutes,” the supervisor said.
Pablo glanced at the closing gates, then hesitated. A small inflatable boat was approaching at high speed with three people aboard. There were two men and a woman with short blond hair. Ann Bennett.
“Just one minute.” He pointed to the inflatable. “Those three attacked and sank our ship. Treat them as terrorist suspects and detain them for at least an hour.”
The man looked at the approaching boat. “They don’t look like terrorists.”
“There’s an extra ten thousand in it for you.”
The supervisor beamed. “You know, I might just be wrong about that,” he said. “Give my regards to Mr. Bolcke.”
All he got in reply was Pablo’s turned back as the Colombian walked briskly to the waiting boat.
75
AS THE GATES OF THE NORTHERN CHAMBER CLOSED to accommodate Bolcke’s boat, the southern chamber’s gates were opened to release a large freighter traveling in the other direction. Pitt slipped the inflatable around the wide freighter and motored into the chamber. He angled toward the control house and pulled alongside the dock, where the transit supervisor stood with two armed guards. The water level in the opposite chamber had already dropped several feet, obscuring his view of the crew boat.
Dirk jumped onto the dock with the inflatable’s bowline in hand and held the boat close while Ann stepped off. Dirk turned to the supervisor.
“The crew boat with two men aboard.” He pointed to the boat in the other chamber. “You must stop its passage.”
“I’m afraid it is you who must be stopped,” the supervisor said. “Guards, arrest these people.”
Pitt had gazed past the control house and spotted Pablo walking along the dock. Hearing the guards grab Dirk and Ann, he goosed the outboard’s throttle. Dirk let the bowline slip, and the small boat took off down the chamber.
It was five hundred feet from the control house to the forward gates, and Pablo was nearly to the end when he heard the inflatable approach. He turned and was shocked to see Pitt at the helm, holding the SIG Sauer.
Unarmed, Pablo looked back to the control house guards. They were occupied holding Ann and Dirk and made no effort to chase Pitt. Their paid loyalty would go only so far.
The crew boat was still a few yards ahead of Pablo, but Pitt angled to cut him off. On the dock, Pablo saw that a maintenance crew had been repairing a locomotive track and left behind a damaged rail. He scooped up the rail—a slim, forged steel rod about six feet long—and stepped forward.
Pitt motored past Pablo and turned the inflatable toward the dock. He didn’t notice Pablo’s makeshift weapon as he leaped from the boat and turned his gun on him.
Pitt’s reflexes were dulled by fatigue, and when Pablo swung the rail, he reacted too late. He aimed and squeezed the trigger, but the rail arrived first, slamming into his outstretched hand. The gun fired harmlessly into the sky before being knocked from Pitt’s hand and splashing into the water.