Zero Hour - Cussler Clive. Страница 40

Paul reached over and wrapped his arms around her. “We can’t give up hope. And we won’t.”

“This is why I love you, Paul,” she said. “No matter how crazy you make me at times, you really know what I need.”

“I also know that Kurt and Joe are survivors,” he said. “And that every man and woman on that ship has been well trained. Let’s not write them off yet. Instead, let’s be ready to lend assistance when we get there.”

She wrapped her arms around Paul’s waist and nodded. “Okay, but don’t stop hugging me just yet. I need a few more moments of this before I get back to the real world.”

Seven hundred and fifty miles from the Gemini, the Orion’s survivors huddled in the small orange life raft as it wallowed in the persistent western swell.

For the better part of four hours, they rose and fell in a circular motion, surrounded by utter darkness. Neither the moon nor the stars were visible through the heavy layer of clouds. Aside from the dim glow of his watch, Kurt saw no light in any direction.

Worse than the darkness was the silence. But, worst of all, was the cold.

The frigid air was painfully debilitating to the men and women in their wet clothing. Even with them huddled together under a thermal blanket, their core temperatures were slowly dropping. A process that would only accelerate as their bodies digested the last meal they’d eaten.

Kurt was already hungry, though he did his best not to think about food and instead tried to imagine himself on a beach in the Mediterranean with the sun beaming down on him and a drink in his hand. Somehow, the image wouldn’t last.

A sort of trancelike state had come over them. It was akin to depression. Kurt figured they’d better break it somehow.

“Any chance those alien friends of yours might come pick us up?” Kurt muttered to Joe. “I’d take a warm spaceship with little green men over this freezing life raft.”

Joe shrugged. “They don’t seem to like cold weather either. Roswell. Ayers Rock. Chichen Itza. If we were shipwrecked a little closer to one of those locations, we’d have a shot.”

Kurt didn’t bother to point out that there was little water near any of those places.

“Dorado and Gemini are not too far away,” Kurt said. “If our beacon went off, they’ll be on their way.”

“Do they have a hot chocolate dispenser on board?” Joe asked.

“I hope so.”

“What about a sauna?” someone else asked.

“Something tells me NUMA didn’t spring for that.”

“Too bad,” Joe added.

“I’ll settle for dry clothes and a warm rack,” Kurt replied. “In the meantime, I’m trying to imagine a dry sauna, with smooth wood paneling and the smell of eucalyptus oil. But it doesn’t seem to be working. Apparently, this mind-over-matter stuff is harder than you think.”

“I don’t know,” Joe said. “I’ve convinced myself I hear a ship approaching.”

Kurt tilted his head. He heard nothing.

“What kind of ship?” he asked. The words came out funny. Their lips were nearly frozen.

“A nice big yacht,” Joe said. “With a few playmates, some Hawaiian Tropic girls, and a fully stocked bar. I think I even hear a jazz band playing some Louis Armstrong.”

“You’re losing it,” Kurt said. “But if you must fantasize…”

He stopped midsentence. Strange as it was, he thought he could hear the thrum of engines in the distance as well. Had there been any wind at all, he might not have heard it. But the still air was awfully quiet.

He threw the edge of the thermal blanket back, much to the consternation of the others. “Hey,” someone grumbled. “What are you doing?”

“Quiet.”

“What?”

“Joe heard a ship, and so did I.”

Kurt was staring out into the night. If there was a ship out there, its running lights should have been visible in the darkness. He saw nothing.

“I hear it,” Hayley said. “I hear it too.”

With an abundance of caution, Kurt considered the possibility of mass hysteria. It happened often enough among shipwreck survivors, but usually after days of exposure and dehydration.

“Give me a flare,” Kurt said.

Joe handed the flare gun to Kurt. By now, the thrum of heavy diesel engines could be heard clearly. There was a ship out there, running dark for whatever reason and moving closer.

Kurt aimed the gun skyward and pulled the trigger. The flare rocketed straight up, casting a white light down on the sea around them. A half mile off, Kurt spotted the prow of a freighter. It was heading roughly in their direction, though it would miss them to the east.

“It’s not one of ours,” Captain Winslow said.

“Nor is it a yacht with a band and a bar,” Joe replied. “But I’ll take it.”

The flare had a forty-second life, and the darkness returned once it dropped into the sea.

They waited.

“There’s no way they didn’t spot that,” Joe insisted.

Kurt loaded another flare into the firing chamber. “Let’s hope they’re not sleeping or watching TV.”

He was about to fire the second flare when the sound of the big engines and the reduction gearing changed.

“She’s cut her throttles,” Winslow said gleefully.

Kurt held off on firing the precious flare. Waiting. Hoping.

A spotlight came on near the aft of the big ship. It played across the water until it locked onto the orange raft. It went dark for a second and then began to flash a message.

“Use the flashlight,” Kurt said.

Joe moved to the edge, snapped on the light, and began to signal an SOS in Morse code.

More flashes followed from the ship.

“They’re coming around,” the captain replied, reading the message before Kurt could speak. “They’re going to pick us up.”

A cheer went through the boat.

With the spotlight blazing down on them, the survivors watched as the freighter heaved to. It slowed appreciably and then came around, settling a hundred yards to the west of the lifeboat, blocking the swells to some extent.

Kurt and Joe rowed with great enthusiasm to close the gap. Their efforts were rewarded when the orange inflatable bumped into the side of the blue-painted hull.

Thirty feet above, a wide cargo hatch opened in the side of the ship and a few faces appeared. A basket was lowered to haul up the injured crewmen. After they’d been secured, a cargo net was draped against the hull like a ladder for the rest of the survivors to climb.

One by one, they went up until only Kurt and the captain remained.

“After you,” Kurt said.

The captain shook his head. “My ship went down without me,” Winslow insisted. “The least I can do is be the last man off the lifeboat.”

Kurt nodded, secured the flare gun to his belt, and climbed onto the cargo net.

He glanced down to see Winslow latching onto the net and the orange lifeboat drifting away. Truth was, they’d been lucky. Lucky to have survived the sinking, lucky to have avoided hypothermia, lucky to have been picked up.

In fact, they’d been extremely lucky. Their rescuers weren’t from NUMA or any navy or coast guard. The ship was a merchant vessel. Forty feet above him, Kurt could just make out the boxy outline of shipping containers stacked three high.

A thought began to form in his mind, a spark of insight that struggled to flare brightly in his weary, half-frozen brain. They were a thousand miles from the nearest trade route, he told himself. So what on earth was a containership doing there?

He got part of the answer as he was pulled into the hatchway. It came in the form of a black pistol pressed up against the side of his head.

He looked around. The other survivors were down on their knees. Stern-looking men wielding AK-47s stood around them.

Captain Winslow climbed in and received the same treatment.

Kurt received the rest of the answer a moment later as one of the gun-toting men got on the ship’s phone.