Night Probe! - Cussler Clive (онлайн книги бесплатно полные txt) 📗

"Too bad Gly will never know how he was outsmarted. I think he would have appreciated that."

The next morning, the following story ran on the international wire services.

OTTAWA, 6110 (Special)- A plane carrying Danielle Sarveux and Henri Villon crashed in the Atlantic Ocean this morning 200 miles northeast of Cayenne, French Guiana.

The wife of Canada's Prime Minister and the presidential candidate for newly independent Quebec took off from Ottawa for a flight to Quebec City last night, and when they failed to make their scheduled landing the alert was given.

Villon was piloting his own plane and Madame Sarveux was the only passenger on board. All radio contact went unanswered.

Because Canadian air controllers did not immediately suspect the twin jet Albatross had flown into the United States, hours were lost on a fruitless search between Quebec and Ottawa. Not until an Air France Concorde reported an aircraft flying erratically south of Bermuda at 55,000 feet, 8000 feet above the maximum altitude for which Villon's Albatross was certified, did anyone begin to make a connection.

U.S. Navy jets were scrambled from the carrier Kitty Hawk near Cuba. Lieutenant Arthur Hancock was the first to spot the Albatross and reported seeing a man motionless at the controls. He followed until the plane went into a slow spiral dive and plunged into the ocean.

"We have no firm grasp on the cause," Ian Stone, a spokesman for Canadian Air Authority, said. "The only theory that makes any sort of sense is that Madame Sarveux and Mr. Villon became unconscious from lack of oxygen and that the plane, on autopilot, had flown itself over 3000 miles off course before running out of fuel and crashing." A search revealed no sign of wreckage.

Prime Minister Charles Sarveux remained in seclusion during the ordeal and had no comment.

An early morning mist quilted the Hudson Valley, cutting visibility to fifty yards. On the opposite side of the hill from the covered entrance of the quarry, Pitt had set up a command post in a motor home borrowed from a nearby fruit farmer. Ironically, neither he nor Shaw was aware of the other's exact location, although they were separated by only a mile of heavily forested hillside.

Pitt felt groggy from too much coffee and too little sleep. He longed for a healthy slug of brandy to clear the cobwebs, but he knew that would be a mistake. As inviting as it sounded, he was afraid it would cause a reverse reaction and slow his thinking, and that was the last thing he needed now.

He stood in the doorway of the motor home and watched Nicholas Riley and the diving team from the De Soto unload their gear while Glen Chase and Al Giordino hovered over a heavy iron grating that was embedded in a rock-walled side of the hill. There was a popping sound when they lit an acetylene torch, followed by a spray of sparks as the blue flame attacked the rusted bars.

"I won't guarantee that opening behind the grating is an escape shaft," said Jerry Lubin. "But I'd have to say it's a safe bet.

Lubin had arrived a few hours earlier from Washington and was accompanied by Admiral Sandecker. A mining consultant with the Federal Resources Agency, Lubin was a small, humorous man with a pawnbroker nose and bloodhound eyes.

Pitt turned and looked at him. "We found it where you said it'd be."

"An educated guess," said Lubin. "If I had been mine superintendent, that's where I would have put it."

"Somebody went to a lot of work to keep people out," said Sandecker.

"The farmer who once owned the land." This from Heidi, who was perched on an overhead bunk.

"Where did you come by that tidbit?" asked Lubin.

"A kindly editor, a female I might add, got out of her boyfriend's bed to open local newspaper files for me. The story is that about thirty years ago, three scuba divers drowned inside the shaft. Two of their bodies were never found. The farmer sealed up the entrance to keep people from killing themselves on his property."

"Did you find anything about the landslide?" Pitt asked her.

"A dead end. All files prior to nineteen forty-six were destroyed by a fire."

Sandecker pulled at his red beard thoughtfully. "I wonder how far those poor. bastards got before they drowned."

"Probably made it to the main quarry and ran out of air on the return trip," Pitt speculated.

Heidi spoke the same thought that suddenly crossed everyone's mind. "Then they must have seen whatever is in there."

Sandecker gave Pitt a worried look. "I don't want you to make the same mistake."

"The victims were undoubtedly weekend divers, untrained and under equipped "I'd feel better if there was an easier way."

"The air vent is a possibility," said Lubin.

"Of course!" Sandecker exclaimed. "Any underground mine needs air ventilation."

"I didn't mention it before because it would take forever to find it in this fog. Besides, whenever a mine is closed, the air portal is filled in and covered over. There's always the hazard of a cow or a human, especially a child, falling in and vanishing."

A knowing look crossed Pitt's face. "I have a feeling that's where we'll find our friend Brian Shaw." Lubin stared quizzically. "Who's he?"

"A competitor," said Pitt. "He wants to get inside that hill as badly as we do."

Lubin gave an offhand shrug. "Then I don't envy him. Digging through a portal shaft the width of a man's shoulders is a bitch of a job."

Lubin would have got no argument from the British.

One of Lieutenant Macklin's men had literally stumbled and fallen on the scar in the earth that hid the ventilator shaft. Since midnight the paratroops had been feverishly laboring to clear the rubble-filled passage.

The work was backbreaking. Only one man at a time could dig in the narrow confines. Cave-in was a constant threat. Buckets hastily stolen from a neighboring orchard were filled and pulled to the surface by ropes. Then they were emptied and dropped for the next load. The mole dug as fast and as hard as he could. When he was ready to drop from exhaustion, he was quickly replaced. The excavation went on without pause. "What depth are we?" asked Shaw. "About forty feet," replied Caldweiler. "How much further?"

The Welshman furrowed his brow thoughtfully. "I judge we should strike the main quarry in another hundred and twenty feet. How deep the ventilator was filled, I can't say. We could break through in the next foot or we might have to fight to the last inch."

"I'll settle for the next foot," said Macklin. "This mist isn't going to shield us much longer."

"Any sign of the Americans?"

"Only the sound of vehicles somewhere behind the hill."

Shaw lit another of his special cigarettes. It was his last one. "I should have thought they'd be swarming over the hillside before now."

"They'll get a jolly hot reception when they show," said Macklin, almost cheerfully.

"I hear American jails are overcrowded," Caldweiler muttered. "I don't relisly spending the rest of my life in one."

Shaw grinned. "Should be a piece of cake for a man of your experience to tunnel out."

Caldweiler knocked the ashes out of his pipe. "Nothing like looking at the fun side. Though in all seriousness, I can't help wondering what in bloody hell I'm doing here."

"You volunteered like the rest of us," Macklin said.

Shaw exhaled a lungful of smoke. "If you live long enough to return to England, the Prime Minister himself will pin a medal on you." All for tearing up a scrap of paper?"