Shock Wave(39)

"Can you drop the anchors?" asked Giordino.

"Easier said than done," Pitt replied irritably. "Besides, there is no flat bottom. The sides of the island probably drop at a near ninety-degree angle for a thousand fathoms. The rock is too smooth for the anchor flukes to dig in and grip."

Pitt saw in a glance why the ship maintained a direct track for nearly two hundred kilometers before initiating a circular course to port. A gold medal on a chain had fallen outside the captain's heavy jacket collar and hung suspended above the face of the control panel. Each gust of wind pushed it from side to side, and at the end of each pendulum swing, it struck against one of the toggle-type levers that controlled the movement of the ship, part of an electronics system almost all commanders of modern vessels use when docking in port. Eventually, the medal had knocked the directional lever into the half-port position, sending Polar Queen steaming around in corkscrewlike circles, ever closer to the Danger Islands.

Pitt lifted the medal and studied the inscription and image of a man engraved on one side. It was Saint Francis of Paola, the patron saint of mariners and navigators. Francis was revered for his miracles in saving sailors from resting in the deep. A pity Saint Francis had not rescued the captain, Pitt thought, but there was still a chance to save his ship.

If not for Pitt's timely appearance, the simplest of events, the freak circumstance of a tiny bit of metal tapping against a small lever, a twenty-five hundred gross ton ship and all its passengers and crew, alive or dead, would have crashed into unyielding rock and fallen into a cold and dispassionate sea.

"You'd better be quick." Giordino's anxious voice came over the earphones.

Pitt cursed himself for lingering and sneaked a fast glance in awe at the sinister walls that seemed to stretch above his head into the upper atmosphere. They were so flat and smooth from eons of wave action that it was as though some giant hand had polished their surface. The breakers rising out of the sea were roaring into the exposed cliff less than two hundred meters away. As Polar Queen narrowed the gap, the incoming swells slammed into her beam, shoving her hull ever closer to disaster. Pitt estimated that she would strike on her starboard bow in another four minutes.

Unimpeded, the relentless waves swept in from the deep reaches of the ocean and dashed into the cliff with the explosive concussion of a large bomb. The white sea burst and boiled in a huge witch's cauldron of blue water and white spray. It soared toward the top of the jagged rock island, hung there for a moment and then fell back, creating a return wave. It was this backwash that temporarily kept Polar Queen from being quickly swept against the palisades when she passed by.

Pitt tried to pull the captain away from the control panel, but he wouldn't budge. The hands clasped around the base refused to give. Pitt gripped the body under the armpits and heaved with all his strength.

There was a sickening tearing sound that Pitt knew was the patting of frozen skin that had adhered to metal, then suddenly the captain was free. Pitt threw him off to the side, found the chrome lever that controlled the helm and pushed it hard against the slot marked PORT to increase the angle of turn away from calamity.

For nearly thirty seconds it seemed nothing was happening, then with agonizing slowness the bow began to swing away from the boiling surf. It was not nearly quick enough. A ship can't turn in the same radius as a big semitrailer. It takes almost a kilometer to come to a complete stop, much less cut a sharp inside turn.

He briefly considered throwing the port screw into reverse and swinging the ship on her axis, but he needed every knot of the ship's momentum to maintain headway through the quartering swell, and then there was the danger of the stern swinging too far to starboard and crashing into the cliff.

"She's not going to make it," Giordino warned him. "She's caught by the rollers. You'd better jump while you still have a chance."

Pitt didn't answer. He scanned the unfamiliar control panel and spotted the levers that controlled the bow and stern thrusters. There was also a throttle command unit that linked the panel to the engines.

Holding his breath, Pitt set the thruster levers in the port position and pushed the throttles to full ahead.

The response was almost instantaneous. Deep belowdecks, as if guided by an unseen hand, the engine revolutions increased. Momentary relief swelled within Pitt as he felt the throbbing vibration of engines at work under his feet. Now he could do little but stand and hope for the best.

Above the ship, Giordino looked down with a sinking sensation. From his vantage point it didn't seem the ship was turning. He saw no chance for Pitt to escape once the ship rammed into the island. Leaping into the boiling water meant only a futile struggle against the incredible power of a surging sea, an impossible situation at best.