The chopper circled the Caroline once and hovered off its port bow, dropping almost to wave height. A side door slid open and three men in dive gear leaped out, splashing into the water below. A large orange container was tossed out after them. The helicopter rose from the surface, waggled its main rotor, and took off in the direction it had come.
Stenseth watched the men surface near the ship. “Get a Zodiac in the water—now!”
Before the Caroline’s crew could deploy the inflatable boat, the divers swam to the ship’s stern with their container in tow. A dive platform was lowered and the men climbed aboard with their equipment.
Stenseth waited at the rail as the platform was raised to deck height. The shortest of the three divers stepped forward and extended his hand to the captain as he pulled off his dive mask. “Hi, Bill. Good to see you.”
Stenseth looked agape as he recognized the man normally seen wearing horn-rimmed glasses. “Rudi, is that you?”
Gunn smiled and motioned to the other divers. “My apologies for the surprise visit. I think you know Jack Dahlgren and Pierce Russell.”
“Yes,” Stenseth nodded at the men. “But why the air drop? We could have picked you up onshore.”
“Time is of the essence. Plus, when you are defying the Vice President of the United States, you want as few people to know as possible.”
“Know what?” Stenseth asked.
“It’s the Sargasso Sea. We have reason to believe she’s been hijacked near Havana. For reasons that are beyond my pay grade, Vice President Sandecker has refused to issue help—and in fact ordered us not to intervene.” Gunn shook his head. “But I can’t do it. The crew may be in danger, so we’ve got to find out what’s going on.”
“Aren’t Pitt and Giordino aboard?”
“Yes, which makes things more unnerving. The ship went silent a couple of days ago. They were investigating an undersea mercury plume and may have stumbled on its source.”
“The Cubans?”
“We don’t know.”
“So that explains the anonymous commercial helicopter ride.”
“The pilot thinks we’re here on a secret mission to track dolphins. He wasn’t too happy about making a round trip from Miami and dropping us in the sea, but he was well paid for his services.”
“You’re really sticking your neck out, Rudi, but I’ll be glad to help,” Stenseth said. “Pitt has saved my bacon on more than one occasion.”
“I knew I could rely on you.”
“What can we do to help?”
Gunn pointed across the ship’s open deck. A sleek underwater vehicle with a fiberglass hull was parked on a wooden cradle.
“I need you to tell me two things,” Gunn said. “First, that the Bullet over there is fully operational. Second, that you can get the Caroline under way within the hour.”
It was Stenseth’s turn to smile. “The Bullet just needs a full tank of gas and she’s ready to run. As for the Caroline, if we’re not headed to Cuba at flank speed in twenty minutes, you can have my job.”
“Thanks, Bill. Every second may count.”
“We’re on it.” Stenseth took a step toward the bridge, then hesitated. “By the way, what’s in the orange box?”
Gunn’s eyebrows arched as he replied to the captain with a straight face.
“Insurance.”
59
Summer sat on the dock in the morning sun for over an hour, an armed guard close by. Her thoughts centered on her father and what had become of him.
As sweat trickled down her brow, a blue dot appeared on the horizon, growing ever larger. It eventually morphed into a sleek crew boat, which raced to the dock under the power of twin turbocharged diesels. Summer was escorted into its air-conditioned passenger cabin, where she watched as several small crates of high explosives were loaded onto the stern deck.
Díaz and Molina appeared on the dock a short time later. They shook hands, then Díaz hopped aboard and the boat roared away from the dock. Summer suppressed a chill as he entered the cabin and took a seat next to her.