Dirk Pitt 1 - Pacific Vortex (3 page)

BOOK: Dirk Pitt 1 - Pacific Vortex
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“Inside you will find a note addressed to you, Admiral. You will also find twenty-six pages torn from the logbook of the nuclear submarine Starbuck.”

The following is a summary of Commander Dupree's comments, narrated by Admiral Hunter:

There is no explaining the hell of the last five days. I alone am responsible for the change in course that brought my ship and crew to what surely must seem a strange and unholy end. Beyond that, I can only describe as best I can, the circumstances of the disaster—my mind is not functioning as it should.

The fact that Dupree was not in full command of his mental faculties is an astonishing confession from a man whose reputation was built upon a computerlike mind.

At 2040 hours, June 14, we entered the fog bank. Shortly thereafter, with the seabed only ten fathoms beneath our keel, an explosion ripped the ship's bow, and a roaring torrent of water burst into the forward torpedo compartment, flooding it almost instantly.

The commander did not reveal, if indeed he knew, whether the explosion came from inside or outside the Starbuck's hull.

Of the full crew, twenty-six had the good fortune to die within seconds. The three still on the bridge, Lieutenant Carter, Seaman Farris, and Metford, we hoped had gotten clear before the ship settled beneath the surface. Tragic events proved otherwise.

If, as Dupree indicates, the Starbuck was riding on the surface, it seems odd that Carter, Farris, and Metford could not clear the bridge and go below in less than thirty seconds. It is inconceivable that he would have secured the hatches and left the men to their fate. It is just as inconceivable that there was no time to save them—it was not a likely possibility that the Starbuck sank like a stone.

Meanwhile, we sealed off the hatches and vents. I then ordered all ballast blown and hard rise on the planes; it was too late; title tearing sounds and groans forward meant the ship had plowed into the sea bottom bow on.

It seems reasonable to assume that with all ballast tanks blown, and the bow buried in only one hundred sixty feet of water, the stern section of the Starbuck's three-hundred-twenty-foot hull might still extend above the surface. Such was not the case.

We now lie on the bottom. The deck canted eight degrees to starboard with a down angle of two degrees. Except for the forward torpedo room, all other compartments are secure and showing no signs of water. We are all dead now. I have ordered the men to resign the game. My folly killed us all.

The most fantastic mystery yet. Allowing twenty-five feet from keel to topside, the distance from the aft escape hatch to the surface was one hundred thirty-five feet; a moderate ascent for a man with a self-contained breathing apparatus, a device carried on all submarines for crew members. During World War n, eight men from the sunken submarine Tang, swam one hundred eighty feet to the surface, surviving on nothing but lung power.

The last few sentences are all the more bewildering. What precipitated Dupree's madness? Was he overwhelmed by the stress of the whole nightmarish situation? He further retreated from reality.

Food gone, air only good for a few hours at best. Drinking water gone after the third day.

Impossible! With the nuclear reactor operable—and there's no reason to believe it wasn't—the crew could survive for months. The freshwater distillation units could easily provide a more than ample supply of drinking water, and with a few precautionary measures, the life support system which purified the sub's atmosphere and produced oxygen, would have sustained sixty-three men comfortably until it ceased to function, an unlikely event. Only the food presented a long-range problem. Yet, since the Starbuck was outward bound the food stock should have been enough, if rationed, to last ninety days. Everything hinged on the reactor. If it died, the men died.

My way is clear, I feel strangely at peace. I ordered the ship's doctor to give the men injections to halt their suffering. I will, of course, be the last to go.

My Godl Is it possible Dupree could actually order the mass murder of his surviving crew?

They've come again. Carter is tapping on the hull. Mother of Christl Why does his ghost torture us so?

Dupree had fallen over the edge and entered the realm of total madness. How can it be after only five days?

We can hold them but a few hours more. They have nearly broken through the hatch in the aft escape compartment. No good, no good... [illegible]. They mean to kill us, but we will outwit them in the end. No satisfaction, no victory. We shall all be dead.

Who in the hell does he mean by “they?” Is it possible another vessel, perhaps a Russian spy trawler, was trying to rescue the crew?

It is dark on the surface now, and they have stopped work. I will send this message and the last pages of the log to the surface in the communications capsule. Good chance they'll miss it at night Our position is [the first figures are crossed out] 32°43'15“N— 161°18'22”W.

The position doesn't figure. It's over five hundred miles from the Starbuck's last reported position. Not nearly enough time between the last radio contact and Dupree's final position for the Starbuck to travel the required distance, even at flank speed.

Do not search for us; it can only end in vain. They cannot allow a trace to be found. The shameful trick they used. If I had but known, we might well be alive to touch the sun. Please see this message is delivered to Admiral Leigh Hunter, Pearl Harbor.

The final enigma. Why me? To my knowledge, I have never met Commander Dupree. Why did he single out me as the recipient of the Starbuck's last testament?

Pitt hunched over the bar of the old Royal Hawaiian Hotel, staring vacantly at his drink, as his mind wandered over the events of the day. They flickered past his unblinking eyes and dissolved into a haze. One scene refused to fade away: the memory of Admiral Hunter's pallid face as he read the contents of the capsule—the terrible senselessness of the Star-bucks tragic fate, and the bewildering, paranoiac words of Commander Dupree.

After Hunter had finished, he slowly looked up and nodded at Pitt Pitt shook the admiral's leathery outstretched hand in silence, mumbled his good-bye to the other officers, and, as if in an hypnotic state, slowly walked from the room. He could not remember driving through the twisting traffic flow of Nimitz Highway. He could not remember entering his hotel room, showering and dressing, and leaving in search of some opaque, unknown objective. Even now, as he slowly swirled the Scotch within the glass, his ears heard nothing of the babble of tongues around him in the cocktail lounge.

There was something strangely sinister about his discovery of the Starbuck's final message, he idly reflected. There was a wary, retrospective thought that fought desperately to surface from the inner recesses of his brain. But it faded and fell back into the nothingness from which it came.

Out of the corner of his eye Pitt caught a man further down the bar holding up a glass in his direction, gesturing the offer of a free drink. It was Captain Orl Cinana. Like Pitt, he was dressed casually in slacks and a flowered Hawaiian aloha shirt Cinana came over and leaned on the bar beside him. He was still sweating and dabbed at his forehead and wiped his palms almost constantly with a handkerchief he carried.

“May I do the honors?” Cinana said with a smile that smacked of insincerity.

Pitt held up a full glass. “Thanks, but I haven't made a dent in the one I've got.”

Pitt had taken little notice of Cinana earlier at Pearl Harbor, but now he was mildly surprised to see something he'd missed. Except for the fact that Cinana outweighed Pitt by a paunchy fifteen pounds, they could have passed for cousins.

Cinana swirled the ice around in his Rum Collins, nervously avoiding Pitt's expressionless gaze.

“ I d like to apologize again for that little misunderstanding this afternoon.”

“Forget it, Captain. I wasn't exactly a paragon of courtesy myself.”

“A nasty business, the Starbuck's loss” Cinana took a swallow from his glass.

“Most mysteries have a way of eventually getting solved. The Thresher, the Bluefin, the Scorpion—the Navy never gave up until everyone was found.”

“We're not repeating the act this time,” Cinana said grimly. “This is one well never find.”

“Never say never.”

“The three tragedies you mentioned, Major occurred in the Atlantic. The Starbuck had the fatal misfortune of vanishing in the Pacific.” He paused to wipe his neck. “We have a saying in the Navy about ships lost out here.”

Those who lie deep in the Atlantic Sea Are recalled by shrines, wreaths, and poetry, But those who lie in the Pacific Sea Lie forgotten for all eternity.

“But you have the position from Dupree's message,” Pitt said. “With luck, your sonar should detect her within a week's sweep of the area.”

“The sea doesn't give up its secrets easily, Major.” Cinana set his empty glass on the bar. “Well, I must be going. I was supposed to meet someone, but apparently she stood me up.”

Pitt shook Cinana's outstretched hand and grinned. “I know the feeling.”

“Good-bye, and good luck.”

“Same to you, Captain.”

Cinana turned and sidestepped through the crowd to the hotel lobby entrance and became lost in the mining sea of heads.

Pitt still hadn't touched his drink. After Cinana's departure, he sensed a maddening loneliness, despite the surrounding din of voices in the crowded room. Pitt had the urge to get very drunk. He wanted to forget the name Starbuck and concentrate on more important matters, such as picking up a vacationing secretary who had left all her sexual inhibitions back in Omaha, Nebraska. He downed his drink and ordered another.

He was just about ready to try out his soft-tongued affability when he became aware of the touch of two

soft, feminine breasts pressing into his back, and a pair of slender white hands encircling his waist. He unhurriedly turned and found his eyes confronted by the impish face of Adrian Hunter.

“Hello, Dirk,” she murmured in a husky voice. “Need a drinking partner?”

“I might What's in it for me?”

She tightened her hands around his waist. “We could go to my place, tune in the late, late movie, and take notes.”

“Can't. Mother wants me home early.”

“Oh come now, lover, you wouldn't deny an old friend an evening of scandalous behavior, would you?”

“That what old friends are for?” he said sarcastically. Her hands had moved downward and he pulled them away. “You should find yourself a new hobby. At the rate you indulge your fantasies, I'm surprised you haven't been sold for scrap by now.”

“That's an interesting thought,” she smiled at him. “I could always use the money. I wonder what I'd bring.”

“Probably the price of a well-used Edsel.”

She thrust out her chest and faked a pout. “You only hurt the one you love, so I'm told.”

Considering the exhaustive pace of her nightlife, Pitt thought she was still a damn good-looking woman. He remembered the soft feel of her body when he last made love to her. He also remembered that no matter how relentless his attack, nor how expert his technique he could never satisfy her.

“Not to change the subject of our stimulating conversation,” he said, “but I met your father for the first time today.”

He waited for a hint of surprise. There was none.

She seemed quite unconcerned. “Really? What did old Lord Nelson have to talk about?”

“For one thing, he didn't care for the way I was dressed.”

“Don't feel badly. He doesn't care for the way I dress either.”

He took a sip from his Scotch and gazed at her over the top of the glass. “In your case, I can't blame him. No man likes to see his daughter come off like a back alley hooker.”

She ignored his last remark; that her father had come face-to-face with but one of her many lovers, didn't interest her at all. She wiggled onto the next bar stool and gazed at him with a seductive look burning in her eyes, the effect heightened by the long black hair winding around one shoulder. Her skin glowed like polished bronze under the dim lights of the cocktail lounge.

She whispered, “How about that drink?”

Pitt nodded at the bartender. “A Brandy Alexander for the... ah, lady.”

She scowled a little and then smiled. “Don't you know that being referred to as a lady is very old-fashioned?”

“An old carry-over. All men want a girl, just like the girl, that married dear old Dad.”

“Mom was a drag,” she said, her voice elaborately casual.

“How about Dad?”

“Dad was a will-o'-the-wisp. He was never home, always chasing after some smelly old derelict barge or a forgotten shipwreck. He loved the ocean more than he loved his own family. The night I was born, he was rescuing the crew of a sinking oil tanker in the mid-Pacific. When I graduated from high school, he was at sea searching for a missing aircraft. And when Mother died, our dear admiral was charting icebergs off Greenland with some long-haired freaks from the Eaton School of Oceanography.” Her eyes shifted just enough to let Pitt know he was onto her sore spot. “So don't bother shedding tears over this father-daughter relationship. The admiral and I tolerate each other purely out of social convenience.”

Pitt stared down at her. “You're all grown up now; why don't you leave home?”

The bartender brought her drink and she sipped it. “What better deal can a girl find? I'm continually surrounded by handsome males in uniform. Look at the odds; thousands of men and no competition. Why should I leave the old homestead and scrounge for leftovers? No, the admiral needs the image of a family man, and I need old Dad for the fringe benefits that come with being an admiral's daughter.” Then she looked at him, faking a shy and bashful expression. “My apartment? Shall we?”

“You'll have to take a raincheck, Miss Hunter,” said a delicate voice behind them. “The captain is waiting for me.”

Adrian and Pitt both turned in unison. There stood the most exotic-looking woman Pitt had ever seen. She possessed eyes so gray, they defied reality, and her hair fell in an enchanting cascade of red, presenting a vibrant contrast against the green, Oriental sheath dress that adhered to her curvaceous body.

BOOK: Dirk Pitt 1 - Pacific Vortex
12.77Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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