Pacific Vortex! Part 21

The fog was a thick white quilt rising over the water^ swirling in coils from the light breeze, opaque and oppressive in its clammy wetness. The men on the bridge strained their eyes, peering vainly into the billowing mist; they feared something beyond that can't be seen or touched or understood. Already a shroud of moisture was crawling over the s.h.i.+p, and the visible light became an eerie mixture of orange and gray from the light refraction of the setting sun.

Boland rubbed the sweating beads from his forehead, took a rea.s.suring glance through the wheelhouse windows, and said: "It looks common enough; density is somewhat high."

"There's nothing common about that fog except the color," Pitt said. Visibility barely took in the bows of the Martha Ann. "The high temperature, time of day, and a three-knot breeze hardly make for normal fog conditions." He leaned past Boland and studied the radar, watching closely for nearly a minute, checking his wrist.w.a.tch every so often while making a series of mental calculations. "It shows no signs of movement or dissipation; the wind hasn't budged its ma.s.s. I'doubt whether old Mother Nature could come up with a freak like this."

They went out on the port bridge wing, two shaded silhouettes against the peculiar light of the mist. The s.h.i.+p rolled a scant degree or two under the gentle Pacific swells. It was as though time had ceased to exist. Pitt sniffed the air. He couldn't place it at first, but then he became conscious of what he was trying to connect; a distant memory.

"Eucalyptus!"

'What did you say?" Boland asked.

"Eucalyptus," Pitt said. "Don't you smell it?"

Boland's eyes narrowed questioningly. "I smell something but I'don't recognize it,"

"Where are you from and where did you grow up?" Pitt asked.

Boland looked at him, mesmerized by Pitt's urgency. "Minnesota. Why?"

"G.o.d, I haven't smelled this in years," Pitt said. "Eucalyptus trees are common around Southern California. They have a distinct aroma and yield an oil used for inhalation purposes."

"That doesn't make sense."

"I agree, but there's no denying the fact that this fog reeks of eucalyptus."

Boland flexed his fingers, speaking to Pitt without facing him. "What do you suggest?"

" In simple English, I suggest we get the h.e.l.l out of here."

"My thoughts, exactly." He stepped back into the wheelhouse and leaned over the intercom, "Engine room? How soon can we be underway?"

"Say when, Commander," the voice down in the bowels of the s.h.i.+p echoed metallically.

"Now!" Boland said. He turned to a young officer on watch. "Up anchor, Lieutenant."

"Up anchor," the boyish watch officer affirmed.

"Detection room? This is Commander Boland. Any readings?"

"Stanley here, sir. All quiet. Nothing except a school of fish about a hundred yards off the starboard beam."

"Ask him how many and how large," Pitt said, his face set

Boland nodded silently and issued the request to the detection room.

"By rough count, over two hundred of them swimming at three fathoms."

"Size, man. Size!" Boland snapped.

"Somewhere between five and seven feet in length."

Pitt's eyes s.h.i.+fted from the speaker to Boland. "Those aren't fish. They're men."

It took a moment for Pitt's words to hit. "Men?" Boland said flatly, as if trying to memorize it. "How can they attack from the surface? The Martha Ann has twenty feet of freeboard."

"They'll do it; you can be sure of that."

"The h.e.l.l they will," Boland said harshly. He pounded his fist on the binnacle, s.n.a.t.c.hed a microphone and Pitt could hear his voice echoing throughout the s.h.i.+p. "Lieutenant Riley; issue sidearms to the entire crew. We may have uninvited visitors."

"It'll take more than a few sidearms to turn back a horde that size," Pitt said. "If they make it over the railings, there will be little fifteen men can do against two hundred."

"Well stop them," Boland said resolutely.

"You better be prepared to ditch the s.h.i.+p if the worst happens."

"No," Boland said calmly. "This decrepit-looking old gutbucket may not look like much, but she still belongs to the United States Navy. I'm not going to give her up without making somebody pay. Tell Admiral Hunter what happened here. Tell him..." Tell him yourself. I'm not lifting that helicopter off this s.h.i.+p without you and your crew."

Boland's lips arched into a grim smile. "Good luck!"

"I'll see you on the flight pad," was all Pitt said.

Then he turned and pa.s.sed through the door.

The pilot's seat was damp and sticky as Pitt climbed onto its vinyl padding. He went through his preflight checklist as the mist tightened around the s.h.i.+p. The atmosphere was heavy and all light was muted. Nothing could be seen outside the s.h.i.+p; the sea was gone, the sky was gone, and only a tiny world of two hundred square feet was recognizable from the c.o.c.kpit windows.

He engaged the auxiliary power unit and pushed the starter switch. The APU struggled and moaned in protest as its electrical output shoved the copter's turbine into even faster revolutions until the exhaust temperature gauge and the whine from the exhaust pad notified him of a smooth start Then the rotor gears meshed and the giant blades began slowly beating the misty air with their peculiar swis.h.i.+ng sound.

When the needles of the gauges on the instrument panel settled in their normal operating positions, Pitt reached over to the copilot's seat and picked up the towel-encased Mauser. He laid the gun in his lap and quickly unwrapped it, making certain the shoulder stock was attached securely. Then he shoved the fifty-shot clip into the receiver, climbed from the c.o.c.kpit, and peered into the ghostly light. Nothing could be distinguished. The landing skid offered him some protection as he crouched on his heels and aimed the gun into the gloom.

Ninety seconds was all Pitt had to wait before two spectral forms materialized over the railing at the stern and drifted menacingly toward the vibrating helicopter. Pitt waited until he was certain they were not members of the Martha Ann's crew. Then the Mauser spat.

The pair of seminude figures fell silently as their now familiar projectile guns dropped from their hands and clattered to the steel plates of the deck Pitt swung around and scanned a full three-hundred-sixty-degree circle before he briefly inspected the fallen men. They lay twisted and limp beside each other, their life oozing from their torn chests. The green-colored, almost nonexistent attire around their hips, and the weapons they'd carried, were identical to those he'd seen on the men he'd lolled on the Star-buck. The only difference his eyes could detect, a difference he hadn't had time to notice before, was a small plastic box that seemed to be adhered to each man's chest under their armpits.

Before he could study the corpses in more detail, his gaze was diverted by another figure that slowly rose over the handrail. Pitt pointed the gun and fanned the trigger with one gentle kiss of the finger. A short blast shattered the sound of the copter's whirling blades for the second time, and the indistinct form suddenly vanished backward into the mist Cautiously Pitt crept over to the handrail. He was almost on top of what he was searching for when his hand brushed against it. It was a grappling hook, its six curved p.r.o.ngs covered under a thick sheathing of foam rubber, its length disappearing into the unseen water below.

It was now easy for him to see how these strange men from the sea, under concealment of the fog, had silently dispatched almost a hundred s.h.i.+ps and thousands of their crewmen to the bottom of this G.o.dforsaken piece of the Pacific Ocean.

Pitt's thoughts were interrupted by the heavy thunder of the .45 automatics, punctuated by the sharper crack of the .30-caliber carbines. Screams from wounded men reverberated the mist. Pitt felt remote and oddly detached from the fight that was growing in intensity.

A stray bullet whined past the helicopter and dropped far out into the water. "d.a.m.n you!" Pitt shouted. One bullet into a vital part would destroy the copter.

Three shapes that became men stumbled onto the flight pad, with glazed eyes and sweat trailing down their faces. "Cmon, don't lag," Pitt boomed. "Get a move on!" Pitt didn't turn as he spoke; he kept his eyes peeled into the gloom. Nearly a full minute pa.s.sed before another figure ran onto the flight pad. The young sailor's panicky headlong dash was so rapid that he slipped on the wet deck and would have skidded between the railing bars and over the side but for Pitt's strong grasp on a flailing arm.

"Take it easy!" Pitt admonished. "It's a long swim home."

"I'm sorry, sir," the seaman blurted. "You can't see the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds; they're on you before you have a chance."

Pitt pushed the young seaman under the haven of the helicopter as four more men appeared out of the gray film. One was the helmsman with Farris in tow. The sole survivor of the Starbuck was mentally disconnected from the battle going on around him. He looked straight through Pitt, his eyes wide and dull with abstract unconcern.