Flood Tide

Han's gaze traveled from the burning pier and the sunken ships to the cabin across the lake. He stood there transfixed and recalled the arrogant fisherman who flaunted his catch the day before. He may not be what he seemed. Probably no fisherman or a simple businessman on vacation, Lo Han deduced, and yet he did not act like an agent of the Immigration Service or the FBI. Whatever his motive, the fisherman was Lo Han's only suspect within a hundred miles.

Content that he had eliminated the worst-case scenario, Lo Han began to breathe a little easier. He took his radio and called a name. The voice of Kung Chong answered.

“Are there suspicious sightings of vehicles?” Lo Han asked.

“The roads and skies are empty,” Kung Chong assured him.

“Any unusual activity across the lake?”

“Our cameras reveal some movement among the trees behind the cabin but no signs of the occupant inside.”

“I want a raid on that cabin. I must know who we're dealing with.”

“A raid will take time to organize,” said Kung Chong.

“Buy time by sending in a man to sabotage his automobile so he can't escape.”

“Should something go wrong, won't we be risking a confrontation with the local law authorities?”

“The last of my worries. If my instincts are correct, the man is dangerous and a threat to our employer who pays us and pays us well.”

“Do you wish to terminate him?”

“I believe that to be the safest alternative,” Lo Han said, nodding to himself. “Be warned. There must be no mistakes. It is not wise to incur the wrath of Qin Shang.”

“Mr. Pitt?” Julia Lee's whisper was barely audible in the darkness.

“Yes.” Pitt had parked the watercraft in a small inlet that opened onto the lake beside the cabin, approaching through the woods until he found Julia and her brood. He sat down heavily on a fallen tree and began pulling off his dry suit. “Is everyone all right?”

“They're alive,” she answered in a soft voice with just a trace of huskiness. “But they're not all right. They're soaked to the skin and freezing. Everyone needs dry clothes and medical attention.”

Pitt gently touched the bullet wound in his hip. “I'll second that.”

“Why can't they go inside your cabin where they can be warm and find something to eat?”

He shook his head. “Not a good idea. I haven't been to town for almost two days and my cupboard is bare. Better we herd them into the boathouse. I'll bring them whatever food I have left and every blanket I can find.”

“You're not making sense,” she said flatly. “They'd be more comfortable in the cabin than some smelly old boathouse.”

A stubborn woman, this one, Pitt thought, and self-sufficient too. “Did I forget to mention the surveillance cameras and listening bugs that grow like mushrooms in nearly every room? I think it best if your friends across the lake observe no one but me. If they suddenly see the ghosts of the people they believe they drowned watching television and drinking my tequila, they'll come charging in here with every gun blazing before our side's posse arrives. No sense in getting them all riled up before their time.”

“They've been monitoring you from across the lake?” she asked, puzzled.

“Someone over there thinks I have beady eyes and can't be trusted.”

She looked at his face, trying to distinguish his features, but saw no details in the dark. “Who are you, Mr. Pitt?”

“Me?” he said, pulling his feet out of the dry suit. “I'm just an ordinary guy who came to the lake to unwind and fish.”

“You are far from ordinary,” she said softly, turning and gazing at the dying flames and smoldering embers of the dock. “No ordinary man could have accomplished what you did tonight.”

“And you, Ms. Lee? Why is a highly intelligent lady who speaks flawless English and associates with a bunch of illegal immigrants thrown into a lake with weights tied around her ankles?”

“You know they're illegals?” “If they're not, they don't hide it very well.” She shrugged. “I guess it's useless to pretend I'm somebody I'm not. I can't flash my badge, but I'm a special undercover agent with the Immigration and Naturalization Service. And I would be most grateful if you could get me to a telephone.”

“I've always been putty in the hands of women.” He walked over to a tree, reached up under the branches and returned. He handed her his Indium satellite phone. “Call your superiors and tell them what's going on here,” he advised. “Tell them the building on the lake is a prison for illegal immigrants. For what purpose, I can't say. Tell them the lake bed is littered with hundreds, maybe thousands of dead bodies. Why, I can't say. Tell them the security is first-rate and the guards are heavily armed, and tell them to get here fast before the evidence is either shot, drowned or burned to death. Then tell them to call Admiral James Sandecker at the National Underwater and Marine Agency and say his special projects director wants to come home and to send a taxi.”

Julia looked at Pitt's face in the dim starlight, trying to read something, her eyes wide and questioning, her lips slowly forming the words. “You are an amazing man, Dirk Pitt. A director of NUMA. I'd have never guessed in a thousand years. Since when do they train marine scientists to be assassins and arsonists?”

“Since midnight,” he said briefly as he turned and set off for the cabin. “And I'm not a scientist, I'm an engineer. Now make your call, and hurry. As sure as the sun sets in the west, we're going to have company very soon.”

Ten minutes later Pitt returned from the house loaded down with a small box of food and ten blankets. He had also hurriedly changed into more practical clothes. He failed to hear the silenced pair of bullets that smashed into the radiator of his rental car. He only caught the antifreeze flooding the ground under the front bumper when it reflected off the night-lights he'd left burning on the porch of the cabin.

“So much for driving out of here,” he said quietly to Julia as she distributed what little food he had, and he passed out the blankets to the shivering Chinese. “What do you mean?” she asked.

“Your friends just punctured my radiator. We wouldn't make the main highway before the engine heated up and the bearings froze.”

“I wish you'd stop calling them my friends,” she said flippantly.

“Merely a form of speech.”

“I fail to see a problem. The lake will be crawling with INS and FBI agents in another hour.”

“Too late,” said Pitt seriously. “Shang's men will be all over us long before they arrive. By disabling my car, they bought time to organize a raiding party. They're probably closing off the road and forming a net around the cabin while we stand here.”

“You can't expect these people to hike miles through the woods in the dark,” said Julia firmly. “They can endure no  more. There must be another way to get them to safety. You have to think of something.”

“Why does it always have to be me?”

“Because you're all we've got.”    I Feminine logic, Pitt mused. How do they come by it? “Are you in the mood for romance?”

“Romance?” She was completely taken aback. “At a time      j like this? Are you crazy?”

“Not really,” said Pitt casually. “But you must admit, it's a lovely night for a boat ride under the stars.”

They came to kill Pitt shortly before dawn. They came quietly and deliberately, surrounding and approaching the cabin in a well-timed and organized operation. Kung Chong spoke softly into his portable radio, coordinating his men's movements. Kung Chong was an old hand at conducting raids on houses of dissidents when he was an agent with the People's Republic intelligence service. He did not like what he saw of the cabin from the woods. The outside floodlights were on around the porch, playing havoc with the raiders' night vision.

The lights of every room were also turned on, and country-western music blasted from a radio.