Flood Tide

Pitt laid the compact little unit in the bottom of the sailboat along with a fishing rod and a tackle box. Next he opened the outer doors to the boathouse, climbed down and took his place at the tiller. Pushing off the dock with a boat hook until it was free of the boathouse, he stepped the mast, raised the sail and lowered the centerboard.

To an observing eye he looked like a garden-variety businessman on holiday leisurely sailing on the lake. The climate was pleasant but cool, and he was dressed warmly in a red wool lumberman's shirt and khaki pants. On his feet he wore sneakers and sweat socks. The only contrast with serious fishermen was that they would have used a powerboat or a rowboat with an outboard motor to go after salmon and trout, certainly not a sailboat. Pitt chose the slower of the two boats because the sail made a good shield from any video cameras at the resort.

He propelled the little craft further away from the boathouse by pushing the tiller back and forth until the afternoon breeze filled the sail, and he began gliding across the blue-green waters of Orion Lake. He tacked easily, skirting the deserted shoreline while keeping a respectful distance from the huge home at the lower end of the lake. In the deepest part of the lake less than a quarter mile from Shang's boat dock, Pitt came into the wind and dropped the sail, leaving just enough raised to flap in the breeze and hide his movements. The rope on the anchor was not nearly long enough to reach the bottom, but he lowered it as far as it could reach to act as a drag to keep the wind from pushing the sailboat too close to shore.

With the lowered sail facing one shore and his back to the opposite, he leaned over the side and peered into a bucket with a transparent bottom. The water was so crystal clear that Pitt could see a school of salmon swimming a good hundred and fifty feet below. Then he opened a fishing tackle box and removed a hook and lead sinkers. The only fish Pitt had caught in the past thirty years, he caught underwater with a spear gun. He hadn't held a rod and reel in his hands since he fished with his father, Senator George Pitt, off the coast of California when he was a young boy. Still, he managed to tie on lead sinkers, slip an unfortunate night crawler over a hook and cast it into the deep.

While under the pretense of fishing, he also uncoiled a reel of thin wire and placed a coffee cup-sized transponder that sent and received electronic signals over the side of the sailboat. He lowered it to a depth of twenty feet to assure that it was out of the acoustic shadow of the boat's hull. A similarly sized transponder was housed in the aft end of the AUV. These two units and the electronics inside the AUV casing formed the heart of the system by talking to each other acoustically, allowing underwater control and video signals to be received by a small recorder.

Next, he removed the AUV from the ice chest, carefully lowered it into the water and watched as it silently slipped beneath the surface, its black casing giving the appearance of some ugly creature from the abyss. Pitt had over two hundred hours operating tethered robotic underwater vehicles, but this was only the second time he had operated an autonomous system. His mouth felt slightly on the dry side as he watched the little vehicle that had cost NUMA two million dollars sink out of sight into the lake. The autonomous underwater system was a marvel of miniaturization and for the first time enabled NUMA scientists to send a robotic unit into areas that were previously impossible to reach.

He unfolded a laptop computer with an oversized, high-resolution, active-matrix display, and powered up the system. Satisfied a secure acoustic link was established, he scrolled through the control menus and selected a combination of “remote and live video.” Under normal circumstances he would have preferred to concentrate on a live video display of the images recorded by the camera under the water, but this trip it was vital that he focus his attention on the events that he hoped to incite at the retreat. He intended only to view the progress of the AUV from time to time to keep it on course.

He moved the joystick on a small remote handbox. The vehicle immediately responded and went into a dive. The acoustic telemetry and control system performed flawlessly, and the vehicle shot forward at almost four knots. The counter rotating thrusters were balanced perfectly, preventing the vehicle from corkscrewing through the water.

“Every move a picture,” Pitt said, staring in the direction of Shang's retreat as he stretched out on a pair of vinyl seat cushions that doubled as safety floats should the boat's occupants be thrown in the water. Then he propped his feet on a bench seat and nestled the remote-control box of the AUV between his legs. Using the levers and joystick on the remote he directed the vehicle's movements like a model submarine. He leveled it out at a depth of sixty feet and worked it slowly toward Shang's boat dock, sweeping it back and forth as though he were plowing a field.

To the uninformed it might have looked as if Pitt was playing with a toy, but the exercise was more than a game. He meant to test Shang's security systems. The first experiment was to detect any underwater sensors. After ru

It's show time, Pitt thought silently. He pulled gently on the lever that sent the AUV rising to the surface. The little submersible broke water in plain sight a few yards to one side of the dock. He timed the response. Surprisingly, a full three minutes passed before the walls on the windowless huts swung up and guards with Steyr tactical machine pistols slung over their shoulders came charging out across the grounds on off-road motorcycles. They looked to Pitt like Chinese-made copies of the Japanese Suzuki RM 250cc supercross bike. They spread out in formation and took up positions along the sandy beach. Thirty seconds later, the wall on the hut at the end of the floating dock facing the lake also flew open as two guards riding Chinese-built personal watercraft, these designed along the lines of the Japanese Kawasaki Jet Ski, sprinted after the AUV.

Not what Pitt called a rapid deployment. He expected better from veteran security specialists. Even the ultralights remained hidden in their hangar. It seemed the incursion by the AUV did not warrant an all-out search effort.

Pitt immediately sent the submersible into a dive, and because it was visible in the clear water, he cut a steep turn that brought it under the yacht beside the dock. He needn't have worried about the guards on the watercraft sighting the little sub. They churned the surface of the water to such a froth by racing around in circles, it was impossible for them to see into the depths. Pitt observed that neither of the men on the water-craft wore any type of diving equipment, not even masks and snorkels, a solid indication they were not prepared to engage in underwater investigation. Professionals on land but amateurs in the water, Pitt mused.

Finding no hint of an intruder along the beach, the men guarding the grounds climbed off their dirt bikes and stood watching the antics of the water derby. Any attempt at piercing Shang's retreat by land could only be undertaken with any chance of success by a team from the Special Forces, who were experts in the art of stealth and camouflage. By water it was another story. A diver could easily swim under the dock and the yacht without fear of being discovered.

While he guided the AUV back to the sailboat, Pitt reeled in his fishing line until it was just under the surface. Then he sneaked the mounted salmon from the Foley cabin's fireplace into the water and ran the hook, still with the impaled night crawler, through the dried open mouth. Waving his arms conspicuously, he lifted the long-deceased salmon out of the water and held it in the air for all prying eyes to see. The two security guards on the watercraft circled him at less than fifty feet, rocking the sailboat in their wakes. Reasonably assured they would not attempt to seize him on state-government-owned water, he ignored them. Instead, Pitt faced the guards lining the shore and waved the fish back and forth like a signal flag. He watched as the guards, finding nothing suspicious they could put their teeth into, returned to the log security huts. Feeling there was no point in hanging around and greatly relieved the AUV hadn't been discovered by the guards, who seemed more interested in a fisherman than what was under the water, Pitt pulled up the anchor, raised the sail and, with the little robotic submersible following obediently behind and below the surface, headed back toward the Foleys' boathouse. After securing the sailboat and replacing the AUV in the ice chest, he removed an eight-millimeter videocassette from the camera and dropped it in his pocket.