Treasure Of Khan Part 56

Summer watched as the old ship continued churning directly for her, frothy sprays of white foam creasing away from its weathered bow. The ship was less than a mile away now and showed no signs of decreasing speed. When it closed to within a quarter mile still at speed, Summer glanced at a makeshift flagpole erected over the barge's sleeping shack. A large red diver's flag with the cautionary white slash across the middle fluttered in the morning breeze.

"I've got divers in the water, you idiot," she cursed as the ship continued its beeline track. The vessel was close enough that Summer could make out a couple of figures standing on the ship's bridge. She quickly walked to the facing rail then turned and waved an arm at the dive flag. Summer detected the ship finally starting to slow, but it was approaching without caution. It was clear by now that the drill ship intended to moor alongside the barge.

Summer hustled to the shack, where a marine radio was mounted to the wall. Spinning the dial on the VHF set to channel 16, she spat into the microphone.

"Approaching drill ship, this is NUMA research barge. We have divers in the water. I repeat, we have divers in the water. Please stand off, over."

She waited impatiently for a reply but there was none. With a greater urgency in her voice, she repeated the call. Again, there was no answer.

By now, the drill ship was only a few yards away. Summer returned to the rail and yelled at the ship while pointing to the dive flag. The ship started to turn, but, by its angle, Summer could see it was only preparing to pull alongside. Half expecting to see a horde of seasick reporters and cameramen lining the rail, she was surprised to find the ship's starboard and stern decks empty. A slight chill ran up her spine at seeing no one on deck, the men in the forecastle remaining concealed on the bridge.

With an experienced helmsman's touch, the drill ship glided alongside the barge until its starboard rail hung just above the lower side rails of the barge. The drill ship's multiple positioning thrusters were activated and the ship hung precisely in place as if physically moored to the barge.

The vacant ship stood perfectly still for a minute, Summer watching with a mixture of curiosity and concern. Then a faint yell erupted from inside the ship and a half dozen men came storming out of a bulkhead door. Summer took one look at the men, all tough-looking Asians, and shivered with fear. As they scrambled to the ship's rail and began leaping onto the barge, Summer turned and sprinted back to the sleeping shack. She could feel somebody chasing her but didn't look back as she tore into the shack and grabbed the radio.

"Mayday, mayday, this is ..."

Her voice withered away as a pair of thick-callused hands reached into the shack and tore the radio off the wall, ripping the microphone clutched in Summer's hands out of the socket. With a perverse grin on his face, the man took a short step and hurled the radio over the side rail, watching as it splashed into the water. Turning back toward Summer with a thin smile that revealed a set of dirty yellow teeth, it was his turn for a shock. Summer took a step toward him and let loose with a powerful kick to his groin.

"Dirty creep," she cursed as the man fell to one knee in agony. His eyes bugged out of his head, and Summer could tell he was teetering with dizziness. She quickly stepped back and swung her leg in another kick, delivering a roundhouse blow to the side of the man's head. The a.s.sailant crumpled to the deck, where he rolled about in obvious pain.

Two of the other boarders witnessed the takedown and quickly charged Summer, grabbing her arms to restrain her. She struggled to free herself until one of the men pulled out a knife and held it to her throat, grunting into her ear with stale breath. The other man found a section of rope and hastily tied her hands and elbows together in front of her.

Gripped with fear but helpless to act, Summer studied her a.s.sailants with deliberation. To a man, they were short in stature yet bullish in build. They were of Asian descent, but had high cheekbones and more-rounded eyes than the cla.s.sic Chinese profile. Each was dressed in black T-shirt and work pants, and all looked like they were accustomed to hard work. Summer guessed they were Indonesian pirates, but what they wanted with a spa.r.s.e work barge was beyond her guess.

Gazing at the opposite end of the barge, Summer felt her stomach suddenly tightened into a knot. Two of the boarders had carried axes with them and were now swinging them through the air, cutting into the stern mooring lines. With a few quick swings, they severed the lines, then walked toward the bow to repeat the act. A third man stood overseeing the work with his back to Summer. His profile looked familiar, but it wasn't until he turned around and exposed the long scar on his left cheek that she recognized him as Dr. Tong. He walked slowly toward Summer, surveying the equipment on the deck as the two hatchet men went to work on the forward anchor lines. When he came near, she shouted to him.

"There are no artifacts here, Tong," she said, figuring he was no doctor but simply an artifact thief.

Tong ignored her, staring at the running equipment with annoyance. He turned and barked an order to the man Summer had kicked, who was now limping around the deck trying to walk off the blow. The injured man limped to the shack, where the small portable generator was humming. As he had done with the radio, he hoisted the generator up in the air and shoved it over the side. The machine gurgled as it slipped under water, silencing the small gas motor. The man then set his sights on the two air compressors. Limping to the nearest one, he looked it over, searching for the kill switch.

"No!" Summer shouted in protest.

Finding the STOP b.u.t.ton, the injured man turned to Summer and gave her a twisted smile, then pressed his thumb against the switch. The compressor immediately wheezed to a stop.

"There are men below on those air lines," Summer pleaded.

Tong ignored her, instead nodding to his minion. The man hobbled over to the second compressor and, with another smile directed at Summer, punched stop. As the roar of the dying compressor fell away, Tong walked over and stuck his face close to Summer's.

"I hope your brother is a good swimmer," he hissed.

A well of fury burned within Summer, replacing her fear. But she said nothing. The man holding the knife at her throat pulled tighter, then spoke to Tong in a foreign tongue.

"Shall I kill her?"

Tong glared at Summer's fit tan body lasciviously. "No," he replied, "take her aboard."

The two axmen finished cutting the bow anchor lines and walked toward Tong with their hatchets over their shoulders. The barge was now drifting freely, the current pushing it out to sea. On board the drill ship, the helmsman manually engaged the positioning thrusters and backed the ship in reverse to stay alongside the moving barge. Absent a fixed target, the drill ship had to bob and weave to keep from colliding with the free-floating barge. Several times they nudged sides, the barge slapping against the bigger drill ship with a clang.

"Youincapacitate the rubber boat," Tong barked to one of the men holding an axe. "Everybody else, back on the ship."

A small Zodiac had been secured to the bow of the barge, in case the NUMA team needed to go ash.o.r.e. The ax bearer walked over and with a few quick swings cut loose the securing lines. He then pulled a knife from his belt and wedged it into the inflated pontoon in several spots, producing a loud rush of escaping air. For good measure, he stood the boat on end, then flipped it over the side rail. The deflated rubber boat bobbed on the surface for several minutes until a wave swamped its sides and sent it to the bottom.

Summer witnessed little of the sabotage as the thug at her side shoved her roughly to the rail. A thousand thoughts were surging through her mind. Should she risk trying to fight back with a knife to her throat? How could she help Dirk and Jack? Would anything good come from stepping aboard the drill ship? Every query led down a short path to something bad. There might be one chance, she decided, and that was if she could get into the water. Even with her hands tied, outswimming these roughnecks would likely be no problem, she figured. If she could jump into the water, she could easily swim under the barge to the other side. Maybe it would be enough of an annoyance to let her go. And maybe she could then help get Dirk and Jack aboard and mount a stronger defense. That is, if they were all right.

Summer feigned a lack of resistance and followed the other men as they climbed on top of the rail and pulled themselves onto the deck of the drill ship. The knife wielder gave her a boost, holding her elbows as she stepped onto the rail. One of the men on the ship knelt down and reached over to help pull her up. Summer reached up but pretended to slip before she could reach the man's hands. She then flung her right foot backward, striking the knife holder flush in the nose with her heel. By the sound of the m.u.f.fled crunch, she knew she had broken his nose but didn't turn to see the blood rushing out of his nostrils. Instead, she ducked her head forward and dove for the thin patch of water between the two vessels.

She floated weightless for a fraction of a second, awaiting the splash of the cool water. But it never came.

Seeming to materialize out of thin air, a pair of hands sprung over the rail and clasped the back of her shirt and the cuff of her shorts. Instead of falling vertically, she felt herself flung sideways, bouncing harshly over the side rail before falling hard to the deck of the barge. She had hardly hit the ground when the same pair of hands jerked her to her feet. The hands belonged to Tong, who showed remarkable strength for a man who stood nearly a foot shorter than Summer.

"You will be going aboard," he spat.

The blow came from her left side and Summer was a hair late warding it off. Tong's fist struck her on the side of the jaw and she immediately buckled to her knees. A flurry of stars danced before her eyes but she didn't pa.s.s out. In a dazed stupor, she was yanked aboard the drill ship and dragged up to the bridge, where she was locked in a small storage room at the back of the wheelhouse.

Resting on a large coil of rope, it seemed to Summer that the whole world was spinning around her head. A wave of nausea swept over her until she threw up into a rusty bucket in the corner. She immediately felt better and pulled herself up to a small porthole. Sucking in fresh air, her vision gradually cleared until she could see that the drill ship was positioned in the cove over the same spot where the barge had been moored.

The barge. She craned her neck, finally spotting the brown barge drifting out to sea, already more than a mile away. Squinting to try to improve her blurry vision, she fought to make out signs of Dirk and Jack aboard. But they were nowhere to be seen.

The empty barge was drifting out to sea without them.

-44-

DIRK'S ARMS HAD BEGUN to feel like spaghetti. The airlift had to be constantly wrestled into place against the invisible push of the surrounding waters. Though Dahlgren had relieved him a few times, he had been toting the pressurized tube for over an hour. The work had been made more strenuous by the building currents of an outgoing tide, which pushed the surface water seaward at nearly two knots. The current was much lighter on the bottom, but manhandling the wavering airlift over the dredge site was like balancing a flagpole on the head of a pin.

Dirk glanced at his dive watch as he wrestled the airlift over a few inches. Only fifteen minutes to go till the end of the shift, then a break from the monotonous work. Progress was slower than he had hoped, but he had still uncovered a rough square about six feet across. The encrusted wood was thick but flat, consistent with the shape of a ship's rudder. Only the size was a little perplexing. Dahlgren's probe marks had encompa.s.sed an object nearly twenty feet long, an enormous dimension for a sailing ship rudder.

Following the ascent of his air bubbles as they rose to the surface, he gazed again at the undersides of the large black ship moored next to the barge. He and Dahlgren had heard the rumble of the ship's engines underwater as it drew near and they watched with curiosity as the dark shape brazenly drew alongside the barge. They had watched the positioning thrusters engaged and felt a slight a.s.surance that the fool wasn't going to drop anchor on them. Another well-financed video doc.u.mentary group, Dirk surmised. There would no doubt be an array of underwater photographers descending on them shortly. Hooray, he thought sarcastically.

He shook off the annoyance and refocused on driving the airlift into the fine sand. Pushing the lip toward a small mound, he noticed that no sand was being sucked up, then realized that the vibration and whooshing noise of the compressed air had ceased. Summer must have shut off the airlift, which meant she was signaling them back to the barge for some reason or the compressor just ran out of gas. He sat for a moment, deciding to wait a minute or two before surfacing to see if Summer restarted the motor.

A few yards away, Dahlgren was driving his probe into the sand. Out of the corner of his eye, Dirk noticed him suddenly rise off the bottom. Something about the movement didn't seem right and Dirk looked over to see that his instincts were right. Dahlgren had let go of the probe and had his hands wrapped around his faceplate and air line, while his legs hung loose beneath him. He was being yanked off the bottom, Dirk realized, like a puppet on a string.

He had no time to react, for an instant later the airlift was ripped from his own hands, sailing off through the water in the direction of Dahlgren. Dirk looked up just in time to see his own air line pull taut in the water and then jerk him up off the seafloor.

"What the ..." he started to mouth, but the words fell away as he tried to draw a breath of air. He inhaled a slight puff and then there was nothing. The compressor supplying the air lines had been cut off, too. Like Dahlgren, he found himself grabbing hold of the air line to control his movements and not rip the connection from his dive helmet. Beside him, the airlift swung wildly in the water like a pendulum out of control. The big plastic pipe came barreling at him, slamming into his leg before bouncing off in another direction. Out of air, yanked like a rag doll, and pummeled by the airlift, Dirk faced enough sensory obstacles to drive most people to panic. From there, it would be just a short step to drowning.

But Dirk didn't panic. He had spent the better part of his life scuba diving. Technical failures underwater were nothing new to him. He had sucked a tank of air dry on shallow-water dives many times. The key to surviving an emergency, underwater or elsewhere, he told himself, was to remain calm and think logically.

Air was the first necessity. His natural inclination was to kick to the surface, but that wasn't necessary. While working on surface-supplied air, the divers all carried a small emergency bottle of air. Slightly larger than a thermos, the thirteen-cubic-foot bailout bottle, called a "pony tank," provided about ten minutes of air. Dirk let go of the air line with one hand and reached under his left arm, where the bottle was attached to his buoyancy compensator. Twisting the valve on the top of the tank, he immediately drew in a breath of air through the regulator. After a couple of deep draws, he could feel his heart begin to slow its racing beat.

His thoughts ran to Dahlgren, who was on the shared line of surface air. Thirty feet ahead, he saw a purge of exhaust bubbles rise from Dahlgren's helmet and knew that he was breathing off his emergency air as well. The dangling airlift had ventured over toward Dahlgren and was gyrating in the water close behind him. The airlift pipe was being dragged by its flexible outlet hose secured to the barge, which created an elastic springing action like a rubber band. The hose would stretch under the drag of the water-filled tube, then snap back, whipping the tube forcefully through the water. Dirk saw that the tube was pulled taut in a precarious position behind Dahlgren and he waved to get his friend's attention. The Texan was busy pulling himself up the air line and didn't see the airlift or Dirk's warning. A second later, the outstretched tube burst forward, launching straight toward Dahlgren. To Dirk's horror, the tube shot up like an arrow and struck the back of Dahlgren's head just beneath his dive helmet. As the airlift fluttered off, Dahlgren's body went limp.

Dirk cursed to himself as he felt his heart race faster again. He noticed that the seafloor had dropped away beneath them and that they were being pulled more forcefully through the water. On the surface, an offsh.o.r.e breeze had joined forces with the island currents to push the stubby barge along at over four knots. Under the waves, Dirk wondered why in blazes the barge was drifting and where Summer was. Then he turned toward Dahlgren. There was no thought of surfacing yet. He had to reach Dahlgren and make sure he was still breathing.