Giordino and Murphy stepped forward. Sandecker focused his gaze on the junk’s owner. ,

“Hello, Owen. I never expected to meet you out here.”

Murphy smiled and shook hands. “Likewise, Jim. Welcome aboard. It’s good to see you.” He paused and pointed to the grimfaced NUMA team who were crowded around them on the open deck. “Now maybe someone will tell me what that big light and thunder show was on the horizon yesterday, and why all these people are popping up in the middle of the ocean.”

Sandecker did not reply directly. He looked about the deck and up at the draped sails. “What have you got yourself here’?”

“Had it custom built in Shanghai. My crew and I were sailing her to Honolulu and then on to San Diego, where I plan to dock her.”

“You know each other?” Giordino asked finally.

Sandecker nodded. “This old pirate and I went to Annapolis together. Only Owen was smarter. He resigned from the Navy and launched an electronics company. Now he’s got more money than the U.S. Treasury.”

Murphy smiled. “Don’t I wish.”

Sandecker suddenly turned serious. “What news of the base since you briefed me over the radio?” he asked Giordino.

“We’re afraid it’s gone,” Giordino replied quietly. “Underwater phone communications from our remaining sub have gone unanswered. Keith Harris thinks the major shock wave must have struck shortly after we evacuated. As I reported, there wasn’t enough space to evacuate everybody in two subs. Pitt and a British marine scientist volunteered to stay below.”

“What’s being done to save them?” Sandecker demanded.

Giordino looked visibly cast down, as though all emotion had been drained away. “We’ve run out of options.”

Sandecker went cold in the face. “You fell down on the job, mister. You led me to believe you were returning in the backup submersible.”

“That was before Lowden surfaced with shorted batteries!” Giordino snapped back resentfully. “With the first sub sunk and the second inoperable, we were stonewalled.”

Sandecker’s expression softened, the coldness was gone, his eyes saddened. He realized Giordino had been dogged by ill luck. To even suggest the little Italian had not tried his best was wrong, and he regretted it. But he was shaken by Pitt’s apparent loss too.

To him, Pitt was the son he never had. He’d have ordered out an entire army of specially trained men and secret equipment the American public had no idea existed if fate granted him another thirty-six hours. Admiral Sandecker had that kind of power in the nation’s capital. He didn’t arrive where he was because he’d answered a help wanted ad in the Washington Post.

He said, “Any chance the batteries can be repaired?”

Giordino nodded over the side at the submersible rolling in the swells twenty meters away, tethered on a stern line to Shanghai Shelly. “Lowden is working like a madman trying for a quick fix, but he’s not optimistic.”

“If anyone is to blame, it’s me,” Murphy said solemnly.

“Pitt could still be alive,” said Giordino, ignoring Murphy. “He’s not a man who dies easily.”

“Yes.” Sandecker paused, then went on almost absently. “He’s proven that many times in the past.”

Giordino stared at the admiral, a spark glowing in his eyes. “If we can get another submersible out here…”

“The Deep Quest can dive to ten thousand meters,” Sandecker said, coming back on keel. “She’s sitting on our dock in Los Angeles Harbor. I can have her loaded aboard an Air Force C-Five and on her way here by sundown.”

“I didn’t know a C-Five could land on water,” Murphy interrupted.

“They can’t,” Sandecker said definitely. “The Deep Quest, all twelve metric tons of her, will be air-dropped out the cargo doors.” He glanced at his watch. “I’d guess about eight hours from now.”

“You’re going to drop a twelve-ton submersible out of an airplane by parachute?”

“Why the hell not? It’d take a week to get here by boat.”

Giordino stared at the deck thoughtfully. “We could eliminate a mass of problems if we worked off a support ship with launch and retrieval capacity.”

“The Sounder is the closest ocean survey ship to our area that fits the picture. She’s sonar-mapping the seafloor south of the Aleutians. I’ll order her captain to cut his mission and head toward our position as fast as he can push her.”

“How can I be of help?” asked Murphy. “After sinking your sub, the least I can do is offer the services of my ship and crew.”

Giordino smiled inwardly as Sandecker lifted his arms and gripped Murphy’s shoulders. Laying on the hands, Pitt used to call it. Sandecker didn’t just ask an unsuspecting subject for a favor, he made his victims feel as if they were being baptized.

“Owen,” the admiral said in his most reverent tone, “NUMA will be in your debt if we can use your junk as a fleet command ship.”

Owen Murphy was no slouch when it came to recognizing a con job. “What fleet?” he asked with feigned innocence.

“Why, half the United States Navy is converging on us,” answered Sandecker, as if his secret briefing by Raymond Jordan was common knowledge. “I wouldn’t be surprised if one of their nuclear submarines was cruising under our hull this minute.”

It was, Murphy mused, the craziest tale he’d ever heard in his life. But no one on board Shanghai Shelly, excepting the admiral himself, had the slightest notion of how prophetic his words were. Nor were they aware that the rescue attempt was the opening act for the main event.

Twenty kilometers away, the attack submarine Tucson was running at a depth of 400 meters and closing on the junk’s position. She was early. Her skipper, Commander Beau Morton, had driven her hard after receiving orders at Pearl Harbor to reach the explosion area at full speed. On arrival, his mission was to run tests on underwater radiological contamination and salvage any floating debris that could be safely brought aboard.

Morton casually leaned against a bulkhead with an empty coffee cup dangling in one hand, watching Lieutenant Commander Sam Hauser of the Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory. The Navy scientist was indifferent to Morton’s presence. He was intent on monitoring his radiochemical instruments and computing beta and gamma intensities received from probes trailing behind the submarine.

“Are we glowing in the dark yet?” asked Morton sarcastically.

“Radioactivity is pretty unevenly distributed,” replied Hauser. “But well below maximum permissible exposure. Heaviest concentration is above.”

“A surface detonation?”

“A ship, yes, not a submarine. Most of the contamination was airborne.”

“Any danger to that Chinese junk north of us?”

Hauser shook his head. “They should have been too far upwind to receive anything but a trace dosage.”

“And now that they’re drifting through the detonation area?” Morton persisted.

“Due to the high winds and turbulent seas during and immediately after the explosion,” Hauser explained patiently, “the worst of the radiation was carried into the atmosphere and far to the east. They should be within safe limits where they are.”

The compartment phone gave off a soft hi-tech chime. Hauser picked, it up. “Yes?”

“Is the captain there, sir?”

“Hold on.” He handed the receiver to Morton.

“This is the captain.”

“Sir, Sonarman Kaiser. I have a contact. I think you should listen to it.”

“Be right there.” Morton hung up the phone, wondering abstractedly why Kaiser didn’t routinely call over the intercom.

The commander found Sonarman First Class Richard Kaiser leaning over his console listening through his earphones, a bewildered expression furrowing his brow. Morton’s executive officer, Lieutenant Commander Ken Fazio, was pressing a spare set of phones against his ears. He looked downright dumbstruck.