Shock Wave(44)

He'd been working too long for the National Underwater & Marine Agency and Admiral Sandecker.

It was time for a career move, something not as rigorous, with shorter hours. Maybe weaving hats out of palm fronds on a Tahiti beach, or something that stimulated the mind, like being a door-to-door contraceptive salesman. He shook off the silly thoughts brought on by weariness and set the automated control system to ALL STOP.

A quick radio transmission to Dempsey on board Ice Hunter, informing him that Pitt was closing down the engines and requesting a crew to come aboard and take over the cruise ship's operation, and then he picked up the phone and called Admiral Sandecker over a satellite link to give him an update on the situation.

The receptionist at NUMA headquarters put him straight through on Sandecker's private line. Though they were a third of the globe apart, Pitt's time zone in the Antarctic was only one hour ahead of Sandecker's in Washington, D.C.

"Good evening, Admiral.

"About time I heard from you."

"Things have been hectic."

"I had to get the story secondhand from Dempsey on how you and Giordino found and saved the cruise ship."

"I'll be happy to fill you in with the details."

"Have you rendezvoused with Ice Hunter?" Sandecker was short on greetings.

"Yes, Sir. Captain Dempsey is only a few hundred meters off my starboard beam. He's sending a boat across to put a salvage crew on board and take off the only survivor."

"How many casualties?" asked Sandecker.

"After a preliminary search of the ship," answered Pitt, "I've accounted for all but five of the crew.

Using a passenger list from the purser's office and a roster of the crew in the first officer's quarters, we're left with 20 passengers and two of the crew still among the living, out of a total of 202."

"That tallies to 180 dead."

"As near as I can figure."

"Since it is their ship, the Australian government is launching a massive investigation into the tragedy. A British research station with an airfield is situated not far to the southwest of your position, at Duse Bay.

I've ordered Captain Dempsey to proceed there and transport the survivors ashore. The cruise line owners, Ruppert & Saunders, have chartered a Qantis jetliner to fly them to Sydney."

"What about the bodies of the dead passengers and crew?"

"They'll be packed in ice at the research station and flown to Australia on a military transport. Soon as they arrive, official investigators will launch a formal inquiry into the tragedy while pathologists conduct postmortem examinations on the bodies."

"Speaking of Polar Queen," said Pitt. He gave the admiral the particulars of its discovery by him and Giordino and the near brush with calamity in the ferocious breakers around the base of the Danger Islands. At the end he asked, "What do we do with her?"

"Ruppert & Saunders are also sending a crew to sail her back to Adelaide, accompanied by a team of Australian government investigators, who will examine her from funnel to keel before she reaches port."

"You should demand an open contract form for salvage. NUMA could be awarded as much as $20

million for saving the ship from certain disaster."

"Entitled to or not, we'll not charge one thin dime for saving their ship." Pitt detected the silky tone of satisfaction in Sandecker's voice. "I'll get twice that sum in favors and cooperation from the Aussie government for future research projects in and around their waters."

No one could ever accuse the admiral of being senile. "Niccolo Machiavelli could have taken lessons from you," Pitt sighed.

"You might be interested in learning that dead marine life in your area has tapered off. Fishermen and research station support vessels have reported finding no unusual fish or mammal kills in the past forty-eight hours. Whatever the killer is, it has moved on. Now we're beginning to hear of massive amounts of fish and unusually high numbers of sea turtles being washed up on beaches around the Fiji Islands."

"Sounds suspiciously like the plague has a life of its own."

"It doesn't stay in one place," said Sandecker grimly. "The stakes are high. Unless our scientists can systematically eliminate the possible causes and home in on the one responsible damned quick, we're going to see a loss of sea life that can't be replenished not in our lifetime."

"At least we can take comfort in knowing it's not a repeat of the explosive reproduction by the red tide from chemical pollution out of the Niger River."

Certainly not since we shut down that hazardous waste plant in Mali that was the cause," added Sandecker. "Our monitors up and down the river have shown no further indications of the altered synthetic amino acid and cobalt that created the problem."