His mind relived the many times he had cheated the old man with the scythe. The hazardous journey down the underground river in search of Inca Gold, the fight in the Sahara against overwhelming odds in the old French Foreign Legion fort, the battle in the Antarctic with the giant old snowmobile and the raising of the Titanic. The contentment and fulfillment that came with two decades of achievements gave him warm satisfaction, and made him feel his life had been worthwhile after all.
But it was the old drive, the lust of challenging the unknown, that had faded. He had a family now, and responsibility. The wild days were counting down. He turned and looked over at Giordino, who could enter a deep sleep in adverse conditions as easily as if he was in his own goose-down bed in his Washington condo. Their exploits together had become almost mythical, and although they were not particularly close in their personal lives, once they faced what seemed like overwhelming adversity and disaster, they came together as one, each playing off the physical and mental virtues of the other until they either won, or occasionally lost, which wasn't often.
He smiled to himself at remembering what a reporter wrote about him, in one of the few times his feats had gained distinction. "There is a touch of Dirk Pitt in every man whose soul yearns for adventure. And because he is Dirk Pitt, he yearns more than most."
The landing gear dropped on the Cassa and pulled Pitt back from his reverie.
The landing lights were reflecting off the water of the rivers and lagoons surrounding the city's airport when he leaned toward the window and stared downward. A light rain was falling as the plane set down and taxied toward the main terminal. A fresh five-mile-an-hour wind blew the raindrops on an angle, giving the air a smell of humid freshness. Pitt followed Giordino down the boarding steps and was mildly surprised to find the temperature in the low seventies; he had expected it to be at least ten degrees higher.
They hurried across the tarmac and entered the terminal, where they waited twenty minutes for their luggage to appear on a cart. Their instructions from Sandecker only said that a car would be waiting at the terminal entrance. Pitt pulled two suitcases on wheels while Giordino shouldered a big duffel bag, heavy with diving gear. They walked fifty yards up a paved pathway to the road. Waiting for passengers were five cars and ten taxis, their drivers hustling for a fare. Waving away the cabbies, they stood expectantly for a minute, before the last car in line — a battered, scratched and dented old Ford Escort — blinked its lights.
Pitt walked up to the passenger's window, leaned in and started to ask, "Are you waiting for…"
That was as far as he got before going silent in surprise. Rudi Gunn exited the driver's side and came around the car to greet and shake hands. He grinned. "We can't go on meeting like this."
Pitt stared blankly. "The admiral never mentioned you'd be in on the project."
Giordino stared blankly. "Where did you come from and how did you get here before us?"
"I was bored sitting behind a desk so I sweet-talked Sandecker into letting me come along. I left for Nicaragua soon after our meeting. I guess he didn't bother to warn you."
"He must have forgot," Pitt said cynically. He put his arm around the shoulder of the little man. "We've had wild times together, Rudi. It's always a pleasure to work by your side."
"Like the time in Mali on the Niger River when you threw me off the boat?"
"As I recall, that was a necessity."
Both Pitt and Giordino respected NUMA's deputy director. He may have looked and acted like an academic schoolteacher, but Gunn wasn't afraid to get down and dirty if that's what it took to carry a NUMA project to a successful conclusion. The guys especially admired him because, no matter how much mischief they got into, Gunn never squealed on them to the admiral.
They threw their luggage in the trunk and climbed inside the tired Escort. Gunn snaked around the cars waiting outside the terminal and turned on the road leading from the airport to the main dock. They drove along the big bay of Bluefields that was surrounded by wide beaches. The Escondido River delta split off into several channels that ran around the city and then through the Straits of Bluffs to the sea. The lagoon, inlets and harbor were crowded with deserted and silent fishing boats.
"It looks as if the entire fishing fleet is in town," observed Pitt.
"Thanks to the brown crud, fishing has come to a standstill," replied Gunn. "The shrimp and lobster are dying off and the fish have migrated to safer waters. International fishing fleets like the commercial vessels from Texas have moved to more productive waters."
"The local economy must be down the sewer," said Giordino, slouched comfortably in the backseat.
"It's a disaster. Everyone living in the lowlands in some way depends on the sea for their livelihood. No fish, no money. And that's only half the misery. Like clockwork, Bluefields and the surrounding shoreline are struck by major hurricanes every ten years. Hurricane Joan destroyed the harbor in nineteen eighty-eight and what was rebuilt was wiped out by Hurricane Lizzie. But unless the brown crud dissipates or is neutralized, a lot of people are going to starve." He paused. "Things were bad enough before the storm. Unemployment was sixty percent. Now it's closer to ninety. Next to Haiti, the west coast of Nicaragua is the poorest stepchild of the Western Hemisphere. Before I forget, have you guys eaten?"
"We're good," answered Giordino. "We had a light dinner at the airport in Managua."
Pitt smiled. "You forgot the two rounds of tequila."
"I didn't forget."
The Escort rolled through the primitive city, bouncing in potholes that looked deep enough to strike water. The architecture on the crumbling buildings that seemed little more than derelicts was a style of mixed English and French. At one time they had been painted in bright colors, but none had seen a paintbrush in decades.
"You weren't kidding when you said the economy was a disaster," said Pitt.
"Much of the poverty is inspired by a complete lack of infrastructure, and local leaders who just don't get it," Gunn lectured. "Girls with no options go into prostitution as young as fourteen, while boys sell cocaine. None can afford electricity, so they hook wires from the hovels up to streetlights. There are no sewage facilities, and yet the governor took the entire yearly budget and used it to build a palace because she thought it was more important to put on a good face for visiting dignitaries. There is a big drug industry here, but none of the locals are getting rich off the smuggling that takes place mostly offshore or in secluded coves."
Gunn drove into the commercial dock area at El Bluff, the entrance of the lagoon and across the bay from Bluefields. The stench of the harbor was overpowering. Refuse, oil and sewage mingled together in the filthy water. They passed ships unloading at the docks that looked as though they might crumble and fall into the dirty water any minute. The roofs on most of the warehouses looked as if they had been torn away. Pitt noticed that one containership was unloading large crates with farm machinery stenciled on their wooden sides. The huge, immaculate, shiny semitrucks and — trailers being loaded with the cargo seemed out of place in such a sleazy background. The name of the ship, just visible under the ship's work lights, read: Dong He. The letters cosco stretched along the center of the hull. Pitt knew it stood for the China Ocean Shipping Company.
He could only wonder what was inside the cases labeled FARM MACHINERY.
"This is their port facility?" asked Giordino incredulously.